The set of exercises I am presenting here is the starting knee strengthening and stabilization exercise set. This set should be mastered before you start practicing any internal martial arts moving exercises.
This exercise set strengthens your whole lower body, all the way from your ribs to your toes.
It teaches you how to connect your torso with your legs.
It teaches you how to move without hurting your knees.
It teaches you how to shift weight fully from leg to leg without swaying.
It teaches you how to ground yourself.
It teaches you how to have a full Yang and full Yin leg.
Instructions:
1. You should have your full weight on your supporting leg. The moving leg should bear no weight even when it touches the ground.
2. The supporting foot should be in full contact with the ground, with the weight equally distributed throughout the exercise. You should never lift your toes or your heel, or the sides of your foot during the exercise.
3. The supporting knee should be over the center of your foot and should not move from that position.
4. Your supporting leg should be vertical and your hip, your knee and your foot should be on the same vertical plane at all times.
5. Your torso should be vertical at all times. Do not lean forward or backward as you step.
6. Your torso should be facing forward at all times. The angle between the supporting leg and your torso should be 90 degrees.
7. When moving your other foot away, you need to lower your body from your coccyx. You are effectively performing a series of mini one leg squats.
8. Your core muscles should be engaged at all times, but only to the minimum required to keep the body in the correct position.
9. Your breathing should be smooth and long. Do not hold your breath.
This set of exercises is sometimes known as Taichi dance. Once you can perform this set, you can connect the movements by shifting the weight from your Yang leg to your Yin leg. During this process of weight shifting, you learn how transform Yin to Yang and Yang to Yin. You learn Taichi.
Here is the link to the video that shows how perform these exercises.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Example of internal martial arts exercise (hip rotation)
This is one of the internal martial arts warm up exercises. It should be performed before any form practice as part of the opening of energy gates (joints) set. I will show the full opening of energy gates set at some stage later. I have decided to show this exercise separately, because it is one of the best illustration of what “internal” means in internal martial arts.
Hip rotation exercise looks simple. Anyone who has ever been to a physical education class, or to any sport training has done this exercise as part of the warm up routine.
Every external martial arts has this exercise as part of its warm up routine as well. You were told that it loosens up the hips. This is all external martial arts gets from this exercise. You were told to put your hands on your hips and to swirl around. No other instructions were given.
In internal martial arts, this exercise has many levels:
1.It opens up hip and ankle joints
2.It stretches all ligaments, tendons and muscles from your floating ribs all the way to your toes
3.Teaches you how to open and close your qua
4.It teaches you how to shift your weight from foot to foot in a circular way not just linear way
5.It teaches you how to perform smallest and most important Bagua circle, the foot circle. This circle is the weight shifting circle, where the 70% weight point traces the circle witch has it center in the center of the foot, and diameter the distance between the ball of the foot and the center of the heel of the foot. This enables you to change direction of the force and its intensity by shifting the weight from one part of the foot to another. This is the core exercise for push hands.
6.It teaches you how to extend your awareness into your feet.
7.It teaches you how to connect the lower Dan Tien and your feet.
8.It stimulates bone growth in your legs by oscillating the pressure in the bone tissue through weight change through the leg bones all the way from the hip to the toes.
9.It works like chi pump. When the 70% of the weight is on the ball of the foot, this opens the upward chi channel, which allows the chi to ascend from your feet up your legs to the lower Dan Tien. When the 70% of the weight is on your heel, this opens up the downwards chi channel which lets the chi descent from your lower Dan Tien to your feet.
The instruction for performing this exercise are very precise:
1.Stand with feet shoulder with apart
2.Put your hands on your kidneys, with your fingers pointing down, and palms facing out.
3.Lock your knees, and then just open them tiny bit.
4.Your upper body should stay upright at all times
5.Keep your feet fully pressed on the ground. Do not lift your toes and heels. Do not rock your feet from side to side.
6.Perform circles slowly and smoothly.
7.When you shift your weight never shift your full weight forward or backwards. Always maintain ratio of 70 – 30.
8.Keep your feeling in in the space between your feet and the ground.
Here is the link to the video showing the exercise being performed.
