Hi, this is David Burch. I’m gonna do some Tai Chi and Qigong this morning. W e’re going to be doing some soft, gentle movements, linking our movements with our breath.
Now let’s start at the top of our head again. At the scalp… Observe the qualities of the scalp. Is it tense? Tight? Can you feel it? Relax your scalp. Let your attention g o to your forehead and relax your forehead. Experiment a little bit. Tightening your forehead a little bit. Relaxing down to the muscles of your face, releasing the tension, letting the jaw slightly hang open so that your teeth are not clenched. Take a deep breath in and let out a gentle sigh like… Ahhhhhhhh.
Can it be even softer? A soft exhale such as you’re blowing on a mirror. Fog it up like. Hahhhhhhhh. A gentle... Hahhhhhhhh.
Continue breathing, releasing tension down your chest, your stomach muscles, your thighs, your calves, your feet. into y our toes. Relax… into the ground. Then starting at the top of your head. A quick scan and just release it all int o the ground… Haaaaah.
Shrugging off the stress. Start at the back of your head. Feel the muscles of your neck… your shoulders… Release. Feel the tension. Release it. Let it roll o the back of your body straight down into the ground.
Start at the top of your head.
Let it roll o the sides of your face… Gently owing down your arms. Go through your fingers. Release the tension. Stretch…. Relax… into the ground. Take a deep breath in, thinking gently of the top of your head.
Take a deep breath out. Thinking gently the bottom of your feet.
Take a deep breath in. Take at the top of your head.
Take a deep breath out. Think of the base of your spine. Place your mind there. Actually, feel that area.
Check your posture: Y our knees over your feet; Y our belly over your hips; Your chest over your belly; Your head over your chest.
Now we’re going to do some qigong.
I’m going to come up a little bit toward the edge– the front edge of my chair– and adjust my feet. So they are about shoulder width apart or a nice comfortable distance where I can feel like I’m sitting straight up. I’m going to relax and feel my s my feet comfortably on the floor. I’m going to start relaxing my leg muscles up.. My hips. I’m going to feel my spine and create some space in my spine. Going straight up. A little bit of space between each vertebrae, kind of like I’m being lifted up by the top of my head. Tucking in the chin… just real nice… gentle, relaxed, not forcing anything. Close Your eyes and take a deep breath in. Think of the top of your head. Exhale. Think of the bottom of your feet, the bottoms of your soles of your feet. Now with your eyes closed, turn your attention inward, not external, everything around you, but inward. What’s happening inside your body? Scan your body from your head to toe. Just observing.
Simple breathing exercises.
Look at me. Now, you can look at me. What we’re going to do is we’re just going to let our arms fall by our sides. Palms to the front, just slightly. Just experiment. What feels natural? Palms towards you. As we come up. Your palms are going to come a little bit toward the front… a s you reach up and make a big circle above you and then you’re gonna breathe out… as your hands come down, all the way down to the relaxed position besides you. Breathe again. Let your spine stretch up a little bit as you go in, a s you breathe in. Breathing out. Let your body relax. Down. Sync, Rising up, Sinking down. Fluid motion. Breathing in. Breathing out. In through the nose. Out through the nose. Experiment. What feels good? In through the nose, out gently through the mouth. Haaaaaah. The general inhale. Gentle exhale. Haaaaah.
Let’s be a little bit more emphatic, inhale, add some motion to it… Aaaaaahhh…
Sigh of relief.
Raising arms.
Breathing in.
And out. Lowering arms.
Now, Do this on your own. Linking your breath to your movements, and if you don’t have your eyes closed, close them now, so that you can relax more. Breathing deeper. Breathing in. Deeper. Breathing out. Slow. Let’s do about 10 times. Concentrating on the feeling on your front of your body a s your hands pass down, relieving all that stress into the ground. Haaaaaah.
Don’t have to count, just lose yourself in the motion, keeping y our mind on one thing. Let’s transition to the same motion with our arms breathing in, breathing out, circling overhead, slowly rising up as we breathe in, slowly down a s we exhale. T his time your mental intention is going to be on the back of your body, s tarting at the top of your head as your hands pass slowly down… on the back of your body, y our attention releases tension.
Haaaaah,
This time relax twice as much.
Haaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Your body can rock back and forth as it relaxes. Try to keep
your upper body straight and upright, not leaning, like you’re a stack dishes you don’t want to spill.
Ahhhhhh. Body and mind balanced.
Let’s change our attention to going down the center of our head, down the center of our body, through all of our organs, from the top of our head, straight through our brain…. heart….
Stomach…. Haaaaah.
As you get to your chest, feel it well up with joy… And smile… Smile from your heart. Smile. Let that smile, that feeling of joy radiate out…
from your heart.
Filling up your entire upper torso.
Radiating out… outside your body in all directions, to everything and everyone.
Ahhhhhh.
Now I’m going to take some Tai Chi movements and we’re going to practice them as qigong, linking our breath to our movements, breathing in and out, as we do some Tai Chi movements as qigong, repeating on both sides, for health purposes. We’re going to start o like I was holding an imaginary ball, so take the ball–it can be a balloon or a beach ball, a medicine ball-experiment rotating that ball around… moving it left to right. Let your weight shift a little bit to the left and to the right. Let your waist t urn, and let your waist turn your hands to the left… to the right. Hold the ball on one side. Rotate it around. Move it to the other side. Rotate it around: one side. The other. Just Mirror me. Slow down .
