Mastering the Qi in Qigong

Introduction to Qigong and Hair Health 0:00

The hair is considered the extremity of the blood. So if your blood is healthier, that's going to show in your hair. Your hair will be longer, fuller, shinier, all those type of things. You know, so this is sort of one of main things that I think about. But also a real specialty that we have in Qigong is building up and supporting the energy of kidneys. and the kidney yin and, you know, the pre-birth essence stored at the Ming Men. And those also just support just all around being more radiant and having more energy in your body.

I mean, those are literally sort of just the foundation levels of supporting your health. If you can build up your inner health and your energy level and nourish your blood, And this is absolutely going to support the health of your skin and your hair. Now, the other thing which really helps is that Qigong is profoundly relaxing, you know, it's very, very relaxing.

Host Introduces Scott Jensen 0:52

Hi, and welcome to The Balancing Point. I'm Dr. John Needers and I am here to make traditional Chinese medicine. functional medicine and integrative health simple, practical and fun so you can restore balance, boost vitality and enjoy a healthier life every single day. Hi, welcome to another edition of The Balancing Point. This is Dr. John. I really want to thank you for tuning in with us. And a very exciting show today for me personally. Now I say that a few times because I talk to really intelligent people.

But today I get to talk with someone that's not only really highly accomplished in what they do, but someone who I've known and has been a friend for 45 years, something like that. It's been long, long time. I met Sifu Jensen, Scott Jenson, many years ago at the Changsheng School of Internal Martial Arts. And I stopped in and for the first time in my life, I actually put myself into studying something. I thought I was pretty dedicated. five days a week doing four hours a day and you know I do a little work outside and then I noticed that every time I came to the school Scott was there.

He was stretching I think for hours and he was working out and his forms were just so far beyond mine or anybody else really and so I was really blown away and I've been very fortunate to keep in touch with Scott not as much as I would like but you Sifu Jensen is one of the most absolutely, absolutely one-of-the-most knowledgeable and skillful teachers in the field of classical Chinese martial arts. Now, that's actually a pretty big field. And the title of this show today is Mastering the Qi Part of Qi Gong, which just, I love that title.

But Scott is extremely proficient in Tai Chi Chuan, Northern Shaolin Kung Fu, Xingyi Quan, and Qigong. He's also proficient in a whole bunch of other things, but I'm going to let him go into those. But one thing that I would like Scott to speak on for a moment, plan this part. A few years ago, Scott went to Taiwan, or actually mainland China, I'm sorry, and competed in a major martial arts tournament. Scott, would you talk to just a minute about the experience of that and what you accomplished, etc.?

Oh, thank you, John. Thank you for the wonderful introduction. It's really a pleasure to be on your show. And I just really admire the work you're doing, the connection you have between traditional medicine and the modern world. I love it. It was actually in 2011, we went to China, to Wudang Mountain, which is the birthplace of Taoism in China.

Wudang Mountain Tournament Experience 3:56

The little birth place of Daoism. There's a series of mountain ranges there in the very center of the country. They're not like the Himalayas. There are not that massive, massive mountains. But nonetheless, they're very impressive compared to the plains surrounding them. Mudan Mountain is a temple hermitage complex. If you think about the image of the temple on the top of a mountain and then the sage is in there and you're going to go there, and they're gonna ask for some wisdom and lessons, literally that's Wudang Mountain.

The temples are literally on the very top of the highest peak. There's a gold temple up there. Wow. And, uh, it's an incredible place to be the atmosphere. I guess the feeling in those mountains is really incredible. Yeah. It's also considered to the birthplace of Tai Chi and there's some arguments about, about this, this one, but you know, for me, at least I really think that they have a wonderful and very poetic claim. And perhaps more realistic, but it's considered to be the birthplace of Tai Chi.

And right after the Chinese hosted the Olympics, there was just a lot of energy in the country. It was a really, really wonderful time to actually be in China. So they had world championships in internal martial arts and Tai chi in particular. at Wudang Mountain. And they had the most spectacular opening ceremony I've ever seen for a martial arts tournament. I attended many, and it was actually stayed by some of the designers that did the Olympic openings. We had a two-day ceremony. There were over 2,000 competitors and pretty much every single one of them was a professional instructor.

I won the gold medal for young style Tai Chi. And that's the most popular style of Tai-Chi. The most commonly practiced worldwide. That was the biggest division. So I wanted a gold metal for that. I also won a silver medal, for sword. and I'm particularly proud of this silver metal, because there weren't that many competitors in sword in my age group. so I was combined with the 20 to 40 year old group, And, you know, I'm a solid from that was really, really incredible experience and, um, You know sort of validation from my practice that I was able to, win this major tournament in China.

in their national treasure art. So you go to their birthplace of this art and you win the gold medal. That's, I mean, you say it kind of casually, right? But I would wear the medal all day, wear it around. Uh, that is truly, truly astonishing. And Scott, a lot of people I'd like, But you're one of the few people I admire because I've just watched your spirit and how much you put into this and you are constantly busy training, teaching and sharing. Giving your wisdom out quite freely, which is not something that was always done around Chinese martial arts and that people have you to go to.

You know, it's pretty amazing. And so I want to add a couple of things. Sifu Jensen brings such an astonishing knowledge and experience based on his healing journey, his own personal healing, which is quite amazing,

Healing Through Two Major Car Accidents 7:34

and his strong passion for martial arts practice. over 40 years of professional teaching. And he's known for exploring the spiritual and healing aspects of classical martial arts and the intersection between traditional Chinese medical theory and philosophy and even some mystical and spiritual depth and real martial art practice. Now, there are lots and lots of people who dabble in martial Arts. You know, some of them actually end up becoming professional teachers. But what I want you to get is if we have a pyramid Scott is the keystone at the very top.

