What is Neigong?

Neigong is the most complete version of the Taoist approach to working with chi in the body and is at the core of qigong, tai chi and Taoist yoga practices. In this 16-part system that moves from the simple to the complex, students learn to become aware of, and directly affect, all of the subtle energy flows that power an individual’s physical body, emotions and thought patterns.

This detailed system is usually not taught to beginning students. While some aspects of neigong may be accessible to beginners, most aspects are more complex and may take many years to develop. Any stage of learning neigong is very rewarding, as well as extremely beneficial for increasing physical health and well-being. (Bruce Frantzis, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body)

How does this fit in with Taoist Longevity Yoga?

In Taoist Longevity Yoga we use Longevity Breathing exercises to access the breath, feel our insides and connect the breath within the body, an early aspect of the neigong system. In this process we pay attention to the nuances of our own particular breathing pattern and learn how to relax and open the breath more deeply in the body. Longevity Breathing in and of itself becomes an ever more complex practice for advanced students to create longer and more precise breathing patterns.

In Taoist Longevity Yoga, we also work with specific postures to relax and open the body. Longevity Breathing exercises bring us in tune with how our body feels, and in the postures of Taoist Longevity Yoga, we work with that awareness to feel obvious and subtle aspects of the physical body. Advanced study of Taoist Longevity Yoga provides students the opportunity to delve into neigong in detail.

The study of Neigong

The neigong system is not necessarily, linear, and is more accurately described as circular. Beginning students touch upon aspects of  neigong, more advanced students visit and re-visit these same aspects with an increasing depth of understanding and skill. (Frantzis, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body). Most Westerners are accustomed to “linear” learning, and as a result we may attach significance to reaching particular points of external achievement, and there is often a distinct separation between individuals who have and have not reached these milestones. In the Taoist approach, students are encouraged to move at their own pace, take responsibility for themselves, and gauge their internal process, and it is possible that students in a class will have a mix of depth of skill in various aspects of neigong.

The importance of finding a good teacher

If you decide to explore neigong within the practice of Taoist yoga, tai chi or qigong , it is essential to work with a well-trained instructor. Reading and audio-visual material are an excellent aid to your practice, but it’s important to keep in mind that they do not take the place of a teacher. Bruce Frantzis discusses the importance of a good teacher in his book “Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body” :

“Generally, the components of neigong are not casually taught, especially for beginning and intermediate students. The techniques should be learned from a skilled instructor and the student’s practice should be monitored and guided carefully….the danger with incomplete learning is that you can become unbalanced.

The job of your instructor is to make sure that you do not.

Instructors must do their best to make sure:

• Students’ energy remains smooth and does not become hyperactive
• Students avoid dangerous practices
• Students avoid addiction to over-stimulation
• Students abide by the 70% rule
• Students maintain clarity of mind

(Bruce Frantzis, “Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body“, pp.240-241)

In addition to tai chi, qigong and Taoist yoga instruction, these guidelines are helpful to keep in mind when looking for a teacher of yoga, meditation, or any other in-depth body/mind system.

The study of Taoist arts, including Taoist Longevity Yoga, at even the very beginning stages, is extremely beneficial in creating better health and vitality. Engaging in the process is also fun and relaxing, and provides the opportunity to get to know others of like interest.

“Most people in the west just know about Hatha yoga-very few are aware that China actually had an entire Yoga system. As Indian Hatha yoga was classically a bridge to meditation, Taoist yoga or what we call Longevity Breathing Yoga was a preliminary practice for other Taoist energy arts, including Qigong and the three internal martial arts of Tai Chi, Ba gua and Hsing-i as well as Taoist meditation.”   Bruce Frantzis

• Maintain the 70% rule
• Put your mind into yourself-your body, breath and energy channels
• All stretches are done with circular movement only
• Stretches open the body to enable better, more complete breathing
• Internal release causes external stretch
• Release internally first, externally stretch next
• Releasing the nerves of the body is the origin of the stretch
• Use the breath to open the body’s energy channels
• Deliberate activation of physical, mental or emotional tension and contraction is avoided
• All physical postures derive from physical, mental and emotional relaxation

Students beginning with Longevity Breathing Yoga often ask about working with their breathing. The breath is central in LB Yoga as well as other arts we teach at Brookline Tai Chi.

