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Longevity Breathing Yoga: Meditation from the Inside Out Copyright © 2009 by Bruce Frantzis. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief reviews, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher. If you wish to use any sections of this work, please contact [email protected] to find out if permission can be given. Published by Energy Arts, Inc. Publications, P. O. Box 99, Fairfax, CA 94978 The following trademarks are used under license by Energy Arts, Inc., from Bruce Frantzis: Frantzis Energy Arts ® system, Mastery Without Mystery®, Longevity Breathing® program, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body TM chi gung, Marriage of Heaven and EarthTM chi gung, Bend the BowTM spinal chi gung, Spiraling Energy BodyTM chi gung, Gods Playing in the ® Clouds TM chi gung, Living Taoism TM collection, Chi Rev WorkoutTM, HeartChiTM and Editing: Heather Hale, Energy Arts, Inc., and Ellen Pucciarelli Interior Design: Lisa Petty, GirlVibe, Inc. Cover Design: Rick Snizik, Snizik Marketing and Design, LLC with revisions by Thomas Herington, Energy Arts, Inc. Photographs: Bill Walters Illustrations: Michael McKee Models: Ellen Pucciarelli, Mountain Livingston, Energy Arts, Inc., and Katie Keane

CONTENTS Title Page Copyright & Permissions NOTICES Medical Advice Free Video

INTRODUCTION Meditation from the Inside Out

CHAPTER 1: WHY PRACTICE LONGEVITY BREATHING YOGA? Use Your Breath to Help Relax Nobody Goes to the Hospital for a Relaxation Attack

CHAPTER 2: TAOIST VIEW OF HEALTH Longevity Breathing Yoga and Hatha Yoga The Eight Energy Bodies The Eight Limbs Taoist Breathing and Yoga’s Pranayama are Similar and Different

CHAPTER 3: TRAINING THE INTERNAL SENSES Hatha Yoga: Internal Stages Taoist Spiritual Practices Awakening the Internal Senses A Bridge to Meditation

CHAPTER 4: EIGHT PRINCIPLES OF LONGEVITY BREATHING YOGA 1. Maintain the 70 Percent Rule 2. Whole-Body Breathing 3. Nerves Release, Chi Flows 4. Physical Alignments 5. Circular Movement: Everything in Taoism is a Circle 6. Put Your Mind Inside Yourself 7. Balancing the Energy Bodies 8. Internal Release Causes External Stretch

CHAPTER 5: ENERGETIC FITNESS: THE TAOIST’S MEASURE OF HEALTH Separate and Combine Nei Gung: The Sophisticated Science of Energy Flows Spiritual Fitness

Relaxing into Energetic Fitness

CHAPTER 6 : THE DISSOLVING METHOD: RECOGNIZING THE FOUR CONDITIONS Strength Tension Something That Doesn’t Feel Quite Right Contraction The Dissolving Method Let Go, Chi Flows

CHAPTER 7: FIVE BASIC POSTURES OF LONGEVITY BREATHING YOGA Opening Your Practice Opening the Body to Breath Posture 1: Stretching Forward Posture 2: Japanese Style, Forward Bend Posture 3: Japanese Style, Forward Bend with One Leg In Front Posture 4: Lying on Back, Knees Up Posture 5: Wide Angle, Forward Stretch without Arm Position Closing Your Practice

APPENDIX 1: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS APPENDIX 2: ENERGY ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN BODY The Main Energy Channels and the Three Tantiens

APPENDIX 3: TAOISM: A LIVING TRADITION The Frantzis Energy Arts System Training Opportunities Other Books by Bruce Frantzis

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOOTNOTES

NOTICES Medical Advice The practice of Taoist energy arts and the meditative arts may carry risks. The information in this text is not in any way intended as a substitute for medical, mental or emotional counseling with a licensed physician or healthcare provider. The reader should consult a professional before undertaking any martial arts, movement, meditative arts, health or exercise program to reduce the chance of injury or any other harm that may result from pursuing or trying any technique discussed in this book. Any physical or other distress experienced during or after any exercise should not be ignored and should be brought to the attention of a health-care professional. The creators and publishers of this text disclaim any liabilities for loss in connection with following any of the practices described in this text, and implementation is at the discretion, decision and risk of the reader.

Free Video A free DVD showing the opening set for Longevity Breathing yoga is available at the Yoga Journal Conference. If you didn’t receive a copy, visit EnergyArts.com and click on “videos” to see a free demonstration.

INTRODUCTION Rarely taught in the West, Longevity Breathing® yoga, Bruce Frantzis’ method for teaching Taoist yoga, is ancient China’s soft yet powerful internal yoga system. It involves stretching postures similar to Hatha yoga to develop the practitioner’s internal energy (also known as chi or qi) while making use of the relaxation principles of tai chi and chi gung (also known as qigong). Longevity Breathing yoga is a stress-reducing method for stimulating relaxed chi flow without using any force.

Meditation from the Inside Out Traditionally, yoga was a means for preparing practitioners to meditate. In fact the word asana is translated as “posture,” which literally means “seat.” So, yoga was specifically meant to help you develop your seat for meditation practice, whether for stress reduction or spiritual growth and development.

CHAPTER 1 Why Practice Longevity Breathing Yoga?

W hen I was living in Tokyo at the age of nineteen, I studied Hatha yoga with Perr Wynter, a Norwegian man. His first teacher was an Indian yogi who lived up the fjord from him. When he was in his twenties, Perr went to India to study at the Shivananda Ashram and became an exceptional Hatha yogi. When he took some time to travel in Malaysia, his money and passport were stolen. So, in order to earn money, he worked for a circus and eventually became well known for folding himself into a suitcase. What was interesting was that Perr could do virtually any Hatha yoga posture that existed. He was the yoga teacher of Yamaguchi Gogen, the legendary founder of Goju Kai Karate Do. Since we both also studied aikido and tai chi together, I came to understand that Perr’s chi did not really flow. He had a kind of semi-spastic quality to his movements and he was known as a rather poor student of the martial arts even after years of practicing. Despite being extremely healthy and strong, he was relatively uncoordinated. How could this human rubber band not have energy flowing in his body? It wasn’t until I trained in the internal martial arts, chi gung and static Taoist postures (which I refer to and teach as Longevity Breathing yoga), all of which powerfully developed my own chi, that I was able to figure out Perr’s perplexing situation. Perr had stretched his muscle fibers to the extent that he became extremely flexible. He had precise mechanical control of his body, but he was not a relaxed person. He did not have the fluidity and ease that tai chi and aikido can give you. He was not relaxed in the sound of his voice or the way in which he moved. The lesson I learned was that people can do yoga, be super stretched and flexible and yet still be incredibly tense with chi bound inside them. Perr’s nerves were taut and so was the energy that ran through him.

Use Your Breath to Help Relax The primary emphasis in Longevity Breathing yoga is to stimulate the flow of chi and free any blocked chi. Combining gentle postures and Taoist whole-body-breathing techniques progressively opens the body’s energy channels, activating and strengthening the flow of chi. Longevity Breathing yoga has many gentle, seated postures, held from two to five minutes each. Because the postures require virtually no muscular effort, they enable you to “go internal” easily, to focus on feeling where the chi is blocked and to gently free it up. You quickly become aware of where chi is flowing and where it is not. As you hold a posture or move to the next one, you are taught to breathe continuously and smoothly from the belly. The breath is never held or restricted; there is no forcing of the breath and no attempt to push or elongate the length of the inhale and exhale. Smooth, continuous breathing enables your nervous system to relax as you hold a posture or move to the next one. There is no activation of any physical, mental or emotional tension or contraction. Chi blockages therefore encounter progressively less resistance in the posture you are holding and are able to release until your chi eventually has a natural, free-flowing quality.

Nobody Goes to the Hospital for a Relaxation Attack Longevity Breathing yoga can be practiced by people of any age or body type. Because the emphasis is not on the stretch or on developing complex postures, there is no feeling of competition to “look good in the posture.” Injuries are also a rare

occurrence. Although many of the postures in Longevity Breathing yoga resemble the beginning and intermediate postures of Hatha yoga, Longevity Breathing yoga never forces your body or asks you to do extreme stretches. Instead of focusing on the external qualities of a given posture as in most forms of yoga, Longevity Breathing yoga is meant to help you put your awareness into your body. There is little concern about how far you can lengthen tissue, muscles, ligaments and tendons. Rather, you put your attention on releasing chi blockages from within the body. Conversely, when your efforts are directed at holding difficult postures or on stretching the muscles, the nervous system reacts by closing up the energy channels. A negative feedback loop is created. Although you can force the muscles to stretch, your body can become incredibly tense and shut down. Using the internal relaxation techniques of Longevity Breathing yoga, you will naturally begin to stretch further over time as you progressively relax without straining or pushing.

CHAPTER 2 Taoist View of Health

Many traditions, including Taoism, based on ancient philosophies and religions have vibrantly continued into modern times. Because they manifest in our lives today, they are called living traditions. Taoist chi practices are based on principles of Chinese medicine developed thousands of years ago. According to traditional Chinese medicine, health is defined by all aspects of your chi being in balance, including physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. How energetically fit you are—how much chi is in your body and whether it is flowing smoothly or is blocked—determines the state of your health. If chi is flowing freely throughout the body, there are no problems and you will experience physical health, emotional well-being, joy and peace of mind. If chi becomes stagnant or imbalanced, blockages form and correspond to negative emotions, disease, pain, illness and generally downgrade the state of your health. Becoming healthy includes both being free from organic illness or injury and being energetically fit so you have the strength, vitality and stamina to ward off stress, injury and disease in the first place. Longevity Breathing yoga has been practiced for millennia to simultaneously smooth out and balance your chi in all aspects, starting in the physical body.

Longevity Breathing Yoga and Hatha Yoga Chinese and Indian traditions share a common goal: To calm the internal noise of the monkey mind—swinging from tree to tree—and connect with the chi that penetrates and interconnects all and everything. The Taoists call this energy chi; the Hindus call it prana. Both Longevity Breathing yoga and Hatha yoga can help lead you to experience the final goal of not only quieting the monkey mind, but also experiencing enlightenment. Taoists call this inner stillness emptiness or merging with the Body of the Tao; Hatha yogis call it Samadhi. At the initial levels of practice, Longevity Breathing yoga and Hatha yoga practices differ; at the higher levels, on the path towards enlightenment, the practices converge. Both are concerned with using chi or prana to awaken and use the inner senses, leading to high levels of clarity and universal awareness.

The Eight Energy Bodies As with all chi practices, Longevity Breathing yoga helps you feel the energy of your postures so that you can feel, move, balance and store the energy that flows in the main energy channels of your body. Many people, even those who can feel chi directly, associate chi with just their physical body. However, your body does not only have one energy field. The Taoists found that we possess eight different energy bodies that spiral into the energies of the universe. They can be likened to the rings of water that disperse outward when you throw a stone into a lake. Chi flows through each of the eight energy bodies, which vibrate at increasingly higher frequencies inside you. The energy bodies connect you to the same energy bodies that exist in all organisms and throughout the universe.

The Eight Energy Bodies: 1.

The flesh of the physical body.

2.

The chi body, which fuels the physical body.

3.

The emotional body, which gives rise to your emotions, both positive and negative.

4.

The mental body, which causes thoughts to function, whether with clarity or confusion.

5.

The psychic body, which allows us to find our hidden internal capacities and helps our intuition or psychic perceptions become concrete.

6.

The causal body, which causes karma to flow.

7.

The body of individuality, which enables the actual birth of the full spiritual being commonly referred to as our essence.

8.

The realization of the TAO or the entire universe, which few people ever actualize.

When viewed carefully, these energy bodies comprise all the aspects that humans can experience regardless of time, place or circumstances. The eight energy bodies serve as metaphorical maps of consciousness that pragmatically help you attain spiritual clarity and balance. Longevity Breathing Yoga teaches you to find and let go of deeply embedded energy blockages that lock in tension into the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of yourself in your first seven energy bodies. As you progress towards enlightenment you must be become aware of and eventually release all the blockages in the first seven energy bodies that prevent you from actualizing the Tao.

The Eight Limbs Hatha yoga has eight stages of progressing towards enlightenment or Samadhi. Classically, Hatha yoga is based upon eight limbs, as codified by Pantajali in the Yoga Sutras. 1 The initial four “external” limbs function as wonderful roads to maintain vibrant physical health and manage stress. The final four “internal” limbs can help you to transcend the deepest levels of human stress and fully awaken your human spiritual potential. The four external limbs are morality (yama and niyama), postures (asanas) and breath or energy control (pranayama). Even though the styles and specific contents of the first four stages of external practices differ significantly, the basic principles parallel those of Longevity Breathing yoga and other Taoist energy arts, such as tai chi and chi gung. Yama and niyama, the first two limbs, set forth moral goals and practices—what you should and should not do. Some of these ideals are not necessarily about chi or prana per se, but are instead concern with creating a moral and emotional context to prevent you from burning up your energy and putting yourself into situations that will constantly create stress. Asanas, the third limb, are commonly translated as physical postures. However, classically asana means “seat.” They are developed not only so that you can sit comfortably for prolonged periods of time during meditation, but also as stretching positions that enable the energies of your body to flow in a balanced manner rather than in ways that close down or make your body become exceedingly agitated. This is congruent with many of the goals of Longevity Breathing yoga where physical postures facilitate balance and the flow of energy through your channels so that the energy of the body, mind and spirit become very comfortable and at ease. The physical exercises help prepare the body and mind so that it can be relaxed and comfortable while meditating.

Taoist Breathing and Yoga’s Pranayama are Similar and Different

Pranayama, the fourth limb, concerns the breath and energy practices of Hatha yoga. Prana means chi and breath; yama means control. So in a sense, the goal of classic yoga breathing exercises is to help you control your breath and chi. Every breath you take contains chi or prana. When breathing exercises are taken to a far enough degree, you can pass the line that distinguishes chi from breath and learn to take chi or prana directly into your body. This was the classic goal of pranayama. Today many people do not distinguish between chi and breath although the Taoists and yogis do. The metaphor used in China and India to help people distinguish between the two is to say that every ton of gem-producing dirt may only contain a few ounces of the gem. The dirt is breath; the gem is chi. The purpose of both Taoist and Hatha yoga breathing exercises is to take you to a place where you can contact the energy of your body and spirit purely with your mind, regardless of the kind of breathing exercise you do. The way they are taught, however, differs in the Chinese and Indian traditions. Many core practices of pranayama teach you to hold your breath in a variety of ways or to breathe in or out of one nostril. The yogis believe that holding the breath can eventually take you to a place where you can contact chi or prana. In some ways, this kind of breathing is linear and angular, because you are breathing in, holding, breathing out, holding. There are very clear stop and starts. In the Taoist tradition the breath is never held. Longevity Breathing yoga practices teach you relaxed, circular, whole-body breathing that is similar to how you breathed as a baby. There is neither forcing of the breath nor any attempt to push or to elongate it, although over time the breath naturally becomes progressively longer. Eventually, when the flow of your inhales and exhales merge (so there is no sense of holding or stopping) your breath becomes circular. Ancient Taoists found that circular breathing makes it dramatically easier to relax the nervous system. In contrast, the stopand-start quality in many people’s breath is interpreted by the nervous system as tension, causing chemical releases in the body to counter the stress response. Once you can do a very smooth and relaxed circular breath, it follows that it becomes dramatically easier to link to the circular nature of your chi. Tension inhibits chi flow. The more you relax, the more strongly your chi will flow. This enables you to focus your awareness on the smooth, balanced flow of energy, so that there is no revving up of the nervous system or disconnection inside the body. According to the Taoists, holding the breath can also create a tremendous amount of internal pressure that can explosively awaken the emotions. For example, without realizing it, people involuntarily hold their breath and their faces turn red just before they fly into rage. Circular breathing helps to relax your emotions by avoiding the stress response in the body that causes the release of chemicals, like cortisol and adrenaline and thereby interrupting the negative feedback loop. Not only does the nervous system keep from releasing stress-related chemicals, but also it simultaneously sends signals that allow the body to let go and relax. Once you master circular breathing techniques in your practice, you can apply it to your daily life and breathe in this manner 24 hours a day.

CHAPTER 3 Training the Internal Senses

The Taoist and Hatha yoga traditions are on the same page with regards to the basics of training the internal stages. The internal stages of yoga (limbs five to eight) parallel the chi practices of Taoist spiritual practices, including Taoist meditation and spiritual martial arts.

Hatha Yoga: Internal Stages The first four limbs of the yoga sutras are external stages of practice in Hatha yoga and are considered to be foundational preparations for spirituality. The final inner four stages are considered the essence of progress towards enlightenment. Pratyahara, the fifth limb of Hatha yoga, or sense withdrawal, is very basic to classic Hatha yoga practices. One way it is commonly taught is for students to meditate, focus on their breath and chant the mantra “Om.” While meditating and chanting the mantra “Om,” any sound you think you hear doesn’t only come from your ears. It ultimately comes out of your heart which is the seat of consciousness and thought. You hear “Om” in your inner senses because it is the vibration that permeates the universe. Dharna, the sixth limb, is commonly translated as “concentration.” However this is not the ordinary kind of concentration or mental focus needed to do arithmetic. It is the ability to concentrate on the subtle qualities of what the internal senses have found. This may only be achieved intermittently, for periods of only a few seconds or perhaps minutes. Dhyana, the seventh limb, is commonly translated as “meditation.” Dhyana is about taking the intermittent concentration of dharna to the next level where concentration becomes continuous and can stay with whatever it is your internal senses are working on for very long periods of time. When dhayna is applied to some quality of energy for sufficient time and depth, the preparation for the eighth stage of Samadhi is in play. Samadhi or super-consciousness (eighth limb) has several progressively more complete forms. It is often translated as states of super-consciousness or peak experiences of altered states of consciousness.

Taoist Spiritual Practices The internal stages of yoga (limbs five to eight) parallel the chi practices of Taoist spiritual practices, including Taoist meditation and spiritual martial arts. All spiritual paths have signature methods, such as following the breath, saying mantras or prayers and visualizations. The Water tradition of Taoism also has a signature method called Inner Dissolving, which is applied to release blocked chi in the eight energy bodies. By directing ones attention inward and withdrawing it from the ordinary external five senses, one can encounter and awaken the inner senses, which can be used to directly feel chi blockages and clear them by using the Inner Dissolving method. The qualities of dharna and dhayna run parallel to the Inner Dissolving process, discussed in Chapter 6, that is taught in the advanced stages of Longevity Breathing yoga, TAO meditation and spiritual martial arts. Practitioners first develop relaxed, continuous and unbroken attention for long periods of time without becoming tense, distracted or dissociated—even for only

the smallest fraction of a second. Taoists say that if someone could remain relaxed and continuously aware from the time it takes to watch a leaf fall from a branch, float on a gentle wind and touch the ground, then that individual could open to his or her innermost essence or being. The goal in TAO meditation is to bring the internal senses to a high level of clarity so that you are able to focus on the qualities of the chi that run through all eight energy bodies. Emptiness or actualization of the TAO, the eighth energy body, corresponds to the final state of Samadhi or enlightenment.

Awakening the Internal Senses In Eastern thought humans have two different kinds of senses: external and internal. Everyone knows the five external senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. However, most people are unaware of the more subtle capacities of their corresponding internal or psychic senses— those that enable them to experience most subtle qualities of chi. This situation parallels that of a totally blind or deaf person who is not aware of the magical qualities of a painting or song except as hearsay or abstract theory, which their personal experience cannot verify. Rather than your attention flowing to the outer world, so that your senses hear/see/smell/ touch/taste what is in the external world, your attention withdraws inward. You may hear or feel internal vibrations or conjure up internal visualizations of your energies at very deep levels of your unconscious mind, and your senses move inward. At some point, when your internal senses have completely awakened, you won’t have to imagine or visualize your energy channels, you will feel them. All genuine forms of Chinese, Indian and Tibetan forms of yoga, as well as high-level internal martial arts and meditation traditions, train practitioners to become aware of the inner senses. If the internal senses remain dormant the complete energetic pathways to spirituality remain closed. Developing your sensitivity to chi requires awakening the inner senses to reach places where intellectual awareness alone can never go. Over time the internal senses can enable yoga practitioners to consciously recognize progressively more subtle chi both internally and externally, including:

The energy channels and points that allow the physical body to work The subtle emotions and thoughts living in the hidden depths of the unconscious, which have yet to break into conscious thoughts or emotions The energy channels of the normally unseen worlds where psychic perceptions and karma flow Alternate realities and super-conscious states of mind.

Developing awareness of inner sensations during higher-level Longevity Breathing yoga practice might include:

Seeing the flux of chi in the external auras of other living things Obtaining visions without strain (beyond merely thinking thoughts), including ones which might have a threedimensional, living, vibrant quality Clairvoyance Being aware and able to track or hear the vibratory qualities of chi inside the various parts of your own or another’s physical body, energy matrix or psyche Acquiring a sense of inner touch where you can tangibly feel, rather than only imagine, chi sensations interacting within or between you and others.

A Bridge to Meditation The more you let go, the more you relax, the more smoothly your chi flows and the more open and present you become. It’s a synergistic process that leads you to a point of stillness inside yourself. Reaching a profound, relaxed stillness is the stable foundation necessary for allowing your spiritual path to unfold. Longevity Breathing yoga helps you form the seat needed for deeper and deeper meditation work. Longevity Breathing yoga is used as a bridge to meditation in the Taoist tradition because it is so effective at calming the monkey mind. As you focus on the circularity of your breath and chi from one posture to another, it becomes easier to let go of your thoughts and emotions. You locate blockages in your body and attend to them without all the internal dialogue that wants to fight or control them. Longevity Breathing Yoga allows you to begin the journey to enter deep stages of meditation. This goes back to the ultimate goal of yoga, which is meditation for spiritual enlightenment. To get there, you have to be able to penetrate your consciousness and make the shift from an external to an internal orientation.

CHAPTER 4 Eight Principles of Longevity Breathing Yoga

Cultural conditioning in the West has trained us to push, push, push and go for broke. This is not only stressful to your mind, body and spirit, but also is very similar to the nature of addictions. You push yourself toward the next hit, the next high, the biggest adrenalin rush, the newest acquisition—the next of whatever hides behind the push. It’s not a sustainable, regenerative process. Longevity Breathing yoga always advocates relaxation. As you practice you want to have a sense that the internal release causes the external stretch; releasing the nerves of the body is the origin of the stretch. You won’t find the internal release without relaxation; it is derived from physical, mental and emotional relaxation. There is never a deliberate activation of tension or any kind of contraction in any of the Longevity Breathing yoga postures. While practicing, consider the following eight principles:

1. Maintain the 70 Percent Rule Longevity Breathing yoga never forces your body, breath or emotions, or demands that you do extreme stretching postures. Such postures can reinforce deeply embedded tensions, causing the nervous system to reflexively contract. Instead, principles of moderation are emphasized so that the nervous system never goes into overdrive. Habits of tension are replaced with habits of relaxation. The external look is not as important as what is happening inside the stretch. Stimulating chi flow—to 70 percent of your ability, whatever your current state of health—is the key. A primary goal of Longevity Breathing yoga is to learn to exert full effort without pushing. In fact, the Taoists found thousands of years ago that doing less—around 70 percent of your ability—will not only allow you to maintain your output levels, but actually helps you achieve the fastest results. It may seem counterintuitive at first, but what are the two biggest hurdles in any athlete’s career? Injury and burnout. Here, a major dictum of Taoism prevails: Tension, of whatever kind, inhibits relaxation and is difficult to maintain over the long haul; relaxation frees up your energy, giving you more stamina and strength. Many people have never even contemplated, much less experienced, the possibility of approaching activities in a relaxed manner. We live in a stressed-out, sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated, technology-driven age where inputs are constantly coming at us in bits and bytes and multitasking is the norm. Staying within 70 percent when practicing Longevity Breathing yoga is what allows you to begin opening up the chi in your body; it balances what is too strong and too weak. The 70 percent rule can be applied to your:

The length and intensity of your breath Physical postures Energy blockages

The heart of all Taoist energy practices is the 70 percent rule or rule of moderation. What enables people of all ages to achieve the benefits of Longevity Breathing yoga and apply them to their everyday life is learning to practice and live with moderation. Striving for 100 percent produces tension and stress. As soon as you strain or go beyond your capacity, your body has a natural tendency to tense or shut down. Staying within your comfort boundaries will enable your physical and emotional tensions to gradually decrease and, in time, disappear.

2. Whole-Body Breathing Longevity Breathing is whole-body breathing—the foundation of all Taoist longevity practices, including yoga. Longevity Breathing can help make the inside of your body become fully alive and healthy. It cultivates your ability to relax at any time and to concentrate on what you are doing for prolonged periods of time without becoming distracted because it gets your chi moving.

End Shallow Breathing Doctors report that up to 90 percent of Americans do not fully use their diaphragms while breathing. They take shallow breaths and only use a portion of the lungs, even when they believe they are taking deep breaths. Not using the rest of the lungs is like starving the body from one of its most important rejuvenators.1 When you contract, your chi is inherently blocked from moving freely and locks up somewhere in the body, most commonly the shoulders, stomach or jaw. Moreover, when people take shallower and shallower breaths or hold their breath, their bodies become more and more sluggish. Releasing stress becomes difficult so tension lodges in the body and cells. Over time, it takes progressively more energy to maintain the same amount of concentration or physical activity. Imagine what happens to your body as you age. Longevity Breathing can help Longevity Breathing yoga practitioners to:

Fully engage the diaphragm, which physically causes air to enter and leave the lungs Recondition the nervous system from the reflex of perpetually going into stress to the reflex of normally going into relaxation Improve the circulation of fluids and the natural movement within the internal organs, making them less prone to disease Help the body rest and receive the optimal benefits of sleep Deliver more oxygen to all of the cells Strengthen the movement of chi.

Practicing Longevity Breathing in Taoist yoga postures helps open up your body and counter the involuntary clench of tension with relaxation. As your practice evolves, you will eventually recognize the connection between your breath and your emotions, particularly when the negative emotions come crashing in. Most have never considered that they are capable of keeping their composure even in stressful situations. However, as you practice Longevity Breathing yoga, you learn to use this important skill to calm yourself down, 2 helping you to act with clarity, so you don’t make a negative event worse. The calmer you are, the more easily your chi flows and grows. The steadier and less inhibited the chi flow, the more oxygen the cells can absorb. As your cells receive reinforcement—continuous breathing over weeks, months and years—they become more efficient, improving your circulation. It is a powerful synergy. Most people have trained their bodies to be tense and hard, which in turn restricts their chi flow.

Your Blood is the Train, Oxygen is the Cargo

Having more air in your lungs is only responsible for about five percent of the actual benefit that can be realized by increasing the quality of your breathing. The real benefits lie in the steady flow of blood and fluids through your system and the smoothing of your nerves. If you are experiencing discomfort, pain or dysfunction in any part of your body, chances are that the flow of blood through that area is less than optimal. If an area is starved of life-giving blood flow, that area will be weakened and not function optimally. The smoother and more unencumbered the diaphragm and breathing process become the more deeply the positive pressures caused by breathing can work their way through the tissues of your body. Taoist yoga postures combined with Longevity Breathing create a powerful synergy for opening up stuck or blocked areas within the body and making them supple again. By learning to breathe with your whole body, and having the sensation of the breath enter into every nook and cranny that you can perceive—those stagnant, numb and dormant spots—will come alive again. As this happens, chi, blood and fluids will flow freely. The blood is a train that delivers the cargo of fresh, nourishing oxygen to the cells of your body. You can have all the cargo (air/breathing capacity) you want, but without the delivery mechanism of the blood, it will do you no good. A smooth, even, relaxed breath provides the vehicle to move the oxygen that you’re taking in to the deepest layers of your body.

Breathe Like a Baby Longevity Breathing begins in the belly. The basic nature of Longevity Breathing is to get everything inside your body— muscles, internal organs, fluids—to move in sync with your breathing. Belly breathing creates one rhythm using the metronome of your breath, patterned after that of babies. Everything inside a baby’s body moves in tandem with its breath, the secret to the infant’s boundless, virtually limitless energy. When you breathe from your belly, you pressurize the inside of your stomach cavity—front, sides and back—thereby moving your diaphragm and drawing air into the entirety of your lungs. As your lungs fill with air, all your internal organs, tissues and blood vessels expand. Instead of feeling sluggish or contracted, this kind of breathing fully wakes you up. It increases your ability to focus and gives you more energy without the buzzing sensation associated with caffeine intake or an adrenaline rush.

Breathing Guidelines While Practicing the Postures Breathe softly; no forcing or pushing is necessary Breathe through your nose unless you have specific medical problems that prevent you from doing so Do not strain by trying to take a longer breath or forcing the breath in any way whatsoever; moderation—the 70 percent rule—is paramount Keep your tongue on the roof of your mouth and as relaxed as you can; this contact connects two major chi flows in the body.

The following exercises will help you begin the process of breathing smoothly, evenly and strongly. Practice these exercises with the postures from the Longevity Breathing yoga set.

Feel Your Breath Breathe in and breathe out. Focus on taking a measure of what your breath feels like. Before you can change anything or learn new ways of breathing, you need to take stock of where you are right now. Don’t be concerned with trying to change anything. Ask yourself, “What are some of the qualities of my breath?” Do not focus on interpretations. Human beings naturally analyze; just gently guide your attention back to the inhale-exhale. Here are some things to gently focus on:

Is your inhale longer than your exhale or vice versa?

Do you involuntarily hold your breath between the inhale-exhale and, vice versa, between the exhale-inhale? As you inhale or exhale, are there places where your breath seems to spurt or jerk? Is your breathing relaxed or tense? Do you have to maintain strain or effort to breathe?

Use Your Breath to Consciously Relax Use your conscious intention to just start relaxing your body in coordination with your breath. Very deliberately, as your breath comes in, relax. As your breath goes out, let go and relax more. This will help you begin to associate the act of breathing with relaxing your body. Put your attention on your face, neck and shoulders, a place where many hold tension. Is the inhale or exhale making you tenser, or more relaxed? Just notice what is really going on as you breathe and forget why. Once you discover the level of tension that is working in you right now, every time you inhale and exhale, deliberately relax those places in your body that involuntarily tense without you telling them to do so. Just bringing some conscious attention to places that are commonly tensed as you breathe will help gently relax them. You will find that if you let your breath be steady and soft, the tension will more easily release. If you tense your muscles, your breath gets choppy—having a start-and-stop, start-and-stop, start-and-stop quality. You will probably notice that when there is a sense of tension in your breathing, your muscles cannot relax. They will either maintain their level of tension or become even tenser. Try to breathe as softly, steadily and calmly as you can. With each breath, see if you can let your tension go a little more—if you can. If not, it’s okay. In time, you will.

Breathe Without Holding the Breath Many people hold their breath between the inhale and exhale or vice versa, particularly when they are highly focused, tense, excited, frightened or angry. Habitually holding the breath creates tension in the nervous system. So, next, focus on making your breath smooth between the inhale-exhale and vice-versa, without stops and starts.

3. Nerves Release, Chi Flows Your breath is a direct portal into your nervous system. Breath training is the easiest and most available tool for gaining access to the nerves and beginning to relax them into a state of clarity. So Longevity Breathing yoga fosters relaxation, initially by focusing on the breath. The presence and peace of mind that you have created helps your nerves to release, which stimulates energy flow since chi runs through your nerves. As your nerves let go, signals of tension to the muscles simultaneously become quiet. So taut tissue, ligaments and tendons can now open up and stretch further. 3 Although the amount you stretch is not important, in time you are likely to find that your range of motion increases dramatically.

Your Nervous System Is Your Interface with Life Your nerves govern the sensations through which you experience your life. When your nerves are smooth, those sensations are vivid and clear and add a great deal of joy to your daily life. When the rhythm of the nervous system is taxed and spiked, the quality of your felt bodily sensations is dramatically decreased. To make this point very obvious, clench your hand into a fist and see if your ability to feel your hand goes up or down. Now take your other hand, make it as relaxed as possible, and touch something in front of you. Did you feel more or less? This is a primary reason why stress is such an insidious plague of our modern age. Stress is really just a fancy word for tension. The hustle and bustle “hurry up and wait” lifestyles of our modern age are shredding people’s nervous systems and in the process, numbing them to much of the happiness that is possible through the higher level of body awareness that relaxed nerves create. It is this deep access to the nerves that is responsible for many of the spectacular feats of body control that masters of

many disciplines are known for in the East. If you take your Longevity Breathing yoga practice far enough, it becomes a way to bridge the gap between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. This has the capacity to take you to whole new levels of body awareness and sensitivity.

4. Physical Alignments The basic postures featured in the following Longevity Breathing yoga set aim to open you up from the inside out, which allows your breath to fully enter every cavity of your body. Maintaining proper physical alignments in the postures is a key component in Longevity Breathing yoga’s methodology. Poor alignments will close down the space inside your body, making it difficult for your breath to enter the body’s deeper interior folds and cavities. Likewise, it is important that you do not collapse. Imagine you are being gently held up by a string from the centerline of your body. Everything is gently lifted and not crushing anything else.

Find Your Alignments What does it mean to be aligned? An alignment involves connecting two seemingly separate pieces. However, it’s not only about connecting, but also about maintaining a smooth flow between the two parts. Each supports the other. When you sit, you start by aligning your body. As you maintain your physical alignments, you eventually learn how to align your energy. Make sure your bottom is squarely on the floor. Don’t tilt one way or the other. Just let your bottom sit on the floor until it stabilizes and you can let the bones of the pelvis relax. If the floor is too hard, sit on something softer. If you are practicing a modified version of the Longevity Breathing set by sitting in a chair, make sure your feet are on the floor; you want to feel your feet aligning with the ground, as if they are connected to it. You also want to have the sense that your legs are growing out of your body, and that your hips and legs feel stable and at ease. You don’t want any dissonance. Your legs should feel like two pipes that fit together so that water could flow through them without leaking.

Correct

Incorrect

Correct

Incorrect Next, check that you have the sense of straightening your spine. Most people, when they sit for long periods, collapse to the left or to the right. You want to remain positioned in the center, as if a flexible straight beam were running down the middle of you. If you put your hands on your sides, you will feel something soft between the top your hips and the bottom of your ribs—your midriff or external oblique muscles (see figures on previous page). Every once in a while you can gently rock from one side to other to open up this area, which is one of the more common contractions—the shrinking in the middle of the body. Then slowly go back to the center. Have the sense of a line dropping from the center of your head right through your pelvis and out of your perineum—the spot between your anus and your genitals at the bottom of your pelvis. If you do this, your back will be straight and you won’t lean forward or backward. You should have the sense that the crown of your head is sitting directly over your pelvis. Go back to your midriff and make sure that you are lifting that area a little. If you have some space there, your diaphragm will not collapse and you’ll be able to keep the middle section of your spine fairly straight. Relax your chest and breathe deeply from your belly. Many people find that their necks are not in the best of shape, so they have to bend their head forward a little. The rule in meditation is that as long as it’s stretching your whole spine, you can let your head go forward slightly, but never tilt backward. When you go backward, it shuts down the place between the bottom of your skull and the first vertebra. This scrambles signals coming from your brain down your spine, which can cause feelings of stress and unpleasant sensations in your nerves. If you tilt your head forward, make sure your windpipe isn’t constricted. Stay well back from that point. Keep your chin comfortable and relaxed by adjusting your head over your chest and pelvis. In America, the single most common chiropractic adjustment is between the bottom of the skull and the top of the neck at the atlas axis, or the occipital junction. For various reasons, many people tend to bend their head the wrong way and jam their neck. Open up the very back of your neck just a little so that you feel the top of your neck where it connects to your head. In old Victorian England, if a lady came by, a gentleman would lift his hat ever so slightly off his head. In the same way you want to feel that your skull is raised off your neck very slightly.

Sit Well, Be Grounded Be present to your body when sitting. Lean a little forward and then go back a little until you find the balance point where a straight line is created down the very middle of your body, in front of your spine and behind your chest, belly and hips. Once

you can maintain it, scan down from the top of your head, feel whether your body is aligned and adjust as necessary.

5. Circular Movement: Everything in Taoism is a Circle A fundamental principle of Taoism is that the body is a hologram. Every single part of your body is directly energetically connected to every other part of your body. When practicing Longevity Breathing yoga postures, it’s important to activate the body three-dimensionally. If you feel something blocked anywhere in your body, you do not go further into the stretch. By applying the 70 percent rule, once you feel a blockage approaching you stop 30 percent before you get there. In the process of doing this, the energies in your body will link with each other and begin to become a hologram so that the flow between one part and every other either to the front, back or side part of the body is equal thereby greatly increasing the overall chi of your body. All bodily energy runs in a circle. The chi in your body does not flow in a linear fashion; it continuously circulates. All the motion in Longevity Breathing yoga is eventually based upon bringing together all the various yin and yang oppositions in the body that can become complimentary so they connect with each other instead of disconnecting. So moving in a circular fashion actually creates and increases the flow of chi. Circular action also makes it difficult to unconsciously become injured. When moving into and out of postures in a circular fashion you’re able to feel the pressure change in an area if it is hurt. Whereas when you move linearly, you may just feel the parts of your body that are fine and only recognize the hurt parts at the end of the movement after the damage is done. Prevention is the key. Whenever you make a circular movement, you become aware of everything that’s in the pressure of whichever whole line of the body you are working. If a weakness is present you become aware of it at ever-greater degrees. Circular movement allows you to recognize weakness or damage while it’s occurring so you may adjust and avoid injury. Applying circular movements, especially when transitioning from one posture to the next, will maximum your Longevity Breathing yoga practice.

6. Put Your Mind Inside Yourself Longevity Breathing yoga aims to make everything inside your body conscious. It starts with training your mind to go inside yourself and become aware of what’s there. In the beginning, all you want to do is recognize what is present. When you go inside all you’re going to find is what’s there. Once you develop your awareness, you will begin to notice that some places call out attention to themselves. These are places where chi is blocked and you’ll want to get it flowing smoothly again by using your mind’s intent. Without the use of force, you’ll simply see if you can get these areas to relax a little bit. You just have the willingness for them to relax—not a demand for them to. Rome wasn’t built in a day. As you continue to practice, maybe even for just 15 minutes a day, you begin to transform deeply conditioned habits of tension in your body, mind and spirit into habits of relaxation. From this place, inner stillness and the calming of the mind can be achieved. The Taoists call it sung shin or “relaxing into your being.”

7. Balancing the Energy Bodies Physical Balance As with all chi practices, Longevity Breathing yoga encourages balance. In the beginning it’s about maintaining physical balance in the body. For example, you want to stretch left and right sides equally. If you can stretch all the way to the floor on one side of your body in a posture but only a quarter of the way down on the other side of your body (the weaker side), you will need to release the resistance on the weaker side first before going any lower on either side. Not doing so will create imbalances that could lead to injury and other complications. The point to remember is that we’re only as strong as our weakest link.

Energetic Balance Pay attention to and observe any energetic imbalances in your body as you practice the postures. According to the Water

tradition, challenges such as injury, illness and emotional or physical issues are characterized by blockages, which will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6. You want to actively wait for any blockages you discover to release as you practice Longevity Breathing yoga. As you go into a posture, you want to stop wherever you feel a blockage and actively wait there to see if you can relax it. You use your breath, your awareness and your intent and wait for the blockage to go of its own accord.

8. Internal Release Causes External Stretch We live in such a hurry-up-and-wait, exhausted, sleep-deprived society because people hold on to their tension. Most people don’t know how to let go even when they want to. Whatever we hold on to that isn’t real or necessary has a tendency to make us miserable. This is why letting go has such a powerful effect on human beings. The Dissolving and letting go process is about dealing with both the things you know about and the things you don’t. The human body has an energy field that works in a specific way. The Taoist tradition of China studied how people can make the central nervous system relax. Taoists created various diagrams to explain the energetics of the body. They called this phenomenon chi, or your vital life-force energy. Having chi means the difference between being physically alive instead of dead. In Sanskrit it was called prana and in Hebrew, ruha. Chi, prana and ruha are variously translated as breath, energy and spirit. The Taoists were particularly interested in understanding the nature of energy in the body and what allowed people to let go rather than remain stuck. They discovered that chi travels through the nerves. Chi also makes fluids such as blood move in the body, but when the nerves of the human body can’t let go, chi becomes blocked. When our energy becomes unblocked, we can let go and relax. So how do you let go of your nerves? How do you get the energy flowing so your body can work properly and your muscles and nerves can relax? How do you go into the depths of your mind and discover the energy that powers your emotions? The Dissolving method was developed to help you find these answers. When your energy flows freely, everything else in your body can let go along with it. The internal release causes the external stretch in Longevity Breathing yoga. You relax—from the inside out.

CHAPTER 5 Energetic Fitness: The Taoist's Measure of Health Separate and Combine Chi practices such as Longevity Breathing yoga are not just about physical movements; they are effective methods developed over millennia to progressively give you access to your inner ecology and help you strengthen it. Ultimately, integration is the most central aspect of becoming energetic fit. A summary of this principle, “first separate, then combine,” comes from the Tai Chi Classics, the authoritative source of tai chi principles for all the traditional styles, including the Yang, Wu and Chen. It is based on ancient Taoist texts and modern Chinese medical principles. First, you become aware of something that is independent of everything inside of you—separate from the system. Next, you combine or integrate it with the rest of you, the totality of everything else of which you are aware. Along that path, there are millions of little minicombinations and mini-separations before true integration of mind-body-spirit becomes a reality and increasingly more apparent inside you.

Nei Gung: The Sophisticated Science of Energy Flows Longevity Breathing yoga directly contacts and uses the chi within your physical and psychic energy channels. It uses and incorporates within each posture the complete 16-part nei gung system upon which the deeper and more advanced levels of Taoist tai chi, chi gung and meditation are based. For every external movement there are both inner forms and outer forms. Your outer, external form is how your torso, head, arms and legs move through space. Your inner form is what you are doing inside your body with your mind, organs, fluids, nerves and energy. Developing awareness in every single body part inside you, both large and small, and understanding how they connect with each other are also parts of the inner form. The Taoists call the science of how you develop strong energy flow or internal power nei gung.

Nei gung has 16 components: 1.

Breathing methods, from the simple to the more complex.

2.

Feeling, moving, transforming, transmuting and connecting energy channels of the body.

3.

Precise body alignments to prevent the flow of chi from being blocked or dissipated.

4.

Dissolving blockages of the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of ourselves.

5.

Moving energy through the acupuncture meridians and other secondary channels of the body, including the energy gates.

6.

Bending and stretching the body, both from the inside out and from the outside in.

7.

Opening and closing (pulsing) all parts of the body’s anatomy including the joints, soft tissues, fluids, internal organs, spine and brain as well as all the body’s subtle energy anatomy.

8.

Manipulating the energy of the external aura outside the body.

9.

Making circles and spirals of energy inside the body, controlling the spiraling energy currents of the body and moving chi in the body at will.

10.

Absorbing energy into and projecting energy away from any part of the body.

11.

Controlling all the energies of the spine.

12.

Controlling the left and right energy channels of the body.

13.

Controlling the central energy channel of the body.

14.

Learning to develop the capabilities and all uses of the body’s lower tantien.

15.

Learning to develop the capabilities and uses of the body’s upper and middle tantiens.

16.

Connecting every part of the physical and other energetic bodies into one, unified energy.

See Appendix 2 for the locations of the energy points and pathways referred to in components 12–15.

Spiritual Fitness If you want to develop the spiritual side of yourself, the Taoists consider that energetic fitness is paramount in providing the necessary foundation. They point out that you don’t construct a building from the top down; you start at the ground and work your way up. First you must become healthy and have a stable, coherent mind and emotions. Then you are ready to advance to deeper aspects, or spiritual fitness through Taoist meditation. Before you can get to the core of your soul, you need to have cleared away enough blockages in your physical, emotional and mental bodies. This is the key to having strong and balanced chi running through your system, which is the purpose of Longevity Breathing yoga. If you embark on a spiritual path before this, you can get stuck in some mental or emotional processes that can unravel and confuse your energy system for a long time. You could end up metaphorically spending thousands of hours trying to mentally process an energetic jumble running amok inside you. In most cases instead you could do Longevity Breathing yoga exercises for 100 hours and save yourself a lot of wasted time and unnecessary grief. The purpose of Taoist meditation is to take you into your psychic, karmic and spiritual worlds. At this stage, you find that chi does not just run through you, it also runs through the entire physical and nonphysical universe, seeking connection, integration and balance. Energetic fitness helps you withstand the rigors of what you may find in these realms.

Relaxing into Energetic Fitness As you progressively awaken the chi inside yourself, you develop the ability to use chi in your daily life to open up your human potential. Having copious reservoirs of chi propels you to higher performance on physical, emotional and mental levels. Your coordination, vitality, mental stamina, emotional stability and creativity can exceed that of most people. You become able to do things that the average person can’t do—much like a super athlete. I often get a kick out of asking one of the smallest older women at one of my classes to help me with a demonstration. I ask her to lie down with her knees bent and feet up in the air while leveraging around eight of the 200-plus-pound men against her feet. Each man adds his weight one by one, with the first man facing her and resting his stomach against her feet. Either I or one of my senior instructors makes tiny adjustments to maintain her alignments. She effortlessly pumps the men— weighing over 1,000 pounds—up and down without strain. Although it is beyond the woman’s initial untrained ability,

practicing will eventually allow her to do the exercise without any assistance from me or my instructors. People think it is magic when it is really just about proper alignments and the flow of chi. As your chi becomes increasingly abundant, it fosters a “success breeds success” cycle that fills you with energy, relaxation and vitality. The plateaus you reach don’t have an end; they progressively take you to higher ones. And that is the real lure of Longevity Breathing yoga postures: they can engage you for life. Equally, they give you energy for life. Becoming energetically fit will supercharge your chi and relax your nerves. Maybe you don’t believe that having a seemingly illimitable abundance of energy is possible without pushing, creating tension and activating an adrenaline rush. See for yourself that the more you relax, the more energy and stamina you will have. If you practice, you don’t have to take my word for it.

CHAPTER 6 The Dissolving Method: Recognizing the Four Conditions

The Water method of Taoist meditation says that if you take away all that is false, all you will be left with is that which is true. Challenges such as injury, illness and emotional or physical issues are characterized by blockages. All blockages can be identified in one of four ways:

1.

Strength

2.

Tension

3.

Something that doesn’t feel quite right, even if you don’t know what it is

4.

Any kind of contraction.

For millennia Taoists have found that recognizing these four conditions enables people to focus on where their energy is blocked. You first must become present, or you will not be able to explore what is not working inside you. All human beings need regular rhythms to integrate their experiences or they simply become overwhelmed.

Strength Strength has a different meaning in Longevity Breathing yoga than feeling powerful. When the energy inside you is flowing smoothly, you don’t feel strong; you feel comfortable and very natural. Taoists don’t typically use the word ego, but there’s a kind of strength that produces an ego. It’s the voice that says, “This is what I will do: I will make the world be the way I want it to, no matter what obstacles must be overcome.” This creates a lot of pressure and stress. Strength can be stubbornness, which leaves you with the inability to change. When you are too stubborn, you feel strong. Strength can also be connected to anger. Who doesn’t feel strong when they get angry?

Tension Tension always involves a struggle; something is seeking dominance over something else. Tension could involve the muscles, emotions (anger, depression, fear) and your thoughts.

Something That Doesn’t Feel Quite Right A blockage that doesn’t feel quite right, especially if you don’t know what it is, can be tricky. Our inner worlds are filled with an

amazing amount of congestion. Most people are not even aware of what’s there. As infants, we have many experiences before we understand and can use language, but memories are stored nonetheless in the human brain. It is one thing to know what bothers you, but it’s quite another when you don’t. Forget trying to define it, just sense—see, feel, smell, taste, hear—what’s there.

Contraction The fourth condition is contraction. The primary difference between someone who is very awake and someone who is sleepwalking through life is that someone who is awake is not contracted. Someone who is closed down or contracted is half asleep. What people call ego, stress and the fear of living are examples of contraction. Likewise, blood vessels closing down and organs malfunctioning are also examples of contractions. Rather than being open and operating fluidly, certain parts of the body start to contract and eventually shut down. The Taoists call contraction the “hallmark of death.” A thousand diseases can be described as simply something in the body closing down. For example, a heart attack results from the interruption of blood supply to the heart when a coronary artery becomes clogged to the point of shutting down.

The Dissolving Method Now that you know the four signs that your chi is blocked, you need to know how to fix it. You want to start by scanning through your entire body, starting at the top of your head down, feeling for every single place where there is strength, tension, something that doesn’t feel quite right, especially if you don’t know what it is, or any type of contraction. As you move from one posture to the next, you want to scan and see if you notice any of the four conditions present. You do not want to go further into any posture if you become aware of any blockages. Although the Taoists apply both Outer and Inner Dissolving processes ,1 as part of the same circle, the Inner Dissolving process is initially more difficult to do than the Outer Dissolving process. The first phase of the Outer Dissolving process initially works with only the first two energy bodies, the physical and energetic. It is best used to mitigate or fully resolve problems in the physical body. The Inner Dissolving process works with the first seven energy bodies (see The Eight Energy Bodies), a more complex task. The Outer Dissolving process does not require you to have a sense of the motion of the mind or the Mindstream (the stream within which both conscious and subconscious thought travels). The process does, however, create an environment in which you may gain practical experience of the mind’s normal motion first and, possibly, the significantly subtler Mind-stream later. Whether or not you are deliberately looking for mind and Mindstream, they will be found. The Outer Dissolving process, along with the other preparatory chi practices, also usually creates “the wonderful accident” in which you can spontaneously encounter consciousness itself. For this reason, it makes sense to start practicing the Outer Dissolving process before moving on to deeper Inner Dissolving training unless you are an experienced meditator. A cornerstone of Taoist philosophy is grounding and starting your practice in your physical body. The phrase used to describe the Outer Dissolving process has, for millennia, been “ice to water, water to gas.” Ice refers to blocked, congealed energy; water refers to the accepting and relaxing of your internal blockage until it no longer causes you tension. Gas refers to the complete release of all the bound energy moving away from your physical body. The energy might revert to ice if the release is incomplete. In the ice-to-water phase of Outer Dissolving, the solid, bound and condensed energetic shape (ice) is released until it relaxes and reaches the surface of your skin (water). Water, however, contains the inherent capacity to re-condense to ice. “Liquid” energy can now move in two different directions. In the Outer Dissolving process, you release blocked chi from your skin to outside your physical body and then to the edge of your chi or etheric body or even beyond (water to gas). The previously condensed energy is now neutral, unblocked, shapeless and lacking cohesion.

Let Go, Chi Flows The Dissolving and letting go process is about dealing with both the things you know about and the things you don’t. The human body has an energy field that works in a specific way. The Taoist tradition of China studied how people can make the

central nervous system relax. Taoists created diagrams to explain the energetics of the body. They called this phenomenon chi, or your vital life-force energy (see energy diagrams in appendix). The Taoists were particularly interested in understanding the nature of energy in the body and what allowed people to let go rather than remain stuck. They discovered that chi travels through the nerves. Chi also makes fluids such as blood move in the body, but when the nerves of the human body can’t let go, chi becomes blocked. When our energy becomes unblocked, we can let go and relax. So how do you let go of your nerves? How do you get the energy flowing so your body can function optimally and your muscles and nerves can relax? How do you go into the depths of your mind and discover the energy that powers your emotions? The Dissolving method, used in conjunction with the postures of Longevity Breathing yoga, was developed to help you find these answers. When your energy flows freely, everything else goes with it. Everything else can let go. You can relax.

CHAPTER 7 Five Basic Postures of Longevity Breathing Yoga Opening Your Practice As discussed in Chapter 4, before you start your Longevity Breathing practice, you want to ensure that you are grounded in your sitting posture and can maintain proper alignments throughout your set. Sit and gently begin to relax into your sitting posture. Become aware of your breath and let it soften your face, neck and shoulders, chest, middle and lower tantiens, through the pelvis, down through the legs and out the soles of your feet and toe tips. In the beginning the five main checkpoints for Longevity Breathing yoga alignments are similar to those found in chi gung and tai chi:

1.

The head, neck and shoulders should be relaxed. Have a sense that your head is being suspended by a string.

2.

Your eyes should look directly ahead and soften; the tongue should be gently pressed against the roof of your mouth.

3.

Drop the chest and let it relax into your abdominal cavity.

4.

Maintain the four points as shown on Four Points

5.

Stretch the kwa and keep it open

Four Points

Correct

Incorrect Become mindful of your four points. If you are practicing with a partner, it is very helpful if you give each other feedback about

your physical alignments. Sometimes it feels even, but it’s not. Be sure to use a gentle touch when offering corrections— using about the same pressure as if you were to touch your eyeball with your eyes closed.

Ask a partner help adjust your posture The kwa can close down and cause all kinds of imbalances not the least of which is pulling on the neck and spine and causing your legs to fall asleep. You want to have a nice stretch in the kwa and keep it open.

Pay particular attention to your kwa

The figures above illustrate how the pelvis stretches upward when the kwa opens and collapses when the kwa closes. Opening the kwa is like taking the creases out of the cloth, and closing it is like bringing the creases back. Check that your kwa is open when you begin sitting, and make a special point of checking this at regular intervals. To open your kwa, lift everything you can feel, from your perineum through your pelvis to the top of your hip bones, and then continue feeling a lift through your midriff to the bottom of your ribs, all without lifting your chest. When you accomplish this opening maneuver, the inguinal fold between the top of your leg and the top of your pelvis will straighten (that is, its crease will flatten), relieving pain

and reducing fatigue. The opposite happens if your kwa closes and its fold increases—you may experience pain and fatigue.

Opening the Body to Breath The first five postures in the Longevity Breathing yoga set are meant to help you fully open up your body so that the breath can enter all the cavities of your body. Postures 1, 2, 3 and 5 are done without and with specific arm movements. Likewise, Posture 4 is done with and without specific leg and foot movements. In Postures 1, 2, 3 and 5 you only go as low as you can comfortably. You will move downwards into each posture in three stages. So you only want to go as low as the corresponding mini-releases allow. It doesn’t matter if you move only an inch or two in total or if you can touch your head to the floor or to your leg. How low you go is completely dependent upon the current condition of your body and your nervous system’s capacity while maintaining the 70 percent rule. Honor your limitations. It’s better to do less more frequently than pushing and ending up injured or burned out.

Posture 1: Stretching Forward Posture 1 is beneficially for grounding yourself and becoming aware of your breath. It is done with four variations, each following the next sequence.

Neutral Posture 1. Sit on an even surface with one leg bent in front of the other. Your hands rest comfortably on your knees or lap (see Figure 1-A). 2. Take three breaths. Get settled, check your alignments and relax.

Keep your spine straight Gently lift your midriff; straighten upwards the space between the top of your pelvis and the bottom of the ribs Your chest and shoulders should be relaxed Your head should be lifted gently from the top of the neck and positioned directly over the center of the torso and pelvis Your left and right channels should be aligned with the corresponding shoulder’s nest and kwa (see Four Points) Your arms and hands should rest in a position that doesn’t close down the armpits Remember the 70 percent rule as you breathe and stretch forward.

Variation 1: Stretching Forward without Arm Position Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward.

An internal release causes the external stretch; releasing the nerves of the body is the origin of the stretch. Do your best to let go of any of the four conditions (see Chapter 6) strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of energetic blockage of any type, or any form of contraction Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole Keep your head gently lifted off your neck and maintain the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into your perineum Maintain all other physical alignments of the spine, midriff, chest and shoulders Have the sense that your head is connected all the way down to your feet so that you’re stretching everything, from the top of your head and spine all the way down to your toes; a whole-body stretch.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 1-B). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-C).

5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-D) 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent as far as you can comfortably stretch with no resistance or tension present. Remember that the 70 percent rule is about where your body currently is and not a static rule, so it may be different when you practice tomorrow.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the neutral posture (towards Figure 1-A).

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. Your stopping point may or may not correspond to where it was on the stretch down as blockages can spontaneously be experienced in different places when moving up than when moving down (see Figure 1-C).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 1-B).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm. Let your mind go still as you return to the neutral position.

Variation 2: Stretching to the Side Transition:

Continue from the neutral position of Posture 1, seated with one leg bent in front of the other. Your hands once again rest comfortably on your knees or lap. Go through the checklist to ensure you are settled in (see five main checkpoints). Be especially sure to keep your four points aligned as you turn to one side. Normally, you turn to the tighter side first (see Figure 1-A.2).

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any of the four conditions.

Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole. Keep your head gently lifted off your neck and maintain the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into your perineum. Maintain all other physical alignments of the spine, midriff, chest and shoulders. Have the sense that your head is connected all the way down to your feet so that you’re stretching everything, from the top of your head and spine all the way down to your toes; a whole-body stretch.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 1-B.2) 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-C.2). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-D.2). 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent as far as you can comfortably stretch to the side.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 1-C.2).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. Maybe it’s energetic, maybe it’s physical—don’t worry about why it’s there, just become more aware of what’s present inside you with each inhale.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 1-B.2). See if you can relax any tension locked up inside you, however slightly.

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the neutral position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Let your mind go quiet.

6.

Stabilize for three breaths and let this center position be a metaphor for becoming more centered and neutral in all aspects of your life.

Repeat for the opposite side remembering that it is ideal to only stretch as far on the next side as you did on the first.

Variation 3: Stretching Forward with Arm Position Beginning position:

Transition from the neutral position of Posture 1, facing forward with one leg bent in front of the other, let your hands rest on either side of you. Using one circular motion, sweep both hands around in front of you bringing the forearms towards each other. Ideally, the edge of your hands and forearms will touch. You may find that you are unable to stretch as far as this is much more strongly engaging the whole of your spine (see Figure 1-A.3). Go through the checklist (see five main checkpoints) to ensure you are settled in before you move on.

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any of the four conditions. Just become aware of what’s there and see if you can get it to release, don’t worry about why it’s there.

Stretch forward from the kwa. Keep your head gently lifted off of your neck and the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into

your perineum. Have the sense that your head is connected all the way down to your feet so that it’s a whole-body stretch.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 1-B.3). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-C.3). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-D.3). 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent into as far as you can comfortably stretch with no resistance or tension present. If you are able to stretch all the way to the floor, rest your forearms (palms facing up) on the floor. You may rest your head in your hands.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the neutral position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or blockage.

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 1-B.3).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize.

Variation 4: Stretching to the Side with Arm Position Transition:

Seated, with one leg bent in front of the other, face forward with both arms engaged (see Figure 1-A.3). Then turn to one side (see Figure 1-A.4) keeping your four points aligned.

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best not to push too hard. Many people will find that having the arms up and engaged while bending to one side causes strain on the body. You only need to turn an inch or two.

Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole Keep your head gently lifted off of your neck and maintain the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into your perineum.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 1-B.4). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 1-C.4). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2, 3 and 4 (see Figure 1-D.4). 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent into as far as you can comfortably stretch.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 1-C.4).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the neutral position (see Figure 1-B.4).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize.

6.

Return to center (see Figure 1.A.3) and stay in this position for three breaths.

Repeat for the opposite side remembering to ideally only stretch as far on the next side as you did on the first.

Posture 2: Japanese Style, Forward Bend

Posture 2 is good for the entire spine and neck, relieving intestinal gas, increasing blood flow to the genitals and keeping bowel movements regular. Sitting Japanese style allows optimal chi flow in the legs and kidneys. It can be performed with and without arm movements.

Japanese Style, Bend Forward without Arm Position Beginning position:

Transition from Posture1 by first straightening your legs, then use one circular motion, circle both feet to one side and sit on both heels, Japanese style. Your hands rest comfortably on your legs (see Figure 2-A).

Take three breaths. Get settled, check your alignments and relax Keep your spine straight Gently lift your midriff; straighten upwards the space between the top of your pelvis and the bottom of the ribs Your chest and shoulders should be relaxed Your head should be lifted gently from the top of the neck and positioned directly over the center of the torso and pelvis Your left and right channels should be aligned with the corresponding shoulder’s nest and kwa Your arms and hands should rest in a position that doesn’t close down the armpits.

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of energetic blockage of any type, or any form of contraction.

Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole Keep your head gently lifted off your neck and maintain the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into your perineum Maintain all other physical alignments of the spine, midriff, chest and shoulders Have the sense that your head is connected all the way down to your feet so that you’re stretching everything, from the top of your head and spine all the way down to your toes; a whole-body stretch

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 2-B). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 2-C). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 2-D). 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent into as far as you can comfortably stretch with no resistance or tension present.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. Your stopping point may or may not correspond to where it was on the stretch down as blockages can spontaneously be experienced in different places when moving up than when moving down (see Figure 2-C).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 2-B).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm. Let your mind go still (see Figure 2-A).

Variation 2: Japanese Style, Bend Forward with Arm Position Beginning position:

Transition from the beginning position of Posture 2 (without arms up) by sitting on both heels, Japanese style (see Figure 2A). Your hands rest comfortably on your sides. Using one circular motion, sweep both hands around in front of you bringing the forearms towards each other. Ideally, the edge of your hands and forearms will touch (see Figure 2-A.2). You may find that you are unable to stretch since you are much more strongly engaging the whole of your spine. Remember the five main checkpoints for Longevity Breathing yoga alignments:

1.

The head, neck and shoulders should be relaxed. Have a sense that your head is being suspended by a string.

2.

Your eyes should look directly ahead and soften; the tongue should be gently pressed against the roof of your mouth.

3.

Drop the chest and let it relax into your abdominal cavity.

4.

Maintain the four points (see Four Points).

5.

Stretch the kwa and keep it open.

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any of the four conditions present in your body.

Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole Keep your head gently lifted off your neck and maintain the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into your perineum.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 2-B.2). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to open up your body and feel the flow of the breath, blood and chi flowing through you. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 2-C.2). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 2-D.2). It’s fine not to go down any further. 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent as far as you can comfortably stretch without strain. Check your face muscles and jaw. Notice if your shoulders are free and loose or hard and bound up.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 2-C.2).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting

position (see Figure 2-B.2).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Let your mind go still (see Figure 2-A.2).

Posture 3: Japanese Style, Forward Bend with One Leg In Front Posture 3 opens the bottom of the pelvis and strongly stimulates the kidneys. Your kidneys are the source of your life force. They kick off the energetic cycle that makes your internal organs strong or weak. In traditional Chinese medicine the kidneys also correspond to the emotion of fear.

Important Notice for Women When performing Posture 3 it is important that you do not press your breasts into your front thigh either when going down or coming up. To avoid this error simply angle your torso so your breasts have some free space on the inside of your thigh. Likewise, if you later choose to do Posture 3 with the arm position, your arms should not touch your breasts.

Beginning position:

Transition from the neutral position; facing forward, sitting Japanese style (see Figure 2-A). In a circular motion, move one foot forward so it is in line with the opposite knee. Your hands rest comfortably at your sides or on your thigh if you need additional support (see Figure 3-A).

Take three breaths. Get settled, check your alignments and relax Keep your spine straight Gently lift your midriff; straighten upwards the space between the top of your pelvis and the bottom of the ribs Your chest and shoulders should be relaxed Your head should be lifted gently from the top of the neck and positioned directly over the center of the torso and pelvis Your left and right channels should be aligned with the corresponding shoulder’s nest and kwa Your arms and hands should rest in a position that doesn’t close down the armpits

Japanese Style, Forward Bend with One Leg In Front

Moving down:

Figure 3-C.2 Figure 3-D.2 1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of energetic blockage of any type, or any form of contraction.

Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole Keep your head gently lifted off your neck and maintain the sense of your head lined up through the center of your body into your perineum.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 3-B.2). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 3-C.2). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 3-D.2). 6. At this point, you should be as far as you can comfortably stretch without any stress or strain anywhere in the body.

Coming up:

1. Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

The movement originates from the kwa, opening it progressively at each stage coming back up. The upper body should move as one integrated whole Maintain all previous alignments.

2. Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. Your stopping point may or may not correspond to where it was on the stretch down as blockages can spontaneously be experienced in different places when moving up than when moving down (see Figure 3-C.2). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 3-B.2). 5. Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm. Let your mind go quiet. 6. Return to sitting Japanese style and take three breaths (see Figure 2-A). Repeat for the opposite leg remembering that the ideal is to only stretch as far on this side as you did on the other.

Variation 2: Posture 3 with Arm Position Beginning position:

Transition from sitting Japanese style (see Figure 2-A). In a circular motion, move one foot forward so it is in line with the opposite knee. Your hands rest comfortably on your sides as you did in Postures 1 and 2. Using one circular motion, sweep both hands around in front of you bringing the forearms towards each other. Ideally, the edge of your hands and forearms will touch (see Figure 3-A.2). If however you find that you are unable to stretch as far as this is much more strongly engaging the whole of your spine and if this position causes discomfort, modifications include:

1.

Only after the edges of both palms touch, bring the forearms and elbows towards each other as much as feels comfortable. There may be space between the fore-arms.

2.

Bring one arm forward while the other rests on the side or in your lap. Keeping the arm on the body’s centerline serves several purposes. This arm posture both opens and stretches the kwa, spine and the legs evenly and engages the energy of the central channel (see Figure 3-A.2).

3.

Don’t engage the arms at all until you are ready. Build up to it by practicing the posture without the arm position. Remember the 70 percent rule.

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of an energetic blockage of any type, or any form of contraction.

Maintain all other physical alignments of the spine, midriff, chest and shoulders. Have the sense that your head is connected all the way down to your feet so that you’re stretching everything, from the top of your head and spine all the way down to your toes; a whole-body stretch.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 3-B.2). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 3-C.2). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 3-D.2). 6. At this point, you should be 70 percent as far as you can comfortably stretch without any resistance or tension present.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the beginning position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. Your stopping point may or may not correspond to where it was on the stretch down (see Figure 3-C.2).

3.

Take three breaths. See if you can relax any tense spots in your body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the beginning position (see Figure 3-B.2).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm.

6.

Return to sitting Japanese style and stabilize (see Figure 2-A).

Repeat for the opposite leg remembering that the ideal is to only stretch as far on this side as you did on the other.

Posture 4: Lying on Back, Knees Up The first part of this posture improves the alignment and connection of the spine to the hips, strengthens the kidneys and back muscles, and makes the spine more flexible. It is a good exercise to practice during the first six months of pregnancy. Then the raising of the foot connects the leg’s energy via the spine to the brain, while the flexing of the ankle naturally releases compression between the spinal vertebrae, stretches the legs and moves energy and cerebrospinal fluid up and down the spine between the tailbone and brain.

Beginning position:

Transition into sitting Japanese style. Smoothly and gently find your way to the floor by leaning to one side and rolling onto your back. Your knees should be bent. Your arms rest comfortably at your sides (see Figure 4-A). Take three breaths. Get settled, check your alignments and relax.

Keep your spine straight Gently lift your midriff; straighten upwards the space between the top of your pelvis and the bottom of the ribs Your chest and shoulders should be relaxed Your head should be lifted gently from the top of the neck and positioned directly in line with the center of the torso and pelvis Your arms and hands should rest in a position that doesn’t close down the armpits

Lifting your hips:

1. On an inhalation, begin to lift your buttocks (see Figure 4-B)

Stay relaxed and do not allow your body to tense Let the pressure run through your feet and shoulder blades for balance and stability; do not put any pressure on your neck Maintain the basic alignments of the spine, neck, chest, shoulders and kwa Keep the hips even.

2. Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. 3. Take three breaths. Try your best to relax and release the resistance you encountered before raising your hips further. 4. On an inhalation continue to lift your buttocks a second time. Repeat steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 4-C). 5. On an inhalation continue to lift your buttocks a third time. Repeat steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 4-D). 6. Take three breaths. At this point, you should be 70 percent as high as you can comfortably lift your buttocks with no resistance or tension present.

Lowering your hips:

1.

Moving on an exhalation, begin to lower your hips and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you are one third of the way down (see Figure 4-C).

3.

Take three breaths.

4.

Moving on an exhalation, lower your hips to your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position. Repeat step 3 (see Figure 4-B).

5.

Moving on an exhalation, lower to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and let go (see Figure 4-A).

Variation 2: Raising One Leg Beginning position:

Start in the beginning position for Posture 4; lying on your back with your knees bent:

Your arms rest comfortably at your sides Relax into the ground to release tension in your kidneys and spine Don’t let the knees splay inward or outward Foot placement will depend on your level. Beginners may have their feet farther away from the body and more advanced students may bring their feet closer in towards the body

As the leg comes up:

1. On an inhale, begin to lift your buttocks and simultaneously using a circular motion, bring your knee in towards your chest (see Figure 4-B.2).

Stay relaxed and do not allow your body to tense Let the pressure run through your feet and shoulder blades for balance and stability; do not put any pressure on your neck Maintain the basic alignments of the spine, neck, chest, shoulders and kwa Keep the hips even

2. Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. 3. Take three breaths. Try your best to relax and release the resistance you encountered before raising your hips further. 4. On an inhalation continue to lift your buttocks a little bit higher as you simultaneously gently straighten your leg without locking your knee as you point your toes. 5. Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. Take three breaths. Try your best to relax and release the resistance you encountered before raising your hips further or straightening your leg. 6. On an inhalation continue to lift your buttocks a third time until your leg is as high as it is going to extend. Then gently alternate between extending your toes forward and bringing them backwards towards you in a gentle rhythm to further stretch your legs, hips and lower back (see Figure 4-C.2 and Figure 4.D.2). 7. Take three breaths. At this point, you should be 70 percent as high as you can comfortably lift your buttocks with no resistance or tension present.

As you lower your extended leg:

1.

Using a circular motion, bring let your raised knee bend, its foot relax and release your supporting bottom foot into the floor.

2.

With hips still fully raised, let your upper leg continue downward until it is flatfoot on the ground. Both feet are on the ground at this point (see Figure 4-D).

As you lower your hips:

1.

Moving on an exhalation, begin to lower your hips and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you are one third of the way down (see Figure 4-C).

3.

Take three breaths.

4.

Moving on an exhalation, lower your hips to your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 4-B).

5.

Moving on an exhalation, lower to the beginning position. Stay here for three breaths and release any strain before repeating steps with the other leg (see Figure 4-A).

Repeat the whole process for the other side.

Posture 5: Legs Spread Apart, Stretch Forward Above and beyond stretching the muscles of the legs, hips, back and neck, the purpose of this posture, bending facing forward, is to open up, lengthen and decompress all the tissues within the pelvis so that energy flows freely between the legs and lower spine. The posture bending to the side increases the deeper blood flows inside the pelvis, promotes prostate health, helps to regularize bowel movements and increases sexual function for both sexes.

Beginning Position:

Transition from the previous posture by rolling onto one side and, using both hands, gently lift your body back into a seated position. With both legs towards straight, move both feet apart and open your legs only as far as you can comfortably. Your hands can rest comfortably on your legs or the floor in front of you (see Figure 5-A). 1. Take three breaths. Get settled, check your alignments and relax.

Keep your spine straight Gently lift your midriff; straighten upwards the space between the top of your pelvis and the bottom of the ribs Your chest and shoulders should be relaxed Your head should be lifted gently from the top of the neck and positioned directly over the center of the torso and pelvis Your left and right channels should be aligned with the corresponding shoulder’s nest and kwa Your arms and hands should rest in a position that doesn’t close down the armpits Remember the 70 percent rule as you breathe and stretch forward

Wide Angle, Forward Stretch without Arm Position Moving down:

1.

On an exhale, begin to stretch forward. Do your best to let go of any strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of energetic blockage of any type, or any form of contraction.

2.

Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-B).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-C)

5.

If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-D).

6.

At this point, you should be 70 percent as far as you can comfortably stretch.

Coming up:

1. Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

The movement originates from the kwa, opening it progressively at each stage coming back up. The upper body should move as one integrated whole Maintain all previous alignments.

2. Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-C). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 5-B). 5. Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm. Let your mind go still (see Figure 5-A).

Variation 2: Stretching to the Side Transition:

Continue from the previous posture; facing forward, seated with legs apart (see Figure 5-A). Keeping the four points aligned, turn to one side (see Figure 5-A.2). Begin in the starting position with three breaths. Go through the checklist (see five main checkpoints) and be sure you’re settled in before moving on. Relax.

Moving down:

1.

On an exhale, begin to stretch forward.

2.

Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-B.2).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-C.2).

5.

If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-D.2).

6.

Do your best to let go of any strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of an

energetic blockage of any type, or any form of contraction.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-C.2).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-B.2).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm. Let your mind go still (see Figure 5-A.2).

6.

Return to center and stabilize (see Figure 5-A).

Repeat for the opposite side remembering that the ideal is to only stretch as far on this side as you did on the other.

Variation 3: Stretching Forward with Arm Position Transition:

From the beginning position for Posture 5 (see Figure 5-A), let your hands rest comfortably at your sides. Using one circular motion, sweep both hands around in front of you bringing the forearms towards each other. Ideally, the edge of your hands and forearms will touch (see Figure 5-A.3).

Moving down:

1. On an exhale, begin to stretch forward.

Do your best to let go of any of the four conditions Stretch forward from the kwa; the upper body should move as one integrated whole Have the sense that your head is connected all the way down to your feet so that you get a whole-body stretch.

2. Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or any blockage present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-B.3). 3. Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body. 4. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-C.3). 5. If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-D.3).

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-C.3).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance any-where in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position (see Figure 5-B.3).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize. Let your mind go still (see Figure 5-A.3).

Variation 4: Stretching to the Side with Arm Position Transition:

From the previous forward-facing posture (see Figure 5-A.3), keep your four points aligned as you turn to one side. Start in the beginning position with three breaths. Get settled, check your alignments, and relax (see Figure 5-A.4).

Moving down:

1.

Moving on an exhalation, begin to stretch forward.

2.

Stop moving and pause in the stretch when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body (see Figure 5-B.4).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance that is present anywhere in the body.

4.

If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a second time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-C.4).

5.

If you feel no resistance anywhere in your body, continue to increase your stretch a third time, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-D.4).

6.

Take three breaths. Do your best to let go of any strength or tension, anything that doesn’t feel right, which could be any kind of energetic blockage of any type, and any form of contraction.

Coming up:

1.

Moving on an inhalation, begin to lift out of the stretch and return in the direction of the starting position.

2.

Stop moving and pause when you encounter resistance or you notice any one or more of the four conditions present anywhere in your body. Your stopping point may or may not correspond to where it was on the stretch down as blockages can spontaneously be experienced in different places when moving up than when moving down (see Figure 5-C.4).

3.

Take three breaths. Use your breathing to let go of any tension or resistance anywhere in the body.

4.

Moving on an inhalation, find your second stopping point as you continue to return in the direction of the starting position, repeating steps 2 and 3 (see Figure 5-B.4).

5.

Moving on an inhalation, return to the starting position. Stay here for three breaths and allow yourself to internally stabilize before transitioning to the next posture. Find your point of internal stability where your mind learns to become grounded within itself and where your thoughts and emotions become calm. Let your mind go still (see Figure 5-A.4).

6.

Return to center, take three breaths and stabilize (see Figure 5-A.3).

Repeat for the opposite side remembering that the ideal is to only stretch as far on this side as you did on the other.

Closing Your Practice With legs folded in front of you:

1.

Take nine breaths and come back to a stability point.

2.

You want to keep practicing this set until you can get your breath to flow evenly to your feet, legs, arms and your head. You’ll find your body opening up from the inside.

3.

When you can do a full forward bend, where your head touches the ground, or you can put your leg straight up in the air, you’ll find you have a different body than you started off with.

4.

Let yourself move toward a stability point. If you feel tired now, lie down and rest.

Relax and let go into stillness...

APPENDIX 1: Frequently Asked Questions Q: I understand that I’m supposed to release everything before stretching deeper into a posture, but what if I have tension sitting in the neutral posture? A: Although being tension free in the neutral posture is the ideal, most cannot do many of the ideal conditions of any yoga until after practicing for many years. In the neutral posture, the initial goal is simply to reduce your initial level of tension to a clearly lower level than when you started. Q: What should the length of my breath be as I’m moving into and holding a posture? A: Taking into account human variation, the length of your breath should be 70 percent of your breathing capacity. If you can do a 30-second breath, then your 70 percent would be a 20- or 22-second breath. Or, if your can only do a six-second breath, your 70 percent would be a four-second breath. But also take into account what length of breath allows you to get a good sense of penetration and saturation inside your body that also allows the sense of release at the end to be the strongest. Don’t approach the breath as a fixed state. The whole process of practice is one of exploration and experimentation. Q: How far away should the elbows be from the body when in the arm position? A: For women ideally at a minimum your elbows should be far enough away from your torso so that there is no contact between your elbow and forearm and your breast. Ideally there should be a space between your elbow and torso that is approximately the width of your closed fist. For both sexes how far your elbow extends away from your torso is found by obtaining the balance between lengthening and opening and the stretch of your spine and legs. If you go too far you can cause some or all parts—including your neck, spine, hips or legs and feet—to involuntarily contract and tense. Obtaining the right balance is different for every individual and is more an art of sensitivity rather than a mechanical science. Q: Props? A: Yoga blocks, meditation cushions, blankets and chairs can all be used to modify the postures so that you are able to fully focus on your breathing and internally release even if you are injured. Use props until you no longer need them. The ideal is to get rid of the props and be able to do the postures without them. Q: What should I do when emotions come up while I’m in a posture that makes breathing difficult? A: Although this is a subject that is handled very precisely and pragmatically in the later stages of Longevity Breathing yoga, here are three simple strategies you can try:

The letting go techniques of TAO meditation’s Inner Dissolving method to release and resolve the emotion that is arising. My book, TAO of Letting Go, teaches the technique in detail Simply observe the emotion without trying to change it. See if you can correct your alignments so you open up the closed interior folds of your body. Often by uncompressing the chi in the trapped spaces inside your body that previously trapped chi—including the chi that leads to experiencing emotions—can flow better. As the chi flows better it enables your breathing to become more smooth, full and easy, which can help calm you down Focus on relaxing your body and your breath, and see if this smoothes out your emotions.

Q: Can Longevity Breathing yoga activate old traumas (be it physical, emotional or mental)? A: Quite possibly. The energetic memories of past traumas are often stored both in your physical tissues and energy

channels. As these tissues are physically stretched or the energy channels associated with them are stimulated, the memories can be triggered and subsequently released. Thus you may become consciously aware of what is currently residing in your body rather than being numb to it. This has a multitude of implications, some of which are:

Physically, when an old trauma has only partially healed, it creates a physical boundary by causing your body to contract. This is a defense mechanism meant to keep you from pushing your body further than it can go without retraumatizing the original wound and causing serious injury. Adhering to Longevity Breathing yoga’s 70 percent rule— releasing and not pushing through a blockage, a potential previous unhealed trauma—usually prevents reactivating an old injury and leads to its fastest resolution Likewise, in terms of emotional or mental traumas, the 70 percent rule—releasing and not pushing through a blockage —mitigates reactivating old traumas and helps to smooth out your emotions, at least temporarily Resolution of past emotional and mental traumas is more the specific task of the Inner Dissolving method of Taoist meditation, which is either done on its own or, over time, merges with the postures of Longevity Breathing yoga.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for legs falling asleep during some of the postures? A: There are several related to the various causes of this condition. One cause is the compression of the nerves of the lower spine, which can be remedied by:

Opening up and decompressing the space of the midriff Straightening the spine from the tailbone to the bottom of your ribs Gently extending your thighs away from your hips and thereby making it more possible to create the interior body space that enables your lower spine to decompress Sitting on a padded cushion or blanket so the weight of your body does not excessively compress your tailbone and lower spine.

Another cause is poor blood circulation in the legs, which can be remedied by creating more space in the back of your knee and ankle. This is especially true for the back of your ankle that activates the venous pump of the leg to return blood to your heart. Q: Can Longevity Breathing yoga help with arthritis? A: Yes. The fundamental relaxation techniques enable the joints to decompress and brings chi to the area, which increases blood flow and thereby reduces inflammation. Q: Can I eat before practicing Longevity Breathing yoga? A: As a beginner, if you eat a large meal before practicing and your stomach is filled with food, it will be harder to feel what’s going inside your body. You can incorporate the 70 percent rule when eating before practice (only filling the stomach 70 percent). Once you can really feel what’s happening inside of you, whether to eat or not is not such an issue.

APPENDIX 2: Energy Anatomy of the Human Body The Main Energy Channels and the Three Tantiens Three main energy channels or paths of flow—the left, right, and central channels begin at conception and remain within a person throughout life. Other important energies move in the human body according to meridian patterns that have been well mapped by Chinese medicine. Any text on acupuncture should include charts that identify them. The left, right, and central channels, according to Taoist chi gung theory, come into existence before the acupuncture meridians and create these meridians during fetal development. The three main energy channels have certain characteristics in common. All three, for example, are located in the center of the body; that is, in each, the energy flows occur midway between the skin in the front of the body and the skin in the back of the body. Also, the central channel joins the right channel on the right side of the body and the left channel on the left side at the tips of the fingers, the tips of the toes and at the ba hui point, which is located on the center of the crown of the head.

The Pathway of the Central Channel In the torso and head: The central channel runs from the center of the perineum (the area between the anus and the posterior part of the external genitalia) through the center of the torso to the bai hui point on the center of the crown of the head. The channel runs through internal organs, soft tissues, blood vessels and the brain. In the arms: The central channel runs from the heart center (middle tantien) to a meeting point in the center of the armpits, where the energies of the central and left or right channels temporarily join. From the armpits, the energy of the central channel moves through the bone marrow of the arm bones, through the center of the elbows and then the wrist joints to the center of the palms and from there, via the bone marrow, to the fingertips. In the fingertips, the energies of the right and left channels on their respective sides merge with the energy of the central channel and, once joined, continue to the edge of the etheric body. In the legs: The central channel runs through the bone marrow from the perineum between the legs along a line continuing across the pelvis to the kwa and hip sockets. From there it travels through the bone marrow of the leg bones, through the knee and ankle joints, then through the center of each foot along a midline from the heel to the ball of the foot and then through the bone marrow of the toes. Where the central channel exits the body: The energy of the central channel mingles with the energies of the right and left channels and the commingled energies exit from the physical body to the etheric body at these points:

1.

From the end of the fingertips and the tips of the toes, extending to the boundary of the etheric body.

2.

From the bai hui point at the crown of the head to the boundary of the etheric body above the head, where one’s own personal energy connects with the energy of heaven (cosmic energy).

3.

From the center of the ball of each foot extending out to below the feet, to the boundary of the etheric body beneath, where one’s personal energy connects with the energy of the earth.

The Pathway of the Left and Right Channels In the head and shoulders: From the crown of the head down to the collarbone, at no time do the left and right channels intersect the central channel. The left and right channels begin at the bai hui point at the crown of the head (where their energies are merged with that of the central channel). They continue down the center of the brain going parallel on either side of the central channel at an imperceptible distance away from it. At the upper tantien (third eye), the distance between the left and right channels widens, and they continue down to the center of the eyes, to the nostrils, down each side of the mouth, down the throat, to the level of the clavicles, close to but without intersecting the central channel. At this point, the left and right channels branch off on a line to the left and to the right. It follows along the center line between the clavicals and back, where they join temporarily with the central channel in the center of the armpits, before splitting off again.

In the arms: From the center of the armpits on their respective sides of the body, the left and right channels run down each arm to the fingertips within the bone matrix (calcium) of both the bones of the arm and the joints to the ends of the five fingertips. Here, the left and right channels merge with the central channel. In the legs: Beginning from the kwa (inguinal fold), both the left and right channels run within the bone matrix of their respective hip sockets, thigh and shin bones, knee and ankle joints, within the small bones of the feet along two thin parallel lines on either side of the central channel, to the center of the ball of the foot where the left right and central channels merge. They then split again and go to the tips of the toes, where again the left and right channels merge with the central channel and the commingled energy continues to the boundary of the etheric body. The control gates of the left and right channels: There are three energetic “sluice gates” that either allow energy to pass unimpeded through the left and right channels or diminish it or completely cut off its flow. These are located in the center of the armpits, the center of the midriff, and the kwa.

APPENDIX 3: Taoism: A Living Tradition Many traditions based on ancient philosophies and religions have vibrantly continued into modern times. Because they manifest in our lives today, they are called living traditions. These include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, yoga and Taoism. The latter three have clear practices that concentrate on physical exercises and energy work. Taoism is the least known of the living traditions. Although its main literary works—the I Ching, the writings of Chuang Tse, and the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tse—are well known and available in many translations, the practical methods and techniques of implementing Taoist philosophy in daily life are little documented in the West. The Taoist lineages that Bruce Frantzis holds and teaches today are in the Water tradition of Taoism, which has received minimal exposure in the West. Part of his lineage empowers and directs him to bring practices based on that tradition to Westerners. He learned the Chinese language and became immersed in the traditions of China during his training there, which spanned a decade. This has enabled him to bridge the gap between Chinese culture and the West and to bring living Taoism to Westerners in a way that they can comprehend and learn. While Frantzis studied with his main teacher, Grandmaster Liu Hung Chieh, texts were presented as: “This is what they say; this is what they mean; this is how to do them.” Frantzis offers an unprecedented bridge to this pragmatic approach to spirituality; in fact, we are not aware of any other English or European language source for this style of teaching. It means that spirituality is not just an aspiration for which people strive in the dark—“in a mirror, darkly”—to quote St. Paul, but it can become a genuine, accomplishable reality.

The Frantzis Energy Arts System Drawing on 16 years of training in Asia, Bruce Frantzis has developed a practical, comprehensive system of programs that can enable people of all ages and fitness levels to increase their core energy and attain vibrant health. The Frantzis Energy Arts ® system includes six primary chi gung courses that, together with the Longevity Breathing® program, progressively and safely incorporate all the aspects of nei gung—the original chi cultivation (chi gung) system in China invented by the Taoists. Although the chi gung techniques are very old, Frantzis’ system of teaching them is unique. This method is specifically tailored to Westerners and the needs of modern life.

Core Chi Gung Practices The core practices consist of: 1.

Longevity Breathing®

2.

Dragon and Tiger medical chi gung

3.

Opening the Energy Gates of Your BodyTM chi gung

4.

Marriage of Heaven and EarthTM chi gung

5.

Bend the BowTM spinal chi gung

6.

Spiraling Energy BodyTM chi gung

7.

Gods Playing in the Clouds TM chi gung

The core chi gung programs were deliberately chosen because they are among the oldest, most effective, and most treasured of Taoist energy practices. They are ideal for progressively incorporating the major components of nei gung in a manner that is comprehensible to Westerners. These practices give students the foundation for clearly and systematically learning and advancing their practice in Taoist energy arts.

Longevity Breathing Program This program teaches authentic Taoist breathing in systematic stages. Breathing with the whole body has been used for millennia to enhance the ability to dissolve and release energy blockages in the mind-body, enhancing well-being and spiritual awareness. Incorporating these breathing techniques into any other Taoist energy practice will help bring out its full potential.

Dragon and Tiger Medical Chi Gung This is one of the most direct and accessible low-impact chi gung healing methods that China has produced. This 1,500year-old form of medical chi gung affects the human body in a manner similar to acupuncture. Its seven simple movements can be done by virtually anyone, whatever their age or state of health.

Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body Chi Gung This program introduces 3,000-year-old chi gung techniques that are fundamental to advancing any energy arts practice. Core exercises teach you basic body alignments and how to increase your internal awareness of chi in your body and dissolve blocked chi.

Marriage of Heaven and Earth Chi Gung This chi gung incorporates techniques widely used in China to help heal back, neck, spine and joint problems. It is especially effective for helping to mitigate repetitive stress injury and carpal tunnel problems. This program teaches some important nei gung components, including openings and closings (pulsing), more complex breathing techniques and methods for moving chi through the energy channels of the body.

Bend the Bow Spinal Chi Gung Bend the Bow spinal chi gung continues the work of strengthening and regenerating the spine that is learned in Marriage of Heaven and Earth chi gung. This program incorporates nei gung components for awakening and controlling the energies of the spine.

Spiraling Energy Body Chi Gung This advanced program teaches you to dramatically raise your energy level and to master how energy moves in circles and spirals throughout your body. It incorporates nei gung components for: directing the upward flow of energy; projecting chi along the body’s spiraling pathways; delivering or projecting energy at will to or from any part of the body; and activating the body’s left, right, and central channels, and the microcosmic orbit.

Gods Playing in the Clouds Chi Gung Gods Playing in the Clouds incorporates some of the oldest, most powerful Taoist rejuvenation techniques. This program amplifies all the physical, breathing and energetic components taught in earlier chi gung programs. Gods completes the

process of integrating all sixteen components of nei gung. It is also the final stage of learning to strengthen and balance the energies of your three tantiens (the primary centers in the human body where chi collects, disperses and recirculates), central energy channel and spine. Gods serves as a spiritual bridge to Taoist meditation.

Tai Chi and Ba Gua as Health Arts Tai chi and ba gua practiced as health arts intensify the benefits of the core chi gung practices. Most Westerners learn tai chi purely as a health exercise rather than as a martial art. As with all chi gung programs, tai chi relaxes and regulates the central nervous system, releasing physical and emotional stress, and promoting mental and emotional well-being. Tai chi’s gentle, non-jarring movements are ideal for people of any age and body type and can give the practitioner a high degree of relaxation, balance and physical coordination. Even more ancient than tai chi, the Circle Walking techniques of ba gua were developed over 4,000 years ago in Taoist monasteries as a health and meditation art. The techniques open up the potential of the mind to achieve stillness and clarity; to generate a strong, healthy, disease-free body; and to maintain internal balance while either your inner world or the events of the external world are rapidly changing.

Longevity Breathing Yoga Taoist yoga is ancient China’s soft yet powerful alternative to what is popularly known today as hatha yoga. The system Frantzis has developed to teach China’s yoga is called Longevity Breathing® yoga. Its primary emphasis is to stimulate the flow of chi and free blocked energy. Combining gentle postures and Longevity Breathing techniques systematically opens the body’s energy channels, thereby activating and stimulating chi flow. Postures, held from two to five minutes, require virtually no muscular effort. This lets you easily focus on what is internal so you can feel where the chi is blocked and gently free it up.

Healing Others with Chi Gung Tui Na Part of Frantzis’ Taoist training was to become a Chinese doctor, primarily using the chi gung healing techniques known as chi gung tui na. During this training period, he worked with more than 10,000 patients. Frantzis no longer works as a chi gung doctor, either privately or in clinics, but occasionally offers training in therapeutic healing techniques. Chi gung tui na is a special branch of Chinese medicine that is designed to unblock, free and balance chi in others. You learn to project energy from your hands, voice and eyes to facilitate healing using 200 hand techniques. You also learn how to avoid burnout from your therapeutic practice. To heal others, you must first learn to unblock and free your own chi and to control the specific pathways through which it flows.

Training Opportunities Bruce Frantzis is the founder of Energy Arts, Inc. which is based in Marin County, California. Energy Arts offers instructor certification programs, retreats, corporate and public workshops and lectures worldwide. Frantzis teaches Energy Arts courses in chi gung; Longevity Breathing; the internal martial arts of ba gua and tai chi; Longevity Breathing yoga; the healing techniques of chi gung tui na; and TAO meditation.

Instructor Certification Prior training in Frantzis Energy Arts programs is a requirement for most instructor courses. The certification process is rigorous to ensure that instructors teach the authentic traditions inherent in these arts.

Train with a Certified Instructor

EnergyArts.com contains a directory of all Frantzis Certified Instructors worldwide. Since Frantzis no longer offers regular ongoing classes, he recommends locating an instructor in your area for regular training and for building on or preparing for his teachings.

Contact Information Energy Arts, Inc. P. O. Box 99 Fairfax, CA 94978-0099 USA Phone: 415.454.5243 Fax: 415.454.0907

We invite you to visit EnergyArts.com to: Sign up for free monthly articles by Bruce Frantzis Receive the latest details on events and training materials Discover ways to join us in addressing the health crisis Watch video clips of chi gung and martial arts forms Find a Certified Instructor near you or learn how to become one Inquire about hosting a workshop or speaking engagement.

Other Books by Bruce Frantzis TAO of Letting Go: Meditation for Modern Living Relaxing into Your Being (TAO Meditation, Volume 1): Chi, Breathing and Dissolving Inner Pain The Great Stillness (TAO Meditation, Volume 2): Body Awareness, Moving Meditation and Sex Chi Gung The Chi Revolution: Harness the Healing Power of Your Life Force Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body: Chi Gung for Lifelong Health The Power of Internal Martial Arts and Chi: Combat and Energy Secrets of Ba Gua, Tai Chi and Hsing-I Tai Chi: Health for Life; Why It Works for Health, Stress Relief and Longevity Dragon and Tiger Medical Chi Gung Instruction Manual

BIBLIOGRAPHY Chuang Tzu, The Way of Chuang Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton. Shambhala Publications, 2004. I Ching or Book of Changes: The Richard Wihelm Translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Bollingen Foundation, 1950. Lao Tse (Lao Tzu), The Tao Te Ching, translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Vintage, 2007. Patanjali, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as interpreted by Mukunda Stiles. Weiser Books, 2001. Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, translated by Burton Watson. Columbia University Press, 2003.

FOOTNOTES Chapter 2 1. Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Mukunda Stiles (Weiser Books).

Chapter 4 1. You can learn more about whole-body breathing in the author's DVD, Longevity Breathing. 2. The author's three-CD set, Ancient Songs of the TAO, traditional Taoist chants that work with the eight energy bodies, can help you breathe into your entire body and balance your emotions. 3. What is less well known is that the later stages of Longevity Breathing yoga (as well as other energy practices such as chi gung and tai chi), also enable over-stretched muscles, tendons, ligaments and tissues to regain their springiness and bounce. The author studied yoga in depth in India for two years and did not observe this quality as being commonly achievable via Hatha yoga practice.

Chapter 6 1. To learn more about the Inner Dissolving method, see the author's books Relaxing into Your Being, The Great Stillness and TAO of Letting Go.

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