And breathe.
Rotate the ball as you move from side to side. What we’re going to do is we’re going to end up, as we rotate the ball from side… the handle on the bottom was going to go across the body and be across the body a s we end up on the side. We’re gonna breathe in… Breathe out.
Breathe in… and breathe out.
Ahhhhhh.
Close your eyes and enjoy this.
Then you can peek and blink your eyes open. Watch a s we change our hand positions. W e’re still rotating the ball from left to right. What we’re going to do when we get our hands over here, the top hand is going to press down. Make a big circle down. T he bottom hand is going to go out and across the body. So let’s practice those circles. This hand is on top, it just goes down, circles around, turning to look at the palm a s it comes up. Hold the ball again, now we forget about the top hand, and let it oat down. The bottom hand is just going to oat up like we’re tossing a Frisbee… Underneath holding the Frisbee… Tossing, with the hand, the fingers are open.
Adjusting, experimenting, feeling that movement and then putting them together… t he palms holding the ball, feeling the energy between your palms. One palm goes down. The other one out. Haaaaah. Lined up. Release.
Press. Toss.
Then let’s rotate the ball, carry it to the other side, moving it straight, back and forth. Where is the position of our bottom hand? Is it crossing the body so that we can toss that Frisbee? If not, just turn it around. Then on the other side we can press down. Throw the Frisbee, going back up.
Hold the ball.
Haaaaah. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathing in and out.
Holding the ball
Side to side. Waist turning. Not too much, y ou don’t want to rack your spine. Just gentle. Everything is gentle. Moving the ball back and forth, side to side. We want to end up this time with the cross hand on top. And the cross hand, t he hand that’s on top is going to just oat down, like you’re swatting a y. Haaaaah. There’s an actual y in the room… and you can circle back with your hand on top…
of the ball.
So this is one big circle. We can collapse it down. Smaller circles. Breathe in. Breathe out. What about this other hand? Well, what’s up, is going down, so what’s down, is going to go up. So, we’ll forget about this top hand circling around, brushing our knee, and won’t take this hand. We’ll rst let it drop down a little bit, so it makes a big circular arc, and comes up, and pushes… circles down to this side… back a little bit. Haaaaaah…. Breathing in. Breathing out. Experiment with it or just…. it’s more important to enjoy this. Haaaaah… Enjoy your breathing. Find a way to enjoy the movement. Don’t criticize your form, Just enjoy … moving. So now we’re gonna stop with our hand on the bottom. Other hand on the top, holding the ball. W e can rotate it around. Cross hand o n Top. C ross hand is gonna brush the knee. Remember this one? Top hand is going to drop a little bit and go across. A nd when you get them both moving, it’s going to circle, circle. Circling back. Circle, circle. Circling back.
And this is the one that’s a little bit easier for me to do standing.
Haaaaah.
So, make those circles a little bit smaller. We’re sitting down holding the ball. B rush knee and push. So go back… holding the ball… brush knee and push… Back holding the ball… Brush knee. Push. We’re going to carry that ball to the other side. We’re going to turn it around if the cross hand not on top, and we’re going to brush knee and push. Circle back. Hold the ball. Brush knee. Circle back. Hold the ball. Brushed Knee and push. Now this is a lot of thinking. Just let your hands move. Close your eyes. Forget about the movements. Allow yourself to play. Experiment with the movements and just move. Spontaneously.
Even if you’re making up your own movements. While that’s happening. Breathing in. Breathing out. Shifting weight gently to one side… to the other side. Turning your waist. Moving your arms. Slowing down. Breathing in.
Haaaaah… Breathing out . Play. Haaaaah…
Inhale. Relax. Exhale. Bring your attention back to the center of your body, slightly below your belly button. Come to rest. If your eyes are closed, you can rub your palms briskly, generate some heat. If your eyes are open, do it anyway and close your eyes.
Put your nice, warm palms over your closed eyes and enjoy the darkness and the stillness.
When you’re ready, you can pat, pat, pat your palms. Open up a little bit to more light a s you blink the eyes open, allowing more light. Make gentle circles with your ngertips on your skin or even o away from your face, with the circles getting bigger…
and bigger… and bigger till they go over your head…
and down your neck, under your armpits, up high on our back or not so high… try to reach your kidneys and gently soothe them as you press down the outer and back of your legs… Slowly going down…
To the bottom. Wrapping around your toes. C oming up the inside in front of your body. Let’s do it again, Tracing those Energy Meridians.
And when we’re up here on the face, we can go to the side too. We can… one arm goes out, the other one up the inside of our arm, outside, across the face. Other side. Inside, outer part of the arm, across the face.
Bringing the arms back. Taking deep breaths in our chest. Circling around her lungs. Pausing. Thinking of all the good our lungs do throughout the day. Circling our stomach one way, maybe the other way. Pausing.
Relaxing.
Digesting.
Warming up our palms. Leaning gently forward, so we can reach our kidneys, if not with the palms, maybe with a light st, rubbing the kidneys this way.
Rubbing the back with the hands.
If you can, rub the kidneys, relaxing them. You can put your palms on them, bending back, breathing in, breathing for exhaling and have a nice day.