Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

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Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby John777 » Thu Apr 26, 2012 6:08 pm

Could someone clarify what are the requirements to begin safely practicing Yijin Jing (Da Mo fist set) and Small Circulation meditation?
Thanks in advance.
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby wpgtaiji » Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:51 pm

Basically, do you have 1.5 - 2 hours 2 to 3 times a day to commit to doing Yijin ching for 3 years? If not, then you should just worry about small circulation qigong and 8 brocades. In the modern world where people have responsibilities, yijinching, done properly, is to huge a commitment. Basically, think monk at monastery. That is why we have other qigongs. (thanks to the mod for clarifying this for me a few weeks ago).
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby galino » Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:44 pm

How many reps are in Yi Jin Jing? I thought it wont take more than 20 min/day.
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby wpgtaiji » Fri Apr 27, 2012 12:50 am

I am not arguing, just relaying info! Here is the response I got back when I asked about yi jin jing.

From: Dvivid
To: wpgtaiji
Hi, Sorry for delay, I was away for a week.

That series of exercises is the one thing Dr Yang does NOT teach, because it is impractical for modern day people. It takes 2-3 hours a day in the am and again in the pm, to do it properly. It is for monks.

For general health, you can practice hard and soft qigong and get excellent benefits, and even a simple set like Eight BRoacdes will improve your health if you do it regularly.

Thanks
D


hope that helps. And remember, this is from a guy that works and is around dr yang, so he knows from whence he talks on this issue.

*notice how good i am at copying ideas! :) I never fool with people. just sometimes give them a hard time...
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby joeblast » Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:07 am

A significant foundational element of both is embryonic breathing - but another key point is stillness. Utter, complete stillness. You must learn the proper mechanations of breath so that you can ultimately pacify all of the cranial nerves - so long as the sense nerves are firing they are triggering other nerves to fire - that is how rough uneven breath can stimulate the vagus nerve that runs through your internal organs; that is how too much or too quick air movement in the sinuses will cause the olfactory bulbs to be stimulated and fire; that is how listening, etc cause neural firings that wind up propagating elsewhere. Many loops and feedback loops in the brain's structure, that is how some stimulation can happen on one side of the brain and then reflect back up on both sides. That is another reason "not to pay attention to scenery" in meditation because nerves just dont fire once - some of them can easily fire hundreds of times when sufficiently excited. (i.e. keep the attention on that which is generating the phenomenon, not the phenomena itself.)

Beginning with a foundation of natural abdominal breathing, focus on the bottom rear of the diaphragm where it slightly overlaps with the psoas muscles - begin the motions of breath right from there and descend, let it produce a gentle natural wave that propagates upward and forward toward the xiphoid process. When those motions become natural, over many sessions, lengthen the breath (but you can only lengthen so much per given state because it triggers stimulation if your blood oxygen drops too low. Depending on your current level of training it might take a month or three of nightly meditation to accomplish this, but the results are well worth it.) Then when lengthening, work on completely eliminating any involvement of the sinuses and breath passages - spend a little time activating them so you know where muscular involvement is, even - from a point of action, derive inaction. Once you master those couple things you be able to hold a feather in front of your nose and not move it as you breathe.

By getting there, that is the beginning of very significant stillness. You will need that to integrate the energies for almost any system out there. The things I do begin and end with it :) So even if the system is not primarily a breathwork system, by doing the smoothing calming stillness breathwork you are putting a very powerful tool into your toolbox. From there you can safely integrate, because by doing all of that you have created a new path of least resistance for the energy - it is an excellent mind gongfu also.
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby yeniseri » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:01 am

Forget about Small Circulation!
1st stage-Getting to know yijinjing through participation, Working through the routine
2nd stage You know it, awareness of knowledge of routine and integrate into your practice schedule
3rd stage. Own it, begin too see and feel more if the action of the routine then begin to think of small circulation. don't chase it

No way to tell when some crossover has taken place. The 100 day classical timeline is a guideline but personally and from feedback receibed 4-6 months is a minimum time to see 'inside' the workings of yijinjing. The varaibles of family, work, education, kids, etc are other things to work through!
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby wpgtaiji » Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:22 am

maybe we should have asked the poster, what do you want from qigong?

If you are new to martial arts or qigong, and have a life outside of martial arts (read EVERY normal person on earth), then yi jin ching is NOT the qigong for you. Plain and simple. Even doing just the standing postures alone, 12 at 50 breaths each, and each breath takes about 10 seconds or more, is 90 minutes of work 2 times per day.

