ShinNa Tai-Chi Blog

[Path to Mastery 6/2/10 – Wk38 D3 (Str 9.12.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: Continuing the story on my journey with the Small Heavenly Circle meditation from last week: Years later, I was sitting cross-legged and working on my Dan-Tien breathing.  This was a good day.  I had just completed Taoist Yoga and my body felt loose and relaxed.  I felt the heat comfortably accumulate in my Dan-Tien.  At some point I started feeling the heat coming down my central channel down the front, and then it naturally started overflowing from my Dan-Tien out and up my spine.  The Taoists say that water rises to the head, and the fire descend to your Dan-Tien.  The teachings say that when your Dan-Tien is warm and your head feels clear and cool, your energy is balanced and circulating well.  That is exactly what happened.  I started out this practice by moving my attention from my crown chakra (crown of my head) to my upper Dan-Tien (third eye), and then to ...

[Path to Mastery 5/25/10 – Wk37 D2 (Str 9.12.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: “Small Heavenly Circle” breathing.  The purpose of practicing “Small Heavenly Circle” breathing is to open up your energy channel that runs through the vertical center line of the front and back of your torso.  In case you want a visual aid, just type in Du Mei channel on the internet, you will see what I am talking about.  Small Heavenly Circle is another name for the Du Mei channel.  So, unless you have some knowledge of energy practice, you are probably wondering why you should try to open the central channel through “Small Heavenly Circle” breathing.  I mean Tai-Chi is a martial art, so it has to benefit martial arts somehow, right?  But how does breathing and getting the energy channels to open up help your martial arts?  Here is how.  When the central channel opens, you gain access to an uninhibited and unlimited source of energy.  This means you gain ...

[Path to Mastery 4/27/10 – Wk33 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: Directed breathing is where you lead the energy with the breath.  Traditionally, this concept is also called Hen Ha.  You could almost argue that in the end, we learn all this in order to learn how to breathe.  If you know how to breathe, then you accomplish everything with just breathing.  You can accomplish alignment with breathing, you can accomplish movement with breathing, and you can accomplish relaxation with breathing.  So, here is how you practice Directed Breathing.  Some ground rules.  When you inhale, you inhale through your nose, and your tongue is on the roof of your mouth.  When you exhale you exhale through your mouth, and your tongue is either relaxed, or on the bottom of your mouth, behind your bottom teeth, but not touching.  (In the beginning the tongue is not as important, but as you get better in your ability to direct you...

[Path to Mastery 4/26/10 – Wk33 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:   Dan-Tien breathing is nothing more than breathing with your lower abdomen. The good part of the equation is diaphragmatic breathing.  But it is not all.  It is a good place to start though so let’s start there.  Relax your rib cage, and imagine that your lungs move (diaphragm) moves down as you inhale instead of your chest expanding outward. You will notice that your breath sinks down and low.  You will also notice that the lower abdomen expands as you do this breathing.  The lungs don’t have much space to expand outward because of your rib cage.  However, the lungs are well designed to move downward.  When you inhale downwards, you will notice that you can take a much deeper breath.  Not only that, as your lung moves downward, it creates movement in your intestines.  This is part of the reason why your lower abdomen expands since your...

[Path to Mastery 4/22/10 – Wk32 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: Crow Bridge refers to connecting the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth.  There are a lot of explanations as to why this should be done.  Crow Bridge is named after the legend of a couple that were separated from each other and could only meet once a year when crows would form a bridge for them to meet.  The tongue is supposed to bridge a natural Chi pathway that is disconnected from the roof of the mouth to the throat.  It is believed that by placing the tongue on the roof of the mouth, you complete the Chi pathway the travels through the center of the front of the body.  It is also said that the mild tension on the tongue necessary to create the bridge allows the white blood to flow through your mouth to prevent your mouth from getting dry, meaning your mouth will salivate.  I didn’t understand the importance of this until I started studying relax...

[Path to Mastery 4/21/10 – Wk32 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey Today’s blog is going to be short.  No Sound breath or silent breath. When you practice Tai-Chi or Chi-Gong do it so that you cannot hear your breath.  Gabriel used to say that you should breathe so that nobody can tell you are breathing.  The test is if you put a feather under your nose, the feather wouldn’t move as you are breathing.  Now I can’t do that, at least not for any length of time.  But the longer I train, I feel my breath deepen and lengthen, and I feel the flow of Chi increases with this breathing.  It also creates more pressure, but it is gentle.  There is breath with sound that we practice, but that will be covered later.  For now, enjoy practicing the silent breath and remember, no matter what happens relaxation comes first!  Have fun! History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point: Before the blog opened to the public, we cover...

[Path to Mastery 4/20/10 – Wk32 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: There are breathing concepts, breathing techniques and breathing exercises.  But before any of that, you have to just let your breath be and observe it. When I first joined my teacher Gabriel my mind was filled with the idea of different breathing techniques that would make my Kung-Fu (Martial Cultivation) more powerful.  I was excited to learn the secrets of breathing.  With anticipation I asked, so while doing the form, how do I breathe.  He said, “Just breathe.”  I was in semi shock.  I said, “I thought you were supposed to exhale while you extend and inhale while you retract.  Am I not supposed to do some kind of breathing.”  He replied eloquently, “No.”.  He had a talent for anticlimactic answers.  Later, as I practiced it became clear to me that the form teaches your body to breathe.  As you do the form, your breathing naturally...

