What is qi / ki?

I've just finished reading this book: "The Spark In The Machine" by Dr Daniel Keown. Its a fantastic book about the connections between the science of Acupuncture and the mysteries of Western medicine. Totally recommended!

As you might imagine, in the book he talks a great deal about qi (chi, or in Japanese, ki), and I'd like to tell you something of what he says.

It seems to me the concept of qi has always been problematic in the Western world because qi actually represents a number of different concepts in Western understanding. It's been variously translated as "energy", "vitality", or "life force" as they are the closest words or phases we have to encapsulate all that qi is. I think "energy" is the closest word, so let's have a look at what kinds of energy can be included in the concept of qi.

Electrical energy

I've written about bioelectricity before. Firstly we have the nerves. All the cells in the body naturally generate a slight imbalance between negatively charged potassium ions on the inside and the positively charged sodium ions on the outside. Neurons have a much larger imbalance than others, and when the body needs to send a message from one place to another, it uses neurons to create a cascade of electrical signals to carry these electrical pulses of information. These signals are not like current in a wire because the information sent is in the form of a pulse of polarity changes called an action potential. So we have the electrical pulses of energy that travel down these pathways of connected neurons that we call nerves.

Fascia is connective tissue in the body – it's like the plastic wrapping around everything, defining the edges. Muscle fibres are encased in fascia, and the whole muscle itself is again wrapped in fascia – together they're called myofascia. At the end of the muscles, the muscle fibres peter out leaving just the fascia, which comes together to form the tendon. Ligaments are also strong cords of fascia. The organs are wrapped in a layer of fascia, and there is fascia connecting the skin and the flesh underneath. Arteries and veins are walled by fascia, it forms the lens of your eye, and bones could also be seen as crystallised fascia. Amazing!

The collagen triple helix structure

Fascia is made of collagen, which is formed of a triple helix of protein molecules. These helices spontaneously wrap around each other to form a "microfibril" and these microfibrils are laid down by the body along lines of physical (mechanical) stress. Per weight it is as strong as steel! The collagen proteins form a semi-crystalline structure, meaning it conducts electricity. Actually, it not only conducts electricity but it can generate electricity through the piezoelectric effect – the ability to generate electrical currents through deformation and pressure.

So that means that any time fascia (which, remember, is located everywhere in the body) is stretched or moved, it will generate tiny electrical charges. This is nothing to do with our nervous system, but to do with movement and mechanical stress. There is speculation that collagen will conduct electricity much better down its length than across it, meaning the microstructure may have far more order and importance than we realised (for more info read "Anatomy Trains" by Tom Myers). Woven into the fabric of our body is an electrically conducting and generating lattice - amazing!

The contact surfaces between different fascial planes (for example, the fascial wrapping around a muscle and the fascial wrapping around the organ it's next to) offer routes of "least resistance" for the transmission of these electrical currents. These routes are thought to form the basis for the Chinese energy channels.

In the book, Daniel Keown calls all this electrical information "ElecQicity" – the electrical component of qi.

Chemical energy

We take in oxygen through our breathing, and that gets attached to haemoglobin in the lungs and transported around the body in the blood. We also take in food which gets broken down in our gut into a number of chemicals including glucose. Cell respiration is a series of reactions in which glucose is oxidised to form carbon dioxide. The energy released in this reaction is used to make ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and when ATP is broken down in the cell, the energy released is used for processes such as DNA replication and muscle contraction.

The blood also carries hormones, which are body-wide chemical signallers. This information is also a form of qi energy.

In the Chinese system, the Kidneys are associated with the psycho-emotional state of fear. Attached to the kidneys are the adrenal glands which produce adrenaline and cortisol (amongst a few other things). When we sense danger, the adrenals kick in and the resulting hormonal release signals the heart rate and blood pressure to increase, the air passages of the lungs to expand, dilate the pupils, etc. The result is we feel scared or fearful.

In the Chinese system the Liver is associated with anger (i.e. feeling "livid"). The liver is primary organ for breaking down histamine, and histamine is the hormone of irritation. Of its many functions, one is to make the body irritable to infections, and we all know its effects when we have an allergic reaction. If the liver isn't working properly, we get a build up of histamine, and since frustration is the precursor to anger, we can see how the liver and anger are connected.

The Chinese system sees the Spleen as being associated with worry and with dwelling on things and ruminating. One of the hormones that is widely seen as being responsible for maintaining mood balance is serotonin (the so-called "feel good" hormone), and there's a link between a lack of serotonin and depression. And of course, dwelling or ruminating on thoughts is part of how depression works. In the body, 90% of the serotonin floating around is found in the gut (with the rest of it being in the brain). Of the serotonin found in the blood, 99% of it is in the platelets (involved in making blood clots), and one of the main functions of the spleen is to store (and destroy old) platelets. So if the spleen isn't functioning well then our serotonin levels are adversely affected and we may end up ruminating on things and feeling worried or anxious.

"The spleen and pancreas are so closely linked that they could be considered one organ" so Daniel Keown says (p188). There's strong evidence that these two organs share a common evolutionary origin, blood supply, and fascial connections. He goes so far as to suggest we rename the two together the Spancreas! The pancreas has two functions – one to provide enzymes for digestion, and the other to produce the hormone insulin to regulate the metabolism of carbohydrates (sugars), fats and proteins. One of the most important hormones for regulating the release of insulin is... seratonin!

