This past weekend I attended a Yi Ren Qigong seminar, the second in a series on Internal Martial Arts. We are not learning a taiji form in these seminars; rather, we are learning the energy of taiji.
On Sunday afternoon, our teacher, Dr. Guan-Cheng Sun, announced that we would do some walking in circles around our basement classroom as an introduction to bagua-style circle-walking.
We pushed our chairs into the middle of the room, then went outside to re-enter the classroom and begin walking around it six times in a counter-clockwise direction.
I had walked circles in that classroom before as part of ritual cleansing of the room, and I’d never felt anything more than a little silly, so my main thought in embarking upon this exercise was, “Dang, I forgot to put my Fitbit on this morning; I’m not going to get credit towards my 10,000-step goal.”
We went outside, then filed back in with Dr. Sun leading the way as we slowly walked counter-clockwise, our line becoming a circle as everyone joined in. The walking was pleasant; I like walking, even when it’s not for credit. And then somewhere during the second or third circle I began feeling incredibly heavy in the dantian/lower abdomen and legs. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling or why I was feeling it, but I really didn’t care. I liked it; I was into it; I walked connected to the earth.
After six times around, we went outside again and entered via the back door. This time, I was curious. What would I feel? Nothing the first couple of rounds, even though I probably suggested to my dantian that it might want to do what it had done before. And then my back, including the mid-back area where the kidneys are located, began feeling intense. I had more feeling on my back and in the kidney area than I’d ever had before. Wow!
We subsequently walked some bagua circles, with our feet stepping around the perimeter while our hands and head faced and focused on the center of the circle. I didn’t get much out the bagua walking, largely because I didn’t understand Dr. Sun’s initial instructions.
But the memory of walking counter-clockwise and then clockwise stuck with me. Dr. Sun had told us that counter-clockwise was yin (feminine) and that clockwise was yang (masculine), but that’s the sort of information I have trouble holding in memory, and it wasn’t in my memory when we started out—at least not in my conscious memory. But now I know, and will never forget, that counter-clockwise is yin (the front and lower part of the body) and clockwise is yang (the back of the body).
After the seminar ended, I went home, fed my cat, cleaned and sliced some mushrooms and began frying them with spinach and eggs for dinner. At some point into the frying, I became aware that an image had popped into and out of my conscious mind, a scene with people in it, a scene from my life or, well, maybe a scene from a dream, which maybe I’d recognize if I could take a closer look at it—only I couldn’t get it to come back.
And then I realized I had had another of my spells, albeit one a bit different than its three predecessors. (See: https://qifrontier.com/2016/01/08/the-draining-of-my-brain/) Oh, my. It was over in moments; the eggs did not burn, and the rest of the evening was uneventful.
The next day, a Monday, I led a qigong group, did some computer work and then did my Yi Ren Qigong practice. It was particularly intense, and I felt a bit spacey afterwards, but I decided to walk to a nearby shopping center so I could feed my Fitbit and deposit a check at the bank.
As I walked, I realized my mind wasn’t quite right; I was stoned on qi. But I seemed to be doing fine, so I kept walking and would have continued to do fine if, when I got to the bank, I’d been able to remember the password for my checking account, a password I’ve had for 20 years. Fortunately, I remembered it before the bank clerk I was asking for help turned me in as looney tunes or as a debit card thief. I bought a cup of coffee, walked home, and sat on my sofa, my mind wandering quite freely from this to that. I fell asleep, as I am prone to do when I sit down in the afternoon, and when I woke up, I felt fine.
But I count that as Spell #5. Continue reading
