EP 76 Qi Gong-Tai Chi

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Basically, it's practice of release. So whatever comes your way, whatever you feeling, whatever you experiencing in your body, physically or mentally, you release it. Whatever resistance that you may be experiencing, whatever tension you may be experiencing, you release it. And you're releasing it. Not on one level, you're releasing it on three levels.

Hey friends, thank you for listening to the All Things Good for you podcast. Join us as we explore ancient traditions, modern tools and practices in the world of health, wellness and personal development. I'm Amy Christiansen, your host and your curated mind coach.

And I'm your co host, Brian Bowen, founder of Integrative Health, Inc. And Better Human Company High Performance Coaching. Are you ready to take control of your life and start feeling enthusiastic, empowered and limitless? Each and every, every day for a life well lived, let your curiosity flow with all things good for you.

Hey, Brian.

Hey Amy. Happy Sunday. Sunday afternoon. Oh my God, we're gonna have so much energy.

Oh, it's so beautiful. I've already had a successful morning and now I'm in chill mode.

Chill mode's good. Are you gonna go outside and get some sunshine and cultivate some chi?

Yes, I already did some of that this morning. I had a nice early morning because I have, I have an exercise timer that goes off around 6:30 in the morning and then he goes off again an hour and a half later that demands that I take him outside to play. So Tavi keeps me on track. But we are going to go out later because it's supposed to be really pretty this afternoon, so we're going to get in a long hike.

Oh, Tavi, have you ever. I don't want to jump ahead, but we're going to be talking more about some cool stuff around energy today. And we've mentioned before about how being barefoot is really grounding and stuff. Have you ever, like when you played with Toddy, just stayed like on your hands and knees and barefoot and played with him at his level for half an hour?

I don't know if I'd stay at it half an hour, but I definitely get down and lay down and roll around in the grass and stuff with him for sure.

I can't remember the last time I laid down in the grass. Are we getting weird to start here real too fast?

No, I think everybody should lay down in the grass. What's the new phrase now? I guess some of the teens are starting to say touch grass, man.

Really? Okay, whatever, whatever.

Well, it's energy and good for your. You need to be grounded and be back in touch with the earth and connectivity to where we came from.

I like that. But you and I might be naive. Are they meaning what you're saying?

I do not know. Something else. I think it was a conversation about. It's the new go outside and play.

Okay.

Where I put down your phones. Go touch grass.

So great.

I'm sure they'll turn that into whatever they want. But for me, I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep positive and be naive and innocent a little bit. I'll take it.

Great. Great.

I love it.

I'm excited for our conversation and we have a special guest and it's really cool because this. I met this person via some patients of mine and it was one of those random things where I heard about this person and just heard these really amazing things and I'm like, oh. And I'm listening and I'm really intrigued because of what we're going to be talking about. And then fast forward a couple of weeks or month or whatever. Another patient like told me about this individual and so it just keeps. He keeps coming back into my. Into my orbit a little bit. And I love what we're going to be talking about. For those of you listening, we did do a four series podcast on Energy Qi, traditional Chinese medicine.

And.

And I had mentioned that we are going to have a tight qigong master on here and so we are going to be building on that. And he talking about what that is. I would love to introduce you to Mark. So Mark is here with us and are you there, Mark?

Yes, I am.

Thank you.

Again.

Super excited to have you on. I've again can't pump you off. Pump you up enough from what the patients have said about you and their experiences and so grateful to have you on.

Thank you. Goodness. I'm hopeful to I can lift to that statue there. So it's a big welcome here and. And a lot of praise. Thank you so much for having me you guys. It's great and beautiful Sunday. Indeed. And looking forward to this.

Yeah, thanks for joining us. And I'm just going to clarify up front that your name is Marek. It's N R E K. If anyone else out there is. What are they saying? There's some other syllable in there. I get that a lot.

That's okay.

Where are you from, Eric?

I come from Slovakia actually. What was the former Czechoslovakia is where I was born and grew up as for almost half of my life at 20 some years. And then I moved to the UK then I moved here to the US about 22 years ago. 21 years ago, yeah.

I'm glad that you found your way here. Right, right down the street from us.

Yeah, pretty much. Yep.

And your website is Eclectic ground, right? No.

Yes.

Is my saying that, right?

Yes, you're saying it correctly. And that's another one is like it's not enough that I have a difficult name to pronounce. I have to also make a business difficult to pronounce. So people go like electric grounds. Close. Not quite. That's eclectic. It's one of the like the best of the best or like the most interesting from. Or the most useful from the useful kind of thing. So ground like a place where people can interact and share. I love that that was the intention.

Sense of community there too.

Yeah, yeah. I was always part of a plan.

So you have been doing Tai chi and qigong for quite a while and we'd love to hear if you could just start us off with a little bit about your background and. And then we can jump into what is Tai chi and qigong and how you got into it and then just go from there.

Sure, sure. Yeah. I was as a kid I was always curious about the martial arts and probably like most of the people from that era, my time is that watching Bruce Lee and stuff was like oh, I want to be able to do that. And so the gravitation towards martial arts and really actually energy was later where I understood there's something deeper behind just the movements in the martial arts. And for those of. For the audience that doesn't quite yet know the difference, I will go to that deeper. But Tai chi is also a martial art and he masked why it's so slow. But I'll go to the details later. But just to connect the dots. So my interest in martial arts was always there and so I was like I want to go somewhere where I can learn from masters or some. Something like somewhere in China. So I picked this place called Wudangshan, China and it's a daoist temples place really. If you guys watched a Karate Kid with Jackie Chan, the newer one then that was also now old really. But they go to this place and it's just a beautiful place really. And you're just watching these Taoist monks Like, everywhere you go, either practicing kung fu, which is impressive, or Tai chi movements or qigong, and it's. Oh, I just entered into a heaven here. Yeah, it's beautiful.

