Like the Yin-Yang, Eastern Martial Arts and Western medicine are two halves of a whole. My mission is to preserve the ancient mind-body tools and pass them on to you.
Welcome back mind-body students! If you haven't seen last week's video about the light and heavy forces, be sure to check it out. That video and this one are both part of a series progressing toward the Whole Body Scan meditation technique.
See how long you can feel your energy below the ground for after practicing this technique!
That's all for this week! Happy stretching, deep breathing, and empty your mind!
This week we are doing the first (and very important) step in the Full Body Scan: Light and Heavy Forces. This is to prepare you for a technique called "grounding" or "rooting," and later the Full Body Scan.
You can combine this Light and Heavy Forces practice with the Face Dissolving Relaxation for a great standing meditation!
This week's blog is the first to feature some of the amazing photography of Axie Breen! We did a photoshoot at the local arboretum last fall, and they came out great. Please visit Axie's website and support her if you can!
The first thing you should do when looking to practice the sitting meditation is to find a spot that you feel comfortable sitting, either with support or without. Be sure that you can relax and that all you can hear is quite or nature sounds (if possible).
Cross your legs if you can, or if not, sit on a chair, rock, tree stump, or bench.
Close your eyes. Get your spine straight and keep your head suspended, like a string was pulling your head upward into the sky. Relax your your shoulders and then the face. Focus on the breath.
I suggest using a timer. Start with three minutes and work your way up. One day you'll be able to sit for 45 minutes. Even if you never get to that amount of time, anything over 20 minutes will benefit you tremendously. Do this sitting meditation every day for the best results and most improvement.
Focusing on the breath was the first meditation I learned, from my Zen teacher, Tzvi (Harold) Weisberg. We would sit for 45 minutes before most practices. Sometimes we would even sit for another 45 minutes after our kung fu and tai chi practice. But that is a lot of meditation for a normal person! You don't have to do that much.
So let's get started practicing! Choose any of the following meditations and begin with three minute sessions. Work your way to 45 minutes.
Sound-Guided Meditation
Candle (or object) Focused Meditation
Counting Meditation (begin with four seconds inhaling and 4 exhaling, working up to 10 seconds)
Fire Breath (Video Beneath the Candle Meditation Video)
Water Breath
Face Meditation
Lower Energy Center
Upper Energy Center
Cooling the Energetic Baton
The Energetic Bubble
Sunrise Meditation
Sunset Meditation
That's it for now! More sitting meditations will be upcoming!
Happy stretching, deep breathing, and empty your mind!
Welcome back Tai Chi students! This week, we are revisiting a stretch we did on the blog nearly three years ago, so that all our new readers can benefit from learning it, and the ones who have seen it can have a healthy reminder (as well as learn some new information).
So let's talk about the neck. Most of us lose full range of motion in the neck simply because we do not use it enough. It's like the old saying goes: if you don't use it, you lose it. The neck is designed to turn 90 degrees to the left and 90 degrees to the right, but most people can only turn 45 degrees to each side. When turning your head around on your neck, you should be able to see the back of your shoulders.
While you are doing this stretch, the body will try to take shortcuts at certain points, when you cannot turn any more with good alignment, and it will tilt the head toward the side of the turn (bringing your chin closer to your shoulder). Make sure you maintain correct alignment and keep the chin parallel to the floor. Doing the stretch with a friend or family looking and helping you maintain alignments goes a long way.
Use the block, a book, or any other object to help keep the neck and head straight. Without the block, the neck and head will extend forward toward the wall, which will brake alignments.
Also: focus on moving up through the neck more than on turning around. What I do is use the inhalation to lengthen through the neck upward (like there is a string pulling on the tip of my head from the heavens) for about 9 inhalations. Inhaling helps with the upward movement and releasing shoulder tension. Then, after 9 inhalations, I slightly turn on an exhalation.
Remember the 80 percent effort rule! Less is more when it comes to stretching, especially the neck!
And that's it! Happy stretching, deep breathing, and empty your mind!
Welcome back mind-body students!
Many people ask me what style of tai chi I use to produce the forms for my courses and books. It’s a great question.
The short answer is simple: most of the tai chi that I teach comes from the Yang style. There are exceptions even in my most popular books and courses, however. The move “Grind,” for example, comes from the Chen style of tai chi.
A unique innovation that I have made in my teachings is doing the forms twice each: once to one side, and then the other side immediately after. This isn’t common in the Yang style of tai chi, or at least in the 108 traditional tai chi forms I learned.
While doing the forms the traditional way is great, I always felt that doubling up on each form allowed you to accomplish some important things for modern tai chi practice. First, it reduced the number of forms you needed to memorize, but still gave you a full tai chi ‘exercise.’ Second, it emphasizes balance in the body, which I believe leads to both better health and higher performance in martial arts.
But many times the reason that students will ask me about the tai chi form I teach is because they are curious about how many forms there are, and where they came from. I don’t know all of the history, but I do know a little bit.
The first style of tai chi was created by Chen, Bu of the Chen family. The Chen family kept its tai chi chuan (martial arts form of tai chi) a family secret for 14 generations. Then, in the early 18th century, Yang Lu Chan, who had stomach problems that he believed could be treated with tai chi chuan teachings, began acting as the Chen family servant.
One night, Yang Lu Chan was discovered practicing in secret by Master Chen. Chen when so impressed by Yang’s level of skill and motivation that he decided to break the four hundred year tradition and accept a non-Chen family member as a student.
Yang learned and practiced with Chen for 18 years, and then returned to his hometown to teach his own form of tai chi: Yang style. Then his oldest son, Yang Pan Hou (1837-1892), taught Wu, Quan You, who would go on to found Wu style tai chi.
Today, there are five major styles of tai chi, each named after the family that founded them and preserved them. Chen style, Yang style, Wu (or Wu/Hao) style, Yu style, and Sun style. Yang is the most popular around the world.
Although the physical movements differ between each style of tai chi, there are deep similarities with regard to the meditative, internal skills that are emphasized. Unfortunately, much of what connects these practices, namely the energetic theory and martial arts applications, have not been passed down to many students in this last century.
I often say about tai chi, “It may take you 10 to 15 years to become a master, but it could take you 30 years to fine one.” That’s the reason I traveled from Israel to Boston in 1983 to study with Dr. Yang Jwing Ming. And after 25 years of studying and practicing with him (and a few other great teachers in areas such as yoga) I feel that I have the experience required to teach. If you are looking for a teacher outside my area, try very hard to find one with as much experience under true masters as I have (or even more!).
I won’t lie, it is very hard to find. The next best thing is probably to study the work of someone with that level of experience, and learn to mimic them, while also diving into the meditation practices and energetic theory. That is why I wrote my books Sunrise Tai Chi and Sunset Tai Chi. They are also available in DVD form so you can follow along on your TV.
And of course, there are always my blog videos! Here are a few for you to try today. Don't forget to share the blog with your friends and family!
Happy Stretching!