Paul P. Alexander Technique

"The flip side of that I suppose, is that doing what is natural for the body and mind doesn't always feel good" In the AT we do talk about us humans in general having a faulty sensory perception in what we believe we are doing. In the process of re-education often time we will feel wrong because it seems unfamiliar.

What feels "right" can be simply tight. It's like we have to have to constantly stay open and dare to challenge our assumptions of what is right or wrong, better not have the ultimate word, otherwise the exploration may be ending right there. But there are indeed natural laws for certain alignments, that is what I think you and I and others here are trying to figure out, so that we can have a sound foundation.

Maybe you got confused with 2 different procedures, as you seem to describe a qigong exercise for the cervical spine (or the neck) that resembles one of the Qigong forms I learned in the past.

The Alexander Technique words for re-directing the neck and head into natural alignment are:

1) "let the neck be free", or release tension in the neck, muscular tension, "to allow the head to move forward and up": this means that once you release tension in the neck that could be bracing your head into a position of imbalance, the head naturally will then move forward, not in space and in front of you, but UP from the top of the spine.

Consider the head sitting on top of the neck/spine at the first vertebra; the face or front of the skull is bigger/heavier than the back of the head, so naturally the head will tend to sit forward with an upward direction, the occiput (base of the back of the skull) will seem to lift away from the neck. Naturally, not forcefully.

The above will have an effect on the rest of the body with directions continuing:

"to allow the spine to lengthen and the back to widen" etc., but this is best tried in person with an AT teacher or if you google Alexander Technique, you'll find a lot of books and even videos describing this process much better. It's quite hard to convey things like these through the written word as we tend to assume what the words means and we may simply try the above while we are sitting in a slump for example. (double ouch!)

A kinesthetic guided experience of the above directions would be best, and then you'll find that in standing Qigong you were trying to find these openings and more all along.

Thanks Marisol for words coming out from practice I have not in this way. I described only my impression havin shortly looked up some location on Alexander technique in the net having not this preparation by releasing tension.

As each exercise has its special form you are doing naturally better to learn the original from a teacher. But some curiosity towards similar exercise can be helpful for your favored practice.

So this nice file hanging up your Bai Hue also has a nice upward tendency for another Qigong stance getting the end position by drawing the chin inward.

Such a stretch even bowing a little bit backwards for the heavenly eye above the third eye includes a strong relaxation effect in the Shaolin Hsintao way of the gods where Boddhidharma
shall have established it also fro Indian tradition.

http://www.hsintao.com

Here again I met the transmitting master with all its adavantages. The channels laid are rather good allowing to collect also heat in the abdomen till it spills over in the feet meeting with other exercises I already had. Your permanent inner speech is nicely shut off for a rather thought free
state allowing deeper meditative levels so simple the exercises are. A good result for a guy and actor mixing so many spiritual lines in his permission by the lineage holder.

This past weekend I was visiting with an AT colleague of mine who has no qigong experience. I showed her the standing qigong with one of the alignments with palms towards the back, to open the armpits I told her. Her response was: but you are closing them!

My reply to her: it depends what you mean about armpits, I think of them going deep into the center inside the arm joint cavity, from underneath. But now I am not sure what this palms towards the back really does because there are other possible components as well, like the opening of the shoulder blades moving out to the sides and perhaps even opening the gate behind the heart in the back :the Jia Ji (door of immortality). Again I see these as qigong prescriptions not as postures to adopt, but I am still learning and therefore I appreciate your warning as well.

Well this warning of Buddy impressed me also as the socalled healing powers, chis and energies are often not very convincingly connected with destroying combat chi hurting also the other.

So empty hands of Paul Dong or others in their healing aspect are not very trustworthy for me as it would mean having very separate departments and secure distinction what is what, healing or destroying parts of others. As far as I get the energy field it looks not very different in the passages of the book without going nearer.

So I saw in the socalled Zhineng Qigong often parts of other practices they have and such healing energies emitted where in the needles emitted this way not very convincing or this famous dissolving of cancerous knots.

But it is an interesting trait in Chinese martial arts that Buddhist influences often mitigate or turn in healing what is otherwise a deadly instrument So the eagle claw in its appliance at the new cuts and interrupts major blood vessels able to kill this way with this training of three iron
fingers.

But the same bringing together the first three fingers is a healing mudra in the taoist Dragon sect tradition of Dr. Baolin Wu emitting mainly healing energy of the heart in the line from the heart to laogong with the fingers with other elemental implements.

And as similar connotation I think does this instruction of opening the armpits have. First this area is one of the important 9 pearls to be opened and cleansed also in the energy structure Bruce is using. This egg or citron imagined and created as a hole there is similar to the areas Bruce is using in his water method to be softened. and energized as a static posture also with the hands to the back. I don't see here a real difference to the hands aligned paralell to the upper thighs and opened arm pits. The hands backwards may be still more relaxing like the more alerted other position like in military training.

An explosion of energies into the hands is not included there in the first moment but naturally easily possible by applying other elements and twists in the hands and arms and body. So far.

IMO this rotation of the arms does nothing but allow the elbows to be in an awkward position. Simply rotating the arms in this fashion really does nothing to the shoulder blade unless one already has the ability to make that happen. That said, once you have that connection you can do it simply by willing it so. At least that is my experience.