When colored butterflies dance in air ....

They are not all tensed up ....

Or stressed out ...

They are carefree ....

And so ....

And from being a butterfly dancing in the air ....

We become a water bead ....

And as a water bead ...

We are going to roll around on a lotus leaf as the lotus leaf gently rides the waves ....

And so ...

And now ....

Like the space shuttle ...

It is time for our re-entry back into ourselves ....

So we gather up chi from the universe ....

Healing chi ....

Harmonious chi ....

And we bring that chi right on in to ourselves ....

Beginning at the top of the head ....

And so ...

And with that, we have completed what I think of as the mental rotation which accompanies this basic chi gong set of twenty forms from beginning to end ...

I learned this chi gong set in the early-1990's from my Chinese t'ai chi teacher and have been using it as a positive tool in my own life since then ...

Now, I predominantly use it as a part of my warm-up before I do my liu he ba fa set ...

But I have also used this set to aid me in healing myself as best I can from my Viet Nam war wounds ...

The set is simple ....

It requires little space, so it can be done inside ...

You are not required to walk or have to turn around, so that if your legs are weak, this still is a safe set to perform ....

It works all of the joints in the body, and it has you moving your spine, as well, albeit very gently ...

So from here, we will now go back and begin with the physical movements which comprise the set ...

Keeping in mind that chi gong is mind-directed ......

Which means that your mind is connected to your body as you do each set of movements ....

And so ...

And here, before I go on with this chi gong set I have been talking about in here, I want to try and clear up some confusion that arises when the subject is chi gong ...

Part of the problem is that when people first learn chi gong, they are generally starting out with limited knowledge, and so, each thing they learn is of necessity discrete, which is to say, a lesson unto itself ...

And since a person's capacity for assimilating new information is also finite and limited, especially at first, the lessons encountered as a beginner are bite-sized, so to speak, to avoid information overload ...

So beginners fail to see the interconnected nature of these various chi gongs, and here, I am specifically referring to IRON SHIRT, which begins as a mental concept, NOT a set of physical exercises ...

Or said another way, the mental construct that is IRON SHIRT governs the physical exercises that one does to strengthen one's spine ....

And then, one can superimpose more and more degrees of movement, as one gains strength, and what drives that is still the same mental concept or construct of IRON SHIRT ....

And so it will be with these chi gongs ....

We actually have many goals when we are doing chi gong ...

BUT ....

With a weak spine, we cannot fulfill those goals very well ....

So as we do these chi gong exercises, a part of our mind is going to be dedicated to monitoring our lower spine as we do these movements ....

We are looking for flexibility, as flexibility enhances the flow of blood in the body, as well as chi ...

We are seeking calmness, for the same reasons ....

And we are looking to be light and airy, and again for the same reasons ....

And so ...

I would say from my own experiences with it, that chi gong is a uniquely human experience in real time ...

You can hear all sorts of things about it, and you can read about it, BUT ....

Those are merely the words of someone else ...

It would be possible and conceivable that someone just starting out could gain more benefit than someone who had been doing the same form for forty years ...

And that is because each person is unique ...

And being unique, we each have our own insights into things ...

My insights come in some part from having been wounded in the head in Viet Nam forty years ago, now, especially with respect to IRON SHIRT, which directs one's mental focus to the fasciae of the body, as opposed to the large muscles ...

Being wounded as I was, that left my fasciae is a mess, as if a cat had gotten in to your knitting basket and had made a real mess out of the balls of yarn
in there ...

So I have had forty years to sort that all out, and in the course of that, I have gained insights that someone not so afflicted might have missed out on ...

And so ...

That is why I am spending a moment here to direct everyone's mental attention to these words in red in the little window right above here ....

Let us call that a primal thought, or an ALPHA thought ....

It is an instruction as to where your mental attention should be going as we do these twenty chi gongs that I am talking about in here right now ...

When you are doing this set, you will be dancing in your own skin, so to speak ...

