Finding the Right Mind-Body, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong Teacher, Part 4

Another week come and gone! Welcome back to the blog mind-body students. We continue the Mind-Body teacher series this week with examples of the techniques that a qualified instructor will teach you under each category we've covered in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

"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." My work on the "12 Body Markers" is an entire system to accomplish this goal of releasing your body from soft tissue tension. Any mind-body teacher you study under should have a similar system that hits every area of your body. Techniques like this should be on the to-do list.

After this series on mind-body teachers, I will do a series on the flexibility side of the 12 Body Markers where we will cover a bunch of techniques for releasing the skeleton.

"A great mind-body teacher will help you isolate your joints with gentle movement, and stimulate your energetic system." There are specific moves that you can use to remove stress from each of your joints, one-by-one. By going joint-by-joint, you can see what joints (of yours) get more tense during the day. We'll have more videos about isolating joints coming up on the blog. This is one of the joint isolations we've done on the blog before that can help you gently move your ankles and knees when you do it slowly:

"You need to learn correct alignment when standing, sitting, walking, and moving slowly." Good alignment is key to preventing injury. There are enough ways to practice good alignment to fill a whole lifetime. We will add many more videos and image blogs about correct alignment in the future, but for now, you can go back to my Embrace the Tree blog we did recently to see the kind of standing and sitting alignment practice that a great mind-body teacher will show you.

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Next week we'll give you guys even more examples of the other mind-body teacher qualifications! 

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

Release Neck Tension, Fix Migraines

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!

Surgery-Specific Exercise Routines: Part 1

Welcome back mind-body students! Over the next few weeks I'll be revisiting the various videos I have done for surgery preparation and recovery, and collecting them into one central post. This week, we look back at my "Four Stretches for Surgery" and the "Xena the Warrior" movements.

The basis for these exercises is this: healthy, open soft tissue heals faster and more completely than stiff, clenched soft tissue does. When your soft tissue is cut so that surgeons can access your internal organs, bones, muscles, etc., it is being damaged. Obviously, invasive surgery like this is necessary for many reasons, but it is important to remember that you must also recover from the surgery techniques, not just the problem the surgery was meant to address.

The Four Stretches for Surgery are used to lengthen the muscles and soft tissue around the shoulder joints, and can be assisted with a belt or rope to maintain the stretch when you can't grasp your hands together. Do deep breathing into the areas of your lungs that are opened up by each stretch. 

Then, the Xena the Warrior movements. Dynamic, moving stretches are also crucial for preparing for surgery (and recovering, too). Moving while you stretch and meditate pushes blood and nutrients into the cells of your body. Many people sit in a hunched-forward position, so their chest muscles and upper back muscles are stiff and unhealthy. These techniques address those very issues and can improve upper-body surgery recovery time.

And that's it for this week! Two more videos coming your way next week!

Happy Stretching!

Tai Chi to Solve Tension in Your Shoulders

In the East, pain in the head is not only addressed through the neck and skull, but also the shoulders, chest, and upper back. It is understood that there are thick, complex, and intertwined layers of soft tissue from the solar plexus area all the way up to the face.

The shoulders are a focal point for all of these muscles, tendons, and soft tissues. Getting rid of tension in the shoulders can relieve a lot of pain spread around the body, and also drastically improve your physical performance and day-to-day life.

Throughout the day, we often allow our head to hang, which compresses the neck. We also have a tendency to allow our shoulders to "float" up and forward, meaning the tension in our shoulder, upper back, chest, and neck muscles is gradually increasing as the day goes by. Many people sleep with one or both shoulders tucked up tightly under their jaw, compressing these muscles even more.

How to Fix Tight Shoulders

First and foremost, learning to sleep on your back is of key importance. Get a comfy pillow that isn't too fluffy for your head, and use another pillow or two to slightly elevate the legs behind the knees. Your goal is to have your spine aligned and under no tension. If you get cold when you sleep and like to curl into a fetal position, add warm blankets to your bed so you will be less likely to get cold in the first place.

To actively release tension from your shoulders, you can do a few exercises. First, grab a broom stick and hold it in front of you as though you were doing a chin-up with it (palms facing away from you). You can lower and raise your arms like you were actually doing chin ups to get used to the feeling. Once your hands are a comfortable distance apart, bring the stick down to shoulder height and pull it toward your body until it is about an inch away from the your chest, parallel to your collar bones, just like you have completed a chin-up.

When you are in this position, your shoulders are in their neutral alignment. Totally relax them shoulders down if you are holding them up. Let them sink and allow the stick to slide down without it moving forward or your elbows unbending. Get used to this feeling and your shoulders being aligned. When you do the other exercises, you will want to experience this same feeling of alignment.

You can do this stretch (I call it the emergency neck posture) in your office, putting your head on your folded arms against your desk. The goal is to sink down into the space made between the desk and your shoulders. This is an excellent way to release tension in the back of the neck and between the back of your shoulders (the trapezius muscle). 

Next, do one of my go-to stretches, Iron on the Wall. This stretch is one of the best ways to help your shoulders sink back down to their neutral position and stop them from "floating" up during the day. Because you do it against the wall, your head is pushes back into proper alignment above your spine too. As with all of these stretches, BREATHE deeply in and out. Image the tension melting like ice into water.

Lastly, do this dynamic movement called Stretch the Bows. If you remember to keep your shoulders from floating up, this movement can help you release tension in your chest and back, preventing the shoulders from rolling forward or backward. Keep the head suspended straight up, and practice the feeling of having the head sit directly above the body, instead of pushed forward like many people do. 

And that's it! Happy Stretching!

Begin Stretching Now to Prepare for Spring Sports

Hey mind-body students!

Before jumping into your spring sports seasons (literally), you should begin a stretching routine to prepare your body for the hustle. In the first few weeks of 2017, we showed you some stretches and strengthening exercises to help you prepare. Now, we're giving you a more in-depth stretching routine to cover your whole body and loosen your muscles up even more.

Pre-Season Stretching Routine for 2017

Begin with the body's core and the spine by doing the Stretch and Release the Bows motion. This is a dynamic stretch, which is even better for your flexibility and stability. It also warms up your body and prepares you for further stretching.

Next we'll move onto the legs with Tiger Stance from Side to Side. This movement stretches the groin, hips, and the muscles of the legs and feet, getting blood moving and putting some good stress on your lungs. You'll need to develop your lung capacity a little bit before you can get into the sports season.

Next we'll focus on stretching the feet and calves, because those two small pieces of your body are perhaps the most important in all of sports. If your feet aren't working right, you just can't play. And even if your feet don't hurt, weak ankles and instability in the tendons and muscles of the feet can lead to serious joint injuries in not only the feet, but the knees, hips, and even spine and neck. Stretch those feet!

Moving up the body, let's stretch the hips both on the floor, and standing against the wall. Correctly aligned hips with good flexibility prevent many lower back injuries, and improve physical performance more than almost any other body area. The hips are where you direct your explosive speed and power.

Next, we'll do the Rainbow Stretch for the spine. (You can just stay right against the wall from the last hip stretch.) While you are doing this stretch, breath into the side areas of your lungs that open up. That way, you'll be able to develop spine flexibility and rib flexibility at the same time that you gain lung strength.

Lastly, we'll do a quick stretch for the neck called Eagle Drinks the Water. The neck doesn't usually get hurt during regular sports activity. Mostly, neck injuries are due to accidents instead of tight muscles. However, a hurt neck can put an athlete our for an entire season. Protect your performance by keeping the neck stable and flexible.

That's it for this week. Happy Stretching!

Tai Chi Tips for Sports: Upper Body Injury Prevention

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my Tai Chi Tips for Sports series!

Whether you are a top tier athlete, or just a weekend warrior, short-duration stretches are not adequate for injury prevention. In sports like baseball and tennis, one of the most common types of injuries are shoulder injuries, due to the stress caused by swinging a racket or bat, or throwing a ball with all your might.

To keep muscles loose and elastic, I developed this stretch based on the Tai Chi forms "Close Tai Chi" and "Return to the Mountains" (see the video).

I know you don't have a wall like the Green Monster to stretch with, but any smooth, tall wall will do! Happy Stretching!