It's like a moving meditation is what I always thought it was almost like a dance and a coordination and a methodical process and practice.

Yes, very much. People refer to Tai Chi as meditation and movement. And one of the things about this trip was that I wasn't planning on actually learning Tai chi on this trip. It was almost incidental or accidental in some sense, and almost by the universe. It was very much a providence by means. Like I was so unaware. Exactly.

Yeah.

So it just smacked me back the head, and no Tai Chi, you go. Okay. So I went to study kung fu. And the second day into the training, I hurt my knee, and I really couldn't stand, couldn't walk. And they put me. They took me to the hospital, and then one of the Chinese doctors had put some major needles into my knee, and. As in acupuncture. And after an hour of that, I felt much better, though the knee was still pretty weak, but I felt okay to do the practice or resume because I couldn't really step on the leg, like, I've heard it that much. So I thought, this sucks. What am I gonna do with this? Maybe I'll give this tai chi thing a shot. And then they said, you want to do qigong as well? I said, sure. What is it? And that's where it started.

It's good when your path just pulls you there. You don't even have a choice. It's just right there. Ready for you.

Ready or not. Here we are.

Yeah.

And then Wudong Chong. Is that where the mystical Wudan Mountain is that you always hear about people going to. You're. You were Wudan Mountain. Those of you don't know, like, as a Chinese medicine practitioner and reading some of these ancient texts and stuff like that, like, Udon Mountain's a big thing.

Very much. It's every. I think every Tai Chi school in China, I think they all claim they're the original one, which, of course, poses a problem in our reality. But. But that the Zhangpeng Song, which is the founder, who is the founder or was the founder of Tai Chi originally, apparently was one of the Taoist monks in the. In the Wudang area. So whether that's true or not, we don't necessarily know, and it doesn't really necessarily matter as much. But the story goes that he was watching a crane and a snake fight in the courtyard and was fascinated by it and started to mimic the movements. And there out of that came Tai chi.

And that was like in the 12th century, right?

Exactly.

Way back, yeah. It's amazing.

A little while ago. Indeed.

Yeah, a little bit ago.

Yeah.

It's been around for a bit. That's been proven to be a long time.

Huge.

No matter where you're coming from or how you're looking at it, if it's been practiced that long, then there's got to be some validation there.

Exactly, exactly. And a big part of Tai chi really is qigong. And people ask, what's the difference between Tai Chi and qigong? And I don't know if I can jump into that. Right.

Right away as we go.

Okay. So from my perspective. And my perspective is as limited as it is today, we're all students, I take it that way, as qigong is really trustless energy work Qi as in energy and then work gong, a worker practice. And then now we have the Tai Chi quan. And Tai Chi Chen is basically the great ultimate fist. The Tai Chi, the qi in Tai Chi, and the chi in Qigong are different chi. Just for those who didn't know that or didn't realize. And it's. Why is the Tai Chi quan the great ultimate fist or form? What. What is it? What does that mean? And so basically, it makes it ultimate or great because of the qigong being in it. The practice of qigong, your ability to create and feel and. And generate or cultivate your energy and your body in different ways. Of course, there are different ways to do that, but your ability to do that and your ability to use that chi while you're moving, not just like you generate Qi while you in meditation, which is absolutely also very much a case. But when we get out of meditation, we start moving, we get out of the meditative state and we lose some of that. Some of that. Some of that stays. Of course, it depends on what we do, how we handle it.

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But this qigong teaches you how to generate it, cultivate it, and then how to use it in a movement as well. Now you start using this energy in movements. You can now use it not just in actual practice of martial art of Tai Chi, but you can use it in your daily life, which, of course is like your life becomes the practice. It's not just when I go practice Tai Chi that I practice Tai chi or qigong, my life becomes practice. So I go brush my teeth and I use this feeling that I will describe a little bit more later. To do that, I'll go. As I'm cutting my foods or as I'm cooking, as I'm sitting in a car and driving, I'm just constantly reinforcing this state of being, eating as I move through life, I'm waiting in the line, grocery store, whatever.

Do you think. Do you think both with tight and. And qigong and I'm just gonna say qigong is spelled Q I.

That's right.

G O N G. And Thai Qi.

Yeah.

Is the C H I?

Yes. And if you spell it in. If you spell it in pinging, basically Mandarin, it's J I, not C H I. But most people in America see it's spelled as C H I because that's how you would pronounce it correctly in some sense. Basically, the pinging is the. Because qigong could also be spelled spelled C H I, G O N G, or G U N G. To pronounce it correctly could just. So you can pronounce it, but the Qi, the character itself is different. Yes.

Oh, gotcha. Okay. And so if somebody were looking it up, they could do the Qi or the C H I?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. So do you think that both of those practices, just as you were talking about, and I know you're going to go into it, but the energy and how to carry that, not just in a physical practice and a designated timeframe, but through everything. As I mentioned, like when I, for a very brief period of time, was introduced to Tai chi and was doing that after having my child, my son, and as a way to ease back into exercise. And then from there, it actually took me into the kickboxing world because I just started getting interested in martial arts a little bit, but I didn't really want to go into the formal. And it just was, again, one of those moments where universe and God just worked everything in its place for you and pushed you along the path. And I ended up working and doing kickboxing for several years and never competed because I didn't like to get hurt and just did it as an exercise practice and then taught exercise courses and things. But anyway, what I recognized was that Tai Chi, like I had said, that meditative process and what's coming up for so many people today is that when you're talking about brushing your teeth or cutting your food or driving, it's like that presence and meditation of awareness in the moment and how you're cultivating and managing energy and presence with everything you're doing. And that that is your being when you're paying attention on some level, even a subconscious level, we're always creating an energetic or non energetic flow or either quieting it or building it with everything we're doing. So I feel like this is where these types of practices can really help Western civilization, everybody but Western minded folks to help develop an understanding of the oneness that we are not with just in our own physical body, within our own space, but how we are interacting all the time in the world with everything else around us.

Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And it's. Would you just quickly. Is there a question in it or can I just expand on that?

Please expand. I was just wondering if I was getting the same sense of. And if you could talk more about that process of. I love the idea of how you are saying that you'll take this practice and you develop it into a means for everything else that you do.

This is absolutely. I have to expound on that. So one of the things that I also do in, in my eclectic ground at my studio is that I teach martial arts such as kickboxing as well as winchon Kung fu. Aside from Tai chi, qigong and breath work and meditation, what else do we do? Sound healing. So as well as. So there's a little bit of a lot of things. And in all of these things, the main thing is practicing what could be referred to as non resistance. But what I like to say more as a release. So in the Chinese terms or amanda in Chinese or is referred to as song gong Song gong practice. Basically it's practice of release. So whatever comes your way, whatever you feeling, whatever you're experiencing in your body, physically or mentally, you release it. Whatever resistance that you may be experiencing, whatever tension you may be experiencing, you release it. And you're releasing it not on one level, you're releasing it on three levels. And this is. This brings me into the next part of this talk is where we recognize in three main energy centers. I'm sure Brian has already mentioned this in his previous episodes where we talk about three Dantians the lower, the middle and the higher Dantian. And the dantian being the energy center, which in Chinese system is recognized. And then, then you have an Indian system. You have seven centers, basic centers recognized within the body and then few otherwise outside of the body. But the three main ones, lower belly, basically right around your belly button or below slightly. And in the middle of the body, actually not just the belly button is, but inside of you, in the center of you. If you draw like a, you know, line through you. And. And then same there's the middle center, is the heart center like where your heart sits. Similarly. And then the third one is that you're. It's the middle of your brain. So we talk about the third eye, but the idea of the third eye really correlates physically, for instance, with the pineal gland and its ability to connect us really, really with the consciousness from which we draw the thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. These three bodies then all need to be balanced in order to have some sense of harmony within you. And one of the things that helps with this is breathing, for instance. Okay. And you think, yes, of course I breathe and I still don't feel great. Or do you pay attention to when you breathe? So somewhat like when people talk about mindful eating or mindful reading, whatever. Do you breathe mindfully, for instance, which is of course called meditation. So are you meditating? Are you doing some sort of a breathwork practice for a while? And as you guys were referring to for instance, also since breathwork is also part of my morning routine.

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The immersion really into the element. So I have this beautiful backyard. Yes, I do step on the grass every morning and I exercise in it every morning and I will sit in it, lay in it under my tree and it feels fantastic. And of course then we have the element of air you're breathing, right? This is. I'm talking element of air from perspective of hermetics practices, not necessarily from Chinese practice. The element of air does not show in Chinese practice as Brian's already knows. So I'll go into that as well. Maybe if we have time. But just feel that feeling the element, feeling the sun, the fire energy, right then feeling the wind and the breeze and the air from the air energy and then feeling the ground from the earthing energy and then feeling your. The water from if there is a, you know, moisture in the air, which we do have lack of here in Denver. But typically the immersion is the shower in the morning to get into the water element. So just. And then when I'm in it, I'm paying attention to it. So long way around, come back to the breath real quick. Is that when you're paying attention to your inhale and when you pay attention to your exhale, you're giving yourself the attention that you so badly want from anyone else around you. You. And we have this lack that we walk around with this backpack. I sometimes say that we want to fill up with external fun things. And we walk around and we try to scavenge for things that are important or cool or fun. And we take these like trophies with us. And then we get home and then we unpack it and when we are still unhappy with what we have, so we go back again and we still do the same thing. Instead I recommend that we turn it around. That you start from within you and you start paying attention to yourself. Start giving your own energy, your awareness to your body, to your heart, to your feelings, to your thoughts. And just feel what it is. Don't try to judge it, don't try to compare it. Just allow it to be what it is. Say what it is, feel what it is. It will pass once you release it. So you. We all have a free will. And with that free will we can release anything that comes our way. What does that really mean, to release something? If I have tension in my hand, my fist, and I Release my wrist 100%, it just drops, right drops to the ground or kind of closer to the ground to muscle tension releases. And this is one of the. One of the ways that acupuncture or massage also help. They. You massage the muscles, you put the needle in places where the energy where the chief stuck and needs to be released. So that's the first part of this practice is that your focus on your body parts, for instance, and particularly joints, because this is where energy also gets stagnant the most. In our practice of Tai chi, for instance, I'll pay attention to my shoulder and I release it. I pay attention to My spine and I rise it up. So align myself and I pay attention to my other shoulder or my knees or my hips, and I let go, I release. I want to sit, like when I lay down, I want to release, let go. As you're standing, of course, so you're not crumbling because your spine and your structure, skeletal structure, supports you. But as you're focusing on that space where your joints, for instance, are or your spine is, you truly just letting go of the tension in those areas. That's physical release. And you're practicing it until your body gets used to it, basically. So a lot of practice is very important. As probably most people know, what you practice is what you're going to become. If you don't practice it, you can talk about it. You're not gonna become it. Yeah. And then, so of course, quickly then you have the physical release, and then you practice the mental release. If a thought comes to you and the thought is torturing you, let it go. If the thought comes to you and it's beautiful, it, you're gonna have to let it go at some point because everything is temporary. Right. So whether you do it now or later, that's up to you. Free will again. So question is, why would you want to torture yourself to wait longer? Go ahead.

