Longevity Stick is a 'qigong' in that it is an 'energy-work/practice,' it's performed while holding a long dowel. The thing I noticed about it right away is that the slow, controlled movements stretch every major muscle group in the body, all while following a deep-breathing technique. I have found it to be a very nice and beneficial practice.
It is a practice I have been doing weekly for the last 18 months, and advanced to the role of substitute teacher when one of our instructors is out. We do an hour-long class going through all twelve movements, taking a break of 10 minutes, then doing the entire routine a second time. Our class does 10 repetitions of each exercise. One time through, with 10 repetitions of each exercise, takes about 20 minutes. Other classes may do only 6 to 8 repetitions of each position as in the video below.
"Longevity Stick Art (LSA) was developed
by the late Master Mai Bac Dau, an officer in the Army of the
Republic of South Vietnam. He was imprisoned for five years in a
Communist camp where he suffered from malnutrition and lack of
medical care. During this time he developed a series of exercises and
self-massage for his own survival.
"After his release, Master Dau continued
to develop his techniques and began teaching his fellow countrymen
about Longevity Stick Art. He came to the U.S. in 1995 and introduced
the practice to hundreds of people. Since that time, many people
trained to become Leaders, and the practice has now spread to 30
locations Southern California, under the non-profit umbrella
Longevity Stick Art-OC. LSA is also practiced in France, Canada,
Australia and Vietnam."
To do Longevity Stick, you will need a dowel one inch in diameter, the length matching your height, and capped with rubber tips. You will occasionally be using the stick to steady yourself, and you don't want it to slip on the floor as you do.
The video is a very nice one showing the instructor face on with one practitioner to the left doing a modified version of the exercise, and an inset on the right showing another practitioner from the back, so you can view the movements from front and back at the same time. I suggest watching in full-screen size to see all the details. Of course, always be careful and feel free to modify any movement that you need to feel safe and comfortable.
Longevity Stick official video cannot be embedded in any other website, but here is the link to it on YouTube so you may watch for yourself.
This excellent qigong practice with Dr Roger Jahnke stimulates and optimizes your naturally occurring inner healing resources.
Dr Jahnke was one of the most popular and well-read authors who contributed to Yang Sheng magazine during the years I was Editor in Chief. His experience with and teaching of Chinese Medicine practices spans 40 years. He was happy to share this video during the covid 19 virus outbreak in the spring of 2020.
This is a partial reprint from the website of my friend Violet Li, Violet Li Tai Chi website. Please click the link for more info on Grandmaster Wang Yan.
“During the 17th World
Congress [on Qigong] held in San Francisco, CA, Grandmaster Wang Yan
held a few workshops to share several Medical Qigong techniques. At
age 80, she had a full head of naturally black hair. She suffered
from no jetlag and energetically participated in all the activities.
At the Opening Ceremony [09/03/2016], she shared a Medical Qigong
formula to rejuvenate the body and mind so people can return to the
childhood energy level. There are three parts of this Medical Qigong
form: meditation, breathing techniques, and gentle exercises. You can
watch the attached video for the explanation and demonstration.”
The Practice Description (quoted from above site) :
Meditation:
People should put hands in front of Dan Tian, with eyes gently
closed and breathe through the nose naturally for two minutes. This
will provide an amazing result of deep relaxation. The key is that
the mind should focus on Dan Tian and not think about anything at
all.
Breathing techniques:
Inhale through the nose to bring hands above the waist [while making the sound of long E - Eeeeeeeee] and exhale
through the nose to relax hands on the waist. Inhale again slowly and
raise the heels at the same time. Hold breath while lowering the
heels a little bit and contracting the anus and the private area for
6 or 7 times, better yet 8 times. Exhale through the nose slowly to
lower the heels down onto the floor. Inhale through the nose quickly
and exhale through mouth and make [hahhhh] noise. Repeat the last part three
times.
Gentle Exercises:
The first exercise: kick one foot at time while swinging the arms.
Repeat ten times and change to another side. You can hold on to a
chair or table for stability if needed. The second exercise: Raise
both arms overhead and raise the heels up; then let the gravity takes
as you drop down the heels and swing the arms down. Repeat ten times.
She advised people to do this Qigong program three times a day in
the morning for the first week and take a two-minute break in between
sets, then 2 times in the second week, and then once a day from the
third week on.