And a goal of the exercise is to be quite relaxed and comfortable and at home in there ...

Are YOU up to the challenge?

And so ...

Is there really energy flowing when you are doing these chi gongs?

Yes, there is, by definition ...

If you are sitting there, alive, but completely relaxed, then there is energy flowing ....

It is energy specific to that relaxed state of being, or you couldn't be relaxed ...

You would be something else ...

If you then crooked your finger, a different energy would flow to make that happen ....

And if as you crooked your finger, you also rolled your shoulder, yet a different energy would flow again, to make those specific movements happen, whether or not you are acting with conscious volition ....

In these twenty chi gongs, you ARE acting with volition to shape your body in certain patterns as you go through the progression ...

So you are forming mental images that are then translated into body motion by the chi that travels from your mind to your muscles and connective tissue and fasciae ....

And so ....

"Scientists find virtual reality helps relieve pain"

By Ben Gruber

Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:40AM EDT

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) - Teenager Jordan Robinson has faced excruciating pain since a backyard prank went wrong but treatment with virtual reality has given him some relief.

Robinson, 18, and his friends thought it would be fun to shoot flaming arrows at bags full of gasoline in his backyard but it turned out to be a very bad idea, landing him in hospital with severe burns on both of his legs.

"I've broken bones, I have done all sorts of stuff and I have never felt a pain like this," he told Reuters TV.

Robinson is taking morphine, but he also has access to a tool not commonly used in most hospitals -- virtual reality pain reduction.

While nurses manipulate his scarred and tender body through physical therapy, his mind is far away, immersed in a computer-generated world of snow and ice using virtual reality.

Normally he'd be in great pain as his burned legs are made to bend and straighten during therapy but in his virtual world, Robinson is too busy throwing snowballs at penguins and snowmen to notice much pain.

"It helps a lot."

"I wasn't expecting it to as helpful as it was."

"I haven't ever done anything like that before but I definitely wasn't expecting it to make as big of a difference as it did," he said.

Robinson has Hunter Hoffman, the director of the Virtual Reality Research Center at the University of Washington to thank for the extra pain relief.

Hoffman created "SnowWorld."

"What virtual reality does is give them a place to escape."

"There is a natural tendency when you are in pain to want to leave the room or to get away from what is causing the pain," said Hoffman who is continually working to refine his techniques.

ESCAPE FROM REALITY

"In this case, we need their bodies to stay there while they are being worked on but their minds can escape into 'SnowWorld' and they have this illusion of going into this computer generated world."

"That leaves less attention available to process the pain signals."

David Patterson, also a professor at Washington University and the head of psychology at the Department of Rehab Medicine at Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle, has been working with Hoffman for several years on the virtual reality project.

[size=3]He explains that virtual reality is used two ways to help manage pain in burn victims -- by distracting the patient and by using hypnotic suggestion during burn care./size]

Patterson said pain distraction alone has been proven to decrease the pain during burn treatment by between 30 and 50 percent in a clinical setting.

He hopes combining both techniques they can get even better results, ultimately leading to smaller doses of pain drugs.

Robinson's mother, Kate, has been sitting by her son's hospital bed as he heals and is hoping for a full recovery -- although she hasn't forgotten what put her son in hospital.

"As we were driving here I told him that I loved him and that I cared about him and that I was really sorry that he was going through all of this pain."

"But as soon as they get him all patched back together, I'm probably going to kill him," she said.

For a video on beating pain with virtual reality, click: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=...;videoChannel=6

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Right now, if you are sitting there reading these words, there is mental energy flowing in yourself, beyond that which would be flowing if you were simply sitting there ...

And I would call or categorize that mental energy as CHI FLOW ...

And as I am thinking of these words and sending signals to my fingers to type out the words on the screen in here, then that also requires a flow of chi, which I consider to be "informed" energy, as opposed to just random energy such as the heat that you would feel coming up off a hot stove, for example ...