Yeah, I just. I just wanted to jump in. And all of it's so beautiful the way you're saying it too. And I just want to bring up the point of things that you're holding on to. The backpack, the trophies, the internal struggles, the friction, all that is how we're leaking energy.

Right.

And so when we're letting go and when we're doing the breath work and stuff, we're cultivating energy and we have to stop throwing a log on the fire, things that stoke that, and really look to explore all the little nooks and crannies on where are leaking that, whether it's physical or mental, emotional. And then what are the ways we can cultivate the energy? And the tai chi qigong, breath work and that mindfulness, but being able to let go. It's just. You were talking earlier about the elements, and I just get excited because it's okay. How do we cultivate energy? How do we stop the leaking of energy? And then how do we create this, this synergistic movement and get this wu way, this effortless movement going between through the elements and allow it to flow and move the way it should. So just wanted to point out, you're beautifully explaining it, but love that. Just to pointing out like where are we leaking? How can we cultivate? So good job.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Very well said, very well pointed out as well. So you talk about we experience friction, we experience tension, we experience also we experience harmony, we experience beauty. There's the polarity goes the yin and yang or yang and the yin. And this is basics of Tai Chi, as most people have already seen. The Yin Yang sign that we call anyway, so the Tai Chi symbol and it's comprised of the two opposites, basically that kind of flow into one another, other. And also each one of them has a little bit of the other in it. And so I want to point the dow because it's important that a lot of us want to go away with tension, want to go away with friction, want to go away with the bad, the dark, the ugly, the negative. But without all that, we would not know what positive is, would not know what light is without the dark. I think it would be boring. I don't know.

No, I agree.

So I think the harmonizing those two is really that the happy medium where sometimes you do need a little bit more tension, sometimes you do need a little bit more release on the, on the contrary of that, because your body is out of harmony. And that's, I believe, is also basis of every healing practice, is that you're just harmonizing the body and, or mind and or the emotions. So, and that's why I love this practice and these practices is that that I can incorporate all this in that when I'm focusing on the breath, I breathe in slowly, I breathe out slowly. My body automatically starts to loosen and relax as I breathe out, I focus on the breath. It does it almost by itself. I'm not resisting it, I'm not trying. So I'm letting it. I'm just witnessing, experiencing, observing my breath. And then the body just calms because all of a sudden, okay, we went from the beta frequency from the busyness of the mind into the alpha frequency, where we're now slower. Everything is sl and down. Okay, the body's okay. We're going to homeostasis is lovely. Okay, let's keep going. And if you stay in that state long enough, if you're in a meditative state, you go to theta frequency brainwaves. And now you're starting to reach into your subconscious if you wanted to. This is where the healing can happen, actually, at least emotional and mostly emotional. The mental healing a little bit this. These states are very precious in that sense. So go into these states more often than we are doing. Right now and again, about balance, because our society, I think, I feel, in this day and age, pushes so much, run faster, work harder, do this, do that. And are you not earning millions yet? What's wrong with you? So there's like pressure, constant pressure, and attention all the time. Of course, to balance it out, you have to relax, right? In some sense.

Yeah.

And so that there are those tools that we use, whether it's you go get acupuncture, you go get massage, and you try Tai chi, or you meditate or you breathe or whatever it is called immersion version, you know, for another one.

So I love the Tai Chi aspect. Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

I love the Tai Chi aspect too. Just want to pull this in. Is that for some people to do just a city meditation of stillness. And it can be a real struggle, even though we can all just. It's reps, it's practice. But Tai chi, qigong adds that movement element to it. But still you're being. You're able to, like you said, shift from those brainwave states, shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic, and still get all these things. And, and, and it doesn't matter. Your age, your ailment, like, there's a way to do it. And, and it's an active participation, which I really love that it's accessible for people.

Exactly. It's your conscious choice if you really want to help yourself. If you really are doing this for yourself, it's not because I'm doing this because I want to be prettier. I'm doing this because I want to become so I can. So other people can like me. If you're doing it for anything for that reason, you're always going to, in some sense, fail. Because whatever we do, I feel like if you're doing it, do it for yourself because you love it. If you love something, then you're. Then your energy vibrates higher and everybody around you will want to be around you. It's. It becomes a byproduct. Is not that you're forcing it, you're just allowing yourself to love yourself, really, truly accept yourself.

At the very least, Brendan right now would say, can I get an amen on a Sunday?

Yeah. Yes, he would.

I love that.

So then if I go to that actual practice and what it comprised of, or what I teach specifically, if that's cool with you guys.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So different styles of Tai chi. I would love to hear some of the styles, too. When you're. When you get to that point. Okay.

Yeah, I can start with that actually, because then I would want to go a little bit deeper into just single practice. But let's start with the styles. So, styles, there's few. It's quite a few of the main. The basic ones, the Yang style, the Chen style, the Wu style, the sun style, and what I teach, I don't know if they call it necessarily style, but I've learned the Tai Chi and Wudang Shan, and so they call their Tai Chi Wudang Tai Chi. Whether we say it's a Wudang style or not, that's, I think, up to the Westerners, whatever we want to do with it. But that's the difference in some of the styles is, for instance, Yang style specifically focuses a lot more on the internal feeling and the form, physical form. Movement is a little bit higher, is not as lower as Chen style. For instance, the Chen style focuses more on a martial aspect and developing this physical power that we refer to as Jin energy. And we'll go into that too, maybe if we had time. And then the style, I don't know enough to say something specific because there is very few of those in the States as far as I know. Style is a little bit more similar to Wudang, but it has this forward lean that I find personally doesn't work for my body because I feel like I'm losing balance all the time. Although I can understand why they do it. And we'll go into that maybe deeper as well. The Wudang Tai Chi that I do, specifically the Taoist practice that when I was there.

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We as the Westerners, we had easier practice. And the Chinese people who were practicing, they had a lot more difficult practices in. They would practice eight to nine hours a day, six days a Week. And then we as Westerners would practice five to six hours a day. Day. And with one day off during the week. And so I know it's a lot. It was a lot. So a lot of West Turners were just like, they couldn't do it. Warm up alone was comprised of about, let's say thousand punches and 500 kicks and a lot of push ups, sit ups, stretching, balancing exercises. And that was just a warm up for an hour. Ish. And then we did a regular practice where we actually learned forms and applications and things like that.

That your shoulders and glutes have to be destroyed.

And that was the point of the Taoist. Exactly where I was gonna go next is that the point was that they want to exhaust the body. So you cannot hold tension physically.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah. So then the form, when they start doing it, it looks like you're gonna fall any moment, but your will keeps you up. Of course, you're moving slowly, like you're moving Tai Chi moving slowly in the form so you can control it, but it's still hard. But when you release. Now this brings me into the actual practice. When you release tension. For instance, you sitting, if most of the audience probably sits here. If you're sitting, lengthen your spine up. Something is pulling you by your head and then or by your neck up and slowly then release your tailbone. While your head is being pulled up, the tailbone sinks down to the chair. It's like you're letting your whole body just melt into that chair. If you're standing, you could do this through the feet. It becomes a little bit more difficult, but it is doable. So then from there you become aware of your breath. You're slowly breathing in and you're slowly breathing out as you're doing this. Yeah, you could do either. Actually, I typically do in classes through my mouth so people can hear me and be prompted to it. But mostly through your nose. There's focusing through just letting the air go through the nose. More importantly, the air is going to find its way in no matter what you do. Okay, again, free will aside, body will do what it needs to do. And focusing on just feeling how your diaphragm pulls the air into the lungs and how the diaphragm pushes the air out of the lungs. Your belly expands as a diaphragm pulls the air in and your chest expands. And then as the diaphragm pushes the air out, the the collapse or not collapse, but the compression happens. Feeling that for a few breaths. This takes you to the alpha brainwave state. As you get into the alpha brainwave state, your muscles and tendons and ligaments in your body, all the soft tissue and your fascia starts to release tension because it feels like, okay, we can rest now, I'm not in fight or flight. So as you're focusing on the breath, you're releasing the tension from your joints from. So feel your left shoulder and like go feel your left scapula, your shoulder blade and let go. Right one, let go. Feel your spine still rising up, pulling up your tailbone, still sinking your hips, sitting into the chair, etc, etc, so you feel your elbows, left, right, feel your wrist, left, right, loosen. Stretch your fingers very gently so you have some fascial activation here while you're also releasing tension. And it brings me to the second point. While we release the tension, we're getting the body into this noodle like state. You also want to have activation in here, not necessarily just complete release. And what do I mean by activation fascia? If you activate your fascia, it conducts more energy and it conducts because it's moist, because it's stretchy, because it's elastic. Okay. It's a great conductor of energy through the body. So how do we stretch fascia internally? Imagine that if you put your hand in front of you and then you try to reach for something that you, that is out of your reach and you reach for it and you reach for it and you reach for it, reach for it. You just keep stretching. The idea of, of stretching your whole arm and then you relax all the muscles in the body, but keep stretching and reaching. When you do that, now you're stretching fascia more so than a muscle pulling and contracting. And that awareness in your body, body, as you practice it, as you cultivate that as you develop becomes not something that you have to try to do and focus on too much. It becomes automatic later on. Once it's automatic, the current, the energy current that flows to us all the time anyway is just gonna have a lot more conductivity because your fascia web is active and released at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's the very basis to, to say without showing you I'm doing it while you're.

I was totally still there.

Beautiful. Awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Hopefully everybody is doing this at home too.

Unless you're jabbing. I was gonna say. Okay.

I always say that. I'm like, if you're doing this while you're driving, do we really have to say it?

I think you do. It's A I think you do. Because some people just try. I'll tell you this just briefly. Really hold the thought though. When I was practicing breath work first they said don't do it while you're driving. And so what did I do? Of course I was late and I didn't have a chance to do my breath work at home before I left. So I got in the car and I was like, I'll do it in the car. As I started doing the breath work, I started to feel this over oxygenation. I was like, whoa, this is bad. I stopped.

Yeah. Don't hyperventilate or do weird stretches.

Exactly.

While you're driving, don't close your eyes and meditate while you're driving.

Operating heavy machinery.

Yeah.

Maybe there's a space between there though, and then that could cut down on the. Find a space between there.

Yeah. So like when you stop on a red light, you can get into the meditative state. Somebody will honk.

I used to use that as my like little bell in the monks. They would ring a bell to stop and meditate for X amount of time. And so I'd use this light as a trigger.

Yeah, but hook do lots of that. But isn't that what loud singing and dancing in your car is for too?