Hip rotation exercise looks simple. Anyone who has ever been to a physical education class, or to any sport training has done this exercise as part of the warm up routine.
Every external martial arts has this exercise as part of its warm up routine as well. You were told that it loosens up the hips. This is all external martial arts gets from this exercise. You were told to put your hands on your hips and to swirl around. No other instructions were given.
In internal martial arts, this exercise has many levels:
1.It opens up hip and ankle joints
2.It stretches all ligaments, tendons and muscles from your floating ribs all the way to your toes
3.Teaches you how to open and close your qua
4.It teaches you how to shift your weight from foot to foot in a circular way not just linear way
5.It teaches you how to perform smallest and most important Bagua circle, the foot circle. This circle is the weight shifting circle, where the 70% weight point traces the circle witch has it center in the center of the foot, and diameter the distance between the ball of the foot and the center of the heel of the foot. This enables you to change direction of the force and its intensity by shifting the weight from one part of the foot to another. This is the core exercise for push hands.
6.It teaches you how to extend your awareness into your feet.
7.It teaches you how to connect the lower Dan Tien and your feet.
8.It stimulates bone growth in your legs by oscillating the pressure in the bone tissue through weight change through the leg bones all the way from the hip to the toes.
9.It works like chi pump. When the 70% of the weight is on the ball of the foot, this opens the upward chi channel, which allows the chi to ascend from your feet up your legs to the lower Dan Tien. When the 70% of the weight is on your heel, this opens up the downwards chi channel which lets the chi descent from your lower Dan Tien to your feet.
The instruction for performing this exercise are very precise:
1.Stand with feet shoulder with apart
2.Put your hands on your kidneys, with your fingers pointing down, and palms facing out.
3.Lock your knees, and then just open them tiny bit.
4.Your upper body should stay upright at all times
5.Keep your feet fully pressed on the ground. Do not lift your toes and heels. Do not rock your feet from side to side.
6.Perform circles slowly and smoothly.
7.When you shift your weight never shift your full weight forward or backwards. Always maintain ratio of 70 – 30.
8.Keep your feeling in in the space between your feet and the ground.
Here is the link to the video showing the exercise being performed.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Epigenetics proves that Taoist medical knowledge is correct
You have all heard that Taoist believe that our negative emotions are stored as negative energy in our organs, and they can affect our health by interfering with organ structure and functions. You also heard that Taoist meditation can clear these negative energies and restore our health. You need proof for this? I present you Epigenetics.
What is epigenetics? Epigenetics is a study of inheritable biological changes that occur in living organisms, without any structural DNA changes. What epigenetics has discovered is that DNA gene sequence only defines a possible biological development. What actual biological development will occur is determined by a series of genetic switches or modifiers, which can switch a particular gene or gene group on or off. By switching genes on and off, these genetic switches can change the gene expression, or the way biological system interprets the biological blueprint that is DNA. These genetic switches are propagated from the parent cell to the child cell throughout the life of the biological organism. They can also be passed from one biological organism generation to next generation. Epigenetics says that it is our life experience, which changes these genetic switches. This means that every experience that we go through in life, and particularly very positive or very negative experiences, can switch out gene switches on and off. This means that our experience changes our physical body’s genetic information. Because these changes are propagated from cell generation to the next cell generation, these genetic switches form a kind of genetic memory. So our experiences do not get stored only in our brains. They get stored in every cell of our body. This stored genetic memory can be passed to our descendents. In the same way the genetic memory of our ancestors was passed to us. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to say: “All the bad things that you do in life will bring bad things to your grandchildren. They will suffer for your sins.” I remember wandering why grandchildren and not children. Now epigenetics is telling us that the epigenetic changes induced by experience will have their full blown effect not in our life, but in the lives of our grandchildren. Well done grandma.
There was also a man called Jesus, who went around telling people how it would be a great idea to be good to each other. Good deeds, have positive effect on our epigenetic switches. Being good to others, is good for you. What happened to the guy? He got crucified, and his “followers” committed some of the worst atrocities in his name. Is this world getting worst because of the accumulated bad epigenetic crap (or karma) in all of us?
