CLICK on the link to watch Tai Chi beginner form video:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSwfkV3ucQc

PRATYAHARA  ---  LOVING  DETACHMENT  FROM  DISTURBANCES   

                                   By Vince  McCullough

Just imagine that your true nature is like the sky.

Open, vast  and pervasive.

Still, silent and peaceful.

The sky is never disturbed, bothered, tarnished or strained.

It is always pure and unruffled.

Now, imagine everything else is just a cloud.

Clouds are amorphous, moving changing energy.

Clouds appear and disappear.

Clouds come and go.

A thought is just a cloud.

So is a feeling, a sound, a touch.

A cloud is anything that crosses your mind.  Anything!

If you think you are the cloud, then you become that.

You get pulled here and there like a cloud. You react.

You are at its mercy.

You are overly attached.

But if you remember your true nature  -  the sky,

You simply watch the clouds come and go without the need to react.

Sometimes a dark thought or feeling moves through your sky.

These dark thoughts are only amorphous clouds that will pass;

They do not affect you, UNLESS you think you are the cloud.

Sometimes a white cloud floats through your sky.

If you want to feel it, just touch it, enjoy it and  let go of it.

Remember --- “You are the sky!”

So, the question is, “how does one get there?”

Try this! 

Put your attention on the breath and follow the out-breath.

With each breath, go farther and farther out until you become the sky.

Now - FROM THAT POSITION,  dispassionately watch the coming and going of things.

Do nothing else but watch, always remembering you are the sky and not the clouds.

Sooner or later you will find the “larger view” called  Pratyahara.

This view will bring you more freedom,  less pain and an expanded sense of well-being.

                                     SPIRAL ENERGY  ---  The Perfect Exercise

  Move like a Shaolin Monk.

      Ten (10) years ago I traveled  to the Shaolin Temple area in China to study tai chi. While there, I witnessed a demonstration by  Shaolin  monks  that completely captured my interest and admiration.  I had never seen such dynamic and elegant physical actions. They moved as if a powerful  snake was coiling and uncoiling in  their bodies ; arms and legs ever moving in three dimensional circles. The  monks called it spiral energy.  I became completely captivated with this mode of movement.  I decided then and there to learn the secret of THIS spiral energy.

  What is Spiral Energy?

     Spiral energy is moving the joints of the body in a three dimensional figure  8.  This pattern revolves around a still central core; much like a cyclone moving around a still quiet center. Or put another way the core is the “ eye of the hurricane “.

   This fixed core or center in the body is an imaginary line through the center of the spinal column starting from the top of the head to the base of the spine.  This center-line is called the zhong ding in Chinese.  It is this quiet center of the body  around which all action occurs in the practice of tai chi.

     Most forces in the cosmos, in nature and even in our bodies move in this fashion.  For example, the galaxies, the oceans and even deep inside of our cells the DNA molecules all move in this dynamic three-dimensional spiral. This powerful action is natural in nature as it is natural in the body.  Our task is to learn to release and to allow it to express itself.

  How do I learn Spiral Energy?

     Do the following exercise:

  1.          Stand with the left foot forward toes pointed straight ahead , legs shoulder width apart.  The back foot angles out at a 45 degree angle with body weight evenly distributed ( like an archer shooting an arrow ).

  2.          Slowly turn the waist to the front shifting your weight forward to 70 % on your front foot and 30% on the back foot.  Keeping the left knee  fixed and still over the left ankle not allowing the knee to go beyond the toes, relax all your joints, maintaining alignment on both sides of the body ( the ankles, hips, shoulders ).

  3.          Now notice what happened; your left hip and shoulder joint  came up and rotated in toward the center-line of the body.  Anatomically this is called  flexion,  adduction and inward rotation.

  4.          Notice the right side of the body.  Your right hip and shoulder  joint  (if you relaxed them enough)  moved in the opposite direction, down and rotated away from the center-line of the body; each side of the body balancing the other side.  Anatomically this move is called extension abduction and outward rotation.   In other words you just performed a three dimensional figure 8  in the body ( Spiral Energy ).

