Qigong!  Have you tried it yet?

Qigong is rapidly gaining steam in the health and fitness world because it's such a potent tool to create a healthier body and calmer mind - all at the same time!  At the health club where I teach yoga, lots of folks are now requesting Qigong. Contrast this to 5 or 10 years ago when almost no one even knew what it was!  Let's find out exactly what qigong is in today's article!

To understand Qigong we first need to define 'Qi'.

the Chinese character for 'Qi'

'Qi' (pronounced "chee") is the Chinese word for energy, and in the context of Qigong it means our vitality, our life-force.  By now we all know about the mind-body connection, it's become an important part of the practice of modern medicine.  Studies have demonstrated that when we sit too long we get depressed, while going for a walk can raise our mood.  When we dwell on anxious thoughts our stomachs get upset, dwelling on angry thoughts can raise...

To the ancient yogis, our inner being was made of two energetic polarities: the Solar and the Lunar. 

The Solar is considered to be an outward shining energy, and the Lunar to turn inward reflectively.

In advanced yogic breath training, these are the two "Nadis" or energy channels that run along side the spine and terminate in your two nostrils.  

During an eclipse, the sun and the moon come into a conjunction in the outer world.  To the yogic mind-body biohackers of old, the outer world and the inner world influenced one another.  They felt that the configuration of the outer luminaries had an effect on our inner "body of light".

In many traditions, you hear of eclipses as a time when misfortune is readily available and one should exercise extreme caution.  We can imagine how this thinking likely comes down from our early human ancestors - think of how the sky going dark  in the middle of the day would affect people's psyches in ancient...

In the Northern Hemisphere it's Autumn, and in the tradition of the 'Five Animal Frolics', that means it's time to practice the Crane Qigong.

Literally it's the "Bird" qigong, but "Crane" sounds cooler and less generic!  What "Bird" is meant to signify is the regal, soaring quality, and spreading ones wings (literally and figuratively).

This inner wing spreading, it turns out, is the pith of the method of the Bird Qigong in the 5 Animal Frolics.

Various schools differ on what *precise* movements constitute the authentic Bird Frolic, but what we can know for sure is that cultivating expansiveness and a sense of soaring puts us in harmony with the Autumn season and its Metal Element. 

The Metal element, in Chinese medicine, is all about Surrender - as signified by its meridians: the Lung and Large Intestine.  It's the surrender of exhaling a big sigh, and it's even the relaxation of finally getting to go "number 2"!

The video above shows some examples of Crane/Bird...

This is a blog post about intimacy, but first we're gonna talk about Kung Fu!

I was very fortunate that my master taught us the legendary 'Preying Mantis' Kung Fu.  This Chinese martial arts system emulates the movements and "spirit" of an animal, as such, it contains many Daoist teachings on psychological "shapeshifting".

Two lessons stand out to me as most important.  The first was that no one was allowed to study the mantis Kung Fu without having some degree of mastery in qigong or other parts of the Shaolin curriculum, and the second was how to turn on and also turn off the mindset of the mantis.

The reason for both of these is the same: the mantis symbolizes total ruthlessness and aggression.  Sifu taught us that the other Kung Fu animals have some version of compassion, but the mantis mindset is that of the ultimate predator.  

Why would a spiritual martial art system train in this kind of predatory energy?  Because sometimes that...

One of the coolest things I learned from my Shaolin Kung Fu master, Dashi Baugh, was the 'Hungry Tiger Crashing Down the Mountain' style of practice. 

In this training, he told us to practice our Shaolin form (which should already be well memorized and embodied) like a hungry tiger chasing its prey.  The form will get a little sloppy just like a tiger will crash through bushes and even small trees on its way down the mountain.  The point is to get that spirit of immense power and focus despite all other considerations.  

This is one example of the arts of "shapeshifting" encoded in the martial arts traditions of ancient China.  In this drill, you're using the mindset of a majestic creature to change the orientation of your own awareness - and even the organization of your body's tissues.  

