Strange head and arm movements

Lately in the last 20-30 minutes of a one hour or more noting session, I have been been involuntarily moving my arms and head in spastic, strange motions such as pawing at the air and Joe Cocker like movements (if you know who he is). I note restlessness and humorous. I find it funny. My awareness is still there. I am at peace with it but wondering what is going on.

Jack

Kriyas!

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...ctice+log?offset=339

Normal and harmless. Possible explanations could be a side effect of brain rewiring or a mystical process of energetic pathway purification, or other explanations, depending on what you like to believe in. A friend of mine practiced in a yoga sect where they had a "kriya room" in the meditation center where they would gently escort people who were twitching and yelping too much and might disrupt the others.

Welcome to the involuntary dance party!

If you want them to go away, ground your attention into your body or even your feet - should chill them out.

I was having a ton of kriyas before I realized anatta. Keep pushing forward!

A stupid human trick to try:

Attempt to really look at the previous moment - the moment *before* the present moment.

Turns on the kriyas for me every time.

You guys completely answered my question. You are a valuable resource. Many thanks.

jack

"A stupid human trick to try:

Attempt to really look at the previous moment - the moment *before* the present moment.

Turns on the kriyas for me every time."

Doesn't work for me right away.

I find I get this a lot when I do a lot of vipassana and nothing else, but I don't get this when practicing both vipassana and qigong (in my case a short set of zhineng qigong).

@jigmesengye That's interesting. Just a couple of days ago I started learning some qigong from a DVD (Ken Cohen's essential qigong training). Apparently there are lots of variations. Do you have any tips?

I want to clarify that I don't get spontaneous arm movements, but rather head and sometimes torso movements. The torso movements happen when the head movements pull the head all the way down to the floor and then pull it back up and completely straighten the spine, it quite be quite distracting.

Regarding qigong, it's hard to find a good qigong teacher and qigong done badly (stay away from falun gong, the "taoist tai chi society" and Mantak Chia) or doing a badly formulated system can be detrimental to your health. I find doing qigong well tends to enhance the trancy effects in vipassana, going into jhana, and causes a lot of pleasant physical flowing and vibratory sensations in general (a lot of which you probably feel anyway from the meditation you already do). It's good to find someone to teach you a simple standing system like standing post (aka zhan zhuang) that involves lots of stillness. It's as powerful as anything else, and has less potential for screwups since you're staying in simple static postures rather than doing complicated movements (zhineng qigong involves lots of slow movements, vizualizations and different postures, it's complicated). I have a friend who studied with Ken Cohen. He's great.

One drawback of qigong is that it tends to involve a regulation of sexual activity for men. For guys, sex burns qi and jing (the physical medium qi is embedded in, sort of like the battery that the qi charges up). Having sex very tangibly reduces qi sensations for me. For most systems, celibacy is not necessary to have a successful qigong practice and each system tends to have its own timing rules that describe how often you can have sex based on your age and amount of time you practice.

One thing I've found that ties in very well with vipassana is that I don't get spontaneous movements at all when I do vipassana in a standing posture. I use the guidelines from my standing post practice for what constitutes standing straight, but it really just involves initially standing with my back against a wall to figure out proper alignment, looking straight forward and having the feet point forward. There's also a rotation of the pelvis to open up the lumbars and somewhat undo the curve of the lower back and correct the tendency to slump.The main reason I use this posture is that it doesn't put any stress on my lower back and keeps me awake when I'm practicing very late. It's less trancy than sitting and leaves me with plenty of physical sensations to note. It can be hard on the knees after half an hour (there's a standing post technique to deal with that, but you'd need someone to show it to you), so it's best to not overdo it if you feel pain in the joints.

Thanks! I'll keep it in mind.