This is a relatively new Eight Pieces Brocade Qigong practice that I found posted to Facebook.
Especially nice is that Mimi Kuo-Deemer not only leads you through the practice visually, there is a voice-over explaining the how-to, the background, and the benefits of each movement.
This is a great video to return to for daily practice!
This is a short (demo) version of a breathing exercise used in our research studies to train the participants to breathe at near resonant frequency (6 bpm) with both visual and audio aids.... You may try this technique when you feel nervous, stressed or anxious, or just want to relax. This program is based on the findings from studies of heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback, and the longer version (15 to 20 min) has been used in clinical studies of treatment of hypertension, panic, asthma, major depression, fibromyalgia, and anxiety disorders....
Many types of qigong are great for health and wellness, and it seems that Guo Lin may be especially desirable when cancer is the cause of illness. Below is an article all about it!
I will have to do some research, but it looks like this walking form is based on one of the Bear Movements from the Five Animals Frolic Qigong, an especially powerful wellness practice, one of the Health Qigong forms sanctioned by the Chinese government, and one of the oldest forms recorded - a fragment describing the Five Animals has been dated to 200 C. E.
Some studies show practising qigong helps to fight against cancer
By Channel NewsAsia's China Correspondent Glenda Chong
SHANGHAI: The stress of modern living had prompted many around the world to learn qigong. Recent joint studies from China and the United States also show that qigong can help cancer patients live longer.
One community club in Shanghai is practising a form of qigong that has helped members recover from life-threatening illnesses over the past 20 years.
Cancer survivor Qiu Jia Ming, 65, who suffered from pancreatic cancer years ago, said: "I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when I was 50 years old and the doctor told me I only had three months to live. But I've survived 14 years now."
Another cancer survivor, Yin Xiao Ling, suffered from nasal malignant granulomatosis 22 years ago.
"I'm 57 and have been practising qigong for 22 years. I was diagnosed with nasal malignant granulomatosis, a very rare cancer, and doctors said I only had six months to a year to live at the most.
"So when I was discharged from hospital, I didn't go home. I went to join the Guolin Qigong Club. Doctors said it was a miracle that I survived beyond a year," said Yin.
Even the head of the cancer rehabilitation club is convinced of the benefits of qigong against cancer. Yuan Zheng Ping was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma 28 years ago and after studying Guolin qigong in Beijing, he started the Shanghai Cancer Rehabilitation Club in 1989 to teach others like him.
"It's not only a physical exercise, it is also a psychological practice of breathing using rhythmic exercises, thereby taking in a lot of oxygen. This is beneficial because it increases immunity and help fight the cancer.
"We did a survey in 1993 with 1,500 cancer patients and discovered that after five years of practising Goulin qigong, there was about 85 per cent recovery rate. In 2003, we did another comprehensive study and found that out of 7,000 cancer sufferers, more than 60 per cent of them survived for more than five years," said Yuan.
With such high success rate, there is now more attention paid to this form of exercise. Initial results from studies conducted by the University of Illinois and Shanghai University of Sports show that practising Cailin qigong can help cancer patients live longer and give them a better quality of life.
Wang Changwei is the researcher behind a new study programme sponsored by the US-based National Cancer Institute. Her first phase of research centred on those who regularly practise qigong and it showed that this group of practitioners have a lower rate of cancer reoccurrence than others.
She said: "From our current study, regardless of quality of life, exercise ability or health conditions, those who practised Guolin qigong are far better off than those who don't exercise qigong.
"We did an 11-month observation and found that oxygen intake of those who practise Guolin qigong was higher and when they are at rest, the oxygen level is the same. This means that they inhale more oxygen during their practice. Their breathing method of inhaling twice and exhaling once helped to improve their oxygen intake."
Even doctors who specialise in Western medicine believe there are benefits to practising qigong. But they said there may be other causes that are helping cancer patients recover from their illnesses.
Gao Yong, a doctor at ShanghaiEastHospital, said: "Qigong can help patients forget the pain of the disease. Also, the exercise is a team activity. Practitioners encourage and support each other. There is more confidence when they see others recover. I think this is the real benefit of qigong.
"The study has only just started about two or three years ago. A large scale study is needed and should take about three to five years, or even longer, for a more detailed observation of the benefits."
China sees about 2.2 million cancer cases yearly, with one in five dying from the disease.