If that memory from our past and our ancestor past can affect our physical and mental health and constitution then this opens up some very interesting possibilities:
Shamanic (and any other ecstatic) healing processes maybe have underlining epigenetic roots. What if shamans have ability to see or feel the energies that we are only discovering and measuring now, and by doing that can actually see the epigenetic structure of the body and genetic memories? Castaneda was talking about it. Maybe some psychoactive substances don’t create weird altered reality. Maybe they actually switch off the filters which exist in our mind and which prevent us from seeing the world as it is. What if in the real reality, those genetic memories can be seen as images, on normally completely ignored and therefore invisible wave lengths? What if those are the demons that cause illnesses by possessing people? What if then shamans can see what kind of emotion needs to be invoked, and in what particular sequence, in order to reverse the epigenetic switching that caused the condition in the first place? In order to reprogram the gene switching in such a rapid way, it would require very strong emotional shocks. Maybe this is why shamanic séances are always violent and ecstatic in their nature.
Taoists believe that all our emotions and all the emotions from our “past lives” are stored in our bodies. What if they are actually talking about epigenetic memories? If this is so, then maybe the rejuvenation and healing exercises and meditation, work on genetic switches, by going through a similar reprogramming process to the one done by shamans? After all the Taoist meditation is said to be able to "melt the negative and destructive emotions stored in our bodies". It is said that Taoist meditation changes every cell of our body, cleanses it and purifies it. Maybe what it does is resets all the genetic switches back to default? Maybe our soul is just genetic experience under another name, a collection of genetic memories that permeates our whole body and spans generations?
And so while modern science is trying to understand how the whole epigenetic stuff works and what to do with it, thankfully we have the old science, Taoist science. It tells us exactly how the thing works and what to do with it.
Learn the link between organs and emotions, learn and start practicing medical chi kung and meditation, BE GOOD TO YOURSELF AND OTHERS and start changing yourself for the better.
What is epigenetics? Epigenetics is a study of inheritable biological changes that occur in living organisms, without any structural DNA changes. What epigenetics has discovered is that DNA gene sequence only defines a possible biological development. What actual biological development will occur is determined by a series of genetic switches or modifiers, which can switch a particular gene or gene group on or off. By switching genes on and off, these genetic switches can change the gene expression, or the way biological system interprets the biological blueprint that is DNA. These genetic switches are propagated from the parent cell to the child cell throughout the life of the biological organism. They can also be passed from one biological organism generation to next generation. Epigenetics says that it is our life experience, which changes these genetic switches. This means that every experience that we go through in life, and particularly very positive or very negative experiences, can switch out gene switches on and off. This means that our experience changes our physical body’s genetic information. Because these changes are propagated from cell generation to the next cell generation, these genetic switches form a kind of genetic memory. So our experiences do not get stored only in our brains. They get stored in every cell of our body. This stored genetic memory can be passed to our descendents. In the same way the genetic memory of our ancestors was passed to us. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to say: “All the bad things that you do in life will bring bad things to your grandchildren. They will suffer for your sins.” I remember wandering why grandchildren and not children. Now epigenetics is telling us that the epigenetic changes induced by experience will have their full blown effect not in our life, but in the lives of our grandchildren. Well done grandma.
There was also a man called Jesus, who went around telling people how it would be a great idea to be good to each other. Good deeds, have positive effect on our epigenetic switches. Being good to others, is good for you. What happened to the guy? He got crucified, and his “followers” committed some of the worst atrocities in his name. Is this world getting worst because of the accumulated bad epigenetic crap (or karma) in all of us?
If that memory from our past and our ancestor past can affect our physical and mental health and constitution then this opens up some very interesting possibilities:
Shamanic (and any other ecstatic) healing processes maybe have underlining epigenetic roots. What if shamans have ability to see or feel the energies that we are only discovering and measuring now, and by doing that can actually see the epigenetic structure of the body and genetic memories? Castaneda was talking about it. Maybe some psychoactive substances don’t create weird altered reality. Maybe they actually switch off the filters which exist in our mind and which prevent us from seeing the world as it is. What if in the real reality, those genetic memories can be seen as images, on normally completely ignored and therefore invisible wave lengths? What if those are the demons that cause illnesses by possessing people? What if then shamans can see what kind of emotion needs to be invoked, and in what particular sequence, in order to reverse the epigenetic switching that caused the condition in the first place? In order to reprogram the gene switching in such a rapid way, it would require very strong emotional shocks. Maybe this is why shamanic séances are always violent and ecstatic in their nature.
