If I want to get a more rounded understanding of what Yoga can do for me, it could be terrific if I don't stereotype it. I need to refrain from thinking that "MY PRACTICE IS BETTER THAN THAT OTHER PRACTICE". It has taken me a good many years to realize we as individuals developing different tastes in food, art and philosophies. When I was growing up, what challenged me greatly was a belief that my religion was better than others, and it took me a long time to learn that I personally can help stop religious wars if I realize we all come from one. So I need to spread this knowledge toward my understanding of yoga practices. It is so easy to slide into thinking of one's brand of yoga or religion as an exclusive club. Yoga means "to be in union with our concepts, feelings, energy and spiritual pursuits."
Superior attitudes that sneak into consciousness can be eradicated if I do some logical thinking. This will help my personal practice as I grow more and more open and refrain from falling into the false belief that my yoga might be superior to another.
Many people have the tendency to visualize only certain parts of entire systems that are what we call 'yoga' and therefore stereotype some very vast movement systems that help us in thousands of ways to unite the mind-body-spirit.) For example, when telling some acquaintances that they do yoga, many people are very likely to hear a reaction such as this statement: "Why, I could never fold myself up into pretzel positions! I can't even touch my toes!" This common statement is clearly coming from a belief that Hatha yoga positions are all twists and stretches that an average person can never obtain!
Tai chi, often referred to as 'Chinese Yoga' is a vast system of yoga in the same way as Yoga from India. Tai Chi is based upon its parent system called chi gung or qigong of which there are thousands of movements and groupings. (Tai chi on its own now has about a dozen major families with likely a hundred or more variants in all. (I am estimating!) There are eight limbs of yoga from India and some consider there are also eight limbs of Chinese yoga. Each limb is often has much more to it than an average Western student ever encounters in their practice! Each limb is only a small segment of a whole that requires more than a lifetime of research to document, and certainly therefore, to study. We are abbreviating with our Western minds all this into a simpler word such as 'tai chi' or 'yoga'. Both the image and the words are often stereotyped. (The current rage within the advertising world is to propagate these most stereotyped of moves and poses. It has found tai chi and yoga to be a popular way to sell healthy products.)
As an example of one way of stereotyping Tai Chi and Qigong (or Chi Kung's) slow movements, they are often perceived to not have any ability to stretch the body in the way that Hatha yoga is well thought to do better than most other exercises can. We cannot generalize and say 'one type of yoga is more complete for the purpose of stretching or relaxing than the other.' All yoga utilizes only a fraction of what one could hope to use to self-train toward being the best-evolved human one can be during one lifetime. (Qigong includes a limb within it that is called tao yin that has floor stretches of many, many kinds! The terms, tao yin and chi kung- (qigong) were intermixed in China along with other terms. The well known writer and teacher Ken Cohen states, "The fact that qigong was formerly designated by other terms is not unusual-a refinement of terminology is to be expected in an evolving discipline. For example, in the West 'holistic health' is now frequently called 'integral medicine' or mind-body medicine or among scientists, 'psychoneuroimmunology' "). 1.
From my own research, I know that Hatha Yoga has also discovered ways that tai chi and chi kung have which awakens the chi inside the body, and it is the chi itself that stretches us from the inside-out. It makes people transform themselves health-wise, from a focused concentration that moves the life force energy. (In yoga, chi is called 'prana' and both refer to our life forces. Other ancient cultures world wide, have other names for it including my own religion I was born into: Ruach is the Hebrew name.) Life forces actually affect the spaces between and amongst the muscles and the organs that would otherwise bounce around in the body if it weren't for the connective tissue that holds them together or up against the bone structure. That space in-between is where chi or prana is educated by the mind effort, to burn out toxins and fat. Of course, this takes either years of practice or knowing a 'piece of the puzzle' that enables that intention to be elevated through special 'mind formulas' called 'internal alchemy' or 'nei gung' and in this case it more specifically called 'nei juang'". According to Dr. Yang Jwing Ming's English translation of an ancient document on what is termed, 'muscle changing'. He states, "The final target of fasciae training is to be able to lead your 'yi', (intention), to the fasciae and raise or expand it like a beach ball." 2. These Ancient and vast systems of Yoga won't always offer the details to a beginning student. Sticking with a practice in a dedicated way often opens up an awakening to such skills.
We are no longer the tribe people who 'invented' yoga, yet a great deal of invention can take place presently where systems mix with other systems. Some people like this kind of fusion, while others don't, but the fact is that many churches and synagogues offer tai chi/qigong and yoga classes as ways for their members to relax. With the vast wealth of knowledge available through the internet, we can overview other systems that seem different from our own fundamental truths and realize that none of us have the entire answer at our disposal. We can realize that we will never in one life time be able to practice all the nuances of all the doctrines of all the systems of belief and thought of the world. Certainly many peoples don't believe that we live but more than one life time, yet we will do well to look over just some of the pieces of the puzzle. Speaking for myself, I am merely progressing step by step in not getting stuck in my own viewpoint!
So unless I am able to retire to a cave or Monastery, I feel that I had best open up my attitude more and more as part of my practice! I need not get overwhelmed and feel badly that I will not necessarily become as high level as Buddha, Christ, Mohamed, Lao-tzu or Moses overnight or even in several decades. Can we all bless us all for our best effort to more fully investigate a few of these Ancient systems that help us to evolve into more refined beings! People who consider themselves more scientific can go with this flow by realizing that the biology, archeology, anthropology and physics of even only ten years ago is evolving and now explaining some very mysterious concepts. Let's open up not just our bodies, but our attitudes toward our spiritual, mental and physical growth! How nicely we will keep getting better able to keep from feeling alienated from each other.
"Qigong is More than Meditation" Kenneth S. Cohen, Tai Chi Magazine Vol. #24 No 1. February 2000.Muscle/tendon Changing and Marrow/brain washing Chi Kung by Dr. Yang Jwing-ming, YMAA publications, Jamaica Plain, Mass, 02130 Page 102.Raven Cohan teaches Tai Chi-Chi Kung, Tao Yin and Chinese Meditation classes and workshops in S. Florida. She can be reached at (954)92Raven or at her e-mail: nevaRCo@aol.com or see her Website: http://www.taotlc.com/. Raven is writing a book that has material in it that comes from some previously published articles, but runs around the theme of self-developing through offering her way of teaching her teacher's exercises that she favors. Raven's # 1. teacher, Mantak Chia with whom she has studied since '81, and who has certified her at ten levels, including becoming a Senior instructor in '10, is one who has written dozens of books and offers even more DVDs of practice techniques. On the above web site you can link to Chia's and see DVD excerpts.
No comments:
Post a Comment