The Tan Tien, more formally known as the lower Tan Tien, is this place in the belly which is the grounding point of Zhan Zhuang.
It took me years of practice before I felt it. I guess I must be really blocked there or something. Even now as I come back to it, I have at tendency to forget how important it is. It is THE most important focal point of practice.
What happens now when I stand is that I get feeling, almost like a carbonated vitality starting to flow through it. If I keep my focus on it, eventually a very strong warmth begins to grow. The best way to think about it, I've found, is as the major ball bearing in the body. Like a magnetic ball bearing.
But I have a tendency to feel it and then want to move on to other parts of the body. What I"m practicing today is feeling it and then explanding my feeling, but always keeping the Tan Tien in mind. This is a pretty exciting feeling. It hits me right at the point I felt of first sexual awakening, and it's no surprise that the Tan Tien is supposed to be the place where we store out sexual energy.
As westerners, of course, we tend to focus on our genital area, but the tan tien is actually more effective at sustaining the kind of ecstasy we associate with sexual release.
Of course, quasi-puritan that I am programmed to be, I end up focusing on everywhere but. Anything that feels that good can't be good for me, right?
Well, let's see....
