Involuntary movement

[lloyd]

What causes involuntary movement during standing practice? What is it exactly?

Is it a sort of twitching or is it more like the body's need to move, like you get a claustrophobic feeling inside your body and you feel like you have to move and break free or else...

I have had both and the last one was really unpleasant.
What's wrong?

[harry_the_monk]

I am not sure as I haven't totally experienced this, but I have read that it is down to the energy paths within the body trying to regulate their usual flow.
Sometimes they can come up against a blockage if we stand or sit in a particular way that restricts their movements, or even if we have been used to restricting their movements and suddenly they can flow more freely causing that involentary jerk.

Sometimes from my own experience I can feel that my posture is bad and can sense a kind of swelling up of energy, but once I correct my posture it seems to go.

I hope this is of some help, maybe someone who knows more on the subject may care to add something or even correct me

[Nexus]

I'd attribute it mostly to energy. This involuntary movement occurs in beginners and masters alike depending if there is chi stagnation in the body. Just recently during standing meditation I was rotating my head and felt suddenly as if someone was pressing a finger hard against the left side of my face to such a degree of pressure I opened my eyes of course to see nothing there. One of those stagnated energy points being activated and releasing downward.

- Nexus

[prana]

I remember when master introduced me to Wang Lao Shien Tze, I shook like i was on an electric chair. Then I suffered from extreme cold in 33C ambient temperature. He told me to sit under the sun with palms facing the sun to warm myself up.

I asked him why, he simply said "You are resisting it, you need to let it go".

[lloyd]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Actually now I can explain why the first type (twitching) occured. There was once a problem spot there.

I recently read a famous teacher's comments about the second type, I think.

He said that you get filled up with energy that you just have to move. Then it is time for you to start doing the form.

I personally don't like to be a hand puppet forced to move because of qi.

It affects the nervous system, somehow.

[lloyd]

Hi!

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I read recently that in China people who have practiced involuntary movement types of qi gong have had serious psychological problems. (I am not talking about twitching)

I don't know it myself, but I have read serious warnings against internal practices. Supposedly the "better" you get, the "more" you are (so to speak) "selling your soul". The top guys are hooked and bound completely by this physical world (in a broader sense). (Supposedly they will face awful consequences after the physical body expires).

IMO, some stories about "masters" of all kind somewhat support this (just the other side of the vast cult praise). I mean the sexual escapades of yogis, CMA masters etc.

Harnessing something while being harnessed by something else?
I don't want that.

I am by no means an expert on this subject. I am not perfect (by far) and so I can't judge anyone. Most (if not all) of you know more on this subject. The purpose of this mail is to discuss it as something possible and I hope you can at least try to give me the benefit of the doubt to see things from this perspectice.