Right before the lockdowns first began I had been led to return to practicing qigong.
Coming up, outside of dancing in clubs most nights of the week and tackling boys for sport the only physical activity or sport that ever really moved me was Qi Gong / Tai Chi (+ shoot fighting and fencing, which is fighting still, so ‘nother category). Yoga & swimming ” works ” for my body, but qi gong has always keyed into my body in a different way.
I was even using it without knowing it WAS technically it- I had a demented manager that I’d worked with before in Miami who used to gleefully introduce me to new staff by basically making me do a Tai chi ball with my hands just to order them to slide their hands into it just so he could howl with laughter at their shocked expression , all “do you feel that?!” He knew about it because a few years earlier he’d been one of the aforementioned platonically tackled guys that I was notorious for shoving just enough off balance Before actually making contact enough times to get flagged & “collectively inspected.”
When the lockdowns happened I was already deepdiving TCM and acupressure aspects for Grievechronic research…and as the call to qi gong continued I ended up spiraling all that together and blogging as I went. I’d figured that I could join in on the dark meditation much of the world was being forced to sing in key with or i could add my vibes to the countering of all that the people I was online synced to were sending up.
So I broadcast out what I was doing that stabilized and strengthened the immune system, your lungs and things like that. Not at all the teacher- I just brought freaking out friends, acquaintances, enemies and spies who were looking at my positively beaming, chill optimistic and oddly optimized ass to the qigong brooks I was already hanging out at. They could do it With me or not, but they were seeing it work for me surrounded by all the things that weren’t working for them at all & could choose accordingly. My two main shared sifus were Shi HENG Yi of shaolin temple Europe & Mimi Kuo Deemer, a force unto herself.
Alot of that information (including theirs) went out across my blogs & eventually became the Baseline for the GB prescription section of articles in the MAG.Globalboho.
Since then I have moved into learning different forms and have had a great time. It’s the most casually consistent I have ever been with any physical modality besides dancing & walking meditation whathaveyous, and I still feel the same kind of joy that I felt when I first found it a lifetime ago when I do it today .
Actually , it’s not the same joy. It’s higher. & deeper.
Which leads us to today…
The spring & early summer of 2023 was focused on strengthening with cables (found a traveling woss replacement after all these years 🎉)alongside low key automating my qigong practice but there has been deliberation all summer regarding where to go next with all of this.
Last week I knew that I needed to make a call.
Which form is it going to be?
I went the cosmic advice route.
I got back that what it is that I feel I need to continue better with the form that tickles me the most looks like the form I was considering at first glance but the edging fwd is ACTUALLY attainable most elegantly by going deeper into what has become my Foundation.
…The Glyph of said Angels does have a deep dance with edgy elegance movement wise, so the kinesthetic advice was heeded~
…which is deepen my understanding of Ba Duan Jin.
I knew it was the right call soon as I heard it in my head & heart ~so I jumped in a few days ago to test the protocol. I already have the tools & the roots.
Ba Duan jin is pleasantly automatic these days because it’s been the main throughline since I first began using videos like the Shaolin Temple Europe one below.
…I sheepishly prided myself on not needing a video anymore, you know? It’s in my fibers. I can do it in my sleep now. Said sans any cockiness- it is new for me to be able to say such a thing about a physical modality. & I love it. I own the work my body did across three years consistently to be able to say that sans any diminishing of my writerhead or arthead.
The logic flies in the face of those two heads on the surface. Any real arthead or writerhead knows that mastery with a medium demands backing off from it for a while to let it percolate, seep in, chemically react to the other modalities you’ve been huffing along the way.
Effective arthead & writerhead can been like making moonshine, hearthin’ yer own hooch. “Leave the story alone before you fuck it up. . .Walk away! ” an Elder arthead bellows, if you’re lucky to have access to one who gives a fuck about you As an arthead in your own right…& soon as we see the “PROOF” (pun intended) of that pudding, there’s no going back. Pick up a pencil to draw when you’ve been sincerely painting or sculpting for ages instead & watch yer hands turn your eyeballs out with their surprising efficacy.
It’s seemingly a different head than martial arts head. Every dude I’ve actually “dated” was belted up into the nosebleeds of all that…and though I’ve always loved the Aesthetics and prowess of all of that the structure upon which their achievements were built out from in order To be noted I was always very ambivalent about.
…but on closer inspection, I see two things now:
- My happily flowing down the streams of qi gong that have rubbed my belly at will IS 100% me honoring how I learn;
- This “deepening” would only make sense to one wired as I am on the other side Of that happily engaged play.
…So basically I am 5? Kinda😬 … but most of my monkboys(I have monkboys😝) started their journeys at 3.
Now we’re getting to know it differently, doing the silk brocades in a way that is new for me. & there is a specificity to the goal that imbues the practice in a way it wouldn’t have got to for me down traditional paths. & is wholly different from where I started & why.
It’s actually pretty cool to see my ship pick this route.
The circle isn’t closing, the spiral is now rising.”
The funniest thing to me is that soon as I “accepted direction” a few other things I didn’t even see as tied To this call sorted themselves. Hilariously cheeky things that are all about honoring my heart and what moves it & me.
…Some other happily fashist* things I’d been squinting to clearly see that have shifted with all this years newness… just campily popped into pristine view.
It lines up when you align within & without.
Kuo Deemer echoed this sentiment in her Radiance qi gong sessions.
If you are curious? Join in⬇️. Try it out.
Move through it as you are called to…but loosen up~
Treat it like a cosmic classroom you’re choosing to enter this season & it won’t matter when you arrive, others called will be there in spirit too when you do.
if you’re 100% new to Ba Duan Jin and want in… check out this dude. He’s the 5 minute gateway drug guy, still. 3 years running.
If you’ve done it & feel like 50% fluent-esque, try this one as your returning gateway:
Kuo Deemer talks what you’re doing into your bones as you go. Her mastery can go toe to toe with the monkboys below but yet there’s something soothing to your fascia as you move forward with her.
& by the way, bringing correct breath into it … when you’ve done the work to sustain it… changes the entire rubric if you’re western chested lol. & just breathing normally whilst doing it is already wild, already a cool ride.
But one of the best things Shi Heng Yi said to us who were pestering him online to keep going because it was working was to “get the movements down first. Come back to the breath.” Because he was talking to alot of westerners, knowing we’d be in our heads freaking out our breathing wasn’t matching theirs.
*fashist= IYKYK 😝