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.

 

Strength Training without Weights

This week's Tai Chi Tuesday shows you a way to increase your strength without using weights, or body-weight exercises. Instead of adding weights, monks would practice increasing their neuromuscular connection, giving them the ability to activate more muscle fibers on command than the average person. This requires a lot of focus, and can be done as a form of meditation. I call this technique "Squeeze the Orange."

This exercise can also do wonders for the elderly, who are at risk of losing muscle mass and developing sarcopenia, a condition which is described by Dr. Irwin Rosenberg who coined the term here.

Why Visualize the Upper Energy Center?

Next week, we will discuss cooling the Upper Energy Center by moving energy through the Energetic Baton. This week, we need to learn what happens when we have an imbalance of energy between the two ends of the baton.

The Upper Energy Center is the source of our creative and excited energy. This can be very good, but also very stressful! When we are doing artwork, or being creative, our energy moves up to the Upper Energy Center. But the energy also moves up through the baton when we are anxious or worried, and keeps us in that worried state longer. It makes us feel imbalanced, almost like we might get blown head-over-heels if we don't hold onto something!

The Lower Energy Center is the source of our grounding energy. Visualizing it keeps us low to the ground and closer to our natural center of gravity. An abundance of energy in our Lower Energy Center keeps us calm and allows us to let go of stressful situations. It is also important for martial arts: for maintaining our balance and driving power up from the ground into our attacks.

No one can reside in the Lower Energy Center all the time. Life is both exciting and happy, and also stressful and worrisome. Each of these situations cause our energy to rise, making an imbalance that drives Yi, brain energy, and boosts the spirit, Shen. These can be useful in short bursts, but a constant amount of these "fire" energies will cause you to burn out from the stress.

That is why cooling the baton is a very important skill. It keeps us level headed, and maintains a balance of energy in our bodies, when life would normally create an imbalance in favor of the Upper Energy Center.

How an Octopus can Help your Arthritis

If you have arthritis in you fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, or shoulders, this move is for you. It is called "octopus swimming" and if you can actually do it in warm water, it will relieve your arthritis symptoms even more effectively. Don't hesitate to check out my other motions for treating arthritis here. Remember! 40% effort or you'll just cause more inflammation.

I also show you how to tweak the exercise for use in martial arts. If you need to increase your arm strength and speed for strikes and blocks, this is a great exercise for you.


The Energetic Baton

Once you have worked on visualizing the Upper and Lower Energy Centers at the same time, you can visualize their connection running up and down the front of the spine. This is the Energetic Baton.

You may be thinking, "Wait! Why didn't we just visualize the whole baton from the beginning?" Good question. The answer is because the important aspect of the baton is how energy moves within it. If you begin visualizing one solid object, it becomes harder to visualize the energy moving within it. On the other hand, if you picture each energy center separately, as a pool or source of energy, and then picture a connection between then, like a pipe or a tunnel, it is much easier to experience the energy moving between them.

When you picture the baton, pay attention to the similarities and differences between the two energy centers. How are the sensations different? Where does the energy naturally flow in your body? Why?

Next week, we deal with cooling the baton to relieve stress.

The Upper Energy Center

The Upper Energy Center is located in the center of the brain, directly in (toward the nose) from the soft location on the back of the neck where it meets the skull (called the "Jade Pillow" in eastern tradition).

The Upper Energy Center is harder to visualize than the Third Eye, because it is deeper inside the head. The eye area tends to distract from this visualization because it is so often active. I suggest doing the Third Eye breathing exercise from last week's post to "cool" the eye energy first.

Once your are relaxed and have cooled the eye energy, then begin to focus on the Upper Energy Center, and visualize it just as you would the Lower Energy Center.

For some people, it is harder to begin by visualizing the Upper Energy Center. So, I suggest beginning with the Lower Energy Center, and once you have focused on that for a while, move up. The overall idea is to strengthen both to the point where you can visualize both simultaneously, and "echo" or "vibrate" energy between them.

As a quick reminder, make sure to maintain your "inner smile" when working on your energy center visualizations. There is a tendency to become too serious. Keep a happy sensation in your chest, and allow it to spread as you meditate.

Good luck!