DK you have worked through this book, what’s your opinion about what this person says?
Might as well be interested in @Mulberry opinion, both of you have decent experience with Qi Qong.
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I haven’t read this book, I watched the video and I know the exercises he mentions.
As far as I can tell, he’s not saying the exercises aren’t beneficial, he’s looking for a way to prioritize it for people without much time. Which ones can fall off the bottom of the list with the least loss of benefit? He might be working with old or sick people that don’t need to do a lot to get huge strides forward in their health and maybe aren’t capable of moving that much. Then they have to start with baby steps… He’s giving the baby steps.
If that’s correct, then I think focusing on sinking qi and cloud hands gets you a lot of bang for your buck.
I absolutely don’t agree you should drop dissolving and swinging though: these sick people have a lot of blockages that prevent energy flow, so what’s the point of trying to get your energy to flow if you don’t clean your pipes, as it were? If you drop these, at least add back a “happy shaking” exercise to dislodge and clear unwanted, stagnant and blocked qi.
If anything I would prioritise clearing over moving. If you try to move qi when you’re blocked you could cause pain and feelings that scare people. Happens on here all the time. Rally you just need both they’re two side of the same coin to balancing your qi. Maybe he assumes the moving will clear it all for you, and it will do some of that, but not as much as you need.
Re “cloud hands gets 80 percent of Tai chi form” … eehhh. I can see where he’s coming from, which is getting energy moving, which it will do. Mildly. But not really if you consider that Tai Chi is actually a martial art, then this sucks the muscle memory exercises out that turn it into a holistic full body exercise, as It also cuts out the very important leg exercise.
Your legs are a huge part of balance and strength. Your quads being the largest muscle group in your body, so that’s no way 80 percent any more, and a basic measure of fitness is whether you can stand up from a sitting or squatting position without holding on to something. You can’t drop legs, they’re super important to take care of, in muscle and bone density. Body weight exercise builds bone density and staves off hip fractures and the shrinking you get as you age. Best thing for that is to work your quads in every way you can.
All in all, he waters it down so much that it’s fine for a very feeble and sick person to get moving again, but as advice for normal well people, this is not qigong any more and to follow this and only this is almost a waste of time. Even the sick person should up he ante after they feel better again. At this rate, you’d actually do better just going for a walk in the woods, maybe adding walking qigong.
Having said all that, the one qi exercise I would do if I had to pick one and one only, isn’t any of these: it’s the microcosmic orbit.
He doesn’t mention that, I don’t know if the book does though. I have Frantzis’ Water Method of Taoist Meditation books which are excellent, and I’m currently working through some Mantak Chia books on the Kan and Li (more Fire & Water, microcosmic orbit related stuff).
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Alrighty, I will follow the book’s instructions to the T.
How do I know if I have opened these two points?
I checked the illustrations of the Kidney 1 pathway, yesterday during an evocation, I asked the spirit that I had summoned to clear/open up the Kidney 1 meridian. And I felt energy running along that pathway.
You can feel it. Either or both of putting you mind in these points so you feel the tingle that tells you energy is moving to them, and using sword fingers.
To use sword fingers, breathe in qi through all your pores (use child breathing as a matter of course), and as you breathe out put your attention so that energy you breathed in flows down your arm, to your hand and into the fingers, opening the points in those fingers. You now have a jet of energy extending from your fingers.
Now, you know how you can make a qi ball and feel it like magnetism between your hands? You can do that with the energy from your fingers to any point as well. So lift your foot, and, keeping it moving, put your mind in K1, and waft your sword fingers gently about 2 to 8 inches from your K1. Search for that magnetic feeling.
This is called “reading” the energy.
When you get it, you know the point is emitting qi and it then must be “open”. If you can’t find it and there’s no tingle, it’s not open.
If it’s not open, you can use sword fingers to help open it. Keeping mind in K1, move your sword fingers to the top of your foot and intentionally direct the energy like a water jet through K1 from the top. Then read again. Keep doing that until it opens or you get bored and decide to try again another day 
The work you did will not be lost, it’s cumulative, you just might have blocks that take more to clear. This is unlikely as most people have open K1s.
Cool beans! Qigong never uses spirits like this and neither do I: my teachers warned me off spirits in the traditional way calling them a distraction, so I can’t speak to this aspect.
I have had entities perform healing that changes my energy but it’s not part of a self development practice, and it’s usually not isolated to the qi body, it’s more holistic and touches the mental and emotional bodies as well, which qigong does not do directly.
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I very much disagree with this guy, and I don’t think he really has any clue what he’s talking about. Frantzis is a lineage holder in the Water Tradition of qi gong and the book describes the basic foundation of his system. Removing any of the main exercises means you will not have the proper skills to go any deeper. One thing this guy seems to fail to grasp is that there is a reason the author included the exercises he did. He also doesn’t seem to understand that qi gong is not tai chi. They are different systems with different purposes.
This guy reminds me of all the people in magick who think they can skip the basic skills required for evocation and then don’t understand why their magick doesn’t work.
If he’s worried that the exercises are too complicated to learn (they’re not; there are videos on them available for those who are visual learners and prefer to follow along) then maybe he should recommend a different book. Frantzis’ book The Chi Revolution, for example, provides far simpler exercises that teach one how to set started with feeling chi, bouncing, dissolving, and cultivation. It was purposely written for those who are just learning and either don’t want to learn a full system or don’t have time to but still would like to improve their health.
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I just skimmed through the index of the book, but I was wondering how many minutes or hours should the practitioner invest in the daily exercises. In other words, how long does it take to do the daily routine?
There is a saying that goes like this: Meditate for twenty minutes every day. If you are too busy to spare twenty minutes, then meditate for an hour.
In other words, invest in the basic exercises as much time as you are able. You will get benefits in as little as twenty minutes a day but the more time you devote to them, the deeper the results you receive will be.
Everyone always seem to be in a rush these days to move on to the advanced stuff without obtaining any real understanding of the basics but those who take the time to really learn the foundations will always be stronger and accomplish more than those who rush ever will.
Even when mastery is attained, the true master will continue building his foundation. The exercises are the root from which the flower grows and there is always more to learn from them.
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