And I know personally from seeing some of his students professionally that he's actually changed their lives. So Scott, awesome. Thank you for coming on with me today. This is really special. As you know, certainly teaching for so long, so many people are really skeptical about Qigong. You know they have some ideas, but mostly not very accurate. They doubt if Qiguang is even a real thing, if Qi is real. Can you tell us how your healing journey helped you to learn the benefit from Qi Gong practice?

Because I know it's quite a story. Well, thank you very much for your kind words. It's a real honor and pleasure to be on your show as well. I also have a lot of admiration for all the work that you've done and your commitment to healing. Hey, you're not retiring, man. You're still healing, and I know you could. That's when you have a passion. And I think it's so wonderful to be able to help people. In our profession, we actually get to see the results that we can see with our own eyes. Oh, these people are healthier than when they first met them.

They're dramatically healthier and they're also happier. That is just incredibly satisfying. To talk about my journey, when I was 16, I probably shouldn't have gotten a driver's license. put me in a short way to put it. But, you know, I think perhaps my youth and maybe my eyesight, but I had a terrible car accident in an extremely raining night. And one of the first two rainstorms I drove the car in. I hit a hydroplane, and I spun around a whole bunch of times. My little Volkswagen bug landed on the corner of a parked Cadillac and the bumper of the Cadilac went right through my door and hit my hip and broke my pelvis in five places.

Wow. Fortunately, I was within hearing distance of. The local fire department, they actually didn't get a call. They heard the crash and they came out and scooped me up and. I went to glue in the ambulance and I was super lucky because this was, uh, you know, like the late, late seventies and the defibrillators, that was an experimental, it was a new technology where you're really rolling the dice with, with whether they would work. And I got lucky and they worked and, Uh, we started my heart and then three days later, I woke up in a hospital, my family's around the bed and my minister and you So that was quite a process to recover from breaking my pelvis and also the spinal trauma that I had from that.

And it took me years to stretch out my hips again and break through the scar tissue. And then I had a second very severe car accident when I was 24 on the San Francisco Bay Bridge and my car stalled and, you know, I hit the little button for the rescue guys to rescue me. And before they could get there, Cardinal Van, a guy coming from Colorado, looking at the view on a beautiful day, didn't even see me, hardly put on his brakes. I got back in the car. Didn't have my seatbelt on. And my head was completely turned as I looked over my shoulder for the impending impact.

So my spine was completed rotated and I got hit with this whiplap, with a huge impact, put the rear bumper around my rear seat wise and my hands broke the windshield. So on the outside, I didn't look too bad. But in the inside, my entire spine is basically sprained and every single vertebrae was misplaced and twisted. And I just had a real terrible trauma to my spine with that. That was actually much harder to heal than the broken pelvis, even though the You know, the spine was even worse. And there was a period, you know after that accident that went on for a year, it's where I mean I wake up in the morning, I was just in pain.

You just, my whole spine would hurt. My whole body would. It would have hurt bad. So it it was like, okay, how do I get out of bed? How do i stand up? I make it down the hallway to use the toilet. And so practicing Kung Fu and Tai Chi, that was just right out the window. I couldn't even do any of that. That was all I could do, you know? But I realized that if I did enough Qigong, then I can straighten my spine out and I would be able to open it up and un-pinch my nerves and then be out of pain and have a normal day.

Or at least a semi-normal day. It took time. But at the beginning, the other part was I was going to school. I trying to finish my philosophy degree and I couldn't sit in chairs. If I sat in a chair, 10 minutes maybe, 15 minutes, I'd start to have a very acute muscle spasm and it was really painful. So if I wanted to read a book, you know, walk around with the book in my hand. walk around the house, just sort of standing, walking around reading a book. Or I'd lay on the bed and I would hang my head off the edge of the bad and look down and have the book on my floor.

And then I could read. But that's what I really learned, you know. It was healing myself after the second accident. The two of them sort have ganged up on me. And, uh, you know, sometimes it would take me an hour or two or maybe even three to sort myself out, depending on how, on, how rough it was that morning. But I also discovered not only when I, when did sort out my spine and I was able to pluck up my spines and open it up and unpinch myself and that was out of pain. I found that I would, I felt fantastic at that point, that the energy opened up for me.

would also just give me a fantastic good mood. I mean, you know, being out of pain and you're out a pain, and that's a pretty good move to start out with, but being able to systematically do that and find out that I would just have this amazing, amazing positive, emotional state as a result of doing the Qigong as well. And that was really amazing. So that went on for years. And then I learned more qigong methods. A lot of the qi gong that I've learned, I learn it from really serious kung fu people.

By serious, they were super combat-oriented and experts in the combat aspect of their martial arts. And they were looking for the Chigong to be the inner power behind their martial arts. And you know, you can't really do martial art if you're sick and you are all banged up and in pain. You really can not do it. So you just need to sort of take care of yourself and get healthy. The career of a martial artist, especially if your actually fighting, There's injuries, there's traumas, and you need to recover from those so you can resume your career.

And so the martial artists had very practical methods. They needed them to work. It wasn't a joke. You know, if you're getting enough to help you resist blows and you might be in a fight next week or two weeks away or whatever, it's a serious matter whether your Qigong action works or not, you know. And if have an injury and need to return to active duty, It's, you know, he needs something that works. And I'm not sure that they always fully understand the theory of, of it all. I mean, there's plenty of really cool theories, but, um, You know they have methods that work.

