Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below — what did you think of this audio based movement practice? Does a practice like this seem helpful to find more grace and flow?
In this third part of our discussion on Wind, you’ll understand how Wind impacts your life and how you can use movement to counter the effects of Wind as it gets trapped in the body.
It's important to note that how you feel in your physical body is a direct reflection of your emotions and the way that you navigate life.
While it's difficult to change your life or the way you feel about your life overnight, it is much easier to use your body as a vehicle with which to change a lot of those patterns and emotions.
Our hope with this episode is to give you tools and practices that are going to help you to move in the direction of change simply by modifying or using movement practices to create a shift in your awareness.
Pathologically in Chinese Medicine, we would describe that Wind generates cold which is an adversary to Yang Qi, which is warming and stimulates your metabolism.
Your metabolism stimulates your immunity. So when you have that Cold, it's a state of depression in your body. And then of course, it's going to be a state of depression in your mind as well.
That's why Salvador will describe some movement in this episode. And it's interesting because we're going to do it just through auditory means rather than a video. You're really just going to feel your body and that's often what's missing when we're doing exercise and we're distracted. We might be on a treadmill or riding a bike and reading a book at the same time or something like that, where we're just really not in our body.
Sometimes when you're watching a video of somebody doing movement, you're more distracted by making sure you follow it exactly the way the person's doing it rather than feeling what you're doing internally. So this could be pretty powerful, at least that's our hope for you today.
What’s the most important thing you can do to strengthen your immune system? More and more studies demonstrate the important relationship between gut health and healthy immunity, as well as the ability to have consistent energy and mental clarity. Ahara Botanics is our personal line of products— including probiotics to support gut health, digestive enzymes to support both digestion and nutrient absorption, and proteolytic enzymes to support healthy joint and muscle function, tissue recovery and circulation.
Visit aharabotanics.com to learn more, then visit our shop and use the promo code HEALTHY10 to get 10% off your first order.
Understanding the Sinew Meridians in Relationship to Movement
There is a channel system in Chinese medicine that's directly associated with movement and mobility within the five channel systems. It’s known as the Sinew Meridians, or it's often called the Sinew Channels. Those words are interchangeably used in Chinese Medicine. The Sinew Meridians control the function of the muscles, tendons, sinews, and they are an extension of the primary channels. But they're very broad. The Sinew channels only have one acupuncture point and those points are at the digits, the tips of your fingers and toes except for Kidney-1, the Bubbling Spring, which lies on the ball of your foot between the second and third toe.
The Sinew Meridians are conduits of Wei Qi, which is your Defense Qi that runs along the surface of your body during the day to protect you from external pathogenic factors like Wind, but at night, that Wei Qi internalizes and homes into the Kidneys so that you can have deep, restful sleep.
This is why it's so important that you relax the Sinews, that you relax the muscles and the tendons of your body, so you can relax enough to internalize the energy at night. When you have too much tightness and stiffness along the Sinew Meridians, it's not going to be able to make that transition.
Aside from Wind and we mentioned Cold, there are other factors that could penetrate and impact the function of the Sinews, including Dampness and Heat, which can present as inflammation.
Movement Practice to Stimulate Wei Qi (Defense Qi)
The Qi Gong warmup exercise begins at [10:23] in the episode and will stimulate the Wei Qi to clear the Wind and Cold on the surface of the body.
Begin by standing up with your feet together and then just relax. Let your lower back relax. So the arch of your back, just kind of soft. And sink. So you want your knees to be a little bit relaxed, not stiff and tight. You want to sink into that point that we called the Bubbling Spring (KD-1). Perhaps you want to have to lean forward just a bit.
So you are putting pressure on the ball of the foot, and then with your heels touching, flare your feet. So you're creating a V with your two feet, and then once you do that, then you stint, then, then kick your heels out. And so now you're going to have your feet parallel to each other with the edge of each foot in line with your armpit. Okay. So now just sink into that space, into that posture and let yourself relax. And as you relax, feel your chest bone relax. So if you feel like you're arching your chest, let your chest sink down a little bit.
And as you let your chest sink down, let your head pull up a little bit. So you feel like your chin might come in and you allow, imagine, like you have a string attached to the top of your head as though you're being pulled up gently, kind of like you're a puppet, and then let your body start to dangle a little bit.
As you're breathing, just let the muscles continually relax.
Now we're going to begin trying to move out these pathologies that accumulate on the surface of our Sinew Meridians. Make a loose fist and have the thumb on the side of your fist, loosely gripping.
Start by tapping with your fist along the top of your shoulder. If you know that anatomy is called the trapezius muscle between your neck and your shoulder, where we accumulate a lot of stiffness. And that's where we hold a lot of dampness.
