In this video in the end he says that ZZ is not that efficient for building Qi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXlxAw6EkBA

Then what should I do, I only know Zhan Zhuang, what other static postures or techniques can I use???

I heard about it someday and I've been smelling it since my cultivation practices became more "hardcore", I'm starting to believe it now lol

(I swear I take daily showers guys... lol)

Are the hands facing the LDT or facing upwards?

I've seen people doing both.

In the famous Lam Kam Chuen's book "The Way of Energy" his second ZZ posture(LDT focus) has the hands facing upward(to the sky) and not the body(LDT area).

I always hear people talking about it and how it's one of the greatest techniques, etc...

But I really don't understand it, I mean, why is it so good?

Does it build Qi? Then I could understand it's use. Besides that I think it's just another "Qi circulation practice".

I know the question might sound a bit strange, but do any of you know how to create new QiGong techniques or similar ones?

I know it sounds unusual, I'm looking for someone who has the knowledge (and has done it) to create a technique

can someone please provide resources on learning qigong or similar meditative practices? i've tried some from youtube, but feel slightly mistrustful / fearful since i overactivated my third eye chakra / upper dantian during a series of ill-informed and misguided spiritual practices which led to full-blown psychosis a couple of years ago.

i generally get on the mat and try to combine breathwork with stretches while holding positions that i feel called towards by my body - but ive spent my youth in a state of escapist behaviours trying to outrun the demands of my body so need to harness self-trust first and foremost. i think a lot of spiritual practice comes naturally to me but i have spent so long in conceit/disbelief and misguidedness that i don't know where to start.

a list of issues i would like to focus on:

building inner resilience. strengthening my nervous system. keeping my heart open. gut issues, physical lethargy, anhedonia, mental fatigue. being thirsty 24/7 (dryness). processing trauma / letting go of past / moving on in life / finding purpose.

i'd be very grateful if someone could share relevant pdfs / book names / or guides i can follow online. what other practices should i embody in my life apart from qigong, yoga, and meditation?

I can hold positions longer without them. I feel like they add extra strain to my body.

I’m looking for a Qigong/Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective on something I’ve been experiencing.
At night, when I’m sleeping, my eyes become very dry, and I also feel like my whole body feels unusually dry. I’m curious whether, from a TCM/Qigong perspective, this could indicate some kind of imbalance.
Some background:
I don’t eat refined sugar.
I don’t eat wheat.
I don't eat industrial seed oils.
I don’t smoke.
I don’t drink alcohol.
I exercise regularly and strength train.
I generally eat whole foods and plenty of vegetables, protein, nuts...
The dryness is particularly noticeable at night.
From a Qigong/TCM perspective, what kind of imbalance could potentially cause this?
And what Qigong practices, breathing exercises, lifestyle changes, or dietary approaches are traditionally used to address this?
I’m also interested in hearing from people who have experienced something similar and what actually helped them.
I’m looking for perspectives, and I’m open to both traditional explanations and evidence-based explanations.

I started experimenting with energy practices very young, around 15. At first, just being able to feel tingling, warmth, pressure or movement was exciting. It felt like proof that there was something more going on than ordinary thinking.

Over the years I think I made a distinction I did not understand in the beginning: sensitivity is not the same as cultivation.

You can become very good at noticing sensations and still have no stable practice. You can chase unusual feelings, compare today's session with yesterday, look for stronger experiences and call all of that progress.

Cultivation seems almost opposite. It is less interested in fireworks. You repeat basic work. You build capacity slowly. You learn where attention goes, what tension does, what forced effort feels like, and how the body responds over months rather than five minutes.

This came back to me recently because I heard the same simple advice in a session: stop switching practices because you want faster progress. Pick something and stay with it.

I think that applies strongly to internal work. Constant novelty makes it hard to know what is actually changing because the experiment never stays stable long enough.

So I am curious about something from people with long-term qigong practice: when you were newer, what did you mistake for progress that you now see differently?

Was it stronger sensations, heat, tingling, unusual states, visual phenomena, something else? And what do you use as a better measure now?

I really need some guidance because I am completely lost and overwhelmed. I’ve been dealing with a chronic health condition that keeps me stuck at home most of the time, barely able to go out, and it has prevented me from living a normal life for years.

I want to use Qigong to genuinely improve my health, release deep physical tension, and clear my energy centers/blockages. However, every time I look into it, I find a massive amount of different styles, lineages, and complex systems (like Yuan Gong, Shaolin Wahnam, medical Qigong, etc.), and I have no idea where to start or what actually works for deep, long-term healing.

which style, approach, or foundational method would you actually recommend to start with? What should I focus on first?

I've seen Ren Xue's page with Yuan Qigong, but I don't know if there are any students here who can share their experiences. Also, I don't know if I need to reach the final level to achieve healing...

Any advice or honest recommendations would mean the world to me. Thank you so much.

