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2016 Spring Week 1 - March 30 
Qigong & Yoga class notes In Gratitude, Thank you!


There is a lot of good stuff in this newsletter, links and stuff to read. Enjoy!
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Classes on San Juan Island  April 2016

***Note Neck & Shoulder Workshop will NOT be happening this Saturday April 2, not enough interest. Will offer again in a few weeks. For those of you in Portland, I will be in town April 21-25, will be glad to offer a workshop while I am there. Just let me know.

Qigong - Wednesdays at 8:30-9:30am at the San Juan Center, SVC

Yoga - Extreme Fitness - Tues/Thurs 5:30-7pm

Your commitment to Health is only $10 per practice

Feel Free to share this newsletter and add invite your friends
The image that you see below is gifted by a fellow Qigong teacher, Jane in Santa Fe, who has designed this visual image of the Yin and Yang Tonifying forms and the Yijing. It does not include Morning Medical Forms. 
We have transitioned from Winter to Spring, however aspects of winter still linger. We will always begin with Kidney and then move into the Liver forms for Spring. This is the season of Liver (Wood) for Creative Potential, seeding new ideas, growing new things with great fortitude to push upward and find the sun giving you strength. That Fire within is the same of the Sun with-out as the fire that is with-in. Stoke the fire with your practice, to stay committed to your health, believe it is possible to be in balance and harmony.
Primal Energies and the Tao 5 Elements - Workbook by Candace Gossen, Ph.D.  2011
 In the Daoist spiritual cultivation, one of the key elements of practice is to call the spiritual body back to the physical body. In Chinese, we call the physical body Xing 形 and the spiritual body Shen 神. Through our Qigong practice or inner cultivation practice, we endeavor to reach the state of Xing Shen He Yi 形神合一 — the union of the physical body and spiritual body. You will maintain health, peace, and longevity if your can keep your spirit residing within your body.
 
Practice this week began with the Kidney
Yijing Form 4: Winter to Spring

Zhen (51) Rousing (thunder on thunder)
"Fear is fortune if you are not afraid" `~Daniel Villasenor

This is the end of the 4 Yijing Forms, full completion to begin again in Spring. This season transition includes 6 forms, carefully beginning at the bottom and moving upward as in the Yijing lines to compete the hexagram. The Book of Change auspiciously allows the guidance in which to apply the proper forms to move from winter into spring, kidney into liver forms.
1. Good Morning (kidney) - virtue means everything needs to be aligned for growth (beginning) to occur. This form wakes up potentially stagnant Qi in the Kidney.

then

we practiced the Liver form Spring Root which is one of my favorite forms. It asks you to reach deep into the earth pull up your creative potential, as if a young plant emerging, and then cleaning, detoxing the body, and with a sharpened blade placing the plant precisely back into the earth to grow as the energy then draws up from K1 on the bottom of your feet, up the legs, into the lungs and around the heart and extended up to your hands reaching to ski with a little backbend opening the heart. Full breath, full expression, spring cleanse, growing your new ideas, this is what this form is all about. 

Returning
to Morning Medical to bring balance back to the body and to return to the memory of the forms.

COTA tea is always served after practice
from my dear friends Eloy and Frances from Northern New Mexico, they wildcraft this plant otherwise known as Navajo tea. It is a blood purifier and kidney tonifying plant.
The Vagus Nerve returns in this article
a good read and remember 4 things to do, to turn on the Vaga Nerve and the Enteric Nerve connection (brain stem to gut)
1. Cough (gag reflex)
2. Gargle
3. Sing Loudly (which will make you laugh)
4. Coffee enemas (works from the bottom up!)
 
Yang (Green Dragon) Tonifying Forms

Notes from Master Zhenzan Dao:
The Yang Tonifying forms can be done any time the Yang energy is weak or deficient. It is usually practiced at the beginning of spring through summer. And in the Zenith of the Yin time middle to end of January. It is important to practice the Yin Tonifying forms during this time as well.

One's sudden need for daring, for travel, inward or outward - these are spiritual callings. The old medicine called the characters of the organs "humors", and their management is not through control but with understanding and love. The Qigong form feeds the essence of the Yang "humor" on both a medical and spiritual level.

Begin with Maximum Yang Stance
Flapping
1. Wood/Liver: Repression Form
2. Fire/Heart: Warrior
3. Earth/Spleen: Serving the Plate
4. Metal/Lung: The Crane
5. Water/Kidney: Straddling the River
Maximum Yang Stance (briefly)
Flapping

 
Yin (White Tiger) Tonifying Forms
We begin to focus now into the deepest Yin of each of the organs, to nourish through the winter. 

The Yin is the most important because it is the source and the return. It is the source of all manifestation and the destination of the return. The Yin field is the body, the Yang field is the clothes. The Yin field is the mind, and the Yang field is the works of expression produced by the mind. The Yin field is the soul, and the Yang field is the spirit. The Yin field is love, and the Yang field is feeling and emotion.

Each organ/element has Yin aspects, functions and needs, therefor we practice all of the elemental Yin forms beginning with Wood (liver) Wiping the Pond. Its spiritual purpose is growth and hope, nourishing original vision and retrieval of original (childhood) gifts. Yin aspect is Nurturance.

The second form is Fire (heart) Flame Shaping. Expressions, passion, power, fruition - full potential, The Yin aspect is Form (memory). 

The third form is Earth (spleen) Walking the Bear. Balance (management of opposing forces), stability, association-connecting, friendship. The Yin aspect is Profundity.

The fourth form is Metal (lungs)Eternal Wings. Discernment, warriorship, wisdom. The Yin aspect is Transparency.

The fifth form is Water (kidney) Effortless Rowing. Nurturing, life and death and birth, eternity. The Yin aspect is Understanding.


Warm-up Exercises:
  • Finger Stretches, 1 breath each finger
  • Rowing
  • Back traction - standing, sitting, lying down
  • Sitting Twists
  • Kippalabatti breathing "fire in the belly"
  • Uddiyana breaths - frees fascia for intuitive body
Qigong 2 - Fri
Zang-Fu Forms
Morning Medical

(12 meridians direct to organs) to optimize health

The spiritual significance of the forms, realize the archetypes found in nature, in our psycho-spiritual nature to be the same. The center is the human need for unity, balance and love. Qigong is the action to finding, the prayer of ancient Daoism, some call the Original Soul. This soul is the medicine, the body movement its application through nature for healing. Qigong has been one of pillars of Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years. These archetypal forms can be found in life, in the nautilus, in the pyramids, in the simplicity of the circle, it becomes something we feel, sense and connect with. Beyond words it is present in the practice.  
 

 

Acupressure Point LV3: Liver 3 or Tai ChongTai Chong (LV3) is commonly used for stress, lower back pain, high blood pressure, menstrual cramps, limb pain, insomnia and anxiety.
Copyright © 2016 BlackCoyote Medicine, All rights reserved.
welcome to the Qigong Scholar class at SVC

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p.o. box 1338
friday harbor, WA 98250

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BlackCoyote Medicine · p.o. box 1338 · friday harbor, WA 98250 · USA

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