in a discussion about zz, qi and internal development on the yahoo goup tcclist (a great source of information on taiji) kelley graham posted the following, which i thought would be of interest to you guys (my changes marked by the []:

all the various [qi] phenomena, tingling, heat, pressure etc. should and do dissolve away as the body becomes open & transparent. how then do we know our training is productive?

in our methodology, partner training is required to be sure that each practitioner is manifesting the appropriate quality of force/energy to the point of contact. this is not push hands 'play' or competition, this is explicit training in which one practitioner 'feeds' the 'feel' to the other and vice versa in the various exercises. after a relatively short time - 6-9 months - students can exhibit the first of the 5 qualities of unification. 'absorb and project' force. after 3 years or so, the student can manifest all 5 qualities, resulting in 'fullness' or ('peng'/frame). at this point most have an explicit and detailed understanding of the 'greater flow' of energy in their body.

because of the countless hours of explicit partner training, significant martial skill is also present.

here's my point, most chi phenomena as described in solo internal practice will simply be distractions. they will take your training focus away from the kind of awareness needed when working with training partners. such distractions will impede progress in the internal.

over the last 30 years of practice, i've watched my training brothers and sisters become distracted by all sorts of various chi phenomena and fall away from training when they didn't progress. all they had to do to advance was do what teacher said. without exception, every one of my teachers has said, 'don't worry about those feelings, just train exactly as i've told you.' not one has said, 'train to feel the tingle', or whatever.

[edgar: i assume in your post you are referring to the way you train in i liq-chuan. do i understand you rightly, that one can not train on feeling the main energy absorb+project alone? you can do it only in partner work?]

yes.. but it's very, very hard to develop the awareness/feel without partner training. the tendons must change and certain very subtle connections must be made that are almost impossible to feel without explicit partner training.

you cannot load the body in the proper way throughout the whole range of movement without a partner. the solo AND partner training together gets the best results. ime.

and yes, the '5 qualities of unification' are from i liq chuan training curriculum..