It's like pretty much, yes. And that's another thing is. Yes. I would go. I would love to also go into. I'll just say very briefly sound super, super important. And you're creating the sound within your own body creates vibration. And if you have a. If you have a thought in your mind, you basically incorporating your electric part, your yang part of yourself. And then you have this vibration that you create with the thought and or singing, let's say the vibration within your whole body. Then you have the yin energy and now you have more of a balance, more of a harmony. And there's more to that, but it's just on the side and of.

Yeah.

And do you have. Do you incorporate sound in the woo style?

The what we practice is basically. And also it's not necessarily. I don't believe it's a woo style what we practice because we were told this is just Wudang. But it's just to make sure we're talking about right things in sense of what I understand today. Let me just say that if I'm wrong, so be it. Because we're all flawed in some sense. We're flossing.

Awesome.

And so when we have this, this ability to hang on, I lost it's rain of thoughts. We were Talking about the sound. So we're talking about sound. So when, when I we do breath, typically we'll do the most sound. In my own practice, I do humming, I will do singing, I will do any sort of those things. And when I do it, I try to feel like what am I awareness on my vocal cords and how they're moving a B on my heart and how it's changing its beat. So one of the other practices which can do. We can just do briefly. It's going to be one minute. So take a slow, deep breath. This is going to go into the heart basically. So take a slow, deep breath again. If you're driving, continue and just pay attention. Slow, deep breath out. Breath in, breath out. Begin to watch how your diaphragm moves, how your rib cage moves as you slow it down. Slowly, gradually, longer, slower, deeper. As you slow down your breath, begin to focus on your heartbeat. Find it. Feel your own heartbeat. If you're feeling it, breathe into it slowly. Breathe out. Feel that heartbeat in. In space. I don't know how you guys about you guys, but if you do this extensively, I already was feeling like goosebumps starting to come up for me. And so that's for me, that' sign that I'm connecting to my astral body, which is your emotions, your feelings, etc.

I'm concerned I can't feel my heartbeat.

Oh, that's okay.

You know, can I put my hand on my heart or on my cr.

Yeah, you can do that as well. Exactly. Like I tell my students, everybody is different. Some of us have a little bit more of a focus. Some of us have. Has less, a little bit less focus. But she's all perfect. We are all exactly where we need to be. So don't try to beat yourself up that you're slower or faster or whatever, or praise yourself too much anyway because all of those things are just detracting, interacting.

Just allow yourself to where I'm at. Evolutionary chain.

Yeah. Yes, yes. It's just stay in that state a little longer and yes, hand on the heart will help. And then once you're done with a few breaths and hand on the heart, remove it and see if you can still feel it in that same space. Once you're in it, if you're truly in it, breathe. And your breathing is almost like you want the heart to get the breath like expands. So basically using your innate ability, your entrancing ability to expand, contract, expand, contract tract like your breath does in the heart. So this is one of the practices and of course you Start learning this sitting, then you do it standing, then you do it moving, etc until it becomes moving meditation. Hopefully that makes some sense.

I got it.

Oh, good.

I have a heart.

Yay.

Back in the wizard of Oz.

Welcome to life, Tin Man. Wonderful.

If you don't mind, I know we are, we could talk about this for hours. So a little bit, the difference between the Tai chi and the qigong.

Oh, I didn't expand on that very much. So, yes, thank you for pointing that out. So qigong is basically set up to be more healing, and only healing Tai Chi is set up to be martial practice as well as healing practice, because it has qigong in it. So basically, the movements that you would use for Marshall, with your internal release, with your fascial stretch, you're conducting more energy. Now you're using your intention through your mind, mind through your heart, to either move a person elsewhere because there somebody, let's say, starts to push on you. This is the martial part. Somebody starts to push on you, and you can yield that space, that energy that they've given you. You yield that energy away using your own energy without muscle tension in your body. That's the idea. And then you learn to practice it, of course, through. Through all sorts of different practices in Tai Chi. Now, if you're using this for healing purposes, which is what qigong really basically is. So that part of that is that you release yourself fully when you go to heal someone, whether they're lying down on a table, where they're sitting, down on a chair, where they're standing doesn't necessarily matter as much. Although it is best when they lay down because they can focus their body on relaxation best. If you have the ability to do that, then do that. I sometimes do healing on my students while they're standing briefly kind of of thing. And so all you do, in some sense, all you do a lot of practice, but you relax yourself first, so you feel all your joints relax. You align yourself like we did before, so your spine rises, your tailbone releases, your joints release. You feel this fascia web just, just like droop. And now you add this stretch to your intention of expansion and contraction. And this is the ying and yang. So we have the expansion is fire energy, contraction is the water energy. And you can use both of these energies to heal. You can shoot something away and you can pull something out of the body, for instance, or the thought or the feeling. And this is where your intuition has to be tuned in as well. So your body is released, your heart opens. So similar to what I had you do now is that you feel your heartbeat. This is where it is. I'm open to be a vessel, vessel through which the healing happens. And it's not me healing somebody else. This is them healing themselves, that me opening the gate and them allowing themselves to be healed. If they don't allow that, if the gates are closed, I can impose my healing, but it's not going to touch, it's not going to, you know, catch on. So it's not going to stay. If they don't, if they're not, for some reason, it can be unconscious. I've had that too. And I do still that it can be that for some reason, some of this illness is actually serving me, even though it doesn't really. But I don't know that. And so I resist the healing. So in that sense. And so from that perspective, the qigong, once you get into this state of release yourself of open heart and clear your mind, clear your intentions with, okay, I'm here to be the vessel. So, universe, bring me what I need to know about this person. Person. So I'm opening my third eye. Bring me to what I need to know about this person to allow them to heal. And if they don't want to heal, let me know that. Okay. And so then you're opening yourself to this space where you're basically attaching to your spirit, is touching to their spirit. And now the healing begins on a spiritual level as well as physical, as well as astral and mental.

