Vital energy is associated with the energy center located in the lower abdomen, manifests in a clear light, often tinged yellow, color and is typically warm and enervating. Some systems refer to this as chi, prana, or etheric energy.
This is the energy most often trained by systems of yoga, chi gung and tai chi. Outside the lower abdomen, it is stored in the bones and runs in lines located within the body most often referred to as meridians in esoteric physiology. When inhaled into the body, it causes a sensation of fullness and expansion in the fasciae tissue caused by some kind of activation of the nervous system. Working with this energy tends to reinforce the general health of a practitioner, although it can easily be tinged with the prevalent emotion of a practitioner and or local environmental influences.
Full development of this energy manifests as an explosive of energy coming from the feet, or base of the spine, that rises up the body and explodes out of the top of the head.[1]After, this the ability to manifest vital, and other, energy is greatly expanded.
Vital energy is the most often trained form of energy out of the eleven primary energies. Most practitioners of the various yogic methods are primarily concerned with physical health and working with this energy is the easiest way to do this. If someone has poor vital energy, this means they are in poor health, exhausted or weakened from a long battle with illness. The sensation of working with vital energy has some kind of a relationship with the fasciae tissue in the body.
For this reason, most introductory methods of manipulating this energy combine training the breath in conjunction with movement. Just about any movement-based chi kung will familiarize a new practitioner with this phenomenon.
[1] In popular terms this is the Kundalini of traditional tantric and Indian yogic practice.
