Muscle/Tendon Changing Yi Gin Chi Kung / Okinawan Ekkin Kiko meditation. (For health and body strengthening)

 The Yi Gin Ching (Muscle/Tendon Changing Classic) details a Chinese chi kung exercise that dates back to 520 AD. The ( perhaps mythical?) man who is given credit for creating it was named Da Mo (also known as Bodhidharma or Daruma). He was an Indian who traveled east to China to spread his Mahayana Buddhist philosophy to the emperor of China. The emperor didn't approve of his theories, and so Da Mo left for the Shaolin temple. Upon arriving there, he saw that the Buddhist priests were weak due to their false belief that Buddhism rejected the physical body in favor of the spiritual one. You see, Buddhism was given birth in India, and throughout the years of about 50 AD to 500 AD, only bits and pieces of Buddhist doctrines made it to China, so the Buddhist priests in China didn't understand everything. Da Mo saw this and shut himself away from the rest of the world for a period of 9 years in a cave on a hill above the Shaolin temple where he meditated on the problem.

When Da Mo emerged from his cave, he drew up 2 texts. One was the Yi Gin Ching (muscle/tendon changing classic) and the other was the Shi Soei Ching (Marrow/Brain washing classic). These were chi kung meditation exercises that the priests were to do to attain great physical strength, vitality, and longevity. The Shi Soei Ching could also be used to attain Buddhahood (spiritual enlightenment).

The monks at Shaolin were indeed strengthened after the Yi Gin Ching exercises. The Shaolin monks later developed kung fu forms based on the movements of animals as a means of self-defense, and the idea went over well with their new insight into Buddhist philosophies as taught by Da Mo. As their martial arts knowledge progressed, one martial artist noticed a fortunate side effect of Yi Gin chi kung exercises. He noticed that the whole body indeed "changed" into a stronger body, which was the purpose of the exercises. However, he noticed that he was able to take full power hits to anywhere on his body with no pain or bruising at all. Later, systems like Iron Shirt chi kung were developed based on this.

The Shi Soei Ching and the Yi Gin Ching are meant to be complementary in nature. You start with Yi Gin chi kung and do it for about 1-3 years before you start to see good results. Then you might want to take up Shi Soei chi kung exercises. You don't need to do Shi Soei chi kung, but it is helpful. I won't go terribly into the training methods, but I will give an overview of the theories here. The reader should acquire Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's book entitled, "Muscle/ Tendon Changing and Marrow/Brain Washing Chi Kung." It goes into far more detail than I do here, but may be confusing without the down-to-earth explanations that I present.

Mantak Chia's books, "Iron Shirt Chi Kung" and "Healing through the Tao", should also prove to be very enlightening. (I personally prefer Mantak Chia's book on "Healing through the Tao", because it goes over the Microcosmic Orbit, which I present later on.)

The purpose of Yi Gin chi kung is to "change" the muscles, tendons, organs, etc. into physically stronger muscles, tendons, organs, etc. The benefits of this exercise are many: increased muscle efficiency, increased vitality, increased flexibility, better health, more energy, and the ability to take full power hits anywhere on your body (including the genitalia, throat, kidneys, solar plexus, knees, back, base of skull, floating ribs, etc.). It is no wonder why martial artists find it to be a fundamentally important exercise.

Much thanks goes to Mr. Ryan Parker who instructed me on this method in email conversations on internet. I owe most of my knowledge on the subject to him. He has demonstrated on video tape his ability to take full power strikes to the groin, neck/throat, knee, kidney, solar plexus, etc. He even has an open invitation for ANYONE to come to him and try to hit him anywhere to see for oneself that he is legitimate. He says it is this method, which I describe here, that gave him that ability, and that it took him about a year and a half to achieve. However, he cautions that the goal of these exercises was never really to be able to take hits anywhere on one's body, but rather, to live longer and healthier and increase the efficiency of one's karate techniques, thereby increasing their power. Mr. Parker is a 3rd degree black belt in Matsumura Shorin Ryu Okinawan Kempo Karate (a seito, "classical/old/ traditional", school of karate). He calls these exercises Kiko, which he says is the Japanese way of pronouncing the Chinese characters for Chi Kung. Thus kiko and chi kung are equivalent terms. He says the Yi Gin chi kung is called Ekkin Kiko, while the Shi Soei chi kung is called Senzui Kiko. When questioned about what he thinks these exercises are doing, especially in light of his invulnerability skill, he thinks that the chi is filling up the limbs and body, making them stronger. To make an analogy, it's like hitting an empty can of beer and then hitting a filled one. The filled one can be hit hard without any damage, but the empty one will crush at the slightest strike.

