When people explain the connection between the mind and the body in tai chi, they often use the breath as a bridge between the two. In other words, you can unite the mind and the body through breathing practices. This is true, but it’s only one technique. In fact, good tai chi includes several methods for making this link. Breathing is only the beginning. Here are a few other things you should be looking for: ...
I asked my friend and fellow qigong practitioner Catherine Chenoweth to talk a little bit about her experience using qigong to manage a chronic health condition. Here’s what she had to say: When I was released from the hospital in 1996, it was after three months, and with a diagnosis of LAM (Lymphangioleiomyomatosis), a rare, progressive, untreatable and often fatal lung disease. I asked a friend who was well versed in alternative treatments what I should do for my health, and his response, immediate and emphatic, was “You need to do qigong!†...
Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about two things, improving your breathing to give you a major energy/relaxation boost and developing tools that help you follow-through on your home practice. I’ve even created an online course with all the information you need to cultivate better breathing habits: Better Breathing. The biggest lesson we learned as we talked to BTC students was that the best time to use reminders to trigger your practice was when you were invested in learning a new skill. When you’re going through a period of sustained practice, integrating stuff you’ve learned before, you need external tools less. However, when you shift back into learning mode and set a specific training goal, getting extra, regular motivation from an outside source can push you over the line from wanting to learn something to ingraining it as a habit. ...
By training the principles of body-alignment and movement as described in the Tai Chi Classics, you can move with much more grace, fluidity, and power. Instead of wasting energy holding excess tension, relaxation can lead the way to more powerful movement. Here’s what Yang Cheng-fu said about it a hundred years ago (the following is adapted from YANG’S TEN IMPORTANT POINTS by Yang Cheng-fu (1883 â€" 1936) as researched by Lee N. Scheele and published on http://www.scheele.org/lee/classics.html. Scheele’s translation is first and my notes are in italics following): ...
Most of the practice tips on this blog are about setting good practice habits in motion, but bad habits, like poor breathing, need to be disrupted too. The tools you use to disrupt bad habits are the same ones you use to create good practice habits: Make the “when” and “how” of your practice highly contextual: “On Tuesday, I will practice for 15 minutes between meetings in my office, so that I can feel more energized as I head into the afternoon.” Focus on small chunks of skill: “As I do my qigong form, I will focus on how the weight-shifting connects my feet to the floor.” Finally, leave yourself wanting more. If you always finish a practice session feeling like you’re not burnt out, but actually a little bit hungry for more practice, you’re going to crave your next practice session. Over time, you create a practice snowball, where the little doses of highly contextual practice add up to a greater inner drive to practice, more practice stamina, and the ability to focus on meaningful aspects of your practice. This is the best path to acquiring new skills. ...
Implementing a breathing practice that has an impact on your energy levels and actually chips away at stress can be tricky. It requires a blend of persistence and relaxation that can seem like a paradox at first. That’s why I recommend the 20-20-20 Rule (which I made up) for better breathing. I explain the 20-20-20 Rule in this clip, pulled from the breathing course in my Foundations of Relaxation series:
As a tai chi teacher and movement coach, I get to meet a lot of people who want to relax, slow down and have more energy for the things they love to do in life. But there’s a very common misconception that I encounter and I think it leads people to spend too much time chasing the wrong things when it comes to a relaxation practice. Hopefully, this series will begin to clarify what the best way to start a relaxation practice is and how to most efficiently get the results you want. ...