Standing Qi Gong

Standing like a tree meditation or "Zhan Zhuang" is a powerful meditative practice that is imperative to the Shaolin Kungfu discipline and Traditional Chinese Medicine in general. It is used for improving posture and balance, creating a tranquil mind, developing a stronger and more flexible body, and deeply understand one's self both internally and externally. There are many variations to explore, so this is a simple introduction to the process.

Transcript

Hello,

Everyday warriors.

Welcome to a Qigong meditation session from Yin Yang Method.

I'm Joel and today I'm going to be leading you on a standing Qigong meditation called Zhan Zhuang,

Which roughly translates to either standing like a tree or standing like a pole.

As suggested,

This is a standing meditation.

It was introduced by Shaolin warriors,

But it has been adopted by many Qigong practitioners for its power,

Its impressive healing and self-diagnosis capabilities,

Its self-awareness creation.

It even has been shown to have benefits in flexibility due to increased awareness of body tension and understanding the mind-muscle connection.

You're going to need to find a place to stand where you have a little bit of room.

Roughly a metre by a metre should be enough.

It's nice to face a direction that is uplifting and powerful,

Like out a window,

Pointing at a tree,

Maybe by the side of a lake or a river,

But anywhere really is fine.

Place your feet on the ground about hip-width to shoulder-width apart,

Whichever feels most comfortable,

And make a solid connection with the feet to the ground.

You want to have weight evenly distributed on the feet,

So that's some weight into the heels.

You want weight into both the right and left of the pad of the foot,

The ball of the foot at the front,

And then very gently press the toes into the ground,

Which should create a small arch in the foot.

The knees should be soft,

The hips should be equally soft at a similar bend,

As if you're ever so slightly sitting down.

Relax the shoulders,

Relax the head,

Let the weight sink into the floor.

Place your hands on your lower dentian,

The lowest part of your abdomen that you can get your hands,

And typically we would have men placing the right hand on top of the left hand on the lower abdomen,

And women placing the left hand on top of the right.

However,

You're welcome to go with whichever feels more comfortable at this current moment.

With your hands on the lower dentian,

You're going to breathe in through the nose as you come down into whatever squat position you can reach comfortably.

You don't need to change the feet,

And then breathing out,

Come back up to standing,

But not straightening,

Locking the knees,

Just keeping a soft bend.

And we'll repeat this two more times,

Just going down as low as you can,

Not forcing anything,

Just getting some movement into the legs,

Some blood flow into the legs,

The knees,

The hips.

So breathe in,

Coming down into your deepest squat position that's comfortable,

And breathing out,

Coming back up with control,

Feeling that push through the feet.

Breathing in,

Coming down into that squat position,

Really paying attention to the body,

And breathing out as you come back up.

Regaining a comfortable position standing.

Now we're going to lift the hands out in front as if we're holding a bowl.

So imagine your thumb and your index finger are circling around the rim of a hot bowl of soup or rice,

But you will keep a bend in your elbows so that you are creating a circular shape from your chest around your arms to the bowl,

And back around the other arm.

This bowl should be held just below shoulder height,

In the middle of the chest.

And just try to get comfortable here.

Don't worry too much about the exact distance,

As long as there's a bend in the elbows,

And you're holding that bowl out in front of you at roughly the same height as your collarbone,

You've definitely found a satisfactory position.

I want you to take your tongue and touch the tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth,

And pay attention to how that feels.

This will close off the circuit so that now the chi is able to flow freely through the body,

Circulating like pulsing electricity.

If you've had some practice with this before,

You can aim to get more of your tongue to the roof of the mouth,

Trying to flatten your tongue up on the roof of the mouth,

As long as you're not creating any tension in the jaw,

You're not gritting the teeth.

Your teeth can be touching lightly,

The mouth should be closed,

And we're just breathing calmly,

Strongly,

Through the nose.

Before we get into it,

Make sure that you wriggle or jiggle out any little movements that you feel you need to get out of your system.

You can do some very gentle rotations of the shoulders,

You can twist the hips a little bit,

Shift the weight from side to side on each foot ever so slightly,

And now really sink into this posture with the intention to hold it still and steady for the remainder of the meditation.

Focusing on your hands,

As you breathe in,

Gently separate the hands as if you're lightly pulling apart,

And as you breathe in,

Allow the hands to gently push back together,

But not touching,

Coming back just as close as you were when you were holding the bowl.

Breathing in,

Separating the hands slightly,

And breathing out,

Hands coming back together.

Just repeat this,

Timing your hands perfectly with your slow,

Controlled breath.

Not allowing the arms to go limp,

But really softening in the shoulders,

Releasing any tension all the way from the neck down to the wrists.

Focus on the chi flowing through the hands,

Bridging the gap between the fingers and the palms,

Completing that circuit around the arms.

Breathing in,

Pulling the hands apart,

Breathing out,

Hands coming back together,

Like you're slowly charging up some energy between the hands.

Pay attention to your feet,

See if you're drawing energy up through the floor,

Through the legs,

Up into the body,

And sending it around the arms.

