One thing that makes Qigong different from any other kind of meditation I’ve ever done, is the active component.

Qigong is often taught in conjunction with Tai Chi because Tai Chi is also active meditation.  The Qigong active meditation exercises are very similar to Tai Chi.  They are slow and focus on flow and balance through breathing.  Sometimes, you begin to feel as though your breath is causing the movements.

The proper stances, balance, and synchronization of your muscles and breath generate an amazing amount of power.

And an amazing amount of heat and sweat.

I’m not kidding.  The amount of body heat I sometimes generate makes me think of the popular stories of spontaneous combustion told to me by those weird kids who carried around magazines dealing with cryptozoology and comic books about ghost ships from WWII haunting the Bermuda Triangle.  (OK, I admit it, the only reason I didn’t have those materials myself is because my mom would have burned them).

I’m not a sweater.  When I got to the gym on non-running days and hit the elliptical, I usually do a calorie burn of between 800 and 1100 calories in a 60 minute work-out and five-minute cool-down.  I don’t usually break a noticeable sweat until about 40 minutes into the workout.

Twenty minutes of focused Qigong, and I’m often getting running trickles of sweat.  It’s disgusting.

On days when my focus is impaired for some reason, I generate little to no heat, and no sweat to speak of.  This is still most days for me, probably six out of ten.  Don’t get me wrong, there is often SOMETHING happening, but not enough to write home about, as they say. 

As I understand it (I may be mistaken) the mystical purpose of these exercises is to “open your energy channels” and remove “energy blockages” from your body.  You are supposed to “feel the energy” when you have been doing the exercises for a while.  I have, indeed, felt an electrical tingle running up the sides of my fingers, through my hands and arms.  This is not the same as the “Pins and needles” sensation you get from having your arms “go to sleep”.  I’ve also felt the “tingling” from hyperventilating. This is nothing like that, either.  It is different, weird, and a little unsettling, but cool as hell.  I have been given reason to believe that eventually this effect will happen through all the “energy channels” of the body.  Presumably, I will then disappear in a flash of white light and leave behind only a faint whiff of ozone, because I can’t imagine the heat that will generate.

Days where I have had an effective active meditation are almost always characterized by a more relaxed attitude, loose muscles, easy stretches, increased appetite, and effortless workouts.  I’ve had a couple of days, though, where the opposite happened:  I was wiped out, cranky, had unexplained stiffness and pain, nothing tasted right, and I just wanted to lay down in a dark room.  Whatever the results, they are quite dramatic.

My impression is that the concentration and repetitive movements have a self-hypnotic effect that can make you very susceptible to suggestion.  Therefore, it would be rather important that the concentration be focused on how the joints are warming and loosening, how the pain is fading and how relaxed and happy you are.  Intrusion of negative thoughts, or the inadvertent focus on an ache or pain or unpleasant memory might account for any back-fires.  Indeed, the beginning of the active part of the meditation is a series of positive affirmations to get you in the correct state of mind.

Right now, the active component is the biggest barrier I have to practicing every day.  I still miss about five days out of the month.  I’m not sure which is more daunting, the idea of spending half-an-hour to forty minutes doing something that has little or no results, or the incredibly powerful results I sometimes get.  Some days I just can’t face the thought of either one first thing in the morning.  Some days I just want my coffee and my e-mail.

Today happens to be one of those days.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the “Sitting meditations”.  That involves some pretty freaky stuff, so you don’t want to miss it.