Initially, it is helpful to simply notice your breathing, whether it’s happening, how it’s happening. In learning LB Yoga, we first get familiar with the poses. At the same time we are getting familiar with feeling inside the body and noticing how breathing is happening (or not happening) for us individually, without actively trying to change anything. It’s important to spend some time with this first phase before moving on, especially as a beginner. It will help your practice in the long run if you start with learning very clearly to feel your insides and breath, to be able to feel what’s really happening inside.

As we progress in class, we pay closer attention to feeling breath in specific areas of the body. After you feel that you can keep a steady feeling awareness in your body and breath, you may want to move on to understanding breathing in greater depth. Longevity Breathing will be most helpful in this phase, as it is a perfect compliment to Longevity Breathing Yoga practice. Longevity Breathing is a technique developed by Bruce Frantzis and is detailed in two resources – one, in the book Opening The Energy Gates of Your Body (Chapter 5), and the other, the DVD entitled Longevity Breathing (also available through the school). Both take you through a step-by-step process that teaches you how to breath fully, deeply and effectively in your whole body.

In Longevity Yoga class,  we talk about bringing the mind into the body. Basically, this is an instruction to bring your attention inside and feel what’s happening in your body. In this culture where so much emphasis is placed on thinking and accomplishing externally, this is not always an easy task. We may feel some parts or our insides vividly, while other areas are totally elusive.

Here’s a suggestion to make the process easier. As you get into your alignments, pay particular attention to the balance of lifting and dropping – lifting through the kwa (at the crease where the leg meets the torso), the mid and upper spine and the juncture where the spine meets the occiput – and dropping through the lower spine, relaxing the chest downward toward the belly, relaxing the face. In so doing you may get a feel that you are “taking the slack out” of the whole body. Be sure to do this without creating tension.

Borrowing a descriptive image from Zero Balancing (bodywork), consider the sail of sailboat that is slack and loose in the winds – in this case, the boat is buffeted by random forces; however, by taking out the slack of the sail just a bit, the sailor feels the winds around her clearly and can work with them usefully.

Similarly, having too much looseness in the body when we practice, our minds can be buffeted, so to speak, by random thoughts and sensations, and it is more difficult to feel what’s happening inside clearly. Using alignments to “take out the slack” , our minds will tend to focus more easily and we can feel more specifically what’s happening inside.

Moving from pose to pose can be a challenge. For example, transitioning within the Japanese style sitting poses, props are often necessary, and in moving from one pose to the next, you may feel unsteady as you navigate a new bodypostion and rearrange the props under and around you legs. Until these poses feel more natural and steady, it can be helpful to have two chairs on either side of you.

Using the chairs for support, you can practice transitioning from one pose to the next, and rearranging pillows and props, with more stability – gradually you can experiment with using the chairs less as you become more stable in the flow of the poses.

Lying down is easy and relaxing – it’s also a pose where the mind can wander or we might doze. In Tao Yoga we practice keeping a relaxed and alert awareness in this pose by paying attention to alignments. The feet and the knees are hip-width apart;the pelvis and the torso are relaxed, the legs should have a sense of growing out of the torso; the midriff lengthens from the pelvis the the bottom of the ribs, the spine lengthens toward the head, and there is still a sense of lift of the skull from the top of the spine, the face, the front of the throat and chest relax.

Next you can place your hands on your belly and feel the rhythm of your breathing, as the belly rises slightly on the inhale, and relaxes back down on the exhale. It is helpful to spend a few minutes just feeling and watching your breath.

When you move to the next stage of lifting the pelvis, first press your feet gently into the floor – feel how this action naturally begins to lift the tailbone up and toward the feet; maintaining as much relaxation in the body and breath as you can, continue the lift of the pelvis, allowing the back of the body to lengthen as you lift, almost as though your back body is like a hammock stretching and lifting you up.

