I always teach people to see and feel energy in my meditation classes for a couple of reasons. It’s a lot of fun, and being able to see it and feel it makes it more real and easier for them to understand.
Applying this to your martial arts practice (and then to the rest of your life) can give you some interesting skills. When you can feel and see the energy, it is easier for you to be aware of the people around you. This heightened awareness can help you spot when a coworker may be overly stressed and more likely to engage in conflict. It allows you to apply a little sympathy and understanding and thus increase your own effectiveness by avoiding unnecessary conflict and stress.
If you have been doing the exercises I have described, by now you have probably had some interesting experiences of feeling your own internal energy and drawing energy into your body. Now we are going to work with feeling the external energy. As you progress with this, you will not only be able to feel your own energy, but also the energy of the people and things around you. Seeing and feeling the energy can also be a lot of fun to experiment and play with. It’s especially fun to get others involved.
The following exercises will help you feel your aura, the external energy field that surrounds everything. Everything on the planet is made of various particles held together by energy, and you can feel and even manipulate that energy with practice.
Exercise 1 – Construction of an energy ball
Rub your hands briskly together as if you were trying to warm them up on a cold day. Doing this increases the sensitivity of your hands.
Keep your hands in front of you at a distance of about 6 inches. Now move them away from each other until they are 8 to 12 inches apart, and then move them back to 2 to 3 inches apart, like a fisherman describing the sizes of the fish he caught. As you continue to do this, can you feel a ball or energy building up between your hands? It may feel like a thickness in the air between your hands, or a pressure between them. Play around with this exercise. See how big you can make the energy ball. Is one hand more sensitive than the other? Can you rotate your hands and do it with the back of your hands?
Exercise 2 – Waving the energy
Hold your left hand upright in front of you with the palm facing right. Move the fingertips of the right hand slowly up and down in front of, but not touching, the palm of the left hand. Can you feel the movement of your right hand on the surface of your left palm? Switch hands and do it again. Does it feel different with the other hand? Is one hand more sensitive than the other?
Exercise 3 – Feeling the aura
Extend your hands in front of you with arms extended and palms facing in. Now move your awareness towards your palms and slowly move your palms towards your body. Do you remember how you felt when you made the energy ball between your palms? Can you feel the same kind of thickness or pressure when your palms move towards your body?
With a partner, practice moving your hands slowly toward them. Can you feel his aura? Can your partner feel your hands as you move closer to her?
Have your partner stand about 12 to 15 feet away. He now walks slowly towards them. Can you feel his aura as you walk towards them? Can they feel you? As you go deeper into this you will also be able to play with intention and emotions, but for now just focus on feeling the aura.
Some games you can play with this;
Have your partner stand a few feet away and think angry thoughts. Can you feel a difference in their energy? How about when you have happy thoughts? Ask them to hide somewhere in the house, and without moving, see if you can feel where they are. Try this at various places around the city as well.
Some people don’t have a problem with this, while others are not as empathic and take a while to learn to feel it. As usual, it’s all about creating your own personal catalog and learning how things feel.
Just as you can feel the energy, many people can also see it. Seeing auras doesn’t seem like something everyone can do and those who do seem to have very different abilities. I’ve known healers who can look at you and say things like “Oh, you’re blocking some energy here” just from what they see in your aura, while others can barely see it.
Personally, I’m more of an empath and while I can feel energy from across the room, I don’t see it as well. This is something you can play around with and if you can do it then it’s just another cool tool in the toolbox.
