The Zakim Story & Prayer, Part 1

The Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living at Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Every year, the Zakim Center for integrative therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has an annual event/fundraiser called “Music Heals the Soul” which honors Lenny Zakim. Each year, the event also recognizes special honorees of the year. This year, they chose individuals who have been in the center since the beginning (or very near the beginning!) to be the honorees.

Check out the short video from this year, May 1st, 2018, done by Laura Molta of Molta Media.

The event Music Heals the Soul is a fun filled night of musical performances and exciting auctions. Proceeds benefit integrative oncology research and help to provide educational programs to the cancer community at the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The evening also includes a cocktail hour, seated dinner, and complementary therapies from the Zakim Center, which offers integrative therapies such as massage, acupuncture, Tai Chi and qigong. This year we also added musical guest Erich Bergen from the movie “Jersey Boys”.

This year, the Zakim center honored some of the people who have been with the center for many years. Even some, such as me, your humble mind-body blogger, who have been working with these programs before the center was created, and were lucky enough to witness and be a part of history during the creation of the center.

I even had the opportunity and honor to work with Lenny and his son Josh and meet Lenny’s wife Joyce. 

The Zakim Bridge

Many people ask me, “Is the bridge in Boston, the Zakim bridge, named after Lenny?” Yes! It was named after Leonard Zakim, who was a civic leader and a civil right activist who championed “building bridges between peoples”.

For those of you that do not know, I am actually a Zakim as well, from my mother side by Professor Zichria Zakay-Rones.

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Lenny Zakim Family Tree

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Ramel Rones/ Zakay (Zakheim) Family Tree

Next week I will tell you the meaning of the Zakim name, as well as the story of how the name originated and the prayer that was specially created for the Zakim family. Make sure you are tuning in!

And as usual, happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Cooling Down Exercise: Surfing the Breath

From my book, Sunset Tai Chi:

The breath is a tool to achieve our goals and needs. Sometimes we use slow and deep breaths and other times we use fast and shallow ones. We can use the lungs differently according to the different goals we have.

Breathing is the method we use to bring oxygen into our blood stream that nourishes every cell in our body, but the breath is also the banana we use to capture the monkey mind. The breathing in qigong is considered one of the tools to affect our ability to be 'watery' or 'fiery.'

Fast and hard exhalations lead us to be fire, and deep, long, quiet inhalation will lead us to be water. If you do too much of either for too long, you will lose balance, and it can have negative effects on a mental or physical level. But if you know how and when to use this principle, you will be able to benefit tremendously from it and achieve balance in both mind and body.

This first breathing exercise is the simple and safe way to start this journey into the science of breath. It will lead you to the first step of being relaxed or what Dr. Herbert Benson refers to as the relaxation response or what I consider a Buddhist path. But remember, this is just a first step or, as previously mentioned, the relaxation is a doorway to a palace full of other interesting rooms that I consider the Taoist path.

Surfing the breath is the simplest method of achieving deep relaxation. First, close your eyes. Sit in an erect posture with a straight spine. Do not collapse your spine. When the spine is collapsed, surfing the breath will still work on a mental level, but you will not get as much air because the lungs are compressed. Surfing the breath will help you calm the monkey mind. Follow the air through the nostrils down though the windpipe, deep into both lungs, in and out with long, quiet, and peaceful inhalation. Your inhalation and exhalation should be, eventually, equal in length, unless you have other specific goals.

After a few minutes, you will be able to determine which of your nostrils is wider. Our bodies are not symmetrical. One of our nostrils is more open than the other. Move down, with your mind, into the lungs and try to determine which lung is longer and which lung is wider. One lung has three lobes and the other lung has two.

I really enjoy the moment when my students tell me they do not know which lung has three lobes and which has two. Not knowing this fact allows them to experience the air moving into the nostrils and the sensation of air moving into the lungs, and then to determine from the sensation, not from looking at an anatomy book, which lung has the three lobes and which lung has the two.

Sometimes the lung that is wider has the two lobes, which makes some people think that it is the longer lung. This 'wide' sensation that the mind experiences throws them off, and they will swear that one is the lung that has the three lobes. But really it is just a stronger sensation in that lung that confuses them and makes them think that one is the longer lung--feel as opposed to real.

As long as you follow the air in and out of your lungs, that is, surf the breath, you will be able to quiet the mind from excess thoughts. Remember we have, on average, eighteen thoughts per second. Relax, reduce the number of thoughts, and bring the mind to the brain activity level between being awake and asleep.

Until next time, happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Correct Alignment in the Standing Posture

Welcome back, mind-body students!

This week, we continue our discussion of achieving correct alignment with a video about upper body alignment while standing.

I call this technique "Crane Flies." As I show in the video, you can practice this standing against the wall first in order to get a good feel for what the correct alignment of the spine and neck is. Then, when you feel like you have the posture committed to memory, you can step away from the wall and practice while free-standing.

Remember to touch the wall with your heels, sacrum, shoulder blades, and back of the head. Your lumbar spine (lower back above your hips) should not be touching the wall. You should be able to pass your hand between your lower back and the wall.

