The first aim of Level 1 practice is to relax the physical body. This means releasing the main patterns of muscular tension that restrict or block energy flow. When energy flows more freely, it exerts more pressure on the next layer of blockages until they clear, and so forth.

As this process continues, you achieve the second aim: you cultivate your energy body by increasing the overall amount and intensity of energy as well as improving its ability to circulate and gather it in the lower energy center—lower dantian. In turn, more gathered qi will push through greater blockages and regenerate areas of stagnation.

When you've reached the relaxed state, you'll find your body feeling more spacious, easy and your energy flowing relatively freely. Your mind may remain active, but it has lost its ability to disturb the body. This loss of embodied expression and support for the busy mind allows it to start quieting down: you're now ready for Level 2.

Level 1-A, B & C Practice Benefits:

Increases energy

Improves kidney/adrenal and bladder functions

Regulates our life force, vitality, confidence and self-esteem

Opens the main energy channels

Decreases pain

Leads to general physical wellness which is the foundation of total well-being, physically, energetically/emotionally and spiritually

Heal physical injuries from sports, dance, occupational related chronic pain and weakness

Helps us experience deeper levels of relaxation that lead to the next stage: stillness

Developing our “gut instincts” from our lower dantian (first, second and third chakras)

Provides us with a supply of raw energy

Determines the sexual disposition and appetite for men and women.  The lower dantian is associated with the reproductive function. The blockages and stagnation of this energy center are common to many modern day citizens.

Helps us express creativity, dance and movements especially in the pelvis and hip area

Works with our knees and feet, feel supported

Physically and energetically rooted, connected to our planet, gives us the feeling of being grounded

Focusing on our relationship to Earth and Earth qualities within us such as accepting, solidity, receiving, abundance of life, transformative power

Creates our sense of security and general well-being

Reduces fear, strengthens trust in self, in life, faith in higher power

Associated with the cerebral cortex of the brain

Reflects our connection with our mothers, and our feminine within 

Helps the digestive system

Offers characteristic of fire - with the qualities of expansiveness, warmth, and joy

Especially important for those engaged in healing work of any sort, because this is where we build foundational energy for healing

Reduce cravings for caffeine and salt

Level 1A: Preparing the body for qi
This level lays the foundation for ongoing ZY Qigong practice. It focuses on developing internal physical and energy awareness and releasing blockage points. It addresses basics of standing (alignment and balance), qi sensitivity and handling, and how to begin opening the main energetic pathways of the body. We practice warm-up and joint-opening exercises, hand training, energetic self-massage, the four Level 1 preparatory exercises, and simple standing meditation with arms at the side.

Level 1A benchmarks
You will have successfully learned and practiced this material when you have the internal awareness and control to:

stand for at least a half-hour without your feet getting numb or tingly

make your hands pulse energetically without physically moving them

form a qi ball with your hands, increase its charge, and not lose the charge as you move it into your belly

move qi around the inside your body with your hands

feel the difference in your hands between pushing and pulling qi, and do either one at will

Level 1B: Activating lower dan tian
At this level, you solidify your energy foundation by continuing Level 1A practice. In addition, we apply our ability to move qi with the hands in two meditations to increase and ground our energy: cleansing and gathering (Bringing Down Heaven) and Big Tree.

Level 1B benchmarks
You will have successfully learned and practiced this material when you can:

stand in Big Tree comfortably for at least one hour

maintain an open connection from your hands through your navel to lower dan tian

feel the increasing charge of your lower dan tian

feel earth energy move up through your feet and body

feel heaven energy move down through your head and body

Level 1C: Building lower dan tian
This level addresses a critical phase in self-development: the methodical gathering and refining of energy. It involves longer Level 1 Big Tree meditations and more detailed training in how to move energy efficiently. We also begin refining the jing energy gathered in Big Tree into qi by pulsing the lower dantian. Finally, when the qi is strong and balanced, we practice how to circulate it through the body in the Microcosmic Orbit.