Mental energy Intention/will

What is intention and action if not a coordinated direction of energy towards achieving a particular result? I would hazard a guess that human intention has at some level shaped everything you can see around you now – it's a very powerful form of qi.

Interestingly, the kidneys are also associated with will-power in the Chinese system. Most dopamine in the body is made (and found) in the adrenal glands, and we know that dopamine is very associated with risk-taking, reward, will and drive.

When we set our mind to it, we can coordinate all our various resources and direct them to great effect. Researcher Dan Siegel defines the mind as: "an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information." But we have to remember the mind isn't the brain. In the Chinese system the brain plays a minor role in the whole system, being described in some sources as a "special form of bone marrow"! Actually, the point where the brain ends and the body begins is not easily definable. The brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves are like one, but these peripheral nerves also blend with the organs. And whilst the nerves tell the organs what to do, the organs produce hormones that equally affect the nerves.
 
The mind is truly "an embodied and relational process" – it's in the body and it's all about relationships and connections. 

Organisational energy

The last form of qi I wanted to discuss I'm going to call organisational qi. It's the energy arising from evolution – how the body organises itself to form and grow as an embryo to baby; and how the body later organises repairs and fights of diseases.

Keown talks about this at length in the "Spark In The Machine" book. Some parts of the body are more complex than others, so you could say concentrations of organisational qi exist in different places. For example in the face there are many contours, sensitive muscles, and the eyes. The fingers and toes too represent transition points. It's no coincidence that all these areas are connected with the beginning or ends of the energy channels. When we injure ourselves, then a concentration of qi forms around the injury in the form of white blood cells and other repair cells.

One of Keown's definitions of qi is "intelligent metabolism" – an organised and directed movement of many forms of energy throughout the body.

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I am a member of the Zenways sangha led by Zen master Daizan Skinner Roshi, and I teach meditation, mindfulness and yoga at the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell, London. See my website for further details.

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Ki energy and intention

In this last few week's I've been thinking a lot about what people in the yoga and martial art world call energy, or prana, chi, qi, ki. In the first of these series of articles I was talking about my understanding of the ki energy phenomenon from a yoga and Zen practitioner's point-of-view, as well as my (ex)scientist's point-of-view. 

My main motivation was to understand the experiences I've been getting of waves or rushes, sometimes jolts, of pleasurable sensations in my body when doing certain yoga or meditation practices. I concluded that these sensations are the result of my body's bioelectromagnetic (hereafter bio-EM) field coming into coherence.

In the last article, I was thinking about how this makes sense when it comes to feeling and drawing on ki energy that originates from outside our system – like in plants and trees, and in the Earth. Since plants too have electrically charged cells, and also take in electromagnetic energy (in the form of sunlight) as part of their nutrition, I thought that the fact they could excite a response in your own bioEM field didn’t sound so far-fetched.

So why is it that not everyone feels these kinds of sensations? Or to put it another way, why haven't I always felt these kinds of sensations?

I think when I started my journey into the world of yoga and meditation, I was just too numb, desensitised, and tense to feel anything of this sort. In the words of a good friend of mind, I was a brute! An insensitive, lumbering vertebrate with his heads in the clouds and a body that, if on a map, would be labelled “here be dragons”!

If we’re too tense, out of alignment, or imbalanced then there are too many blockages, frozen areas, and too little sensitivity. In this state, I would think, there's no way our bioelectromagnetic fields can ever come into coherence! So one of the primary aims of yoga and meditation practice, particularly at the beginning, is to start unblocking and relaxing the body, and getting you to develop more sensitivity to your sensations.

Next question: now I can feel these pulses or shimmers of sensation, why don't I feel them all the time?

Thinking back to my experiences, I can see that just opening, aligning and balancing the body wasn't enough. It seems like a certain intention (i.e. directed mind energy or focus), often coupled with a physiological action, is also needed.

Let's take 'intention' to start with. What kind of intention? I think there can be many, starting with an intention just to feel something. Then there might be an intention to draw inwards, to follow the movement of the breath, to let go, to reach out. For any intention to be effective, it would make sense that we need to stay with it without getting distracted. Thus another central skill we learn in our yoga and meditation practice is concentration or focus. Most people are generally pretty bad at it... Our mind wanders like a drunk from memories to fantasies, from fleeting thoughts to emotions, and whenever we ask it to stay put on something it rebelliously does the opposite... Slowly, we can learn to regulate this concentration and sustain it for longer and longer periods.

So we've got an open and aligned body, and our intention is set. Sometimes this is enough. I've felt strong energetic pulses and jolts during sitting meditation when I've set my mind on letting go down into the floor. The physical reaction is then a response (muscle twitching, pelvic floor lifting, eyes crossing).

But sometimes, particularly in yoga, the intention is coupled with a physical action, and together this precipitates pulses or movements of ki energy. One example of a physiological action might be a muscular lift (contraction) of the pelvic floor muscles. If we're soft and sensitive enough in that area, this can have the effect of exciting a much softer inner "suck" that seems to be very effective at bringing the bioEM field into coherence. In yoga this is called engaging mulabandha (mula meaning "root", and bandha being translated variously as lock, or gateway; see my article here).
 
As I see it in all of this ki energy work, you have to want, or intend, for something to happen before it can happen. Far from being imagined or "all in the mind", the feeling and movement of ki energy seems to very much need this direction of the mind. I guess this is why my teachers have often said "energy follows intention" and "energy follows awareness".

