Saturday, April 29th is World Tai Chi and Qigong day.
These are gentle martial arts designed to get the energy in your body flowing properly. And whether you believe in “chi” or not, mindfully doing these light stretches and exercises produces and undeniable feeling of well being. The daily workout I do is part Qigong.
I’ll share with you one of the most centering Qigong exercises that I’ve encountered. I learned it as “Standing like a mountain.”
- Stand with your legs about shoulder width apart
- Bend your knees slightly
- Straighten your arms so that they are pointing at an angle into the ground
- Be aware of your breath
- Visualize yourself as the tip of a great mountain extending downward into the earth. Your head is the tip, and your arms are the sides of the mountain
- Feel yourself as a part of the great earth. Realize that your body is a part of the whole of the earth. Everything that your body is made up of came from the earth and thus you are the earth.
- Being the earth, you have a sense of calm solidity.
Check out Ken Cohen’s course on qigong for an introduction:
Technorati Tags: Exercise, Mindfulness, Qigong, Tai Chi
Couldn’t the same sense of well-being be accomplished by reading the Sunday New York Times and smoking a few cigarettes? Just kidding…looks like something I need to explore.