Yi Gin Chi Kung (Ekkin Kiko)

1. You begin by learning Buddhist breathing. When you inhale, your stomach (not chest) raises. When you exhale, your stomach relaxes. Never use the chest to breathe, rather, use the belly! You concentrate on relaxing all of the tension in your muscles while doing this. Imagine the air that you draw in going straight down to fuel your dan-tien point (3 inches below the navel and about 3 inches into your body). Picture a ball of fire there being increased in strength with every inhalation. When you exhale, you try to picture your muscles relaxing. On the inhale, say to yourself, "I am calm." On the exhale, say to yourself, "I am relaxed." The idea here is just to get used to meditation and listening to the subtle changes in your body as it relaxes. As a small side effect, you also learn about the dan-tien as a source of energy. Do this meditation for a period of about 10 minutes each day for about 3 weeks.

Visualization is the key to leading the chi in chi kung exercises. The "intent" leads the chi. When you are inhaling, you might picture a small ball of energy and light slowly moving down your tongue, throat, chest, and finally ending at your dan-tien. Actually imagine it warming up the tissues surrounding it as it moves. Remember, wherever the mind is, the chi is sure to follow.

While doing this, make sure you are in a comfortable seated position, either with legs folded sitting on the ground, or sitting on a chair. You can also try sitting in the Japanese seiza posture, which has you sitting on the heels of your feet with your knees touching the ground. If you feel tight or in pain, switch position until you are better. Remember to keep your back straight, head up, shoulders back, and pelvis tilted slightly forward (to straighten up the lower back). While it is not imperative at this moment to do so, you should be touching the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind the front teeth in the alveolar ridge. The tongue will form a bridge connecting the conception and governing vessels (the yin and yang energy conduits of your body) and will allow chi to flow smoothly around your body.

You may feel warmth or other sensations in your body. If you do, just acknowledge the existence of those sensations, but don't lose your concentration on your breathing. Likewise, if you hear something (like someone talking nearby), if you feel the wind hit you, or any other feeling, just acknowledge it and then let it pass from your thoughts. The idea is to be totally concentrating on your meditation. This is something which takes years to get used to, so don't worry about not being able to do it immediately.

I have found that it helps to count breaths to keep my mind from wandering. Breathe in, and on the exhales, count to ten. When you reach ten, start over with 1. So you'd do: Breathe in, breathe out, "1", breathe in, breathe out, "2", etc. Don't worry about the duration of your inhale or exhale. Just breathe deeply using only your stomach (diaphragm) down to your dan-tien point. This is called natural breathing, and as such, you shouldn't be struggling with it. If you break into a sweat, it's normal at first, but you will learn to control it later on. And if you lose concentration for a little bit, just start over with "1".

A few other notes... This goes for this exercise and all other chi kung exercises. Try not to do chi kung exercises if you have just eaten something. Your chi is traveling up to your stomach and solar plexus chakra, so you may mess up your digestion when you try it. Just wait a couple hours or so after you eat to try anything. Another reason is because your body is expending a lot of energy on digestion, so it doesn't leave you with much energy to try to cycle around your body (as we'll get into shortly). You will, therefore, find it difficult to practice chi kung while your body is digesting something. I know of a few people which actually fast for several days to enhance their chi kung effects (it means that the body is no longer digesting, and no longer are the kidneys and other organs struggling to get rid of poisons from your body).

And as I will get into at the end of this document, sex (or at least ejaculation) is a "bad thing" to do before chi kung exercises. For men, the testicles store jing (raw energy) in the sperm. This raw energy is then converted into chi for you to use later. If you don't believe it, try this experiment sometime: Abstain from sex (ejaculation) for a week, and each day practice these instructions. Next, have sex and try it an hour or so afterwards. You will notice that it feels like you're trying to "force" the chi to move, but it's really annoying because it's like there's nothing there to move. How often you want to have sex depends on you. Ryan Parker and Dr. Yang Jwing Ming suggests you abstain from sex for an entire year at first. You can still have sex, but ejaculation is a no-no. There are even tantric sex exercises which allows the male to orgasm without ejaculation, but that is a topic which will not be discussed here. And there are plenty of books which describe the exact mechanics/internals as to what's going on here.

By the way, although this exercise is described with the male in mind, it certainly can be done exactly as it is described here by females with no harmful side effects. In fact, Mr. Parker taught his 120 pound wife to do this stuff and even has her taking full contact hits after only 1 year of training!

2. Now you're ready to move on to the small circle, also known as the microcosmic orbit. According to Ryan Parker, the Okinawan karate arts refer to this as shoshyuten (small circle) kiko. Here, you link the Conception and Governing vessels. (Read the section on acupuncture to understand these terms.) The Conception vessel runs up the center of the front of your body, while the Governing vessel runs up the center of the back of your body. These two vessels provide chi energy to the 12 meridians, which in turn provide energy to your organs, muscles, tendons, and other tissues. What you do here is learn to cycle the energy from your dan-tien around these two vessels. The goal of this is to flood the CV and GV with high quality chi (chi that flows fast, smooth, and in high quantity). This will invigorate the entire body, because the 12 organ meridians feed off of these two vessels.