Taoists believe that all our emotions and all the emotions from our “past lives” are stored in our bodies. What if they are actually talking about epigenetic memories? If this is so, then maybe the rejuvenation and healing exercises and meditation, work on genetic switches, by going through a similar reprogramming process to the one done by shamans? After all the Taoist meditation is said to be able to "melt the negative and destructive emotions stored in our bodies". It is said that Taoist meditation changes every cell of our body, cleanses it and purifies it. Maybe what it does is resets all the genetic switches back to default? Maybe our soul is just genetic experience under another name, a collection of genetic memories that permeates our whole body and spans generations?
And so while modern science is trying to understand how the whole epigenetic stuff works and what to do with it, thankfully we have the old science, Taoist science. It tells us exactly how the thing works and what to do with it.
Learn the link between organs and emotions, learn and start practicing medical chi kung and meditation, BE GOOD TO YOURSELF AND OTHERS and start changing yourself for the better.
Electric properties of water, chi and internal martial arts
Water molecules have very interesting property. They are natural dipoles a self organize in electromagnetic fields. Effectively you can have water magnets and water levitation. This levitation works because any body containing water put into strong magnetic field will begin to levitate because of water molecules aligning with the magnetic field. This is how water molecules rise in the air to form clouds, even though they are heavier than air. They are kept in the clouds because of the electro static field that keeps them apart and suspended between the ionosphere and the earth’s surface. They start falling down on the ground as drops of rain, when the electric field loses its energy through electric discharge (lightning) between the clouds and the earth surface or between the cloud and the ionosphere.
We are constantly submerged in a very strong electric field that exists between the earth and the ionosphere. Our bodies are full of electric activity, otherwise known as chi. Because of this every cell is effectively a dipole. Through chi kung you learn how to manipulate this electric field in your body and your surroundings. What if you were somehow able to re orientate all these little dipoles and align them with the electric field that exists between the earth’s surface and the ionosphere? And then reverse the polarity. Would you be able to lose some of your weight, by help of electric antigravity? Maybe this is how the “standing on eggs” trick works. Who knows. The electromagnetic field of the earth is not uniform. It changes from place to place and from time to time. There is evidence that it was once, not such a long time ago, a lot stronger then it is today. What if people at that time were able to use that very strong magnetic field to charge their bodies with a lot more energy than we are able to do today? Maybe the old tales about heroes who performed feats of wander like levitation were true. Maybe they just had more energy at their disposal, and knew how to manipulate it. Who knows. But it sure is fun to think about things like this.
For those interested in antigravity experiments that they can do at home, here is the link that lists them all.
Here is a page in diamagnetism that talks about experiments involving levitation of living organisms.
For those who want to read about research done in electromagnetic properties of chi system, here is another link.
Have fun.
We are constantly submerged in a very strong electric field that exists between the earth and the ionosphere. Our bodies are full of electric activity, otherwise known as chi. Because of this every cell is effectively a dipole. Through chi kung you learn how to manipulate this electric field in your body and your surroundings. What if you were somehow able to re orientate all these little dipoles and align them with the electric field that exists between the earth’s surface and the ionosphere? And then reverse the polarity. Would you be able to lose some of your weight, by help of electric antigravity? Maybe this is how the “standing on eggs” trick works. Who knows. The electromagnetic field of the earth is not uniform. It changes from place to place and from time to time. There is evidence that it was once, not such a long time ago, a lot stronger then it is today. What if people at that time were able to use that very strong magnetic field to charge their bodies with a lot more energy than we are able to do today? Maybe the old tales about heroes who performed feats of wander like levitation were true. Maybe they just had more energy at their disposal, and knew how to manipulate it. Who knows. But it sure is fun to think about things like this.
For those interested in antigravity experiments that they can do at home, here is the link that lists them all.
Here is a page in diamagnetism that talks about experiments involving levitation of living organisms.
