Hello,
The fundamental principle in Daoist practice is the dual cultivation of life and nature (xingming shuangxiu, 性命雙修). Life is vital energy (qi, 氣) and nature is spirit (shen, 神). The energies of the body are refined and the mind is purified.
As a practitioner moves through this process, various energetic and mind-based skills develop. There's nothing interesting about them after they have been experienced a couple times.
One of the skills that develops in dandao after a few years is the ability to emit various kinds of qi (faqi, 發氣/ fagong, 發功). The most intense of these is emitting yang qi 陽氣, which has a strong electrical quality.
The ability to emit yang qi develops through building increased amounts of it within the lower dantian, and then opening the channels through which it flows around the body.
Although qi emission has applications in Chinese medicine, from the perspective of dandao it is relatively pointless. Yang qi should not be leaked outside of the body, but instead stored and refined within it.
Here is a short video that I posted on socials yesterday, showing emission of yang qi:
If for some reason the embedded video isn’t working (sometimes it’s problematic), you can just watch it on the Nüwa’s IG or Facebook.
I hope this demonstration shows that when we speak about qi in dandao, we are not speaking about something metaphorical or abstract; it’s a tangible energy that is cultivated and refined within the body, and which at higher levels of dandao unifies with spirit in order to form the yangshen 陽神.
Dandao remains something virtually unknown in the West, and that which is available is generally very far from the true path.
I am currently at a Daoist monastery in the northeast of China and the abbess said to me today — the true transmission is contained within a single sentence, whilst false teachings fill a thousand books.
道炁長存,
Oscar