Have I been hurting myself?

[jaymc]

Hello,
I'm new to learning about Qigong. After some classes and reading I'm wondering if I had been puting my energy even more out of balance with something I've been doing for the past 3-4 years. My upper back and neck were/are tight, causing numbness in my hands and tendinitis. I had been told to interlock my fingers and reach my hands over my head palms up, the same as in some Qigong instruction. Although, i hadn't been doing this for a few seconds while controlling my Qi with my mind but stretching for 2-10 minutes without moving or knowing anything about Qi and doing this 2-3 times per day. I've been working on computers all day for the past 10 years and felt unbalanced to begin with, now i'm wondering if this static stretch for long lengths of time is unhealthy for me. Again I'm new to Qigong so if this doesn't make sense just let me know. Thank you
Jason

[joeblast]

that's a good exercise, but you'll likely need more to get rid of neck and shoulder tension. See if you can dig up exercises crane neck, turtle neck...dont know if you will be able to find anything on dragon neck but that is a good one too. Those should do a good job loosening you up, but they need to be done every day. Also a chiro should be able to adjust those, in conjunction with range of motion exercises for your neck you can fix those issues.

[Dvivid]

That is a good stretch. You might want to add a bit of movement, listen to your body and sway from side to side.

The problem is sitting at a computer desk. I do so also.

I highly recommend Soft White Crane qigong to deal with issues of the neck, shoulders, upper back. It fixed my back problems after a lifetime of bad posture.

http://www.ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/qigo ... qigong_DVD

[jaymc]

Thank you both very much for the information! I really appreciate it.

Jason