Especially as you're tapping, you're going to be breathing out of your mouth. So as you hit, you breathe out your mouth. So you want your mouth open. So tap, tap, tap. And then just tap down the side of your arm, along the side of your upper arm and then down your forearm.
Then make a fist with your opposite side, and tap, tap along the trapezius on the opposite side. And then down your shoulder. So at the upper arm, you tap down the outside of your upper arm and then tap down the lower arm all the way into the wrist.
Continue tapping along the thighs, what we call the Stomach Sinew. Then tap all along the thighs and down the outer leg, the lower leg, all the way down to your ankles. And you could do that a couple of times.
Then you inhale, and as you’re tapping down, breathing all the way down, tapping to your knee, then you can take a breath and tap all the way down from your knee to your ankles. Then inhale back up and tap along the iliotibial band — that big, broad tendon along the side of your thighs, and then tapping all the way down to your knee. Take another breath and now tap along the outer part of your lower leg. Now take a breath and then just put your hands on your sacrum and begin to rub that area or you can lightly tap on your sacrum, which is where we get a lot of these what we can call gummies, or nodular areas that are actually accumulation of latency. It's an area where we hold pathology, so it's always good to keep breaking this stuff up to let the body detox through movement. Take a breath and tap along your buttocks and then your hamstrings and then the back of your calves.
Now we want to work with rubbing out the Cold to warm the area up. So just repeat those same areas, but now you're just rubbing your hand over those areas.
Start with the top of your shoulders along the trapezius, sweeping down, like you're sweeping it off. And thensweep down the front of your shoulder, down the front of your forearm, and then down the side of your upper arm and then down the side of your lower forearm, and then along the tricep and the side of your lower arm. Repeat that on both sides.
And now the chest. Start by tapping along the chest on the sides of your sternumwith the the opposite hand, so you right hand would go on the left breast.
Then after you do that, you could do the sweeping where you're brushing down the chest and focusing on breathing out, releasing the bad Qi.
So now we want to do the lower body.
So you're going to sweep along the quadriceps, your thighs, and sweep down your knees and then past your knees. And then you're sweeping down the outer part of your lower legs.
And then you're going to inhale and sweep the back of your sacrum. And then along the buttock, the hamstrings and calves. So now you have really started to release the factors of Dampness and Cold.
Now we want to deal with releasing the Wind by shaking.
The main thing when you're doing this is you just don't want your armpits to be held too close to your body, so keep your armpits hollow as you begin to shake down while focusing on your out-breath.
To shake out your legs, you might have to hold onto something, or just shake your feet out to loosen up your ankle.
Finally, finish up by raising your hands level with the chest, with your palms facing the nipple line and your armpits hollow. Then just shake your hands up and down. So your thumb is basically shaking towards the sky and you're shaking back and forth, going faster and faster. Shake as long as you're comfortable when you're done, just pause and feel the buzzing of the energy.
And then I want you to bring that energy into your lower back and just hold your lower back. So now you've generated this energy and you’re recycling it back into the level of the Kidneys to regenerate the adrenal system.
To conclude this movement, as you're holding your lower back, rise up on the tips of your toes, and inhale as you rise up and you hold your breath.
After you hold your breath, you could say to a count of nine, then let yourself drop down to the ground to create a thunderous sound with your heels on the ground.
This is a way to release the latency that we hold in the body, this trapped pathology that we hold at the deepest level of the Kidneys, which is the bone level. So this is also a way to help discharge energy that's trapped at the deepest level. So, and you could do that nine times, raising yourself to the tips of your toes, holding for a count of nine and then dropping your heels to the ground.
End with stance training, pausing with your palms facing your lower belly, gathering energy there, or you can have your hands on the side of your body, breathing gently.
You can do this standing meditation with your eyes open or closed. If your eyes are open, you can just stare in front of you. Ideally you do it with your eyes closed because you want to bring that energy back, consolidating this energy into your Kidneys, helping you to reduce the fear response and helping you feel stronger within yourself so you can deal with whatever life throws your way.
Once you’ve listened, let us know in the comments below — what did you think of this audio based movement practice? Does a practice like this seem helpful to find more grace and flow?
The Microcosmic and Macrocosmic Orbit Meditations help to circulate energy throughout your body through the primary source channels of Yin and Yang, known as the Du and Ren Meridians, which are also the Fire and Water pathways of the body. In this way, these meditations also connect the Fire and Water energies, cultivating Heart-Kidney communication, which helps you realize and live out your life purpose. To purchase access to these meditations, click the button below:
Loved this episode?
Please subscribe and consider rating & reviewing our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Five star reviews help us reach & support more listeners like you. You can also follow us on Spotify to be the first to hear about new & bonus episodes!
Thank you!