How I understand ki energy from outside myself

In my last article I was looking at my understanding of the phenomenon of energy (in the eastern chi/ki sense) and how I've come to see it as an (ex)scientist. I described my experiences of feeling waves or rushes, sometimes jolts, of pleasurable sensations travelling through my body during certain yoga or meditation practices, and concluded that these body-felt sensations are what I feel when the electromagnetic field in my body generated by the movement of electric current within my nerves and other cells comes into coherence. The reason why we don't all feel these is due to blockages and restrictions that have built up in our bodies over time (tight muscles, imbalances, etc), and a general lack of sensitivity.

I've been told for many years by various yoga and meditation teachers that it's not only possible to feel this ki energy moving within us, but it’s also possible to feel and even receive ki energy from sources outside yourself. As I said in the previous article, both in traditional Chinese medicine and modern physics, everything can be seen as a form of energy – but things being energy, and being able to receive that energy are two different things. So does this make sense?

Let's consider the chairs we're sitting on right now (assuming you are sitting on one!). The chair is made of solid matter (wood, metal, etc), which, as Einstein showed us, is just a form of energy (remember E=mc^2). Can I feel that energy? Sure I can – just by the mere fact that I'm still sitting on the chair and haven't passed straight through it means that my body is experiencing the physical energetic forces that make the chair solid. But does the fact my chair is really just energy mean there can be an exchange of that energy with me, or that I can feel that energy at a distance?

Well, I don’t have an answer about chairs yet, but as I've been tuning in to these shimmering, pulsing sensations in my body, my teachers have been encouraging me to see whether I can feel ki energy from other things – particularly organic things like people and plants, but also places.

And as crazy as it sounds, I can actually feel something! Trees have been a big source of these sensations.

London Plane tree

At first I would be in the park here in London and I'd try feeling a tree... Being acutely aware of how weird I might appear(!), I would would try approaching a tree surreptitiously when no one was looking and lightly touch the bark. Sure enough, whooff, waves of tingling, pulsing sensations would often (not always) ripple through my body. Some trees do it more than others (generally big old ones are best!). Now, when I really tune in, I can feel these familiar tingling sensations when I just come near a tree, or even stand under its branches – just being in its presence. I can't feel it every time, just when I'm trying to tune in, and I'm feeling particularly open. It happened pretty powerfully a week or two ago when I was standing between four very fine beech trees, and for the first time the other day with just a house plant!

Taoist masters throughout the centuries have observed that trees are tremendously powerful plants. Taoist master Mantak Chia explains how, in the Taoist view, trees are seen to be constantly in meditation and are natural processors of ki energy. The best trees for healing, they say, are big trees, especially pines and those growing near running water. But again, all this is ideas and beliefs. How do you explain it?

It turns out that, like animals, plants too have electrically charged cells (so-called cell action potentials) and use them to rapidly send signals through the plant. This came as a surprise to me. So plants generate their own electromagnetic field as well… (Apparently by attaching electrodes to the leaf and root they be made to sing.) When you think about it, we all know that plants depend on light, which is just electromagnetic energy, for their nourishment. We learn that at school. They photosynthesise the carbon monoxide in the air together with water that they draw up from the earth and the energy from sunlight into sugars and proteins – and oxygen which they expel.

So sensing the bioelectromagnetic field (or ki energy) of a plant doesn’t sound so weird, even when it’s at a distance. And the fact that plants can excite a response in your own bioelectromagnetic field also doesn’t sound so strange. I think of it like a form of induction, like how your electric toothbrush charges or how an induction hob works. Changes in the field of one object influences the field of the other.

My teachers also say that one can feel and receive ki energy from the Earth. In fact one of the first times I felt these strong energy pulses I've mentioned was when doing what my yoga teacher Jonathan Monks calls the root meditation. As he describes it, this is about opening your root (the energetic centre in your pelvic floor) so that you can connect with and receive the energy of the Earth. The sensation was clear enough, but energy in the Earth...?

It's known that the Earth's magnetic field is generated by electric currents moving through the highly conductive layer of molten iron alloys in the planet’s outer core. The currents are formed as the molten iron moves around due to convection. But how this relates to potential ki energy at the surface of our planet is much harder to understand. Some people talk about ley lines being paths of energy in the ground, some people about feng shui and the harmonisation of ki in the wind, water, stars, and earth.

Personally I haven’t found a way of understanding Earth energy yet. I feel it in my root (pelvic floor), in the soles of my feet on the ground, and in my hands when they’re on the ground, but that’s all I can say.

As always, your comments are very welcome - here on the blog, on FB or by e-mail. More on this in the weeks to come...!

As a scientist, this is how I've come to understand energy (chi)

Over the last few years I’ve had many experiences of sensations that people would call "energy" (or chi/qi in Chinese, ki in Japanese). The sensations are absolutely undeniable. Often they take the form of pleasurable waves or pulses travelling through the body, sometimes more like jolts.

As a scientist, many people have asked me how I’ve come to explain these and how I understand this "energy". It's taken me a while to come up with a decent answer...

Energy in Physics

According to the dictionary, “energy” simply means a capacity to do “work”. It's surprisingly vague isn’t it! In physics, “work” is defined as the energy expended in applying a force to an object to move it over a certain distance. One joule is the energy needed to apply one newton of force through a distance of one metre.