The great thing about this exercise is that you can feel, as you do the movement, which parts of your back are tightest. That way you can determine what to stretch next to release your skeleton from being a prisoner of soft tissue.

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Correct Alignment in the Sitting Posture

Welcome back mind-body students!

This week, I want to share a video with you about correct alignment. Correct alignment is so important to a successful mind-body practice. In a similar way to how isolating the joints allows you to achieve better health outcomes during your tai chi and exercise, correct alignment allows you to achieve better health outcomes both during your mind-body practice, and when you are sitting at your desk, driving your car, walking, or doing anything really!

The first thing you need to study is this: there is a difference between what your body is designed to do, and what it probably tends to do. Things like your head craning forward, your shoulders staying shrugged, your chest and back slumping down and so on are all examples of bad tendencies our body has.

Once you learn to recognize when your body is doing those bad tendencies, you can practice correcting them. A great way to practice that is by focusing on what I call the "Major Up and Down Forces".

The three "Up" forces, which are areas of your body that should feel like they are lifting up when you are in correct alignment, are the lumbar spine (lower back), thoracic spine (middle/upper back), and the top of your head.

The three "Down" forces, which are areas of your body that should feel as relaxed as possible (without drooping!) when you are in correct alignment. They are the abdominal muscles, the shoulders, and the face.

Ideally, through practice with this video and my face meditation video, you get to the point where you can experience all six major forces at the same time and achieve correct alignment.

I have even more advice in the video, so don't miss it!

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Isolating the Joints: During Your Tai Chi and Qi Gong Movements

Hello mind-body students!

If you haven't read last week's blog about isolating the joints, you can read that here.

We are back to isolating the joints this week, with another short video. In this one, I show you how to think about isolating the joints while you are doing the techniques of your Tai Chi and Qi Gong practice.

Specifically, I explain how to think about joint isolation: alternating between expansion, or gentle pulsing or pumping, to contraction, or relaxation.

I even explain how this can be used to practice your rooting! But you will have to watch the video to hear that part :)

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!

Isolating the Joints with Flexibility and Strength Essential for Health, Martial Arts, and Various Sports

Isolating the joints is a great eastern way to warm up, starting from the energetic system!

(Speaking of sports and warming up: checkout the links in this blog to my martial arts tips for sport on YouTube!)

In my class at Dana Farber and in my research class at Tufts Medical Center, I use isolating the joints as the first warm up to ignite and start-up the energetic system. Then, I continue with a three to five minute walk to also gain the benefits of the typical “western” style exercise warm up. This walk gets the heart pumping faster which then increases blood flow to the muscles and the rest of the body. I find that doing the best of both worlds for a warm up before any physical activity is the best.

Since warming up before any physical activity is a must, make sure that when you are about to take a walk, ride a bike, hike, swim, run, or do any kind of physical activity, spend three to five minutes isolating the joint first. Spend about ten seconds on each one. Then run in place or walk for three to five minutes and that should be a great warm-up for whatever activity you are about to do.

Of course, then spending five to ten minutes for some stretches, before and after, is very important as well. Once you have done that, then you are really ready!

Isolating the joints has two outcomes that you can focus on: one is better health, while the other is better martial arts.

For health, isolating the joints leads to better flow. It is like a gentle massage to both the joints and to the soft tissues around the joints. You can think of the gentle movements of the joints like “oiling the joints,” and at the same time reigniting and charging the energetic system. The gentle movements of the ligaments stimulate the energetic system.

Remember, when it comes to health purposes, move the joints with 40% to 60% effort. Move gently, like your hands are in warm water. You will get better, with time and practice, on both isolation of the joints as well as with the movement. Practice makes perfect!

You will also find that moving the joints gently helps tremendously with Arthritis and other chronic pains around the joint areas, and elsewhere. Many of my students were able to reduce inflammation in the joint or in the tendons around the joints with the gentle joint movements.

Also, over time, breathing deep and emptying the mind while practicing the joint will allow you to experience a nice form of moving meditation.

Many times, when doing the movements correctly, I experience a nice warm feeling in the joint area which then spreads into the rest of the body.

For martial arts, and for various sports, moving the joints is done slowly at first, for correct isolation. Over time, the speed increases to improve performance.

The hands joints are important for both individuals that are interested in martial arts, and for those interested in improving their performance in sports activities. In martial arts, the hands are used for blocking, grabbing, and striking.

While the lower body joints are essential for both martial arts and sport activities, in martial arts, the legs are used for kicking and taking down your opponent.

Over time, you will develop both strength and speed in the joints, which will upgrade both your martial arts and sports abilities.

If flexibility is important, both leg and upper body strength are essential.

Use this exercise to improve both leg strength and speed.

Remember the art of 40%, 60%, and 80% movements too! Each one has different purposes and goals.

That’s all for this week! Come back next week for another video about isolating the joints while doing Tai Chi and Qi Gong!

Happy stretching, deep breathing, empty your mind, strengthen your energetic system, and evoke your spirit!