This post and video is not specifically about qigong, but the idea behind it - that beliefs create reality/physicality (including health) - is germane to the way the mind and body work together in qigong practice to restore health.
Enjoy!
*** This video may be of somewhat poorer quality than previous videos. YouTube is having a problem with uploading my usual file format, so I've had to reformat this one to get it to upload. Hopefully, the format problem will be fixed soon and I will return to my previous format.
Meanwhile, here is the full text of the message:
Your mind creates your reality.
This is not a new concept. The Law of Attraction material has been around for a long time now, and most people understand that if/when they can "live in their dream" and really feel they are in their desire – be it a new house, car, or whatever – they will eventually manifest that item in the physical world.
I have been attending a series of workshops the last couple of months, and I have learned to take that a step further and say Your Beliefs Create Your Reality.
What is the difference, besides substituting the word Belief for Mind? Your mind is the tool that brings your beliefs into conscious awareness. Your Beliefs are what create the vibrations that make things happen.
Stress is a prime example of this. Any given situation will be stressful for some people, but not stressful for others. The difference is in the belief of the person having the experience. To go back to a popular children's book, The Little Engine That Could, the engine got stressed-out that he couldn't make it over the hill until he changed his belief to one that said "I Can." The way that worked is pretty obvious: his thought ("I think I can.") effected a change in his belief that he couldn't do it to a belief that enabled him to get over that hill!
However, there is another level, and this is the one I've been working with lately. You have all those conscious beliefs that create your response to experience: like the Little Engine's stress, he looked at that tall hill and his conscious belief said "I'm too small to make it over that hill" but he changed it through the "I think I can" process.
The deeper level is the one where core beliefs live, and these may conflict with your conscious beliefs. Core beliefs are the ones you have absorbed since birth; they are memories of and reactions to past experiences. Depending on whether these beliefs are productive or destructive, you can find yourself sailing along through life with everything going your way, or struggling because some core belief that no longer serves you is in conflict with your conscious belief and is holding you back, or even making you ill.
The series of workshops I've been attending to learn about this are with Jeb Barton here in Bend.
Jeb teaches that sustained conflict in your core beliefs is the cause of disease. Using our Little Engine again, here's how a core belief can cause disease (please keep in mind that this is a very simple example. The process itself is longer and more complicated):
Let's say that Little Engine has been told all his life that he's too little to go over any big hills – that is now his core belief. All his life, he's avoided big hills because he feels he's not strong enough to go over them. Now, Little Engine approaches the hill – there is no way to avoid it this time – and gets all sorts of encouragement from his friends, and even says, "I think I can, I think I can…." But now there is a conflict with the core belief that says "you can't" and the conscious belief that says "I can," and what to you think happens? He probably gets half way up the hill and an axel breaks, he bursts a gasket; he "gets sick" in some way due to the conflict in his you-can't/I-can beliefs.
If you are experiencing a chronic illness, it would definitely be to your benefit to examine some of your beliefs and see if you can figure out when and where you acquired a belief that no longer serves you or is holding you back, and use your Creative Mind ability to turn it around into a positive statement that will enable you to regain your health. If you can Believe yourself healthy, you will See health restored.
(There is a qigong meditation practice that works on that principle, and if you are interested let's arrange for a lesson in which I can guide you in that process. If you would like to do that, or have any comments or questions on today's Tip, write to me at bewellwithmichelle@gmail.com )
I include the video here this week because it briefly describes the qigong practice of the Healing or Inner Smile. In this practice, you smile at each of your major organs while visualizing perfect health. Watch the video to see how it works:
Smiling does amazing things for your body!
I was at a business meeting Wednesday evening and the lady who spoke talked about reducing stress. She pointed out that when you smile, something in your body automatically changes. The levels of your stress-reducing hormones rise – your "feel-good" hormones – that we have that create good health. The levels of your stress hormones lowers or decreases.
Just through the act of smiling, you cannot feel sad, mad, depressed, down; you just can't!
So, get a little smiley-face sticker and put it on your keychain, your briefcase, your computer monitor, or wherever you're going to see it, and every time you do see it, Smile!
Chinese medicine has taken the practice of smiling one step further. There is a practice called the Healing Smile, or the Inner Smile. (It goes by several other names also.)
The purpose of this practice is to create healthy organs by smiling at them!
Start by taking a couple of nice deep, cleansing breaths, relax yourself into a nice, comfortable seated position . . .