Wonderful.

I love the practice.

It's so beautiful. And it's just a continuation. And I know that comes up for acupuncture, but it for certainly comes up for me, even with my hand on practice, on people and that recognition of you. You have some clients that I work with that you can tell that they're receptive for healing and a softness about them. And it's exactly that. And it's lovely to recognize that this idea, this philosophy, the reality, not even it just that can again, it can carry over to everything we do, whether it's a movement practice or the physical practice that you're doing, exercise or massage, acupuncture or like as you referenced, driving a car, cutting your food and brushing your teeth, like you're constantly in a practice of your own energy. And I like the idea of what you're saying with the receptiveness of. I'm not going to say it as eloquent, but when you're describing it, what makes me think of it is just like a river or air. It's There are blockages and there's rocks and there are things. But the river doesn't stop. It just works around it or flows over it and under it. It's still moving forward and doing its thing. It's not that it's not affected by something that could be a problem or causing a resistance. It's acknowledging it. It's there. That's the reality. But it works in conjunction or at least understanding around that thing. And I think if we can do that more with what you're describing as far as our energy and with reference to healing and resistance and struggle. Struggle like a butterfly can't fly. If you break it out of its cocoon, it literally builds the strength of its wings while it's breaking out of its own cocoon. If you were to help a baby chick out of an egg, you would kill it. Because while it's busting out of its eggshell, it's going through that strife and struggle. That's what gives itself strength and creates the ability for it to go on and survive. And I think we have to think.

Beautifully said.

Yeah. And you have to think about that with all of our struggles. But it's not something to anguish and stay in. Right. Just move with it.

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Beautifully said. Really? Absolutely. I. If you. If we were on video, you'd see me grinning and just being in a glee here. Yeah. Nice. Exactly. Absolutely.

Oh, thank you for. I just love how that and the beauty of it for me is that it's. We all come from these different lifestyles and belief patterns and the ways that we've gotten to where we are today. And I personally always love that there's so much when we really get down and we take names and labels and things off of it, it's really are. It's all connected and it's all similar and that's the beauty of all of this space. And so I appreciate, appreciate like your eloquence and your ability to come in and talk about this from your point of view. And I'd like, if you don't mind, if you would maybe share some stories or testimonies of what you've experienced with some of your practitioners or your clients on their journey and maybe the benefits that they've experienced.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, it's a fun, fun practice. And the last one, for instance, I've had the opportunity to go study with, with Master Mark Erasmus. He is fairly known on the web if you're following Tai chi and internal with Tai Chi specifically that was in Thailand for a month on a couple of his trainings. And some people just go with him everywhere he goes and just learn for years kind of thing. And I was like, I want to take this, I want to break this down and I want to come back. And so one of the, one of the things that I've noticed for myself as the benefits on in this is just deeper understanding. I have easier the practice gets. But again, without the actual practice, you don't get results. Like we said early in the practice, early in the conversation here, that if you can have all knowledge in the world, if you don't actually put it to practice, if you don't integrate it, nothing happens. For me personally, benefits wise for type, the physicalness, let's just say, is that I've learned to, to relax myself in difficult positions and I can outlast almost anyone physically. That's one illness wise, whenever I feel something starting to hurt, I'll focus on just letting it go physically. Now granted, a lot of times in my own perception, for instance, is that a lot of the illness, specifically the chronic illness, is coming from our emotions. Holding on to emotional stuff that we, we don't doesn't necessarily serve us other than reminding us the, the pain that we have suffered at some point and we don't want to let that go. So I've learned about that as well. Letting go of the past emotional stuff through this practice and of course creating mental clarity within myself. And I'm not saying there's many other practices, including meditation, that can give you that same thing. And what I like about Tai Chi specifically is that it encourages you to embody this in the movement, not just sitting practice.

Nice.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, very beautiful. So I, I got, while you guys were talking, I Also looked was jumping to your website to schedule myself I think I'm like okay, I know I'm going to get back to doing some Tai Chi because I've have some experience. It's been a long time and now I'm like I think I need to do some Wing Chun too.

Yeah, there you go.

I was going to ask what Wing Chun was. I saw that on your site but I didn't have time to investigate it so sure thing.

Wincheng Kung fu is basically a style of Kung fu. There's different styles of Kung Fu as well. Kung fu is translation. Loose translation of Kung Fu is practice everything all the time kind of thing. If you refer to martial arts specifically in China you don't say Kung Fu although in Western you say Kung Fu in. In in China or in on the east you would say Wushu as you're practicing the actual martial art. But the Wing Chun specifically is if you most people know Bruce Lee but I have met some people who was like, like who's Bruce Lee? Okay, never mind. Yeah, Bruce Lee brought Winchan Kung Fu to, to the States specifically that was. He was one of the first one who brought the Winchun Kung Fu first in. So it's like a close quarters combat where it's more of a self defense techniques and it was developed by you could say meek woman. Asian women are typically of a very small frame without too much muscle. I'm not don't mean it badly in any way. I love Asian people, all of them women or men or whatever. Okay, so as well as western humanity is as beautiful as crazy as we get but, but it's a small frame and so how to overpower somebody who has a bigger frame. And so Win Fu is basically it works in a sense of vectors as well as the internal power. The combination of the. Okay, this is the closest point to, to this, to this punch. My block has to go from here to here, not this way or this way. That's a wasted energy energy. So it incorporates economy of motion. Basically every time you do something it's not a typically one block, it's a block and a strike. It's like why wait for the strike if somebody's hitting you, why wait for the strike? And not just block and strike together, you know, kind of thing not encouraging fighting at all. But if you really have to protect yourself and something has really gone down wrong in some sense or you're in difficult position, then that would be the most efficient way to to or what would be the most efficient ways One of The practices, Winchung, now other practices. There's a lot of them. Again, similar principles, similar ways. I stuck with Wincheng because that's. That was most dear to me. And I used the internal engine of Tai chi in my martial arts practice as well.

