Internal Arts Recovery Exercises

In connection with links on silk reeling exercises, I just posted a comment about being careful and taking time to recover after practice, and how beginners should start with just a little practice.

Actually, here's a story.

I learned Tai Chi from a book. I practiced one move for a week, then added another, and so on, as recommended (except there were long periods when I didn't practice - lapses in motivation - so it took me almost twenty years to learn the whole Yang Style Tai Chi). I perhaps ought to add that I felt I had a good understanding of movement and posture from some other martial arts studies, plus hiking and climbing, and yoga.

Still, some time around my second week of practice, I experienced a very sharp pain in the area of my waist. It went away immediately, but I didn't want to experience it again, so I proceeded very carefully, after that. By proceeding carefully, I mean keeping tabs on how it feels in the body, and responding to that information, if something tells me to be gentle, or to stretch in some way, for example.

The root of strength, in this regard, seems to be thrusting the hips forward. The torso can then arch back, giving an elongation to the abdominal cavity, and aligning and massaging all the organs. Again, its something you feel your way through. Also, any turning originates in the hips. It's not that there isn't twisting in the abdomen and back ... it just originates and is rooted in the hips.

Come to think of it, I also experienced an excruciating pain in my waist area one day while I wasn't practicing. For some reason I never associated it with the tai chi until today. Anyway, I healed it, much to my amazement, by holding a colorful painting over the area. I was studying color healing, at the time, which is where I got the idea, but the effect was quite miraculous, and I had thought I was a goner.

So, about processing through the sensations that follow this kind of exercise, which are felt deep in the abdominal organs, for example. (Sometimes also in the joints, perhaps, as well as other areas.) Waiting, and staying loose, are the basic methods. Here are some others:

• stretching, such as yoga sitting toe touch with normal breathing, and also cobra
• sumo style stomping (which is really a gentle action, so don't hurt yourself trying to make a hole in the floor ... it's the rearing back that produces the stretch, as much as the stomp)
• making funny noises, such as raspberries, hoots, screeches, wawawa, hmmmm, and so on
• palm healing, where you simply hold the palm softly over the affected area, allowing a field of life energy to massage it
• walking
• easy jogging
• drinking tea
• incense
• energy visualization, for example, a vortex of sparkling energy gently turning around you
• zazen sitting, which, if practiced for some minutes, really teaches physical alignment
• scholarship - reading and writing

I have a story about another internal art, PaQua, too. Twice, right after experimenting with it (again, from a book), I got an intense sore throat. Both times, I quit practice. Each time, the sore throat stayed with me for two weeks. Both times, I just laid of the PaQua, and carried on normally, pretending I was fine ... maybe being a little easy on myself. Both times, after about two weeks, the symptom receded.

Later, I tried PaQua again, with great care (as described above), and didn't have a repeat of the incident. (I've misplaced my PaQua book, and haven't practiced it very much.)