Praying Mantis Qigong?

[onyomi]

That's why I'm glad my Shifu makes DVDs. After about six months of Taiji practice I asked my Shifu to teach me qigong for a while. He spent about three months teaching me all the basics--how to breath, how to meditate, how to do the exercises, etc. and then he kindly gave me free copies of his DVDs and book for me to practice with at home. After that I switched my focus to Praying Mantis and started spending the majority of my class time on that while continuing to practice qigong at home with the tapes. Otherwise I could never remember the proper way to do all the exercises! Even having owned the tapes for over a year now I still do the exercises with them because I'm always noticing new things or understanding things my Shifu says in them that I didn't understand before.

As far as the qi system is concerned, what would you like to know? The largest qi reservoir in the body is the xia-dantian ("lower elixer field"), located about three finger's width below the navel and in somewhat. Through the practice of qigong, we learn to sink the energy in the breath down from the lungs and into the dantian. From here it flow through the two primary vessels and can also be sent out to the limbs. The two primary vessels are the dumai ("governing vessel"), that runs from the dantian, down around the perineum, up the spine, over the top of the head and to the nose. This then connects to the renmai ("conception vessel"), which runs from around the the nose down the front of the body to the dantian.

Next in importance after the two vessels are the shi-er jing-mai (twelve meridians). There are twelve on each side of the body, so there are actually twenty-four. There are six of these flowing to the fingers and palm of each hand and six of these flowing to the toes and soles of each foot. Each of these is associated with different organ systems. Acupuncture works on the idea of using needles to adjust the energy flow in these meridian, thereby harmonizing the organ systems.

As far as martial arts are concerned, it is important to open these meridians up and learn to send energy from the dantian down each one. This allows you to have more powerful, explosive strikes, and also to perform more advanced moves like dian-xue and duan-mai/dim-mak ("pressure-point attack" and "sealing the artery"). I don't know how to do these more advanced moves myself yet, but I can send the qi flowing to different fingers at will. You will notice as you punch that if you concentrate on a different knuckle you will feel the energy flow in a different way, causing the torque and feeling of the punch to change. Supposedly advanced practitioners can also use this to cause what might look like the same punch to have different effects on the opponent.

If you want to know where the meridians are located and what organ systems they are associated with, I suggest you do a web search for acupuncture charts. If you have any more specific questions about how we train the meridians, how this applies to martial arts, etc. feel free to ask and I will answer to the best of my limited knowledge.

[mantis108]

Yi Jin Jing is possibly a Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911 CE) creation. Anyway, with all the hype that Shaolin circus has behind it these days. I'd rather stay clear of it.

To be honest, I have not seem the mantis version of YJJ. I have learned the Tanglang version of Ba Duan Jin, Pai Da Gong (a version of San Hui Jiu Zhuan), and 18 Luohan Gong but not the YJJ. There is no doubt in my mind that they reinforce each other and they complement each other. I think Ilya Profatilov and Kevin Brazier are the people to talk to about the Tanglang YJJ.

Personally, the Qigong or rather Neigong corpus of Tanglang is a wealth of knowledge that is second to none. Tanglangquan definitely is not external.

Mantis108

[onyomi]

Yi Jin Jing is possibly a Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911 CE) creation. Anyway, with all the hype that Shaolin circus has behind it these days. I'd rather stay clear of it.

To be honest, I have not seem the mantis version of YJJ. I have learned the Tanglang version of Ba Duan Jin, Pai Da Gong (a version of San Hui Jiu Zhuan), and 18 Luohan Gong but not the YJJ. There is no doubt in my mind that they reinforce each other and they complement each other. I think Ilya Profatilov and Kevin Brazier are the people to talk to about the Tanglang YJJ.

Personally, the Qigong or rather Neigong corpus of Tanglang is a wealth of knowledge that is second to none. Tanglangquan definitely is not external.

Mantis108

Would you mind describing for me a basic idea of the exercises in San Hui Jiu Zhuan? I assume if it's called "pai da" that there must be some slapping/hitting involved. Is it like a massage thing or more like a building resistance to blows thing?

[EarthDragon]

Not that the medical qigong I have been taught is in PM but it is the strongest skill I have ever seen or heard of.

While living in San Francisco. I was fortunate enough to meet and train under Yen Chu Feng from Bejing. Her skill is called jin Gon Tzu Li Gong. This is a qigong that is used for medical healing. it is a high level qi shooting skill. It has been highly effective for curing many diseases.

She now lives with me and has cured many thousands of people here in NY. One of them my friends mother who was terminally ill from Cancer. the list of healings is enormous. One of the most interesting things besides people rolling around on the floor while being treated. Is that she has ways to demonstrate the power of her work. I will post a pic. of me shoving a steel wire through my leg. I did this while she protected my nerve receptors from firing. Therefore i fetl not even a pinch. Nor did my insertion bleed. She does this to perfect strangers and non beleivers. seing as how many sceptical people think its a palor trick. but those of us who know better are amazed at the high level of understanding.