So,
When we work with center and centering,
We are working with lines and we're also working with spheres.
So this practice is a circular pulse practice that also activates the natural opening of the microcosmic orbit and nourishes the inside of the body.
So we're going to do this practice in two directions.
Let me show you this and then we'll practice it as a flow.
So the first direction that opens up the back and down the front,
You draw the hands back,
Lift up and extend forward and settle down.
Notice there's a little bit of a bow.
In breath,
Straighten and exhale,
Settle out,
Press out.
In breath like that.
So this practice is common in many forms of Qigong,
Negong.
Variations that you may see are the hands coming up like along the center line and then pressing out.
I like drawing up the sides of the body because it has the feeling of opening the rib basket and the cheek coming up over the top of the head.
That's the practice.
It's that simple.
When you're drawing in breath here and coming up the back,
We flow lightly forward to what is called the bubbling well,
The front part of the foot.
And then the energy flows up the back and as we release the hands out and down,
That's an exhale and a light settling down towards the heels.
You'll see in that movement when you're forward into the bubbling well,
You're not leaning forward as a sense of lift.
When you're settling,
It's not leaning back,
It's settling down.
Let's do this as a flow.
This is a very lovely Negong practice,
Qigong.
So relax.
When you lift,
You're not lifting shoulders.
Lift up the sides of the body.
Keep the shoulders relaxed.
Exhale and settle down.
Lightly round the back and the spine.
They're straight as you settle down.
The head lifts out and the tailbone settles down.
Very nice micro stretch of the spine opening,
Pulsing fluid along the length of the spine,
Opening intervertebral space.
Let's do two more cycles here.
Here's one.
As you complete that cycle,
Return to your standing Wu Chi meditation posture.
Settle in here for a moment.
Feel the hips relaxed.
Presence here.
Okay,
We're going to do the practice in the opposite direction.
So it's kind of have the feeling of coming up the front and down the back in that quality of ellipse.
The action very similar to what we just did,
But the hands are going to flow up the front.
And then down the sides as you settle and release the hips downward to lightly stretch sacral lumbar area.
I'm hoping that this feels very good to you.
That's a release of the exhalation.
Hands float up.
This one,
You lightly press the hands down.
Settle.
Head lifts,
Tailbone settles.
Micro opening stretch of the whole length of the spine.
Let's do two more.
Two more elliptical cycles.
Here's the completing one.
Let that settle down and then release into your Wu Chi.
Center line,
Earth connection,
Opening through the crown of the head up into the universe,
Into the sky.
Center presence.
Okay,
Very good.
So that pulse helps to open the inside of the body,
Nourish the spine,
The brain,
The nervous system.
Good Qi Gong,
Ne Gong.
Pulsing.
Circular pulse or elliptical pulse.
Now let's do one that is called the double helix.
This is easy to do.
I'll show you and then we'll practice it as a flow.
So I'm going to start here with the hands here.
We're not lifting shoulders.
Shoulders and shoulder blades stay down.
So I'm going to flow to one side extends and the other side goes back and return to center.
And notice that I'm folding.
I'm not leaning.
I'm folding in the Kua as that happens.
I'm going to show you from a few different directions here.
Center.
Folding in the Kua.
There should be a good sense of alignment down from the shoulder through the hip,
Bypassing the knee in a way.
So the weight is not coming forward into the knee.
It comes down through the inside of the leg to the foot.
Center.
So from the side it looks like this.
Lightly looking back towards the hand that goes backward.
Center.
Fold in the Kua.
It has the sense of that helix shape on the horizontal plane similar to the opening and closing that we did in the initial seated Nei Gong practice.
Okay,
So let's practice this as a flow.
Hands relaxed here.
Shoulders dropped.
Shoulder blades settled.
And then exhale.
In-breath as you return to center.
Center.
Fold in the Kua.
Feel the alignment there.
Okay,
One more time on each side.
Fold.
Fold.
Come to the center.
Hands down.
Integrating breath.
Press.
Open.
Release.
Neutral.
This time as the hands come up,
We're going to align them.
Flow down that central channel.
Energetic vertical line.
Rest in the spherical field of energetic center here.
This is a moment of grace.
A moment of poise.
To let go.
To feel the natural alignment of the vertical balance with the horizontal.
More than just those two-dimensional aspects,
This opens spherically.
This opens spherically in three dimensions.
Very good.
Moving from center.
It's natural.
When you have that sense of center,
What you don't do is move with your head first.
Not leading.
Over this break,
I invite you just to practice,
Even for a few steps.
Maybe go outside if you can,
Safely,
Or inside.
Just moving from center.
It's real.
It's very natural.
But we have the habit of initiating movement like this.
What we want to have the sense of is just moving like that.
Moving from center.
We're going to do two very simple alignment practices there.
It's not exactly Qigong,
But it's not not Qigong either.
The first one is called the two-beat practice.
This one I learned from my Aikido teacher,
Robert Nadeau.
I've been studying with him for over 40 years.
The practice is two-beat.
You want to stand with your legs a little bit further apart.
Feel the settling.
Just settling.
Then a natural lift along the center line.
This is not about some perfection of movement.
Just have the sense of center line moving up and down.
Feel that beat of lift.
Feel that beat of settling.
And this,
Hopefully,
Starts to feel the energetic center line.
First of all,
As that plumb line that moves up and down in harmony with gravity.
But also has a pulse.
More like a column,
Too.
The column that could be wider than the space of your body connecting to it.
Connecting earth.
That's the vertical up and down beat pulse.
Up and down feeling the connection there.
Let us do one other one.
And that is the sense of the horizontal.
Now,
Again,
The hands don't have to do anything particular.
Your hands could be moving in some way.
But the sense as you move from side to side.
Of course,
I recommend that natural alignment of the folding and the quad.
But just to feel the horizontal plane at the level of your lower dantian.
At the center.
Below your navel.
And just lightly above where the pubic bone is.
That internal space.
So get the sense of the horizontal plane.
In alignment with your core center.
Right?
And then that can open kind of spherically,
Too.
So it includes the whole space of your body.
All right.
Just let that settle.
What's here?
When you do that,
Can you feel that beat down connection?
Earth.
Underworld.
The beauty of the nurturance of the earth.
Then as you reach up,
Feel the beauty of the nurturance of the sky.
Or proverbial heaven.
That way of that pulse.