That's what I, that's when I found from the martial arts side and, Um, Yeah, I use that to rebuild my health and it's also been amazing support for my martial art skills and an amazing for, uh, meditation and just, being happy all day long. Wow, that only brought up about 200 questions for me and a couple of comments. Well, first, I'd actually never heard the full story.

How Qigong Builds Blood and Circulation 16:58

I knew you'd been in an auto accident and I heard that your pelvis was broken, but I thought you used the totally appropriate term when you said the fireman came and they scooped you up, because with five fractures of your pelvis, that's kind of what you would do. It's almost like they need to stick a pizza thing underneath you and lift you into the truck. So that is totally amazing. And I, people, I just want you to understand, um, Scott, what he's saying, i've watched him. I've watch him go, go through these things and it's for real.

And one, one day when I was president of the Academy of Chinese Culture, Um, think I think i was President at that point. Scott came in. I said, how are you doing? And with no delay. I mean, by the time the words were out of my mouth, he did the flat out splits, right? and popped up without his hands. It was like, boom, I'm doing pretty well, John. And then he proceeded to show me. And so it's a martial arts move that everybody that Yong style Tai Chi does, and it is a press. And of course, you know, I played around with that for decades.

But he said, here, let me show you something. He did a Press on me and that was the most astonishing feeling that I had. Not particularly pleasant, but it was like, this is the real power of this move. People will say, you know, why would you learn it as a martial art? And I say because you want the form and the structure and energy flow for healing. It's the same thing, right? So as you're healing, these things will develop. So anyway, that was a great story. And so when the question comes up, does Qigong work?

Is it valuable? I think you are the, I'm waiting for the movie to come out, Scott, right? Of your life. You know, it's like. There are a couple of martial arts movies over the years I've enjoyed, but that one would be a great healing arts movie to, you know, go through your life with that. Now, couple things, we talk in Chinese medicine and we talked in martial art. about Qi cultivation and also the importance of blood. And blood means blood, but it's so much more in Chinese medicine. So increasing the quantity and quality of one's blood is building the core constituent of ones health.

I deal with this all the time. Your blood deficient. So what? So you can't heal unless you have blood to carry the oxygen and the nutrients to your cells and get the waste products out. You know, it's an uphill battle. So we need to build your blood. How does Qi Gong build blood? Now I see it with Qi stuff, right? That's part of the name. But how does it function to actually help with building the blood also? Well, you know, this is a wonderful question. I love educating people about the connection between blood and qi, because if you're going to do qigong or you are attempting to understand qidong, or even traditional medicine, This is one of the, just the pillar concepts of, of that, that I loved, at least that i work with.

And, You know the Connection between Blood and Qi, That's, one the first things you learn in traditional Medicine. When I went to the school in Oakland there, First, Sinestro, we're going through the fundamental concepts of traditional medicine, and they talk about blood and chi. You know, the blood is the mother of the chi, And the Chi is commander of my blood. So, if you're thinking about, I want to increase my chi Well, you have to go back to your blood, The blood Is the Mother of The Chi. What that means is that the more blood you Have and the healthier your Blood is, then the more Chi you can have, that it's basically the foundation of your Chi is actually your blood.

And it is absolutely true. I'm dealing with people who are anemic all day long. You know, I don't know what percentage of the population is aninic, but it´s high. Being an inemic means you simply don´t have enough red blood cells, you should have more and you don�t. The number one Complaint that people who are named Macabre is low energy. Right? Raise your hand up. Oh, I'm too tired. You know, go do this, do that. Go do some exercise, eat some milk. Aren't you tired? You don't have energy for any.

And you know in terms of the chi is the commander of a blood. What that means is that where your chi goes, your blood follows. And so we need our Chi with our mind. So where you focus your mind, if you can focus on the fact if your left knee and you start paying attention to it, you're going to start to become more aware of this unusual location. Like normally there's no reason for anyone to pay much attention in the back of your knee unless you get an insect bite or something back there. You're probably never going notice it.

Why would you? But if start actually direct your awareness to that area, You'll start becoming more and more awareness. And if your concentration is stronger, then that area will start to become warm. And the warmth, partially, is the blood arriving. That wherever you actually really focus your mind, your blood is going to make an attempt to reach that location. The better that your body alignment is, the more open that you're able to structurally open your joints and make sure that the arteries and veins themselves are not like being pinched, that they're open, you know, they can move, then that facilitates the circulation of blood.

So while we're doing Qigong, one of the main things that we are doing is what we call Shen Fa, or body lifting, which is learning how to integrate your posture so that you really have an integrated posture, your postures You know, as optimized as it can be, your joints are open, you're sort of floating your bones apart a little bit, so nothing is pinched. You've relaxed as many major muscle deeps as you can, because if your muscles are tense, that restricts the blood flow. It absolutely does. And that's one of the things that causes high blood pressure is that you are very tense physically.

Your muscles, instead of your blood muscles being big, they're being squished by all the tense muscles around. So what we're trying to do, partially what I'm trying do is we are integrating the body. We're creating a condition where the blood circulation is enhanced by our posture. Where we actually physically opening the arteries and veins to facilitate the circulation of blood. And then we systematically using our breath and relaxing our minds and relax our bodies, relaxing the tension. So then that allows the, the the bloody circulate.

And then if you're guiding your, by feeling your fingertips, my feeling, your toe tips, the top of your head, to center your body, we're guided and achieved from different locations in the body to lead the blood. And in this process we are cleansing the. So the, blood is circulating fully and it's cleansing. The body and its, you know, taking out all the debris and the waste products and sodium metabolism, and that's nourishing the bottom. And in the process of the blood circulating, the water, blood is then passing through all the organs.

