I think the best way to understand intent is to work from the inside out. For instance, you don't have to reform the intent to breathe each breath.
There can be, especially in cases where it becomes overkill. The key with setting and applying intent is to gage the situation; use the intent and ratchet up the volume with will if you need to.
The dance metaphor is a good one. Competing intent is when you form an intent of your own and you try to butt heads with somebody else who has an unyielding intent of their own.
Grounding is the process whereby we do two things: we first use earth energy to balance ourselves, and two; we use grounding to clear unwanted aspects from our energy.
Intuition is the feeling, sense, etc., of some piece of information you can't possibly know through the rational mind. It comes in a lot of forms, you can intuit through sight, sound, smell, even taste.
I think the best way to approach this is in a practical way. Learning to see 'energy' is a function of both personal energy and learning to enlarge your worldview.
Let me step in and cause trouble.
Everybody uses tools and metaphors. Whether it's tarot, astrology, nephrology, or totem animals, they all act as structures that serve to trap attention.
There are some practitioners going around talking about shamanic trance in terms that are right out of a hypnosis textbook. The trance we're talking about can actually start that way,
Well, you create it through controlling dreaming, using dreaming in practical ways. Basically you're creating the doppelganger.
It's your own energy manipulated by your reason. You can't trust normal dreaming.