Body Balance
First and foremost it is important to balance your body and spirit. The spirit is intrinsic to the physical body in Taoist Qigong. We balance the body’s aches and pains and address the physical issues. This will help us take out excessive and toxic emotions that can however negate our overall wellness. The emotional balance program we call “spirit” balance is because in Taoism there is a direct tie between our emotions and spirit. However, when I speak about spirit, I am not referring to any religious sense but mind state. In other words, this is our consciousness and awareness of our mind. Therefore, when the emotions are out of balance it will affect the spirit which affects the body as well. Neuroscience has proven the connection between emotional states and physiological responses, making this age-old wisdom true.
Spirit Balance
For emotional balance, we focus on the emotions connected to the major organs of the body. In Chinese Medicine and Taoist theory, emotions are stored as physical memories in the body. This will leave an imprint deep inside the tissue. Thinking about all the excessive and negative emotions that we all went through every day and storing this on our bodies. This leads to discomfort in specific regions of the body, tense muscles, and even postural imbalances.
Stress has a compounding effect on the body. You can begin to breathe more shallow, the heart rate speeds up. This puts you into fight or flight mode. This has a cascading effect on the mind and body as you now can weaken your immune system which is vital to protect you. Through our Qigong for Emotional Balance, we will use Qigong exercises to move those emotions out of the body. We have qigong exercises that target and wring these emotions. It will greatly improve not only your health but your mental well-being. We are not saying to feel your emotions, but actually to feel and let go rather than hold them in. A sign of a strong metal element in Chinese Medicine is someone who is able to let go of emotions easily.
Chinese Medicine connection with each organ
- Grief and sadness are with the lungs and large intestine. The antidote to emotion is happiness.
- Joy and desire are with the heart and small intestine. The antidote emotion to this is peaceful contentment.
- Fear is with the kidneys and bladder. The antidote emotion is courage and willpower.
- Anger is with the liver and gallbladder. The antidote emotion is forgiveness and love.
White Tiger 2-part framework for emotional balance
It is important that we address our body’s aches and pains, not by pills, but through movement. They say the biggest killer now is actually your chair. Get off your chair and move with White Tiger Qigong. These are ancient Qigong exercises with sports science to bring soothing relief to your body. It will not only dynamically stretch but also strengthen your whole body through deep rhythmic movements coupled with controlled breathing methods.
We call this body balance as each part of the body has tissue to balance it. For example, the Superficial Back Lines which run along the back, and the Superficial Front Lines which run along the front of the body. So, people that are working at a desk too much can over-stretch backlines and make front lines tight and contracted. This leads to all sorts of imbalances within the body. The imbalances will then come out to the body as pain. Our Qigong seeks to rebalance these lines and the body and restore health.
- Movement - Release the emotion from the body through movements coupled with controlled breathing that target the organ system and meridians related to the emotion. Once we are relax, we are ready for our still meditation to reprogram the mind.
- Meditation - Go into meditation to release the emotion using breath, visualization, and also healing sounds that stimulate the vagus nerve. This stimulation of the vagus nerve puts us deeper into the parasympathetic state where we are more open to self-reprogramming. We use neuroscience to back our concepts and explain how it works in the course.
Qigong Courses for Emotional (Spirit) Balance
2-part framework for body balance and its connection to Chinese Medicine and sports science of fascia
Most adults will experience back pain that can become chronic if not addressed early.
- Chinese Medicine: Focus on Qigong movements that stimulate the organs and meridians of Chinese Medicine
- Fascia: We make the fascia more malleable, and elastic as chronic body pain, lack of movement or too much of the wrong movement can harden the fascia leaving you more stiff. We work out the kinks in the fascia that are in that region and where they connect to in that body part. Our lower back issue can go all the way from back of the legs. So we then need to rebalance the fascia that stabalizes on that area. After this, we use a standing Qigong meditation technique to rebalance and recalibrate our posture. We develop our interoceptive awareness which then goes into our daily life.
Courses for Body's Balance
- Shoulders Wrists and Fingers
- Back Pain
- Upper Back and Neck Pain
The Body-Spirit Balance program is a good starting point to study. For some students, this may be enough, however, for the students who want to become proficient in Qigong and gain a level of master in Qigong, we also have the Qigong Mastery Program. At the end of the day, we don't just strive to get better at what we do, we do things to make us better.
