CHI FOR ALL - NOTES

THESE NOTES ARE FOR MY ONLINE CLASSES, YOUTUBE CLIPS AND BOOK
INTRODUCTION
This book is intended to be a guide to help people live happier, healthier lives in our crazy times. It's meant to give you some background detail and a deeper understanding of energy work for my online Eventbrite classes and YouTube video clips. Little did I know just how effective these simple Chi Kung exercises could be when I started to learn them way back in 1997…
A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
In the early months of 1997, I was learning Tai Chi in a class taught by a wonderful teacher, Ian Ledward. He taught us Chi Kung exercises as a warm-up beforehand. One evening, when we emerged into the darkness after our lesson we saw an eerie sight in the sky, a bright object with a very obvious tail, the Hale-Bopp comet. Seeing such a strange object gave me a kind of unsettling feeling. I imagine that feeling might have been even stronger for the people who saw it on its last visit to Earth some 4,000 years previously. Visits by comets have been seen as portents of times of great change and that one from Hale-Bopp certainly came in a time of change for me. It was a whole new beginning, studying and going on to work in complementary therapy.
Learning these ancient Chinese arts has proved to be a really important part of that. It turned out that the Chi Kung exercises - which I thought were just warm-up exercises - turned out to be the most powerful, effective and practical thing I've ever studied. I use my Chi Kung experience everyday, for my own personal healthcare, when I'm treating patients and in my everyday life - really much more than Tai Chi.
Now, I'd like to help people everywhere gain some of these benefits. Through learning these simple exercises, along with an understanding of their deeper potential, you can understand and nurture your personal life force energy better, within yourself and in your day-to-day interactions with other people..
CHI KUNG CRANIAL
I've combined Chi Kung with techniques and understanding I've picked up from all sorts of other therapies and experience, especially Craniosacral Therapy. This is a very gentle way of working, yet one that can be wonderfully helpful. It bridges the worlds of working with the energy and the physical body, its main focus being the craniosacral system. This is the system of membranes that surrounds the spinal cord and brain, and the fluid it contains. This spinal fluid protects, nourishes and removes waste products from our central nervous system - a real core structure. (See appendices for more detail of Craniosacral Therapy).
ACCESSIBLE, SIMPLE, DE-MYSTIFIED
This book is intended for people everywhere, many of whom will have no experience of working with their personal chi in this way, and may even have been put off by some of the New Age talk about it. So, if that's you, please put your sceptical doubts to one side for a moment and just try these exercises - the potential benefits are so great it's well worth the effort. I'd like to make everything as simple and easy to follow as possible so, for example, I generally talk about "Energy Centres" rather than "Chakras", though they refer to the same thing. (I use both of these terms in the text and I've added a glossary for these and others in the appendices).
POST-INDUSTRIAL COLLAPSE?
You may feel, like me, that the institutions of our industrial way of life are collapsing about us and want to prepare for a simpler way of life, or you may simply want to live a healthier life, with a better connection to the natural world. Either way, our times could be a wonderful, creative, re-invigorating period for us all, for learning and re-learning ancient wisdom and customs from around the world, and adapting them for the present day - and having fun with it all!
 

PART ONE - WORKING WITH OUR OWN PERSONAL ENERGY
THE ENERGY BODY AND THE PHYSICAL BODY
We have some awareness of our amazing physical body (did you know there are more atoms in your body than there are stars in the observable universe - about a billion billion billion? and each of those atoms has its own energy world - just for added complexity each of those tiny worlds could connect with any or all of the other ones - that's getting to be a big number). We generally have less awareness of our energy body though, which is a shame because it's just as important… or maybe even more important..
FEATURES OF OUR ENERGY BODY?
It's partly made up of channels and connecting centres (or chakras). You've probably heard of the meridian system, as manipulated by acupuncturists as part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The meridians are twelve channels through which life force energy (or chi) runs around our bodies in one continuous circuit. (There's an excellent book which explains all this, and much more about TCM: "The Web that has no Weaver", by Ted Kaptchuk - find this and other great reads in appendices).
