I have to say you're asking good questions and in a way that suggests to me that you'll get a lot out of the internal arts.   You're exploring the right things! While others want to know how to zap people with electric Qi, you want to know how to use your awareness. A breath of fresh air   Regarding the question - how to place awareness -  it's the nuance and subtlety of these seemingly small things that makes the difference in really progressing in these arts.   One classical instruction is Yi Shou Dantien "Guard your awareness in the dan tien".   Simple sentence (just 4 characters in Chinese) - but a whole depth of nuance that can get lost if taught by bad teachers.   Often when we talk of awareness in the arts we use the term Ting - which means listen. (not observe, watch, focus, imagine etc)   Why listen? Because it's a subtle sense... It's passive in nature - sounds come to you, you don't need to focus or direct anything. It's the sense that's least likely to be affected by delusion... it's not directional... it's not necessarily limited by distance (you could hear a thunder strike from many miles away without ever seeing the flash from the lightning).   Ting is the quality of awareness we want to be using most of the time in these arts.   Qi is a bit like a frightened deer at first... it might come and eat out of your hand if you're still, patient, quiet - but it will get spooked in a shot if you're not.   So how do you guard your awareness in the dantian?   You allow your awareness to sink of its own accord to your abdominal region...   If you 'focus' your attention there - that's too intense, it will frighten the deer off. Any mental movement will also 'frighten the deer' and send the awareness upwards... any visualisation, imagination, contrived focus or overly strong intention will lead the Qi and the awareness back up.   So instead you become aware of the space where your awareness is concentrated (usually around the head)... And just by becoming aware - and then slowly dial down your mental focus and you'll eventually reach just the right sweet spot when the awareness will begin to sink of its own accord - almost like it submits to gravity if left alone. Like a glass of muddy water - leave it alone for long enough and everything will settle.   Once it sinks to your abdomen, it starts interacting with your dantien.   But of course it's a bit difficult at first - so we need to cheat with some training wheels.   Find the level where your dantien is meant to be - a couple of finger-widths below the belly button. Stick your finger there and keep it there. This marks the height of your dantien.   Then pull up on your perineum a few times (squeeze it) - this marks the depth of where the dantien sits in your torso... So just trace a mental line up from your perineum and backwards from your finger poking your belly... where the lines meet - that's where your dantien should be.   At this stage you're not Yi Shou Dantien - you're just exploring... see if you can get a felt sense of that space. For most people it feels like a kind of  bermuda triangle - your awareness has nothing to work with - it's empty and blind... but keep trying.... keep reminding yourself where it is by cross referencing your perineum and your finger bellow your belly button.   Try it without the finger and the perineum for a bit... then bring them both back - notice if your attention lost the correct space. Go back and forth a few times.   Then take a seat on the edge of a chair or cross legged on the floor, straighten up and suspend your head from the Ding point (just an inch or two behind your crown towards the back of your head). Suspend that spot in space (don't pull up), and let your shoulders and all your flesh release and hang off that point. Like someone screwed a hook into your ding, suspended it from the ceiling and is using your body as a clothes hanger - everything hanging off. Find your sternum and allow it to release and sink downwards... it should be physically almost imperceptible in terms of movement (watch out because often when the sternum sinks, you'll lose the suspension from the ding... correct it!)   Hold the position and take a bit of time to relax, release your thoughts, release any tensions, let your breathing calm down and get deeper (by itself).   Then give the Yi Shou Dantien instructions a go: 1- find the location of your awareness (usually around the head, throat, sometimes heart area). 2- Aware of your awareness, begin to dial down your level of concentration - as if you're trying to drift off to sleep, but slower, more controlled, lighter. Don't go too far into daydream land - just enough that you notice that your awareness starts to sink downwards of its own accord. 3- Allow this to happen by itself, it will take a while, if you get distracted, go back to the first step. 4 - once the awareness is in your belly area just 'guard' it there, by keeping your mind free of thoughts, free of distractions - stable and unwavering.   Do not lead your awareness... do not try to find the exact spot... don't do what you were doing during the exploration phase. Having just explored - just the mere 'shadow' of that experience, in itself is a strong enough intention to help your awareness (with the quality of Ting, listening) sink of its own accord to the right spot.   It will almost certainly take many attempts to get it (perhaps dozens).   When you get it right, you'll start to (eventually perhaps) feel the dantien start to move, vibrate, get warm, spin etc...   That's how you correctly 'place your awareness'