Start in a seated or standing posture with the tip of your tongue touching the alveolar ridge on the roof of your mouth (just behind the top-front teeth). The tongue will form a bridge between the CV and GV and will allow the energy to move from one to the other. Like in #1, you want to relax your whole body and maintain good posture.

You will do natural (Buddhist) breathing here, as in #1. Breathe in deep into your dan-tien with your stomach. Imagine the chi flowing from GV-26 (on the top of your upper lip) down your tongue, neck, and front of your body, to your CV-1 point (between your genitalia and anus). On the exhale, imagine the chi flowing from CV-1 to GV-26 by moving into your tailbone, up your back/spine, up the neck, over the head, and down to your upper lip. Repeat this cycle over and over again. And remember: where the mind is, the chi is sure to follow, so concentrate hard.

At first, you will probably not feel much. But after a lot of time and hard work, you will feel the chi moving up your spine and down your body.

The idea here is to be able to move chi easier and easier through the CV and GV. You want to speed it up here. When you do this, the 12 meridians will become more energized and the body will become more healthy. When you move onto this stage, you can forget about exercise #1. #2 takes the place of #1, and indeed is a lot more sophisticated. You will continue doing this exercise forever. Spend 20 minutes a day on this exercise.

NOTE: Mantak Chia (who calls this the "microcosmic orbit"), works this by concentrating on individual energy centers with breath. In other words, you would first focus your mind on the dan-tien point and breathe until you feel the chi accumulating there. Then you switch to the anus point and breathe until you feel the chi move to it. Then you focus on the lower back point and breathe until you feel it move there. Etc. This continues all the way up the spine, over the head, and down the front until you complete the cycle, then you start over. In time, you will be able to traverse the entire body with only one breath. It's just that we start by traversing the body with just one breath to begin with. You may opt to do Mantak Chia's method instead, until you are confident that you can lead the chi with your mind, or you may play around with it until you feel like the chi is following your mind.

Warning: You should always end all chi kung work by leading the chi back to the dan-tien point. Spend about 10 breaths just concentrating on the dan-tien point before ending. If you don't, the chi will go someplace else, possibly your head or into an organ, which could be bad. It may make you dizzy or give you a headache if you don't put it back into your dan-tien, or so I'm told. Imagine a water wheel centered at the dan-tien growing from the size of a fist to the size of your entire body. Along the way, the wheel will "gulp up" all excess chi left in your body. Then, decrease the size of the wheel and its direction of flow until it is back to the size of a fist.

Also, if you feel like this exercise is "draining" you of energy, you should stop doing it, and concentrate more on Step #3, instead. If you don't have enough chi built up in the dan-tien, then it could drain you when you try to cycle the chi into the microcosmic orbit. Go easy on yourself. NEVER EVER continue doing something that is just draining you of energy, and never force anything to happen.

3. This step can be done at the same time you start step #2, but it may be more enlightening to move onto this step after you've been working with #2 for a period of about a month or so. Here, you learn a new form of breathing, called Mnun breathing, (an Okinawan word), which is used to generate lots of chi in the dan-tien, which is then used by #2 and #4 to help energize the body. Ryan Parker says that Okinawan karate arts call this Mnun breathing, which he says is slightly different than Taoist breathing (familiar to most Chinese chi kung practitioners), but works much the same way and can be used interchangeably for the most part. From my perspective, Mnun breathing appears to be a "soft" version of the "hard" Taoist breathing.

In Buddhist breathing, when you inhale, your stomach expands like it would naturally do. And when you exhale, your stomach contracts. You are relaxed during the entire breath, never tightening up any abdominal muscles. In Mnun breathing, it's slightly different, where your abdominal muscles are tensed slightly for about half of the time. And in Taoist breathing, it's totally opposite to Buddhist breathing (muscles contract on the inhale and expand on the exhale -- very difficult).

Mnun breathing

On the inhale, breathe just like Buddhist breathing, using the abdomen and not the chest. Relax the abdominal muscles. When you have reached the point to where you are near completion of the inhale, tighten the abdominal muscles slightly (don't strain yourself), and complete the inhale. Then, keep the abdomen slightly tensed after the inhale and wait a few seconds before you exhale (so you hold your breath for a few seconds). On the exhale, begin to relax your abdomen, relaxing it completely by the end of the exhale. On the inhale, without touching them, draw your genetalia inwards into your body. Lift your urogenital diaphragm (the anus) upwards, too. On the exhale, lower your anus and your genitalia. The movement of the anus is really used in the next phase of development, but it doesn't hurt to get used to it here. [It helps propel the chi up the spine during the next phase.]

All you want to do is imagine a glowing ball of hot chi at your dan-tien point. The fuel for this fire is your breath, and your muscles serve to agitate it, making it burn hotter. With the inhale, picture a small ball of energy travel down your tongue and center of the body. When it reaches your dan-tien, you will begin to tense your abdominal muscles and picture the ball growing in strength and diameter. Continue to expand the ball on the first half of the exhale, until your abdomen is no longer tensed. On the other half of the exhale, when your abdomen is relaxed, picture the ball decreasing in size and shape. Continue to decrease the ball in size and shape during the first half of the inhale, too.

