The year is going by quickly! We are already in November, which means we are just a few weeks away from our usual holiday break. But there is still much to learn this year! To help you all with your mind-body studies and practice, this week we are going to review and consolidate all of the Mind-Body Teacher blogs into a single post.

So here it is! The Complete Guide to Finding the Right Mind-Body Teacher.

In part 1 and part 4, we addressed the following qualities that a mind-body teachers should have, and gave these examples:

"A mind-body teacher will teach you to free your body from being a prisoner of the soft tissue, and at the same time, will help you build strength. This is the most basic form of balance that you will learn in your practice. The body should be both flexible and strong, so that you can effectively direct your strength and will, which makes you powerful. This is a fundamental part of your mind-body journey, both physically and mentally."

"A great mind-body teacher will help you isolate your joints with gentle movement, and stimulate your energetic system. You can think of your joints like the doorways that energy must move through in your body. When these portals are stiff and closed up, your limbs and organs can suffer. Opening these joints allows blood, oxygen, and energy to flow to every part of your body. This is important for healing, performance, and overall health."

"You need to learn correct alignment when standing, sitting, walking, and moving slowly. Alignment is crucial for avoiding injuries and maintaining health. The older you get, the more important this is. Balance is largely based on correct alignment, and preventing dangerous falls is all about having good balance. Alignment is also key to preventing injury during athletic performance."

In part 2 and part 5, the following qualities were reviewed:

"Every mind-body teacher will show you how to do deep breathing, and a great mind-body teacher will show you how to do many different kinds of deep breathing, and how to practice them during your mind-body prescriptions. How you should breathe while doing each stretch or tai chi form is of key importance to the practice of those techniques. Deep breathing correctly will allow you to relax your muscles more effectively, which will improve your progress on everything we discussed last week. Increasing oxygen intake is also one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health."

"A great mind-body teacher will instruct you in sitting, standing, and moving meditations. There are teachers out there who know sitting meditations only, or moving meditations only, but a truly wise teacher will have lots of experience with all forms of meditation. With a great teacher, you will learn how to focus your mind and breathe in the way that best accommodates your current form of meditation. A great practitioner knows that each form of meditation is good for different goals, and will help you develop all of them so that you have a well-rounded mind-body experience."

In part 3 and part 6, we added the internal qualities that a teacher should have:

"A truly great mind-body practitioner is equally trained in both the external arts and the internal arts. Most of the time, this means that the teacher studied with a renowned master (or masters) for at least 10 to 20 years. Having both kinds of training means your teacher will be able to help you by using a wide array of mind-body tools, and can tackle your particular issues or weaknesses from the best angle."

"A great mind-body teacher will know how important it is to work with your energetic system. An expert should know qigong massage because that means they have lots of hands-on experience. It’s traditional for students of energetic massage to have thousands of hours of massage practice, and your teacher shouldn’t be any different."

"In addition to knowing the energetic system, a mind-body teacher should lead you in evoking the spirit and harmonizing the three forces; heaven human and earth. This requires an understanding in the important parts of the human spirit. A sense of humor, experience with loss and death, open-mindedness, and being lifelong learner are all signs that your teacher will be able to instruct you in your spiritual development."

"A qualified teacher will have experience working with different challenging health issues such as: injuries, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, lower back and neck issues, joint problems like rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, cancer and all its side effects and symptoms from treatments or the cancer itself, and many more conditions and health issues."

And that's the series!

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!