Pay attention to the crown of your head,

The very top of the head,

Where all of your chi meridians meet and energy can be drawn down from the universe into the body and can be allowed to gate excess chi to flow out through,

Creating a powerful sensation of lightness in the head.

If your eyes have been closed for this meditation,

Try ever so slightly opening them just to allow a little bit of light to creep in and add energy to the session.

If your eyes have been open so far,

Try relaxing the eyelids so that they're 90% closed and your focus is concentrated on looking at the energy being created between the hands and shutting off most of the other potential distractions and still allowing some light,

Some colour and some movement to enter.

All the while breathing in as you open up the hands,

Breathing out as the hands come back together.

If you start to feel a strong sensation between the hands,

Like electricity or a magnetic field,

You can stop moving the hands open and closed and really focus on trying to hold that sensation in your hands while you continue to breathe at that same controlled cadence.

If you find that you lose the sensation,

Just go back to softly opening and closing the hands in unison with your breathing and be curious to see if it comes back.

We're not chasing any particular sensations,

Simply observing what arises,

Exploring ourself,

Looking out for any sensations such as discomfort,

Pain,

Tension,

Irritation and simply looking at them curiously without judgement.

The same can be said for any powerful sensations we feel,

Electricity,

Warmth,

Magnetism.

Look at them with curiosity but don't attach any particular emotion to them,

Just let them be.

Now when you practice this standing meditation,

You don't need to do it guided,

You can simply follow these steps and then you'll be welcome to stand for as long as you can manage.

But for today I'd like to teach you the proper and traditional closing.

There is potential that if you found a lot of energy in the body and that you simply stop,

This sudden shortage can create some discomfort or generate some unwanted chi flow.

This is why we always finish in the same manner.

Keeping your arms just around shoulder height,

We're going to turn the palms down to face the ground and bring them close to our collarbone.

As we breathe in,

We're going to come down in a gentle squat,

Pulling our elbows down and towards each other so we come down into a squatted prayer.

And as we breathe out,

Allow the elbows to flare back up so they're at shoulder height again and the palms are facing down as we reach the top of our standing position,

Keeping the knees soft.

Repeat this two more times.

Breathe in,

Elbows coming in,

Squatting down as we come into a prayer hands and breathing out,

Allowing the elbows to come back out to the side,

Soft in the shoulders,

Not fully straightening the legs.

And one more time,

Breathe in,

Coming down,

Elbows pulling in together,

Breathe out,

Coming back up with the elbows.

And now return the hands onto the lower dention,

The lower abdomen in the same arrangement that you chose before,

Either right hand on left,

Typical of males,

Or left hand on right,

Typical of females.

From here,

Take a deep breath in as you open out the hands wide to the side,

Drawing a big circle with the arms so that the palms are coming to meet over the top of your head.

Then turn the palms towards the ground and as you breathe out,

Allow the palms to drop straight down through the line of your body,

Like you're pushing down from the sky,

Through your head,

Down the esophagus,

Down through the organs into the lower dention.

And repeat,

Breathing in as you open up the arms,

Big circles towards the sky,

Capturing all of the wonders of the universe and then breathing out,

Drawing it in,

In down into your body,

Pushing it down into the lower dention.

And one more time,

Drawing all of that energy,

Hands light and soft all the way up to the top above the head,

And then pushing that energy deep down into the body,

Hands gently coming back to rest on lower dention.

And just pause there,

Feeling the warmth from the belly,

Feeling the energy from the lower dention radiating into your hands.

Gently rub your belly in a clockwise action.

Now softly with gentle fists of the hands,

Tap your abdomen all around your belly.

You can be firm,

But we don't want to tense the abs,

Keep them relaxed.

So just tapping the belly as hard as you can manage without winding yourself or feeling discomfort.

Now take your fists round to your lower back and rub hard into the lower back where your kidneys are,

Stimulating your kidneys as much as possible.

Open into palms and rub your face as vigorously as you can manage without causing any harm or discomfort.

You can really rub all over the face,

Over the head,

The back of the neck.

Now with your arms at your side,

Shake out your arms,

Shake out your hands,

Gently shaking all through the top of the body into the hands and the fingers and then release the feet from the ground,

Allow them to peel off the floor and shake out your feet and your legs from your hips to your toes.

You can now shake off the whole body,

Anything that feels like it needs a little bit of movement to finish and complete.

Well done on managing a powerful Qigong meditation.

The longer you can manage to stay in that standing position,

The greater the power you will achieve from it,

The more in tune you will become with yourself,

With your breath and with your mind.

Thank you once again for joining me.

I look forward to another Qigong session with you in the future.

Reviews

having read about this in Shi Heng Li’s book 📖 appreciated the guided meditation. I felt calm and alive afterwards. Thank you

This was great. A little challenging g to hold the arms in position but I hope to build up to the full time. Thank you!

Many thanks for your wonderful guidance 🙏

Great instructions. My shoulders chest and back are still too weak to hold my arms out at the advised placement so I modified to hold them out from my waist and will work my way up to the correct hold over time. Never the less I felt a strong circulation of Qi and was able to follow along. I’m excited to see improvements in my ability over time.