The same training is utilized in the animal styles of martial arts and qigong.  The secret used here is that you take on the hand, paw,...

Sifu told them: "I'll take your workshop if you let me kick you in the face."

Ok, to be fair - it was an Iron Body Kung Fu workshop they were advertising.... and also to be fair, you can take the Sifu out of the streets, but you can't take the streets out of the Sifu!

Let me express first of all that there will be no face-kicking in this Saturday's Iron Body Qigong workshop!  But this funny quote from my teacher tells us a little bit about the practice:  Iron Body is the classical qigong used by martial artists for conditioning their tissues to withstand the intensity of training. In modern times, it is still useful for martial artists, but also offers significant benefits to other kinds of athletes, meditators, and healers. 

Despite my teacher's chiding of these members of a rival school, it's NOT a good idea to test your kung fu by taking blows to the head.  Iron Body Qigong doesn't promise miracles, and doesn't require you to check your common sense at...

While we speak of Qigong like it's something very ancient, in the premodern era there was actually no such thing as "Qigong"!

Don't worry, our origins are still steeped in the time tested traditions of ancient Asian cultures, but the word "Qigong" was developed in the 1900s to describe a wide range of practices.

Some of these practices come from Daoists, some from Buddhists, some from other sources.  My own tradition grows out of an era when the Daoists and Buddhists were learning a lot from each other and incorporating some of the best tools of each other's traditions.

In the old days, you might learn "Yang Sheng" - the arts of nourishing the vital principles of life; you might learn "Nei Gong" - the way of inner skill and power; you might learn "Nei Dan" - inner alchemical methods; you might learn "Shen Gong" - spiritual cultivation; or even "Tao Yin" - stretching and pulling the body like yoga.

All of these various practices were long the safeguarded secrets of various...

One of the hardest parts of relationships has to be when you hit those stalemates where differences seem too great to overcome, where no compromise is in sight.

The world's contemplatives have an answer to this age-old relationship frustration, and it's one you might not suspect - managing our "states of consciousness." 

Usually, in conflict, our three unsatisfactory choices seem to be:

• dig our heels in and continue the fight for our point of view to prevail,
• give in and let the other person "win",
• or find a "compromise" that doesn't really satisfy anyone.  

Rather than go down these old, worn tracks yet another time, the yogins say what we really need to do is shift our state.  When we're in this polarized state of consciousness and stuck playing "who's right?" with a partner, we've gotten mired in the "Gross" or "Materialistic" aspect of our being.  This part of us is ego-identified and is focused on our differences.  Unfortunately, when...

Complaining isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I consider what makes for great relationships, but what I learned this week from the Gottman Institute may have just changed my mind!

It comes down to the difference between complaining and criticism.

Criticism, the way they used it, means when you criticize your partner personally.  This usually comes with an "always" or "never" attached to it, or makes a statement about who they are.  "You're so lazy," "You always put yourself first," "You never really loved me," are all criticisms.

A complaint, in this definition, is different because it is sharing your negative feelings about a situation.  "I hate when I clean the kitchen only to come back and see it dirty again!"  "I'm so sad that we don't seem to spend much time together anymore!"  "Your coming home late every night is ruining this relationship!" could all be examples of complaints.  

These latter...

A new wave of understanding is coming to our relationships! 

Relationships are one of the most impactful factors on our mental and even physical health.  A good relationship can make you extremely resilient, but a hard one can completely sap your reserves!

It seems that for much of human history, good relationships for most people have been a matter of luck, but very gradually over the last many decades we have started to get a handle on what makes relationships thrive.

I call this  initial upgrade the jump to 'Relationships 2.0'!  

Relationships 1.0 was all about convenience or obligation.  You fall into the situation that happens to be there - it's either great or miserable, or you somehow "make it work".  Or sometimes you've got the truly medieval:  where you're coupling out of obligation, based on expectations of family or the like - just like the old feudal political marriages.

When we jump to Relationships 2.0, we start to...