STOPPING BRIEFLY IN CHI KUNG PRACTICE
Chi kung should be practiced everyday
Question
I began this training and it was wonderful, and I could feel the effects. Then, I stopped briefly, and now feel that I have to start all over again, and that my kidneys are somehow weaker than they were before. I am wondering if you know how this could occur.
-- Chris, Australia
Answer
Chi kung should be practiced regularly, which means every day. If you stop briefly, say two or three days, that is alright. All you need to do is to resume your daily practice. If you stop for a longer period, say two or three weeks, you would have lost some of the benefits accumulated earlier, but if you resume daily practice you will soon gain the benefits again.
If you stop for a long time, say a few months, you may have lost all the benefits that you have accumulated earlier. In Chinese terms it is called “chin kung jun fai” (Cantonese pronunciation), which means “all previous benefits are lost”, and is considered a “taboo” in force training.
Nevertheless, even if you have lost all your previous benefits, you should resume daily training as soon as possible. Learn this lesson, and don’t repeat this mistake.
As I do not know what and how you trained, I would not be able to tell you specifically what has happened. The best person to ask is your teacher. Don’t feel guilty that you have not practiced his art diligently. Apologize to him sincerely, tell him that you have learnt your lesson, and ask him for advice.
But I can give you some general answers. Your kidneys may not be weaker than before you started to practice this chi kung. In fact they are probably stronger now than before. But you have an illusion that your kidneys are weaker because you compare them now with the time you were practicing chi kung regularly.
This will become clearer if we quantify the weakness and strength of your kidneys from 1 to 10, 1 being the weakest and 10 being the strongest. Before you started chi kung, your kidneys were at 2 and 3. When you were practicing chi kung regularly, your kidneys progressed from 3 to 8. But when you stopped practicing, your kidneys retrogressed from 8 to 3, depending on how long you have stopped.
If you have stopped for some time, you may have retrogressed from 8 to 5. Hence you may feel your kidneys are weaker now, comparing now with the time you were practicing chi kung, i.e. comparing 5 with 8. But they are actually stronger than before you started chi kung, i.e. comparing 5 with 3.
Let us say you have stopped practicing for a long time and you have lost all the benefits accumulated earlier. Your kidneys would then be at 3. They would not go down beyond 3, unless you have practiced wrongly or there are other factors at work weakening your kidneys. As you did derive benefits from your chi kung practice, it means you did not practice wrongly. It is also unlikely that other factors are weakening your kidneys. If it were so, you would have noticed them and mentioned them to me in your e-mail.
It is good to know that when one stops practicing chi kung, it is not harmful. He would lose some benefits, or at the worst he would lose all the benefits he has accumulated earlier. But the stoppage itself would not bring any harm. This, of course, should not be taken as condoning irregular practice or worse complete stoppage of practice.
Another important factor that may weaken your kidneys is your worry and your constant negative attitude towards your kidneys in particular and towards your health in general. You are what you believe. If you constantly think that your kidneys are weak, or have other negative thoughts of yourself, your kidneys will really be weak and you will really be sick and miserable. In fact, the latest science, quantum physics, is emphasizing the same principle, i.e. mind creates reality. Therefore, we must always have noble thoughts of yourself and of others.
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