For those who want to read about research done in electromagnetic properties of chi system, here is another link.
Have fun.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Knees and how to protect them during internal martial arts training
If you want to do martial arts without injuring your knees, you first have to strengthen and stretch all the muscles, tendons and ligaments that collaborate in moving and stabilizing your legs. That means pretty much every muscle and connective tissue from the middle of your back to your toes. At the same time you need to open all the joints in your legs starting from hip and going all the way down to your toes. This means that you need to be able to have full rotation around all possible rotational axes in your ankle and your hip, without twisting your knee. If you cannot put the knee over your foot, then you have a problem with your ankle or your hip rotation. Do not try to horizontally rotate (twist) your knees. They are not made to twist. So what do you do if you can’t put your knee over your foot? You need to stretch your leg muscles starting with your foot, then your ankle and finishing with your psoas and hip muscles. They are the ones that are preventing the rotation of these joints, and this is why your knee can’t be positioned over your foot. Being able to position your knee over your foot is extremely important. You should not do any moving and particularly not any power walking (sudden change of direction while applying downwards twisting pressure) exercises before and you can correctly align your leg joints.
To do that you have to start with static strengthening exercises, not moving ones. Every moving exercise involves joint rotation. If your muscles are not strong enough to stabilize the joints during the rotation, your body will fall out of correct alignment and you will injure yourself. To start, look for knee rehabilitation exercises. Or Pilates exercises. They are done lying down or sitting down, and are designed to strengthen and stretch your muscles without injuring them. Once you bring your muscles up to a necessary level of strength, you can start doing standing strengthening, stretching and rotational exercises. Make sure that during practice your knee is always over your foot and never pointing inwards or outwards. Knee should also never go over the beginning of the toes.
To test if your knee stabilizers are strong enough, do this simple test.
Do the starting weight shifting exercise which is exactly the same in any internal martial arts, and is the opening movement of any internal martial arts form. Before you start take your trousers off or roll up your trouser legs. Take your shoes off. You need to be able to see your ankles and your knees. Find a full length mirror or some kind of reflective surface. You will need to be able to check your body alignment. Don’t trust your mental image of your alignment. It is probably wrong.
Stand with your legs shoulder with apart. Your feet should point straight forward with your second toes parallel to each other. Unlock your knees. This means just slightly bend them. They should not go over the middle of your foot. Can you do this? In order to do this you need to be able to also unlock and slightly rotate your hips and open up your pelvis. Do you feel any tension in your ankles knees or hips? Look down. Are your leg bones aligned with your foot? Your knees should not be pointing inward or outward. Now move your weight over your right foot. Make sure your torso is still pointing straight ahead. Your knee should be still aligned with your second toe and is not going over the middle of your foot. Also make sure that you are not sticking your right hip out and tilting your upper body to the left and forward to counter balance. Your torso should be vertical. Can you do this? Now, with your weight fully on your right leg, lift your left leg one inch off the floor. Make sure that all previous alignments are still maintained. Can you do this? Now move left foot one foot forward, so that the heel of your left foot is now aligned with the toes of your right foot. Relax your left foot and lower it down until it touches the ground. The weight should still be on your right foot. Check your alignments. They should all still be in place. Can you do this? Now lift your left foot one inch up in the air and move it back to be parallel with your right foot. Your weight should still be on your right foot. Now move the weight to the center. Repeat the same procedure with the opposite leg.
If during this exercise you lose your alignment, this means that your stabilizer muscles are not strong enough, or they are not firing correctly, or your tendons and muscles are too stiff and short to allow full rotation of your hip and ankle joints. If you can’t do this, you should not do anything else, because you will injure yourself. The injuries don’t have to be sudden rips and cracks. They can be repetitive strain injuries, like tendon micro tears, cartilage micro tears. Eventually they can cause bigger injuries or can lead to arthritis.
You can use the above exercise to strengthen your stabilizer muscles. It should be done slowly with your feeling scanning your lower body for any overly tensed muscles and in particular any dead, not activated muscles. During the whole exercise your core muscles have to be engaged at all times. Make sure your breathing is smooth and relaxed. Don’t hold your breath. Stay in every intermediate position for the duration of 3 breaths.
