Of the 18 qigong exercises that make up the famous Shaolin 18 Lohan Hands, Rotating Winch, A.K.A 轆 轤 旋 轉, LU LU XUAN ZHUAN is known to give the following benefits:
You give all of the muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, spine, connective tissues and meridians running through this area a good relaxing stretch. This encourages your qi/chi to flow harmoniously to your head. This pattern is extremely beneficial for those who suffer from frequent headaches and migraine.
This pattern can overcome neurological problems, prevent or overcome strokes and benefits problems with any of the organs. Relief from thyroid, ear, throat, eye and any problems involving the face are reasons to choose pattern.
It can be used to cleanse the nervous system and gives your spinal cord a gentle wake up. It is ideal for those who spend a lot of time sat at a desk.
This is one of the qigong exercises that does not have any specific breathing pattern attached to it. It is performed with what is called ‘spontaneous breathing’ i.e. when you need to breathe in you breathe in and when you need to breathe out, you breathe out.
I think this is one of the qigong exercises that most highlights the difference between qigong and qigong form. If you watch the video and you have little understanding of qigong, you would rightly ask how doing simple qigong exercises like that could possible bring such incredible benefits. The answer is that the form is not the art. Practicing Rotating Winch as shown in the video will only help you to relax the muscles in your neck. It won’t give you any of the other benefits.
Why not?
Because it has to be practiced as qigong. Which means qigong exercises are practiced in a relaxed, meditative state of mind, practiced in this ‘qigong state of mind’, the form generates an energy flow, qi flow or ‘flowing breeze swaying willows’ and it is that qi flow that brings the benefits mentioned for each of the qigong exercises.
Each of the qigong exercises performed this way, because it works on one or more of the meridians (energy streams) of the body will bring the known results associated with the removal of ‘blockages’ from that meridian or meridians.
And that is just scratching the surface =) But as always, the ability to learn qigong exercises from a book or video and perform them as qigong is virtually impossible. If you want to avoid qigong form and practice qigong, you must learn it directly from a Master, or at least a suitably qualified instructor.
I mean, if you wanted to learn how to sky dive, you wouldn’t just learn from books and videos – would you?
The next of the qigong exercises we’ll look at is Big Turn of the Cosmos – what a pattern!
Until then…