2023-01-29
Oakland, California

Last year (🐯) I learned the form of Chinese Shamanic Tiger Qigong.

This year (🐇) I will continue to practice.

I don't KNOW this form yet, not in a deep way. I am a beginner who has just barely enough grasp of it to practice and to start to receive what my body and the world have to teach me through the form.

I want to write and share informally about this practice. To give structure, I plan to write about each movement of the form during the Jie Qi (half-moon) with which it is associated.

There are two threads to this, which, it's my intuition to keep separate: First, (and more seriously?) I want to share my thoughts and experience of each movement of the form and maybe discuss it with other practitioners.

Thoughts on Laohu Gong Movements

Second (and maybe more fun / silly), I want to share a persistent / invasive puzzle I have been inspired / distracted by during my first year of practice: a mapping between the Lao Hu form and the Tarot trumps.

Laohu Gong Movements as Tarot Trumps

I guess maybe the reason I want to keep them separate is because this mapping may be a mild infohazard. I found it difficult to not thing about / be aware of during practice and not everyone might enjoy that.

I mean no disrespect to either Lao Hu Qigong or Tarot in constructing and communicating this mapping. Certainly I claim no authority, and my confidence in the correctness of each mapping varies considerably.

Some were so obvious they suggested themselves so unignorably that they started me on this project. Others were like, "OK well these are the cards that are left -- how might they fit? Interesting!"

I offer this game in the spirit of play and curiosity. I'm not right. I'd love to hear what you think of this as it unfolds.

I am learning this from Master Zhongxian Wu's book!

If you want to start practicing this form you are going to want to see video also. The book is very good, but the movements are subtle and difficult to describe in text.

(and I mean, really, you're going to want to find a qualified teacher)