Here is a List of the Principle Articles and Videos on this Qigong Website

Note: These listed articles come from the Blog section of this website. There is also a section of Pages, which contains much information as well. The links to the Pages can be found to the right on any page.

Fun with Qigong Homepage

How to use this site.

Welcome to Fun with Qigong

My first post.

Introduction to Qigong

A video explaining the basics of Qigong.

A Simple Explanation of Qigong

What exactly is Qigong?

Audio Interview

A 55 minute overview of Qigong, along with a sample of the Six Healing Sounds.

The First Principle of Qigong

Practice. Preferably daily.

My First DVD: Fun with Qigong

A video guide to learning the gentle, powerful, principle-based Qigong set called The Five Flows.

Moderation and Fasting

All endeavors seeking health should not be excessive. Excess kills. Moderation heals.

Healing the Heart

Simple approaches to heart health.

Reducing High Blood Pressure

Video detailing some Qigong ideas for lowering pressure.

Breast Health

Exercises and resources from a non-invasive, vitalistic, self-empowering approach. Every woman should learn about these methods.

Inexpensive Acupuncture

Social justice through heartful needles.

Sudden Inhalation Syndrome

Shock breathing is normal but not natural. Learn how to breathe with ease.

Qigong and Fibromyalgia

Decrease pain with Qigong.

Simple Taiji Video

An introductory form to practice the principles and basic movements of Taiji (Tai chi).

Insomnia

Insomnia Article

Thoughts and exercises for working on that night-stealer insomnia.

Insomnia Video 1

Overview of Qigong exercises for overcoming insomnia.

Insomnia Video 2

Charge the Kidneys and connect the Kidneys to the Lower Dantian.

Insomnia Video 3

Warm the feet.

Insomnia Video 4

Draw Qi from the Lower Dantian to the feet. 

Front-loading Qigong

Practice extra amounts of Qigong before travel, expected stressful events, or busy times to come.

Hot Hands of Qi

Qigong will warm and balance your hands.

Qigong and Warm Hands: Part 1

A second class with the heat camera shows some fascinating photos.

Relax Your Shoulders, Descend Your Qi

Sink your Qi to relax your being.

Qigong and the Upside Down Snowman

Get out of your head and center in the lower abdomen. Health and joy await you. Let go of tension and sink your Qi to feel much, much better. [with a video]

You Can Cure Hot Flashes

Make hot flashes a thing of the past with this simple, powerful technique. [with a video]

Qigong, Vitality and “Limitations”

Work within your limits, but don’t let them define you.

Four-Part Protection Process

A Meditation and Medical Qigong Method for staying sane and clear in an insane world.

Alleviating Depression and Other Traumatic Emotions 1

The overview video of the “Old Man…” exercise.

Alleviating Depression and Other Traumatic Emotions 2

The second video of the “Old Man…” exercise. Lungs and sadness.

Alleviating Depression and Other Traumatic Emotions 3

The third video of the “Old Man…” exercise. Open the heart and release armoring.

Alleviating Depression and Other Traumatic Emotions 4

The fourth video of the “Old Man…” exercise. Clear worry, excess emotions, and anger from the middle burner.

Alleviating Depression and Other Traumatic Emotions 5

The fifth video of the “Old Man…” exercise. Putting it all together.

Three Types of Qigong Practice: Singles, Sets, and Sequences

Three ways you might practice: Focused, expanded, or sophisticated ways.

Qigong Sets

Understanding what Qigong sets are and how to utilize them.

Qigong Sequences

Understanding what Qigong forms are and how to utilize them.

Five Flows in a Single Exercise

One exercise can take you through all of the flows, if  you stick with it.

Preventing Colds and Flu with Qigong

These gentle, immunity-enhancing exercises truly work.

More on Preventing Colds and Flu with Qigong

Use healing sounds and slow, gentle, movements.

Qigong Strategies for Illness

How, when, and when not to do Qigong when illness is in the picture.

Qigong Workshops

A baker’s dozen of Qigong workshops your group may want to host.

The World-Famous First 64 Form

From Wild Goose Qigong, there is much healing in the intracies of these fun movements.

Reduce Stress with the Super Powerful Method of Belly Breathing

So much of a person’s stress arises from the backward, upside down, unnatural, but entirely common practice of chest breathing.

Pay Attention to Your Feet

With so much heady focus in our world, we lose connection to the whole of our bodies and the sustenance of the earth. Become more whole and balanced by paying attention to your feet as much as to your brain.

Save Yourself from a Lightning Strike

Crouch and survive.

Simplified Exercise Set

Sometimes an entire set is too much.

Open and Move from the Gate of Life

The Gate of Life is so important and so practical and so unknown.

Can Qigong Save America (and the World?)

We desperately need inexpensive, effective healthcare. Qigong is one of the answers to this urgent need.

Slap Yourself Healthy

Gentle tapping methods for wellness.

The Three Intentional Corrections

How to reframe and refocus your experience in the moment with Qigong.

Healing Knee Pain 1

Using the wall sitting exercise.

Healing Knee Pain 2

Success with the wall sitting exercise.

Change Your Life in Two Minutes a Day

Getting a daily Qigong practice started can reward you with big health dividends later on.

Bend Your Knees for Health’s Sake

Bending your knees helps alleviate many chronic pain symptoms.

When in Doubt, Shake

Use the Shaking the Body exercise to release fear, uncertainty, and tension.

Exercise with Ease

Be gentle and moderate with your Qigong to get the most out of it.

Qigong Will Soon Be a Common Sight

“People just have to get used to it.”

Spend a Billion Dollars to Save a Trillion

Qigong could save huge amounts of money, nationally.

Qigong is a Medical Bargain

It is downright cheap. It is gold that takes put pennies on the dollar.

Three Little Words Can Change your Life

The first three principles of Qigong: Practice, Modify, and Refine.

I Healed My Smashed Toe with Qigong

Using the gentleness and gentility of Qigong for giant gains.

Stay Centered or Suffer the Consequences

Multi-tasking leads to injury.

Breathe When You Type

Qigong is cheap medicine, easily accessible.

Train Your Qigong in Calmness

Qigong practice cautions.

The Secret Practice of True Wealth

Invest in Qigong and reap the lifelong rewards.

The Half-Half Rule

At least do some Qigong. You will be happy you did.

The Baby Bowl

Healing babies instead of watching the Superbowl.

In a two minute video clip, Stephen Sinatra, a cardiologist, talks about how the arms are extensions of the heart. Early in embryogenesis the arms came from the heart area.

Thus,

“If you want to work with someone’s heart, work with the energy of the arms.”

He makes the point that conductors, who are raising their arms in motion, live healthily into their 90’s.

The key to the video is the little exercise Stephen Sinatra shows. He recommends swinging your arms back and forth a couple hundred times a day to keep the thoracic duct open.

The thoracic duct is the major pathway in the center of the chest where lymph flows from the abdomen and legs back to the heart

The video style is intense (itself a stress on the heart), but short.

The Heart/Arm Connection

I’ve often noticed this heart and arm connection with my healing clients and Qigong students. Symptoms in the chest can often be relieved by opening the shoulders and guiding attention, sensation and Qi down the arms, and off the fingers. In Medical Qigong training we are taught to take a patient’s excess heart Qi out of the heart, down three of the meridians of the arm (Small Intestine, Pericardium and Heart). Dredging down the entire arm, not just the meridians, works quite well also.

The arms and hands can be thought of the external manifestations of the heart. It is with the arms that we create, or hug ,or hold tight, or push away, or fight for our space. A post and video I made for lowering high blood pressure prominently uses the arms to release heart tension.

I almost included arm swinging in my Five Flows Qigong Set, and even made a preliminary video of it. (I put it into Five Flows Qigong Set 2). Here it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The swinging exercise has other benefits to the heart. It opens the thoracic outlet, relaxes the shoulders, sends blood to to the hands to relieve excess, and improves lymph flow from the arms via the axillary nodes and clavicular pathways.

This exercise—like just about everything else in life—works even better with lower abdominal breathing.

Note: Just about any Kidney strengthening exercises can help with excess heart issues. The fiery heart needs to be supported, nourished and controlled some by the water energy of the Kidneys. This is according to the useful (and quite functional) pattern of the Five Elemental Energies.

Here’s a positive and proactive way to look at breast health. There are so many healthful, non-traumatic ways to work with breast health. Below are exercises, videos, a book, some links and some simple philosophy. The first information I share is from the Qigong tradition.  

One of the main points is to keep the tissues, fluids, and energies flowing. Stagnation is the breeding ground of disease. Movement is the keeper of health and progenitor of healing.

Keep in Mind and Practice

• Keep the Qi moving.
• Keep the blood flowing.
• Keep the lymph flowing.

Here are three Qigong exercises that help with breast health.

Note: The Five Flows DVD includes Exercises # 1 and # 2 listed below as well as additional immune-boosting, easy-to-learn, Qigong exercises.

Exercise #1. Shaking the Body

Shaking the Body is basically just gently shaking up and own. Shaking will stimulate circulation, increase lymph flow, and release stagnation at the cellular and tissue levels. Shaking with intent offers many benefits. One of them can be to release a stuck, stagnant or hot Liver. In Chinese Medicine thought, such Liver conditions are usually a part of the toxic stagnancies like cancers.

Exercise #2: Streaming the Fountains

One of the great benefit of Streaming the Fountains is that the arms are repetitively, rhythmically, slowly raised above the head and then lowered. Raising the arms in this way opens the lymphatic pathways through the armpit. The greatest part of breast lymph is drained through the lymph nodes in the armpit (the axillary nodes.) By slowly and smoothly practicing Streaming the Fountains, the axillary lymph nodes are gently stretched and opened; then lightly compressed. A lymph pulsation then ensues, releasing tenderness, decreasing tension, and increasing flow through your breasts.

Axillary Lymph Nodes

Exercise #3: Press Heaven and Earth

Press Heaven and Earth is a similar exercise to Streaming the Fountains in that you are raising the arms and drawing energy up and down the body vertically. It comes from the ancient 8 Silken Brocades Set. Once learned well, it is even more effective in moving stuck Qi in the chest and opening the armpit nodes than Streaming the Fountains.

Press Heaven and Earth Instructions

Slowly, over 3 to 5 seconds, press and stretch one hand high and one low. The high hand is over the head and the lower hand at the outer thigh. The upper palm is bent on the stretches, with fingers facing inward. The lower palm stretches down at the side of the thigh. Exhale as hands go away from each other. Inhale as they come toward each other, crossing at the chest. This also is done slowly over 3 to 5 seconds. The slowness allows a smoothness of movement and empowered lymph flow to take place. The hands also twist as they rise or sink, especially the rising hand.

Raise and Lower Simultaneously

Open the Armpit/Push Down

Relax Arms Down and Up

Twist the Palm as it Rises

Now the Opposite Armpits are Open or Closed

Medical Qigong for Breast Health

The International Institute of Medical Qigong has a DVD on using Qigong exercises for breast health and breast cancer prescriptions. These exercises use circular movements of the hands to increase breast Qi flow and special healing sounds. The teacher on the video is Jerry Alan Johnson, my own Medical Qigong instructor.

Lymphatic Self-Massage

Here is a short video of a lymphatic pumping breast massage, basic but powerful and important. Some 70 percent of the lymph of the breasts flows to and through the axillary nodes. It is very, very important to keep these pathways open and always flowing. Flowing lymph clears stagnations that might otherwise lead to disease.

Dressed to Kill

The book Dressed to Kill makes the argument that tight bras lead to an increase in breast cancer. Some authorities pooh pah this assertion. It makes clear sense to me, however. A tight bra will compress the skin and lymph flow of the breast, especially in the most important channel along the upper, outside ribs toward the armpit. Many women, after learning about this, rethink their bra choices and bra-wearing patterns. Basically, wearing bras less often; wearing bras more loosely; and keeping the flows a going. 

Those that might dismiss this book as pseudoscience are missing the point: That marketing undergarments is a science, one based on profit, not truth. And from my extensive studies in Qigong, Lymph Drainage Therapy, Visceral Manipulation, and Cranio-Sacral Therapy—I think the authors of the book have a strong message that needs to be listened to and explored further. 

Chinese Medicine for Breast Health

Here is a site devoted to the natural, Chinese Medicine thinking about breast health and approaching breast cancer through Qigong, acupressure and other proven natural methods.