And particularly the, I mean, most of that blood rests at night in, in a liver. It's cleansed then, but the cost of circulating the flood is also healthy for the blot and allows the blog to be healed.

Sensing Qi and Developing Focus 24:58

So, you know, this is a sort of a subtle thing, and you don't think, Oh, i'm going to go to exercise class and build up my blood. But that's a good place to start. That's very, very powerful and great answer to that question, which I'm going to take a few pieces of that when I talk to my patients about it. I remember I had a Tweenaw teacher named Greg Jing, and Greg did some great work, but he didn't speak very good English. I'd be working on somebody and I say, well, what about this? And he would say make space.

Make space, right? Get things open. And that was pretty much all he said, is make sure there's no obstructions in there. Get thing open, so yeah, that's a very great explanation. In terms of anemia, Western doctors miss that a lot. A, there are many tests, you know, when you look at a complete blood count that can, if you take them as a matrix, it's very different than if just take one thing, like red blood cell count. Well, that's low, then you've got a problem. But each of them has a place, and when start putting them together, You can see so much.

Oh, your iron deficient, or your B12 deficent, folate-deficient, whatever, but since the pandemic, one of the silver linings of doctors are becoming a little bit more aware of certain things like POTS, right? Positional Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. Well, I used to send patients in that I knew had that condition just so they could see their MD and get things in their chart and the doctors would kind of blow them off. But since the pandemic, there are so many people with Pots that they're paying a lot more attention now.

And one of the things is we as practitioners of what we do, you can feel someone's pulse and tell if they're blood deficient. You can look at their tongue and many other things, but when a patient comes in, they don't have to tell me they have POTS. I feel that pulse, and they are hypovolemic. There's not literally enough blood in their system. And unfortunately, There's no good way in Western medicine to check that. You'd have to drain someone's blood out to measure it, right? And they don't actually put much attention on the tension in the veins and the arteries.

And as soon as someone sits down, you can feel their pulse and say, oh, You've got POTS, because there's essentially almost no resistance. There is no blood in channel. So that can make everything else look okay on a blood count, but they can have severe anemia because they don't have enough blood, right? Because all the tests are per unit of volume, but everybody's volume is different, so anyway, thanks for clarifying all that. That was great. So there are so many benefits to Qigong. Do you have any favorites?

Are you, I just wanted to sort of address one, one question. I mean, you asked, he sort asked a few questions at once there. And I, and I really answered one aspect, which is the blood and the chi aspect. Right. Well, You know, II also want to just sort You know, the, idea, a lot of people are, well, they're very skeptical about this whole Chi business, you know? And I mean, this is modern Chinese people, modern Taiwanese people too. I don't believe in Chi, don' believe it at all, even in Western medicine.

You now, I have lots of ppl come to class and, we're doing Chi Gong class, or we are doing Tai Chi class or Kung Fu class. And, and you now they are patient. patient with me talking about Chi, but they're like, okay, whatever, who doesn't matter, you know, just gonna ignore that part of my class and I'll do the exercises. And, and you can't blame them, right? Like I'm saying this Chi and that Chi feel this or do this, or focus your mind this way. You know they are not feeling anything. Right. It's just the same thing.

And so I think first a couple of things, you know, I, think a very good way to think about this is that this a different channel, like normally you're listening to the radio and now I'm telling you to switch to reading a book or to watching the TV or listening, to me tell a joke live. Those are different channels. You know, so if you're really busy listening to your, just all your thoughts about the world and thinking about what's going to happen next. Oh, what am I going go eat? You where's my partner?

When can we get together? What work do I have to do? If your mind is, if your focusing on all of those thoughts, that's the wrong channel. That's not the channel where you feel the cheek. Right. And if you're, if your massively, If you an emotional state and you just reacting, you know, are you reacting to the world and, or you were acting to 5,000 things that are no longer happening in your life that happened a long time ago, but you still in various emotional stages of reaction to all of them.

and You're just like feeling all these emotions all the time. That's hard to feel cheap. You know your, your mind is focused on a different channel. So if we want to field achieve, actually have to focus your money on your body. and on your breathing and stay focused on. On your body and your breathe, not just like tune in for 10 seconds and they go, okay, I didn't feel anything. Let's move on, right? I'm going to go back to thinking about what's for dinner, you know? You have to stay focused and, and you have stay focus on your body and the sensations of your, body, And then start to notice how the, sensations, of, your , body are changing, you know, that your sensations in your.

Body are, changing moment to moment. And partially that's where our mind sort of tends to scan our body at the beginning. And then later, as you're more skillful, then you can be less scanning, sort of more holographic awareness of your body. But while you are doing exercises, and especially if you do qigong exercises the subtle sensations of you body will change as your doing the exercises. So by tuning into your breathing, feeling your body, sort of, you know, just letting the mental aspect go and really focusing on that, that's how you start to be in the area where you can feel the chi.

That's like you turned on the TV. So now we're on right device, the right channel, we are on body feeling, breathing channel. But then you got to start pointing to, you know, and you'll start to tune in more and more, more as you keep practicing. So, for Qigong, if you're going to have some success, at the beginning, You have to learn this whole Shen Fa business about how to structure and integrate your body. How to synchronize the movement of your bodies, so your whole body is moving synergistically.

Those really help to make this blood qi circulation happen. And then you have to work with your ability to focus your money. And for many of us, we don't really need to have an intense focus.

Six Stages of Qi Mastery Course 32:28

You know, I have a student who's a F-16 pilot flying off of aircraft carriers, right? You I went around somewhere for him. I don't know, but you know he's flying off aircraft carriers. So when he lands that airplane, he has to have like 10,000% focus compared to what normally we need to do in our lives. You know it's just that's kind of that. That's the event that yes, yeah, you can't. He can possibly entertain a straight thought during that process. Most of us, our jobs don' require that kind But if you want to really succeed with your Qigong, this is part of it.