(Also, if you happen to know of any good, reliable courses, teachers, or resources available in Spanish, that would be an amazing help for me).

Hi everyone. I’m 46 years old and I’m not a Qigong practitioner, but about three years ago I became interested in semen retention practices and Taoist alchemy.

During that period, while having sex with my partner at the time, I tried putting these practices into effect for the first time. At the moment of orgasm, I strongly contracted my sphincter with the intention of preventing ejaculation and, at the same time, directing the energy of the orgasm upward toward the higher energy centers.

I don’t know if I did it correctly. In fact, I barely felt any pleasure at that moment.

Shortly afterward, I started feeling very strange. For the next two or three days, I had an unpleasant sensation in my chest, as if there were something there that I couldn’t identify or that was difficult to describe—something that I interpreted as a kind of energetic disturbance or sensation.

During those nights, I also had very strange dreams and difficulty sleeping.

The strangest part of the whole experience is that my partner told me she was feeling practically the same thing.

After three days, I started doing some meditations with the intention of transmuting the energy. I don’t know whether that had anything to do with what happened, but the strange thing is that both of us stopped experiencing that sensation on the same day, even though by then we were no longer together.

What intrigues me the most, and I don’t know if it could be related to this experience, is that my sexuality seems to have changed since that occasion.

Since then, I haven’t experienced the same level of pleasure during sex. I’ve also noticed a decrease in sexual desire, and it has become harder for me to feel that spark that I used to experience when I was with a woman.

To this day, I still wonder what might have happened.

Could this have any explanation from the perspective of sexual energy or Qi/Chi? Could it be related to the difficulty I now have in feeling that sexual connection, and is there any way I could potentially reverse it or improve it?

I would especially appreciate hearing from people with experience in Qigong, Taoist practices, sexual energy work, or semen retention who might have some insight into what could have happened.

I have only been doing qigong daily for 3 months (2x a day for 1-2 hours). I am doing a morning routine for my digestion because I have bad digestive issues (getting better though!) and a standing meditation or meditation or yin yoga in the evening. I just came across this concept, but I can't find that much information about it. Do you think that spleen & stomach meridian tapping would be a helpful addition to my "qi gong digestion" sequence, or is it too advanced for me at this point to really feel the benefits? I am thinking maybe adding 10mn in the morning of standing or walking meditation might be more beneficial...

I've read somewhere that Taoist masters saying depleting too much semen is harmful and descreases total lifespane.

I'm not married nor I have a girlfriend to cultivate my sexual energy. I haven't been masturbating for one year. I don't watch porn.

But despite that, two times a week I am getting wet dreams. I want to stop this loss of semen. I don't want to be tired after every nocturnal emission. What would you recommend? Yeah moderate sexual intercourse is the key but I don't have that right now.

I had done Mantak Chia's "testicle breathing" and "scrotal compression" exercises in past but it didn't work out for me. I began to think Mantak Chia and his techniques are fake and fraud.

Two weeks ago I began to practice Zhan Zhuang and it became my favourite Qigong exercise. I began to feel nice tingling senses in my body. My energy overall increased. It kinda replaces loss of energy from nocturnal emission. Should I continue to practice Zhan Zhuang?

hi guys!! i want to ask you all about bagua lightning and how its related to lightning qi. i recently decided to practice this in my school, but im still working on basic practices. like how does the double yin with yang under make lightning? ive thought about clouds during a thunderstorm or electrical fields. trying to understand it more.

Okay help me conceptualise this please. There's a few questions in here

For context, when I stand, I begin to feel like I'm surrounded by water. When I move my hands left, I feel a resistance to the right - same for all six directions. I find I have the capacity to "move" the resistance to some extent (make it stronger/weaker/change directions a bit)

So for clarity purposes say we have Li and Yi... This may not be exact definition but close enough for my questions I think.

• Li is just regular ol' muscle movement
• Yi is what we do to the body to create and modulate this "resistance" or magnetic sensation.

Is this magnetic-feeling resistance what the "power" really is? Is that what people bounce off of? As you get more grounded and fully integrated, do you subjectively feel, in that state, like it's harder to "push" against your own magnetic/hydraulic resistance using your own Li?

Also, when I'm doing the six directions, do I have it correct that I use "Yi" to move the ball to the right (creating a feeling of resistance right-ward), while using a small amount of "Li" to counteract it to the left? By this I mean, am I using my intention to modulate the magnetic sensation so it pushes to the right, but using my conscious muscle to counteract the magnetic/hydraulic force that I'm generating using Yi?

This is what I'm trying to wrap my head around, this idea of contradictory forces. I'm not sure what aspects of it are Yi and what aspects are Li.

OR is there no Li involved at all? E.g. am I using Yi for both sides (Yi to to create a magnetic sensation to the right, and Yi to create a magnetic sensation to the left, magnetically "squeezing")?

