Shibashi Qigong Newsletter - Issue V.11 Autumn 2008
 

Instructor Training Workshops

I will be teaching a Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi Instructor Training Course at Huntington Beach, California, USA on Nov 22-23, 2008.  For details, please visit www.taichi18.com/workshop_la.htm

Early next year, I will be travelling to Australia and New Zealand.  I plan to offer an instructor training course over there.  If you know a group of people who are interested or know of a good venue for running such a course, please let me know.  My email address is sifu@taichi18.com

Even though the theme of this instructor training course is around Shibashi, the knowledge you will learn in this course can be applied to many different styles of qigong.  Furthermore, this course covers all the 3 major types of qigong, namely moving qigong, standing qigong and sitting qigong.  For moving qigong, we have Shibashi; for standing qigong, we have Wuji and Taji Stance and for the sitting qigong, we have the basic Internal Alchemy technique.

Stress Epidemic & How Qigong Can Help

The American Psychological Association just released its annual "2008 Stress in America" survey.  This survey revealed the predominance and severity of stress in our society today.  Half of Americans surveyed said they are increasingly stressed about their ability to provide for their family's basic needs. 53 percent reported fatigue, 60 percent reported feelings of irritability or anger, and 52 percent reported difficulty sleeping as a result of stress.  Research has already identified the link between stress and the six leading causes of death—heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.  Moreover, stress levels will likely worsen with the recent financial tsunami.

So, what is stress?  In the past, when our ancestors faced danger, e.g. encountering a beast, their sympathetic nervous system would be stimulated to create a fight or flight response which resulted in dilated pupils, decreased digestion, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, and the shunting of blood to muscles for anticipated increased activity.  Nowadays, when we face stress, our bodies produce a similar response.  If we are not able to balance out an overly stimulated sympathetic nervous system, our bodies will start to exhibit many chronic symptoms such as, high blood pressure, diabetes, insomnia, stomach ulcer, migraine, anxiety, emotional problems … etc

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system work together.  When the activity of one is increased the other will be decreased.   Therefore, one way to balance the overly stimulated sympathetic nervous system is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.   The deep abdominal breathing, gentle tai chi movements and alpha (very calm and relaxing) mind state of Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi can achieve just that.  Practicing Shibashi activates our parasympathetic nervous system, thus balancing the overly stimulated sympathetic nervous system.  That’s why Qigong Shibashi is so effective when dealing with chronic problems.

Practice qigong Shibashi at a certain pace enables our body systems to oscillate at their resonant frequencies.  When our body systems oscillate at their resonant frequencies we feel sustained positive emotions such as appreciation, compassion, or love.  I will talk more about this in the next section of this newsletter.

Like Zen meditation, our spiritual level will grow as we practice qigong.  This growth will enable us to cope with stress a lot better.  We will find ourselves much calmer when faced with the same stress.  Furthermore, many will start to see the world from different perspectives, thus will learn to see stress as just a situation that we have to deal with.  Some may even spot opportunities in those situations.

Money is important but the happiness that money can buy is usually short lived.  Therefore, those who place their happiness on material things from this highly commercialized world will find themselves preoccupied with having to earn more money to satisfy their insatiable materialistic needs and desires.   Those that find themselves attempting to acquire more wealth find themselves acquiring more stress as well.  I believe that we should not be caught up with the consumerism that this society so heavily promotes.  We should be satisfied when we have enough to pay for our basic needs and a few of our favorite hobbies.  Just remember, true happiness is from within.  Happiness from the spiritual side is much more long lasting.  Once we know our purpose in life and are on the right track to fulfill it, we would be in constant happiness and be stress free.

My mission is to enlighten the world through the teaching of qigong and meditation.  And one the fastest ways to achieve this is to train more instructors.  Therefore, I will focus my time to train those who really have the heart to teach. 

As the world economy is turning into recession and the baby boomers are starting to retire, there would be a great demand for qualified qigong/meditation instructors worldwide.  Even the world’s leading social forecaster, Patricia Aburdene, have predicted more and more people will be turning to these internal practices in her book Megatrends 2010.    

Breathing in Shibashi - How to Achieve Resonant Frequency?

Even though I have addressed the issue of speed in my previous newsletter, http://www.taichi18.com/news04.htm, many people still ask me about the ideal speed for doing Shibashi.  I will talk about this in more detail below. 

The ideal speed for each person is different.  The speed should depend on your own breathing since each movement is coordinated with breathing.  If your breath is shallow, you may tend to perform the whole set faster than if your breath is deep.

Beginners who have no previous training in breathing usually perform the whole set in about 10 minutes.  That is about 12 breathes per minute.  In my videos, I performed the set in this pace since I assumed most viewers were beginners.  After you remember all the movements and their sequence, you should do it at your own pace, do not follow the pace of the video anymore.

When I practice this qigong on my own, I usually spend about 20 minutes to perform a set.  That is about 6 breathes per minute or 0.1 Hz (cycle per second).  Coincidentally, it makes scientific sense to perform the Shibashi at this pace. 

Our body has many different rhythms.  The most obvious is our heart.  Its beat to beat changes produce its own rhythm.  Our brainwave has its own rhythm.  Our blood pressure oscillation produces its own rhythm and the pace at which we breathe produces our respiratory rhythm… etc.  When all our bodily rhythms are in sync with each other, our bodies will produce a powerful resonant frequency.  Studies have found that there are many positive effects both physically and emotionally when our bodies vibrate at this resonant frequency.

For human beings, the resonant frequency of our system is approximately 0.1 Hz.  Studies also find that our systems naturally oscillate at its resonant frequency when we are actively feeling a sustained positive emotion such as appreciation, compassion, or love.

Most people should be able to perform the Shibashi at a pace of 6 breaths per minute (0.1Hz), after practicing daily for a couple of months.  Again, doing the exercise at a comfortable pace is more important than trying to achieve 6 breaths per minute.  Over breathing may result if are not ready and force yourself to breathe deeply to achieve this pace.  Over breathing may leave you feeling light headed.

In the next newsletter, I will talk about the relationship of Tai Chi Qigong Shibashi and endorphins and how Shibashi can help people deal with problems such as substance abuse.  Furthermore, I will gradually start to reveal the secretly guarded Shaolin Neijing Yi Zhi Chan finger bending sequence, in my subsequent newsletters.

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