Requirements And Conditions For A Happy Life (body, mind, spirit)
natural environment
healthy unpoisoned food
positive social environment
awareness
respect
kindness
compassion
Helpful Abilities, which will improve by exercises:
strength
flexibility and stretches
balance
stamina and perseverance
generally a holistic attitude, as in Qi Gong
____________________________
Qi Gong – The Eighteen Basic Forms Explained by Thomas Wiegandt
Preparation:
Find a calm and comfortable space, that could be indoors but preferably without disturbance. Better go outside, dress comfortably, find a good spot where you have a little bit of a view into the distance and not too much of an obstacle in the landscape where you are facing. Best to take off your socks and be barefoot on the ground.
Stance:
Stand for a while relaxed, knees slightly bent, feet shoulder width apart. Feel the weight of your body and feel that you are in balance (pick if possible a level spot). Now send your attention to your feet and visualise that you are rooting yourself into the ground and that you have a strong Earth connection, still standing in a relaxed way and try to shed excess tension that you may carry. Take a few breaths to deepen that state.
Exercises:
Each of the following are done six times, or sometimes two-by-three times. Exercises are done in synchrony with slow conscious breathing in and out, creating a calming flow. Stay open to what feelings and sensations arise, as this is your very own personal experience on several levels. Continuously practiced Qi Gong has a self-revealing nature.
1. Lift Hands (Sensing and Feeling the Energy)
Have your arms hanging loosely, hands pointing down. Now lift your arms and bring your hands, palms facing down, to shoulder height (assuming a sleep walker’s position). Now hold the hands there for a short moment and breathe out and at the same time, let the arms and hands sink down. Check that your knees are still loose and not in a straight position. It’s important to keep a relaxed stance, responsive to the energy.
2. Opening Chest (Opening to the World and the Energy Around Us)
Lift your hands in accordance with your breath up and open your arms out to the sides, creating a complete open position, resembling a cross. Then close up again and reverse the movement, and bring your arms down again. Feel the opening and open gently in a flow, paying attention as well that your shoulders are brought back. While doing that, look into the distance.
3. Rainbow (Paint a Rainbow with Your Hands into the Sky)
Have a good solid but relaxed stance. Lift your arms parallel to your body straight over your head all the way up. Now first move your arms and hands to the left, a little bit in the fashion of a windscreen wiper, and then to the right. follow your ams with your upper body by bending sideways from the waist up. Be in synch with your breathing and imagine painting a rainbow in the sky. Do this in a relaxed flow. While going to one side, make sure that your main standing leg is on the other side and your foot on the side that you paint is turned slightly outwards on the heel, thus shifting your weight from the hips to the leg opposite to where your hands are pointing. It takes some practice to coordinate that, try to keep the flow and avoid jerky movements.
4. Separating Clouds (Parting or Dispersing Clouds in the Sky and in the Mind)
Raise your arms over your head towards the sky, palms facing outwards, and ”separate the clouds overhead” outwards by moving your arms in an arch to both sides downwards then let them sink to the sides creating two semi-circles left and right. Bring them around up in front of your body, crossing over at your wrists in front of your chest, then raise them again towards the sky and repeat the movement five more times.Then let them go back to their original positions, arms hanging down both sides your body. This exercise empowers you to disperse your worries and unnecessary thinking and in Ireland it will eventually create a sunny day.
5. Rolling Arms (Drawing on Your Experience and Resources)
Make sure that your stance is strong yet relaxed. Eventually you will do these movements simultaneously. Stretch out your right arm in front of you at shoulder height, palm up, then turn your head to the left. With your left arm make a rowing or scooping movement by swinging it first back then upwards in an arch behind you, thus bringing the energy from behind you forward like a toppling wave. Scoop with your left hand the energy forwards, until both arms are stretched out shoulder height before you, and you may visualise a ball of energy between your hands (a tingling sensation). Leave the left hand in that position, turn your head and bring the right arm backwards in the same fashion. Scoop with your right hand the energy forwards, until both arms are parallel in front of you, holding that ball of energy. Do this three times. Stay open to what feelings and sensations arise.