It's just like learning meditation. You have to focus your mind on what you're doing. Your mind is completely wandering. Well, you know, meditating anymore. Just thinking about whatever, So, uh, and then the trick is then people are really focused on focused. I'm Mr. You know, corporate miscorporate finance type lawyer. Yeah. So focused focusing and the formative emotional display. Right. Exactly. What you're doing is you are focusing on looking like you focus. It's like driving up to us. driving up to a crosswalk, and someone's going across and they're looking at you, they'll act like they are running.

They'll start moving their feet really fast, but they aren't actually moving any faster. It's just the display, right? You know, you said something right at the beginning of that answer. You used the term patience. And I have many times, and I assume that you have also, been blown away by things. It's like, cause you hear about chi or you here about any number of things doing contemplation. and you kind of take it in faith almost at first, because you trust your teacher. You actually experience whatever the heck it is that they're trying to teach you.

And it's like, that's a real thing. Oh my God. Right? And so it, it such a beautiful thing when those awakenings happen, I'll say. You know, one of the reasons I was really excited to talk to you is, you know in my experience. I've seen your, some of your CDs, I watched them. Uh, you're a great teacher and you've got a couple of new projects coming up and I'm want to really get the word out because this is something that could benefit so many people. And you have a new course starting I think tomorrow or very soon on shift network, shift.

Network called the steps to Qigong mastery. Can you talk about that a little bit? Well, this is a new course for the Shift Networked Online, and it's called the Six Stages of Qi Mastery. And in this one, I'm really focusing in on the Qi part about Qi Gong, because I think a lot of people are sort of scratching the surface on this part, And we're really sort doing more like gentle exercise, which is really good. I mean, i'm a huge fan of gentle exercises. And I actually think general exercise sort of is better than extremely strenuous, vigorous exercise in many ways.

And not all, but in any. There's also the aspect of meditation, which is part of it. You know, and you're learning how to calm your mind and benefit your minds and the general exercises really benefiting your body. But the chi part that part, that seems to get left out. And in this, you know, the feedback that I was, I've been getting is that people, i've taught a lot of exercises and I have really gone over the theories. You know the foundational theories of traditional medicine will shift. We have two previous courses we did, one really focusing on the precision qigong and uh, the shanfa aspect and another that was really focusing on just the foundations and the blood and chi aspect, and really teaching people blood chi.

But, you know, so I've taught a lot of exercises. I taught lot theories that people are like, well, we want to go deeper, You know? And so that actually I spent a couple of months thinking about this. Well, what does it really mean to Go deeper in qigong? And when I look at all of the teachers, all my exceptional teachers the ones that I really was so impressed by. they all had, had accomplished building up the energy at the center of their body to a very palpable strong level. You know, this is called building the tan tian yif field of elixir and building it up to the end of the body until it becomes like a sort of a real sensation, strong sensation at center body.

And as that happens, as you're able to actually accomplish this, Then a secondary thing happens where more heat is generated. Heat and energy becomes being generated by the energy that you've accumulated instead of the buy. And for, you know, for us Westerners and Americans, I think a really good way to think about this, like I also think it's sort of funny is, this is like building up your capital, right? Like if you want to build up capital you can't like keep spending them and like spending and spending, and you got to save it up.

And then once you save up the capital, then you can spend some interest. Then you start to get interest, and then start building more, more and more off of this central ball. So what we're trying to do, so one of the end things is to build up a chip at the center of body to a very strong level. And then it generates a sort of like burst into flame. You know, it's one of the images and different traditions have different images in different visualizations, Buddhist, Taoist, others, you know. There's variations on this.

But then generates another warmth, a secondary energy, the heat of very powerful wheeling energy. And then that begins to fill your body. And that is really incredible. Then that's what you're really using for self-healing. You're using it for Twana. That's, what are you really use for martial arts? That is what really protects you. You know, most people never even get close to them. And so I looked at like, well, what, you know what are really the stages? How do, how are we going about this? And, the first step in the, first of the six stages is to really, to sort of build the basics here.

You get some exercises. and you start to learn how to do the Shanfa, how do do them correctly, not just learn them, but actually how all the fine points of the body position, that's really important. That's what opens up the circulation of blood and chi is the shanfa. And then you're learning how to move and sequence the movements of your body. So your movements are starting in your feet, your legs, moving the center of the body, the centre of body's moving your whole body... Now the whole is moving with both integrity and synchronization.

And now the entire body is synergy. It's all working together. That's really the first level, learning to use your mental focus and your breathing. And as you really start using mental focus in your breathing, that sort of starts to take your second level, which is beginning to censure you. As soon as you're starting to be able to sense your Qi, and I like to say the word sense rather than feel, but you are starting the sense you Qi because the sensing your qi, the Qi is generating the effects. The effects are the warmth, sensation, movement, changes, feeling.

Those are effects of the qI. It's not really the QI itself. That's a little tough. But, you know, so you start to scent your Qi and then you being able begin to guide your And then the third one is now you're able to sense and guide your chi. Now you start to bring it to the center of the body. They're guiding the chi to center the bottom. And. Then you can start. So once you could do that, that's that. Oh, That's really good. Okay. and then you. Start to intensify that you just bring, bring bring.

Keep bringing it. At a certain point, something happens. And it begins to get warmer. It begins, to become very real, you know? And then that warmth, that extra energy that's now coming from the center of the body, That's what you really learn how to spread through your body to the surface of your, body. To fill out the weight around your bottom, To heal yourself, protect yourself. And then that's the energy that really gives you the power if you're doing a treatment on somebody to push their qi and to help them move their chi and help to heal themselves.

