Introduction to my Online Courses: Improve your Physical and Mental Success with Tai Chi

Hello again blog readers and students! This week, I want to begin an introduction to the various Tai Chi and Qi Gong courses that I have available for purchase online.

These courses vary in length and intensity. Some are long-form courses that you will need to practice for a month or more before you are comfortable with each technique. Others are short-form courses that are highly focused on creating a particular health impact. I made these different courses so that as many people as possible could find a course that worked for them!

The platform that I use for my courses is called Udemy. It is a platform that allows students to make an account for free, and only pay for the courses they want to take. Once you buy one of my courses, you own it forever! You will be able to watch and review it as much or as little as you want.

Today, I want to do an introduction to my most popular course (which is also my longest online course): Improve Your Physical and Mental Success with Tai Chi.

This course is a 10 week Tai Chi course which will not only introduce you to Tai Chi as a beginner, but also train you through the various movements and techniques of a longer Tai Chi form. Each movement is complemented by helpful stretches and practices that will improve both your flexibility and your strength, as well as build your skills with deep breathing and meditation.

None of my courses (so far) expect you to have any Tai Chi experience. This course is precisely designed to be most helpful for people who are new to Tai Chi. All that is required to succeed in this course is the following:

• An interest in becoming more fit, more flexible and more relaxed

• Willingness to invest 10-20 minutes a day in one’s wellbeing to enjoy life more

• A small, comfortable space in your house, apartment or office where you can learn and practice

This course contains seven hours of Tai Chi content and teachings! There is a lot to learn and practice. Just a few of the things that you will experience in this course are:

• Learn a simple, yet powerful Tai Chi form

• Become much more flexible

• Learn to meditate for stress reduction

• Learn the benefits of deep breathing

• Become stronger and more fit

• Develop better balance

• Reduce and prevent injuries

Even though this courses requires no Tai Chi experience, you might be wondering, “is this course, or Tai Chi in general, right for me?” Great question! My belief is that Tai Chi is great for everyone! In fact, this course is my most popular, and currently has over 2,100 students enrolled from all over the world! But if you still have doubts, the list below should give you an idea of the kinds of students that I had in mind while making the course:

• People with little time or interest in going to the gym and taking classes

• Stay at home moms (and dads)

• Weekend warriors

• Competitive (and not so competitive) athletes

• People who travel frequently

• Anyone who has wondered about the power of eastern health philosophy, but hasn’t known how to start exploring it

• Anyone interested in becoming stronger and more flexible, while reducing stress

If any of those sound like you (or someone you know), I highly recommend setting up a free Udemy account and getting this course to Improve Your Physical and Mental Success with Tai Chi.

That’s all for this week! Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Mind-Body Workout #10: Strengthening Your Roots

Welcome back mind-body students! We have had a lot of posts about research and special events on the blog lately! These are all great, and I am so happy to share the amazing work we are doing with all of you. However, I also like to have action on my blog too!

So let's dive into a great mind-body workout this week, and get back into the groove of our mind-body routine!

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Mind-Body Workout #10: Strengthening Your Roots

Let's begin with some stretching of the key muscles that support stability and balance. Stretching these muscles is not only important for flexibility and avoiding falls, but it is also a key part to releasing our skeleton from being a prisoner of the soft tissue. This improves blood flow, which allows oxygen to reach all of our cells more effectively, and energizes our whole mind-body system!

The first stretch will be the Flamingo Stretch for our hips. Our hips are the core of our body, and they are responsible for directing the strength that we generate from our legs. Having strong roots is not much help if you cannot use your hips correctly! Do the stretch to each side (each leg) for 2-3 minutes, using whatever support you need.

Next we will stretch our lower back out in each of its major directions using the Five Musketeers Stretch. Just like with the hips, the lower back is responsible for directing a lot of the strength of our root system (our legs). If your lower back is tight, you will not be able to properly strengthen your legs! Do this stretch like I show in the video, for about 1-2 minutes at each angle. Use blocks or books and pillows to properly support yourself so that you are doing 80% effort.

For our last stretch, we will be working on the tightest muscles in our body: our hamstrings! This technique is an old favorite I call "Vitamin H." While we do this stretch, we will also be focusing on performing "water breath." This will begin to really engage our mind and breath into the workout. This stretch you can hold for 3-4 minutes, but make sure you are doing 80% effort, just like before!

For our first of three strengthening exercises, we will be moving Up and Down Like the Moon and the Sun. Remember to do the two sets, legs apart and legs together. Up to 15 (in each set!) is beginner level, 15-30 repetitions is intermediate, and 30-50 repetitions is the advanced level of leg strength. Do the amount that you are able to with 80% effort. 

