Our body’s natural wisdom becomes more accessible when Physical Resilience and Energetic practices are synergistically combined.
Here are some physical practices that we have found simultaneously build vitality and life force. They are excerpted from Unit 2 Basics in our 12 week Course of Resilient Communities Leadership.
So let’s begin with the basics. What are some physical practices that can immediately build your power? (Please note if you have any medical issues going on, you must absolutely consult with your physician. I am simply describing my practice. You must fashion your own.)
Building Physical and Energetic Inner Power (ki)
A principal bane for all of us is too much sitting. There is increasing scientific evidence that habitual sitting is a contributing factor of many illnesses. So movement—really any movement—is the key. National Public Radio and Columbia University recently conducted a 20,000 person study to encourage more movement, so it is a hot topic these days.
I have found that frequent movement which interrupts habitual patterns is a key habit to form. Here’s what I do each day:
Physical antidotes to sitting:
- Standing up—10 repetitions, sets of 5.
- Vigorous walking—5 @ 10 minutes, approx. one mile. (Caveat: at your own comfortable pace!)
- Movement—Music and dance.
- Resilience Ball (please see Resources).
The key is to be a scientist. I suggest you begin your practice modestly, try it out for a week or so, observe, take notes, then refine.
Energetic Practices
Relax: The first important principle is to relax. From Chinese and Japanese martial arts, we are working here with a subtle form of energy referred to as Qi or Ki.
My gong fu (alt. “kung fu”) teacher George Xu, who was a formidable martial artist who trained the Chinese Red Guards, used to say, “relax, but not tofu!”
Grandmaster Li Junfeng would say: the key is to relax. But how to relax? Loose, like a snake! Very important. When we become loose, we tap into our coiling snake power!
Relaxing is one of the keys to unblocking and allowing the Qi to flow naturally.
Practices
Just Standing: Pay attention to the crown of the head—bai hui. Pay attention to the center bottom of your feet—yong chuan point. Feel energy pouring down from heavens and earth—bai hui and yong chuan points, simultaneously! Feel the energy flowing throughout your body, and then as a battery, settling in your dantian—3 inches below and behind your navel—you can think of it as your core.
Horse Stance The horse stance(mabuin Chinese) is a basic position in Chinese martial arts. Here is one of many images
Caveat: I recommend at firstpointing your lao gong, the center of your palms, toward your dantian while doing the horse stance.
A Key: As qigong grandmaster Li Junfeng always advises his students, try to get the “feeling” of it.
Power of Music—Creative Promethean Energy. Please listen to this, in particular these excerpts: Jupiter Symphony, Jimmy Cliff—The Harder They Come (about resilience), or Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. You can think of Mozart and Beethoven and other great composers as your energetic teachers who possess a special energetic line to the universe. Their genius was in understanding how to capture, embody, translate, and download this Promethean energy of the universe, so that we mortals can experience it. Just simply allow the energy to flow through your body.
Just Click!—Power of Love: This is an energetic practice working with the most powerful of all energy—the Heart’s energy field of Unconditional Love.
I want to leave you with a meditation that can become your constant friend:
Koan: Here also is a practice koan by Yumen—“The Whole World is Medicine.”
“Sickness and medicine accord with each other.
The whole world is medicine.
Who is the self?”
Just sit with this koan for 5 minutes in the beginning, or as long as you like. Don’t try to find an answer. It will come to you, when you and the koan are ready.