  5.          Now, slowly turn your waist to the right and sit back with most of your weight on the back leg.  Notice the shift of the spiral.  The left hip and shoulder joints are now down and rotated out while the back right side  is up and rotated in.  You have just reversed the figure 8 spiral. 

  Now, change position of the legs and feet ( right foot in front ) and do the same back and forth action as before.

   Perform  Backward Bicycling in the joints in order to do a continuously and dynamically moving  figure 8.

         1. Stand with your left foot forward, as before with weight back on the back right foot.  Push the inside of the right heel down into the ground  as if you are pushing the pedal of a bike down, forward and out.  Let the right hip and shoulder joints perform the same action of back, down, forward and out.  Shift your weight 70% forward to the left foot.  Keep the left knee over the left ankle and align the joints.  Notice the left side came up, back and in order to balance the action of the right side.  

         2. Now, reverse the move.  Push the inside of the left heel down forward and out, allowing the left hip and shoulder joints to follow  and slowly sit back on the back foot.  The left is now down, forward and out and the right side is up, back and in. 

         3.  Continue  shifting your weight forward and back as if you are on a bicycle and you are riding backwards.  You are continuously pushing the pedals down, forward and out.  YOU ARE NOW MOVING LIKE A SHAOLIN MONK.  Change position of the feet and do backward bicycling on the other side.

   Why is this the Perfect Exercise?

   This figure 8 movement of the body is a perfect exercise because:

             1.  It is easy to perform.

             2.  It strengthens and stretches ligaments and muscles.

             3.  The smooth continuous circling movements relax the nervous system.

             4.  The number of muscles and tendons activated are way beyond that of   

                  most single action exercises (See following chart of muscle activation).

THE ANATOMY OF SPIRAL ENERGY

MUSCLES USED IN THE FEET, ANKLES AND LEGS

       Flexor digatorum                                           Lateral vasti

       Hallus longus                                                 Biceps femoris

       Flexor digatorum longus                               Longus brevis

       Tibialis anterior and posterior Soleus          Medial vasti         

       Plantaris

       Peroneus brevis Semitendinosus                 

       Semitemeranous

       Gracilis

       Santorius

       Poplteus

MUSCLES USED IN THE HIP AND PELVIS

      Gluteus Maximus and minimus                   Adductor brevis and longus

      Gluteal  medius                                             Adductor magnus

      Tensor fascia lata                                          Pectinius

      Piriformus                                                      Iliopsoas

      Obdurator internus                                       Inferior gamellus

      Superior gamellus                                         Quadratus femoris

      Illiacus                                                            Rectus femoris

      Six deep rotators                                           Satorius

      Obturator internus and externus

      Superior gamellus

MUSCLES  USED  TORSO, SCAPULA  AND SHOULDERS

      Abdominals:                                                  Deep Posterior Muscles

      Internal and external obliques                    Multifidus

      Rectus abdominus                                        Rotatores

      Pyramidalis (lumbar)                                    Interspinalis

      Erector spinae                                               Versarius                                                 

      Semisplinals (upper back)                            Pectoralis minor

      Subclavius                                                     Rhomboids

      Trapezius                                                       Levator scapulae

      Pectoralis Major                                           Terries major                                       

      Latissimus dorsi                                            Infraspintus

      Deltoid

      Subscapularis  

MUSCLES OF THE ELBOW, WRIST AND FINGERS

     Brachialis                                                      Palomaris longus

     Brachio radialis                                            Pronator quadratus

     Pronator teres                                              Extensor carpi

     Flexor carpi radia                                         Supinator

     Extensor digatorum

This is a brief description of the muscles involved in spiral energy movement.

The tendons involved in this movement were not listed but rest assured extensive tendon

strengthening occur when rotation in the joints are maximized.

