u/El-Jefe-Kyle

Has anyone had hypersensitivity sexually after beginning to practice zhan zhuang?

I started practicing zhan zhuang regularly about 6 months ago and ever since have gotten 'turned-on' with minimal stimulation... and in situations that weren't sexual and where I didn't want to feel this way.

For example, last week I got a massage here in Cambodia and it was a normal massage, but when the lady was massaging the backs of my thighs, the hamstring area, I was feeling so much sexual energy that I was thinking I might ejaculate, and was worried about it (but didn't have an erection). All this time I was practising reverse kegels and deep breathing along with box breathing to keep this from happening. There was also a time about 2.5 months ago where I did ejaculate during a massage. It was similar and happened when the lady was massaging the hamstring area, specifically when she applied and held pressure at this one point on my left lower hamstring and I felt a jolt of pressure and energy that was so intense it made me ejaculate... again without any erection. This was incredibly embarrassing at first and I had to ask the lady to leave me alone - that I needed a 5 min break from the massage.

This is all without sexual stimulation. Since I was lying on my stomach the top side of my penis was getting stimulated a tiny bit because as the lady would apply pressure my body would move and the top part of my penis was laying against the massage bed. But this was extremely extremely minimal... yet definitely felt like a lot to me. It's been about 2.5 weeks since I've ejaculated, so at the time of my experience from last week I had ejaculated just 1 week prior. So it's not like I'm just waiting to explode.

I've never had any experiences like this prior.

Any thoughts/help?

I’ve been reading Inside Zhan Zhuang by Mark Cohen and have been practicing the breathing exercises he describes for a few weeks now.

The basic idea, as I understand it, is to gently draw the torso inward and upward on the exhale, then on the inhale gradually release and let it fill from the bottom up. He first teaches this with the front of the body, then the back, and eventually combining both together.

The book says this eventually develops into “whole-body” (or spherical) breathing, but it doesn’t really explain how you make that transition.

For those of you with experience in Zhan Zhuang, Qigong, or Tai Chi, what comes next? Once the torso breathing becomes natural, how do you expand it to include the rest of the body? Is there a specific progression involving the pelvis, legs, arms, and hands, or is it something that simply develops on its own with enough standing practice?

I’d especially be interested in hearing how this is taught in traditional lineages or by experienced teachers, since I don’t want to just guess at the next step.

carving

This is carved into a rock beside a little pagoda that sits atop a small mountain here in Yangshuo, China (Yangshuo park).

On the pagoda itself, it says 卧云亭, as you can see above the door, but it’s that rock carving that I’m interested in.

characters above pagoda door

My Chinese friend believes it means ‘lying on a cloud’ 卧云.

Can anyone confirm this or give other possible translations?