I don't really believe in the idea of like giving other people your Chi. I'm not even sure if that's truly possible. But, uh, the, idea being able to have enough strength in your own energetic field and your chi to actually be able sort of help the other person move their chi while you're going to train up. You know, this is, really amazing. This is what makes the treatments incredibly more powerful that you are affecting them, not just at the physical level, but at energetic level as well. And so that's sort of the various stages.

And we've got an 18-week course, and I'm going to be three weeks per stage and systematically go through it. I designed this course so it would be like the best possible start for a complete beginner. You know, you don't know anything. Okay. I'm going to teach us a great exercises. We're going blast through the Shenpa and then they're gonna really, really dial in the qi part. And for a lot of people, I think, they've done qigong and they are doing the general exercise part and the meditation part, but they just sort of starting to scratch the Qi part you know.

So some people, they're just going along with it, but they haven't really sensed their chi yet. So now start to sense your chi, learn how to guide it. Some people are sensing their qi, But they are not really able to get it very well.

Qigong, Beauty, and Relaxation 42:58

You know, some People are guiding their Qi, which is super cool. But you have to really learn to how guide the center of the body. And then some people died to send their body, but they're not dialed down on. I'm going to build this up. Like my life depends on it kind of thing. You know, so you can say, oh, come on, guys. They're literally thinking my wife might depend on how strong my chigong is because of my Chigung is really strong. And the other guy hits me. It'll bounce off. And if my qigong is weak, that's going to break my bones and injure my organs.

You know, and it's just literally that night and day of how good the qi gong, is when people's qing is really, really strong, you know? A super powerful person can punch him and you, they won't, be discomforted. And that blow might send another person straight to the hospital. So, you know, this, sort of building up that she had the center of the body of all of my top teachers, they all talked about it. And it was the secret part. It was inside. it wasn't the first day lesson. Right. You know? It's like you had to earn this stuff.

You want them to learn the real Chibong, they would build up the center of their body. They just didn't teach that out there, okay? They wanted to know you were a good person before you learned that. So you wouldn't go out and be an absolute monster that nobody else could beat. In the old days, before firearms, if you're a very, very expert in martial arts, you just walk in the bank and kill the guards and take all the money. Turn into warlords, take over the place. You know, learning, teaching martial arts was a really big deal.

You it was like our, our stealth bomber technology, or missile technology or the new drone technologies. It was the, it, was, the military technology that really gave you an edge was that, you know. And, yeah, for my part, I think that. You know, the qigong sort of powers all the aspects of the martial arts that I practice. And when I'm doing my qingong really well, I think that a couple of things are sort balancing out, that it's very beautiful, you know. It's really beautiful. The movements are very beautifully actually, aesthetically pleasing.

Then it is very healthy and it builds your strength. And all of those, those all go together, you know, that the healthiest way is also the most powerful way. And it's also in the beautiful way when you're doing it, the Most Beautiful way, That's Also the Healthiest. That also, The Most Powerful. When you do in The most Powerfull way that's, also Most beautiful. that also The health is because you are working with the alignment of your body, movement of Your body. The movement energy in your Body.

the movement your mind. You know it is a wonderful practice. A couple of things come to mind, little anecdotes. I was studying with someone and when I would watch them do their Tai Chi, I will try to feel in my body what they must be feeling, right? It was amazing to me, the little bit that I could feel of what I think they were doing, right? The power that was in their movements, The grounding, shifting of the weight, it was almost like molten lead or something kind of shifting back and forth. And so one day, talking about internal power and stuff.

And I was a football guy, right? I played football in high school and I had been slammed into by these huge people running at full speed. I, you know, I used to that. So I said, what's the difference between a regular kind of punch and an internal punch? And he says, well, tighten up your abdomen. He did basically a one inch punch, and i've been hit a lot and usually it would make me mad. When I got hit with this, all I could think of was, I want my mommy. I was like, okay. So again, it's one of those kind of awakenings.

Another one back in the day when we used to do function class, right. And I'd been really working on that and moving, moving Chi a little bit. and so I go home. This is my ex-wife and we're no longer married and, uh, we go to bed. And she's saying, God, I'm really cold. So in my dreams, i'm starting to feel my chi and starting, to direct it to my hand. And, she yells at me, stop that. That's not funny. You're burning my shoulder. Right? So yeah, it, often it's a little easier to do things in, my dream.

The other thing though, Scott, that you're up to, you, working on a book. Mystical Qigong from the martial world. Now that's a pretty mystical title. I love it. When is that going to be out? Well, hopefully later, later in the year. And, uh, we're, you know, We're like doing some really fun graphic design and laying it out. and, I decided to rewrite one of sort of rewrite the benefits of QIGONG. You know I wrote this whole thing out and it was good. And I kept thinking about it, and I've got a whole new line on just on the benefits of qigong.

So by the end of the year, I think this is something that people really don't understand, is that the origins of almost all the qi gong that are people are practicing is coming from the martial traditions. And these are really the experts in body movement. And a lot of these martial traditions also began deep in Buddhist temples or deep and Taoist temples, or in perhaps Confucian societies. These things were not necessarily, it wasn't really I mean, there's medical qi dong, so there are some that are very famous, like the five animal products.

But there is a whole bunch of different qigong methods that come from the martial arts side, the tai chi, shing yi chen, bagua zong, other martial art styles. So this book is basically sort of an introduction to what is qidong. You know, the basic theories of Qigong, where did it come from? And then I look at the different methods and the difference arts, and I just sort of introduced them all. So, you know the first half of the book is really just, my understanding of a theory of Qi Gong that I'm laying out for a complete beginner.