And "informed" energy, as I would describe it, is energy with specific instructions embedded in it to cause some action or motion, in this case, correctly hitting the keys on this keyboard to create these words,phrases, and sentences in here .....

So, that is chi flow, which serves as a source of confusion for people just starting out in t'ai chi and chi gong, because being energy, chi is not visible to the eye, it is visible to the mind ....

And so ...

Now, we are ready to begin ...

So ....

How do we do that?

Where should our attention be focused?

I would say in the feet, myself ....

And the palms of the hands ....

But ....

When you are beginning, unless you have been working on training your mind to shift its attention when and where you wish, you might not be able to be in your feet and hands at the same time ...

So in that case, my attention would first go to my feet, since there is my base ....

And so ...

And why is my attention focused in my feet and not on my breath or breathing?

And notice I said "in", not "on" ...

The simplest answer is that you stand on your feet, and not on your breath ...

If you have to move about, you do that with your feet, not your breath ...

And there are 26 bones in each foot that connect to 52 muscles in your hip with your knee, a weak joint, in between ....

There is where your mind should be focused when you are moving ....

If you have extra mental capacity, you will also be able to focus on your breath at the same time, but the initial focus should be IN the feet ....

And if as you are moving, you are also not breathing properly, that is going to make itself known to you, so you can work on correcting it .....

And in the meantime, you are protecting yourself and your knees by standing and stepping properly ...

And so ...

My good friend TaiChiLady has studied yoga for some time, and she enjoys it, and has benefitted from it, AND ....

She is able to meld or incorporate her yoga experiences into her t'ai chi and chi gong experiences naturally, without work ...

And that is the key - NATURALNESS .....

That is our goal, here, or one of them, along with increased range of motion, and more efficient metabolism ....

As we move into this set of chi gong exercises we are discussing in here, you do not want to convert these exercises into more work that you have to do in your life ....

Quite to the contrary, you want to relax into these exercises and ENJOY them ....

And relaxing into the exercises does not mean that you are slack-minded or are slack in your movements ....

I certainly am not ....

Relaxing into the exercises means losing rigidity, which can be both mental and physical ...

And so ...

Keep in mind that chi gong is a MIND-DIRECTED activity and it is your mind that is doing the directing, regardless of where the instruction is coming from ....

If you are watching a teacher or more advanced student doing a form, and you are following their movements and/or instructions, your own movements are still directed by your mind, and not theirs ....

So there is a necessary period of time that must be devoted by yourself to assimilation, which I see as akin to programming a new computer ....

And so ...

As you are sitting there right now, is your breathing calm and relaxed?

How can you tell?

And so ...

And so ...

Should it HAVE to hurt to gain benefit from exercise?

Not at my age, anyway ....

And so ...

One of the hardest things to do, it seems, is to teach people that they have a right to be relaxed ...

And that relaxation does not only mean lying there in a prone position on the couch ...

You can be relaxed and work at the same time, and be more productive than if you are tense and frenzied ....

So we are talking about a state of dynamic relaxation in here that you can and should take with you everywhere you go ...

And so ...

As you sit there reading these words, relax your forehead and raise up your shoulders in a relaxed manner ....

Just let them float upwards ....

Remove all force ....

They can float upwards without the need for exertion ...

And when they are up, don't try and hold them there ....

Without exertion, let them simply float back down again ....

And so ...

When I speak of raising your shoulders, what I am referring to is actually the scapula, to which the arm bones are attached ...

The scapula is a floating bone in the body, as I call it ...

It is not connected to the body by an actual joint ....

The arm is connected to the body by a joint, but the scapula is not attached to the back of the body by a joint, so it floats back there, with muscles and nerves between the inside of the scapula and the outside of the ribs, and then there is more muscle on the outside of the scapula, so it is sandwiched between muscle ...

When you float up your shoulders the way that I have suggested, you are purposefully moving the scapula in order to move those muscles that encase it ...