Also it must be mentioned  spiral movement of the body must be done in a very relaxed manner.

The key phrase is “ effortless- effort“. 

Do not push and do not struggle.

Just let the spiral action express itself  through the body.  In Taoism this is called “ Wu Wei “.

  T'ai Chi Ch'uan  Standard  Competition  73  Movements  Form:          

      http://www.egreenway.com/taichichuan/sun73.htm

WHEN  THE  GOING  GETS  TOUGH

THE  TOUGH

‘KEEP  BREATHING’

Restorative Yoga:  Asanas for Clearing and Balancing the Lower Chakras

By Vince McCullough

Musical accompaniment provided by Steven Halperin in 8 segments

Tibetan bells follow for optional meditation

Preface:  With any stretch, go to your limit, your “edge,” but push no further.  Do this by letting the outbreath take you gently more deeply into the stretch each time until you reach that edge.  Breathe one long count at that edge, then slowly release. 

During all the exercises, keep thinking  mula bandha, a term for the important alignment of pelvic bone with tailbone. 

As you get to the heart chakra, you want to focus on and “breathe into” the corresponding chakra below:  for the heart, the solar plexus; for the throat, the sacral chakra,; for the brow, the root chakra.

Preparation and relaxation:   Lie on your back with your knees bent, your lower legs and feet up on the seat of a chair.  Make sure your bottom is as close to the chair as possible.  This is the most relaxing position.  Breathe, release.   Ujjayi breathing:  With the mouth softly closed, tongue on the roof of the mouth, say “sa”softly  to yourself on the inbreath, and “ha” on the outbreath.   Feel that the back of your throat is slightly closed.  Work with this until you can consistently control the breath and maintain steady, even breath sounds.  Continue to use this breath with the practice of your asanas.  During this preparation phase breathe in from the crown chakra at top of the head  down to the heart chakra.   Then breath  from the heart chakra up and out the crown chakra.

Base chakra:   Do  forward bend -- You can sit on the edge of the chair, chest out, back straight, reaching your arms out, slowly reaching for your feet.  Fold at the groin; keep the back straight till you are at your edge, then drop head and let the back round a bit.  You can also do this sitting on the floor.  Keep thinking mula bandha.

Sacral chakra:  Do the cobra or arching pose.--Lie face down on floor with legs together.  (Or you can sit in a chair and arch your back.)  Begin with forehead on floor and with arms either straight down close by your side or palms on floor with bent elbows close to your body (no weight on hands).  Tighten buttocks and leg muscles, pressing tops of feet on floor.  Lift face, draw shoulders back, lift head and shoulders.  Do breath and stretch pattern described in preface.  Slowly unroll spine down, lengthening the front body forward.  Relax.

Solar plexus:  Do the  yoga mudra -- For sitting position in chair, first lightly massage abdomen back and forth, then around clockwise and counterclockwise.  Then exhale and draw the spine up.  Beginning from your lower back, pivot at your hips and bend forward over your legs, placing your hands in your gut as you do so.  You can do this in a kneeling position, too, or in full lotus.

Heart chakra:  Do the sitting twists -- Can be done on floor or in chair (in which case, cross your feet).  Keep back straight and lengthen the spine upward.  Start twisting toward the left from the back in the area above the navel, then from the middle of the back, then from the shoulders; then turn the head with the body.  First twist is to the left, then to the right.  Go as far as you can to your edge, comfortably looking over the back shoulder.  Breathe into the solar plexus.

Throat chakra:   Do inverted pose -- Place feet up on chair like  #1 but place them as high as possible, even stretching your legs up along the armrests of the chair; you can also use a wall.  Have your bottom as close to the chair or wall as possible.  Breathe into the sacral plexus slowly, softly.  If you’re using a wall for stability, continue with your own version of an inverted pose, e.g. half shoulderstand.

