Qi

Qi, not only is it chock full of points in scrabble, it is actually possible to focus it. Now, I am not an expert in eastern philosophy or medicine, but I believe that we have energy outside of the ability to physically move. I practiced taekwondo (TKD)  for 9 years. My master was a 9th dan black belt Korean national who had a acupuncture practice and part of our training was focusing our qi. When I broke my arm during class he wanted to use acupuncture to help with the pain and calm me down but I wouldn't have any of it. I never took the internal energy part of TKD seriously, but despite this I earned my second degree black belt. This blast to the past of my life was meant to show that I have had experience with this concept of life force and I am not completely oblivious to the notion. In addition, my ex-girlfriend Elyse gave me a DVD called qi-gong, which is a practice of movements while focusing your qi, meant to be done in no specific order. I haven't kept up with it, but it is always an interesting experience when I did practice. Over the past few years I have come to accept the possibility of qi energy and believe that some individuals can and have mastered the power to heal and meditate using their qi.

Well what happened? Last night I decided to try and focus some of my energy and I gained a feeling. I will describe it as a sort of pressure or magnetic pull/push between my hands. I kept them about 5 inches apart and curled my fingers towards each other, kind of like holding a ball or some other roundish object. When I was sitting there, I was only focused on feeling my finger tips. After about 20 minutes of focusing, the pressure became evident and it was strong enough for me to notice a change between my hands. It was an actual feeling and I became very excited and intrigued. It never occurred to me what it would be like to feel qi. I don't even know if it was qi, but I definitely felt something. The longer I focused the more my hands wanted to expand. The last sentence is an interesting one because I wasn't the actor. My hands wanted to expand. I was just amazed by the force I was feeling and wasn't at all trying to increase the size of this qi ball.

So today, I tried again, and I was able to induce the qi ball formation within 5 minutes. My fingers become stiff and when I try to move them they move one degree at a time one joint at a time. This was an interesting observation which I have noticed before without meditation or anything so I don't think it had anything to do with the qi. Regardless, it felt like I was doing magic.

I'll keep making these qi balls but I don't know if they will be of any use to me. At the very least I will use them as a form of meditation, or in conjunction with meditation.

Try it, see if you feel it, and let me know.

Link to qigong on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong