Gentle Exercises for Optimal Health

Hot flashes can sometimes be eliminated in a moment by the use of a simple healing sound from the Chinese Art of Qigong.  I have seen these amazing shifts happen on several occasions with different people.

A hot flash means you have too much heat being produced in the body. Usually the extra heat rises into the head, making you uncomfortable. It could arise for a number of reasons: sudden hormonal shifts, too much sunshine, a liver working too hard, or being drained of vitality so that your body has trouble keeping you cool.

Healing Sounds to Clear Your Body

Part of the expansive collection of Qigong exercises is the art of healing sounds. Over many hundreds of years, Chinese Qigong practitioners discovered and refined particular sounds. The basic use of healing sounds in this discipline is for cleansing the body, mind, and emotions of stuck, stagnant or excessive energy. Sounds vibrate the tissues, releasing contracting-tension and shaking loose what is stuck.

“Sheeeee” Helps Hot Flashes

Here is the sound for excess, high heat in the body: “Sheeeeee.” It is pronounced and performed in a special way. You will simultaneously do these three actions:

• Draw your hands from the top of your head down through your legs and into the earth. The eyes and head follow the hands down.
• Imagine and visualize and sense that you are clearing your body of extra heat from head to feet. It is like your cells are being showered with cooling water, or the inner windows are being squeegeed clean.
• It is a descending tone “Sheeeee.” This dropping sound starts in the high range and descends very low, like going from soprano to basso. The farther down your body you go with your hands and consciousness, the deeper becomes the sound.

Note: Do not bend over as you get closer to the ground. If you bend too much you will, via gravity, put energy in the head. With this exercise you want to get energy out of the head, not put more in.

In March and April of 2010 Robert Bates is teaching Healthy Joint Qigong.

To Sign Up for Classes: (360) 398-7466, or email

Days: Mondays and Fridays. Take one or both days for the same price.

Dates: March 8 through April 16

Time: 12:00 to 1:00

Cost: $60 for the 6-week series

Location: Robert’s Healing Studio: 1095 E. Axton Road, Bellingham, WA 98226

In Healthy Joint Qigong You Will Learn

• Joint Rotation exercises for clearing the joints and increasing range of motion
• Joint Expansion practices for increasing the space between bones
• Joint Pulsing practices for building Qi in your joints
• Joint Strengthening exercises to add more resilience to your joints
• Joint Massage techniques for bringing blood, Qi, and lymph through joints
• Bone Breathing meditations for clearing the joints and charging them up

Joint Motion Exercises Can

• Lubricate the Joints through motion
• Help you feel better. Joint exercises can decrease arthritic and creaky pain
• Decrease calcium and other mineral buildup
• Help you stand and be taller: Expand the body, rather than be compacted
• Decrease the chance of injuries
• Be used as a wake up in the morning
• Be used as a warm up before being physically active
• Increase your flexibility
• Restore much lost joint health

Some Reasons for Qigong Joint Exercises

Health is movement and movement leads to health. Stagnation, in contrast, leads to illness. Impaired joints decrease the amount and types of movement you can do. While it is important to stretch and exercise the muscles and soft tissues of the body, the joints also need to be “stretched” and exercised. As a general rule, gently and frequently moving them in through their natural range of motion, helps them heal, helps them reconfigure closer to the way they were meant to work. If we exercise our joints we will be healthier and feel better. The joints have no blood flow, so they depend upon your movement to pump the synovial fluid through, and the toxins and detritus out.

Qigong is slowly making inroads on the consciousness of America. An article on one of my students was recently in the local newspaper here in Bellingham, Washington, USA, North American Continent, Planet Earth.

Vitality

Lee Willis has been benefiting from Qigong for a decade or so. I find Lee to be one of the most present, friendly, happy, helpful and engaging people I know. The photo and article don’t quite show her effervescence. And she vehemently denies–as the article speaks of–that she is a sufferer or victim of any kind. In the decade plus I have known her, I agree with this self-assessment. She leads not just an active life, but a thorough life.

Lee Willis in 2007

Qigong Awareness is Growing

Anyway, read the article. The benefits and joys of Qigong (and Tai Chi) are trickling up, seeping into general consciousness. Maybe we will soon see a bigger awareness of these arts. Most individuals–and the country as a whole–would be better off practicing these internal movement arts.

Lee Willis teaches a short, gentle Tai Chi form that was designed for people with arthritis (whether or not they are victims), but the form is actually great training for anybody seeking better internal and external balance, smoother movement and less pain in their bodies.

Modify Your Movements When You Need to

Lee mentions the principle of modifying in the article, which is so key in making a practice work for whatever your current physical needs, abilities, and areas of concern. To restate the principle of modifying: Find a way to move that doesn’t hurt, whether this means using less effort, doing slightly different movements, or making the range of the motion smaller. By modifying as necessary, you engage your body in relaxation, which engenders healing responses at all levels of your being.

The Omnipresence of Limitations

Another point she touches upon is the fact that most of us have some “limitations” in our health to deal with. Actually, everyone does. Working within the boundaries of whatever your current abilities are–rather than fantasizing or blithely stepping into the dangerous water of overdoing–is so much of what Qigong is all about. When engaged in healing practices, activated movement within relaxation is necessary. Working within your limits is both wise and pleasurable. Pushing into pain is the path to problems.

Below is the fifth of five videos on Reducing Depression with the “Old Man” Qigong Set.

The final video in this series puts each part of the the form together into a flowing whole.

The Ratio of Moves

Once you have practiced each of the 3 moves separately and can perform them well–with good amounts of feeling and healing–then you put them all together. The connected movement ratio is as follows:

1, 2, 3

2, 3

2, 3

Put Another Way, You Do

1. Lungs

2. Heart

3. Middle Burner

2. Heart

3. Middle Burner

2. Heart

3. Middle Burner

Then start over, again starting with the Lungs.

The Daily Exercise Prescription

The basic formula for practicing the full “Old Man” exercise is to do it for set amount of time. Get into a flowing groove by the set over and over and over again for 5, 10, 20 or more minutes at a time.

As you practice, you don’t need to count reps. Just glance at a clock every once in a while.

Urgent Prescription

Those who need to get their bodies on track quickly can elect to do 25 minutes of the “Old Man” 3 times a day.

Below is the fourth of five videos on Reducing Depression with the “Old Man” Qigong Set.

The Middle Burner

In this section of video training, I detail how to release blocking tensions in the the center organs of the body: the Spleen, Stomach, Pancreas, Upper Small Intestine, Gall Bladder and Liver, as well as the Solar Plexus area. The entire area is known as the Middle Burner.

Emotional Release in Masse

Releasing blocks in this area will help you easily release repressed emotions such as worry, over-thinking, anger, grumpiness, and rage. It will also help generally clear held-onto emotions from your body, resulting in more freedom for feeling well.

Ho, Ho, Ho

The healing sound used for this central section of the torso–the Middle Burner–is a long “Ho.” This sound is expressed to vibrate the target area from left to right (or right to left.) While making the sound you lower the bent arms to the lower ribs and turn the torso from left to right (or right to left, if you like.)

Twist the Towel

The torso-turning is a unique method that will take a little practice to get. It is an organ-wringing style–like twisting a towel–that is done from the center, between the chest and the belly button. This massages the organs of the upper abdomen and helps release tensions, trapped emotions and toxins from them.

Below is the third of Five Videos on Reducing Depression with the “Old Man” Qigong Set.

Open the Heart and Release Armoring

Opening the heart area can release stuck and stagnant emotions such as impatience, frustration, criticalness, anxiety, cold-heartedness, and armoring against feeling. All of these emotions get in the way of healing; as well as living a full, vibrant, friendly life.

The Healing Sound of the Heart and the Sparrow Fist

The Heart healing sound used in the “Old Man” exercise is a sighing, descending “Haaa.” The hands are held in a partly open palm shape called a Sparrow Fist. The hands descend from head level down to the lower chest as you make the chest-vibrating “Haaa” sound.

It is also important to slowly, slightly lower the head with the movements here, bringing  your gaze somewhat downward. This helps lower excess rising Qi.

Below is the second of five videos on Reducing Depression with the “Old Man” Qigong Set.

There are three movements in the Old Man exercise, beginning with the Lung Movement, as taught in this video.

Open the Lungs and Release Grief

In the Lung movement you will stretch the lungs open, massage them repeatedly with relaxed arm movements and release sadness into the earth. Each movement is accompanied by a directed healing sound, one that is specific for that area, bringing loosening vibration to the cells of the targeted area. The Lung sound is “SHHHH” or “SSSSS”.

Contraindications for Practicing Healing Sounds

According to Jerry Alan Johnson people should not practice Qigong sounds if:

• They have any bone fractures
• They are in the throes of an acute illness
• They are pregnant
• They are menstruating

I’m not sure about the last one. It seems to be more of something to be cautious about and aware of your own body’s needs. Refer back to the second principle of Qigong: Modify.

Note: The “Lung” movement is also a Kidney strengthener. Bending over while imagining your feet are in warm water is–in the Five Elemental Energy conception–nutritive for your Kidneys.

Without going into it in too much detail in this post: Full, strong Kidneys give you energy, healthy bones, mental clarity, and a sustaining connection to Nature.

Below is the first of five videos of a movement and healing sounds Set that is very effective in helping to alleviate negative emotions. The full name of this exercise Set is Old Man Searching for the Reflection of the Moon at the Bottom of the Tide Pool. That is a mouthful; I usually just called it “Old Man.”

Many People Have Benefited

I learned this set from my Medical Qigong teacher Dr. Jerry Alan Johnson. He credits Dr. Her Yue Wong with introducing it into the USA in the 1970’s. Dr. Johnson told me that he gave these exercises to more people than any any other healing prescription. He often found that very sick people were holding so much armor that they were unable to relax enough to let healing enter and spread through their bodies. So he taught them the Old Man to release their holding, usually to impressive results.

Open Blocks and Release Stuck Emotions

Following a sophisticated understanding of the Five Elemental Energies system, the Old Man Set opens blockages in the body so stuck fluids, Qi, and blood can flow again, resulting in healing. By upgrading from stagnant swamp internally to flowing rivers and rivulets, health naturally re-establishes.

Since 2000, I have taught this exercise to many clients. Over and over again they have come back to me with glowing reports of how well it has helped them manage or delete unhealthy amounts of blocking, sludgifying emotions, feelings, and sensations.

Many Emotional States Helped

I’ve truncated the name of the encompassing term of the video to depression, but the Old Man exercise is great for helping with many emotional weights, including: sadness, grief, impatience, judgementalism, anxiety, worry, low energy, unprocessed emotions, indecisiveness, lack of clarity, anger, grumpiness, and rage.

Below is the Overview Video of the Old Man. In the next post I’ll add the video detailing the Lungs and sadness tomorrow; and videos 3, 4 and 5 over the next week or two.

It isn’t just me who thinks Qigong is good for preventing Colds and flu. Googling for “Qigong and colds”; and “Qigong and flu” I quickly found these websites extolling the virtues of Qigong practice for preventing colds and flu.

http://www.centralpathacupuncture.com/blog/?p=29

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3226484.htm

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/08/qigong-and-tai-.html

http://www.healingqigongcenter.com/apps/blog/show/899824-swine-flu-influenza

Qigong for prevention of illness doesn’t work every time, nor exclusive of other lifestyle factors. Diet, stress, bad habits, climate, etc. do have their effects. Yet it is surprising just how often and how effective Qigong can be for promoting illness-bashing power.

Beginning in January I will host two 8-week Qigong classes. Both classes will run two times a week; on Mondays and Fridays. Students can choose to attend one or both classes, either once or twice a week.

Taoist Yoga

Mondays and Fridays from noon to 1:00 will be Introduction to Taoist Yoga: Stretch your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints using the principles of Chinese movement.

The cost for this course is $80. You can take it once or twice for the same price.

Prevent Colds and Flu

Mondays and Fridays from 1:00 to 2:00 will be Qigong to Prevent Colds and Flu. Use vibrating healing sounds and slow, rhythmic, repeating movements to knock an incipient sickness off it’s trajectory.

The cost for this course is $80. You can take it once or twice for the same price.

Expanding and Contracting the Rings

Here are photos of one of the Qi-refining exercises that will build the strength of your immune system.

Pull Qi up from the Ground

Flow Qi over the Head

Descend Qi into the Earth