The so-called collar bones on the front of the body connect to the scapula out near the shoulder joint, and when you float your shoulders up, they should move too ....

If as you move your shoulders up, you bring your fingertips together, fingernails facing each other at the center of the breast bone, you should be able to feel movement there, and you desire movement there ....

But be gentle at first ...

And so ...

Chi is the image on the control screen of your mind ....

If you read these words, and then formed a mental image of what I was saying, and then you mentally checked out your forehead and found it tense, at which time, you mentally relaxed it ....

Then you have engaged in chi gong ....

And yes, it starts just that simple ....

And expands outwards from there ...

And so ...

And if you have managed to use your mind-body connection to float your shoulders gently upwards, and have allowed them to settle gently back down, you are doing part of the first first chi gong in this series, BIG ROC (bird) SPREADS WINGS .....

And so ...

When we talk of these being internal exercises as opposed to external, we are referring to what we are trying to exercise and keep supple and strong inside the body, as opposed to the muscles of the arms and legs ...

And so ...

When I first began to study these systems, back in the 1970's, the first INTERNAL place that I was taught to seek out was the diaphragm, the membrane which separates the cavity where our internal organs are stored from the cavity where our heart and lungs are stored ...

The "condition" of our diaphragm is dependant upon our posture, which is why proper posture is considered so important in these systems ...

The diaphragm is modeled in your mind as a drum head, and like a drumhead, the "music" that it can make is a function of whether or not it has been properly tightened ....

So regardless of what other movements you are doing while you do t'ai chi and chi gong, your posture remains of prime importance ...

So ....

As you sit there reading these words, remaining seated, feel yourself reaching upwards with the top of your head leading the way, as if you could touch the sky gently with the top of your head ....

As you do so, feel the effect in your torso ...

Feel your spine elongating ...

Which in its turn exercises your diaphragm ....

And brings your mind to it ....

And so ...

And as we continue to move further into the world of chi gong, which includes t'ai chi, I wanted to return to this post above here from THE MINDFUL BRAIN, Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being by Daniel J. Siegel ....

And specifically to this portion of that post:

In contrast, the right reveals the following features: integrated map of the whole body .....

end quotes

What that is saying is that in your mind, there exists a map of your body ....

ALL of it ....

So as you do chi gong, you are connecting with that map, intentionally ...

If you think of your diaphragm, and have a clear mind when you do, then on that internal map, where your actual diaphragm is will be revealed to you ...

Which is a powerful tool when it comes to healing yourself ...

And so ....

And here, I want to state what I perceive the difference to be between t'ai chi and this chi gong that we are presently discussing ....

To me, t'ai chi sets and liu he ba fa represent ways in which you can move your body ...

Whereas this chi gong set, which I consider a precursor to t'ai chi and liu he ba fa, represents ways which are beneficial to move in ...

So in my mind, this chi gong set represents a part of the path that leads you to t'ai chi and liu he ba fa by serving as a tool to get you on that road and to keep you on that road ...

And so ...

If you cannot move well, then you are going to have some degree of difficulty doing t'ai chi, which is total body movement ...

And that leads you to two basic choices ....

One of course, the easier, is to become discouraged and quit ....

The other is to use t'ai chi as a learning tool to guage how and where you have your difficulties, so that you can isolate them and work on them to overcome them ....

That is where this chi gong set enters into the picture here ....

Because you are doing this chi gong set in place, which is to say, you are not walking at the same time you are doing the exercises, it more or less eliminates balance problems, so that you can instead concentrate on how smooth your joints are working ...

And it gives you the necessary focus on the joints so that you are getting real-time data ....

AND ....

It is not stressful to your joints, since you are not using any force to move, at all ...

Rather, you are seeking smoothness, which is curative, not harmful ...

And so ....

And I wanted to highlight that, because in my experience, that is one of the primary stumbling blocks for people just starting out in t'ai chi or chi gong ....