Energy can, however, take many other forms such as kinetic (moving), chemical, electric, nuclear, potential, etc, and has the ability to be converted from one form to another. For example, a ball held out over your balcony has gravitational potential energy, and when you let go, this energy transforms into kinetic energy as it falls. A burning candle is converting chemical potential energy into heat (kinetic energy at the molecular level) and light (electromagnetic energy).

In his theory of special relativity, Einstein derived his famous equation E=mc^2; meaning energy is equivalent to mass, or put another way, mass is simply a manifestation of energy. This blows my mind every time I think of it! According to this, every thing is just a manifestation of energy. This is what the Chinese have been saying for centuries! In traditional Chinese medicine, they say when a child is conceived and develops, chi condenses to form a material being. In one sense this is obvious – the energy that formed the egg in the woman and animates the sperm in the man, when brought together causes the formation of a foetus, and the energy within the woman’s body goes into growing that foetus into a baby.

But how does this go anywhere to explain the waves of sensation that I've been experiencing?

Bioelectricity

Cascade of electrical signals through nerves

It has long been known that the activities of cells and tissues within the body generate electrical fields that can be detected on the skin surface. All the cells in your body naturally generate a slight imbalance between negatively charged potassium ions on the inside and the positively charged sodium ions on the outside. "Excitable cells", like neurons, have a much larger imbalance than others. When the body needs to send a message from one place to another, it uses these excitable cells to create a cascade of electrical signals. It opens a “gate” on the first cell's wall and the negative potassium ions rush outside attracted towards the positive charge, and the positive sodium ions equally rush inside. This switch of charge triggers the gate on the next cell to open, creating another electrical impulse, and so on. Nerves are simply long strings of excitable neuron cells that carry these electrical pulses of information.

These currents of electricity generate a corresponding magnetic field in the surrounding space; electricity and magnetism are really just two faces of the same coin. However, because the electric pulses in the body are so weak, the magnetic fields associated with them have been very difficult to detect. In recent years, scientists have started to detect and measure the tiny magnetic fields associated with physiological activities in the bodies of animals and humans. This has been possible with the invention of what is known as a SQUID or "superconducting quantum interference device” in the 1960s.

However clever we think we are with our modern SQUIDs though, there are a few animals that got there way before us! Some migratory birds have been shown to be sensitive to the magnetic field of the Earth via particular magnetically sensitive chemicals or photosensitive proteins in their retinas. This is how they're thought to navigate over such long distances. Also, some types of sharks, rays, and sturgeon have an array of special sensing organs called electroreceptors on their undersides that help the fish sense electric fields generated by other creatures in the water and hence locate prey. Cool huh!

Since our nervous system is based entirely on electrical impulses generated and triggered by our cells, it’s not a huge leap to think that the body could produce large-scale coherent alignments or patterns of electromagnetic energy that could be felt as tactile sensations.

This is the way I have come to see the pleasurable rushes of energy I often experience in yoga and meditation. They are coherent pulses of bioelectromagnetic energy moving through the body. I'll talk more about these coherent pulses next week.

The inevitable conclusion is that we must be fully capable of cultivating and controlling the bioelectricity we generate in our own bodies.

Other aspects to energy

Teachers and texts claim that this energy travels along distinct pathways in the body called meridians (Sanskrit "nadi", Japanese "myaku"), and concentrates in certain energy centres (called "chakras" in the yoga tradition or in Chinese "dan tien", Japanese "tanden").

The meridian system of the body

In these last few years I have begun to experience what it means for the energy to build-up in my hara (belly) area. I feel sensations of solidity, tingling, glowing. When you first start doing Zen meditation it's one of the main energetic practices – make your hara the focal point for your attention and draw your energy there. "Tanden" translates as something like "field of elexir", where elixir is another way of saying energy. In Chinese and Japanese Martial Arts, the tanden is seen as the main reservoir of ki energy – akin to your body's battery pack.

I can't say, though, I've really been able to discern energy flowing in in my body through any particular pathways that you might call meridians. With the strong pulses/waves I mention above, they often have a general up or down the body quality to them. With certain yoga sequences and practices, I can feel sensations moving up or down the front and back of my body (what might be called the "microcosmic orbit").

So I think it's all about slowly tuning in more and more. As your sensitivity to the body and sensations increases, then your aerial becomes finer and finer tuned and these very subtle phenomena start to become noticeable.

Next I'll discuss energy from sources outside ourselves, and it's relation to intention.

A night in the Mu shed

Gyokuryuji temple

I've just got back from an absolutely incredible trip to Japan! Most years my Zen teacher Daizan Roshi organises a group trip over to his teacher's temple up in the mountains of central Japan – this was my 2nd trip out there. The temple, called Gyokuryuji, is a small hermitage training temple near the town of Seki in Gifu prefecture (about 1hr north of Nagoya).

We started with a 5-day silent Zen retreat (sesshin) led by Daizan's teacher Shinzan Roshi (see photo below), then had a few days for Zen-related cultural activities and sightseeing in Kyoto and Nara.

Shinzan Roshi by the front steps of the temple

Before I go on, let's just step back a moment. For the last few months before going to Japan I was working on editing and producing a DVD based on a recording of a workshop Daizan gave last year on the teaching of a famous Zen master, Nantembo Roshi. (Check out the DVD and trailer here.)

