Does anyone have any personal experience with the practice of Qi-gong, and how has it benefited you?

I wouldn’t worry about clocks or watches, but Qi Gong can help you remain centered and maintain vitality. It will also improve awareness of your body to help you avoid unhealthy motions which can lead to injuries or exacerbate chronic conditions.

There was a summer where I practiced qi gong in time with the day: dawn, noon, sunset, and midnight. It was a very powerful practice and I benefited a lot from it. But the benefits are not tangible, they accumulate slowly over a long period of time.

Cultivating qi is like weeding and watering a garden. You don’t see the result until many weeks later when you the harvested fruit is bigger and healthier.

Major keys to studying qi gong (from my experience):

1) Focus on your breathing first. Qi flows from the breath. I recommend ignoring complicated motions until you have centered and regulated your breathing into long slow inhale/exhales.

2) Time movements with breathing. At first this requires some effort, but soon becomes natural.

3) Make movements as slow and smooth as possible. This requires patience, but your awareness of qi is improved a lot by paying attention to this one.

4) Relax as much as possible. Really practice the “standing null” position. Learn to keep your joints bent, but strong. Keep your shoulders, neck, and face loose. Keep your spine straight and your weight balanced in the middle of your feet (or slightly back towards the heels), not on the toes. Keeping your legs soft (while still standing) is the key to moving qi through your legs. Keeping your arms soft (while moving) is the key to moving qi through your arms.

Good luck!

Thanks for the in depth answer, in a “nutshell”, how does it differentiate itself from Tai Chi-it sounds similar, although I have practiced neither. So, I understand there are six branch-know anything about that. It sounds like it has also elements of Yoga, in particular, Tantra Yoga. I guess it would be futile to try and learn the practice without a teacher, and I believe there probably is no one truly qualified in my city. I haven’t checked yet, but that is my suspicion.

Scientists have been researching and testing to understand the physical forces in the universe since about the 1750’s. After 250 years of looking, there is no evidence of any “mental force.”

There is no way to stop a clock with your mind, whether you study Qi Gong, or not.

^Stopping clocks and walking on water are highly overrated but feeling centered and peaceful aint half bad.

I took a ten-week (one evening a week) course in Tai-chi/Qi Gong. It may have been the teacher, but my body (and its mild scoliosis) was not happy with the postures and the positions of knees and lower back.

I also had trouble with the concept of the Chackras.

My sister went to Tai Chi classes for three years. Now, with no teacher, she has stopped doing the postures on her own and walks instead.

I like yoga much better. That focuses also on breathing. I use the belly breathing all the time. (At the dentist’s, at the oncologist’s, at the mammo center, at my mother’s).

@gailcalled
Yoga is all chakra oriented as well.

That make be true traditionally, but I have treated my yoga postures as secular ones. Interesting, though.

Yeah, my experience have been with hatha yoga, at the time I was recovering from a skiing injury, I was barely able to do most the asanas, however, my knee healed itself much faster had I not practiced.
I still use Pranayama when I need a quick energy boost and enhance my mood.
I know the watch thing is crazy, but I watched the guy, a healer, fix over half of the 70 random? broken watches people had brought to him in his seminar-it amazed me, but I always have been a sucker for magic. The guy claimed he was using a technique from this discipline.

@Garebo Anybody who fixes broken watches with his spirit is just trying to impress people. Anybody who is trying to impress people is in it for the money. Run the other way.

A real spiritual leader will express his/her teaching in a way that doesn’t self-aggrandize.

I recommend trying qi gong on your own before talking to a teacher. For zen and qi gong I did my own reading and did my own practice first. Later, I decided I was interested enough in zen to find a teacher. I’m currently taking a “yoga” class in college that has some qi gong in it also, but I wasn’t really looking for a qi gong teacher.

For any kind of spiritual or esoteric tradition, it is very important to separate the culture from the technique/truth. There are at least two ways to do this:

1) Dive into the culture without regard for truth until it is a part of you. Later, you will recognize what is culture and what is truth.

2) Inquire sincerely about every aspect of the practice. Answer these questions on your own. This means more work on your part but if it’s something you’re interested in, it won’t seem like work.

An example of number 2 might be to test the claim that qi can repair watches. How would you do this? Practice qi gong for a few months to a year and see if there is anything in it that could repair a watch. If it is not immediately obvious to you how to repair a watch with qi gong after a year or two or practice, it probably is not real. Note that you need not actually be able to repair the watch (for example) after a year, but you would at least have the correct idea about how to do it with the understanding of what you would need to practice.

For self-learning, I would find a few references for the 8 Pieces of Brocade and some breathing techniques and just practice those for awhile until you’re comfortable with them. There’s no reason to pay anybody to teach you something you can learn yourself. If you want to become a teacher yourself or want to get into advanced aspects of the practice, then seek a qualified teacher.

The important thing about getting qi gong information from the internet is to cross-check what you learn from various sources. Never trust just a single website.

Good luck!

@timothykinney: thanks so much, I will be repairing watches in no time, LOL.

I forgot to add for this for the science is god fluttherite crowd, this swamis school that I belonged to, and enjoyed, documented this medical miracle, not something everybody does every day, except maybe during sex.
http://www.geocities.com/swamiramabio/ResearchSwamiRama.htm

Ok, so was I the only one that thought: Qi-gong, erm.. the jedi?