3 Essential Skills of Qigong: Relaxation/Qi/Meditation

Marcus Santer || Qigong practitioner and author 

Shaolin Chi Kung: 18 Exercises to help you live a longer, healthier and happier life. 

Give me three minutes and I'll explain why 98% of Qigong practitioners are wasting your time... Remember that Qigong is the art of deliberately controlling the vital energy or Chi / Qi. Vital energy is the "juice" that keeps him alive and enables you to do everything you do. 

* Qigong is similar to yoga, but less intense 

* It's like Tai Chi, but easier and faster to learn 

* Provides health benefits and requires zero athleticism

There are five main objectives that people who exercise Qigong / Qigong want to achieve: 

     1. Improve health and increase vitality 

     2. Longevity 

     3. Develop inner strength 

     4. Mind Expansion 

     5. Spiritual Cultivation 

But I'd say about 98% of Qigong practitioners today are wasting their time because they do not practice the three basic skills of Qigong. If you want to succeed you need to Qigong practice, practice, practice these three core competencies. 

So what are these three basic skills that almost nobody knows? 

1) Enter a QuietStateOfMind - think of it as a higher state of consciousness. It's about being relaxed and focused. Listen, if you can not relax, you can not do qigong. While many people start practicing qigong to be able to relax, and this is a very good reason by the way, relaxation is just the beginning of qigong. 

To enter a QSOM you have to be able to relax physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. 

2) Energy Flow - more poetically known as "flowing breeze, swaying willows" 

One of the most well guarded jealously guarded secrets of qigong... and that is a real shame, because the flow of qi is what makes qigong such a powerful tool for health and vitality. If the flow of energy is not part of the qigong practice, then you are losing at least 75% of the benefits. 

3) Standing meditation - which helps to consolidate the practice.

Seriously, if these three core competencies are not part of their daily practice of qigong everything you're doing is an exercise in low level and if that's what you want to do you can also do the washing, because at least you are getting something useful done at the same time. If you are practicing medical qigong, dynamic qigong, qigong for martial arts, qigong or super hardcore qigong, you need to be practicing the three basic skills of qigong to make the most of the time and effort you invest in your practice. If you're not, you're leaving most of the goodness on the table. 

Qigong is an art because it is cultivation that is important - not the number of exercises you know. It is the mastery of these three critical skills that allows you to get more benefits in just 15 minutes of daily practice than most practitioners of qigong get in an hour.