Nantembo Roshi was a very powerful and enigmatic character and developed a unique style of practice based around the famous 'Mu' koan of Zen. Back in the 800s in China there was a great master called Joshu. One day a monk asked Joshu "does a dog have Buddha-nature?". To this Master Joshu replied "mu" (literally no, or not) in an attempt to break through this monk's dualistic way of thinking. It worked! In Rinzai Zen this koan is used to help people get a first glimpse into their own true-nature (Buddha-nature).

What was unique about Nantembo was he got his students to practice with mu all the time, no matter what their current koan was. In the training hall they would all be chanting 'mu' with each breath, and only in private interview would they attempt to answer their koan. He found this to be a very effective way for people to develop their inner power and that kind of non-discursive, immediate, present-moment knowing/understanding.

It turns out Shinzan Roshi is a fan of this style of practice too, and back in the 80s and 90s he used to get pairs of monks training under him to do what he called 'mu sesshins' – 7 days shut up in the temple storehouse chanting mu 24hrs a day...

The temple storehouse (building next to the telegraph pole)

After having spent so long hearing about Nantembo's practice (after editing the DVD I could practically recite it...) and these mu sesshins, I wanted to try it out for myself!! So on the 4th day of the retreat over in Japan, myself and a friend, Ed, decided to lock ourselves in the Gyokuryuji storehouse for (only) 24hrs to explore this mu practice.

The storehouse was pretty full of junk, so we only managed to clear enough space for our two sitting cushions and a pot to pee into! The upstairs was a bit clearer, so we used that for walking meditation.

Just after breakfast on the 4th day we paid our respects to the Buddha and set our intention for the 24hr practice, then, led by Daizan holding the keisaku aloft, we installed ourselves in the storehouse. As Daizan slid the door shut and locked it from the outside, shutting out the daylight, we began our chanting.

The tiny space in the storehouse where we sat chanting mu for 24hrs

At first I went for the full Nantembo-style practice (as described on the DVD) – deep relaxed in-breath, then tightly close the eyes, tense the jaw, arms, fists, legs and lift the pelvic floor with a long slow out-breath making a low reverberating sound of muuuu. Wow, I tell you, after an hour of doing this things really get going! Belly tingling, energy currents flowing and rising up the body. But I soon realised I couldn't keep this going sustainably for the remaining 23hrs! I relaxed into a long slow mu keeping the body soft.

Without any kind of timer, we just nodded (or prodded) each other when we felt we wanted to take a break from the sitting and go upstairs to walk. The space was small so we could only move in a small circle, but the little window gave us a break from the dingy darkness of downstairs. All the time we kept the mu-ing going. Deep in-breath, and a long mu on the out-breath.

After about 4hrs Daizan brought us lunch in a big bowl. We paused our mu-ing for about 20mins to eat, but tried to keep our awareness centred in the belly (hara). After another 6hrs Daizan brought us dinner and we took another 20min break, then we were on our own until breakfast in the morning. We were very grateful when Daizan slid a bowl of chocolatey sweets through the door at about 10pm – these would prove decisive in getting us through the night! We decided we would break for 10mins every 2 hours after midnight just to punctuate the dark hours and give us a sense of time moving forward! Once night fell, the storehouse became absolutely pitch dark – to the point where you couldn't tell whether your eyes were open or not!

From a few hours in, I remember thoughts creeping into my mind basically saying "you can't do this". I started counting the hours left and trying to work out how I was going to get through to the end... And it wasn't long before my belly hurt from all the deep mu-ing, and my legs ached from being sat cross-legged. But I knew the only thing to do was to remain present with how things felt in that moment. In the present moment, nothing is ever a problem – problems only come when you want things to be different. So for me, this practice became very much one of remaining in the moment. I did my best to transform those negative thoughts into "right now I'm breathing in; right now I'm making the sound of mu; right now I'm sitting; right now I'm walking; etc. It became one of the most valuable lessons in mindfulness I've ever experienced.

All this mu-ing also had the effect of generating a great deal of energy in my system. As I've already mentioned, a strong sense of solidity in the belly (hara), tingling in the feet, legs, hands, and up the spine, energy currents flowing through the body, and a deep feeling of grounding (despite the upward rising energy), all slowly built and strengthened as we moved through the 24hrs.

I have to admit the last few hours were very difficult, and became an exercise in simply sticking it out. But we made it!

For the 3-4 days after the mu retreat, I felt like I was plugged in to the national grid. A source of energy was moving in my body way beyond what I normally experience. I was physically tired, a little droopy in the eyes, and my body ached, but I was drawing on this extra source of energy. It made me feel light and nimble, ready to go, and very connected to the world around. Even now, more than 2 weeks later, I feel more connected and more in touch with my energy body than I have ever felt.

Buy the DVD (or download the video) and try it out for yourself! Highly recommended (24hrs in a dark storehouse not necessary!!).

Watch this video interview with myself and Ed about our experiences:

From the ground up: Drawing energy and nutrients up from your roots

Last week, in the third article in the series of looking at our roots, we focussed on some of the physiology around the top of our root structure – where our roots turn into our trunk. We zoomed in on the pelvic floor, with all its layers of muscle and fascia, looking at their physiological function and some exercises to help us discern which muscles are which.

Have you been getting on? Have you been practising finding those three areas of your pelvic floor area that you can contract/lift? – the muscles around your genitals (stopping yourself urinating), around your anal sphincter, and that area in between (the perineal body/perineum and the central portion of the pelvic diaphragm/levator ani). Have you been able to isolate the lift in just that central area, your perineum?

