Feeling Energy Between the Hands – What It Really Means in Tai Chi and Chi Gong

Many people who start practicing Tai Chi or Chi Gong describe the same moment. After a few minutes of standing or moving slowly, they begin to feel warmth, tingling, or a soft magnetic resistance between their hands. The feeling can be so real that when you move your palms closer, it seems like something invisible is pushing back.

This is often called Qi, the life energy or internal force that flows through the body. But before turning it into something mystical, it helps to look at it from both traditional and modern views.

When you stand quietly, relax, and breathe slowly, the body shifts from a state of tension into a calmer, parasympathetic mode. Muscles let go, blood circulation improves, and your fascia, the connective tissue that links every part of the body, becomes softer, more hydrated, and more responsive.

At the same time, the nervous system becomes sharper. You begin to notice sensations that were always there but hidden beneath layers of tension and mental noise.

From a modern perspective, the energy you feel between your hands can relate to the body’s bioelectric field. Every living cell produces a tiny electrical charge. When your attention becomes steady and relaxed, you can start to sense the microcurrents that flow through living tissue. Some researchers also believe that fascia works like a biological conductor, helping signals and energy move through the body.

So this energy is not imagination. It is a form of refined awareness — a quiet conversation between your body’s physiology and your attention, possible only when both body and mind are relaxed and present.

In Tai Chi, this becomes the base of Ting Jin, the listening skill. Through this kind of listening, you start to feel your own balance, and later the direction, force, and intention of another person. What begins as warmth between the palms slowly becomes full-body sensitivity — a deeper awareness that helps you stay calm, connected, and responsive under pressure.

Some people compare this feeling to plasma fields or to Tesla’s experiments with electricity. The comparison is not exact, but the image is useful. The body does carry subtle electrical energy, just not in the mechanical way of a machine. You are not creating electricity. You are simply learning to feel the natural field that already exists within and around you.

As this awareness grows, it changes more than your practice. You begin to feel tension before it becomes pain, conflict before it becomes argument, imbalance before it becomes a fall.

That is the true purpose of internal martial arts. Not to chase mysterious powers, but to refine the link between body, breath, and attention until movement and awareness are one.

I am Ron Melchet, training internal martial arts for over 25 years. Certifies Instructor. For me, this feeling of energy is not the goal. It is a doorway, the beginning of real internal training. Learn Tai Chi with me here.