This is the manual that, I really wish I'd had 40 years ago, You know, really integrating the traditional Chinese medical theory, which is really, that's the theoretical base with the practical, uh, with a lot of practical instructions and then, you know. And then we're just going into what these are all the qigong styles. A lot is qi gong style that people probably never heard of, qidong methods. And this is where they came from. And, this the lineage of these methods. This is the specialty with special benefits.

What are you doing in this Qigong method? So that's really the point of that one. Okay, I want it. Are you taking any pre-orders? Uh, don't worry. You're on the list, John. Yeah. Well, as you're talking, I'm sitting, it's, that's why you are such a great teacher. you just communicating and I am sitting here feeling my body open, right? Just from your communication, you know, cause I, As a host, like, You know I can get kind of uptight, Right? I would want it to work. And I could just feel all of my cells kind opening.

and getting some Qi moving. So I want to thank you for that. I'm going to talk about this again at the end, but how do people get a hold of you and or sign up for your course? The Qi course, Qi Gong course. Well, the best place always to go for me is 10,000victories.com. It's one core zeroes victories. And that's my main website. There you'll find links to the shift network online course six stages of Chi mastery. And you'll also find links to our online platform. I have an online learning academy where we've put up over 500 lessons on Tai Chi.

you know, other topics, a little bit of Padma Tsong, little of Kung Fu, using a lot more of the other arts coming. But it's really an amazing catalog of every aspect of Tai Chi. The theory, the lore, how to perform the movements, to make the movement more beautiful, How to derive specific health benefits from your Tai-Chi practice. How you use every move for self-defense. I mean, it is just everything for Tai chi. And I also have local classes in San Martell, California. So if you're in that Bay area in North Bay, you can actually come to class.

Awesome. Cool. And one of the benefits I think those of you that are listening may have noticed is beyond the fact that Scott has proven himself worldwide going to Wudong Mountain, coming back with a gold and a silver, is that he also speaks very fluent English. which can be really helpful, right? I've had some great teachers that I picked some things up, but I think if they could have communicated in a way that i could understand a little more, I probably would have gotten even more. And so that's a huge, huge benefit.

Hey, i got a particular question for you. So we've found that mostly women, but some men too, you know, get really, really concerned with looking youthful. We're a culture of youth. And what can Qigong practices do to cultivate that physical beauty? You know I think there's a couple of things that Qibong really does that are so wonderful for people, for women in particular. And, you know, we're going right back to building up your blood in your cheek, and building your circulation of blood is incredibly wonderful for your skin.

Yeah learning how to breathe and to really use your lungs to push the chi all the way so you're pushing the Chi up to the edges of your skin and beyond it you know this this is also incredibly wonderful for your Skin and building up your blood the uh one of the things is the there's a People don't talk about this too much, but they talk the extremities. And, you know, we talk by the fingers and toes being the extremities. But in traditional medicine, there's also another type of extremity. So the hair is considered the extreme of the blood.

The fingernails are the extremely of tendons. You know the tongue is the exremity of muscles. And so you can sort of look at these, you know, there's more indications like that, but you could look and say, okay, well, what's going on here? So, if you really nourish your blood and build up your body and work on your posture, and you're lifting up to your spine and your actually bringing the chi to the top of the head, nourishing your hair, with enough blood, the blood nourishes your hair. The hair is considered the extremity of the flood.

So if your blood is healthier, that's going to show in your head. Your hair will be longer, fuller, shinier, all those type of things. You know, so this is sort of one of main things that I think about, but also a real specialty that we have in Qigong is building up and supporting the energy of kidneys and the kidney yin and you know, the pre-birth essence stored at the Ming Men. And those also just support just all around being more radiant and having more energy in your body. I mean, those are literally sort of just the foundation levels of supporting your health.

If you can build up your inner health and your energy level and nourish your blood, then this is absolutely going to support the health of your skin and hair. Now the other thing which really helps is that Qigong is profoundly relaxing. It's very, very relaxing, and you can have beautiful physiognomy, I mean, beautiful facial features, but if you're really tense internally, it doesn't look the same as if your happy. If you are happy and your healthy, to me that's like the definition of beauty. If somebody's happy and healthy, it doesn't really matter if their facial features are quite perfectly even and balanced and conforming to classical things.

You just look at them and go, wow, this is a really beautiful person. I want to be with them. And that's because they've learned how to relax their minds and to sort of give up old tension and, and you know, like, it's really easy for us to hold on to emotional charges and to our emotional reactions from previous engagements, previous things that happened. You know? If you're a little deer, if you are a deer and your chased by like a tiger and managed to evade the tiger, you just ran for your life and had this absolutely terrifying traumatic experience.

A little deer is going to go find some place to hide. It's going find a little pile of pine needles or something that's hidden in the bush and it's gonna go there and go to sleep. While it is asleep, it gets twitched. And it will relive the entire thing and disperse the energetic, emotional terror. And now it's ready to go. But, you know, humans were terrible at that. We're terrible with that, we stay upset about things 20 years later, 30 years, 40 years. And we're still pissed off, damn it. It is so easy to do, you know, it's just so easily do and you have to move on with life and our lives are very complex.

They're very busy and we're being constantly bombarded with media, which is doing its absolute best to get us upset. to make us fearful, to makes us angry, watch the next thing so they can sell us an ad and get paid for their view, while they're just stirring up your emotions and stirring and it's not to benefit you, it is for them to take money off of you.