If you have, then you're on the way to opening up the physical component of one of the most important subtle energetic practices in yoga. My teacher Jonathan Monks always talks of us having five bodies (or koshas): the physical, the mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual. Everything that we do – every action, thought or feeling – is motivated by, and has a corresponding effect on, each of the five bodies. So by concentrating on the physical (the easiest level to work on), we can begin affecting the others and exploring their relationships.

Energetically, the pelvic floor is very important. In yoga, this area is associated with your Muladhara or base/root chakra – the first in the series of seven major chakras (or energy centres) located along the centre-line of your trunk. This point is also very important in the Chinese energy system, where it forms the base of the belly energy area (tanden in Japanese, or dantien in Chinese) and is called the Hui Yin. It's the first point on the Ren Mai (Conception Vessel) meridian that runs down the middle of the front of your body; the name Hui Yin means something like "meeting/convergence of yin" (sometimes translated as "seabed"). If you're interested see this nice article.

Back to the more yogic side of things... The pelvic floor muscles themselves are associated with your Mula Bandha. Bandha is variously translated as lock, or gate, doorway, and in yoga practice, engaging mulabandha is often taught as simply lifting your pelvic floor (as we discussed in the previous article). However, as the Yoga Journal puts it "Mula Bandha may be the most befuddling, underinstructed technique in the world of yoga"...

So what exactly is mulabandha? On a physical level, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (one of the key historic yoga texts) clearly states that "the anus should be forcefully contracted when performing mulabandha", whereas there are other texts (like Moola Bandha by Swami Buddhananda) that say that "when engaging mulabandha there should be no movement of the anus" (or penis for a man).

What makes the most sense to me is that when you first start practising mulabandha you begin on the gross physical level (i.e. the most obvious thing you can do with your physical body – the easiest to feel), and from there gradually refine your senses to something more and more subtle. So, to begin with all we can do is simply (brutishly!) lift the entire pelvic floor area (i.e. do a Kegel exercise). This is great as it starts to strengthen and define the muscles for all the physiological reasons described in my previous article, and we can gradually begin to tune in to the different muscle areas until we can move them individually. Eventually we may just be able to engage the central portion of the pubococcygeus muscle to lift only the perineum, without contracting the other muscles around the anus and rectum (technically called Aswini mudra), and urethra (Vajroli mudra).

As Dr. Summers says in her book "Mulabanda", "according to Tantric theory, this [perineum lift] initiates mulabandha’s effects on the energy body... As one isolates the central portion of the pelvic floor, an awareness of muladhara chakra develops." So we move from the physical to the energetic, and I think this is where all the befuddlement arises.

You can think of energy following awareness and intention – awareness draws energy to that point, and intention makes it move. Dr. Summers goes on to say: "Eventually, this energy [in the muladhara/hui yin] can be directed without any muscle activity." As our practice becomes more refined, we begin to learn how to activate the energetic component of mulabandha using our intention, without needing the physical (muscular) component.

However, as Jonathan says "you cannot do Bandha, Bandha does you". The more we try, the more we tense up and the harder it becomes – like all of life, we have to find that balance between effort and letting go. All we can do is put ourselves in the place where it naturally occurs and let it happen (if it does).

So what's the point, I hear you ask, in doing this at all...? Well, besides all the physiological benefits, once we can learn to tune into and sense the flow of our energy, then we can learn how to direct it, and here's where things get interesting... It depends a little on your tradition: we can learn how to really root ourselves in the earth, direct energy up the chakras to stimulate higher spiritual states, draw in energy to charge up the tanden area (developing power and presence), etc. In traditional yoga, this upwards direction is the main aim (connecting to the heaven, raising the kundalini, etc.), but in the Chinese and Zen systems, we practice moving this energy up the back, over the head, and down the front, forming a circulating connection (the so-called microcosmic orbit).

It's all about softness, awareness, intention, and sensitivity.

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Yoga to work with the seasons

How are you affected by the changing seasons? Do you just feel hot in summer and cold in winter, or do you feel some other effects of the seasons?

On Saturday (29/3) I went to a yoga teachers workshop run by my Zen teacher, Daizan Skinner, on the topic of the seasons – exploring the needs of the human system through the changing year, and how we can adapt our yoga practice to work best with each season.

Living in harmony with nature includes bringing body and mind into harmony with the changing seasons. I'm sure this was obvious to people in the past whose lives were much more connected to the outside environment, but these days, with our new fangled electric lights and central heating, we can live like there's no difference between winter and summer!

In the Indian yoga tradition, less emphasis is put on the seasons since India mostly has a sub-tropical climate. In the Ayurvedic system there are only three seasons: autumn/winter, spring and summer, whereas in the Chinese/Japanese system there are five (as we'll see below).

As I've written before, in the Chinese energy meridian system, each organ and organ meridian (see this page for simple meridian diagrams) is associated with a different quality, and the seasons are no exception. Each season is associated with two paired organs, and the properties of each organ and the effects of opening their meridian line dictates the flavour of your yoga practice for that season.

Here is a summary of what we learnt for each season.

Spring
Associated organs: liver and gall bladder

The liver is located on the right side of your body just under your rib cage, and the gall bladder is tucked in right next to it. The liver's function is to remove toxins from the blood, and the meridian line runs from the big toe up the inside of the leg up to the side of the belly.

The gall bladder stores and secretes bile to aid in digesting fats and acids, and its meridian line runs from the little toe right up the side of the body up to the head.

