Whenever you feel any kind of fear, stress, anxiety or anything of the kind your body instinctively contracts inwards. This is a natural reaction that tenses your muscles ready for fight or flight. It’s like a tortoise withdrawing into its shell at the first hint of danger. The trouble is that, unlike the tortoise, you rarely get a chance to come back out of your shell and relax again afterwards. […]
Although it is possible to use either your nose or your mouth for breathing the nose should always be your first choice. The air that we breathe is full of pollutants which can be very damaging. Your nose has small hairs which filter the air before it reaches your lungs. When you breathe through your mouth the polluted air goes directly into your soft and vulnerable lungs and the pollutants […]
Stretching is an important part of conditioning to be fitter and healthier. Do you really need more reasons than that to stretch regularly? If the answer is yes, consider this. Imagine if you could have a bath in WD40. It would seep into all your joints, restoring them to their full range of motion, lubricating every part until it was as new and dissolving away all your tension. What would […]
Train hard, breathe easy I teach several kung fu classes per week. At the beginning of each is a warm-up and series of conditioning exercises which I lead. The students then follow me and listen to my instructions. Therefore it’s essential that I am not only able to perform these exercises – which can be hard and fast – but that I also have enough breath left over to be […]
The world is full of competing forces – work pressures, family life, desires to conform yet stand out – yins and yangs that pull us this way and that. These create energy, and often turmoil in our lives. Taoists have spent many centuries exploring the interplay of forces, the yin and yang throughout human life and nature and they always strive to find the middle path. Only through finding equilibrium can […]
Virtually all negative emotions are based on fear. Fear is our most primal emotion and one that a great many people feel, to a greater or lesser extent, every single day. We have around 30 names for different types of fear, and many more slang words: anxiety, dread, panic, alarm, terror, dismay and so on. Two types of fear However, there really are only two types of fear you need […]
The effectiveness of pressure points in the martial arts is a hotly contested topic. Many books and films show very unrealistic scenarios where the master touches a few points on his opponent who is then paralysed or dies soon thereafter. At the other end of the scale are the martial arts who say this is pure bunkum and that pressure points don’t work at all. As is usually the case […]
Why you should stop eating As I write this I am four days into a fast. The first two days were water only and then I started eating some red grapes for the last two days. I intend to fast for 7 days eating only red grapes and drinking only water. Why am I doing this, why would anybody do this? The all-natural cure-all All animals, apart from man, stop eating […]
The single most important thing you do every second of every minute of every day is breathe. Your breath powers every cell in your body. It is intimately tied in to your emotional states and energy levels. The health of every single part of your body is utterly dependant on it. So why on earth aren’t Doctors taught about the power of breath to change your physiology? Learning to breathe […]
Unclench Your Teeth One of the most common areas of tension and pain is in and around the jaw. Thousands of people, when under stress, clench their teeth together or grind their teeth. This often happens at night but also may occur regularly during the day when under pressure. TMJD is caused by the way you react to stress. It can cause tremendous pain and suffering. Why this is so […]
Whenever I perform tai chi I bring to mind the image of a tiger. The tiger is an animal that embodies many of the principles of tai chi. It uses its weight very well and constantly relaxes down into the ground. It holds no excess tension in its frame. It blends into and is completely at one with its environment. When it moves it is a poem of grace, balance, […]
Chinese exercise is very different from Western exercise. Here in the West we don’t consider we’re doing exercise unless we’re struggling and straining, gasping and sweating. The aim is always harder, faster, more and more. We push our bodies to the maximum in the gym or pounding the streets but still we’re exhausted half the time and struggle with pain and limited mobility in older age. This kind of exercise […]