It's kind of like filling a balloon with water. At first, the water just fills up the balloon, but doesn't really do anything to the shape of the balloon. But later, the balloon reaches a point where it has to expand. The inhale is like filling the balloon, and the tightening of the muscles represents the balloon expanding. Notice that the exhale still has some tension on the abdomen (like the balloon would on the water until it is no longer expanded). If you wanted to, you could simply picture the dan-tien as a great big balloon filling up with chi.

You may want to do this after you have done #2 for about 5-10 minutes. You will then do this seated or standing for 10 minutes before doing #2 (again). Doing #2 after this will cycle this energy through your CV and GV, which energizes the entire body. The health benefits of #2 will increase, and you should start feeling stronger. (In other words, briefly do #2, then spend some time on #3, then spend some time on #2 again.)

4. Here, you move on to the next phase of your training where you will bring the energy to your limbs. This will still cycle energy around the conception and governing vessels, as in #2, but will also include the arms, legs, neck, and head. Ryan Parker says that the Okinawan karate arts call this Daishyuten (large circle) kiko. One shouldn't attempt this unless one has done #2 and #3 for a sufficient amount of time. Without doing #2 and #3 first, you will be draining your conception and governing vessels in this process. Therefore, one must be confident that there is a large build-up of chi in the CV and GV before going on to #4. Doing #3 will give you that energy.

Training should begin about 6-9 months after starting #3. It will replace #2 (shoshyuten kiko) for the most part, although you may find it useful to spend 5-10 minutes on #2 before doing #3 and #4. It will create a large flow of chi in your limbs, back, and front. This will strengthen your muscles, tendons, skin, and organs immensely. It is the necessary ingredient in Iron Shirt Chi Kung, which develops an invulnerability to full power hits anywhere on your body (below the head).

You assume a standing posture, legs out about a shoulder's width apart, arms relaxed at your sides. (Later you might try more interesting stances, like the front or the horse stance.) Use Buddhist breathing. Inhale into the dan-tien, imagining a flow of energy from your upper lip to your CV-1 point near the anus.

Breathe out, imagining a flow of chi from the CV-1 point to the outside of your legs and down to your K-1 point on the bottom of your feet. Breathe in, imagining the chi flowing from your K-1 point up the inside of your legs to the CV-1 point. Breathe out, moving the chi from the CV-1 point up the back to the shoulders, then to the inside of your arms (the yin meridians), and ending at your palms/finger-tips. Breathe in from your palms to the outside of your arms and to the base of the back of your neck/shoulders (on the spine). Breathe out and move the chi from the back of the neck to the upper lip by going over the top of the head. Finally, breathe in to move the chi from the top of the lip to the anus (down the front of the body) to complete the cycle. This requires 3 breaths, but Ryan says it is generally practiced with one or two breaths.

Two breath cycle:

Inhale 1: Start at the upper lip (GV-26). Move down the center of the body to the anus point (CV-1). Continue by moving the chi along the outside of the legs (both legs at a time) to the middle of the feet (K-1).

Exhale 1: Continue up the inside of the legs and back to the anus point (CV-1).

Inhale 2: Continue without stopping from the anus point to the tailbone. Take the chi up the spine to the shoulders. Continue outwards along the tops of the shoulders and towards the insides/undersides of the arms (the yin meridian side of the arms), finishing at the centers of your palms.

Exhale 2: From here, take the chi over your fingers and back along the outsides/topsides of your arms (the yang meridian side of the arms) to your shoulders. From here, take the chi back to the spine along the shoulders. Then finish by taking it directly up the center of your head, over the top of your head, and down the center of your face to your upper lip point (GV-26). This completes one cycle.

Inhale: Start at the upper lip (GV-26). Move down the center of the body to the anus point (CV-1). Continue by moving the chi along the outside of the legs (both legs at a time) to the middle of the feet (K-1). Continue up the inside of the legs and back to the anus point (CV-1).

Exhale: Continue without stopping from the anus point to the tailbone. Take the chi up the spine to the shoulders. Continue outwards along the tops of the shoulders and towards the insides/undersides of the arms (the yin meridian side of the arms), finishing at the centers of your palms. From here, take the chi over your fingers and back along the outsides/topsides of your arms (the yang meridian side of the arms) to your shoulders. From here, take the chi back to the spine along the shoulders. Then finish by taking it directly up the center of your head, over the top of your head, and down the center of your face to your upper lip point (GV-26). This completes one cycle.