6. Rowing the Boat (Propelling Yourself Forward)
Have a good stance as this is a more dynamic exercise. Lift your arms to the sides over your head, then let your hands drop forward a bit. Then let your hands sink down, go into your knees a bit, not all the way down. Bring your arms up behind your back and raise them up to the original position overhead. Picture that you are rowing a boat. Work with gravity when the hands are up, let them come down that little bit faster. When they are down in the water, give them some momentum and energy and repeat that coming up again. Realise that it needs energy to move something and that you work with gravity, momentum and concentration. Good coordination will be beneficial (only Irish people will understand that: ”pull like a dog!”).
7. Lift the Ball (It Is Plain to See)
A seemingly simple exercise: take your right hand and bring it over to the left side of your body at the height of your navel. Have the left hand just pointing away at the back of your body, and look at your right hand. Try to take in what you see, because it is plain to see that which a lot of the time gets overlooked. You can as well imagine a ball of energy resting on your palm of the hand. Just create your own version. Now turn around and do the same thing with your left hand: bring it to the right side of the body, your right arm behind you pointing away from you, in a relaxed way. Do this sequence three times.
8. Look at the Moon (The Effort to Get a Different Perception)
Stand well rooted, take both arms and lift them up, at the same time doing a turn to the left, raising your arms up more, turning your body and your head, looking up at the sky, raising both arms overhead. While you do that, your right foot will come off the ground and be resting just on your toes to facilitate the turn. Now do it the other way around, this is a great exercise for flexibility but do it gently. Make sure that you are rooted well with the standing leg and still support your movement with being on your toes with the other foot. It takes a while to get a good flow so just try not do it too abruptly or forcefully.
9. Pushing Palms (Creating a Safe Space by Defining Your Boundaries)
Take your right hand to solar plexus height and push it forward away from you diagonally to the left, at the same time take your left arm and let it point away from your body to the right side, creating a diagonal with your arms. You are creating your own space and boundaries, protecting your aura. The right hand is held up in the posture that says “up to here and no further”. The left hand is pointing down a little bit, and is more relaxed than the right hand, and more or less indicates a boundary at the back with a less strong statement. Now you do the same thing to the other side, repeating this sequence three times to each side. You define your boundary and you make it clear to yourself that that is your sacred space, your personal bubble and that you will not tolerate other people violating that space; it is up to you to allow closer proximity or contact.
10. Cloud Hands (Weaving an Energy Cocoon of Self Protection)
Turn your body to the left, maintaining your stance. Have your left hand in front of your hip and having your right hand at the height of your chest, palms facing your body. Keep the hands in that position and move them by turning the body to the right, into the opposite side. Keep your stance and then cross your hands over, the upper hand goes down and the lower hand goes up, thus crossing over, being now turned to the right side of the body. Then you take your hands and your body and turn to the left again, change the hands at the side and continue in same fashion. That way you weave an energy cocoon for your protection, creating some sort of an armour at the front, so maybe eventually become aware of the unprotected back and be creative how to protect from adversities coming from behind.
NOTE: Exercises 11, 12 and 13 are done stepping forward with one foot and the next time you exercise you will take the other foot, thus alternating between left and right, this is for all you folks with OCD 🙂
11. Scooping Water (That’s What it Is)
Step forward and slightly outward with one leg, foot pointing forward and slightly out, back foot sideways at an angle to stabilise the stance. Not too far, have your stance strong and solid, your posterior over your standing leg, both knees slightly bent. Bend forward towards the stepped out foot and simultaneously go down, take both hands as if it scoop up water from a stream or lake. Bring the hands up over your head, bring your head in the neck and pour the water over your face. Let it run down your whole body. This is a cleansing exercise, you wash all sorts of dirt off your whole being. Now go down and scoop again, do that six times all in all. Stay in that position.
12. Pushing Waves (Or Anything Else)
Lift your arms and hands chest height, now move forward with your whole body, as if you were pushing forward, shifting most of your weight forward, but keeping both feet on the ground. Then rock back, bring your hands back with you still palms facing out, in front of your shoulders and lean back a bit, then push again. Keep in a flow, you will become yourself a wave. After six times you still remain in that position with one foot stepped forward.