Shen Fa and Body Method Basics 57:58

But anyways, every time we go online, you pick up the phone, there's all these things that are in there that can make you tense. But Qigong, you can stop that, interrupt that. You tune your mind from your thinking about all of these things and mental and emotional things, and you tune into your body. And you move slowly and breathe deeply. Your mind relaxes. And if you keep doing that, guess what? You get better at it, you get more relaxed, You become calmer, consistently day in, day out and longer all day long.

And then you learn how to like, okay, well, that was a really tense meeting. I think I'm just going to go do some Qigong for a little while and just do QIGONG for five minutes. So now you process that meeting And now you're like, okay, well, I'm cool. I am ready to hang out with my partner and my family, you know, and just enjoy life and not be stuck in something that happened and it's no longer happened. So I think Qigong is a really wonderful thing for us to do. And, you know, women in particular, they're really caring and they are caring for everybody around them.

There's a lot of emotional labor involved in all that. You know? And sometimes you're not in the position of power to be able to really resolve things. That's emotional labour, not being able resolve. So, I, think that, just for our own health, if we're able, while we are doing these exercises, to learn how to just deeply relax our mind and our emotions. This is incredibly wonderful for just, well, feeling beautiful, being beautiful being happy, getting healthy. And I don't think that we necessarily need to go to the therapist and like find out all those old things in the past.

We're still upset about it. I think we need you to worry about playing with them like that. You know, it's like you're holding a dead rat. I mean, I don't really need to look at it anymore. Just like, whoa, let go. Oh, we're not anymore, but I'm never going to think about it again. That's OK. that's really beautiful. Let's be in the present moment and we'll be happy. Well, it's like in my practice, I'll often have interns or other people here studying and they'll say, so when you stop outside the patient's door before you go in and treat them, what are you listening for?

He said, well, I'm not listening for anything. If anything, i'm listening, for my sensations, right? I don't want to take what happened in that last patient's, you know, in their presence and carry it into another patient. So I'll always stop outside the door and do a little qigong, a a clearing practice just to make sure that I am fresh. You know that i've got a fresh set of eyes there. But you mentioned that qi and blood for the beauty. And that just reminded me, my friend and associate Catherine Black, used to do a lot of facial work on people, on women mostly.

And so she would use a whole lot needles in their head and their face, right? And people would say, why? I said, well, cause it brings more chi and blood. It's kind of directing it up toward your face. Then over a period of just a few weeks, I had, three women come in and I'm looking at their chart and they say so how are your migraines? Oh, don't have migraine anymore. How come? Well, after Catherine treated me with that facial treatment, it changed my chi and blood flow. I don't have migraines anymore.

So that is now our migraine treatment is what used to be a cosmetic treatment. That's so beautiful. You know, that just keeps bringing it back to me. The linkage between beauty, health, and strength, you know? That it really is there. You use the term Shen Fa. What does that mean? I'm not familiar with that. How you use your body method. So Fa is something, so if I was one of the old masters and I want to learn how to use a technique for self-defense, I'd say Yong Fa, Yong fa, you know, and then they would show me how, they usually would do something very painful to me at that point.

But I asked for it and I wanted it, and then that's how I actually learned. I really know. And then the other one that sort of goes with that is hushipa, which is breathing method. So you have your body method. So the body is all the fine points about posture. How do you place your feet on the ground and grip the grounds and sink your toes and your heels and lift up the arch of the foot? How you line up your ankles and knees? how do balance your pelvis?How do lift open your spine by plucking up different areas?

This is the Shen Fa. And the Shen Fa also includes how to move, not just how, to stand with good posture, which is very important, critically important frankly, but also how the move sequentially. So they, you know, one part of the body is moving the other part the of body and they're linked, and then the whole body's moving together and that movement is starting in your feet. And that's also part Shen And it's a nice way to sort of sum up a broad category of teaching. Well, speaking of summing up, probably about time for us to go, but it's such a fabulous story going from broken pelvis lying in the street to a world-class martial arts master who has proven that in China.

Closing Remarks and Course Details 1:03:48

So your story is so moving and I really hope people are paying attention and will do your course. I think it is just a great gift to the world. So Scott, any last words before you head off? Well, it's a real pleasure to, to do this interview with you, John, and I just also just the utmost respect for, for your treatment. And I think that, you know, the people that are, are coming to my class and then they're getting treated by you man. They're lucky they get the best of both the both. Thank you very much for having me on and it's wonderful to be able to talk about my work and share the exciting things that have coming up.

I'm really excited about this new Shift Online course and I think there's a delay Like this will come out next week. We believe so. Yeah. So then, so then we then then this'll be the first week of the course is actually starting tomorrow. It's going to be a great course, and it's a relatively personal course where I'm going be really focusing in on practicing with everybody. It won't just be me talking. We're essentially going give some instructions, I need a guided exercise, we're all going practice together, then we'll have Q&A and then do it again and have more Q & A.

So it is very, very focused and each week people will have very clear homework, do these exercises, And then do this while you do the exercise. So you can use other exercises you learned from other teachers, but now you're learning how to really do that chi part and sort of fill out the exercises that you already know and really take them deeper. And so we're just going to sequentially really go all the way through it until at the very end of the course, hopefully we are, you know, vibrantly healthy and everybody's really learning how to relax their minds and just experience just that sort of primal joyful awareness of being.

Well, Sifu Jensen, bless you. Thank you for the work that you're doing in the world. And thank you, for spending this time with me. I'm looking forward to having this episode get published. All right my friend, you take care. You too, John. Thank you for joining me on The Balancing Point. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow the show, share it with a friend and leave a review. Feeling out of balance? Most approaches just manage symptoms. Here we get to the root. So real healing, real clarity and balance can begin.

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