[Path to Mastery 4/19/10 – Wk32 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: Breathing is the most important part of Tai-Chi.  I would say that Breathing is the most important thing period especially considering the amount of time it takes to have an immediate impact in your life.  You don’t need a formal education to figure out that it doesn’t take long at all from the time you stopped breathing until it has a deep and profound impact in your life. I often tell people that breath is the most important diet in their lives.  Energy has different states.  At its lowest vibration level, it is solid.  You heat it up a little, it becomes liquid.  Yet, you heat it a little more, it becomes gas.  Then it becomes plasma, and I am totally blanking out on the other stages, but with my limited scientific understanding at some point it becomes light.  Sunlight.  I have often read that all food we eat is a variation on sunlight....

[Path to Mastery 4/14/10 – Wk31 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: Now that we have discussed the Dan-Tien from an energetic view, let’s cover it from the physical perspective, the opposite perspective, the Tai-Chi way!  This will be the last principle we cover on Relaxation. We covered the physical location of the Dan-Tien previously when I covered ‘Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ in principles regarding the lower body in the alignment chapter (Covered on 3/16).  Now let me add a little more detail.  Besides, being 3 finger widths below the belly button, and a third of a distance from the front inside the body,  the Dan-Tien is located between the 3 points, the Ming Men (across your belly button on your lower back), and your Kwa (the crease where your thighs meet your pelvis).  Of course it is not in the center of these 3 points, but it feels like the Dan-Tien sits on a point where these 3 points converge.  I jokingly refer to it as ...

[Path to Mastery 4/13/10 – Wk31 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: When you know how to ‘Dropping the Weight’, and ‘Extend into Infinity’, then you have ‘Chi Sink Dan-Tien’. When you have one principle, then you have all the others.  It is important to mention on many occasions and to stress that all these principles are really describing the same thing.  If you will these principles are check points to see how well you have any one of the principles.  It is a reality check.  If you have one principle, but not another, then you know that you don’t really have either.  There is lack of understanding somewhere.   Many years ago I read a book called ‘The book of Ki’, by Koichi Tohei.  I recommend this book to anyone.  It is a great book to study Chi.  In this book he mentions 4 principles of Ki (Japanese way of saying Chi): 1) Relax 2) Extend 3) Weight Underneath 4) Keep one point The 4th principle, keeping one p...

[Path to Mastery 4/12/10 – Wk31 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: The principle of extension is a key concept to succeeding in Tai-Chi.   Extension is the Yang, if letting go and relaxing is the Yin.  Extension balances limpness.  Without extension, you cannot relax properly. The actual concept of extension is ‘Extend Into Infinity’.  I think the name explains it for itself.  Not much mystery.  Here is a key concept in Tai-Chi that is integral to understanding all of Tai-Chi, if not life itself.  Opposites are actually the same thing.  They are not two separate things opposing each other.  The two sides of a coin cannot exist without each other.  That is Yin and Yang.  Here is another example.  Confidence without Humility is Arrogance.  You cannot be truly confident unless you are humble.  Without humility, it becomes imbalanced and you become arrogant.  Now you can imagine ...

[Path to Mastery 4/9/10 – Wk30 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: ‘Weight Underneath’ was more or less covered yesterday when I discussed Soong.  But I find this concept to be very useful, and of value in its own right, so I would like to discuss why it is specifically named ‘Weight Underneath’.    First, stand as if you are at the edge of a swimming pool, and you are about to jump in.  Let both of your arms hang from the side, and you are probably leaning slightly forward and your weight is on the balls of your feet because you are ready to jump.  This is the ideal position to feel the weight of your arms just hanging from your shoulders.  Now when you let your arms hang like this, and just work at letting go, you will feel your arms getting heavier and heavier, getting further and further relaxed.   The issue is when you start raising your arm.  You can relax as long as you keep your arms dropped, but it gets more...

[Path to Mastery 4/8/10 – Wk30 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: ‘Internal External Mutually Integrate’ is an important principle in the externally focused society that we live in.  This principle is how to coordinate the feelings of the internal part of your body with the external look of your form.  This principle basically says that Tai-Chi is not only about how it looks from the outside, but the movements are coordinated with how it feels from the inside. When you do Tai-Chi, you should feel as if your upper body is a cork that is floating on water.  As the waves come and go, you just float and ride out the wave.  You should feel as if anything above the pelvis is floating above the water.  This sensation doesn’t come because your body is bobbing up and down, but it is created because it feels like your pelvis is floating above your legs.  As you shift your weight to the front or the back, you feel the pumping of your l...

[Path to Mastery 4/7/10 – Wk30 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: ‘Use Mind Not Use Strength’ has depth the more you chew on it.  According to the Koreans: what’s good will produce more juice (flavor) the more you chew on it, unlike gum.  This is definitely one of them! The importance of this becomes most apparent when you either do pushing hands or you practice your jing (power generation) with another person.  When you are about to do Fa-Jing (explosive energy), you imagine your force going through the other person first.  You feel them getting lighter and you follow through that feeling of lightness, and to your surprise you see them flying.  The entire time, your muscles feel relaxed and you feel like you are doing the form.  This is what makes Tai-Chi fun, and this is what makes Tai-Chi mysterious.  It makes sense that the mind affects your own body, but when the mind starts influencing things outside of your bod...

[Path to Mastery 4/6/10 – Wk30 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)] Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey: Hope you had a great Easter Weekend!  I know I did!   Starting today we will be covering the Tai-Chi principles governing Relaxation.  First one up is ‘Mind Body Release Relax’. This is a great principle.  This one basically says that unless the mind is relaxed, the body cannot relax, and unless the body relaxes, the mind cannot relax.  It shows that the mind and the body is the same.  You cannot separate them.   There is a reason the word ‘Release’ is mentioned first.  Tension is like having your hand clenched into a fist.  Now imagine your shoulders are a clenched fist and you are letting them go.  You will feel them relaxing and dropping.  Muscles that are tense are like fists that are clenched.  For them to relax, you have to let them go.  In order for you to notice that they are clenched, fist you need to notice t...