From working our quadriceps and other thigh muscles, we are moving down to the calves! This exercise has you go up onto your toes, and then roll back onto your heals. It works your calf muscles as well as massages the bottom of your feet. The feet are so important for generating the strength and force from the ground that everyone needs. Whether you are a martial artists who wants to throw a powerful kick, or just a person who needs to run up and down a flight of stairs, strong and flexible feet are so important. Do this 20-30 times, and be sure to pay attention to your breathing like I mention in the video.

Finally, we are going to practice moving up and down from the floor safely. This may seem like it contradicts what our workout is about. Why would we practice this if the goal is to have strong roots and not to fall over? The answer is pretty simple! Everyone falls over sometime. When you practice this movement, not only are you getting a good workout in for your whole body (especially your legs), but you will also be teaching your body how to react when it loses balance: bend the knees, move down low in a straight down way so your body can "collapse" instead of "fall". Do this 10 times to each side, practicing getting down and up from one side and then the other.

And that's all for this week! I hope you enjoy the workout!

And as always, happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Freeing the Skeleton with the Body Markers: Complete Series

Happy Holidays mind-body students! This will be the final blog of 2017 (can you believe it?) and then we will take our winter break until late January. I hope everyone has learned a lot and benefited from all the content on the blog this year. We always do our best to pick exercises and blog topics that are as relevant as possible to the needs my students have.

Also, a big 'thank you' to all of our new blog readers! December saw a big increase in new subscribers, so I'd like to welcome all our new mind-body students!

This week, we are completing and compiling the blog series on Freeing the Skeleton with the Body Markers. To refresh everyone's memory, here is the introduction I wrote to the first installment of this series:

“The 12 Body Markers are a system that I have used for years to help teach my students both online and in my classes. They are designed to measure a person’s range of motion through all of their joints, using a scale of 1 (least flexible) to 10 (most flexible). In western health an wellness traditions, everyone seems to be able to measure strength, but very few people have a good grasp of flexibility. Even professional athletes often don’t know what the proper range of motion for each of their joints are. Many people are even unsure about what their personal level of flexibility is: usually under or over estimating it until they test it out.

To help address these issues, my wife (Ilana Rosenberg) and I are putting a book together that will feature an extensive guide to the 12 Body Markers to help everyone from average Joe to professional athletes avoid injury, recover from injury more effectively, and recuperate from training faster.

We’ve covered some of these Body Markers in the past on varies blog posts and our mini Office Exercise series. For this blog series, we will be focusing on the 9 Body Markers that measure a person’s flexibility, starting this week from the ground and moving up!”

— Rami's Blog, November 10th, 2017

From there, we covered the 9 Body Markers, moving from the ground up. First we did stationary stretches, and then we did moving exercises. Today, we will do a quick review of all of these steps, so you can easily move from one to the next.

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Freeing the Skeleton with the Body Markers: Complete Series

Part 1: Starting from the Ground

We began the first week's post with an ankle stretch. This is a key stretch for improving your walking posture, your balance, and your ability to recover from foot pain. If you don't have the special foot rollers that I do, you can simply use the first step at the bottom of a set of stairs to do the stretch.

We moved on to the quad stretches, either the heron or the "seiza" sitting position. This stretch can release a lot of tension you might not know you have, especially those of us who stand all day for our job.

Lastly, we covered the hamstring stretches. Hamstrings are notoriously the tightest muscle in the modern body, not least of all because we spend much of our day sitting, and very few people do forward folds as much as they should. But not to worry! Now is your chance to start! Loosen up the soft tissue in your hamstrings!

Part 2: Abdomen and Back

In week two we were moving on up to the body with more stationary stretches for the abdomen and back. We did the groin stretch, both using a chair and using a machine. This stretch is key for athletes and "weekend warriors" to avoid injury during their athletic activities. How many times do you sports fans hear about a professional athlete being benched due to a groin injury? They are not fun to have, and they can take a while to heal because the area is where a lot of soft tissue and bone structure connect. Don't hurt your groin, do this stretch!

Next was freeing the hips with the classic hip extension posture against the wall, or free-standing if you want to work on your balance at the same time. Remember: your skeleton is designed for your knees to get right up beneath your collar bone in this position. If you can't get your leg that far up, you have soft tissue tension that needs to be worked on!