You've probably also heard people talk about "chakras" and may well have been a bit mystified or even put off by what can sometimes come across as half-baked babble. For simplicity, I usually call them energy centres and I've gone through the main ones below, explaining them from my own experience, which differs from some New Age writing.
CHI
The life force itself - also known by other names: Qi, Ki, Prana and many other names, and probably some which have never been written down. Chi flows through us humans and all living things, animals and plants and I'd say through inanimate things too, such as stone, water and air. It flows through and around the Earth and the whole Universe. I love that it is essentially "mysterious and unfathomable", we don't know where it came from or where it's going, yet we can feel it, and even work with it to enhance its quality and flow - and that's what this book is all about.
ENERGY CENTRES AND CHANNELS
If your energy body was a country, the energy centres would be its cities, villages, workshops, storage units, laboratories and so on… its structures. The channels would be its roads, from major highways down to tiny paths. Life force energy should be able to flow freely along the pathways between all the structures so that everything is connected to everything else. These flows generate fields which mingle and interact with each other. We have a main central core channel which runs from the top of the head to the soles of the feet. Through this we are connected to the life force energy of the Earth and of the whole Universe,
WHAT DO CHAKRAS/ENERGY CENTRES DO?
The centres act as connectors, allowing energy flow between all our energy structures and between all the various levels of our energy bodies. They also act as processors, for example of emotional flow.
ABOUT THE MAIN CENTRES
This is my own present understanding of the energy centres which I've come to through reading, practice and observation. You'll no doubt read different theories about them elsewhere. I think the most helpful thing is to read widely, take it all with a pinch of salt, practise, read a bit more, observe, think, ask questions, practise a bit more and gradually come up with your own understanding, which may well be different yet again, and all the better for it.
It's very rewarding just to focus your attention on these centres individually and feel what they're like for you - there's no hard and fast rule about what they're like, though they do have common associations, some of which I'll mention just so you can get a feel for their possibilities. Our energy bodies are evolving - what was true about them yesterday may not be true tomorrow.
We can feel the energy centres as being set out in a row on the main central energy channel, so our attention can move from one to another along this thoroughfare. That's not the only way of looking at them though, we can also imagine them as enfolded inside each other in a concentric arrangement, no one more important than another.
COSMIC CENTRE
This centre is roughly three foot or a metre above our heads. When we focus our attention into this centre we're connecting into nothing less than the life force energy of our whole awesome, humanly-unfathomable universe. The life force which has expressed itself through time in a flow of increasing complexity from the simplest forms, to our human selves and which will flow on through the evolutions of the future.
In spite of all our scientific studies, we really don't have answers for some basic questions, is the universe finite or infinite? What existed before the Big Bang? But when we connect with the cosmic centre we can at least get a feel for the nature of everything. My own hunch is that we'll only take our next step in understanding the universe when we can get our human brains around the concept of enfoldedness, in which anything and everything can be seen as folded up inside anything and everything else, effectively a fifth dimension. So that if you could travel into the tiniest subatomic particle, down and down further inside, you would find the whole universe unfolding all around you.
Sometimes I get glimpses of a geometrically ordered level within the cosmic centre, a level of symmetry, perfect geometric shapes and patterns, beyond or behind normal space/time. Or I sometimes feel the cosmic centre as a natural space, up in the trees and clouds and full of light. It's in this space that we're most likely to connect with whatever helpful beings your belief system might entertain, angels, ascended masters, wise ancestors.
CROWN CENTRE
Situated at the very top of the head, this is the portal through which our central core energy channel emerges to connect with the cosmic centre. This is an interesting point In craniosacral thinking, the place where the frontal bone meets the parietal bones. With light touch and a little practice, you can feel the parietal bones moving as they respond to the rise and fall in pressure within the cerebrospinal fluid, a movement allowed by the interdigitation of these two bones. There is a theory that a nerve fibre descends from here as a sensor which helps to regulate the craniosacral system.