As we learn new poses, much attention is on remembering what to do, getting any necessary props situated and getting comfortable. Once in the pose, sometimes we still feel mental distraction from the process of getting there, and usually the breath is affected – it may have stopped altogether, or become more shallow, or it may be that we have lost awareness of what the breath is doing altogether.

No problem – just noticing and gently bringing your attention into your body allows you to feel your breath . Often just noticing your breath with relaxed attention helps it to become more full and deep in the body. And, as you notice what’s happening with your breathing, you can work with relaxing your whole body just a bit more. This greater relaxation allows for fuller breathing in the whole belly, front sides and back.

Focusing on the breath in this way will help you feel more ease in the poses and will allow for a deeper sense of energized and relaxed awareness.

In Longevity Breathing Yoga we begin most classes going through specific areas of the body to feel and, when necessary, adjust alignments. Getting into alignment is an essential foundation for gaining the most benefit from the yoga postures. Working with someone else to get external feedback about your alignments is very useful, especially for those new to LB Yoga.

But how about when you are on your own…what does it feel like to be aligned?

This is a question that’s interesting to explore. Sometimes it’s helpful to briefly get into an obvious “unaligned” position and notice what you feel – usually there is a noticeable increase in physical discomfort, possibly vivid/agitated sensations in your body or mind, or, conversely, a sense of dullness, numbness or spacing out.

Next, get into a more aligned position based on the alignments we use in class – how does what was previously uncomfortable now feel? What has changed? How has it changed? How do you feel physically? While probably you will feel more comfortable, every individual will have their own experience of being more aligned.

Working with and feeling your alignments is an excellent way to develop a routine for home practice. Even just 10 or 15 minutes a day will help you feel more ease and clarity as you learn and practice the Longevity Breathing Yoga routine.

Bruce Frantzis’ new recording Ancient Songs of the Tao includes a thorough focus on body alignments – another helpful resource is the book Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body (see www.energyarts.com). These are both excellent aids in developing and exploring your own internal sense of alignment.

You may recognize the BTC mascot in this photo, demonstrating a good attitude for getting into your LB Yoga practice – start with what’s easy.

It’s much more enjoyable and useful to start in your poses with enough propping, whether on the floor or in a chair, and to have what you need close by (props, chairs) to make transitioning from one pose to the next as smooth as possible. This will also allow you to be more relaxed into yourself as you practice.

Once you have the physical basics of each pose, you can play with focusing on one aspect of Tao Yoga as you practice. A good start may be to take one of the principles listed on the prior post and pay attention to this principle as you go. Anoher idea is to choose one area of your body that you will especially pay attention to as you practice, noticing as much as you can about that area through each pose.

Most importantly, it’s best to first stay with what feels easy and enjoyable, then play with the practice from there.

In Longevity Breathing Yoga, one of the basic principles is that all the postures derive from physical, mental and emotional relaxation – we talk about practicing without strain – but what if it hurts just to sit?

This question is a common one. Many of us feel pain or strain just sitting in a neutral beginning posture. Here are some suggestions if you find yourself in this predicament:

• In the cross-legged posture, try adding pillows under your knees, and/or under your rear-end; often just a bit more propping provides relief of back tension, or tension in the legs and hips
• in the sitting position, close your eyes and see if you can “let-go” and relax your whole body just a bit more before you begin
• spend a little time before you practice laying on the floor with your knees up and pay attention to your breathing; let your whole body relax as much as it can in that moment, then move into the sitting cross-legged position
• If sitting cross-legged on the floor feels too difficult, try sitting in a chair with your pelvis toward the front end of the chair and your ankles crossed
• as you sit and feel your breathing, see if you can let your breath soak into the areas of tension like water soaks into the soil as you water a potted plant

Remember that it’s important not to push through tension, or push yourself to get into a position that’s too difficult. Try playing with these suggestions and see if you notice a difference.