Читать книгу Tai Chi: A practical approach to the ancient Chinese movement for health and well-being - Angus Clark - Страница 8
ОглавлениеTAI CHI IS best known in the West as a system of exercises to benefit health, prevent degenerative illnesses, and promote longevity. It stimulates circulation, aligns misplaced bones, mobilizes the joints, stimulates and maintains vital organs, and improves balance and coordination. It improves the breathing, which revitalizes body and brain. But tai chi is a holistic practice and it also trains the mind to focus and concentrate. It widens sensitivity and the capacity to feel, so that people who practice become more awake, alive, and responsive.
A few minutes of gentle massage can release tension and remove pain.
The following pages show many different ways in which tai chi can benefit health of body and mind. Tai chi works with the body to support and encourage its natural capacity for healing. Practicing the techniques correctly raises chi, or life energy, which strengthens the immune system and improves health, and jin or whole body energy, also called intrinsic energy, which improves coordination.
Tai chi movements build energy gradually. Tai chi movements generate warmth, often accompanied by a sense of fullness. After perhaps half an hour of practice the body may feel as if it is humming. After a training session this can be felt as heat energy in certain parts of the body, especially the hands, which seem to radiate heat.
HEALING OTHERS
Massage for tai chi can be reassuring, so offering to massage relatives or friends is a way of helping them through touch. Explore the following methods for yourself and discover how the healing energy generated in tai chi practice can help you, your friends, and family.
Foot-holding and intuitive foot massage
The simple technique of foot-holding embodies the principle of “not doing” perfectly. For the best effect the person to be massaged should lie down comfortably, or, if this is not possible, sit in a chair with the knees and legs supported on a stool or cushions. Rest your hands on the other person’s ankles or feet and do nothing for at least 10 minutes. Notice how energy builds in both bodies. This demonstrates the two-way nature of healing and the positive feedback that begins with tai chi practice. Intuitive foot massage is stimulating and comforting. Simply massage the other person’s feet in any way that occurs to you.
Dispelling a headache
Ask your friend to sit comfortably. Rest your right hand on his or her forehead and your left hand on the back of the neck, and keep your hands still for at least three minutes. Now move your hands about 9 inches away from your friend’s head and neck, imagining them offering a healing space into which the “disease” of the headache can melt. Finish by placing both of your hands in light contact with your friend’s head for about a minute.
When tai chi is practiced regularly, a combination of mindset, visualization, body shape (the positions made by the body), and movement create the conditions for streams of energy to flow vigorously through the body, stimulating the internal systems. It is said in the ancient writings on tai chi that the chi (life energy) follows the mind – each posture cultivates a different kind of energy flow, depending on visualization and the body shapes it makes. The hands are transmitters for this energy, and become charged by the large amounts of information that pass through them.
Healing is a natural force that cannot be made to take place, any more than a plant can be made to grow. The role of the individual in the process is to try, through tai chi, to create the conditions in which energy can flow, and to give the body time to heal itself.
MASSAGE
The idea in massage for tai chi is to develop your spontaneity and intuition for self-healing. There are no special strokes to apply, and you need not worry about direction or pressure of stroke. Begin by following your own feelings about what to do. Rub briskly if you want to, or stroke gently.
MASSAGING THE FACE
Bring both hands to your chin and slowly draw them up over your face, back through your hair, and down your neck. Repeat five times.
MASSAGING THE EARS
Rub the lobes of each ear vigorously, then run your finger and thumb around the rim of the ear and back again to each ear lobe.
MASSAGING THE EYES
Close your eyes and (always with clean hands) stroke the upper eyelids lightly with the middle finger from close to the top of the nose out to the side of the head. Repeat this action at least seven times, then stroke the bottom eyelid in the same way.
MASSAGING THE FEET
Massaging your feet stimulates the nerve-endings and is relaxing and comforting. Hold or rub your feet one at a time for at least two minutes each.
MASSAGING THE HANDS
Massage stimulates the many nerve-endings in the hands, improving the circulation and bringing life to them. Gently or vigorously rub your hands. Pay attention to each finger and both thumbs, the palms, and the backs of the hands.
The feet work hard, yet they tend to be neglected. They benefit from massage, especially before and after practice.
SELF-HEALING
Tai chi is a healing art and just practicing it generates the energy that makes healing possible. The following exercises act as a useful complement to this aspect of tai chi. They can be done at any time, but they are especially effective immediately after practice.
HANDS ON
1 Place your left hand on the lower tantien energy center, just below the navel, and your right hand on top of it. Rest in this position for two to five minutes. Concentrate on gathering into yourself and recharging your batteries.
HANDS ON
2 Release your hands, place your right hand on the lower tantien and your left hand on the center of your chest. Again, hold this position for two to five minutes, concentrating on gathering into yourself and charging your batteries.