Do you want to learn to relax? DO you want to improve health? Do you want to be superman/woman? What is it that you think qigong will do for you?
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby John777 » Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:29 pm

Thanks for your answers
I'm planning to use qigong primarily to improve my health because I have a chronic fatigue and if I'm correct performing Da Mo set could generate extra energy
Also I'm interested in these particular exercises because I play guitar and noticed that after this set my fingers become more sensitive and controllable so if it could safely be performed on a regular basis it would be great
Small circulation meditation interests me because I read that for a practice to be safe one must adhere to principle "First circulate qi, then nurture qi" so I basically want to improve my qi circulation first before increasing it
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby wpgtaiji » Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:38 pm

Then I wouldnt start out with Yi Jin Jing. It is a very intense and strenuous qigong (remember 2 hours twice per day). 8 brocades is probably a better option for health and having other interests (which you clearly have).

If it is finger strength, then do that.

I have VERY different ideas about qigong than those here. Again, small circulation should'nt be an end, it is simply a beginner's technique (though, those here will say it is).

To me, it sounds like you have reasonable goals. Maybe find a YMAA DVD or instructor to go through 8 brocades with you.
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby joeblast » Sat Apr 28, 2012 11:37 am

If you have persistent fatigue, before you worry about yjj - how often do you work out, get your heart rate up, generate a good sweat? That will do more for your overall energy levels in a shorter timeframe than pulling yourself up by your bootstraps with an advanced qigong that you might not have the preponderance of time to dedicate fully. Blood plasma is the root of sweat facilitated by the spleen, so one good key to keeping the blood fresh and ultimately manifesting healthy skin and such is keep that circuit flowing. I cant stress enough how good for you it is to get your heart rate up and sweat every day, even if it is just for 15 minutes. You'll be able to turn that fatigue around in 3, 4 weeks easily so long as there arent other impediments, but for a normal healthy person that's a decent rough estimate if one is sincere. That's one other thing about yjj, a minor level of training is one thing but the full complete training and moving on to XSJ afterwards is really a vastly deeper level that requires time and commitment. Not that one cannot derive benefit from a less rigorous level of the training, but let's be realistic, there is more to getting your metabolism hoppin' than that. ;) (Plus if it is the rigorous training, it is bad if one stops the training before it is complete.)

If you have a drive to work, one thing you can do for guitar dexterity is to just run finger patterns on the steering wheel while you drive. 1-2-1-2-1-3-1-3-1-4-1-4-1-2-1-3-1-4 and what not. Play a lot of scales and keep the motion focused so that your fingers arent coming way far off the fretboard, chromatics are a good one in that regard plus are also a good legato exercise, even mix up picking and legato. You could always pull a Malmsteen and take a spare guitar, scallop the frets a bit on it, then if you're fretting too hard you'll sharpen the note. How crazy do you want to go? :lol:

Chunyi Lin at Spring Forest teaches small circulation just about right away - if you are interested in it, explore it. There are of course shallower and deeper methods. So long as you practice is not haphazard, keep good awareness, close into deep stillness after moving energy, you should be fine. Problems usually manifest because of breaking all sort of rules (and perhaps lying to oneself saying its ok, it wont matter) combined with building enough juice that it moves of its own accord and if not coherent...but really, learn correctly, practice with good awareness, learn to enter good stillness and these problems wont be on your path. It is a matter of opinion or school/lineage whether or not it is better for one to build first then circulate or to learn to circulate first then build...we're all a little different so different paths will resonate with some more than others.
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Re: Yijin Jing & Small Circulation prerequisites?

Postby John the Monkey mind » Sat Apr 28, 2012 1:41 pm

As an alternative set of Qi Gong for the above requirements I would recommend the white crane hard Qi Gong set. I had really low energy and kept getting sick before I did it a few times a week for about three months.

I found for me the advantage of the set is I didn't really have to do all of it every day although I did some of the basic exercises every day.
It increased strength and endurance and even if I did all the basic exercises and the open and closed hand set as well as the short soft Qi Gong warm down it still will did not need much more than about an hour (the soft Qi Gong set on the disk is longer).
I recommend the book with the DVD as you really need the book to get the internal aspect and its is a real brain teaser trying to work out the movement sets without the DVD. I initially followed along with the DVD.
An added bonus is it builds good muscle tone at the same time as building health. :)
Also some of the other Gong exercises in the White Crane book are useful and the section on martial Jin patterns is really useful to martial artist.

Yijin Jing wile very deep is to big a time commitment for me at the moment so the hard Qi Gong set was a better option for me. Now my health is more robust and I regularly attend a YMAA Taiji class (I was impressed with the results of my practice with the DVD and book so located a school) I have stopped practising the hard Qi Gong but I would still recommend it if you are feeling very yin.
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