For A Warriors’ Stance
Good posts, Jenn and Daphne. Like always, Yawl reminded me of something that I have intented to post earlier but forgot. They are called “The Temple Exercises of Tai Chi Chu'an”, as taught to me by Master Ho'O in 1974 when he was in the U.S. with several of his students. The thrust of these movements is the chi within them and can be practiced without ever seeing how they are done if orally transmitted correctly. The title or name of each of the 8 exercises describe exactly how they are done. The key is to get the perfect picture in your mind of how you yourself would perform these activities. And, with all Tai Chi exercises, the practitioner is doing two things simultaneously in their head; they are focusing on the individual Temple exercise and how it stimulates certain pressure points and also the Chi which is always flowing through their body and our universe.
All of these exercises can be performed in an upright and comfortable position or sitting, like in a wheelchair, if you are physically challenged.
The Commencement; Stand comfortably erect and slowly reach up your arms to full extent, stretching up into the sky like you were a baby reaching her arms up to Mommy or someone reaching their adoring arms up to their diety. Be the child. Reach up! “Mama, Mama pick me up.” “Lord, Lord, hear my prayers!”
The Bird Flies; Stand comfortably erect and lift both arms up from the side as though you were a bird, giving a small amount of force to the lifting up and then alternately give a small amount of force to the pushing down of the arms as they return to your side. I lift up slightly on my toes like I am about to take off flying. Be graceful as you mimic the wingstrokes. Fly, young warriors, fly! Feeeeeel the freedom you were blessed with.
Handslap; Stand comfortably erect with arms outstretched to both sides at shoulder level, hands opened wide and facing where you are facing. As you continue to look forward, bring the right hand and arm over to the left one, clapping hands and then returning this hand to its original position. Then do the same with the left hand, clapping the right one as it is extended out in the right side. You always remain looking forward while swinging each arm, hand and shoulder to the other side in a slightly- forceful pace. Feel the muscles of your upper torso flexing in your warriors’ stature. This is a horizontal movement as the bird flying is, of course, a vertical one. Feeeel the electricity snapping through the energy lines of your body.
Pick the Fruit; This one I love. Stand comfortably erect and reach one arm at a time up as though you were picking an apple from a branch which is almost out of your reach but not so much that you can’t grasp that apple. Reeeeeach up so one of your feet actually go onto the tiptoe. Feel your body stretching to its limit to get that fat, juicy apple. Ahhhh, get that big red, juicy one for me right up there! O.K.
? Ha Ha !!
Grind the Corn; In the olden days folk used flat rocks about two inches thick and a little bit smaller in size than their hands. They stood at tables the height of their navel and ground corn which they had spread before them. Grip your imagined rocks quite firmly and apply a pressing-down as though the table was there as you forcefully cracked and broke the dried corn kernels there on the table. Alternately and smoothly rotate your hands and arms clockwise and counter-clockwise as they glide over the tables’ surface, keeping the back erect in your comfortably standing position. Do it now. Doesn’t that feel good? Just picture the task exactly. The stones in your hand are crushing the corn kernels underneath them. Grip your stones with Intent. Can you taste the bread it will make soon?
Paddle the Canoe; This is best done from the sitting position on a chair or on the knees. Picture sitting in your canoe and stroking your arms so that you are digging your cupped hands into the waters' surface about wrist-deep or so. The torso, arms and shoulders will have a rolling action to them as you mentally place yourself in the canoe and slowly paddle along in the still lake water, churning it to propel your canoe toward that favorite fishing hole. Like with all these exercises, you have to actually go there in your mind as exactly as you can and also feel the Chi rushing through the pressure points of your entire body and nervous system. A nice bass sure would go good with the cornbread, huh?
