Gentle Exercises for Optimal Health

Yesterday, in the “8-Pulling Waist” Qigong workshop, the topic of practicing came up. It almost always does come up, and should. Qigong, for all it’s barrels-full of benefits, isn’t much good to you if you don’t practice. Over and over I have heard from students how difficult it is for them to keep up a practice, despite their initial enthusiasms.

Practice is the First Principle

The first principle of qigong, as I see it, is to practice. More fully, the principle is: practice everyday. Doing some Qigong isn’t so tough; it’s getting into that daily habit that is hard.

Anybody Could Do This

The form we practiced yesterday takes 2 minutes to do. It took four hours to learn, for there are some intricate moves and internal understanding to teach. But going through it once takes 1/720th of a day to do. Anybody could commit to 2 minutes a day. Do this everyday for 100 days and you’ve made steps toward real accomplishment.

Start Small

If you have been unsuccessful as getting a practice going, it means you are trying to do too much for your current level of self-discipline. Start smaller. Here’s what you do: Take a short form or one exercise and just do that everyday. Write reminders to yourself. Mark it on your calendar every time you get that one practice in. You can always do more on any given day; but at least do that little amount.

As little as 200 Minutes to Start

That little daily practice will have some health effect on you, for it is Qigong. It will have a bigger effect psychologically. Once you have done something for 100 days in a row (taking 200 minutes total), it is much easier to practice something else, something more involved, for another 100 days. Maybe this time you do the short form 3 times or do a whole set of Qigong exercises.

Grow Your Practice

By building a daily habit, it will be easier to grow into more time with Qigong. For most people 20 or 30 minutes everyday is a good goal to eventually reach.

“8-Pulling Waist”

Taught be Robert B. Bates, DC, MMQ

Date:                      Sunday, April 5, 2009
Time:                     10:00 to 2:00
Cost:                      $60
Location:               Robert Bates’ Healing Space
Street:                   1095 E. Axton Road
Near:                      Bellingham, WA 98226
To Sign Up:           Contact Robert

wild-goose-8-pullling-waist-PDF

Have (Moderately Intricate) Fun

8-Pulling Waist (strange name, I know) is, for Wild Goose Qigong, a simple form. It is a set with a number of fun movements to play with. 8-Pulling Waist consists of 16 moves that take less than two minutes to perform. Some people like to do the form three times in a row for greater effect. Read the rest of this entry »

Three Days of Refinement

I just spent three days with Paul Li, a Doctor of Chinese Medicine and a Qigong master from San Francisco. Paul has been studying and practicing Wild Goose Qigong since 1978, shortly after it became public in China. Before this time, the system was completely, utterly, unknown. It wasn’t even known to exist by anybody except the legacy holder, it was so secret. Wild Goose Qigong is a vigorous, involved, complex Qigong that has an immense number of different types of moves. For those of us that like intricacy and variety, it is a fun system to practice.

Bellingham Wild Goose Qigong Club Read the rest of this entry »

Wild Goose and the Biker

When I was performing the Wild Goose Qigong practice last Sunday, I did it on a former logging road that is now used as a hiking, horseback riding and biking trail. Sure enough, a bicyclist on his mountain bike came riding by when I was in the middle of “The First 64″. Many internal arts exercise can look strange to the average American. I try to avoid doing these type of forms in public places. I don’t do them to show off to strangers, I do them because they are such effective ways to health and happiness. I guess I’m a little shy. (But showing off to friends or students is okay.) In the cities of China, you find the parks full of people doing odd-looking movement practices outside. Not yet in America.

Be Aware of Your Surroundings

Since it is important to be aware of your surroundings as you practice, I kept an eye on the bicyclist who rode by me as I was practicing the form. He looked straight ahead, avoiding looking at me. Maybe I should have stopped my practice to deal with this little distraction, but I wanted to get it done and this was my opportunity. He road past me, continuing on his exercise: I continued my form to completion.

Get Used to It

I jokingly mentioned this small incident to one of my students. She said something true: “People just have to get used to it.”

Promoting Qigong

She’s right. This is a one of the great ways we can add to our lives, and a way increasingly important in the over-stimulating cacophony of the modern, electro-chemical-financial world that is the technoculture we live in. We as a culture–and as individuals–need Qigong and similar internal-energy building practices. Many people are going to be doing these types of exercises. It is a necessary step in preserving health and wealth. I hope soon we will be seeing such exercises being performed all over the place. It will be a common sight; expected, understood and accepted.

Wild Goose Qigong

One of the methods I use to keep my Qigong practice going well is to take particular sets or exercises and drill them everyday for a while. I am currently practicing two forms from the Wild Goose Qigong system, every day. I am readying myself for the arrival of Wild Goose Master Paul Li. He is flying up to Bellingham from San Francisco to teach a review workshop this weekend on two forms. I’ve been practicing these two long movement forms—named “The First 64″ and “Spiral”—so I can be super-prepared to absorb the refinements from his instruction. And for the many health betterments that accrue and get imbued into my body from these great and complex forms. Plus, its fun.

Practice Early or Practice Late, But Practice

Last Sunday it was getting late in the day and I hadn’t performed “The First 64″ or “Spiral” yet. I was coming back from a hike in the Chuckanut Mountains, walking down an old logging road toward Arroyo park. Now, it is best to get your practice in early each day. Then it is done. Somehow, I can’t get myself to do it early, or at the same time each day. I’m not much of a morning activity person. Mornings; I like to write, work on the computer and plan. On this day I had been busy before the hike. Writing, and a morning Chen Taiji class, took my time. Then came the hike.

Not too many flat spots on a mountain.

Looking for a Qigong Space

I needed, for these Qigong exercise forms, a flat space of about 10 by 20 feet. There aren’t many flat spaces on a mountain. Up in the snow and the trail-slush I had seen no space that could work. Now I was lower down the mountain and I found a spot that fit my needs. These were not ideal Qigong practice conditions. I was wet from rain, decked out in rain gear and the hiking boots on my feet seemed to have gotten a lot heavier the last hour. The hike had wearied me. But I needed to practice, needed to get day 60 in a row, on my way to a 100-day discipline.

Qigong Revitalizes

The little 12-minute practice was refreshing, interesting, and a welcome break from incessant walking. When I first began, my shoulders were tight and creaky, probably from hefting a weighty backpack for four hours. I couldn’t easily stretch my arms above my head. After the turning, walking, bending, stretching, and rotating motions of “The First” 64 and “Spiral”, my regular arm and shoulder range of motion returned. Overall, I felt a little more at ease in my breathing and body.

Gain Virtue

It may be small, but I feel virtuous when I follow through on my practice schedule and do my Qigong. If a 100 day practice goal is what it takes to get me to do these important wellness procedures, so be it. I feel virtuous and I feel better. I’m healthier because of it.