Brow chakra:   Continue  inverted pose -- You may continue lying with feet up high on chair or against a wall.  Breathe into the base of the spine, the root chakra, and do  modified fish pose.  Slightly move head back and “suggest” an arch in the small of the back; that will push the chest up.  Breathe deeply.  You may also do  classic fish pose on the floor if flexible enough.  Lie on your back with your knees bent and arms at your side.  Arch back while raising it off the ground by pushing the floor with your elbows.  At the same time, tilt your head backwards, aiming to rest the crown of your head on the floor.  Use your forearm and elbows to support you.  The chest will expand.  Breathe deeply with the abdomen.   Caution:  If undue pressure occurs in the head, come out immediately.

Crown chakra:   Continue lying with feet up high on a chair or against a wall.  Focus on the flow of energy up and down spine with your breathing.  You can also place your legs on the floor in resting pose (“corpse pose”), legs straight or bent. 

                  YOGA  ELEMENTS    ( BHUTTA  DHARANA  )

                       (  By Vincent D. McCullough  )

ELEMENT                        EARTH              WATER              FIRE                  AIR                     SPACE                  

______________________________________________________________________________                                                                       

                                        Contraction        Fluidity            Elevation          Expansion          Stillness

                                        ---------------           -----------          ------------           ------------             --------- 

ENERGY                        Cohesion           Cohesion       Light/Heat          Dispersion        Voidness

                                                                                         Transformation

______________________________________________________________________________                                   ______________________________________________________________________________

                                          Rigidity           Dammed-up       Manic                   Heavy           Groundless

DISTORTED                  -----------            ----------               Cold                   Scattered          -------------   

   ENERGY                      Instability          Flooding          Depressive          Closed          non-center

                                                                    Relaxing                                                                                         

TRANSFORMATIVE      Balance            Flowing           Radiance            Opening          Vastness

YOGIC ENERGY             Stability            Releasing        Passion              Expression     Very open

  ( Physical )                  Ground             Pulsing            Celebration         Balanced                       

                                                                  Streaming                                      Ventilation

______________________________________________________________________________

TRANSFORMATIVE     Equanimity       Effortless/        Radiance            Openness        Skyness

  YOGIC ENERGY         Quiet Earth        Effort             Compassion           Freedom         At-Center

        ( Mental )                                           Clarity            Wise Heart                                  

         ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                            

                                        Wisdom of        Mirror-Like        Wisdom of              Self-                  All-

 WISDOMS                      Equality            Wisdom         Discrimination     Fulfilling         Pervasive

                                                                                                                             Wisdom          Wisdom

______________________________________________________________________________

                      ELEMENTAL YOGA  ( Bhutta Dharana )

                                            By Vincent D. McCullough

Elemental Yoga allows one to have a” body-body” rather than a “thought-body” experience. 

All to often we don’t experience the body fully:  rather we quickly encounter the minds interpretation of the sensation as opposed to the direct  body sensation.

This full body awareness without instant thought overlay was coined body-body experience by the renown Tibetan master, Chogyam Trungpa.

The “ thought-body” experience is fairly thin gruel;  not very tasty and certainly not very satisfying. 

Thought can label our encounter almost instantly identifying the experience through the filters of fear or hope from our memories. 

This often causes errors of exaggerating, minimizing or incorrectly compartmentalizing the real experience.

Our task is to remedy this sterile approach and recapture that which we knew as children – relating honestly and directly to our immediate experience without analyzing so quickly. 

If we can do this we have a chance to feel ourselves at the real and concrete level. 

This can bring honesty, color and helpful insight into our life leading to more spontaneity and satisfaction. 

According to some theories on Tibetan Yoga, we are physically and emotionally comprised of five elements:  earth, water, fire, air and space. 

While practicing  Elemental Yoga we can “feel” these different aspects of our nature, allowing us to get in touch with fundamental physical sensations of our chemical composition. 

By allowing ourselves to focus and feel these elemental aspects of our nature we can begin to appreciate each individual element. 