One other note... On the inhales, all muscles in your body should be relaxed. But on the exhales, you want to lift the urogenital diaphragm (the anus) up into your body further. It's like trying to lift the rectum up. I don't mean shifting your position. I mean actually using your internal muscles to lift it up. Do that on the exhales, and what it will do is propel the chi up your spine. It's really quite amazing to feel the difference. If you're having trouble getting the chi over the top of your head (like I was having), this anal lifting will do the trick. When you inhale, however, drop the anus, letting it relax. Don't tighten your sphincter muscle on the outside of the rectum, because if you do, you may suffer from hemorrhoids later on. Don't strain anything, either! Also, when you exhale, along with pulling the anus up, what you want to try to do is to lift your genitalia up a bit closer to your body.

It is natural at this time to begin rooting exercises. Here, you experiment with the chi by extending it from the bottom of the feet (the K-1 point) into the floor. By doing so, you become attached to the ground, rooted. This is useful for generating strong close-in strikes and for grappling. You will become like a mound of dirt, immovable.

It is also here where you can learn to get a lot of power. Other folks tell me that the feet are the points of the body where the "ground chi" enters into your body. What you would do is bring your chi down your legs to your feet, and at your feet, the ground chi is sucked up and carried along your body's chi upwards into your body on the way back. Once you receive it, you can use a ki-ai to project it suddenly up the spine, through the shoulders, and out the arms. I think this is also called "short power" (presumably because it is a way to generate lots of power in a short distance).

Comments

Continue this training forever. Begin by doing #1 for about 3 weeks, just to get used to breathing and relaxing. Start with #2 for 5 minutes, then #3 for 10-15 minutes, then #2 for 10-20 minutes (decreasing time as you get better), and finally #1 for about 1-3 minutes to warm down. After about 6-9 months of doing this, you work on #4. You'd do #2 for 5 minutes, then #3 for 10-15 minutes, then #2 for maybe a minute or two, then #4 for 10-20 minutes, and finally #1 for about 1-3 minutes to warm down. Total time is about 30-40 minutes per day, although you can do it multiple times per day. Do not slack off. You will see results if you stick with it, but your body will not like it if you go off the exercises (it will become more fragile than it was before you started it for a short time -- personal observation, your experiences may vary).

I practiced Wu style Tai Chi Chuan for a little while, just learning my first form. When I applied this knowledge to my tcc form, I discovered a whole new way to look at it. Suddenly, it was clear that my tcc form was perfectly suited for this type of chi kung work, too! Things to look for in a form that are dead giveaways that something "internal" is going on here:

#1. Your pelvis is tilted forward, or there is a subtle rocking motion of the pelvis during the form. When the pelvis is tilted forward, it straightens out the lower back. This allows the chi to flow better up the spine. When the pelvis is tilted back (your butt sticks out more here, and there is a slight curvature of the back), it means that the chi is moving down the front of your your body, not the back, and down to your feet. So you'll often see a very subtle "rocking" motion of the pelvis in these forms, usually hidden while stepping from one position to the next. ... So the pelvis rotates back and the chi flows to the legs, then the pelvis rotates forward, and the chi flows up the spine.

#2. Your chin is tucked, or there is a rocking motion of your chin during the form. This is basically the same idea as #1. When your chin is tucked, it means that your spine is straightened and pulled tighter, which allows chi to travel easier over your neck and head. When your chin is not tucked, it means that it will be easier for the chi to flow from your upper lip (GV-26) and down the tongue to the front of your body. Sometimes you'll see the chin sort of rock back and forth (very subtle), usually hidden in the stepping motion.

#3. Short stances. Long stances make it tough to concentrate on chi work, but it is possible. Short stances make it much easier.

... And there are actually lots more. For example, the stance plays a large role in determining what's going on in your form in terms of chi. You will discover this for yourself as you continue studying.

Do you need to use a form to practice this chi kung? No. The real reason why you want to practice a form while doing this is to get your body used to doing typical martial arts techniques while cycling the chi. If you can do it, it will make your techniques much stronger and more efficient. At first, you might be just concentrating hard on leading the chi, but later on, you find that leading the chi becomes second nature, and you naturally begin to make your techniques more powerful. So you might first try doing this stuff without moving, but later on, you might try doing it while doing a kata like Sanchin.

After a year (more or less), you will be a lot healthier than you were ever before. Not only that, you should have built up an immunity to hits. I did just #2 for a period of 1 year, and for that year, I found that I could not get sick (no colds/flus/fevers/etc.). People also say that this sort of chi kung helps you live longer, into your 90's without showing the problems most older age folks do. [Although I hear Shi Soei Chi Kung / Senzui Kiko is the exercise that one would use to EXTEND one's life, not just improve the quality of life like Yi Gin Chi Kung / Ekkin Kiko does.]

There are more chi kung exercises to be done. This represents one of the most basic and important ones. There is another very important exercise called Shi Soei chi kung (Senzui Kiko). It is the bone marrow/brain washing chi kung, which attempts to wash the poisons from the bone marrow. This increases and rejuvenates red blood cells, so that you can retard the effects of old age. You see, in theory, once the blood cells start to lose their efficiency in carrying away poisons and delivering fresh nutrients and Oxygen to your tissues, your body starts to wither away and will eventually die, so this exercise aims at the root of the problem, (the bone marrow). When you age, your blood cells naturally become less efficient and deformed, so this exercise would attempt to rejuvenate red blood cells. In addition, it thrusts energy up the spine and into the brain. Once in the brain, you use it to gain enlightenment or Buddhahood. By making the marrow strong, it makes your bones very strong, like lead rods.