Good luck.
To do that you have to start with static strengthening exercises, not moving ones. Every moving exercise involves joint rotation. If your muscles are not strong enough to stabilize the joints during the rotation, your body will fall out of correct alignment and you will injure yourself. To start, look for knee rehabilitation exercises. Or Pilates exercises. They are done lying down or sitting down, and are designed to strengthen and stretch your muscles without injuring them. Once you bring your muscles up to a necessary level of strength, you can start doing standing strengthening, stretching and rotational exercises. Make sure that during practice your knee is always over your foot and never pointing inwards or outwards. Knee should also never go over the beginning of the toes.
To test if your knee stabilizers are strong enough, do this simple test.
Do the starting weight shifting exercise which is exactly the same in any internal martial arts, and is the opening movement of any internal martial arts form. Before you start take your trousers off or roll up your trouser legs. Take your shoes off. You need to be able to see your ankles and your knees. Find a full length mirror or some kind of reflective surface. You will need to be able to check your body alignment. Don’t trust your mental image of your alignment. It is probably wrong.
Stand with your legs shoulder with apart. Your feet should point straight forward with your second toes parallel to each other. Unlock your knees. This means just slightly bend them. They should not go over the middle of your foot. Can you do this? In order to do this you need to be able to also unlock and slightly rotate your hips and open up your pelvis. Do you feel any tension in your ankles knees or hips? Look down. Are your leg bones aligned with your foot? Your knees should not be pointing inward or outward. Now move your weight over your right foot. Make sure your torso is still pointing straight ahead. Your knee should be still aligned with your second toe and is not going over the middle of your foot. Also make sure that you are not sticking your right hip out and tilting your upper body to the left and forward to counter balance. Your torso should be vertical. Can you do this? Now, with your weight fully on your right leg, lift your left leg one inch off the floor. Make sure that all previous alignments are still maintained. Can you do this? Now move left foot one foot forward, so that the heel of your left foot is now aligned with the toes of your right foot. Relax your left foot and lower it down until it touches the ground. The weight should still be on your right foot. Check your alignments. They should all still be in place. Can you do this? Now lift your left foot one inch up in the air and move it back to be parallel with your right foot. Your weight should still be on your right foot. Now move the weight to the center. Repeat the same procedure with the opposite leg.
If during this exercise you lose your alignment, this means that your stabilizer muscles are not strong enough, or they are not firing correctly, or your tendons and muscles are too stiff and short to allow full rotation of your hip and ankle joints. If you can’t do this, you should not do anything else, because you will injure yourself. The injuries don’t have to be sudden rips and cracks. They can be repetitive strain injuries, like tendon micro tears, cartilage micro tears. Eventually they can cause bigger injuries or can lead to arthritis.
You can use the above exercise to strengthen your stabilizer muscles. It should be done slowly with your feeling scanning your lower body for any overly tensed muscles and in particular any dead, not activated muscles. During the whole exercise your core muscles have to be engaged at all times. Make sure your breathing is smooth and relaxed. Don’t hold your breath. Stay in every intermediate position for the duration of 3 breaths.
Good luck.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Massage and why it is important in internal martial arts
When I was in Bali few years ago, I went to a small island of its east coast called Nusa Lembongan. It is a beautiful island and is definitely worth visiting if you are near there. When I was there I practiced my chi kung every morning, and as you can imagine, people got curious and started asking questions. It turned out that Bali has its own tradition of chi kung, which was imbedded into their religious practices as well as Silat martial practices. Every Balinese temple is also a school, where priests taught children the religion, but also energy arts, medical arts and lots more. One of the things that everyone leaned as part of their medical training was a chi massage. Particularly foot and hand massage. There are 3 parts of the body where all the acupuncture meridians meet, and which act as holographic images of the body: ears, feet and hands. By applying chi massage to your hands, feet and ears, you are stimulating every part of your body. For general health, you don’t even need to know which point on your palm, sole or ear is connected to what part of your body.
All you need to do is this:
1. Relax and switch your mind off. You need to be present when you are doing any type of massage in order to be able to feel what is going on in the body.
