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Qi is just another term for nerve signals that ancients used in China. Qi meridians are just the nervous system. There are two branches of the nervous system that we need to know before we proceed :
1) Central nervous system aka CNS.
The nerves in the brain and the spinal cord. Basically this
2) Peripheral nervous system aka PNS.
The nerves outside of the brain and the spinal cord. It's function is to extend the CNS to the rest of the body.
Further these two can divided into two types of nerves :
1) Symphatetic(stimulating, burning, Yang)
2) Parasymphatetic(regenerating, cool, Yin)
In general it is considered that the CNS nerves extending from the spinal cord are sympathetic, while the CNS nerves extending directly from the brain are parasympathetic. Interestingly in opposite of the sympathetic nerves in the back, the parasympathetic nerves are are mostly located in front of the body.
You can think of the CNS as the commander and PNS as the messenger, delivering signals to human tissue, the CNS can either send commands to rest or it can send commands to gather energy and prepare for a fight. Now the channel that the CNS uses to stimulate body regeneration is mostly the vagus nerve, in Qigong it's known as Ren Mai aka Front Channel. The sympathetic side is instead called Du mai aka Rear Channel. Now overtime as people get older both the tension in the parasympathetic nervous system as the sympathetic nervous system fades, these two systems stimulate each-other and often work together, not apart, only slightly dominating each-other depending on the time of the day.
Now the important part of raising the tongue comes from the fact that the tongue is raised by the palatoglossus muscle, one of the only muscles innervated by the vagus nerve, raising your tongue basically stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.
Though I disagree with qi-gong that it "closes the channel", if you actually look at innervation then you'd notice nerve signals can pass just fine even if the palatoglossus isn't tensed, a good analogy would be there's a big road(vagus nerve) which has small roads connected to it on the sides, like the nerve that tenses the palatoglossus muscle.
However it is still important, as I said before it's one of the only muscles innervated by the vagus nerve, which means it's not autonomically controlled like the rest of the parasympathetic nervous system. If a beginner wanted to stimulate his vagus nerve, the best place to start would be the palatoglossus.
Over time though you can learn to tense the vagus nerve directly, making it sub-autonomic and sub-conscious, only sometimes controlled by you. Later you can even control the small different parts of the vagus nerve. The stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system is important, it signals the adrenals to produce less cortisol, it signals the stomach to start digesting the food, the sexual gonads to produce hormones, all of this either directly through nerves or indirectly through other signalling messengers(hormones, etc...).
Our lifestyle and constant thinking had made the sympathetic nervous system too strong, we don't sleep enough, produce too much stress-hormones and rely too much on glucose released by the liver. Qigong works to restore that. Not only that, but our very passive lifestyles has made us weak in Qi, one thing is to stimulate, but you still need the Qi, the energy, to stimulate anything. Qigong works to create that energy as well.
Which brings me to Qi generation :
Fascia is one of the biggest organs in the body, forming a protective sheet of connective tissue over your whole body and inside your body. It's primarily made of collagen, a piezoelectric material. If you train the fascia and stretch it under tension, Qi will be generated. Qi is also generated from food/sleep, etc, but this Fascia method is one of the fastest. The only way to achieve this is to relax the muscles in your body, while expanding everything outside. You have to force your posture to rely on the connective tissue, not the muscle.
Zhuan Zhuang is one of such practices(probably the best one):
Though Yin Jin Jing is even more rigorous, but potentially leading to Qi excess/Yang over-stimulation :
There are some other ways to stimulate generation of Qi like :
Stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system and thus increasing digestion/sexual virility/reducing Qi usage/increasing sleep quality.
Directly creating Qi by force of willpower/consciousness itself through concentration or nirvana.
Standing bare-feet, promoting flow from head to either the feet or to one of the three Dan Tians(energy reserves of the body).
Breathing air with extra negative ions(area with water splashing or mountains where cosmic rays and other radiation creates a lot of ions).
Reverse breathing, same concept as Zhan Zhaung, except with the lung muscles, tense stomach on inhalation, relax on exhalation.
Typos/mistakes may have been written in this essay.
As for CNF, it has it's place in Qigong, it's believed that some muscles pump the CNF. The PC muscle is one of them as it compressed the root of the spinal cord, great for erections too. I am pretty sure the palatoglossus isn't a pump though. The way I see it, any muscle that works to compress the lower spinal cord can pump the CSF upwards. Usually breathing in already creates pressure on the lower front spinal cord, the PC muscles then pulls the lower spinal cord against the breath to pump CSF upwards. I just did it and had to yawn like crazy, lol, though it does take time to learn to tense the PC and train it. I think any muscles that can push or pull the lower spinal cord forward against the breath is a potential pump, but I also remember that there was one pump located above the spinal cord, it's the muscle that creates the vibrations in the ears when you yawn. I think it might be eye related, maybe the muscle that closes the eyes? I can tense it on will and it makes me yawn a lot, but I can't tense it without closing my eyes, it either creates too much pressure inside brain so eyes have to close to not pop off or it's the muscle that closes the eyelid itself.
Also the suboccipital muscles are also pumps.