On flexibility...

One of the benefits of doing this exercise is increased flexibility. When I first read this in Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's book, I didn't quite understand it and just tucked it away in my mental notepad. Then one day, I set out to do the microcosmic orbit while standing. I found it difficult getting the chi to raise up my spine. So, instinctively, I arched my back in both directions and warmed my muscles and tendons up with a light aerobic workout. (Many chi-kung people view warmth as a sign that chi is being brought to the muscles...) After doing this, I returned to my chi-kung and found it much easier this time. That's when I put two and two together. I realized that flexibility and being able to circulate chi are two concepts which are intimately related to each other. If you are "tight" and "cold", you will find that leading chi is going to be a real difficult thing to do. When you relax and stretch out your muscles and tendons, as well as "warming up" first, you will find that chi-kung practice becomes easier. Conversely, I realized that, by doing more and more chi-kung, it will make your muscles and tendons more flexible, since it will "heat up" the muscles and tendons. This is perhaps why many chi-kung teachers suggest to avoid muscle-building exercises during your chi-kung training, since building muscles often stiffens up muscles and tendons. Therefore, if you must work your muscles, always make sure to stretch them out afterwards. This also suggests a possible explanation of what's going on in Indian Yoga systems, whereby the body is undergoing amazing feats of flexibility and pain: A more flexible body enables chi, (known as "prana" in Indian Yoga), to flow more smoothly. And the control of pain, as taught in Yoga, is used to teach the concentration skills needed to be able to lead chi (prana) anywhere around the body.

Interestingly, Ryan Parker explained an exercise whereby he would hyperextend the joints in his arms and shoulders while trying to extend ki (chi) through the arm. The hyperextension makes the joints and tendons very flexible, and this allows for the chi to flow more smoothly. Here's what you do: Just put your palm out in front of you, visualizing that someone is pulling your arm out of your body. Your fingers will be pointed upwards, and your palm will be opened so that it is not facing you. Every joint in your arm and shoulder should feel stretched out. You should feel a kind of "dull" pain here. As you're doing it, guide the chi to your palm to try to make your palm feel warm. Keep the elbow bent just enough so that it doesn't lock. Ryan Parker says that this exercise, in time, will allow you to counter all types of joint locks done to your arms. If someone tries to apply a joint lock, extend your ki (chi) through the arm, and nobody will be able to hurt you. He was able to demonstrate this ability in many of his live demonstrations, where he allowed anyone to try to get a lock on him, and nobody has been able to lock him so far. He even demonstrated this in his televised UFC match, (which I didn't get a chance to see, but am told that a Judo practitioner tried to lock his arm for about a minute and couldn't). (Of course, it takes time to be able to develop this skill. According to Mr. Parker, about 6 months to a year to begin to see results.) This is a direct example where chi/ki is being used to make the muscles/tendons more flexible and strong, which is a goal of Yi Gin Chi Kung / Ekkin Kiko. I highly recommend doing this with your arms and legs prior to any chi-kung work. Experiment with this by extending your arms and legs in all sorts of positions: hi, low, palm curling, palm turned into a crane's beak fist, etc. You may also notice that many Tai Chi Chuan styles, particularly Yang style, have movements in them which elongate/hyperextend arms and legs, so maybe this is a key as to what is really going on in those martial arts.

On the importance of not ejaculating during sex prior to doing any Chi-Kung work...

This is a topic of debate amongst many martial artists. Some say that it is rubbish that ejaculating causes any problems whatsoever, while others say that refraining from ejaculation is necessary for any kind of chi-kung work. I am not knowledgeable enough to say either way right now. I tend to believe that ejaculation does, indeed, cause problems, and I'd like to explain some of the theory now.

In TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), they talk about the "Three Treasures", which are: Jing, Chi, and Shen. They say that if the body ever lacks one of these three energies/substances, then the body will die. For example, if there's no chi flowing through your meridians, then you're dead, (kind of like if your heart stops pumping blood, then you're dead). Understanding why ejaculation is "bad" for chi-kung begins with an understanding of what these three things are.

Jing is the rawest of the three forms of energies/substances. Supposedly, you were given a finite amount of jing from your parents' sperm and egg. At the time of your birth, you will begin to lose your jing by doing all the things you do in life. When you run out of jing, your body will decay and die. You lose jing everyday in many ways. One way you lose jing is by eating and breathing. Eating and breathing are the body's way of gaining "chi" (energy) that the body uses to nourish organs and protect the body from disease. Jing is used to convert the chi that you get from food and air into chi that your body can use. Picture a bubbling couldron situated in your dan-tien. The food and air goes into the cauldron, and the jing is used to fuel the fire which is under the cauldron. When the chi from the food has been converted into chi that the body can use, it moves on throughout the body. If the food you ate or the air you breathed was contaminated with poisons or harsh substances, you will be burning a lot more of your jing than if the food was more pure, and you'll be getting less usable chi after the process has completed. This fits in well with the Western way of viewing diet and breathing smog and smoke. If you treat your body better, it will live longer and will generally be healthier.

