What Do We Need to Do After We Get Qi?Now that our Dan Tian is moving and it drives the whole body to move, we have got Qi. Now we just need to give it some time to grow and develop.
Like any plant, animal or human, Qi is a living thing. It starts from “nothing”, is born as a baby, grows into adolescence and finally matures into adulthood. When we first have Qi it is weak and needs a lot of gentle care. We still need to hold the ball and let Qi grow. As Qi gets stronger and stronger, we will experience a period of very quick, wild, sometimes even fierce and violent subconscious and spontaneous body movements. Now is the time to explore the internal capabilities of your body and enjoy the ride. Afterwards, we will gradually calm it down making it gentle once again.
Now we have matured. We have finished the process of seeking motion in stillness and we are ready for the next step. I will leave the next step out for now because some of us are getting close but are not there yet and it would be a bad time to teach tempting ideas to them. It will be taught to you one on one as you become ready. The Qi training is very important although it is not the ultimate goal. It is the body conditioning that brings our body up to the Tai Chi state. Qi is not the ultimate goal of Tai Chi training and Qi can’t be used to hit people as many have claimed. Getting Qi is only an important milestone of our Tai Chi training. Actually it means now the real Tai Chi training is possible.
How is our body different now from before? Our body is different in many ways but simply we can put it this way-
We have now achieved a built-in state of “Peng Jin”. We now have the ability to ward off incoming forces of any kind not by reacting to them but naturally and instinctively moving with them like a “willow in the wind”. |