So if somebody comes and learns the wing Wing Chun, are they going to make the sounds like Bruce Lee did?

Yes, yes, eventually.

We always played that as Bruce Lee growing up.

If you practice this, we were out. I demonstrated on almost daily basis for students. If you know how to release your tension from your joints, if you know how to stretch your fascia just before you hit and you move your arm forward, back, sideways, up, down, whichever way you want to do it, you will hear a swoosh.

Wow, that's great. I'm coming to class to reconnect with my childhood.

Now this may feel like an oversell and. But what happens oftentimes I've experienced with people and including myself earlier on is that we get excited about something and then oftentimes we don't have enough interest to put the work into the practice. And not everything is for everyone. I just want to point that out because if you're a, let's say, dancer and you love dancing, Tai chi might be for you, but martial arts might not be for you. And also they might. It is different for yoga people. Typically the tai chi seems interesting, but the kung fu does not. Or you may be complete opposite or maybe like, I actually want to learn how to defend myself and it's important to me because I got attacked before and I don't want to experience that again. Whatever your motivation is, if you don't have enough of a drive, enough of a motivation, you will let it go. Because practicing something and talking about it are two very different things.

That's one of the big points of this podcast though, is to really encourage people to get curious and explore all the variety of stuff out there to find what you do connect with. Because if we just sit around doing nothing, there's so much to explore. And I can imagine, wouldn't it be fun if you could just explore every. I want to try painting, I want to try Kung fu, I want to try Tai chi, I want to try this. And you just had the resources to do it all. Who knows what you are a savant at? Like, maybe there's just something that just that this pulls so deeply, but that's why you have to listen and you have to try.

And I think that's exciting. And you have. People can go to your website and no matter where they are. They can come in. If they're in Colorado, in the Denver area, they could practice with you live. But you have some really good options for virtual and online training and education options. So you really can go on and experience all of these different things and see what hits for you or what flows for you and build and even if you just do it, if you do it, I think you have to do it a few times to see. But. I also led yoga classes for several years. I never was. I never called myself a yogi. I never called it said that I. I was, you know, really a yoga person. I was leading it because I worked for a gym, but the kickboxing was my thing. I really loved the kickboxing and I. I enjoyed the yoga. I thought it was very good and helpful. But for me, what resonated more for where I was, the repetition, the rhythm and kicking over heavy things was really fun for me. Yeah. Yeah. So I am.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We all have different, different interests and different motivations.

Yeah.

So I encourage them so we. They can go on your website again. That's eclecticground.com and you can find out more. You have a lot of really good information on there too. Like you've got some really great informational blog stuff people can learn and read some more. You've got some great YouTube videos and examples that people can go and look for and then they can sign up for services right there and your website.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Any other additional stuff we're reaching out to you or ways to contact you that you want to share with us?

Oh, goodness. I have some presence on social media. I'm not a social media guru. I enjoy making videos and I need to start posting more. I have not felt drawn to it. I'm like one on one person mostly or group people, like in person. Teaching is what I love doing. Absolutely love doing. And I spend a lot of time doing, doing that. And I don't really make enough time to do social media posts, but I have a few of those out there as well. Although my Facebook page did get recently hacked and I've lost access to my current Facebook site business site. So I'm gonna have to start from scratch.

Yeah, I understand that the social media thing. I also appreciate where your energy is going and where it's not going, but. And then give them your email mail that. Can we list that on here?

Yeah.

Okay. It's so it's M A R E k@eclectic ground.com and then we'll have that. We'll have that down in the show notes too.

Yeah, beautiful.

Perfect. Anything else that you want to share or give us the gift of knowledge on before.

Oh goodness. How much time do you have? That's a little.

How much battery do you have left on that computer?

Oh, actually I'm still good. I'm like only one third is down so I'm still good. Yeah. For those of the audience there is that we're currently experiencing no power. So I'm on a battery of my computer. So yes, I think we're good for now. It was beautiful. Thank you guys for great questions and, and lovely comments and introducing me to your audience and I really appreciate that.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I look forward to seeing you in class very soon. Soon. And for those of you who are listening in, please, as always, if you found some golden nuggets on here, some interest, please pass this on to any friends, family members, loved ones, people who you're just stressed out, need some, an outlet to do some letting go. Pass that on to them too. And we appreciate you listening.

Merrick, thank you so much for joining us and thanks Brian, for coming in on a Sunday.

Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you, Amy. Appreciate it. You guys have beautiful rest of your day outside barefoot, playing in the grass.

Thank you. All right, take care.

Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for you podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying All Things Good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you're inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

Did you know your cell phone is made with recycled materials? That's right. In fact, most of the things around you that you depend on every day are made with recycled materials. From essential infrastructure to important innovations, America's recycling companies provide the materials that power our infrastructure and strengthen our economy. Want to know more? Learn how America's essential infrastructure and important innovations are made with recycled materials@recycled materials.org that's recycled materials.org.

Looking to get out there and feel the in your hair Chevy EVs have you covered like the Blazer EV with bold style that's sure to you away. And with Silverado EV towing is a breeze with the capability to hitch up and tow with ease and Equinox EV helps you keep moving along. Like with confidence. Chevrolet together. Let's drive.