Rami's Blog

Like the Yin-Yang, Eastern Martial Arts and Western medicine are two halves of a whole. My mission is to preserve the ancient mind-body tools and pass them on to you.

 

The Importance of Stretching your Groin

A groin injury can keep you off the field, and even off your feet, for several months. The groin is so important and interconnected to the muscles of the abdomen and legs that there is almost no way to recuperate quickly if you hurt it.

Every sport and every kind of physical activity uses the groin. No wonder your lower energy center sits right on top of it!

You should do this stretch before any kind of extended physical activity. Even though you usually hear about male athletes getting groin injuries, it is just as likely in women, so no matter who you are, you need to stretch your groin!

The Three Forces

As the capstone to our series on breathing and the energy centers, we're going to talk about the three forces: Heaven, Human, and Earth.

These three forces are what we seek to unify when we do all of our training. It is easy to put our mind in connection with the human force, the mix of yin and yang energies, since it is the closest to us and our physical being.

Once you have a grasp of the human force (energetic system), expand it upward and downward into the heavens and the earth. Try to reinforce the connection between each of the three forces with every breath.

The heaven (yang) and earth (yin) forces take practice to connect to, and even more practice to stay in touch with. I suggest practicing on connecting to one at a time during your daily practice and meditations. Over time, you will notice the different sensations that are associated with the different forces, and how your own energy combines them all.


Buddhist and Taoist Breathing: The Two Ways to Use Empty-Full Moon

We learned about the Empty Moon and Full Moon breathing skill last week, and this week we are going to talk about the two ways to use this skill.

Buddhist Breathing: When inhaling, expand the abdominal and back muscles to full moon. When exhaling, move the abdominal and back muscles inward to empty moon. On a mental level, do the lower energy center visualization, and continuously loop the mind back there when it begins to wander to other thoughts. When you breath in, picture the energy ball expanding with your muscles, and when you breath out, picture it contracting.

Taoist Breathing: When inhaling, contract the abdominal and back muscles to empty moon. When exhaling, move the abdominal and back muscles outward to full moon. On a mental level, do the lower energy center visualization, and continuously loop the mind back, just like in Buddhist Breathing. When you breath in, picture the energy ball condensing as your muscles pull in, and when you breath out, picture it expanding as your muscles push away.

Buddist breathing will feel the most natural at first, but both types of breathing are very important to overall health and lung function.

BuddhistTaoistBreath


Empty Moon and Full Moon Breathing

Last Friday I introduced you all to the Energetic System, and a method for focusing the mind on the Lower Energy Center. This week, we dive deeper into the breathing form we touched on and give you an exercise to do: Empty and Full Moon Breathing.

For this exercise, we will focus on the muscles surrounding the lower energy center area. This skill, coordinating the movement of the abdominal and back muscles with the movement of the lungs and diaphragm, should be practiced and emphasized on its own. This exercise is one of the pillars of every mind-body prescription I give my patients and students. It should ultimately be used with every breath you take.

Physically, this practice will allow you to regain control over the abdominal and back (or "core") muscles. If you don't use it, you lose it, as they say.

First: start to move these muscles with the help of your hands, one pressing on your stomach, the other on your lower back.

You will soon find that you can move the muscles in or out when you breath in and out. When you pull your abdominal and back muscles in, it is called "Empty Moon," and when you push those muscles out, it is called "Full Moon."

Practice this moving in and out as much as possible. At first, you won't be able to move the muscles very much, but with time your level of control will grow, and you will be able to expand and contract your core slowly and smoothly.

And remember my Rule of 80%!