Creating Body-Mind Flexibility with Circular and Spiral Movements

Dr. Hu’s coming workshop in Berkeley is on Feb.11. Dr. Hu is going to teach us how to use “Circular & Spiral Movements” to train our body-mind flexibility. The qigong to be practiced in this workshop will include:

1	Wild Goose – IV (Tripod & Spiral Qigong)
2	Counter Gravity Qigong
3	Five short qigong pieces selected from Dr. Hu’s “Creating Flexibility Through Qigong” DVD. They are: a) Two Dragons Playing a Qi-Ball b) Flying Phoenix c) Push & Pick Up the Wheel d) Sea Sway e) The Airplane

 

You may have some questions in your mind. Dr. Hu would like to address them simply here before you attend his workshop.

Question 1:
Dr. Hu talks a lot about the circular & spiral movements. Why are circular & spiral movements so important to us? What benefits can we get from practicing these movements?

Answer: Circular movements are the most relaxing movements. Once you can incorporate your breathing into the movements, you can either relax or stretch yourself at will. Circular movements are the safest movements to practice. You’ll never get hurt, or strain your muscles, even if you practice a lot. This is because they fit perfectly into the structure of our shoulders and hips, which are “ball & socket” joints. We are going to analyse the movement potentials of each of our body’s major joints during the workshop.

Practicing circular and spiral movements can easily induce our qi to flow from our fingers to our torso, and vice versa, thus stimulating and cleansing our internal organs for better health. We are going to teach you the specific technique on how to better move your qi in this workshop.

Question 2:
Why does Dr. Hu often remind us: “Let the movements of our wrist spread out to cover the whole body?”

Answer: TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), including medical qigong, always holds a holistic view of our body. In practicing qigong, when we move our wrist, we are not interested in developing those muscles around the wrist. Instead, we are interested in stimulating those meridian points around the wrist, so that qi inside those meridian lines will go up, and pass through our shoulder into our torso. During this workshop, we’re going to discuss how our meridian system is a network in our body. At the same time, we’ll teach you the techniques needed for relaxing our shoulder joint so that qi can pass through it easily.

Question 3:
Dr. Hu is going to teaching Counter Gravity Qigong in this workshop. What has “counter gravity” to do with the circular & spiral movements?

Answer: Yes, they are interrelated. We are talking about the small circular movements around the center of our palm (“Labor Palace” acu-point, or PC-8) and around the bottom of our feet (“Bubbling Spring”, or K-1). During the workshop, we’ll explain how the circular movements around these points can generate the “centripetal” or “ centrifugal” force ( a force moving toward or moving away from a center), and how this force will allow qi to move up and down our body, either starting from the crown or from the bottom of our feet, in a specific rhythm. Under this condition, together with proper visualization, we can stretch-with-ease almost unconsciously, as if we were temporarily not affected by gravity.

See you there at the Berkeley workshop on Feb.11.