The Medicine Wheel; In the olden days they used a grinding apparatus to sharpen large tools like plowshares, axes, etc. The apparatus consisted of a 5-6” thick stone wheel about 2 1/2 – 3 foot in diameter with an axle hole in the middle. The wheel was suspended within its frame and rod apparatus and a 2” thick dowel inserted into it so it could be grasped on each side as a handle for rotating the sharpening stone forward and backward. Stand comfortably and very slightly bent over so you can rotate this Medicine Wheel before you, turning it with a rocking motion of the entire upper torso and arms as you grip the stones’ handles. Turn it slowly but steadily, alternating between the forward and backward motion. Picture if you can the chi force entering your body as the wheel is turned toward you and that same chi force pulled into you as the wheel is turned inward, toward you and your center chakra. This stone, now, weighs at least a good 50 pounds and, in actuality, a second person could be standing in front of the turning wheel, applying their axe or plowshare so that it would be sharpened by the stone or concrete wheel as it turned. Can you see the sparks aflying? Can you?? That person there, hoding the axe for sharpening could well be your double, sharing the experience of all this energy!
The Advance and Retreat; This last exercise is always difficult for me to describe, but I always give it my best shot. It is the basis of all defensive martial art maneuvers and is done from the comfortably erect position with one foot slightly in front of the other, feet positioned (like the other exercises) almost at a shoulder-type width apart. Picture the Mother Earth as she turns so ever slowly on her axis, slightly tilted to one side so that her magnetic rod is just a couple degrees off of dead-center straight up and down. It is important that you picture the Mother Earth as though you were way above her so that you could see the top of her magnetic pole as it rotates in a slight circle as this giant, living orb revolves on its magnetic axis. As an illustration, raise your hand in front of your face with index finger pointing straight up. Slightly rotate your this finger in a circular fashion so that your fingertip is making a small circular motion. That is what the top the Earths’ magnetic pole is doing at “the North Pole”, where Santa’s little helpers cavort around most of the year in their toy-making.
Study the movement of that finger tip for it is crucial in your attempt to totally visualizing the movement you are attempting to duplicate. Isn’t Mother Earth so magnificent to watch from on high?
Now picture your own magnetic pole in your erect frame, arms hanging limp at your side, as you stand with one foot slightly in front of the other right at shoulder width distance. Rotate your frame and shoulders, as each shoulder alternately rocks back and forth about a foot or so, depending on the size of your frame. Do it like you did with your hand a moment ago, so that the very top of your head is making that little circle (about a foot in diameter now) like your erect index finger did in a smaller circle. This rotating action of the body can be done by a light push from one knee and then the other, keeping the spine rigidly straight, propelling your body in this slow and graceful rotation action. This simple and yet powerful movement is something that has to be worked on, practiced until you feel the Mother Earth. Picture that center beam of your energy in the very middle of your body rotating just like the Earth’s center rod of magnetism is. A full rotation takes about a second or two. Swing with your home planet as it circles the Father Sun so gracefully.
During your exercises, do not worry about your breath. Just let it flow evenly and naturally as it would when you are in your meditative posture or just resting. Keep your mind to it, of course, for it is the greatest vehicle for your life force, the prana or chi of your existing entity of energy.
I do about 2 minutes at the most for each exercise, sometimes doing all of them or just a few, keeping my entire exercise time down to maybe ten minutes, tops. But that depends on each practitioners’ own bent, right? At the end of the day I end up doing all of the exercises plus my own “TomChi” exercises of a blend of selected Tai Chi and BuJin Kung Foo maneuvers. Just keep it graceful, practicing to do each exercise exactly as you picture the procedure being done and feeeeeeeel the chi rushing through you in its’ wonderful way. This is yet another way of participating in this life-sustaining force.
I’d like to do a video one day but then I have a couple of students swear that my written and verbal instructions are enough, leaving exact interpretation of each movement for each practitioner to sense and define for themselves. Makes sense to me. Anyway, like I always end up saying, make it a daily habit. All of the Temple Exercises are purported to affect directly at least 95% of all pressure points, all major organs and glands, and greatly influence the separate charkas.
I, myself, sense these exercises, added to good posture, diet, appropriate rest periods and breathing exercises are the reasons I have only been to a doctor several times in my life and have never been in the hospital. Almost all my Dr. visits are for a chronic bronchitis I’ve had from birth, which I battle with antibiotics and aromatherapy.
Focusing on such exercises, by the way, is a splendid form of both Raja and Hatha yoga. There’s also a little Bhakti tossed in with The Commencement exercise. By the way, I do this particular move at the beginning and ending of each exercise session as a kind of ceremonial thing. It makes me feel good.
OM
by oral transmission, t2f - 100506
