Interview with Coach Jim Roselando

Interview with Coach Jim Roselando on MIT Radio: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQaDv8i_Y4

"Qi is a form of energy. Gong means work. So Qigong is a form of energy cultivation. Through still exercise you can cultivate balance and smooth the energy through the whole body. The Dan Tien will be robust, the meridians will be flowing smoothly, which will gradually realign the body. You can stand and be still and cultivate the mind, the body, the breathing, just by relaxing." 

MIT Monday Night Qigong with Coach Roselando (10/14)

Warm-up

10min Dr. Ma Li Tang's Gathering Qi

5min Dragon Post (left)

5min Dragon Post (right)

Gathering Qi

20min Mr. Shuren Ma Post

5min Dr. Ma Li Tang's Gathering Qi

10min Friction Step

Seal/Wash

Words of Wisdom passed on from Coach Jim Roselando

Qigong

One day I randomly stopped by coach Jim’s house to see if he wants to practice wing chun. His friend was visiting, and he lead a qigong session instead. That was the first time I’ve experienced energy. I went home and started my qigong journey. Dec 14, 2008… my second birthday.

Being a beginner at the time, I made many mistakes testing out different techniques, which ended up setting me back and causing injury. At one point, I practiced techniques to open my arm meridians, and I couldn’t shake hands with sick people without their sickness coming into me. My hand turned purple and my teacher spent the whole night fixing me.

Coach Jim sent me this from the Qigong bible to keep me on track:

Three extremely important key points for Qigong. one must not violate these, or else it is a disaster.

1. When the mind is quiet, the Spirit will be settled. When the Spirit is settled, the Qi will grow itself to full. When the Qi is full, the Blood circulation will be strong, thus both Qi and Blood will flow smoothly. This is how to grow the Qi.

2. Blood and Qi have their own natural path and flow smoothly. One must never interrupt the natural flow of Blood and Qi. What one can do is to help remove the obstructions and let the Blood and Qi naturally develop and expand. This is how to lead the free flow of Qi and Blood.

3. Goal and cultivation process of Qigong is to relax the physical body, quiet the mind, and let every dynamic flow be natural. Only pay attention to these three things.

Note: Any violation of the above three key points will certainly result in premature aging, weakness, disease, or internal injury.

Basic Qigong tips:

Practice everyday.
Stick to one style.
Don’t create or modify a technique.
Don’t learn qigong from a book or dvd.

Credit for this post goes to my gung fu brother and his blog: Shaking Leaf: Journey into the unknown 

22 Standing at Monday Night Qigong || May 13, 2013

MIT Qigong Club

Free Every Monday 7-8pm

qi at mit dot edu

Warm-up

10min Gathering Qi

20min Natural Post

5min Left Shi Li

5min Right Shi Li

10min Leg Qi

5min Dr. Ma Li Tang Gathering Qi

Seal/Wash

Silk Reeling: The Chen Family Way

Qi Magazine | Issue 48

By Glenn Gossling

Chan Si Gong or Silk Reeling exercises, as they are called in the West, are the foundation of Chen style taiji. These profoundly simple movements show how Qi circulates during the practice of taijiquan.

Once the principle of these moves is understood it is easy to bring clarity to the many thousands of moves that make up the taiji system, whereas without them one could easily learn many thousand moves without ever attaining a high level of skill or clarity. During his recent visit to the UK Sigong Chen Xiaowang elucidated the fundamental principle of taiji. He stated that the taiji principle is composed of one posture combined with two movements. The posture is based on the Zhan Zhuang meditation stance and the two movements refer to the two directions that the Dantien is rotated during taiji. The basic Zhan Zhuang posture provides the framework for these two movements of the Dantien to direct the Qi about the body. In the Zhan Zhuang stance the spine is upright with the head, shoulders, Dantien and feet in vertical alignment. All the joints are slightly bent and loose. It is vital that the whole body is still and relaxed. This does not mean that the body is allowed to collapse, it means that good posture is maintained but without any tension. With the body relaxed, the movement of the Dantien is able to spiral out from the centre to the periphery of the body in a logical way. The silk reeling energy spirals from the Dantien to the shoulder, to the elbow to the wrist and finally the fingers. The rotation of the Dantien takes the body from a neutral relaxed posture into a state where the body becomes yin then yang, or yang and then yin. In a sense the movement of the Dantien can only take place because of the way that stillness is able to culminate in the Zhan Zhuang posture. Therefore when movement culminates it returns to stillness. This is why taijiquan always begins by preparing posture and consciousness before starting any movements. The breath is sunk to the Dantien. By maintaining the centre of the Dantien it is possible to become still while in movement and in movement while still. This paradox is at the heart of taiji and is what gives taiji its unique spirit.