HOW DO YOU MOVE WITHOUT FORCE?

And so ...

As you sit there reading these words. let your shoulders float upwards ...

As your shoulders float upwards, allow your elbows to float outwards and upwards as well ....

And recall that to move your shoulders upwards, you are actually moving your scapulas, not your arms ...

Your scapulas are connected to your arms, so if they move, the arm has to follow, and that is what you want to allow to happen ...

And as your elbows move, the backs of your wrists will move outwards ...

And the wrists are also relaxed, but not limp ...

And your fingers, which are relaxed, will follow, as if they are connected to strands of silk coming out of the floor ...

Just raise up a bit and then relax down and then back up ...

Do this several times, and concentrate on your wrists being relaxed along with your fingers .......

If your wrists and fingers are relaxed, then everything in between must also be relaxed ....

And this is moving without force ...

And so ...

And what you have been doing while seated at your computer is the beginnings of this chi gong set that we are talking about in here ....

And you did not even have to leave your chair to do it ....

Nor did you need to invest in any special equipment or outfits or gear, or anything ...

All it took was your mind assimilating these words and then connecting with your body to make the movements happen ....

And so ...

If you are moving without force ...

Then you are conserving chi ...

If you are moving with force when force is not required ...

Then you are burning up chi ...

And so ...

"Exhausted? How to Get Your Willpower Back"

LiveScience Staff

LiveScience.com

Fri Sep 25, 9:20 am ET

If a hard day at work leaves you feeling unable to exercise, you can at least rest easy knowing there's a scientific explanation.

Using your willpower for one task depletes willpower for entirely different task, a new study finds.

But there are strategies for getting it back, researchers say.

"Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks such as regulating your emotions, can deplete your self-regulatory capacity to exercise," said study leader Kathleen Martin Ginis, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University.

The study used a Stroop test to deplete the self-regulatory capacity of volunteers in the study.

The test consists of words associated with colors but printed in a different color.

For example, the word "red" is printed in blue ink.

Subjects were asked to say the color on the screen, trying to resist the temptation to blurt out the printed word instead of the color itself.

"After we used this cognitive task to deplete participants' self-regulatory capacity, they didn't exercise as hard as participants who had not performed the task," Martin Ginis said.

The more people "dogged it" after the cognitive task, the more likely they were to skip their exercise sessions over the next 8 weeks.

"You only have so much willpower," she said.

A similar conclusion was reached by a 2003 study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

After completing tasks that required self-control, study subjects had less physical stamina and impulse control and increased difficulty with problem-solving activities.

In particular, resisting temptation consumed an important resource that was then less available to help the person persist in the face of failure on subsequent tests.

But you can work on your willpower.

"Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself," she said.

"There are strategies to help people rejuvenate after their self-regulation is depleted," she said.

"Listening to music can help; and we also found that if you make specific plans to exercise - in other words, making a commitment to go for a walk at 7 p.m. every evening - then that had a high rate of success."

By constantly challenging yourself to resist a piece of chocolate cake, or to force yourself to study an extra half-hour each night, then you can actually increase your self-regulatory capacity, the researcher said.

Sleep may also be important.

"Most forms of self-regulation failure escalate over the course of the day, becoming more likely and more frequent the longer the person has been deprived of sleep," said Florida State University researcher Roy F. Baumeister, who led the 2003 study.

The new study, detailed Thursday in the journal Psychology and Health, was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Ultimately, however, if you have to force yourself to exercise, it is just not going to happen, even if you have all the willpower in the world ...

If the exercises that you do are not "yours", or if they are boring or unpleasant, then your mind is going to rebel, and there is nothing you can do about it ...

I exercise every day because I know that if I don't, the road for me goes steeply downhill and there is a cliff down there at the end ...

And it is a long way down ...

AND ...

My exercises, which consist of a simple warm-up, followed by this chi gong set, followed by liu he ba fa, are mentally soothing, calming and satisfying ...

