Practicing Techniques of Health Qigong Practicing Techniques of Health Qigong Practicing Techniques of Health Qigong Practicing Techniques of Health

Qigong
Yi Jin Jing Yi Jin Jing Yi Jin Jing Yi Jin Jing
The force applied should be moderate The force applied should be moderate The force applied should be moderate The force applied should be moderate
One of the features of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing is
the limber bone-pulling movements which can
stretch the tendons. In other words the muscles in all
parts of the body and tendons, ligaments, and joint
capsules at all joints are pulled to improve the
ductility and strength of the muscles and tendons of
the human body and improve the moving functions
of the bonds, joints, and muscles.
For example, in Nine Ghosts Drawing Saber, both
hands are respectively kept still at the Yuzhen Gate
on the back of the head and the Jiaji Gate on the back
and both arms open and close the chest like bird
wings. This movement can enhance the strength and
flexibility of the chest muscles. This can promote the
respiratory functions and improve life quality of old
people suffering from declining respiratory functions
due to advanced age and patients inflicted by chronic
dyspnea.
Should movements of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing be
done with as great as possible forces? No.
There are specific requirements in the instructions
for the movements of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing. In
other words, the movements of the exercise should
alternate firmness with gentleness, contain both
emptiness and solidity, integrate firmness into
gentleness, and integrate gentleness into firmness.
In other words, the forces used to practice the
movements of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing should be
moderate.
Therefore, in the exercise of Health Qigong Yi Jin
Jing, the pushing-outward movement of both arms of
Wei Tuo Presenting the Pestle 2, the arm-stretching
movement of Wei Tuo Presenting the Pestle 3, the
pulling movement of Pulling Nine Cows by Their
Tails, the forward-stretching and outward-pushing
movements of both arms in Displaying Paw-Style
Palms like a White Crane Spreading Its Wings, the
hand-pushing and palm-flipping movements of
Three Plates Falling on the Floor, and weight-lifting
movements all have to be done with moderate forces.
In Pulling Bones and Stretching Tendons, the force
applied must not be abrupt or rigid. Otherwise the
abrupt and rigid forces may case physical discomforts
and other untoward reactions after exercise for old
people having high blood pressure, practicers with
weak constitution, and patients of scapulohumeral
periarthritis.
Respiration should be natural Respiration should be natural Respiration should be natural Respiration should be natural
The respiratory movements in Health Qigong Yi Jin
Jing exercise should be always dominated by natural
respiration. Reverse or obverse abdominal respiration
or conscious initiative respiratory movements are not
adopted in the exercise. Why is that?
This is because the reverse or obverse abdominal
respiration is mainly based on the systole and
diastole of abdominal muscles which cause the
abdomen to recede and hump regularly. And Health
Qigong Yi Jin Jing is a movement-guided exercise
dominated by the change of tendons and bones. The
changes of its movements are irregular. And some
movements require halts at some certain postures in
order to enhance the tendon-changing and bone-
changing effect of movement Daoyin.
Therefore in Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing, the practicer
is required to maintain the involuntary natural
respiration and should not intentionally combine
reverse or obverse abdominal respiration with the
movement Daoyin of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing lest
untoward reactions are caused.
Such cases have been encountered before in actual
teaching activities. As the practicers had already built
up a certain mastery of Qigong practice, they made
quite quick headway in the learning of technical
movements during the teaching process. However,
while doing the exercise after they mastered the
movements of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing, a few
trainees felt dizziness. Later investigation revealed
that they had done other exercises by coordinating
respiration with Daoyin, and such Daoyin was regular
repetition-based exercise. While practicing Health
Qigong Yi Jin Jing, they involuntarily applied their
past breath-regulation experience to this exercise.
Even though they did sense the discordance between
respiration and movements, they attributed it to their
inadequate mastery of the exercise and still persisted
in breath regulation in the practice of Health Qigong
Yi Jin Jing. From this we can see that the root cause
for their dizziness was their forced respiration which
resulted in disorder of respiratory movements and
anoxia.
Then why such a result was caused by the active
breath regulation? We might as well adduce an
example of the movements of the exercise.
In Displaying Paw-Style Palms like a White Crane
Spreading Its Wings, both hands are erected at
Yunmen Acupoint and both shoulders are extended
backward. During natural inhalation, the chest of the
human body is actively expanding and the muscles in
the abdomen change with the active movement of
the thorax in a relaxed manner. The intra-pulmonary
pressure at the chest will rise in the form of negative
pressure. And if obverse abdominal respiration is
used instead in this case, conflicts will be easily
caused between the changes in movement and the
respiration. Although the inhalation of obverse
abdominal respiration is also done with a relaxed
abdomen, the diaphragms between the chest and
abdomen will move downward and the lower
abdomen will hump. And the muscles and the thorax
will be in a relaxed, passive state of motion. This
movement between the pectoral and abdominal
muscles is different and, if not properly used, will
easily result in discordance between movement
Daoyin and respiration, disturb respiration, and thus
affect the exercising effect of Health Qigong.