Lymph Drainage Therapy

The superb system of Lymph Drainage Therapy has even more sophisticated approaches to working on the breasts. Anyone who has taken the second course in LDT from the Chikly Health Institute (formerly with the Upledger Institute) has learned the Breast Drainage approach. You might want to find a qualified therapist to help with this. Note: Different states, regions or countries have different laws for which licensed therapists can work on breasts.

Daily Breast Massage

Here is a video that is more of a teaser; it doesn’t show the breast massage techniques, just some women talking about the process. The video looks like it might be worth exploring, worth getting the DVD if it speaks to you.

 http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa0912611

 http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Fibromyalgia/21749

Science Continues to Support Qigong

Many scientific studies have been done to investigate the healing benefits of practicing Qigong and Tai Chi. “Tai Chi,” in most of these studies, is essentially another type of Qigong: A short movement form done slowly with attention to posture, movement, the body, mind, and breath. Though these short forms are taught to people unfamiliar with Qigong or Tai Chi, they still have quick, predictable, good results.

The Science of Centuries

Qigong, in all of it’s facets has been used as a health practice for thousands of years, undergoing advancement and refinement through all of those centuries. It has been proven over and over again to be a super source of health. Modern scientific studies are coming to the same conclusion.

Low-Priced Health Treasure for the Taking

Qigong and Tai Chi are not just relatively inexpensive way’s to feeling better, they are natural ways to healing that are super-duper cheap compared to modern medicine.

Qigong Methods for Fibromyalgia

Just about any slow moving, body-focused, energy-feeling type of Qigong would help ease the symptoms of fibromyalgia. These self-healing exercises can be the basis for creating a healing lifestyle.

Doing the Five Flows set twice a day would make someone feel better and begin a river of healing. The Five Flows is an introductory set of special movements, similar to a basic Tai chi form. There a several primary healing mechanisms in the set. Shaking and tapping release physical stagnations. Breathing practices revitalize the blood and relax the nervous system. Qi charging exercises build up the internal organ strength and lymph flow. My thesis is that such results–even at the introductory level–will help the healing process for fibromyalgia and a host of other syndromes.

Medical Qigong Prescriptions

Medical Qigong is the subset of Qigong where very specific movements, meditations, sounds and breath-practices are given for medical conditions. Medical Qigong has prescription exercises that can help with fibromyalgia. My Medical Qigong teacher recommends purging blocked energy from the Liver; and charging the Kidneys and Spleen. Please note the terms “Liver,” “Spleen,” and Kidneys” have different meanings than the strictly anatomical and physiological meanings used in Western medicine. They have a more functional, systems-approach according to the tenets of Chinese Medicine. And Medical Qigong.

Liver, Kidneys, and Spleen

The Liver blockage impairs Qi flow throughout the body and creates too much toxic heat.

The low Kidney energy means fatigue, poor memory, and an inability to control a too-hot Liver.

The low Spleen energy (meaning the digestion is sluggish) also is overwhelmed by the Liver excess. Doing specific exercises daily is what it takes.

Some tutoring might be necessary. Doing these kinds of processes is much like tuning an instrument. The closer you get it to just right, the better it works.

Clear Liver Stagnation

For Liver stagnation, the “guo” sound is a good Qigong prescription. This is a deep, droning, “Gwwwoooo.” Guo is pronounced like cartoon character Elmer Fudd would saw “grow.” Healing Sound Qigong is used to put focus and vibration into target organs, thus leading to the release of stagnation. Always feel healing sounds vibrate in the target organ or area.

Charge the Kidneys

For the Kidneys, the Charging the Kidneys exercise from the Five Flows set is a good choice. You can do it while imagining blue energy filling the Kidneys, like warm ocean water.

Charge the Spleen

For the Spleen, put both hands on the Spleen and stomach area (on the left side of the upper belly ) and breathe yellow into it. Feel it fill up, warm up, and get cozy and happy.

Each of these exercises would need many repetitions, 50 to 100 or so.

Of course, this is just a beginning idea. Everyone has different needs. Fibromyalgia is a kind of a messy attic space diagnoses, and it is not just one thing.

