Try your best to find your center. Sit or stand up straight. Keep the body aligned along a center line: head in line with the spine, bodyweight over the hips. Find one's stable center and stay balanced when moving the arms overhead, forward or backward. Feel rooted in the earth with your body sunk and centered, and both of your feet solidly in place on the earth. Strive to be relaxed, soft, and supple as you align and center your whole body. In yourself, in your Qigong practice, in your body, make Heaven and Earth one, connected, aligned.
Many focus on bringing the feeling of being centered into the area in the center of the body, a couple of inches behind and below the navel. In Chinese Qigong this energetic reservoir and center is called the Dan Tien, Field of Elixir; and, in Japan it is called the Hara. In Chinese Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan, this concept of equilibrium at the center is called Zhong Ding.
Line up the entire body, from the top of the head to the feet in a straight line, as if you were standing with your head, back, and hips along a wall. Imagine the head, chest, Dan Tien, hips and feet all in one plane: aligned, poised, centered, resilient, one. Aim for a stable, balanced, comfortable, and centered feeling in your Qigong postures. Even when you bend or reach or squat or turn in Qigong, standing or sitting, strive to feel the bodily sensations of balance, uprightness, unified alignment, and whole body centeredness.
If a friend gently pushed on your shoulders while doing Qigong, would you remain stable, balanced, firm, rooted, upright, and in full control? Don't wobble, and don't become unbalanced. Draw your vital energies (Qi, Prana, Ki) towards that point of balance, that Still Point.
Let the mind settle down, cast off unbalanced thoughts, finds its spiritual Zhong Ding, be still with the One. Draw your vital energies (Qi, Prana, Ki) towards that point of balance, that Still Point.
Qigong Practice: Lessons, Tips and Suggestions from Mike Garofalo
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