Perfect Practice: Chi Power Training
The desire to gain expertise and demonstrate a level of achieved power is often the impetus that drives practitioners of traditional chi gung and other methods of energy building systems to the brink of destruction: a life consuming yang-out brought upon by overt training. The levels of catastrophe that take place are mind boggling and myriad. Things simply just “fall apart”. Sadder still, although mentors and instructors may point the Way, once engaged in a yang-fueled cycle of destruction, it would seem as if it must run its course before the student has a moment of clarity.
The maxim of “practice leads to perfection” is an institution upon which the world as we know it functions. A new rule of thumb, stating that 10,000 hours is all that stands between nonprofessional performance and genius ability, brings to the table a new level of deliberate focus and concentration. Well documented in classical music studies and physical training, this concept of focused, deliberate training versus over training lends itself to the Chi Power methodology of energy cultivation.
In the article Brain Makeover published by Scientific American, writer Michele Solis points out how practice rewires the brain, but not always in the ways intended, especially when these hours of practice bring about dystonia: a disorder where the “boundaries between muscles blur in the brain and precise movements are no longer possible.” In dystonia, notes Solis, activating one muscle accidentally activates other muscles around it, because the brain areas for each muscle are not distinct.
Whereas the condition generally takes years to develop, new research suggests a treatment that takes only 15 minutes to reorganize and bring focus to the brain via a noninvasive technology called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). What is important here is not so much the technologies involved in or the cure itself, but the fact that the brain can be rewired in 15, deliberate minutes.
Similarly, in the realm of physical training, the once-upon-a-time “gym rats” who spent hours a day working out, are becoming a dying breed. The evolution of more intelligent and focused physical training represents a new paradigm shift. Enter Izumi Tabata, and his self ascribed “Tabata Protocol”.
The Tabata Protocol is quite possibly the most intense and amazingly powerful physical workout I have ever done; and it lasts only for 15 short minutes. Although I do not advise anyone to try said workout, I would suggest that they read the information regarding the Tabata Protocol, and rethink previous beliefs regarding workouts.
In fact, this crux of the article: “You must un-learn what you have learned,” Yoda.
We are alive in amazing times; everyday, scientists and experts in their fields provide us with new research, new data, and better information that help each of us accomplish our tasks with less time, energy and effort. In a similar line of thought, Chi Power training looks to maximize 5-minute training routines by fully engaging the mind and the body, with deliberate focus, to gain an expert level of ability without the negative side effects of a “yang-out” as mentioned previously in this article. The laws of electricity, more to the point, quantum physics, are counterintuitive at best. Further still, the gains made when deliberately focusing on a targeted result when performing energy cultivation are exponential. Going past the 5-minute marker is, more often than not, trouble brewing in the distance.
We at Scientific Premium Company USA have found that chi is best developed when a healthy mind and a healthy body work in unison; which is why SPC USA products are designed to unlock the [entire] human potential of every individual.
In the interim: be well; be mindful.
V/r
Don Brown [Certified Instructor]
