Chikung Journal

How I Discovered Chikung

The first time I read about Chikung or Qigong (both spellings pronounced cheekong) was 12 years ago, when I was browsing through a magazine discussing meditation and other spiritual practices. Like other ancient Chinese subjects such as acupuncture, it was inscrutable to me. Having trained in Western Medicine, concepts such as chi and meridians had no points of contact with what I knew and understood. It did not help that the author of that article wrote more from awe and admiration than from knowledge and mastery. Nevertheless, my attitude towards that mysterious system was one of respect, because it seemed to effective for a lot of people.

Three years later, in 1994, I came across chikung again, this time in the form of an ad for videotapes prepared by Terry Dunn, a Chinese-American ivy league graduate, who had spent some years studying the subject. At last, someone to save me the trouble of spanning the gulf between me and ancient Chinese culture. I sent for the tapes (they were only available through mail order).

After that date, I practiced Terry's system of Flying Phoenix Chikung daily (with few exceptions) for almost three years. My practice since then has tended to be choppy. By keeping this journal, I intend to restore my practice and to share my experiences with others.

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Shoulders

Pressed to massage one region for greatest effect, most masseurs would target the muscles around the shoulders and between the shoulders and the neck. They talk about tension, and 'knots' almost calcified with trapped energy. Chikung practice increases one's awareness of the tense energy lodged in the shoulder muscles and over time dissolves that clamped feeling.

While doing standing practice, one constantly scans the body, finds foci of tension and consciously relaxes every muscle or tense feeling from the head to the soles of the feet. In order to relax my shoulders, I think of a coat on a hanger. It does not shrug its shoulders in recoil. It hangs loose, allowing the full weight of its arms to to pull it down without resistance. At the same time, it stands erect by virtue of the tension between the downward pull of gravity and the upward force transmitted from the hook of the hammer.