Qigong Can and Will and Does Help

Whatever is going on with someone with fibromyalgia—depression, uncertainty in life, internal Qi stagnation, too much head-thinking, too many years of push, push, push, or whatever—Qigong can help move the Qi along and out and bring back natural, fresh internal flows.

Qigong Prescriptions

• Give you more self-control over your own health.
• Don’t have the kind of intense side-effects many medications do.
• Can’t be used up. The bottle doesn’t get emptied.
• Can be practiced in addition to other methods you may be using for your healthcare.

You Must Do Them to Receive the Benefits

Qigong Prescriptions do take practice, time, and commitment. The basic Insomnia Prescription–which I detail below–is an effective self-healing method for sleep difficulties. Most people who practice it begin to go to sleep easier, and sleep more deeply and sleep longer. They wake up more refreshed with a sense of energetic regeneration.

Two Main Mechanisms of the Insomnia Prescription

This short series of gentle exercises works through two energetic mechanisms:

1. The redirection of your Qi.
2. Charging your Kidneys.

Redirect Your Qi

The Qi is redirected in a series of steps:

1. From your head to your Kidneys
2. From Kidneys to your lower abdominal center (Dantian)
3. And finally, to the bottom of your feet

Awake Versus Sleep

When you are awake, the majority of your body’s consciousness and energy tends to be focused outside of yourself, in the front part of you, and up in the head or heart. When your energy and consciousness is thus directed, sleep is difficult. The Insomnia Prescription reverses that high, forward energy. It will bring your energy inward, backward, and down.

Charge and Fill Your Kidneys

The Kidneys–which also include your adrenal glands (one of these small glands lies on top of each Kidney)–are crucial in Chinese Medicine approaches. To put it simply, the Kidneys can be thought of as fuel reserves; as gas tanks. Your tanks get emptied by forcing and using willpower to get things done. Or by doing too much. You run out of energy and are essentially running on fumes. If you have ever felt, “too tired to fall asleep,” then you know what I mean.

Insomnia Prescription

The instructions for how many reps to practice: The more persistent and bad the insomnia, the more repetitions it will take.

Steps one, two, and three can be done standing or seated.

Insomnia Prescription: Step One

Use your hands to rapidly massage the Kidneys until warm. You can massage up and own, back and forth, or around in circles, both directions. You can use the palms or, if you can’t reach easily, the backs of the hands. Warming the Kidneys will increase the blood flow to them, relieve tensions around them, and generally turn them on. You want your Kidneys “on” so your thinking brain can turn “off” for several hours.

Reps: 20 to 50.

Insomnia Prescription: Step Two

Place the palms on your back, over your Kidneys. Inhale to your Kidneys. As you inhale, round your lower back a bit to help expand the tissues around those fist-sized structures. With the inhale, imagine you are drawing energy that is extra and unneeded from your upper body (especially your brain) to your Kidneys. Exhale into your Kidneys to store that extra energy.

Location Note: The Kidneys are usually found in front of the thick muscles on both sides of spine, about halfway under the lower ribs; and about halfway below the ribs. They are nearly fist-sized. Because of the big Liver above it, the right Kidney tends to be lower than the left Kidney.

Modifying Note: If shoulder flexibility problems or an elbow or wrist issue make it difficult to put your full palms on your back, you can place the back of the hands on the Kidneys. If this is still too difficult to do with no strain, you can place one palm or back of the hand on one side and turn slightly. If this is still too difficult, connect to your Kidneys by placing your hands over the front of your upper abdomen.

Reps: 20 to 50.

Breathe into the Kidneys

Optional Reps: If the Kidneys need a lot of attention: Repeat steps one and two, twice more.

Insomnia Prescription: Step Three

Left Kidney: Place the right hand on your lower abdomen (Dantian), below the belly button and the left hand over the left Kidney. On the inhale, connect to the left Kidney. Don’t breathe to it, as you did in Step Two, just be there, at the Kidney. On the exhale, use your breath and intention to guide Qi from your Kidney to your lower abdomen. It is as if there is a little highway of flowing energy from the Kidney to the lower abdomen, a one-way flow. You can also push a little with the left hand to the Dantian on each exhale.

Right Kidney: Now place your right hand on the right Kidney and left hand on the lower abdomen. On the inhale, connect to the right Kidney. On the exhale, use your breath and intention to guide Qi from your Kidney to your lower abdomen.