THIRD EYE CENTRE
This is at the level of the forehead, its centre is on the central core channel, right in the very centre of the cranium, where some very important structures can be found: the pineal gland, pituitary gland, the sphenoid bone and its junction with the occiput, (the wonderfully-named, sphenobasilar synchondrosis, SBS for short). All these structures have fascinating energy-body aspects as well as their physical-body ones which are all well worth exploring. I very often work with patients' sphenoid bone towards the end of a session as it is a wonderful assistant for rebalancing and, even more than that, appears to me as a kind of master architect with an understanding of all natural design. Your thumbs fall naturally onto the outer surfaces of the sphenoid when you have your hands in one of the main holds. If you're not quite touching here, you sometimes feel something like a tiny spark crossing the gap. The third eye centre is commonly associated with intuition, insight and perception beyond generally accepted reality.
THROAT
The throat centre is associated with the voice and mouth, with talking, self-expression and speaking your truth. I think it's also about listening, and so encompasses our ears. (And why do we have two ears and one mouth?) The mouth is important for nutrition and self care generally. A cranial connection is the hyoid bone. This is a very delicate structure at the top of the neck. It doesn't connect with other bones, but it does connect with many muscles, making it a brilliant handle for craniosacral therapy. Just in passing, there's a nice link here with Traditional Chinese Medicine and the SPLEEN - fascinating to read about this organ in "The Web that has no Weaver". A health care friend once remarked that people are generally "overfed and under-nourished", I think this is spot on about the quality and quantity of the industrially-produced food we are consuming and also about the industrial news we are bombarded with. It may well be partly thanks to the spleen that we can process any of this barrage at all.
HEART
Most commonly associated with love. There are many Greek words for different kinds of love, there are words for physical, affectionate, self-love, unconditional, familial, obsessive, sensual, playful, and practical love - yet we bundle all these different aspects into one word, which is probably not always helpful. Should, "I love you", have the same significance as, "I love ice cream"?
Something else to consider is the amazing study of the heart's valves that Leonardo da Vinci made. He came to the conclusion that they were shaped so as to generate vortices. Is the heart primarily a pump at all? Read more via the book recommendations in the apendices.
DIAPHRAGM - SOLAR PLEXUS
This centre is often associated with personal power, self-esteem and a sense of purpose. The diaphragm draws air into our lungs when it contracts. Becoming aware of and regulating our breathing can be very helpful techniques. There's several other important physical structures at this level and each has its own energy significance to us: the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, pancreatic duct, spleen, duodenum, jejunum, stomach, transverse colon and the many valves and sphincters connecting them such as the cardiac sphincter and pylorus. We can work with any or all of these using our energy medicine, chi kung cranial techniques.
TAN TIEN - THE CENTRAL CENTRE
Located about two fingers' breadth below the navel. There isn't a chakra at this level in some systems, they often jump from the solar plexus to the sacral centres, but in my experience, and in Chi Kung thinking, this is really the main one. Tan Tien is its name in TCM. This is a great place to start our chi kung practice, for gathering our energy, and for bringing everything to a re-energised but neutral state at the finish. As you go through everyday life it can be very helpful to be aware of your centre and to perform action from here. "The good traveller never leaves home".
SACRAL
This centre is found at the level of the sacrum on our spine. It's commonly associated with creativity, passion, sexuality and sensuality. The sacrum is the lower end of the craniosacral system and one of our main handles for craniosacral therapy. The bones of the hips are a fascinating collection of shapes, connections and more handles we can work with such as the pubic symphysis at the front. This is also an excellent point where we can place a hand when we're working on ourselves - it links in with the ilia, ischia, sacrum, coccyx and through the acetabula to the hips and legs. By the way, male/female balance - do we need more male energy in the world at the moment? I don't think so! Balance, surely that's what we need.