And not boring ...

When I am doing these exercises, I am spending quality time with myself, not forcing myself to have to get up to do something that somebody else told me was good for me ....

And so ...

And at this point, I want to come back and say that this chi gong set that I am talking about in here is but one of many that have been developed over the last several hundred years or more ...

And in my lifetime of study, I have over the years done many different chi gong sets ....

And this is where I have gotten to now ....

Recall that these chi gong sets are TOOLS, not end-all, be-alls ....

In your younger years, you might find a certain chi gong set to be quite appealing and fulfilling, like the FIVE ANIMAL FROLIC, for example ...

Later, as you grow older and your tastes change, you might leave off with FIVE ANIMAL FROLIC and replace it with a different set, which is in essence what I have done with liu he ba fa ....

A mistake that people make is in looking at these various chi gong sets as somehow being separate from each other, and in reality, they are not ....

Rather, they are different routes to the same ultimate place, because no matter how any of us get here, when you are sixty years old, you are fifty-five years older than you were when you were five ....

And so ...

And by way of illustration:

Qigong Chi Kung: Five 5 Animal Frolics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egrEfhPm5EA

This is another chi gong that I learned and practiced and moved on from, as well ...

Qigong: Eight Piece Brocades Chi Kung

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJeyZ43i-xY...feature=related

And since we have these chi gong visual aids available to us courtesy of YouTube, I want to take a moment to do some comparisons between these two chi gong sets, the Five Animal Frolic and Eight Pieces of Brocade, and the the chi gong set of twenty forms that I have been describing in here ....

And so ...

And this is where "spirit" from the FIVE REGULATINGS begins to enter the picture here ...

And it comes in the form of a question:

WHAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FORM THAT YOU ARE DOING?

In this chi gong set that I am describing, the spirit of the first form is a bird, a soaring bird like an eagle ...

In the Eight Piece Brocades Chi Kung http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJeyZ43i-xY...feature=related , you are practicing simple movements of your body, which makes that chi gong set a good set to begin with to develop MIND/BODY connection ...

So the spirit of that set would be developing beginner's mind ...

Conversely, in Five 5 Animal Frolics, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egrEfhPm5EA , the spirit of the first form is that of a large cat, a tiger on the prowl ...

Thus, you are emulating a tiger hunting in that set ....

The tiger stalks ....

The tiger pounces ...

The Five Animal Frolic thus has a different spirit than the other two chi gongs, which to be is the beauty of all of these chi gongs - it is like a huge buffet with many choices ...

Is one of these chi gong sets better for you than another?

In the end, only you can really say ....

And so .....

And here, I want to come back and re-iterate that all chi gongs are coming from the mind ....

So mind/body connection is inherent in all chi gongs, but at differing levels ...

And the basis for all chi gongs is the FIVE REGULATINGS:

* Regulate the body

* Regulate the breath

* Regulate the mind

* Regulate the chi

* Regulate the spirit

However, not all chi gongs involve total body movement ...

This difference becomes readily apparent as you watch the FIVE ANIMAL FROLIC versus EIGHT PIECES BROCADE ....

It is like recipes for a soup such as lobster bisque ....

There is a very simple recipe that requires nothing more than some milk, some lobster, and a can of condensed cream of shrimp soup along with a can of condensed cream of mushroom ....

And there are more involved recipes that having you baking and grinding the shell, etc ....

Both in the end make the same soup ....

But is it?

That is something that in the end, you yourself have to decide ....

And so ...

"Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do."

When I first began to do this twenty-form chi gong set that is known as YIN-YANG chi gong, I would stand in a rooted stance, which is to say, with my feet in firm contact with the floor ...

So I was predominantly doing the form with my body above the knees ...

Now, I am in what I would call a "leopard stance", where the weight on my feet is more concentrated on the pads of the five toes and the first knuckles back, which means that I don't really have weight on my heels ...

