The Journal 研習錄

• The Complete Fourteen: A Map of Western Heaven Zen Gong — The whole sequence in one place — four phases, fourteen movements, roughly eight minutes, from first seated breath to final stillness.
• Qigong and Sleep: What Practitioners Report, and What Is Known — Sleep is the single most common reason people take up an evening practice. A careful separation of what the literature supports from what gets claimed.
• Warrior Flow: Where Chan Meets Martial Practice — Zen Gong contains a section of dynamic Zen boxing. Why a meditation curriculum keeps strikes in it at all, and what changes when you practise them.
• Summer Practice: The Heart Season and Cooling Work — Summer is the one season the tradition says to expand outward. It is also the season most likely to make vigorous practice a bad idea before noon.
• Reading a Posture Score: What 92 Actually Means — The number is a similarity measure against a reference frame, not a judgement of your practice. What it can see, and the four things it cannot.
• Qi, Explained Without Mysticism — You do not have to believe in a subtle energy to practise seriously. What the word 氣 actually does inside the tradition, and how to hold it honestly.
• Pa Ba Xu (拍八虛): Tapping the Eight Hollows — Percussion at the elbow, armpit, groin and knee. A five-minute practice that is unusually easy to do badly by hitting too hard.
• Building a Daily Practice That Survives a Bad Week — Streaks break in week three, not week one. Designing a practice around the days you do not want to do it.
• Xi Sui Jing: The Marrow Washing Classic, Carefully — The companion text to Yi Jin Jing, far less well documented, and surrounded by more nonsense than any other item in the curriculum. What can and cannot be said about it.
• Meditation vs Movement Meditation: What Changes — If sitting still has never worked for you, the problem may be the stillness rather than the meditation. What moving changes about the task.
• Qigong for Desk Workers: Neck, Shoulders, Hips — Eight hours seated produces a predictable pattern of shortening. Three movements from the curriculum address it directly, and take four minutes.
• Spring Practice: The Liver Season and Movement — Spring is associated with the liver, with the tendons, and with the quality of easy expansion. It is the season the classical texts say to stop restricting yourself.
• How On-Device Pose Estimation Works (And Why It Stays On Your Phone) — A camera pointed at your body is about the most sensitive sensor there is. Here is what the app does with those frames, and where they go.
• Lotus Palm (蓮花掌) and the Hand Shapes of Zen Gong — Six hand shapes recur through the fourteen movements. Each has a specific tension pattern, and the shape is not decorative.
• Stance Work: Horse, Bow, and Empty Step — Three stances underpin nearly every standing movement in the curriculum. Getting the weight distribution right is most of the work.
• Yi Jin Jing: The Muscle-Tendon Change Classic — The most famous text associated with Shaolin, the most frequently misattributed, and the most physically demanding thing in the curriculum.
• A 30-Day Beginner Path Through Western Heaven — Four weeks, roughly ten minutes a day, from the morning set to the opening of the Zen Gong sequence. A schedule you can actually keep in January.
• Why We Bothered Translating Every Cue Into Chinese — Most bilingual apps translate the interface and leave the teaching in English. That choice quietly decides who the app is for.
• Winter Practice: Storing Rather Than Spending — The classical advice for winter is almost embarrassingly simple: do less, sleep more, keep the lower back warm. Here is what that means for a practice schedule.
• The Six Healing Sounds (Liu Zi Jue): A Practical Guide — Six exhalations, six organ systems, one of the oldest documented breathing practices in the Chinese canon — and the one people most often perform too loudly.
• Does Qigong Actually Do Anything? Reading the Evidence Honestly — A practitioner-facing look at what the research literature on qigong and tai chi is generally able to support, where it is weak, and how to read a study without being sold to.
• Autumn Practice: The Lung Season in Chinese Medicine — Why the classical texts pair autumn with the lungs, with grief, and with gathering in — and what that suggests for how you practise between September and November.
• Five Beginner Mistakes in Standing Practice — Locked knees, lifted shoulders, held breath, chased sensation, and skipped closing. Each one is common, each one is fixable in a session.
• Breathing in Qigong: Dantian, Reverse, and Natural Breath — Three breathing registers, when each is appropriate, and why forcing the wrong one is the fastest way to make practice unpleasant.
• The Eight Brocades (Baduanjin), Movement by Movement — The most widely practised qigong set in the world, taken one movement at a time — the intent behind each, and the error each invites.
• Xuán Dǐng (懸頂): The Suspended Crown, Explained — One instruction governs the spine in every seated and standing form in the curriculum. It is also the one most often taught badly in English.
• Qigong vs Tai Chi vs Yoga: How They Actually Differ — Three traditions that look similar from outside and feel nothing alike from inside. A comparison by origin, structure, intensity and what each is good for.
• The Morning Set: Six Movements to Start the Day — Head to foot, then stillness, then closing — a six-minute sequence you can do cold, without equipment, before the day starts asking for things.
• Bodhidharma and the Western Heaven: Where Zen Gong Comes From — The transmission story behind 西天大乘禪功 — what the tradition claims, what the historical record supports, and why the difference matters.
• What Is Qigong? A Plain-English Primer — Slow coordinated movement, deliberate breathing, and directed attention — what qigong actually is, stripped of both mysticism and marketing.