We can feel the active energies of the ”fire” in us,  we can feel the grounding of “earth,” we can feel the flow and cohesion of “water,” the expansiveness  of  “air,”  and the pervasiveness of “space.”

It is through recognizing and nurturing each aspect of our nature that we begin to bring each of these basic elements of our being into balance with each other. 

Once the elements are in balance they can then begin to vibrate in harmony with each other and ultimately to vibrate in harmony with the universal rhythm of life.

For example, our Earth experience is a clear experience of gravity.

If we fail to align ourselves successfully with gravity we can feel overly contracted, tense, heavy and depressed. 

But if we learn to make friends with gravity by aligning correctly, we can then experience our true sense of ground, allowing us to feel secure, strong and stable.

The next quality of importance is the ‘Water quality’ of our bodies.

If we let the flow of our bodies happen and don’t block it by undue “holding,” we then feel that great river of life-force flowing smoothly throughout our system, connecting each part of us to ourselves.

We can then experience the metamorphosis, from feeling frozen to thawing into a stream that widens into a great river that flows into the deep open ocean – the “Oceanic Feeling” as coined by that great humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow. 

The next quality is Fire.  Every cell in our body explodes and releases energy.

The explosion and release can be a highly energized process if we allow it. 

If we learn to breathe correctly and eat correctly we can feel the elevation, warmth and the light of fire.

Proper use of the fire element counteracts the negative properties of lethargy, heaviness and coldness.

The Air element represents the expansiveness of our nature. 

Every moment of our life we are experiencing the contraction and expansion of our entire physical system. 

This is the natural rhythm of life that parallels the great rhythm of the universe. 

If we get stuck in contraction, with limited possibility for expansion, then we feel pain and feel closed. 

When we let ourselves expand in at least equal measure to contraction we then feel open and free. 

Now we can fully express and without fear feel ourselves in the world.

Then, lastly we feel Space or Spaciousness. Space is that pervasive quality of just being present or put another way just “being”. 

We feel like an open sky that can never be disturbed or strained in any way. 

We are open, we are everywhere, containing everything and  giving ourselves vast room to experience everything without attachments.

So then, when we feel ourselves physically at the elemental level, ridding ourselves of the almost instant brain overlay and its busy interpretations of our actions, which are often contrived and false; we feel real.

We are more connected to ourselves as well as to everything else.

This brings joy, satisfaction, and if we are truly fortunate, bliss.

                                         Cutting  Up an Ox

Prince Wen Hui’s cook was cutting up an ox.  Out went a hand, down went a shoulder.  He planted a foot, he pressed with a knee, the ox fell apart with a whisper.  The bright cleaver murmured like a gentle wind. 

Rhythm, timing, like  “ The Mulberry Grove,” like ancient harmonies.

“Good work!” the Prince exclaimed.  “Your method is faultless!” 

“Method?” said the cook laying aside his cleaver.  “What I follow is Tao beyond all methods!”

“When I first began to cut up oxen, I would see before me the whole ox all in one mass.”

 “After three years I no longer saw this mass.  I saw the distinctions.  But now I see nothing with the eye.”

                     “My whole being apprehends.

                      My senses are idle.

                      The spirit free to work without plan follows its own instinct.”

“Guided by natural line, by secret opening, the hidden space, my cleaver finds its own way.  I cut no joint, chop no bone.”  

“A good cook needs a new chopper once a year-he cuts.  A poor chopper needs a new one every month-he hacks.  I have used the same cleaver nineteen years.  It has cut up a thousand oxen.  Its edge is as keen as if newly sharpened.”

“There are spaces in the joints; the blade is thin and keen. When this thinness finds that space there is all the room you need!   Hence I have had this cleaver nineteen years as if newly sharpened.”