And smile at your lungs. See your lungs as healthy. See them as working perfectly, exchanging air and carbon dioxide with the outer world.
Next, move on to your heart. See your heart pumping strongly. See it moving blood through your body perfectly. Be appreciative of these organs that work so hard to keep you alive.
After you spend a couple of minutes on your heart, move to your stomach and spleen. Envision a nice, healthy stomach that helps digest your food so that you can absorb the nutrients, and the spleen which helps to remove used and toxic materials from your body.
Next, move on to your kidneys. Envision healthy kidneys. . .use your imagination! Create health for these organs that support you in your life.
The final organ is the liver. Envision a healthy liver. See it working perfectly, see it healthy, see it filtering all the things out of your blood that you no longer need circulating through your body.
When you are done spending a minute or two just smiling at each of your major organs, seeing each as healthy, seeing it working properly, seeing it working perfectly, take two or three nice, deep, cleansing breaths, and relax, and know that you are Creating Health for yourself!
This is a video I made for my Stress Relief List - to subscribe, visit http://groups.google.com/group/stressrelieftips - but I thought to post it here as well since I demonstrate the first movement of the Eight Healing Sounds of Yin Style Ba Gua.
I have been researching sound and healing for many months now, and have come to the conclusion that the sound you make yourself, whether you are singing or praying or chanting or doing a healing sound qigong practice, is incredibly powerful, almost beyond belief. I hope to do more of these demos in the future, but for now, enjoy!
Of the Three Treasures of Jing (Essence qi), Shen (Spirit qi) and Qi (Environmental qi), this sound/motion practice corresponds to Environmental Qi, and to the paired organs of Lung and Large Intestine.
A reader named James sent me the link to this wonderful video showing another variation on the popular Eight Pieces of Brocade, or Eight Fine Treasures, qigong.
Here is another offering from YouTube. This one is about five minutes on the Eight Pieces of Brocade. The young man in this video performs several of the exercises slightly differently than I do, but this is an excellent video, and by his comments it seems he is in the right frame of mind when it comes to qigong.
It's not only about performing perfect movements, it's about harmonizing and strengthening your qi (energy), and at the same time forming a strong mind-body connection for health and wellness.
This is a fabulous YouTube video (about six minutes) of the Five Animals Frolic. This is a variation on the movements in the class I teach, but then there are many variations on this excellent form!
Roger Jahnke, OMD, is a contemporary multi-disciplinarian – a doctor of Chinese medicine (30 years), CEO of a innovative “new era” health care company; author, lecturer and researcher; health care historian and futurist; consultant and strategist to hospitals, agencies and corporations for the development of breakthrough programs in integrative medicine; master teacher of Qigong and Tai Chi; co-creator of a health and wellness coaching system – the Circle of Life; and co-founder of the Healer Within Foundation which focuses on preserving and integrating global medical traditions and delivers wellness coaching and mind-body practice to communities in the US and globally.
Dr. Jahnke’s work is a part of a dynamic international effort to understand the "naturally occurring, internal, selfhealing resource" that the Chinese and Ayurvedic traditions have called Qi and Prana. The core principal of his work proposes that, “the most profound medicine is produced within” through a dynamic interaction of energy, consciousness and physiology. This breakthrough means that “true health care is free” when people are simply supported in understanding the magnitude of their own natural powers and capacities.
EXPLORE interviewed Dr. Jahnke in the summer of 2006. With the permission from Explore, here we share an abbreviated version of the interview with our readers:
[Printed here is only the question and answer to "Why does Qigong work?"]
EXPLORE: Why does Qigong work?
JAHNKE: There are three levels of answers. These same mechanisms operate in yoga, all forms of moving meditation and even holistic support groups and wellness coaching. The first level is physiological. We already know that benefits of mind-body practice, including Tai Chi and Qigong, cross numerous physiological systems. Take oxygen. We know that oxygen is a powerful healing factor, so we don’t have to prove that. We also know that diffusing oxygen into the system, so that it’s super available, is key. So the real question is: Does Qigong and Tai Chi maximize in some way the utilization of oxygen in all the ways that we know that it is utilized. And the answer is “Yes!”
