A lot of the more intense breathing practices drive energy upwards into the head (whatever you want to call "energy" the feeling can be one of congestion/headaches/stimulation, etc). It's important to draw it back down to the belly or Earth to reduce this.
Put the tongue on the roof of the mouth and move your awareness from your head down through your tongue and on down the front centre line about an inch inside the body. Someone jacked up on some of these breathing practices might also have over-stimulated their adrenals, so it's also important to concentrate on relaxing. Once you can go right down the front line, loop back under the trunk of your body and go up the spine. Just keep moving your awareness around this loop while relaxing, making sure to finish at the belly.
Failing that, try walking barefoot while allowing yourself to relax more and more. It should have a similar effect.
I've been doing taiji for a couple of years -- interestingly, they also talk about a cycle of qi that passes down the front of the body, around the perineum, up the back, and over the head down through the tongue on the roof of the mouth. This is supposed to be going on during standing meditation. I haven't experienced it yet, but it's early days for me.
Yeah it's the same thing. Tai Chi and the Microcosmic Orbit are both Taoist practices. In fact they go together like a hand and a glove - you only see the glove and that's all a lot of Westerners learn, but it's all about the hand.
You might be interested in "Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao" by Mantak Chia [1] (there's also "Healing Light of the Tao" but it goes on a bit and TBH it isn't very easy to learn from a book).
Tai Chi - like yoga asanas actually - can be done as purely physical movements, or you can be more mindful and trace your awareness through your body along these pathways to tap into the energetic/qi level. It goes for any exercise really - I do it in the gym on the cross-trainers. I just relax more and more and feel my hip bones pumping tingles up from my feet to my head and back down. I get off feeling very different compared to just doing it as a purely physical exercise.
It'd probably only take you a couple of days practice to feel something moving in the Microcosmic Orbit - definitely not years of practice.
Thanks for that! I thought you were coming at this from an Indian/Yogic tradition, and I guess the confluence is less surprising if it all comes from Daoism.
My teacher is very much about awareness and the way it moves through the body; the interplay of will, qi, and strength. I'm slow mostly because I started out with some pretty gruesome hip immobility issues, and have treated taiji like physical therapy for the past two years. I'm only just coming out of the gross mechanical problems now, and starting to become more aware of the subtler issues at play.
Put the tongue on the roof of the mouth and move your awareness from your head down through your tongue and on down the front centre line about an inch inside the body. Someone jacked up on some of these breathing practices might also have over-stimulated their adrenals, so it's also important to concentrate on relaxing. Once you can go right down the front line, loop back under the trunk of your body and go up the spine. Just keep moving your awareness around this loop while relaxing, making sure to finish at the belly.
Failing that, try walking barefoot while allowing yourself to relax more and more. It should have a similar effect.