“True, there are sometimes tough joints.  I feel them coming.  I slow down, I watch closely, hold back, barely move the blade, and whump!   The part falls away landing like a clod of earth.  Then I withdraw the blade; I stand still and let the joy of the work sink in.  I clean the blade and put it away.”

Prince Wan Hui said, “This is it!   My cook has shown me the how I ought to live my own life!”

                                      Merton,Thomas. The Way of Chuang Tzu, New York,1969

YOGA ENERGY FIELDS, YOGA CHAKRAS,

AND THE MIND / BODY CONNECTION

By Virginia MacIvor  Meyn

Practicing Yoga is not merely a matter of putting your body through a sequence of breathing exercises and postures.  It is a “matter” of aligning and balancing energies.  Balance and harmony do not begin in the body.  Hey begin quite literally in the energy field that surrounds your body.  Quantum physics has taught us that everything is energy.

Electromagnetic “fields of life” emanate from all matter.  Each of us radiates energy.  These electromagnetic fields have been actually measured by modern scientific instruments, documented in the works of Drs. Burr and Northrop at Yale in 1935 and more current research of New York orthopedic surgeon Dr. Robert O. Becker and his colleagues, among others.

The human field or aura is actually made up of interpenetrating layers of energy.  Closest to and immediately surrounding the physical body is the so called “etheric body,” a vital bioenergetic field that extends about  2 to 6 inches from  the surface of the skin.  The aura can extend as far as several feet beyond the etheric body into increasingly subtle ranges or emotional, mental and spiritual energy.

Our etheric body acts as a sheath that envelopes, molds and powers our physical bodies.  It is referred to as the vital body because it is in fused by a continuously flowing, primal universal force known as prana, chi, or ki  that we receive from the sun, from the etheric substance of the food we eat and the water we drink, and most importantly from the air we breathe.  The etheric body is a vital body because it literally holds together and keeps us alive and well.

Connecting this etheric or pranic body to the subtler emotional, mental and spiritual layers of energy are seven spinning force centers or vortices called charkas. A Sanskrit word for “wheels of light.”   These seven major centers or charkas are located along a vertical axis of the etheric body that corresponds to the physical spine.  Each chakram is directly linked to an endocrine gland and acts as a transformer and transmitter of the energies to that gland and into the physical region controlled by that gland.  Thus the physical body is intimately affected by what we think and what we feel. ‘Energy follows thought’.  This is indeed largely where disharmony begins.  Attitude is everything!

So is breathing.  The most important source of vital prana is the atmosphere.  When we are in tune and breathe correctly, prana flows harmoniously around and through the etheric sheath, entering via the spleen chakra  (a subsidiary center);  we experience health and wellbeing.   When we are out of sorts, and our breathing is not regulated, the charkas are thrown out of balance and the pathways of pranic flow become blocked and distorted.  The corresponding parts of our bodies suffer ill effects.

Recognition of the “fields of life” and their role in linking the physical and mental has its roots in very early times.  An example is found in a passage from the Upanishads (1200 to 800 B.E.C.).  There, one is urged to realize that the  “body is spirit,  whose form is light, whose thoughts are true, whose nature is like either, omnipresent and invisible, from whom all desires, all sweet odors and tastes proceed.”   Herein lies the metaphysical foundation for Yoga.

Yoga meaning “to unite or make whole,” offers a means of re-balancing the crucial energy centers that connect mind and body.  The Eight Limbs of Yoga show us the ways.  From these precepts we learn that Yoga postures or asanas are not merely mechanical gestures when proper attitude, proper living, breath-control or pranayama, one-pointedness of mind, and meditation are an integral part of ones program.

Sources:  Bruyere’s Wheels of Light; Burr’s  The Fields of Life; Hopking’s  Practical Guide to Esotric Healing;  Leadbetter’s  The Chakras;  MacIvor and LeForest’s  Vibrations: Healing Through Color, Homeopathy and Radionics ; Russell’s  Design for Destiny; Van Lysebeth’s  Pranayama.