To close out week two, I showed you guys the chair twist (which you can easily do in the office), and the "five musketeers" for releasing the stress in your lower back. As the weather gets colder and more snow begins to fall (for my New England readers), keeping your lower back free and healthy is even more important. One wrong move with the snow shovel when your back is tight and you could be in bed for the next three days. Nobody wants that, so be sure to pay attention to your lower back and work toward that 10/10 flexibility.

Part 3: Arms and Shoulder Girdle

In week three, we reached the top of our body with static stretches, starting with the shoulders. The shoulders are a very complex joint, able to move in a huge number of different directions. To free all the tension that occurs because of that complexity, i showed you a set of four stretching postures, using a belt or rope if necessary, to release shoulder stress from every direction.

Next was a new technique I call "Three Postures for the Neck" that helps target one of the most tight areas in the upper body: the neck. With so many people looking down and computers and phones all day, it's no wonder our neck gets tight. Tight necks leads to headaches, walking issues, bad sleep, and a million other potential problems. Definitely do not forget to stretch the neck.

Finally, we did an oldy but a goody: the wrist stretch using the wall. This helps relieve tension in the firearms and hands, and is particularly good for relieving carpal tunnel symptoms, or avoiding them completely.

Part 4: Back to the Ground, in Motion

In week four, we returned to the lower body to learn several moving techniques that can be even better than static stretches at relieving certain tension. First up was leg rotations, which focuses on the knee and ankle joints. Use a chair for this exercise if there is any worry of losing your balance.

Then, we did another new exercise I call "kick backs" which help to release tension in the quads. First we start with small kick backs, bringing the heel up about halfway, and eventually we move on to kicking all the way back and touching the heel to the butt.

Lastly, we did a very advanced movement called the "windmill" to release hamstring stress. This one is not for the feint of heart! If you are not up to the task, don't worry! In the next installment, we showed a movement that can accomplish the same thing with much less effort.

Part 5: Moving the Core

We kicked this week of movements off with a new technique called "Swinging Leg." The side-to-side variation helps you get the best groin stretch, but the forward and backward technique can also release tension in the hamstrings (particularly the forward part of the swing). Don't forget to use a stick or wall to stabilize yourself while doing this. Being stable actually helps you get a better stretch while doing this movement.

Next was a fan-favorite: the Tai Chi Walk! This is a great whole-body movement, and even works the core and the back. But for our purposes in this series, the goal is to gently move the hips to release that soft tissue in the hips. Notice how you do a modified hip extension stretch at the top of every step!

To finish up week five, we did the Tai Chi move "grind." Grind looks like an arm movement, but experienced Tai Chi students will tell you it is all in the core, particularly the lower back. Make sure your belly button moves from side to side while you do the motion. If the naval stays in the same spot the whole time, you are doing an arm movement, not a back movement!

Part 6: Moving the Upper Body

Finally, we completed the series in week six with three upper body movements. We targeted the shoulders first, with my new "Swinging Arms" exercise, which you can do sitting or standing.

Then we moved our head like a pigeon does to gently massage the neck. Throw in some deep breathing here and relax the face too! A tight neck and face feed off of each other. If you can relax both at the same time, you will get the best results.

And to end our exercise routine, we revisited the "40% effort movements" I created for people suffering with arthritis in the arms and hands. These motions are a great way to release all kinds of tension in the elbows, forearms, hands, and even fingers.

And that is it! Talk about freeing the skeleton! I don't think there is a single bone we didn't touch by the end of our techniques.

It's been another great year, and I hope you all keep an eye out for the first blog post of 2018 next month. I'm excited to see what mind-body adventures the new year will bring!

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

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Still searching for a last minute gift for a friend or family member? Do they like exercise, meditation, health and wellness, or stress reduction? My online courses over at Udemy offer all of those things and more, and they are currently on sale! It is the perfect time to pick one up. Remember, setting up a Udemy account is totally free, so anyone can do it.

Is the person you are shopping for more old school? No problem. I have books and DVDs available on Amazon and YMAA. Some of these are also on sale, so hurry and pick them up before you miss out on the savings!

Happy Holidays!

Freeing the Skeleton by Moving the Upper Body

Just one more week! One more week before we take our holiday break for the year. We've gone over how these body marker movements can release your skeleton from unneeded stress in the last two blogs here and here. We began with the lower body, then moved up to the core. All that is left is to gently move the upper body and we will have gotten to everything!