Now, to dispel a myth — breathing deep doesn’t increase the amount of oxygen in your blood. There is actually 98% oxygen perfusion in the blood of almost everyone, even those with chronic obstructive lung disease. So the issue isn’t getting oxygen into the blood. The issue is getting oxygen out of the blood and into the tissues. When you go into a deep state of relaxation, the gentle movement associated with all forms moving meditation like Qigong, yoga, and Tai Chi cause the natural body intelligence to pull oxygen out of the blood toward the tissues.
Interestingly, when you practice sitting meditate, you lose this benefit. With moving meditation, you gain this. In vigorous exercise what happens is that oxygen is being diffused out of the blood and into the tissue, but it is spent as fuel for the muscles. You do get the great muscle build-up, desired by most people. For healing, do I want oxygen to burn as fuel for muscles or do I want oxygen to be more available in the system as a healing resource? In a state of deep relaxation the blood vessels, particularly the capillaries, get larger and you have a larger volume of oxygen rich blood available. This oxygen is available everywhere — in your liver, in your thymus gland, in your adrenal gland, in your hypothalamus. So, gentle movement plus the deep relaxation equals more oxygen diffused more deeply into the system.
In the same vein, the science on psychoneuroimmunology is established. So we only have to ask one question – do you relax in Qigong and Tai Chi? “Yes!” So everything we’ve found in the domain of psychoneuroimmunology is applicable to Qigong and Tai Chi.
The next physiological reason Qigong works has to do with the lymph. The simplest story on metabolism is get the good stuff in, get the bad stuff out. And we have a massive amount of intelligence about the blood and the heart, which is the delivery system for oxygen and nutrition. But we don’t know a lot about the mechanisms for getting the bad stuff out. In fact, many physicians are resistant to concepts like toxins and detoxification. Toxins are actually metabolic byproducts and detoxification is activating the natural capacity of the elimination system. The system for removing metabolic by-products and any other kind of pollution that has been delivered into the body, such as cigarette smoke, street drugs or medical drugs, is the lymphatic system.
When a tumor in a person’s body is deconstructed, by chemotherapy or visualization, how does it get out? Through the lymphatic system. Yet we give only a small percentage of the attention to the lymph that we pay to the cardiac and the blood system. This is just an insight into how our thinking has been biased and imbalanced.
If you look at Qigong with the lymph in mind, you could easily say that Qigong is primarily a lymph-based methodology. There are five components to the “lymph heart.” The first is compression, contracting and releasing of the muscles puts pressure on the lymph system causing flow and any massage contributes to this as well. Second, when you metabolize oxygen, one of the by-products is water. Any volume of water coming into the tissue spaces pushes the water ahead of it forward. Third, is the “intrinsic propulsion mechanism.” The lymph vessels open up, reach out, grab water and pull it in. It actually looks like they are doing Tai Chi, by the way. And they do this most efficiently when the body is in a state of rest. It’s very interesting – within you thousands of lymphatic end points are doing Tai Chi movements when you authentically relax.
The fourth mechanism is inversion against gravity. Any time you raise your arms up in the air, the lymph falls and pushes the lymph ahead of it. But if your arm is down by your side, the lymph has to climb against gravity. Any inversion or even leveling of limbs in Qigong (yoga), accelerates lymph propulsion. Fifth, the most impressive lymph propulsion mechanism of the “lymph heart” is the breath. When you take a small breath you do not pump lymph. But when the diaphragm is fully engaged, it compresses the cisterna chili (a balloon-like sac right below your diaphragm) that fills with lymph from throughout the body. When it’s compressed, it propels the lymph forward. The nature of the lymphatic system is that lymph cannot go backwards. There are gates. When you move lymph, the gates open, if lymph flows back, the gates close. So the balloon gets compressed and this fountain of lymph goes shooting up through the thoracic duct and into the subclavian vein, and then from there it goes into the blood and becomes a part of the serum that is delivered to the liver and the kidneys for the final detoxifying portion of the elimination process. In other words, Qigong, Tai Chi and yoga are programmed to maximize lymph propulsion and thus significantly enhance wellbeing.
[This excerpt was taken from the July/August 2007 issue of "Qi Dao" newsletter of WISH, World Institute for Self Healing. Visit http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Qi_Dao/ to subscribe on-line to the free newsletter.]
The following video with Dr Roger Jahnke is from YouTube
This 6.5 minute video was embedded from YouTube. It includes several testimonials from people who have greatly benefited from the practice of qigong, even to the point of being able to discontinue medications they no longer needed!
