You may have heard of term Prana, it is often to referred to as life force energy. And compared to the word qi. That isn't necessarily correct. There is a polar aspect to prana called apana. When these are brought into balance kundalini flows! Kundalini is often referred to as sexual energy. Sexual energy as in the whole dance of the cosmos is the sweet spiraling dance of the Divine Feminine, and Divine Masculine. Sexual energy as in the tree yearning to reach for the sun!
Here is a mega brief description on how to experience prana and apana directly. This is in no way full whole practices, yet hints on how to feel thee difference between prana and apana!!!
You can tune into prana as an energizing, vitalizing, electrifying energy! You can experience apana as a digestive, integrative, magnetic energy! And when these are in balance the life force that animates all creation, kundalini is brought into a harmonious flow! Really most people have had drips of the kundalini/awakened their kundalini to certain extents. It translates into the curl of the hair of the beloved in a three and half curl at the base of the spine. Yet like I am saying people who are reading this, people in medicine circles and are with the movement of the awakening on planet earth have had this open and uncurl to a certain extent almost certainly. Perhaps those that are eating mcdonalds, drinking beers, and watching tv uninterested in life completely are an exception. Ones that may have had no awakening of this energy within them. Yet those that have had any kind of experience of sacredness, or who experienced any wisdom at all. This is the kundalini!!!
This can be awakened more fully, with many different practices I am not going to share here. The Prayerful, playful post on breathing is a great place to begin!!!
I am not here explaining prana, away or all the way, these things, have to be experienced directly and is totally available now to experience. If you take a few conscious breaths and then inhale and hold the breath like a butterfly, gently and care fully, this is a way to feel the energy of prana right away. Especially if you infuse the breaths with loving awareness, infuse the breaths with prayerfulness. Also that energy boost you feel from food, especially healthy food, living food, plant peoples!!! Especially when that food is infused with prayerfulness and loving awareness is given to those beings, the plants, that gave their life to give us life! There is more prana available whenever one is in tune this way!
Apana can be experienced directly, by taking a few powerful breaths and then holding the breath out for 30 seconds. Holding the breath out with a subtle pull in and up on the anus, sex organs and navel, locking in the powerful straight spine, yet relaxing everywhere else. Feel the demagnetizing of stress and anxiety that can come from this. It is an integrative energy, an energy that is releasing of that which isn't helpful! There is also an energizing yet relaxing effect that can come from this! If you are tense and have little prana, this will be very hard to do for 30 seconds!!!
Really there is a mixture of these energies at play, and are better experienced, yet a bit of intellectual understanding is helpful.
If this is unclear so far, you can also do this, consciously, not hurting yourself, take a breath in (infused with love) contract every muscle in the body, and then exhale and completely relax. The linking/ the contracting of the muscles is a lot like infusing the body and systems with prana, the unlinking/relaxing is a lot like letting the integration of the prana, with apana take place.
So we have to build and cultivate prana, yet also balance it with apana, and kundalini will flow harmoniously through the subtle channels.
This is a very brief description on these energies, and just a hint at how to experience them directly. In no way are these full or robust practices described here. Yet I recommend seeking and finding those. Maybe in videos or something along the lines I can start sharing here on the hive, some full practices to do along with me! At any rate maybe this is helpful or clarifying to these terms!