Combining & Balancing Movement & Stillness to Supercharge Your Practice
Tai Chi Instructor Training, October 2008
August 2010 Qigong Training Tip
Most people naturally gravitate towards either movement or stillness practices. In the world of the internal arts, movement practices include qigong, bagua and tai chi while stillness practices include standing, sitting and yoga. Whether you move or basically hold some sort of static posture, you can develop incredible internal power for health, martial arts and meditation.
However, to get best results, movement and stillness practices ideally become intertwined yin-yang arts, allowing you to approach neigong (internal power) training from opposite directions. So as you combine both aspects, you widen your range of capacities, and through contrast, easily find your weakest links.
Twigs of the Same Branch
If you look more closely at the two classic methods of practice in the East—qigong and yoga—you’ll notice that both actually incorporate movement and stillness to varying degrees.
In qigong, of which bagua and tai chi are complex forms, standing practice is integral to the process of releasing excess tension and blocked chi to focus the mind’s intent. Later, sitting qigong/meditation practices also play a fundamental role in honing and clearing that which the moving practices bring up from the depths of your being.
Whereas in yoga, you start by learning seated postures to open up your body and focus the mind’s intent. You develop your “seat” so that you can withstand the rigors of meditating for long periods of time without losing your alignments and inadvertently shutting down your energy channels. Later, however, you begin shifting your attention to the transitions (movement) between postures to gain maximum results by maintaining the flow and momentum you have generated in your postures.
So although movement and stillness practices work from opposite ends of the spectrum in the beginning, both eventually intertwine to include aspects of the other. With this, movement and stillness practices can truly be considered twigs of the same branch.
Striking a Balance
The question is not about which form of practice you prefer, but rather how you can get the most out of your practice time. Start by observing your regular practice routine. Are you naturally drawn towards more or less movement in your practice? If you’re already incorporating a lot of movement, you might consider redressing the balance by adding either Chinese yoga, standing or sitting qigong.
Movement and stillness practices create a powerful synergy for directing the mind’s intent, which is the vehicle for releasing stress and tension, and preparing you for the initially challenging task of remaining aware of multiple strands of neigong whilst moving. The more focus you have and can maintain, the greater result you obtain from the same practice time, and the better chance you have of moving towards incorporating all 16 neigong components in your form.
For those who are drawn towards the stillness practices—yoga, sitting or standing, whether for health, stress relief or meditation—movement practices have a lot to offer you. Qigong not only opens up the body in a smooth and balanced way, but also circulates the chi (your life-force energy) and fluids stronger than you can whilst only holding postures.
Practicing moving qigong before yoga or sitting practice will bring your internals online, so your internal organs and fluids are activated and alive when you come to sit. This will definitely boost your ability to release any tension or blockages you encounter.
Breathing in Stillness and Movement
Whole-body breathing is the first of the 16 neigong and one of the most profound ways to develop chi, health and vitality, whether for stress relief, meditation or both. Many people take for granted that they can breathe well because most are successful enough at it that they don’t die, but poor breathing can slowly sap your life-force energy. Learning to breathe well is a critical component of any form of exercise—external or internal.
For all its seeming simplicity, breathing has many physical and energetic components that comprise its many layers and applications. So over the next few months, I’ll take you through beginning and intermediate aspects of breathing that have the power to profoundly impact the quality of your life.
Practice Smooth and Continuous Changeovers
For this month, it makes sense to focus on the quality of your breath without any other external markers of success. Just make your breath as smooth as possible. However deep or shallow, long or short your breath might be at the moment, just work out how you can create a smooth and continuous flow. Don’t force, strain or demand your breath to achieve anything.
Sit or lie down, and relax into your breath. Try to improve the quality by making the changeovers from in to out and out to in continuous and smooth. The in and out breaths want to be regular and equal in length. These two components alone can release an enormous amount of stress and anxiety, as well as initiate profound healing in your body at the cellular level.
When you have the process down whilst sitting or lying down, then try it whilst standing (read some tips on posture). After you are stable in your standing posture, get your breathing smooth and continuous.
Next, take a slow walk—just walk in a circle if you don’t have anywhere to go. The point is to transition into movement without losing the sense of stillness you gained by releasing your nerves and breathing comfortably.
You can practice this as a sequence, or any aspect as you have spare time. You can also use this method if you find yourself in a stressful situation to prevent the infamous downward spiral.
Happy practising,
Paul
Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.
© 2010 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but please check with me before distributing any portion of this article.
