Shaolin Eye Techniques

This one is interesting. On one site I found some exercises that are called Shaolin Eye Techniques. They are not Bates techniques but Chinese Chi Kung.

View the Shaolin Eight Eye Techniques here (scroll down to answer 4).

Well, I looked around and the reviews of these techniques are surprisingly good. So let's have a closer look, shall we?

I still don't quite know what to make of them. I've been practicing them for a while now but since my vision is pretty bad to start with I don't expect quick results.

Since I wrote this post I also began to study Qigong in more depth. The main idea behind Qigong is that physical movement is just an outside form. The real thing is the mind control: mind directs energy (qi or chi) to whatever part of the body you want it to direct. This simple concept is easy to understand but is difficult to realize and actually implement so the movements would become effective.

So the techniques are these:

Counting leaves (just like it sounds: count leaves on a distant tree) encourages shifting. Be sure to stand close enough that you can actually see the leaves. The green color of the trees also seems to be soothing for the eyes. I have a nice fan palm growing right under my window. I don't see the leaves very well but I can clearly distinguish the ends or middle parts.

Rolling stars: roll the eyes in big circles, this one is similar to the muscle stretching exercise that are promoted in virtually all over the internet sites that have anything to do with vision improvement.

“Angry” eyes (not an apt description): close eyes tight and then open them as wide as possible. It would seem like a good way to cause strain in the eyes according to Bates. I tried it and actually it seems to alleviate tension.

Near-far swing (look at the close object, than at a distant object). I like this one a lot. This and the next one are the only focusing exercises and they are good.

The most debated: the stare (focusing one): you are supposed to “gently stare” (another inept choice of words) at some object. It goes rather against the Bates' idea of relaxation. The argument runs like this: staring is what caused your bad eyesight in the first place. Breaking the habit of staring is the first habit to develop. The opposite of staring is shifting and blinking.

Well, it got me thinking and now I think what they call stare is the same one that I call long distance viewing, because that is what it is. This is the only technique with which I noticed any improvement and temporary (so far) flashes of improved (not perfect) vision. I do recommend that you relax you eyes and blink naturally while doing this as it seems to work towards improvement.

I think it's because the ciliary muscle that controls the lens gets relaxed when eyes are focused on a distant object. I know that Bates said that lens has nothing to do with accommodation. But I think it does and this experience confirms it.

I am convinced that long distance viewing is great for myopia. I wrote another post about it.

By the way, that’s how you can easily tell if a person has bad eyesight, even if they wear contacts or had Lasik: they still stare. And that’s the main reason that Lasik is temporary, these people will have their sight worse in a few years provided they’ve got no other nasty side effect from this terrible operation.

The next technique sounds very similar to pranic healing: imagine energy flowing into your eyes. Not as complicated as Leo Angart describes it: just imagine energy flowing into your eyes. It sounds like it might help. I also like to imagine flowing energy that squeezes your eyeballs and brings them back to round shape.

You might also want to employ Daoist or reversed abdominal breathing while performing this technique as it helps to direct the energy to the eyes.

Point massage (acupressure). Leo Angart also recommends it. This is considered traditional Chinese method. I had to read a few books on Qigong in order to discover proper points. I don't thing the acupressure alone will improve your vision but it might help in combination with other techniques.

Heavenly Drum: that’s when you cover your ears with your palms and drum with your fingers on the back of your head. This Heavenly Drum is mentioned in Tai-Chi books as well.

These Shaolin Eye techniques have outrageous claims that they will restore your eyesight. Hype aside, I read several very good reviews about them. They are not exactly Bates but in a way the approach is more systematized, more technical (you are actually doing something rather than "imagining" which in my experience is not easy) and they are easy to perform.