13. Pigeon (A Bird Flapping Their Wings)
Bend slightly forward, knees gently bent, bring your arms palms facing each other together stretched out in front of your body until they nearly touch, then open them wide sideways and backwards while rocking back your weight to the back leg, and bring the arms forward again like a pigeon showing off it’s wings while on the ground. When moving forward with your arms and your body, place most of you weight on the foot in front, and allow the heel of the back foot to lift. Equally, when you move back with your arms and most of your body, ”sit” back on your back leg while allowing the forefoot of the foot in front to lift off the ground, while the heel stays down. Coordinate this exercise with your breath while creating this sideways flapping and rocking movement.
14. Punching Fists (Throwing a Punch)
Step back to your basic stance, rooted in the ground and loose knees. Stance is your strength. Now get in to a calm and concentrated mindset. Get ready to deal out a punch. Bend your right arms at the elbow, at a right angle to the body, palms facing up. Make a fist, but not too tight, and not too loose either. Concentrate and throw your right arm forward fast, but don’t let the arm get stretched and straight all the way. Have your attention on your fist, be in control where that movement will end so that you don’t overstretch. your left fist stays at your left hip. Aim for the maximum position where to land your blow and where to stop, projecting that you have enormous power in your fist and that you can control it to a maximum degree. In other words, don’t hit half heartedly any old way – you’re not achieving anything. Then bring your right fist gently back to your right hip. Now ”punch” with your left. Work with the power Qi, or in Western words, with maximum determination.
15. Wild Goose (Fly Like a Goose Over the Land)
Begin with both arms at the side of the body, palms facing your thighs, knees bent. Then lift both arms simultaneously out sideways all the way up over your head, while slowly lifting yourself to the tip of your toes, nearly fully straightening your knees. Standing on tip toes, let your hands meet over your head and bring your arms down again to the sides of your thighs while going down on your full feet again. Have your focus a a distance and imagine you fly over the land. At the same time, as you are flying conscious of your balance being on tip toes, making sure that you are not wobbling too much, and that you control your flying movements. Last not least, maintain a flow.
16. Windmill (Rotation)
Stand well rooted, bring your arms and hands over your head together, thumbs touching. Now imagine you are a windmill, and you move your blades to the left, keep hands together and bending at the waist, bring your arms in an arc down to the ground. swing them along in front of your feet and rise up again to the right, go up to the top. Do this three times and then reverse the direction of your circles. Now you will go down on the right side and up uni the left. Repeat two more times, and end up coming back into your basic stance.
17. Stepping/Ball (Bouncing a Ball, A Coordination Exercise)
Stand firmly on both legs, then slowly shift all your weight your right leg, while simultaneously lifting your left knee in front of you hip-high, and your right lower arm in front of you, bent at the elbow, palm loosely facing down. Now pretend to bounce a ball with this hand and at the same time you slightly bend the right knee to go with that bounce. Now change over and do that the other way around, and repeat two more times each side. This is a great balance and coordination exercise, try to do it in a flow and make sure before you do your bouncing that your standing leg is well anchored and takes your weight without a wobble, while the other one is up in the air, bent at the knee.
18. Closing Form (Charging with Earth Energy)
Stand strong and relaxed, arms hanging down. Lead your hands together in front of your body at the hara, and scoop up energy directing it into your solar plexus. Then let the arms go down again, and scoop one more time. While you go down, bend a little bit down into the knees so as to be closer to the Earth, and once you raise the energy up, you raise from the knees upwards so that you have a coordinated vibration of going upwards and downwards, because you take Earth energy and put it into your body. After six times, place your hands on your solar plexus to seal in the energy, and then give it a gentle circular rub.
Finishing Off:
As we just completed a sacred circle of exercises, we will finish consciously – going back to every day consciousness by tapping our body with our hands from the top down to our feet several times. Then we take our arms over our head, have our legs slightly apart, reaching for cosmic energy and then bending forwards slowly and trying to go as far down as we can. We don’t have to touch the ground necessarily, everyone stays within their abilities. At the lowest point, we rise up slowly again, uncoiling vertebrate by vertebrate, slowly, until we stand upright relaxed. That way we acknowledge the cosmic and Earth energy and we are back in the here and now.
TO BE CONTINUED …