Your supply of jing is contained in your kidneys (the actual organ, not the meridian). Every time you eat something or breathe, jing is taken from the kidneys and used up. This would explain why people feel like their kidneys are hurting after drinking lots of alcohol, eating harsh foods, or when they are sick. At those periods of time, the jing is being drained from the kidneys to get rid of poisons in the body. [Doesn't that sound very similar to the Western view of the functions of the kidneys?] This may also describe why children with kidney problems rarely grow very tall and often die very young; it indicates a lack of jing needed to convert chi from food into chi the body can use to provide tissue growth.

One other thing that can tax your supply of jing is ejaculation. The actual act of sex can be very beneficial to the body in many ways, but only if ejaculation does not occur. Recall that you inherited your entire supply of jing from your parents' sperm and egg. Well, that means that your parents had to supply some of their jing to their sperm and egg that produced you. So they lost some of their own jing to create you. Whenever an egg or sperm is created, it requires some jing. For males, if you ejaculate, your testicles will sense that they have just lost some sperm, so it has to regenerate more sperm afterwards, and the process of regeneration requires some of your jing. For females, you lose jing every time you provide jing to the ovaries to produce an egg, which will occur at the time of your period (not during ovulation, which occurs roughly 2 weeks after a period); I have heard of some female chi-kung exercises which aim at stopping the menstruation process altogether, but I don't know if it is safe. I have also heard of Tantric sex practices which are supposed to allow a male to orgasm without losing any sperm, but I suspect that such practice may be "retrograde ejaculation", whereby one ejaculates into the bladder instead, and that may be just as bad as normal ejaculation.

Anyway, so what does all of this have to do with chi-kung? Well, you have to realize that, in order to do any sort of chi-kung, it requires that you must have stored a large amount of chi in your dan-tien. Your dan-tien acts like a battery, where chi is stored. You can fill the battery up or deplete it. In Step #3 of this document, you saw how you filled your dan-tien with chi. In Steps #2 and #4, you were using the chi from your dan-tien in the microcosmic and macrocosmic orbits. Now, the next thing you have to realize is that your primary source of energy that you use to fuel your dan-tien is air via your breathing. That's why chi-kung exercises are often called, "breathing exercises." You use your breathing to create the chi which you then store in your dan-tien. And this is where ejaculation comes into play: When you breathe, you need jing to convert the chi from air into chi your body can use, but if you have just ejaculated or menstruated, then your body is going to be "busy", trying to use jing to regenerate sperm and eggs. In this case, the regeneration process is using jing, so if you start your chi-kung work at this time, it will put a tremendous load on your kidneys, since your kidneys will be giving out jing to both the regeneration process and your chi-kung work. More than likely, you will find that you simply can't feel chi collecting in your dan-tien when you do your chi-kung after sex, because you aren't able to summon any jing, since your jing is "busy" trying to regenerate sperm/eggs. Therefore, if you have ejaculated after sex, or if you are having your period, it would be best to refrain from chi-kung exercise until after your body has recovered (1 day after ejaculation, 1 day after menstruation stops).

Also, it is not a good idea, according to most books I've read, to do any chi-kung work right after eating meals. When you eat, your jing is being used to convert the chi from your food into chi your body can use. The chi is being cooled in the solar plexus energy center at this point. If you start doing chi-kung, you'll be doing one of two things: 1) You'll be using your jing to convert your breath into chi that you store in your dan-tien, and this will put a load on your jing if your jing is already being used to convert your food into chi. Or 2) You'll be guiding your chi to various places on your body, and that may draw the chi away from your solar plexus energy center, where it is being used to "cool" the "hot chi" that your food is producing; so it could disrupt this process, resulting in inefficient digestion or indigestion. It's best just to wait a couple hours to do chi-kung after you eat, to avoid upsetting your digestive process. That's why it's probably best to do chi-kung when you first wake up in the morning, rather than eating breakfast first. I have also heard that you should wait a little while (15 minutes?) after doing chi-kung exercises to eat, so you can give your chi system a chance to settle itself.

I mentioned that there were 3 energies/substances: Jing, Chi, and Shen. I think I described what jing and chi do pretty well, but I neglected to define what Shen is. Shen is translated as, "Spirit." As jing is used to generate chi, similarly, chi is used to "nourish" the shen. Supposedly, all shen is located in the brain, at the position of the "inner eye / third eye", located above the bridge of the nose, just above the height of the eyebrows. In the Western world, we think it refers to the Pineal Gland. Pranayana and Kundalini Yoga attempt to "connect" the genitalia with the Third Eye in a coil of energy up the spine, which they claim will give them spiritual enlightenment / Buddhahood. Thus, you would lead the chi up the spine and thrust it into the center of the brain to "nourish" the shen in order to gain spiritual enlightenment. This exercise is also practiced in Shi Soei Chi Kung / Senzui Kiko.

