Practice after sex...

[zenshiite]

How long do you guys wait if at all?

I've read that one should wait 24 hours before doing any kind of qigong practice, and since there's significant qigong in internal arts I was wondering what you guys do. I know I feel pretty messed up afterwards... legs can hurt etc. I'll wait until at least 12 hours after before I practice even lightly.

Any input?

[Bao]

You read what written by who?

[Ian]

I know I feel pretty messed up afterwards... legs can hurt etc.

Try using cushions.

Sorry, couldn't resist

[jpaton]

How long do you guys wait if at all?

I've read that one should wait 24 hours before doing any kind of qigong practice, and since there's significant qigong in internal arts I was wondering what you guys do. I know I feel pretty messed up afterwards... legs can hurt etc. I'll wait until at least 12 hours after before I practice even lightly.

Any input?

why not do qigong and have sex at the same time, then you'll have twice as much time for beer and tv...

really, if you want to do it right you'd have to stop having sex altogether and who wants to do that. if i were you i wouldn't get to wrapped up in that sort of stuff. lifes too short to have to count down from when you last had sex so you can do some qigong.

[qiphlow]

better to have sex after practice.

[Duncan]

sex after or before practice is just excellent cultivation...what's to be avoided is ejaculation, if you are a man. If you're a woman, you've got a free ride! though you should take it easy during your moon time

[Chris Fleming]

Some articles on the subject:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... 2_sex.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 201AAlnxPj

http://www.wongkk.com/answers/ans00a/jan00-2.html

http://www.altmd.com/Articles/Sexual-Qi-Gong

[zenshiite]

Thanks for those article links, but I'm not sure that any of them cut directly to what I'm saying. Like, would you have sex, bust a nut and then go walk the circle within the span of an hour or 2?

That's sort of what I'm getting at. I feel a definite effect when I wake up after sex and body aches through the day. Almost like tendonitis.

[C.J.Wang]

Thanks for those article links, but I'm not sure that any of them cut directly to what I'm saying. Like, would you have sex, bust a nut and then go walk the circle within the span of an hour or 2?

That's sort of what I'm getting at. I feel a definite effect when I wake up after sex and body aches through the day. Almost like tendonitis.

From the point of view of Chinese medicine, whenever you ejaculate, you lose kidney essence. Though the side effects of oversex differ from person to person, many experience joint pains (especially in the knees and lower back), cold sweats, ringing in ears, and muscle aches.

[D_Glenn]

In Ma Chuanxu's article on jareks site he talks about it in relation to low basin turning which might apply depending on how low you turn? You should turn the circle everyday so there shouldn't really be time period that is over 8 hours. There might be something about the raising up of the 'ministerial fire' which comes from the desire which needs to calm back down so that it's back in it's place in the kidneys. This is dealing with the kidneys it's meridians and the division of the upper and lower halves of the body. There is a real danger of tearing your achilles tendon so take it easy maybe and make sure your not deficient in some way to begin with. Depending on your age there are guidelines for frequency of intercourse. I'll send you some links later.

[kreese]

It sort of depends how much you got in the bank. You won't feel the pinch until you get closer to 0. But since we are creatures of habit, it is hard to change our behavior and expectations, so the safest bet is to practice moderation and always put some qi away for a rainy day. You need reserves for extremely stressful situations, immune health, etc. Back when life was rougher, they didn't have as much of a buffer between making stupid mistakes and suffering for it.

[Fubo]

I've heard some teachers say to stay away from sex, or "shooting" all together. I once heard a teacher say to wait 3 months before ejaculating. I think I read somewhere that BKF advocated waiting 3 hours after sex to do IMA. I've read articles from sports doctors that having sex the night before "the big fight" or athletic event being a negative thing is an old wives tell and that ejaculating the day or night before actually boosts your athletic performance (i'll try and find the article).

Personally I'd say listen to your own body and see how it reacts to what you do. Sex is a natural part of life and having a balance is important for prostate health, I don't know how healthy it would be to hold it in for masses amounts of it.

[kreese]

There is a strong hormonal aspect to qigong/neigong training, but for some reason it is rarely discussed publicly. Marcus Brinkman wrote a beautiful article on Reeling Silk (different idea from chan si jin) that touched upon the relationship between mind, hormones, and energy in IMA training, among other things. George Wood had a link on his site, but last I checked that link had expired. This area of thought might also explain the relationship between the weight-hanging stuff and how it strengthens the whole body.

[Bao]

A Chinese historian and expert on Chinese culture thought that this sex-no-no-thing was a buddhist interpretation so they could explain for Chinese Buddhist practitioner in Chinese way why you should have sexual restrictons. But he also thought that their is nothing in TCM theory that support these restrictions. He said that according to Chinese medicin, having sex can even be good for your qigong practice. Anyway, there is nothing about sexual restrictions in early qigong manuals and nothing in the old taoist cannons, so there is defenitively some truth that there might be buddhist influence that created this sex-no-no belief.


edit: And also that it influenced taoism. In the beginning of Chinese buddhism, taoism and buddhism become mixed together. In the late 300th century, taoists fled down to what is now yunnan province and met up with taoists. The followers of these different schools actually lived together, side by side for many hundred years. Today there is still a local version of buddhism in Yunnan that is a very strange mix of all kind of teachings and you can see taoist and buddhist temples standing there, side by side.

[Michael]

From what I'm hearing from zenshiite, this is not a matter of MA or qigong practice.