Thus, I am also stretching and exercising the muscles and tendons that run from the heel down the bottom of the foot and towards the toes ...

By exercising those muscles, I am strengthening them ...

And those muscles in the bottom of the foot are connected up through the legs to the hips ....

So everything in between is being exercised and strengthened ...

BUT ....

This is where I have arrived at over time ...

Is it desireable to do it this way?

I would say so .....

Is it necessary to do it this way?

Not if you are presently weak and can't .....

These exercises are not to be forced .....

I would say thay are to be developed ....

Developing them gives calmness and practices patience, which is conservative of chi ...

Forcing them fosters impatience and disappointment at lack of achievement which is wasteful of chi ....

Recalling that chi is your "fuel" to get through the day with ........

And so ...

First you must know yourself, and from there you may know
the world and the heavens...and from there the spark passed
through generations that separates us from the beasts...
and yet, helps us to understand them, as part of our karma.
I can tell you will be alright...you will be needed to help others.

Good morning, IH ....

And what I am trying to do in here is to give people the means to help themselves ...

Because if we don't take care of ourselves first, we are totally worthless to everyone else ....

And so ...

The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.

As within, so without: if humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution.

- words from off of a calendar ....

Resoluteness is not found in a pill bottle ....

As your shoulders raise up, air will flow inwards into your lungs ....

Also visualize that healing chi is flowing inward to the core of your body ....

If you can bring your arms upwards, with your wrists relaxed and palms facing the floor, until the backs of your hands gently touch above your head, then do so ....

If you can't raise your arms above the height of your shoulders, then that is certainly alright, as well, since we are not employing force here ....

Rather, we are distinguishing the difference between yin and yang ....

This rising of the shoulders and arms is YANG ....

The settling back down will be yin ....

And so ...

"Breathing" with only the nose is very inefficient ....

You want to breathe with your whole body ....

And so ....

Make that a part of your visualization here ....

And so ...

As you sit there by your computer screen, you are in fact already surrounded by air ....

As you sit there reading these words about breathing with your body, your body is already breathing ....

So to visualize body breathing is to visualize a natural process that is already on-going, with an eye and mind to enhancing it ....

Making it more efficient and effective and economical of energy ....

And so ...

And what we are spending a moment on here is the art of UNFOCUSING ...

And unfocusing does not mean sitting there with a blank stare and drool coming from out of your mouth as you sit there mindlessly ....

UNFOCUSING means what it says - NOT BEING FIXATED WITH ONE THING TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL ELSE ....

If you have been practicing sitting meditation, or if you have learned to focus on your breathing by monitoring the air flowing through your nostrils, then you have to engage in UN-LEARNING here, which is not rejection ....

You are not going to reject the practice of monitoring the air flowing through your nostrils ...

Rather, we are talking about shifting your attention elsewhere while not losing contact with what you had before ...

Like being able to juggle one ball, while adding a second and a third to the mix without losing the first ball ...

Am I aware of air flowing through my nostrils as I do my forms?

Of course I am, because many years ago, I spent time gaining that awareness in the first place as a means of bringing my body, mind and breath into a harmony that was required for me to maintain my health and physical equilibrium ....

And I practiced that while not moving ...

But now, with this chi gong, we are moving ....

So our awareness has to move outwards away from the nostrils ....

So here is one of those places where our prior practice can be an impediment, just as many things can be, all of which must either be overcome or moved on from ....

Which is why we practice UNFOCUSING, instead of outright rejection ...

And so ...

PANORAMIC AWARENESS ...

Awareness of not only ourselves, but our surroundings, as well ...

That is one of our goals and objectives here ....

Because we are talking about moving, not being stationary ...

If we practice and develop PANORAMIC AWARENESS when young, then that is a skill that we can take forward into life with us as we go ....

PANORAMIC AWARENESS is an asset to us everywhere we go, and especially in the situations that modern life can have us in, such as being in traffic on a crowded interstate ....

And so ....