I've attended Qi Gong classes for almost two years, yet often feel I am no closer to understanding the flow, and meaning than when I started. Is it the focus, the grace, the breathing that befuddles me at times? It can be daunting. Sometimes, towards the end of the class, when we are doing a group mediation, all I can think about is going for coffee. I must push that aside. Then, as I sit with my eyes closed, focusing, I begin to mentally go around the circle, naming those sitting in the circle. Can I remember where they are sitting? Will I be right when I open my eyes? What’s up with that hat that so and so is wearing? “Stop” I tell myself. “Concentrate. Concentrate.” I hear someone’s stomach blipping. That almost sets me off to a bout of juvenile laughter. “Smile to the heart, smile to the heart” I mutter to myself. The many phrases that accompany the movements often meld into a sing song recitation in my brain. Yet I am determined to plow forward, learning and absorbing as much as I can. Someday these phrases will all make sense.
Smile to the heart lift your perineum
Picture planet earth in your dantian
rest your hands on your lower dantian
angry eyes
stick out your tongue
massage your liver
crane walk
the six winds
triple heater
thymus gland, Amsterdam
find the bubbling spring in your foot
ball of chi
Take your ball to the wall
Your sexual palace
microcosmic orbit
standing like a tree
pushing clouds
six healing sounds: chi, hee, shoo/choo, arggh, ahhhh
spinal cord breathing
shake it loose, swing and slap
Geraldine, Josephine, raise your spleen
Stand on your bubbling springs
Keep your balls on the ground