Full Body Engagement, Awareness and Awakening Chi Gong

This Chi Gong practice invites you to inhabit your body more fully through conscious movement, alignment, and awareness. By engaging the body as one connected whole, you awaken the natural flow of Chi, dissolve stagnation, and cultivate a more tangible relationship with your inner energy. The result is a body that feels more alive, present, and energetically awake.

Transcript

First thing is that we're going to starting to be aware of our feet. We start from the bottom. Just put your awareness in your feet. And have your feet parallel to each other. So more conscious with its position. And just starting to rock forward and back. Just feel your weight on your feet. Just be aware. What do they feel like today? Good. I'm starting to make small circles. So starting to move your ankle. And breathe your awareness into your ankle. Softer knee, Starting to soften. Yeah. And then you can change direction if you like. Get to know your position. Get to know your body. From bottom up. Good. And really press down. They call it tiger's feet, Really like feel your feet sinking into the ground. So spread your awareness a little more and drop into your knee a little bit. So you want to feel your paws. Feel your paws. Really hold your weight underneath your bottom, Underneath your body, Right? Feel the toes. How my toes are spread and hold my attention. Good job. And if you want to start playing, So at this point, Your knees are soft. You're starting to feel that stacking of the weight. You let your bones, Your structures do the work. So soften your muscle, Don't hold it with muscle. Yes, Shaking is a very good tool to get there. So it reminds your muscle to relax. Good job, Good job. Softer knee, Softer knee. Good, Good. So I'm going to play a little more. This time, I pay attention to my feet one more time. And I use my intention, I press the inner arch. So I press it down. Ah, Drop into the bottom of your feet. Feel your weight spread even. And from here, I'm going to press into the whole feet and I peel my knees open. Yes, Good job. So I stretch the inner arch. Good. By doing this, You're protecting your knee. Do you feel that? You give it a little bit of a structure to the knee. You become less secure in your entire posture. You feel that? Yeah. So this is how you protect your knee. You wanted to build that. Let's do this a few rounds. You really open and close. Open and close. Get to know this bit. Yeah, And slow, Slow motion, So it's not harsh, Slow. It's like drilling the knees, Right? You're drilling your bones. Yes, Good job. Even a little more. Now you get it. Open up a little more. How far can you open without moving your feet? And once you open it, Sink your body even lower into this base. Yeah, We're playing this thing called Wuji Stand. And this thing is so rich and I pick different angle to talk about it in the beginning. Sometimes I talk about spine alignment. Today, We talk about the knees. I want you to feel what correct position feels like. So this is something you can take. Further with you, Right? When we start moving, When we start to do Tai Chi and Qigong, You always want to have a little bit of a lock in your knees to protect your knees. Otherwise, Once you get convoluted, You might hurt yourself. So starting to build this really subtle mechanism in your body so you start to protect yourself from the very beginning before we go further. Good job, So that's it, Just take this. I don't wanna take, I don't wanna, One more thing about Wuji stamp. Okay, What's the order? Feet shoulder-width apart, This is the classic one. Have them parallel rather than lean out, Parallel, Right? Attention to the flat feet, The whole feet, And then peel my knees open without lifting up. That's the first step, Right? Once I want to do more, I go deeper, But if not, I find what's comfortable. And this is my base. The next thing you're going to do when you have this base, You're gonna tuck in your sacrum. You're gonna straighten up your spine. Yeah, And you only do it from door of life down so door of life is the opposite of naval you just You feel that? You're tugging your tailbone. You go. Yeah? Good job. You open up the spine. Good. The next part is your chest. So your chest has to be straight. It's not too open. It's ever so slightly. I don't want to use the word hunch but it's ever so slightly tugged. So the energy is being pushed ever so slightly to your dantian rather than in your heart. You don't want to energy stay in your heart. That's not a storage union. Storage union is here. It needs to go and come back, Go and come back. The same thing. It can experience a lot of emotion but not very good to hold out. So you ever so slightly tug in a little bit. Good. You still with me? Taking your chin, The same thing. So chin is up to up or down. It's tucked. Essentially, I'm just building a straight spine. And I feel my spine being elongated. As I tug my tailbone in. Create my straight spine. I feel it's being pulled up and down for both ends. I have a straight spine. On my beautiful Uji. Good. Relax. Good. The next bit, This is your base. The next bit, Only very little detail. You want to make sure the tip of your tongue is touching the back of the front teeth. It's not sinking to the bottom. Very important. Always up there. Good. Great. This is Wuji Stan. Okay. So sinking into your body from here, What do I feel when I'm here? Close your eyes. You want to just starting to allow your body recognize this is my baseline. I need to move from here. Good. And then you're starting to press your way to the ground into through your structure, See your structure like a concrete sticks, Bones, And you add pressure to your bones, You let your body shake. Make sense? Good job. Yeah, Let it shake. Good. And good. We're going to start adding more details. You're going to breathe all the way into your dantian. And let it out. So inhale deep. Yeah, Good job. So feel where you hold your own tension. A lot of it is in your shoulder. So let your shoulder really get shaped a little bit. Ah, Big inhale all the way to the belly. Soften your, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Good, Good. Let go the shoulder a little more. Really? Yeah. Good job. Good job, And we're gonna work on the wrists. Rest taste okay, So be careful when you use the rest. This is me trying too hard. This is me not trying. So, Don't unconsciously add more work. Make sure, Yeah, Stay active in the laziest way possible. We learn to be sufficient. Yeah, We learn to be, Yeah, Really shake it up. A lot of tension, A lot of accumulated heavy stuff is in your wrists. We do way too much computer work. You can just add this in between your work. Just shake it up because it literally accumulate right here. Shake it up. Shake it up, Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. Come back into the instate. So, What we just did, We moved, We did all that. It's a very young state. Every time you do a young state, You come back into the in state. You're starting to feel, Close your eyes, Check in. What's the result of what I just did? Right, Feel your body. This vibration seems to a little bit be faster, Right? Just feel this really acute visceral effect of what you just did. Maybe all the channel feels more open. There's this natural increasing flow of the chi. Noticing, Yes, Maybe the bottom of the feet starting to pause. If this is not your first time, Maybe. See y'all! The first four points you wanted to starting to make contact is two of them in the bottom of the feet. Called bubbly spring. It's in between. The two balls of the feet. I'm going to show you one time if you don't know what that is, Where that is. Here's my feet, Foot. Here's the two balls right in the middle. This is the two. It's in the center of your palms. It's called lao gong, Meaning the palace of work. So, This is connected to the heart. This is where our body do most of the output. Creativity comes out of the heart. And so the heart, The hands and the heart are very connected in our work. So just feel these two points and the bottom of the two feet. Just feel that. Starting to make contact with these points, It helps you in the long run to kind of bring awareness to the very extremities of your body. We're a little bit of unconscious in the tips of our physicality. So bring yourself, That's it. Good. And you want to link your inhale and exhale to the awareness. In your bubbly spring and Lao Gong. Good. So inhale. All the points are also pulling energy. Exhale, Not only your lungs let go, Energy also coming out of your points, Two in the center of the hands, Two in the bottom of the feet. You can, Yes, If your body naturally wants to move, Feel free. If that helps you to have more access to these points, Lean into it, Right? It helps me sometimes. The most important thing is feel when you inhale, All four points are inhaling. Along with the center of the body, Your dantian. Exhale, Everything goes out. Right? My movement starting to change really when I want to inhale, I'm pulling in. Exhale, I'm pushing out. Inhale, Come on in. I use my body and now I clench my fist, My toes. And exhale. I exaggerated this inhale and exhale. Good job. Good, Come on in one more time. Yeah, Curl your feet, Pull that energy in and exhale. Good job. Good job. Let your body naturally sink into this movement. Maybe I also raise up a little bit in my stance. And I go down because it helps me to really sinking into this inhale and exhale. Good job. Let's shake it up, Shake it up. Little stepping. And do an in-state check. Close your eyes. If standing still makes it more clear, Feel free. Or you want it to feel in state and a slight yawn. So my eyes are still closed. But I'm doing a little bit of stepping. But I'm still checking in. Good. Maybe I just sway, Like what Deborah is doing. Maybe I just move around. I feel my body. What is my interior? Landscape? How do I feel inside? Am I calm? Am I relaxed? Good. You want to keep that softness within. So again, This work comes out of the Taoist tradition. There's a lot of really understand the principle in physicality. So when we move, It's a very young thing, Right? You push, You run, You do all these things. So we have a tendency to be too young. So what helps is that if you can keep your breasts soft and long, No matter what activity you do, You get to do it longer and better. So when we move, We're starting to have that dual awareness. On the outside, I'm going to start to do things. It's very distractive. It's going to pull me out of my softness. But I always have a piece of softness I am meditating on. This now becomes moving meditation. Let's do it. That's the easy way to get there. So now we're going to come into a bigger Wuji. So when I have a bigger Wuji, My feet do need to go 45 degrees. Otherwise, This is not going to hurt me. This doesn't feel right, Right? So you actually have to do a 45 outing. Are you sinking in? And you peel your knees open and you're just sinking in. How do I feel in this high? How do I feel Where's my body when it's making this structure? What is my relationship to this? Sinking in. You can feel your edge already, Right? Your work will be going bigger and lower. Yeah. Good. Yeah, So come back. So you want to find that edge. So that's where you work. That's where your work is, Right? So for you, The next, If this is too much, If I were you, I would tag in. I'll tug in and drop down. I work on this, Right? Because essentially, We need to work on this and this, But that is too much, So we pick a, Yeah, Good job. Good job. Good. Okay, Good. That's good. Sinking a little lower. Yeah. Yeah, That's it. Just feel again, Feel your body. How do I feel when I'm here? And start shifting your weight without lifting your So you're moving your weight. Left to the right, Left to the right. Nice and easy. Good. I'm starting to make small circles. Good, Now I check in with my breath. Am I? As soft, As long as I can within this challenge. Can I not lose my. . . Can I stay chill? That's it, That's it. Right? This is what I mean. There's different ways to do Qigong and Tai Chi. If you understand which I like to think I teach, You can turn everything into Qigong and Tai Chi. Okay? It's the principle. Good. So just. . . Just kind of chilled out in this. In this space. Yeah, Just get comfortable. Right? Good job. And I comment just a little bit. Yeah, I give it a little break, And I tap where it's sore, Because this is getting worked out. So I now take care of this. Yeah, That's it. Everybody could be a little different. Yeah, For me it's here. For Katie, Katie is here, Right? That's why you're tapping here, Is that right? Okay, So ask your body, Where do you need to get tapped a little bit? And lean forward, Don't forget your lower back. Good, And then I go down to the side. And then I come in. Good, We'll do this. You're out. Relax. Remind your body relax the intention is to relax the muscle tell your muscle let it go Let the bones do it. Good, Let's wipe it off. Let's take a little water break.