Observation: Have you ever noticed that almost every religion in the world forbids its monks from having sex? I never quite understood why this is so until now. There are probably many other reasons why religions of the world forbid sex, but I think this is the first "concrete" (non-idealistic) reason I've encountered. If you have sex, you lose jing. If you lose jing, you're unable to produce and direct enough chi to nourish your shen through meditation (and "prayer" is just another word used to refer to meditation), and so you'll never attain spiritual enlightenment. I find that a lot of religious practices, (Eastern and Western alike), can be explained very easily when viewed in the light of Traditional Chinese medicine.

Another example: Fasting. Almost every religion in the world has emphasized fasting for spiritual enlightenment. In the context of TCM, fasting will sweep the poisons from the body. You see, only food and air can bring poisons to the body. If you don't eat, you will be giving your body a chance to get rid of the poisons that have been building up in the tissues. During this time, the jing is not being used to get rid of the waste products in your food, since there is no food. Instead, the body has a chance to use its energy to get rid of the long term poisons that have built up. It also leaves the jing free to create the chi which you can then thrust to your brain for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment. If the body isn't busy trying to get rid of poisons, then it is, supposedly, a lot easier to achieve this.

Enjoy, and good luck!

Annotated Bibliography

1. "Traditional Karatedo Okinawan Goju Ryu Vol. 2: Performances of the Kata", by Morio Higaonna, 1986. Published by Sugawara Martial Arts Institute, Inc. ISBN 0-87040-596-9. This book has the Miyagi Sanchin Kata demonstrated, but it unfortunately is the Goju Ryu version with closed fists and tension. You can learn the kata from this book, but just remember that the fists should be open hands (knife hands), and all strikes should be cupped-palm strikes. (The cupped- palm application is to cause heart failure when you strike someone with it.) He also shows, through drawings, some breathing work that Goju uses, which is basically the same as Ekkin Kiko, but done in reverse. The form of breathing he shows is a "yang" (hard) version of what I talked about, so doing it his way may make the body overly yang. If you read some of his comments, it's pretty clear that he knows his stuff about the internal aspects of the kata, but unfortunately, he doesn't elaborate much on any of it. He probably realized that he'd need to do a whole book on the subject if he really wanted to do the topic justice. I wasn't able to find a Matsumura Shorin Ryu Miyagi Sanchin Kata demonstration in any books, so this book will have to do.

2. "Muscle/Tendon Changing and Marrow/Brain Washing Chi Kung: The Secret of Youth," by Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming, 1989. YMAA Publication Center. ISBN 0-940871-06-8. This book is probably the second book you should get of Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's. The first book would be, "The Root of Chinese Chi Kung," since it goes over a lot of terminology that this book only skims over. But if you're already past his first book, this book is the next logical step. He goes over both the Yi Gin Chi Kung and the Shi Soei Chi Kung. I found this book to be a perfect complement to what I have written here. It goes deeper than I do, of course. But it does tend to be very confusing if you haven't already read my report. He tends to be very chatty about everything, and it's sometimes difficult trying to determine just what is important and what isn't. Also, he demonstrates two ways of doing the Yi Gin Chi Kung: The primary way, as he demonstrates it, is by having a young boy rub on your torso for an hour each day, which is probably not workable by the vast majority of people reading his book. The second method he briefly skims over is the method that I talked about here, and he doesn't explain the breathing steps as well as I do. But this book is perfect for answering a lot of questions about the effects of this practice, what to look for, terminology, etc. He even has a glossary of Chinese Terminology that might be useful.

3. "Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao: The Taoist Secret of Circulating Internal Power," by Mantak Chia, 1983. Aurora Press. ISBN ?? This book MUST be read. It goes over the microcosmic orbit very similarly to what I described. He talks about focusing on energy centers, instead of leading the chi smoothly around the conception and governing vessels, but there's really no difference. It is an easy read that could be read in less than a day, but provides a lot of answers to many of your questions. I read this book back in 1992 and was able to use it to heal myself from colds/flus and even prevent illness for over a year (which is very rare for me). I finally felt what chi feels like by doing his routine. One night, I made the mistake of doing the microcosmic orbit right before bed, and I was up for hours longer than I wanted to be up for. :-)

4. "Acupuncture: The Ancient Chinese Art of Healing and How It Works Scientifically," by Felix Mann, 1971. Random House, Inc. ISBN 0-394-71727-9. This is THE beginning to understanding acupuncture. It may not be specifically about chi-kung, but it does provide a good understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine from a layman's point of view. It goes over chi/ki, and how the meridians and vessels work. Combining this book with the others will give you a more complete understanding of what's going on.

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