Kidney to Dantian

Reps: 20 or more, each side

Steps four and five, below are done seated–either on the floor or on a chair.

Insomnia Prescription: Step Four

Left Foot: Warm up the left sole of your foot by rubbing it with your right palm. In Acupuncture and Qigong theory, the center of the palm is a fire point, connected to the heart. The point being rubbed on the foot is called Kidney 1 (KD-1) or Bubbling Spring. It can be found in the space created by the two balls of the foot. By rubbing this water point of the Kidneys with a fire point  you enliven your Kidneys, leading to stronger, more healthful states of energy in your internal organs. You are also bringing more attention to the lowest part of your body.

Right Foot: Repeat on the other leg, warming up the right sole with the left palm.

Reps: 20 to 50 per side, or more.

Brush the Bottom of the feet

Insomnia Prescription: Step Five

Left Foot: Place the left hand on your lower abdomen (over the Dantian) and the right hand on the sole of the left foot. Feel the Dantian on the inhale. On the exhale, gently encourage energy to travel down the leg to the bottom of the right foot. This gentle focus of one-way Qi flow will help root your energy down your body. You may have to cross the lower left leg over the right leg to reach the sole easily.

Reps: 20 to 100 per side.

Right Foot : Repeat on the other side, right hand on Dantian, left hand on right sole.

Breathe from Lower Belly to Foot

Practice Makes Sleepy

It might take a few sessions of practice for chronic insomnia to begin to lessen it’s cruel hold on your sleep: It takes time for the water to make progress on filling the well.

When:         Saturday, June 5, 2010

Time:         10:00 to 2:00

Cost:          Only $40

Location:    Robert’s beautiful healing studio at

                  1095 East Axton Road, North of Bellingham.

Sign Up:     (360) 398-7466, or rbbatesdc@comcast.net

Breathe Bigger, Better and Easier

Breath Practices are some of the most powerful healing exercises you can do. You can insert conscious breathing into just about any part of your day and be better off for it. You can benefit from conscious breathing practices virtually your entire life. Any amount of good breathing you do adds to your health.

With These Breathing Practices You Will

•  Massage the internal organs for greater all around health
•  Keep the head clear and promote mental clarity
•  Help move the lymph throughout the body, increasing immunity function
•  Increase your energy
•  Calm your emotions
•  Increase your lifespan
•  Decrease tension
•  Sleep deeper
•  And much, much more

 What We Will Cover in This Workshop

• Qigong breathing practices, each with different health goals
• Simple tests to assess how well you are breathing
• Easy ways to integrate vastly more quality breathing into your   everyday life
• The Framingham Study: How your breath capacity can accurately predict your lifespan; and how to definitely increase your lifespan with breathing practices

 Breathing Exercises We Will Practice

Follow the Breath. Just watch. Notice how you are actually breathing. You can learn a lot about yourself this way.

Graduated Quiet Breathing Meditation. Build awareness and sink into a relaxed, healing mode of being as you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, coordinate your consciousness and balance your brain

Abdominal Breathing. The foundation of proper breathing. Breathe into and out of your abdomen, letting it expand with the inhale and flatten with exhaling.

Belly Book Breathing. Re-teach yourself how to use your diaphragm to pull air into your body by expanding your abdomen, instead of lifting your shoulders to bring air in.

Pelvic Breathing. Sometimes breathe low into your pelvis to build power and prevent many problems.

Low Back and Kidney Breathing. Drawing the air into the lower back to expand that area and fill the Kidney’s with Qi.

Filling the Vase. Fill your torso with breath like pouring water into a vase; the water fills up the lower parts first before working up. Empty your breath in reverse.

Gentle Breath Holding. Holding the breath for a short time—repeatedly—to help relax tensions in the breathing apparatus.

Plus

The Remembering Breath. Put up green dot stickers. Every time you see the dot, take a deep breath. This will give you many deep breaths each day.

10 Percent More. Add just a little to the size or seconds of each breath.

Breathing Awareness Set (to take home.) Begin to take more control of your daily breathing habits.

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

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.

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.

The final video in this series puts each part of 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.

Click here to view the embedded video.