Six Form Qingcheng Taiji

18 Forms Qigong

Yang 24 Form

Soaring Crane Qigong

Maintaining a consistent qigong practice helps youthful vitality and speeds recovery from illness. In addition, qigong reduces high blood pressure and increases balance and equilibrium.  What is qigong?

Gathering Qi from the Six Directions
Penetrating the Sky and the Earth
Crane's Head Carrying Qi 
Crane Touching Water
Mingling with the Source of All Qi 

18-Form Qigong

Awakening the qi

Opening the heart

Waving the rainbow

Separating the clouds

Repulse monkey

Rowing the boat

Holding ball in front of shoulder

Turn body and look at the moon

Turning waist and push palms

Waving hands in the clouds

Pull the water and look at the sky

Bending back and push forward

Pigeon showing its wings

Stretching arm and fist

Wild geese flying

Turning wheel

Bounce the ball

Quieting the qi

T'ai Chi's Eight Truths

Tai Chi Truths

 On May 22, 2011  Filed under General  No Comments

Most people think of tai chi as a form of gentle exercise, but technically, it’s a martial art. It’s also a way of meditation, and a way of life.

Tai is “great.” Chi does not mean “energy” or “life force” (ch’i, qi, ki) as one might expect, instead it refers to yin and yang (two polar forces in the universe) fused into the Great Ultimate, represented by the Tai-chi (taiji) symbol to the left. The Great Ultimate is fundamentally the Non-Ultimate, or the Ultimate of Non-being.

The health benefits of tai chi are pretty well documented now. Many studies have determined that tai chi has a positive effect on mental health, cardiovascular fitness, high blood pressure, muscle strength, flexibility and aerobic capacity. A new study by the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine in Daejeon, South Korea and the University of Exeter (UK), published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, concluded that while tai chi offers little help in easing the symptoms of cancer or rheumatoid arthritis, “tai chi, which combines deep breathing and relaxation with slow and gentle movements, may exert exercise-based general benefits for fall prevention and improvement of balance in older people as well as some meditative effects for improving psychological health.”

Here are the so-called Eight Truths of Tai Chi, translated by Waysun Liao* from “early manuscripts by unknown masters.” I don’t know if “truths” is the right word, for they are not facts, but rather principles, ones that apply not only to tai chi but also to meditation itself, and for that matter, daily living.

The Eight Truths of T’ai Chi 

1. Do not be concerned with form. Do not be concerned with the ways in which form manifests.

2. Your entire body should be transparent and empty. Let inside and outside fuse.

3. Learn to ignore external objects. Allow your mind to guide you, and act spontaneously, in accordance with the movement.

4. The sun sets on the western mountain. The cliff thrusts forward, suspended in space. See the ocean in its vastness and the sky in its immensity.

5. The tiger’s roar is deep and mighty. The monkey’s cry is high and shrill. So should you refine your spirit, cultivating the positive and the negative.

6. The water of spring is clear, like fine crystal. The water of the pond lies still and placid. Your mind should be as the water and your spirit like the spring.

7. The river roars. The stormy ocean boils. Make your ch’i like these natural wonders.

8. Seek perfection sincerely. Establish life. When you have settled the spirit, you may cultivate the ch’i.

* Waysun Liao, T’ai Chi Classics (Random House, 1977)

Meditation increases vagal nerve tone

Why the Vagus Nerve is so Important 

'Vagus' is Latin for 'wandering' and indeed this bundle of nerve fibers roves through the body networking the brain with the stomach and digestive tract, the lungs, heart, spleen, intestines, live and kidneys, not to mention range of other nerves that are involved in speech, eye contact, facial expressions and even your ability to tune into tother people's voices.  It is made of thousands and thousands of fibers and 80% of them are sensory, meaning that the vagus nerve reports back to your brain what is going on in your organs.  The vagus nerve is the longest of the cranial nerves, the vagus nerve, is so named because it 'wanders' ... sending out fibers from the brainstem to visceral organs.  The vagus nerve is literally the captain of the body's inner nerve center - the the parasympathetic nervous system - overseeing a vast range of crucial functions, communicating nerve impulses to every organ in the body. 

New research has revealed that it may also be the missing link to treating chronic inflammation, and the beginning of an exciting new field of treatment that leaves medications behind. Here are nine facts about this powerful nerve bundle. 

1. The vagus nerve prevents inflammation. 

With a vast network of fibres stationed like spies around all your organs, when the vagus nerve gets wind of the hallmarks of inflammation—cytokines or the inflammatory substance tumour necrosis factor (TNF)—it alerts the brain and elicits anti-inflammatory neurotransmitters via the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. A certain amount of inflammation after injury or illness is normal. But an overabundance is linked to many diseases and conditions, from sepsis to the autoimmune condition rheumatoid arthritis.

2. It helps you make memories. 

A University of Virginia study showed success in strengthening memory in rats by stimulating the vagus nerve, which releases the neurotransmitter norepinephrine into the amygdala, consolidating memories. Related studies were done on humans, opening promising treatments for conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

3. It helps you breathe. 

The neurotransmitter acetylcholine, elicited by the vagus nerve, literally gives you the breath of life by telling your lungs to breathe. It’s one of the reasons that botox—often used cosmetically—can be potentially dangerous, because it interrupts your acetylcholine production. You can, however, also manually stimulate your vagus nerve by doing abdominal breathing or holding your breath for four to eight counts.

4. It’s intimately involved with your heart.

The vagus nerve is responsible for controlling the heart rate via electrical impulses to the sinoatrial node of the heart, where acetylcholine release slows the pulse. The way doctors determine the “tone” or “strength” of your vagus nerve (and your cardiac health) is by measuring the time between your individual heart beats, and then plotting this on a chart over time. This is your “heart rate variability.”

5. It initiates your body’s relaxation response. 

When your ever-vigilant sympathetic nervous system revs up the fight or flight responses—pouring the stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline into your body—the vagus nerve tells your body to chill out by releasing acetylcholine. Its tendrils extend to many organs, acting like fiberoptic cables that send instructions to release enzymes and proteins like prolactin, vasopressin, and oxytocin, which calm you down.People with a stronger vagus response may be more likely to recover more quickly after stress, injury, or illness.

6. It translates between your gut and your brain. 

Your gut uses the vagus nerve like a walkie-talkie to tell your brain how you’re feeling via electric impulses called “action potentials". Your gut feelings are very real.

7. Overstimulation of the vagus nerve is the most common cause of fainting. 

If you tremble or get queasy at the sight of blood or while getting a flu shot, you’re not weak; you’re experiencing “vagal syncope.” Your body, responding to stress, overstimulates the vagus nerve, causing your blood pressure and heart rate to drop. During extreme syncope, blood flow is restricted to your brain, and you lose consciousness. But most of the time you just have to sit or lie down for the symptoms to subside.

8. Electric stimulation of the vagus nerve reduces inflammation and may inhibit it altogether.

Truly breaking new medical ground, neurosurgeon Kevin Tracey M.D. was the first to prove that stimulating the vagus nerve can significantly reduce inflammation. Results on rats were so successful, he reproduced the experiment in humans with stunning results. The creation of implants to stimulate the vagus nerve via electronic implants showed a drastic reduction, and even remission, in rheumatoid arthritis—which has no known cure and is often treated with the toxic cancer drug methotraxate—hemorrhagic shock, and other equally serious inflammatory syndromes. Tracy hit upon the idea that the brain might be using the nervous system - specifically the vagus nerve - to tell the spleen to switch off inflammation everywhere. 

9. Vagus nerve stimulation has created a new field of medicine.  

Spurred on by the success of vagal nerve stimulation to treat inflammation and epilepsy, a burgeoning field of medical study, known as “bioelectronics,” may be the future of medicine. Using implants that deliver electric impulses to various body parts, scientists and doctors hope to treat illness with fewer medications and fewer side effects.

http://mentalfloss.com/uk/health/30807/why-the-vagus-nerve-is-so-important
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/hacking-the-nervous-syste_n_7469526.html
http://drsircus.com/medicine/function-vagus-nerve