2. Rub your hands while feeling the point of contact between them. This will bring the chi into your palms
3. Just put your feeling into the point of your hand foot or ear that you are massaging. This will draw the chi from your hands into that particular point, which will in turn stimulate related part of your body.
4. If you find any point that is painful, just stay on it and keep massaging until the pain subsides.
5. Do this every day. You will soon notice the benefits.
Anyway, Balinese are mad into cock fighting. The cockerels they use are mean killing machines, strong and supple, agile and fast. The funny thing is that the cockerels spend most of their time locked under tiny bamboo baskets, maybe a meter in diameter. They get taken out of the baskets every day, but they are not let loose to run around. Instead, they are carried around under their owner’s arms to a nice shady place, where they are massaged for hours. I actually sat once and watched one of the massaging sessions. All the muscles, bones and connective tissues are meticulously pressed, twisted, pulled and stretched. While the owner is massaging his bird, he is constantly murmuring and whispering secret magic words, and I was told that they are very important part of the process. But even without powerful spells, the process of dynamic massage is a great way to strengthen and stretch the body.
Here Bruce Frantzis explains how to perform twisting leg massage. This massage is supposed separate muscles and tendons from the bones, stretch them, and train your muscles, tendons and nerves to be able to twist or wrap around the bones. Bagua insists on twisting. This is because muscles that are wrapped around the bones in a twisting spiral way, develop more attachments to the bone and can therefore bare more pressure and have more strength per amount of muscle that the straight muscles. I once watched this video about the strongest girl in the world. Shi was 10 year old Russian, and was able to lift huge weights with ease. She was subjected to an intense training by her parents, both sports trainers from Russia, from a very early age. A big part of the training every day was dynamic stretching and twisting. When scientists did MRI scan of her body, they found that all her leg and arm muscles were wrapping around the bones and had 3 times more attachments then normal muscles would. They believed that this was why she was able to deal with such heavy weights. In the old times, children learning martial arts in monasteries were subjected to very similar training regimes, and probably ended up with the same bone muscle structure.
All you need to do is this:
1. Relax and switch your mind off. You need to be present when you are doing any type of massage in order to be able to feel what is going on in the body.
2. Rub your hands while feeling the point of contact between them. This will bring the chi into your palms
3. Just put your feeling into the point of your hand foot or ear that you are massaging. This will draw the chi from your hands into that particular point, which will in turn stimulate related part of your body.
4. If you find any point that is painful, just stay on it and keep massaging until the pain subsides.
5. Do this every day. You will soon notice the benefits.
Anyway, Balinese are mad into cock fighting. The cockerels they use are mean killing machines, strong and supple, agile and fast. The funny thing is that the cockerels spend most of their time locked under tiny bamboo baskets, maybe a meter in diameter. They get taken out of the baskets every day, but they are not let loose to run around. Instead, they are carried around under their owner’s arms to a nice shady place, where they are massaged for hours. I actually sat once and watched one of the massaging sessions. All the muscles, bones and connective tissues are meticulously pressed, twisted, pulled and stretched. While the owner is massaging his bird, he is constantly murmuring and whispering secret magic words, and I was told that they are very important part of the process. But even without powerful spells, the process of dynamic massage is a great way to strengthen and stretch the body.
Here Bruce Frantzis explains how to perform twisting leg massage. This massage is supposed separate muscles and tendons from the bones, stretch them, and train your muscles, tendons and nerves to be able to twist or wrap around the bones. Bagua insists on twisting. This is because muscles that are wrapped around the bones in a twisting spiral way, develop more attachments to the bone and can therefore bare more pressure and have more strength per amount of muscle that the straight muscles. I once watched this video about the strongest girl in the world. Shi was 10 year old Russian, and was able to lift huge weights with ease. She was subjected to an intense training by her parents, both sports trainers from Russia, from a very early age. A big part of the training every day was dynamic stretching and twisting. When scientists did MRI scan of her body, they found that all her leg and arm muscles were wrapping around the bones and had 3 times more attachments then normal muscles would. They believed that this was why she was able to deal with such heavy weights. In the old times, children learning martial arts in monasteries were subjected to very similar training regimes, and probably ended up with the same bone muscle structure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)