Originally Posted by
Empty_of_Clouds
Please don't take this as a criticism.
Qigong isn't a set of practices for old people, it's really for lifelong practice for everyone, building a habit of stretching and strengthening. These practices give their greatest benefits when they are done every day. Skipping days/weeks or whatever does set a person back. This is well understood in Western exercise pedagogy where stopping training starts a relatively slow decline over the first week or so and a rapid diminishing beyond that. Obviously this is an undesirable process for everyone, but in older people it is much, much harder to regain skill and conditioning.
There are issues I see with people who are new to this. The critical first two steps are:
1. Learn the movements.
2. Learn to mindfully align breathing with the movements.
A lot of people stop at part 1. If coming from a sedentary life to this then there will be some initial gains, but nothing further unless part 2 is engaged. Beyond that and you get into intention and "energy" channels. Really though, most people would get a lot from extended engagement with parts 1 and 2.
Incidentally, I got a 16kg kettlebell about a year ago. It's a fun piece of kit that requires a great deal of respect.
Bookmarks