By Paul Cavel, Posted 26 February 2010

As your energy develops through regular, progressively more accurate practice your body becomes stronger, you can concentrate longer, you require less sleep, your libido grows and you can handle stressful situations better. These are among the normal benefits from energetic exercise. Then, suddenly, you hit a plateau.

Uh-oh! What happened?

Plateaus are normal in any kind of exercise, sport or activity that is practised over time, but in energy development something more is taking place. Due to the nature of the exercise, where you’re attempting to affect the intricate workings of the body (e.g., improving oxygenation of the cells or directly working with or slowing down the aging process), when you improve your training you go deeper into your body.

Regular modern exercise uses the muscles, which create referred pressures on your internal organs, arteries and veins, glands and nerves. All of this is good because it’s not your muscles that make you healthy. It’s all the other “stuff” inside you that does all the work. You can live without a leg or an arm, but you can’t live without a heart, liver or your kidneys. Therefore, when you directly target moving more blood or increasing the efficiency of your internal organs, for example, your effort penetrates much deeper than in normal exercise.

As you become more efficient in your regular routine, you will eventually access deeper layers of your internals. For instance you may gain more control over opening up major blood vessels or veins that have been closed down for years. Maybe you open up a digestive valve so it can release tension and function more optimally.

At this stage your energy goes into stabilising the system and creating balance rather than increasing your energy. Once the system is balanced and stabilised, it in turn allows body to produce and develop higher energies that allow you to store more chi. This abundance of energy will in turn help you to open, heal and regenerate deeper layers of bound chi within your body.

So even though you may have periods where you really don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere, in actuality it may be that you’re accessing progressively deeper layers of tension that may weigh you down for a few days, weeks or even months—depending on factors like the energy bodies in play, how entangled any specific blockage may be and where in the physical body the blockage may be located. It’s a highly subjective experience with 10,000 potential variables.

Don’t get discouraged. This is the time when you must keep practising. Don’t go for broke and push past your 70% by trying to force progress to happen. The perceived plateau may be as simple as the mind’s desire to achieve more, more, more! If you slow down, apply the principle of separate and combine and wait patiently—only with the intent that you would like for something to happen—life will eventually unfold.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

© 2010 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved.
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