Any imbalance in the liver-gall bladder system tends to show up in the eyes, and/or as ligament/soft tissue tension or stiffness. When it's impaired the associated emotion is anger (we English have the term "a liverish person", or to be "livid"), and when functioning well we feel creative and kind.

So in the spring, our yoga practice should concentrate on working with stiffness in body (waking up from the winter) and stiffness in our attitudes, to help us detox, release anger, working with the eyes, and encouraging creativity and kindness. Postures should concentrate on stretching/opening the sides of the body and the insides of the legs.

Myself and Yulia teaching our Spring yoga sequence

Summer
Associated organs: heart and small intestine

As we all know, the heart pumps blood around the body. It is seen as the home of the spirit, and governs joy. Interestingly, the tongue has a special relationship with the heart, being thought to be an a kind of "offshoot", and our facial complexion often reflects the state of our heart. The heart meridian line runs down the inside of our arm into the little finger.

The small intestine is five metre long narrow tube in your belly that does about 90% of the work of digestion, absorbing nutrients from the food as it passes through. It's meridian line runs from your little finger back up the outside of your arm, zig-zagging across your shoulder, and finishing on the side of your face.

When the heart-small intestine system is impaired we feel arrogance and hastiness, whereas when it's functioning well we feel love and connection.

Yoga for the summer should concentrate on opening the chest/heart area, and make use of flowing postures with an emphasis on that quality of timelessness in order to counter any hastiness. This would be the time to explore a more athletic practice to get the heart rate going, and at the same time foster an appreciation and love of the body and mind. Bear in mind though, that in the summer the mind is at it's most outward looking and distracted, so balancing this with some time for quiet introspection and calmness would work well.


Late summer (harvest)
Associated organs: spleen and stomach

In our western medical understanding, the spleen is part of your lymphatic system, and acts as a blood filter, destroys old red blood cells and helps fight infections. In the traditional Chinese medical system though, it's understood to have a very different function! It's seen as governing the transportation and absorption of food and water, turning digested food into usable nutrients, and ki (chi) energy for the body. It's also understood to control muscle strength, thinking and pondering, and is connected to the lips and mouth (like the heart is to the tongue). The spleen meridian runs from the big toe up the front inside of the leg, over the front of the hip up to the arm pit.

The stomach is located next to the spleen, on the left just under the rib cage. It's function is to receive food from the oesophagus, and secrete acid and enzymes to digest the food. The stomach muscles contract periodically, churning everything around to help everything digest fully. It then passes this partly-digested food onwards to the small intestine for further digestion and absorption. The stomach line runs from the 2nd toe up the front of the leg, front of the hip, the front side of the belly and chest, finishing up on the cheek next to the nose.


When the stomach-spleen system isn't working too well then we feel worried and insecure; or if it's functioning well then we feel empathetic, and nourished.


Yoga for the late summer should emphasise our connection to the earth, perhaps with poses close to the floor. Smooth continuous movements help to extend and challenge the muscles, particularly along the front side of the body where both these meridians run. Obviously back bends work well for this, but beware that going into a backbend too strongly can stimulate worry and insecurity in some people, not release it. Exercises using the voice and explanations that encourage a very detailed attention to bodily sensations helps to assuage any pondering and worry.


Autumn
Associated organs: lungs and large intestine


The lungs obviously get us breathing – they control respiration. However, in the Chinese system, they are also associated with governing ki (chi energy), disseminating and regulating water in the body, and controlling skin and body hair. They are also connected to the nose. The lung meridian runs from the thumb along the inside of the arm to the shoulder.

The large intestine's job is to remove water and any remaining absorbable nutrients from the food as it passes through, before sending the indigestible matter to the rectum. As a matter of interest, the full digestion of our food takes about 16 hours from start to finish! The large intestine also absorbs vitamins that are created by the colonic bacteria, such as vitamin K, vitamin B12, thiamine and riboflavin. It's meridian line runs from the index finger along the top of the arm up, over the top of the shoulder, up the side of the face to the nostril.


When these organs and their energy systems are functioning well we have an ability to let go and move forward; when they're not there's a sense of grief or depression. There's a clear connection here between these emotional qualities and the organ functions!

Yoga for the autumn should therefore focus on releasing and letting go on all levels. Shaking movements very helpful for this. Since the lungs are involved, a focus on breath-work would also be good.


Winter
Associated organs: kidney and bladder

Physiologically, the kidneys act like a filters to remove wastes and fluids from the blood – each day they process around 200 litres, removing about 1-2 litres as urine. The kidneys make three important hormones: erythropoietin to stimulate the production of red blood cells, renin which is involved in the control of blood pressure, and vitamin D which controls calcium uptake and helps make strong bones. They are connected with the ears, and energetically, thought to govern the reception of qi (chi) from the air. They kidneys suffer a lot when they get cold, so in Japan, they often wear a 'haramaki' – a garment worn around the abdomen (hara) to keep the stomach and kidneys warm. In the days of the samurai, it was a long piece of cloth (often augmented with chain mail or other metals) wrapped around and around the belly, but these days you can get something far more comfortable and convenient. The kidney meridian runs from the ball of your foot, up the inside of your leg, and up the front of your belly and chest, finishing at your collar bone.

