Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts Blog

The First Step to a Centered Life

qigong Mar 16, 2007

"Standing stake" is one of the fundamental exercises in Chen tai chi, and it's also, in my humble opinion, the best chi kung exercise you can do. If you spend a few minutes a day doing this, you can begin the journey to use the internal arts to create a more healthy and positive life.

A centered life.

Here's a very basic guide -- stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Your feet should be parallel. Relax the knees--don't lock them out. Keep the head up and the chin slightly tucked in (slightly). Relax the lower back by slightly tucking the hips under. Raise your hands so that it appears you're embracing a tree. Your palms should face your body, your fingers are pointing toward each other.

Relax your shoulders. Working your way down your body, focus on relaxing every muscle.

Calm your mind and place part of your awareness on your dan t'ien (the fist-sized area about 1.5 inches below the navel and an inch or two inside the body).

When I do this exercise, I use mental imagery. I ...

Using Chi Kung in Daily Life

centering at work chi kung how to use chi kung in daily life how to use qigong in daily life qigong Dec 08, 2006

The first time I realized that chi kung (also spelled "Qigong") was having an impact on my life was in 1988, working as the producer of the 6:00 newscast at KMTV.

On one particular day, a wall cloud was passing the station, preparing to drop a tornado. People were running around the newsroom, doing live broadcasts, rolling big studio cameras outside the door so they could show the wall cloud on the air as it passed by -- there was a lot of shouting and screaming.

It was a little after 5 p.m. and I was at my desk, putting the final touches on the rundown and script for the 6:00 news. Suddenly I heard someone laugh. I looked to my right and the sports anchor was sitting at his desk looking at me.

"Doctor Chill," he said. "Everyone's screaming and panicking and you just sit there getting the job done."

I realized that I had been centering myself as I worked. I had become the eye in the center of the storm. The chi kung I began studying under Sifu Phillip Starr at the Omaha YiLi Chuan ...

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Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

The First Step to a Centered Life

Using Chi Kung in Daily Life

Author - Instructor

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