Wuji Meditation Generates the True Qi

WARRIORS OF STILLNESS: WUJI

By Jan Diepersloot

Both the tragedy and dilemma of modern humanity is that it has internalized the psychophysiology of emergency, flight and fight, on a global scale. In the biological, psychological, spiritual, political, social and economic structures and institutions, humankind is mindlessly ruled by fear and aggression, creating a self-perpetuating and self-feeding emergency situation spiraling out of control and draining the psychological and physical energy reserves both of the human individual and humanity as a whole. Only stillness can provide the antidote within the person and within the civilization. Only meditation gives us the tools to change our current habitual state of stress and emergency into one of harmony. Thus the practice of meditation, in general, takes on immense relevance for humanity, giving us the ability to control our physiological and psychological states through relaxation.

The particular uniqueness and relevance of wuji standing, as we shall see in the course of this book, is that it makes accessible to us the emergency powers of the body while remaining in a state of harmony. In the martial dimension, we reclaim the emergency powers of our mammalian heritage without our organism being overwhelmed or governed by them.

We described in some detail how Master Cai's practice of "raising the spirit and sinking the qi" changes our normal/civilized bodies and enables us to regain our natural/instinctive bodies and enables us to regain our natural/instinctive posture and movement. For indeed the practice of "raising the spirit and sinking the qi" mimic and reinforce basic mammalian response patterns to emergency situations. 

Raising the head and the spirit refers to the alertness response which activates the sensory-neural apparatus and integrates it with the neuromuscular system. Sinking the qi refers to bodily mobilization which activates the "crouch" response. The tucking under of tailbone and pelvis, expanding the lower back and filling the mingmen integrates the upper and lower bodies, making their combined power available to deal with emergency situations.

By "keeping three points on a straight line" and "sinking the qi and raising the spirit," wuji meditation cultivates a state of awareness/being in stillness the may best be described as the perpetual "calm before the storm," the silliness and heightened awareness of the cat that precedes its jump on its prey. The goal of wuji meditation is to acquire the strength of calm so that the storm never breaks, the total alertness and readiness to "jump the prey" without ever jumping. By maximizing cultivation and minimizing use, wuji meditation generates the true qi, i.e. increasing our energy potential and accessing our human emergency powers while continuing to operate under the psychophysiology of harmony.

Video: Coach Jim Roselando Demonstrates Gathering Qi

Coach Jim Roselando demonstrates the Gathering Qi Exercise from the MIT Qigong Year One Curriculum. Add ten minutes of this exercise at the beginning or end of your daily practice to relax the mind and coordinate the breath with the physical action. 

Sealing the Breath

At MIT Qiqong Sessions, we always end our practice 

with five or more minutes of sealing the breath

                                  

i) Stand naturally with your feet as wide as your shoulders. 

Keep your back straight, relax your shoulders and neck,

keeping your head in an upright natural position.

ii) Men should place their left hand on the Dantien

and their right hand over their left hand. Women

should place their right hand on the Dantien and

their left hand over their right hand. Relax your whole body.

iii) Slowly bend your knees and breathe out 

through your nose, but keep your back straight.

Qi Magazine - Issue 37 (1998)

Therapeutic Effects of Zhan Zhuang

THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF ZHAN ZHUANG

By Master Wang XiangZhai

Zhan zhuang enables regulating nervous and respiration systems, improves blood circulation and metabolism. This is why this method brings good results when treating diseases of nervous, respiration, vascular and digestive systems, problems with muscles and metabolism. It works especially well when treating diseases which turned into chronic ones. From my 50 years of practice I know that effects are varying, different with different people and diseases, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. But apart from situations when someone was sometimes practicing, sometimes stopping, there were almost no cases without improvement. Many people after getting rid of the problem continued practice, strengthening body and staying healthy until old age.

Health is extremely important. And health is depending on constant cultivation and appropriate exercises. To know if some exercises are good for health, some research and practical tests are necessary. How can you test their value? Before someone will start practice, some scientific methods should be used - state of his heart should be checked, blood pressure, pulse, breathing, number of white and red blood corpuscles. After some time of practice, the testes should be conducted again. This will enable deciding if some exercise method is proper. Proper method is the one which conforms with the natural principles of functioning of human body. Only such method can be favorable for people's health.