Another example is the head-lifting, shoulder-
squaring, waist-slumping, and tail-raising
movements of Swinging the Tail. During the head-
shaking and hip-swaying movement centering the
waist, breath regulation with reverse or obverse
abdominal respiration is actually a very difficult task
to do.
Therefore respiration must be as natural as possible
in Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing exercise. During
inhalation, the practicer should give up the
awareness of active inhalation and passively and
naturally inhale by following the changes in the
movements of the exercise and the expansion of the
thorax. The amount of air drawn in each inhalation
and the speed of inhalation should be in accordance
with the natural changes of the movements. During
exhalation, the practicer should also naturally exhale
according to the changes in the movements and the
contraction of the thorax. This will not only prevent
the suffocation or short breath caused by discordance
between movements and respiration, but also
promote the mental serenity and physical relaxation
of the practicer through the natural respiration. As a
result the constantly changing postures of the body
will become more and more harmonious in order to
change the tendons and bones and promote health.
The mind should be concentrated The mind should be concentrated The mind should be concentrated The mind should be concentrated
The greatest feature of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing is
its tending-changing and bone-changing effect. It is a
Health Qigong exercise with body Daoyin as the main
form of expression. Although it is not a bodily activity
guided by the mind or passive activity guided by
definitive mental activities, it lays great emphasis on
the mental activities during the bodily movements.
Any amateur of Health Qigong knows that during
Health Qigong exercise, the most elementary
requirement and common sense is that the practicer
should both control his own mind and prevent it
from being distracted by other thoughts, and protect
his mind from being affected by the diverse
surrounding environment. Tangseng, a character in
the book Pilgrimage to the West, always keeps an eye
on Zhubajie, who is quite susceptible to lust, and
Sunwukong, who was born with a tendency to be
active. Tangseng has to control and restrain them by
recite the scriptures. It is also the foremost
requirement of Health QigongYi Jin Jing to relax the
spirit and unite form and thought. It is not allowed to
be absent-minded or obsessed.
The problem of thought and mind control in Health
Qigong Yi Jin Jing has occurred in the Health Qigong
classes administered to undergraduates majoring in
traditional national sports. In the early stage of their
Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing exercise, the students were
quite focused. But as they progressed to the sixth or
seventh routine, some of them could no longer stay
focused. The same problem occurred during the
overall exercise of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing. When
about 1/3 of the exercise was completed, some
students became less concentrated or occasionally
went astray.
Why did students show such signs during Health
Qigong Yi Jin Jing exercise? There are two possible
causes. One is that students attention was exhausted
by the continuous learning. This was probably
attributable to the students' lack of the perseverance
to overcome fatigue. Another is that students
majoring in traditional national sports were mostly
engaged in sports like free combat, Wushu routines,
and Chinese wrestling. Most of them were restless by
nature and their classes were carried out in places
surrounded by other sword, spear, fist, and stick
classes which were quite distracting especially for
restless students like them.
Then what is the situation with the mind control and
regulation in common people who are practicing
Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing? Beginners or people
subject to the pressure of life will also suffer from
distracting thoughts and wandering mind. This is a
trouble that must be solved by all practicers of Health
Qigong Yi Jin Jing and must be carefully dealt with.
It should be noted that mental activities and bodily
Daoyin are a unity of opposites.
With regard to the form, Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing is
a health-preserving exercise dominated by body
Daoyin which exercises the tendons and bones. And
from the perspective of psychological regulation,
Health Qigong exercise can effectively control the
mental activities of the practicers and thus influence
the activities of the nervous system of the human
body. And functions of the nervous system are of
vital importance for the regulation of the life
activities of the human body. Therefore the effective
regulation of the mental activities of the Health
Qigong practicer is a critical part or core of the
fundamental technical framework of breath
regulation, body regulation, and mind regulation of
Health Qigong, just as the saying goes: as
Bodhidharma came from the west, he did not bring
with him any book but completely relied on his
mind. If we pay no attention to the control and
regulation of mind and fail to concentrate in the
practice of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing, our thoughts
will wander aloft and Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing will
no longer seem like a Health Qigong exercise.
Therefore the poor concentration will affect the
exercising effect of Health Qigong Yi Jin Jing,
causing the movements to lack gentleness in
firmness or firmness in gentleness. The movements
will be too rigid or lax and the movements of the
body will not fully pull bones or stretch tendons.
The due influences on the motor tissues of the
human body will be lost and motor functions of the
human body will not be improved as expected. As a
result the mental and physical activities will no
longer have the expected influences on the
sympathetic nerves and parasympathetic nerves of
the vegetative nerves under the cerebral cortex and
the due efficacy of the nerve-humor-immunity
process will be lost or diminished.
Chinese Health QiGong Association