HANDS
Centres located in the palms of the hand. The hands' fields extend all around the hand in a ball of energy. The hand centres are a most important part of energy work. They can become receptors, helping us to scan energy features in ourselves and others. We can imagine or feel the hands as miniature electrical field-receiving/sending dishes, so that they can become influencers, or miniature tractor beams. They can help us to work with our own or other peoples' energies, for example, helping to increase the flow in a centre or channel, or helping a distorted channel to unwind. Helping people to gain a better awareness of these hand centres is an important part of this first level.
ROOT
The Root Centre is located at the very foot of the torso, the perineum, between the anus and genitals. It may be linked with our primal survival urge, with feeling grounded and present in our bodies. It may also be the point from which we develop our first human features as we grow from a ball of cells. It may have a special connection with the tip of the coccyx. The main central channel exits our body from here and continues on down to the Earth centre.
FEET
As well as flowing directly down into the Earth centre from the Root Centre, energy may also flow down through the core of the legs to the feet. The soles of the feet hold centres through which we make a special connection with the Earth when we're walking or standing on the Earth. It's wonderful if we can be out in our forests or by the sea, but even if we are ten stories up in a block of flats we can connect down into the Earth through here. The legs and feet can be thought of as a continuation of the central channel whether they're held together or apart.
EARTH
Our connection with the whole biosphere of the Earth, the physical rocks, metals, the atmosphere, oceans, forests and the life force energy of it all. It might have a timeless feeling to it or an "all-time" feeling. As the present biosphere is the end result of billions of years of change and evolution. We are just a small part of this ongoing evolution, thoroughly enfolded in it. Would there be any point in our lungs and circulatory systems if there were no oxygen in the atmosphere?
OUR ENERGY CHANNELS
The life force flows through us in many different ways, through channels that are purely of energy, like the main central core and the meridian system, also along and within physical structures, like the cardio-vascular system, nervous system, respiratory system and craniosacral system. I feel some of these channels through my hands, especially those in the limbs and the main central one. When I've been showing people Chi Kung exercises I've generally found that they can feel the energy in their own hands with a little direction and practice. Helping people to find this is one of my main aims for the first level classes. (If you don't feel energy in your hands, great practical advice is simply to imagine what it would feel like if you did. The same goes for many other light touch phenomena).
FIRST LEVEL CLASS
WARM UP AND STRETCH
HAND ENERGY EXERCISES
Hopefully you'll be able to join in with one of my online classes or watch my YouTube clips - it's much easier to learn these exercises by watching them. These notes should help you to get a better feel for what's going on.
PALMS MOVING TOGETHER AND APART Hold your hands at the level of the Tan Tien or Diaphragm/Solar Plexus centre with your palms facing each other. Move your hands gently together and apart repeatedly, while focusing your attention on the space between your hands. Move them to a greater width apart each time, then back to a smaller width.
FIGURES OF EIGHT The same together/apart kind of movement, but this time your let hands trace figures of eight in larger and smaller shapes.
PALMS MOVING TOGETHER AND APART AGAIN
By now you may already be feeling a kind of tingling or glowing in your hands, a bit like you might imagine a magnetic field to feel like. If you're joining in with the online class at this point we'll be holding our hands towards our screens which we've been finding helpful.
MORE CHI KUNG EXERCISES
There's hundreds of chi kung exercises that are helpful to do. Some of the ones I often do myself are Cloud Hands, Lifting Water and Standing like a Tree - if you follow my classes or film clips you'll see their forms much more easily than through reading text.
PATTERNS WITHIN THE EXERCISES
There are patterns within the exercises that occur again and again. The palms facing each other, while drawing apart and closing again and the hands moving up and down the centre line. Once you feel how you can work with your personal life force you'll understand the reason for this - it's the way into enhancing its flow and quality.
YOUR HANDS AS SENSORS/RECEPTORS/ENHANCERS
Now imagine that your hands have become energy receptors and enhancers. Your palms naturally form dish shapes with which you can sense life force energy in other structures and also enhance or direct its flow. Try holding them over Tan Tien and gently drawing that centre's energy outwards, as if you hands held miniature tractor beams.
… MORE SOON …

our main energy centres (chakras)

our central core channel and its flow into the limbs