The Concept of Wuho

At a time of intense emotion, cultivating inner calm is more important than ever.

Much has happened in the news recently and emotions are running high. Rather than allowing the emotional reactions to cloud my judgement, I am turning extra attention to inner practices and one in particular.

There is a concept called Wuho in the Daoqiquan arts which means, "no fire". This can be thought of as the calming of internal agitation. It is among the main ideas behind Qiqong and it seems to me to be of prime value at this moment.

I use a practice called Pingfu Qi to calm any inner storms that are brewing. If you have a particular practice that is designed to do the same, you might consider focusing on it for a while. Take some time each day to deliberately calm your emotions, reactions, and thoughts.

Pingfu Qi is referred to as the Clearing Exercise and is an important foundational practice in my understanding of Qigong. That understanding requires some explanation before we proceed.

I can sum it up in the phrase, “the mind commands”. This means that my attention and imagination are combined to produce a specific effect or feeling in the body. I don’t think in terms of “chi (qi)” or any kind of hidden energy. Whether or not I think there is such thing as “chi” does not affect the practice at all. In fact, in my early days, the search for chi was a barrier to the practice as I was overlooking the simpler explanation for the sensations felt in the practice. That the mind generates the feelings via imagination.

So my focus is on intending something to happen, imagining it happening, and paying attention to the sensations that result from this intention.

The Clearing Exercise consists of standing with the feet slightly less than shoulder width apart, the arms hanging loosely at the sides, the spine straight and the head lifted from the crown. Then I raise the arms outwards at the sides until they are above my head and slowly lower them down the front of the body. This is done while imagining something gently moving downwards through the body, relaxing it section by section.

This video shows what the exercise looks like physically. There is much more to it than shown here, so I recommend you learn the complete method at the Li Family Internal Arts University in our Qigong section.

It is simple yet I found it requires a steady diet of repetition to be effective. A couple of months ago I made a commitment to myself to do the practice every day so I could experience the effects of daily repetition. It is fascinating!

At first, there was the difficulty most people face when beginning a subtle mindbody exercise. While the physical movements are easy, there is little sensation at first. My immediate experience was one of making an effort but not getting much of a resulting effect. This can be discouraging for many people. But I had made a commitment to myself so kept on going.

Within about a week or so, I started to notice some changes in the experience. That first lack of sensation was replaced by a subtle feeling of “something” going on where I was focused, especially in my head. There was a tangible feeling of pressure/presence/movement happening. I know those adjectives are vague, but that is the nature of the sensation. It is there, but vague.

As I moved my hands down from the head, the sensation would follow but become more difficult to feel. But if I slowed down enough to maintain focus on particular sections of the body, I was able to feel the movement more clearly. Interestingly, I had to slow down more while moving the feeling through my upper body. Once I reached the hips and then down the legs, the feeling become more tangible. I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

As the weeks have gone by, the feeling within the exericise have become consistently clearer. But that difference between the sensation in the head and the upper to lower body remained relatively the same. Yet the overall effect is that of calming the “fire” of agitation, upset, frustration, etc. It became a soothing response to the news of the day and general life stresses. Then something started to happen I did not expect.

When I stood quietly, preparing to do the exerise, I could feel the body already starting to release tension. It was as if it was anticipating the coming relaxation. Then the moment I started to raise my arms, the sensation would appear in the head and start to move before I actually started the exercise.

I further experimented with simply standing quietly and imagining performing the exercise without actually lifting my arms. Lo and behold, the sensations of release would manifest. This was fascinating and I’m curious to see where this goes.

As I continue to practice this, I remind myself of its purpose - the calming of inner agitation to the point of Wuho - no fire. The feelings of motion within are designed to sooth the inner experience and I am finding this very helpful in today’s hyperactive social and news environment. This concept of Wuho is a very useful shorthand for whatever stresses one is facing. But cultivating it requires regualar practice even if one is not feeling particularly stressed.

It’s practicing when you don’t need it that ensures it will be there when you do.

If you want to learn Pengfu Qi, you can do so in the Li Family Internal Arts University. Dr. Painter created an excellent instructional video on this exercise in which he takes the student from the beginning to the end of the entire practice. If you’re a member already, click here to watch and learn. If you’re considering joining, the link will take you to the sign up page.