With these chinkung exercises, based on attention to essential aspects of our being, you will be able to reconnect and synchronize with nature.
Chikung, the body technique based on traditional Chinese medicine, which cultivates energy, allows us to tune our interior with the exterior and helps us gain energy instead of losing it. A calm energy that synchronizes us with nature.
To do this, we must train attention, because it allows the neurons that govern bodily and mental functions to feel supported and function better to adapt to the environment. We will apply attention to three interrelated parts of our being: the breath, the most vital element; the parts of the body that touch the ground, and the visualization of what in chikung is known as the six directions of heaven.
START BY OBSERVING THE BREATH
To tune in to the outside we will start practicing with the breath at any time of the day, for ten minutes or, if you cannot, for at least one breath.
It’s about accepting the breath – every breath – as it is. From one inspiration to the next, without manipulating it, observing it. We will see that there are longer and shorter breaths, faster and slower, deeper and shallower.
THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LAND
It is difficult to understand and experience gravity, because gravity does not change and the brain only understands what changes.
To experience it, we will start by lying on the floor on our backs, paying attention to the surfaces of the body that touch the ground. In this way we recognize what is there at this moment and give the brain the key to the change that occurs throughout the exercise.
THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF HEAVEN
It is about visualizing or imagining how gravity projects us towards the sky and towards the ground, forward and backward, to the right and left.
We will start standing, feeling the center of our body at the hip and the parts of the body linked to the earth: hips, legs and feet, and its prolongation: the ground we step on and the earth.
Then, the parts of the body linked to the sky: trunk and arms, spine, head, ceiling of the room and, finally, the sky. We compare them, observing which of the two directions we visualize better. We continue with the visualization of the anterior and posterior part of the body, and the right and left side.
Directing attention in these six directions broadens them and prepares us to welcome and exchange what comes to the thought or the senses from a greater and more generous dimension. And remember, you can perform this exercise anytime, anywhere.
HOW TO PREPARE A SESSION
Stop what you are doing and collect things so you do not have anything pending.
- Look for a place in the house that is ventilated and has natural light, if possible.
- Stand up and listen to your breathing.
- Give yourself a gentle massage by making circles on the skin all over your body.
- It starts with the feet until it reaches the head on the inside of the body. And from head to toe through the back.
- Listen to the breath, its rhythm, and feel how it changes.
- When performing the exercises, the movement is tuned to the harmonic and natural breathing that we have. This sets the pace of the exercise.
CHIKUNG EXERCISES TO CONNECT WITH YOUR ENERGY SOURCES
AWAKENING OF INNER ENERGY
- Rub your palms together in circles until warm.
- Spread your hands apart a little and feel their warmth. Separate them a little more, until they are as if they formed a ball of energy in the space created between them.
- The palm of the right hand will be up and the one of the left hands will be down, holding the ball. We caress the ball until we put the palm of the left hand up looking at the palm of the right hand, down.
- Then place the palm of your right hand on your chest and the palm of your left on your abdomen.
- Feel the heat and how the breath moves your hands, for ten breaths.
- Exchange hands and listen during
- 10 more breaths.
OPENING OUR BREATH
- Standing, with your legs apart as if you were riding a horse (rider’s position) and your arms at your sides, listen to the part of the body that expands when you breathe in.
- From there, put your arms crossed with the palms of your hands towards the earth. Then bring your thumbs up and back making a spiral with your arms to the shoulder blades. The head and chest open to the sky, the abdomen contracts slightly in the direction of the back, and the back is aligned with the thighs to the knees.
- Breathe in and out in this position 5 times. In the sixth exhalation it returns to the center and again gently leaves the arms at the sides.
- Repeat the exercise three times and listen to the effect on your breathing.
SPIRAL TO NOT FALTER
- Standing, in the position of the rider, opening his arms in a cross with the palms of his hands down.
- Pass the weight to the left foot while making a spiral with the trunk, left arm and right arm. To do this, bring your left thumb and arm up and out (the left shoulder blade will go down), and the arm and thumb of your right hand down and back. You will draw a spiral with each arm. Follow with the trunk the spiral of the left arm, following with the gaze the left hand.
- Breathe three times. Go back to the center and make exactly the same movement to the right.
GAIN POISE AND EMPATHY
- Standing, with legs slightly bent, arms relaxed at the sides of the body and palms facing thighs.
- Collect the air with the palms of your hands putting them towards the center and upwards. When you reach chest height, rotate the palms of your hands bringing your thumbs up, in, down and again out, making a spiral in the arms.
- Then stretch your arms and body upwards, while standing on tiptoe and looking up at the sky. Then go down the sides.
- Put your feet back on the floor and squat down, until you reach your legs with your arms. The head looks inward.
- Repeat the exercise
GATHER ENERGY AND SERENITY
- Place the centers of the palms of the hands one on top of the other and both on the center of gravity of the body: 4 transverse fingers below the navel.
- Feel the heat that is produced. Listen to the breath without trying to manipulate it.
- When exhaling try to visualize a ball of light inside the center of gravity, a light that expands occupying the space left by the air that leaves.
- When inspiring, visualize how the air enters and the light diminishes without disappearing, to expand again when exhaling.
- Visualize this sequence for ten breaths. You can repeat it by adding a slight shift of weight towards the heels when breathing in and towards the pad and toes when exhaling.