Seen as an advanced exercise only taught after two years of practice in ancient times, Microcosmic Orbit (or Small Heavenly Circle) can be a most effective exercise for healing.  This is the natural flow of qi in the body of a child in the womb and is interrupted at birth or soon afterwards. We will learn specific techniques to reconnect the life-sustaining and healing power of the microcosmic orbit as we practice to connect our gathered and balanced qi from the lower Dantian into the circulation, and opening the main spiritual gates along the way for transformation of the mind.  Much of what people practice as the microcosmic orbit today is based on “imagination" rather than real qi flow. In this workshop, we will tangibly experience the power of this exercise.

Level 1C benchmarks
You will have successfully learned and practiced this material when you can:

refine qi comfortably for at least two hours

feel your hands and lower dan tian getting hot, and getting hot faster in successive refining qi meditations

feel the qi begin to rise spontaneously

guide the circulation of the qi through the microcosmic orbit with the relaxed pulsing of the perineum

The first aim of Level 2 practice is to integrate and relax the energy body. This involves continued work with physical blockages, but at a more detailed level than in Level 1. Increasingly, the energy body works as a unified pattern rather than a set of more or less separate flows. As this integration develops, the energy sensations become smoother. The energy body, just as the physical body, feels more spacious and refined. There is also the realization that many of the sensations we interpret in Level 1 as energy are actually resistance to energy.

The second aim is to quiet the mind. This is a natural result of relaxing the energy body. In Level 1 we experience the physical body calming down and no longer responding to the mind's agitation. In Level 2, the relaxation of the energy body influences the mind: the mind slows down and simply stops; its construction of space and time stops. This is the calm state, also known as the qigong state.

Level 2 Practice Benefits:

Strengthens our immune system

Increases personal power, boundaries

Improves self authority

Increases contentment, joy

Generosity

Gain openness, non-judgment, leading to compassion for self and others, and unconditional love

Emotional healing

Associated with the thymus gland

Carve yourself out of the network of conflicting desires and emotions which had previously characterized the ego

The qualities of air in the personality - airiness, mobility, gentleness, and lightness

Express our thoughts creatively, creativity, creating, manifesting in the physical world the fulfillment of one's goals.

Expression, voicing thoughts, feelings, emotions, poems, invocations, rituals, speeches, and prophecies

Decreases cravings for sugar, refined carbohydrates

Level 2A: Integrating the energy body
At this level, we continue Level 1 training to increase our energy but with a new emphasis on improving the integrity ofthe energy body. We add Level 2 preparatory exercises, Level 2 Big Tree, and other practices to open the hips and the back of the pelvis, activate and build middle dan tian, and open and build the central channel.

Level 2A benchmarks
You will have successfully learned and practiced this material when:

the qi in your lower dan tian gets extremely hot, then shoots up and opens your central channel (this usually only happens once, maybe twice, and you know it when it happens)

you can move energy up and down your central channel while remaining grounded

you begin dissolving your body boundaries in Big Tree

Level 2B: Relaxing the energy body
With the central channel open and the energy field beginning to work as a coherent whole, we now practice how to open and close, expand and contract the boundaries of our energy body and modulate its pulsing intensity. This pulsing is also called body breathing, and we learn to use it in different ways for specific purposes. Its primary application is to relax the energy body and quiet the mind in preparation for pause state in Level 3. Training also continues for gathering energy and increasing the capacity of our central channel and other pathways.

Level 2B benchmarks
You will have successfully learned and practiced this material when you can:

meditate in Big Tree comfortably for at least two hours

control at a basic level the boundaries and pulsing of your energy body

gradually stop breathing for longer periods of time as you pulse your energy body

experience your mind becoming empty: the no-space, no-time calm state

Level 2C: Advanced group practice
This offers group support and guidance from a teacher in practicing all Level 1 and 2 material to prepare yourself for Level 3 and attaining pause state.

Level 3: Develop the upper Dantian

(Offered once every three years in the US, or at the China Intensives)

Develop brain function, activate the extraordinary senses, and reach pause state. We will activate and train the second and direct digestive system to absorb qi from the universe and maintain a prolonged pause state. When we feel that our lower, middle, and upper dantians are well connected by the middle channel, and abundant energy in our body allows us to reach and maintain the pause state, then we are ready for Level 4. (Prerequisite: Level 2B or equivalent or by approval)

Level 5: Soul development

Exercises help us to develop our yin (inborn) soul into yuan (original) soul, then the final stage yang (realized) soul.