What differentiates a Qigong master from other practitioners is a high level of concentration, which is the core of the practice of Qigong. Most people lack an ability to concentrate their intention (their Yi), but if you are to heal, transform and reach your potential, you must develop this ability. When you are able to deeply focus and concentrate, you will make things happen and manifest results much more easily with our Qigong practice.
Years of sitting in the same posture and going through emotions in those postures has tangled your meridians or your muscle fascia lines. The tissue becomes tight and tangled, while the organs have become compressed. Rather than sitting in their true sphere of comfort, the organs have pressure on them all day long. This is exacerbated by anger, frustration, sadness, or tension.
The same way you need to regularly brush your teeth or take a shower, you also need to wash your insides - opening the meridians, while expanding and contracting the fascia around the organs. Dissected cadavers of people who worked in a seated position over their lifetimes shows organs displaced into new areas of the body. This pressure on the organs gradually builds more toxins as it becomes more compressed, which then gives rise to emotions they don’t understand. They are so focused on their work that they ignored the signals from their bodies.
If you can wake up and brush your teeth, you can wake up and clean your organs by opening your meridians and beginning to oxygenate your whole body. We hardly ever put pressure on the bones when riding in a car or while on a train or sitting all day at work. Through Qigong, we can ward off osteoporosis or muscle and tendon weakness with simple postures to strengthen our bones. You can then restructure your entire body to become more limber, flexible, strong, and resilient.
In White Tiger Qigong™ practice, unlike other Qigong, we are working from the surface all the way into the core of the body. We are strengthening and toning everything in the body. If you are practicing properly, Qigong will have immediate and powerful results.
In this practice, we squeeze out the organs like wringing out a sponge. Toxic energy goes out and pure energy moves in. You’re moving the blood while increasing your heart rate and creating greater circulation while moving the lymph around the body. Think of a balloon animal; when you twist one area you inflate, twist, and pressurize. When practicing Qigong, you are moving your muscles and your muscle fascia. After dissecting cadavers, Thomas W. Myers, author of Anatomy Trains, Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists, found that there are lines of muscle fascia (connective tissue) that map directly to the meridian maps in Chinese medicine. When you contract the fascia and expand it, it generates an electrical charge that can be measured with the right instrumentation. Taoist masters teach that to tense and expand, generates Qi internally as this is the yin-yang principle of compression and expansion. One way to think of it is that each day we need to unwind the headphone wires in the body. That is what’s happening with the meridians - we get tangled up, unbalanced, tight and in knots. When something is thrown out of balance we may begin to have one side of the body clenched or perhaps an imbalance in the hips, shoulders or the jaw. It can pull your whole being off. If you practice Qigong, the balance in your body will return to normal.
Because the organs and meridians that relate to them are connected to the different emotions in Chinese Medicine, this can result in emotional imbalances. Many people suffer from emotional imbalance and the Chinese see the emotions as connected to the body, the diet, and what you are digesting through all of your senses. If you are taking in stressful information, it will manifest into pain.
Modern fitness programs focus on energizing the muscles through weights, running on a treadmill, increasing the heart rate, and pushing to become stronger. What modern workouts are missing is internal fitness - the fitness of the organs, meridians, bones, fascia, breath, and spirit. It’s more complex and takes more time to learn. You can learn how to lift a weight in one minute, but to feel and wring out your spleen may take more time. Qigong, taught properly, engages the mind, the body, and the breath. It is a complete immersion into total health and well-being, and connects you back together after you get distracted by your external and internal (mental) world.
I have continuously sought out ways to improve my own health, well-being and performance on almost every level. I pay attention to what I eat, the times I sleep and do exercises such as Qigong, Yoga, and meditation. I also pay attention to anything that would hinder or harm my health and performance such as chemicals in soaps, food, etc. Through my tireless pursuits, I have found several styles of Qigong that do just that. They are the most optimal methods of healing, transformation and reaching maximum performance, which is why I relate to people seeking their highest human potential. It does not matter if you are a top athlete looking for the extra edge; the dancer looking for balance and injury treatment and prevention; the yogi looking for something more; the martial artist who wants to add a healing dimension to their practice or even the high-powered businessman who is looking for something to enhance concentration and performance abilities.
As my master told me, you need to keep an open and flexible mind. By finding alternative ways to enhance our existing performance and life we can bring a whole new richness to our life that many will never even discover because they are limited by tunnel vision and disbelief. Believe me, I would not have dedicated my life to these types of practices if I was not reaping huge personal benefits. There is no greater joy than to share with someone overcoming extreme difficulties such as cancer and terrible emotional pain in their own walk of life through this practice. I derive great pleasure in watching some of my students explore the profound depth of their body and existence with Qigong.