Moving Technique to Compliment Body Marker #7: Swinging Arm Rotations

This is a great movement to help you loosen up the entire shoulder girdle and upper body, but I'm still going to include two more movements you can do in addition to this to really release your soft tissue tension. A note on this exercise: sitting or standing is fine. Standing is not the "next level" of this exercise, because it has nothing to do with the legs. As always, I encourage you to stand if you can.

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Moving Technique to Compliment Body Marker #8: Move your Head Like a Pigeon

This exercise also uses circular rotation to help you loosen up your soft tissue, but maybe not in the way you expect! The circles you do during this exercise are forward and backward, not left and right. Don't forget to relax your face and shoulders here! We don't need to add more tension while we're trying to get rid of it!

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Moving Technique to Compliment Body Marker #9: 40% Effort Movements

I invented and tested these movements over the years with the help of my students who have arthritis in their arms and wrists. Pay close attention to the wrist movement that I do later on in the video. But don't skip the other movements! The finger movement especially can help to loosen the soft tissue in the forearms and relieve wrist tension.

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That's all for this week! Next week we deliver the full "Freeing the Skeleton" guide, and then we're off for the holidays.

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

Freeing the Skeleton by Moving the Core

The end of the year grows ever closer and we are just a couple blog posts away from our holiday break. But we aren't done yet! We still have a couple more blogs to go before we're done learning how to free the skeleton from being a prisoner of the soft tissue.

Last week we talked about moving the lower body to free the skeleton, and this week we are moving up! Up the body, that is. We are going to be doing some dynamic stretches and exercises for the core.

You may be thinking, "wait, what parts of my skeleton are in my core, and how would by core become a prison for them?"

That's a good question! Most people are worried about their core being too flabby, not too firm. But the core is much more than your belly. It includes your hips, your groin, your lower back, and even the area around your ribs and your mid-back. In fact, your core is the most important part of your body for both your organ function and your ability to move. Most adults who hurt themselves and lose mobility don't have injured legs, they have injured backs!

That's why, this week we are going to show you three techniques for releasing tension from your core and keeping it healthy.

Moving Technique to Complement Body Marker #4: Swinging Leg

Swinging the legs, without bending the knees, focuses the tension releasing power of the technique on the deep muscles that comprise the groin area. Remember to do this movement both side-to-side and forward-and-backward!

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Moving Technique to Complement Body Marker #5: Tai Chi Walk

This motion is essentially the moving version of the hip extension that we did last week. The higher that you can get your knees, the better you will stretch your hips. Go nice and slow to get the most of the hip stretch, and don't worry too much about how many you do. We aren't looking for a leg strengthening workout, just a stretch!

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Moving Technique to Complement Body Marker #6: "Grind"

This technique is a classic tai chi move that, when done correctly, is much more of a core and lower back movement than an arm movement. You should be getting a nice gentle twist and rotation in the lumbar (lower) spine when you practice this movement.

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And that's all for this week!

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

Freeing the Skeleton by Moving the Lower Body

Hello students! This week we start to introduce the moving exercises that you can use, in addition to the stationary Body Marker stretches we have been reviewing, to release the skeleton from undue soft tissue tension.

If you haven't seen the stationary stretches yet, take a look at last week's blog post.

Once you know your way around those traditional stretches, you can start using the following moving techniques as you see fit to truly release your skeleton from being a prisoner of the soft tissues. Keep in mind that some of these techniques are pretty advanced. There is nothing wrong with simply doing the regular body marker stretches. They will help you a lot, especially when combined with the other building blocks of our being (mind, breath, energy, and spirit).

Moving Technique to Complement Body Marker #1: Leg Rotations

The first technique can be done free standing to improve your balance, or you can hold onto a chair or table to simply focus on the freedom of movement it provides for your ankle.

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Moving Technique to Complement Body Marker #2: Kick Backs

Freeing the quads with movement can look a lot like running, but rather than raising the leg forward with each step, you pull the foot backwards and to the butt. I call them "kick backs" and they can be done lightly, or even while running. Check it out!

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Moving Technique to Complement Body Marker #3: Windmills/Tornadoes

This movement is the most advanced of the three we will review today. But if you can manage it, it is a wonderful way to release stress from the hamstrings, as well as the entire hip joint. If you want to test your stability, balance, and strength as well, you can try to do the challenge that I describe in the video.

That is it for this week! Check in again next Friday for more!

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

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P.S. I have a FREE demonstration called "Freedom from Pain & Stress" coming up at The Between Space dance studio in Norwood next Tuesday! Check out this Facebook event page for more details. This demonstration will just scratch the surface of the 12 week workshop that I will be leading starting in January. Please check out the event! 

Hope to see you there!