hey man. what’s with the tiger

well,

in my current online incarnation, i am a part of Tiger Twitter. what is Tiger Twitter? people who have tiger pfps. but why do people have tiger pfps. many reasons, but i am one of the ones that have tiger pfps because they do tiger qigong.

ok so what is tiger qigong

well,

it’s the tiger-style ancient chinese shamanic form of qigong practice, as taught by a guy named Zhongxian Wu who learned it in China and then came to america and wrote a book and recorded a dvd and then moved to sweden. in chinese it’s called laohugong, which is roughly “old tiger qigong”

hold on. what’s qigong

well,

qigong is a chinese movement practice. if there is a spectrum of intensity between tai chi and kung fu, qigong is kind of in the middle. it’s not SUPER fast, but it is kind of bouncy. you do it to cultivate qi.

wait. what’s qi?

well,

qi/chi is energy. not physical energy, but it can become that when it interacts favorably with a human. you can say spiritual energy if you want, or life energy if you don’t. kind of like the Force.

you ever know you need to do something and can’t bring yourself to do it? like there’s some sort of motivational battery and it’s currently drained so you’re running on autopilot, letting more automatic subsystems take charge and go through the motions?

that’s qi. or at least, the lack of it. i spend most of my time in that mode so personally i feel its absence more acutely than its presence. when you’re getting shit done and living life and not thinking about how you could be doing something else? that’s qi power.

to me, at least. maybe it’s something different to you! i’m not trying to be scientific. it gives me language to express my inner state that feels much more precise than whatever i’d get from psychology.

so why do qigong? that’s why! imo it’s better to feel like i do when qi is flowing than when it’s not. i’m prone to procrastination and qigong is something i especially procrastinate on because when i do it i procrastinate less. procrastination hates this one weird trick!

so how did you get into tiger qigong?

well,

the cool thing is i can’t really say WHY i started. i can say that when i didn’t have a tiger pfp i stumbled on a thread of buddhist shitposts collected by a guy named taalumot who did. and he posted about zen and being a dad, which i thought was cool

and he made a thread about tiger qigong and i thought that was cool too. and that thread had links to other people who were doing tiger qigong so i followed those people too.

and then one day i was like “i want to do something with my body and mind that is good” and i bought the book online and started doing it. and i liked it!

so i was like hey i do tiger qigong and all the tigers said cool, you can be a tiger on twitter too if you want. and then i did

what do you like about it?

well,

i like how focused it makes me. for a long time, during the dark Omicron days, i did it every day, and sat in zen meditation every day, and i felt like i was bursting with energy.

i don’t like how there’s a part of me that tells me that it’s me, and how often i believe it. and qigong helps the bigger quieter parts come out and do their thing.

i like how it collects power in my gut, which is where my best ideas and instincts come from. many remarkable opportunities have come my way and i like to think that part of why is that i’m loosey goosey enough to see them as they arrive and grab on.

i like the people who also do tiger qigong. they’re a friendly bunch and i have become friends with many of them and been introduced to lots of tiger-adjacent people through them.

that, i think, is what’s up with the tiger.

wanna try doing the tiger stuff?

well,

hmu