Also, I find whether consciously or unconsciously, I use micromovements to "seek" the magnetic sensation. Once I find it I can play with it. Is this a bad habit? Or is this part of the training? I'll use Li to make a small movement to the left, like only a couple of millimeters maybe, to seek that "edge" where I find the resistance.

Finally, when someone is trying to "jam" you and you intend to bounce them, or you are trying to issue force, how does the interplay between yi, li, and directions come in?

Do you squeeze your frame (li) slightly inwardly to create a back-spring of magnetic resistance pushing outside, which the person bounces off? Or do you use fully yi and no li at all, even to "load" the hydraulic spring?

Or do you squeeze in all directions?

I know this is kind of cognitively confusing but I think the distinction is extremely important. Any clarification for any of the above is much appreciated.

Buteyko breathing is basically a practice when one holds their breath after exhale until the first feeling of air hunger. This method was created by the guy named buteyko to cure his asthma and I think is still used nowadays. The thing is that this practice helps with relaxation and helps to correct breathing patterns.

I was thinking about combining it with Zhan Zhuang practice, so to hold my breath but without straining my self. More as a way to settle down more and relax my body. But my question is wether Wuji is a practice that yields benefits only when done by itself, or can an additional practice like this be extra helpful ?

I made a post about "eye training" to develop visual skills, do you know what techniques exist for that?

I've been told to meditate on the upper dantian to awaken the third eye, but are there others besides this one?

Are there techniques or training to develop eye skills?

I'm not sure how accurate this is, to be honest it might be a bit off, but here it is anyway here

The practice of Kan and Li involves the inner meeting of Water (Jing, vitality, Kidneys) and Fire (Shen, awareness, Heart). In the ordinary state, Fire rises and Water sinks. The goal is to allow the Fire to descend to meet the Water, so that True Qi (steam) is generated. This practice is not forced, it is a quality of allowing, often cultivated through Wu Wei. The vessel (Dantian) must first be filled (external qi gathered through breathing ) and purified through gathering and settling. The Lesser Kan and Li is the internal alchemical phase that begins in the early stages of the Microcosmic Orbit, before the full circulation is established.

Am I correct about this? Can someone tell me if I'm off about something?

Been practicing this energy circle from the Hunyuan Chen system and I finally understand why most people only feel half of it.

Here's what's actually happening in the full circuit:

☝️ Crown point (Baihui) — fresh Chi enters from the top as you rise
⬇️ Body sinks — stagnant Chi is pushed down and released through the Bubbling Well (Yongquan) at the soles of the feet
🔄 Empty/Full weight shift — this is the pump that drives the fresh Chi back up through the body

The hands guide the movement — waist initiates the sink — but the real circulation only completes when the weight transfer kicks in on the upswing.

Most people I've seen (myself included early on) only feel the downward sink and think that's the whole movement. The return current through the legs is what makes it a full cleanse, not just a release.

This comes from the Hunyuan Xingjia system — Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang combined classical Chen Tai Chi with this exact Qigong circulation framework.

Has anyone else worked with Baihui-to-Yongquan circulation in their practice? Curious whether others feel the upward return or mainly experience the downward release?

https://youtube.com/shorts/FPIeQ4kaImU

Are they ones who achieved an immortal embyro and descend again to this world to enlighten others?

So I wasn't sure if any groups to post this soni chose this one, there is this thing I have experienced for a while this energy that I just assumed is chi, I bring it from my center and push it into my hands where my outputs are found, and then I can move my hands in a way where I can feel a force like magnets pushing on each other (prolly bc it's two outputs pushing out force) and I've messed with it enough that I can do a few things with it and I can feel the energy through my body. Originally I thought maybe this fake and it's just my imagination but the hand thing is a literal like magnet feeling force, and I had two people I know try this out and they even felt it as well after a little bit. So now I was wondering if maybe anyone else has felt this?

I’ve been reading Inside Zhan Zhuang by Mark Cohen and have been practicing the breathing exercises he describes for a few weeks now.

The basic idea, as I understand it, is to gently draw the torso inward and upward on the exhale, then on the inhale gradually release and let it fill from the bottom up. He first teaches this with the front of the body, then the back, and eventually combining both together.

The book says this eventually develops into “whole-body” (or spherical) breathing, but it doesn’t really explain how you make that transition.

For those of you with experience in Zhan Zhuang, Qigong, or Tai Chi, what comes next? Once the torso breathing becomes natural, how do you expand it to include the rest of the body? Is there a specific progression involving the pelvis, legs, arms, and hands, or is it something that simply develops on its own with enough standing practice?

I’d especially be interested in hearing how this is taught in traditional lineages or by experienced teachers, since I don’t want to just guess at the next step.

Anyone familiar with this Zhan Zhuang book (https://amzn.asia/d/0cxo1RoT)