The bladder the waste fluids filtered out by the kidneys, meaning that we don't have to constantly leak waste fluids – we can go to the loo and release a batch at a time... It's normal capacity is 400-600 ml. The bladder is lined by layers of muscle tissue. During urination, the bladder muscles contract, and two valves open to allow urine to flow out to the urethra (which passes through the centre of the penis in men). The bladder meridian runs from the little toe, up the back of the leg, splits and runs in two parallel lines just to the side of your spine, over the back of the head and finishes in the corner of your eye.

When this paired system is functioning well we feel a sense of courage, or a can-do attitude; when it isn't we might feel emotions relating to despair. When the kidneys are feeling down, the whole system can feel down, so that's why it's so important to protect and take care of your kidneys.

Yoga for the winter should therefore focus on warming the body (particularly the lower back and kidney area; perhaps through tapping or rubbing), and opening through the kidney and bladder meridians. The feet can also suffer a lot at this time of year, getting cold and never seeing the light of day, so giving them some attention can be nice. Mobilising the joints can help to release trapped cold, and a slower, more restorative practice connects in with our winter hibernating tendencies.

Kidney tapping/rubbing

In the workshop, we then split into pairs, each taking a season and coming up with a 30min yoga sequence relevant to that season. Teaching these sequences back-to-back, we experienced a whole year of yoga in just 2 and 1/2 hrs!

Workshop on the 8 Silk Brocades of Qigong

On Saturday I went to a workshop at the ZenYoga studio led by long-time martial arts practitioner and teacher Keith Alker on the 8 silk brocades of Qigong (Chinese: Ba Duan Jin, Japanese: Hachi Danken). It was great - we learned just 8 very simple moves in 6 hours! Simple on the outside maybe, but certainly not simple on the inside... 

So what is Qigong? Qi (sometimes spelled 'chi', Jap: ki) is the universal energy, life force, or vital energy. Literally translated it means breath or air. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine, martial arts including T'ai Chi, and is also part of Zen practice. The idea is we're born with a certain amount in us, and then we take in more via food/air and directly from the universe, and use it to move and live. 

Qi flows around the body through meridians or energy channels. There are 12 main meridians associated with each of the different organs (heart, lungs, kidneys, etc), and 8 subsidiary meridians which include the belt meridian around your waist and the governing/conception meridian going up the spine, over the head, and down the front. 

Acupuncture/acupressure or any kind of Anma practice works on energising or unblocking these meridian lines and the points along them. A few of the most important points that Keith mentioned include Bai Hui on the crown of the head, Hui Yin on the pelvic floor, Lao Gong on the palm, Yong Quan on the sole of the foot, Ming Men on the small of the back, and the three Dan Tien's (energy centres) in the belly, chest and head. 

What is the difference between Qigong and T'ai Chi?  

Tai Chi is a Taoist moving meditation practice based on the interplay of the two complimentary forces - yin and yang. Tai Chi consists of four types of practice (the 'Four Pillars'): Qigong, Form, Pushing Hands and Application. When you see people practicing in the park they're most likely doing the Form. This is an aesthetically beautiful flowing sequence of movements designed to develop physical and mental skill and health, and varies in emphasis and complexity between different schools. Qigong (the first pillar) is the foundation of Tai Chi, and comprises a set of exercises to get your qi moving: both around and into/out of the body. 

Does the 'qi' or 'chi' in the two names refer to the same thing? It's pronounced the same...

I didn't know this before asking Keith, and apparently no it doesn't. The confusion arises from the different ways of romanising certain Chinese symbols. T'ai chi is the spelling using the Wade-Giles system and is the one most commonly known, whereas Taiji is the spelling according to the Pinyin system. The 'qi' in qigong refers to the energy that moves along the meridians, whereas the 'chi' in Tai Chi doesn't (hence Taiji is a better spelling). Taiji means the "great pole", or the "Supreme Ultimate".

At the beginning of the workshop Keith introuduced us to a few main concepts or principles.

One of these was that in all martial arts, qigong and meditation, we aim to regulate (1) the body – through alignment, movements, and the balance between tension and relaxation; (2) the breath (and hence our qi) – through breathing exercises, focusing on the tanden, breath sounds, etc.; and (3) the mind – through concentration, mindfulness, awareness, etc. 

He also talked about how finding the balance between yang/yin is so important. Taking our arm as an example, he showed how if you tense your arm, both the bicep and the tricep are working as if almost fighting each other. He called this double yang, and, he said, corresponds mentally to a state of active distraction. The opposite is a weak and limp arm which is obviously double yin, and corresponds to a kind of mental fog. Finding that balance (tension only where needed) is the key to correct practice in any of these arts. 

He also emphasised the concept of 'peng', meaning expansion – through the head, feet, hands, and ultimately through the energy body as well. It's very difficult to describe, but incredible to experience in a well practised teacher like Keith. It was literally explosive, and when he sent it in my direction I actually felt a physical push backwards!

So, what about the movements, the 8 silk brocades? Keith taught us the standard issue version from the Chinese Health Qigong Association and recommended by the Chinese government to maintain health and wellbeing after much research. 

The 8 exercises are:

• Holding the hands high with palms up to regulate the internal organs
• Posing as an archer shooting both left and right handed
• Holding one arm aloft to regulate the functions of the spleen and stomach
• Looking back to prevent sickness and strain
• Swinging the head and lowering the body to relieve stress
• Moving both hands down the back and legs and touching the feet to strengthen the kidneys
• Thrusting fists and making the eyes glare to enhance strength
• Raising and lowering the heels to cure diseases 

Now I need to go and practice them...  

Watch the full set of movements: