Kung Fu More Than Meets The Eye
Since starting the martial arts at a very young age, I was aware of it creating an intensified focus and presence to my reality. My senses became unified and heightened when training and I would feel a sense of strength and centeredness. I grew up under duress and had severe undiagnosed ADHD, an early addiction habit, as well as mood swings, but as I became more advanced in my internal Kung Fu practice (especially in adulthood), I was able to become more sensitive to my body and mind, control the moods and enter deeper concentrated states at will for creativity, performance and balance. These invaluable changes were a direct result of the mental and physical, force-awareness connection learned from Kung Fu.
I also had many injuries from my aggressive sports and martial arts play that were non responsive to other healing modalities. Through using the healing aspects of kung fu (Chi gong, Liangong), I became skilled at helping my body recover from injuries.
I learned that using specific kung fu practices applied to daily challenges would diminish anxiety, manage emotions and impulses, help to achieve goals, and instill an inner knowing and confidence — even in the most trying and painful times. Coaching people became an automatic calling. We all carry wounds, injuries and sometimes addictions and we all need guidance. I noticed that when people would open themselves to this dimension of work, many of them would make dramatic improvements in injuries, addictions and mental habits that were otherwise not possible.
3) How does Kung Fu help lower stress levels and anxiety?
Our bodies and minds are in constant dialogue with our environment through our connective tissues system, spine, nerves and muscles. Our bodies are excellent conductors of electricity (chi), thanks to the atmosphere and The Earth’s force field. We experience anxiety, stress and pain as imbalanced, uncertain and uneasy, electrical signals and pressures in our nervous system.
The commanding power of Kung Fu and its forms can be a medicine for the body by controlling its chi, breath, mind and fluids.
Applying specific body shapes, proper intentions and breath control, act like a circuit board to your nervous system and will control signals, forces and circulations, producing precise scientific effects on mental and physical states. You can go from a severe state of panic and anxiety into a balanced, clear and harmonized state in a short period of time simply by applying the correct forms and intentions.
Three Tips To Calm Anxiety & Create Balance
- Pierce The Earth
Perfect for when you are anxious or stressed while at work, or with people, and can’t jump into a kung fu move without looking ridiculous.
- Focus your attention on your air, your chest and your groin
- Breathe into your heart
- Point your fingers toward the earth while pressing your toes into the earth
- Find the sensation or wave of the earth’s magnetic field (it will feel like a pull, a heat, a tingle, or a density).
- Grasp it firmly with your feet , hold it in your legs and lower abdomen, and allow it to stabilize your body
- Increase the effect of it by focusing the intensity of the feelings in the toes, fingers, spine, and breath.
- Hold for 1 to 3 minutes. For long term benefit, hold for 20 minutes.
This sequence grounds your entire nervous system through linking the connective tissue, skin and organs to the earth, which will influence the polarity of the body’s electrical system, increasing negative ions, and balancing out the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. Charged particles from anxiety will settle down quickly as will your overheated brain.
- Release The Fire
When you just can’t calm down from rage, blame, hyperactivity, needing a fix, aggression or mania.
- Face North. Stand with your right foot forward and left back, bend the knees 45 degrees.
- Squeeze toes and feet down to feel as if you are penetrating the earth
- Breathe in and draw both palms toward your heart
- Exhale and with full force strike the left palm toward the earth and the right palm out in front of your nose.
- You want to feel as if you are throwing your entire body and breath through your hands and feet. (do not overdo it and dislocate your elbow or shoulder)
- The position will move out stuck electricity and emotions that cause anxiety
- Repeat 20 times using a very forceful exhale sound on the striking motion
This sequence releases frenetic electricity that gets trapped in your lungs, liver, heart and nervous system. By focusing your magnetism and directing it out through the palms, you are creating a field. Transferring immense force through the connective tissue will cause an equal and opposite reaction in the body’s internal systems, moving the electrical field outward, creating more space and opening circulation as well.
- Open Space & Grow The Branches
Do this for feelings of fear, disconnection or disassociation
Stress and anxiety can manifest as internal constriction and the building up of heat and friction from not wanting to face reality as it is.
The body/ mind are looking for a fix to feel better. Stress causes a large disconnect in our nervous system from our environment. Becoming more relaxed and engaged in the face of anxiety is a great way to settle in and then ultimately use your power not anxiety to find a solution.
- Stand with shoulder width apart and turned out
- Release tailbone toward the earth
- Hold your hands above your head, elbows bent 45 degree angles
- Inhale and exhale twice through the nose and mouth as you intend to open the heart
- Place the arms open and out at heart level. Extend them fully
- Intend to feel the atmosphere, like a sphere surrounding your arms feet and spine
- Breathe in and draw electricity through the inside of the feet and arms
- Exhale and press down through the body
- Create the sensation of electrifying your organism
- Expand it into every area that feels stuck or disconnected.
This series of positions puts the nervous system into a non-defended receptive position, signaling the mind and body to calm down and receive while realizing you are not under attack. Once you can open up to being here fully, you can do the second position which enables you to build a relationship to being open, expanded, strong and connected.
4) How quickly will readers feel a difference?
These changes can be felt within 30 seconds, but I recommend repeating them over and over for longer durations of time which will train your nervous system to master the force you are lacking.
5) Any additional notes you would like to add?
When facing chronic stress, excess pressure or challenging times, it is critical to release the “auto- pilot” mind and its mental pollution and engage your own internal intention and value system. You can do this through increasing focus-capacity and learning to listen to your body signals in calm and focused states.
Only the body will tell you when you are truly in balance. The mind and its many addictions, desires, rationalizations and fantasies can lie and overshadow the truth of the body. Finding your center and stabilizing your force will lead you to a sober place to enjoy where you are now in your body.
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