What "Internal" Exercise Can Do for You

Internal exercise is much different than what most Westerners think of when they talk about going to the gym or getting in shape.  

Internal exercises are different because they've been designed with the whole person in mind, because they reintegrate mind and body and because they are sustainable - in other words, they lead to long-term health and, unlike some forms of exercise, they're not prepared to sacrifice that for the sake of short-term gains.  

                            Hatha Yoga


What's the opposite? Have you ever seen someone running on a treadmill and watching TV at the same time, with their body doing one thing and their mind another?  There you have it - a recipe for limited results, where you're treating your physical life and your emotional / spiritual life as unrelated.  

                                          Tai Chi



What are the classic internal exercise forms available to you today?  Chinese Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Bagua Zhang, Xing Yi Chuan, and Indian Hatha Yoga are all viable options if they're taught properly.  Granted, Bagua and Xing Yi are the least common; however I thought we should list them in case you come across them!  

                            Bagua's circle walking exercise

The Short List of What Internal Exercise Can Do for You

1. Helps Your Heart: improves your aerobic conditioning, oxygen uptake and endurance, while lowering resting heart rate.
   
   
2. Improves Your Flexibility: May not seem that way at first, but you'll become much more physically flexible doing internal exercises like Qi Gong, Tai Chi or Hatha Yoga.  This will reduce your stress, release trapped tensions and help you become more flexible emotionally.
   
   
3. Banishes Your Worries: Chronic worry and anxiety can increase your cortisol levels, which unfortunately correlate with elevated blood pressure, depression, weight gain and increased insulin resistance.
    
   
4. Improves Muscle Tone: Contrary to popular belief, these exercises build muscle like crazy.  This superior muscle tone helps protect you from injury, back pain and even arthritis.  Moreover, these exercises target deep core muscle groups vital to many aspects of your health and promote the flow of blood, oxygen and energy (qi or prana) throughout your system.
   
   
5. Takes Off the Pounds: Internal exercises burn far more calories than most people think and, even better, as a practitioner you're more likely to improve your nutrition.  This will help you drop even more weight, if that's your goal, or at least arrive at your optimum weight sooner.
   
   
6. Lubricates Your Joints:  To keep your joints healthy, internal exercises take them through their complete range of motion.  This bathes the joints in nutrients they might not otherwise get, keeping them healthy, pliable and resistant to injury.
   
   
7. Balances Your Blood Sugar:  Internal exercises promote better sugar metabolic function, improve cholesterol balance and decrease risk of diabetes and its related complications, such as kidney failure, heart attack, blindness and limb amputation.
   
   
8. Kicks in the "Relaxation Response":  That's an expression coined by Dr. Herbert Benson.  Internal exercise brings your breath, movement and mental attention together, calming you automatically and shifting your nervous system over to the restorative parasympathetic circuit.
    
   
9. Builds Those Bones:  Because they favor weight-bearing exercise, internal systems tend to build up bone density and stave off osteoporosis.  Moreover, some systems have special methods for keeping the bone marrow healthy and the bones resilient.
   
   
10. Improves Balance and Coordination: This is a function of mind-body integration and translates into fewer injuries and accidents as well as enhanced mobility. 
    
    
11. Circulates Your Blood Better: Vitality is partly dependent on efficient blood circulation.  Internal exercises wring the venous blood out of your nooks 'n crannies, reduce the workload on your heart and also thin your blood naturally, reducing the likelihood of clot-induced heart attacks or strokes.
    
    
12. Builds Mind-Body Awareness: As you practice, you become more and more sensitive to how you use your body - your balance, weight distribution, the places you habitually hold tension and the psychological resistances you've built to life that translate into physical manifestations of stress.  And once you're aware of these things, you can change them consciously!
    
    
13. Immunizes and Detoxes You:  Internal exercise postures move your lymph fluid quite efficiently, boosting your immune system, destroying pathogens (including cancer cells) and promoting a natural detoxification of internal organs in general and the lower digestive tract in particular.  This release of toxins and improved immune system functioning provides a solid basis for long-term health and longevity.
    
    
14. Deepens Your Sleep: By circulating blood, energy and oxygen more efficiently, reducing your stress and inducing a never-before experienced level of control over your own organism, how could you help but sleep better?
    
    
15. Instills Happiness "Software" in Your Mind: If your practice goes beyond just doing the routine to "get some exercise", you're in for a treat.  Internal exercise systems are holistic tools for cultivating mind-body harmony and happiness at levels you've probably not felt before.  And these systems often have or are connected with meditative systems that can revolutionize your life (in fact, that's what they've been designed to do).
    
    
16. Ramps Up Your Relationships: As you become calmer, more flexible and more connected with the core of your own being, other people will more often crave connection with you.  Internal exercise helps you become more compassionate, more approachable and more balanced - secrets you can share with your loved ones and anyone else who will listen.
    
    
17. Spiritualizes Your Romance: Internal systems are indeed holistic - they have or are connected with repositories of expertise on conjugal relations that can show you how to deepen your emotional connection with your spouse, master your sexuality and spiritualize sexual union. 

Needless to say, there's lots more!  Of course, none of these benefits come without regular and consistent practice.  The deeper benefits only come if you make the effort to build your lifestyle on these practices and the principles that underlie them.  

If you'd like to learn more about one form of internal exercise, Chinese Qi Gong, and its origins in the world's most successful tradition for cultivating health and longevity, just go here.

 ~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

The Power of Qi - Event Retrospective

For those of you who missed The Power of Qi workshop last week in Jersey City with myself and Carol Look, I have to tell you it was a great event!

There was a great energy in the room, thanks in large part to the wonderful participants who supported us, supported each other and truly made it a memorable time. 


Although I did nearly nine hours of Qi Gong teaching over the three days, the highlight for me was being able to sit back and watch Carol work her magic - using her uniquely powerful take on EFT, she brought about major emotional healing in the lives of many of those who came.  And the rest of us improved our own EFT practice considerably, while lending our energetic support to the people going through the process of dumping years or sometimes decades of emotional trauma.  

In case you're new to EFT or you've never had the privilege of watching Carol in action, here's clip that will give you some idea what it's like.  Granted, the clip parachutes you into the middle of a session without much context, but it's still worth a look.  Please note this clip is not from last week's workshop:

"Nothing Can Work That Fast"

Well, that's what one of the participants originally thought when she first heard about EFT.  She confided to me after the workshop had ended that her initial reaction to EFT was pretty skeptical when she had first encountered the technique a few years previously.  But she decided to put it to the test anyway and under very harsh conditions.  You see, she had almost drowned as a child.  And although she learned to love swimming as an adult, she had a very strong phobia about letting the water level get above her nose.  In other words, she could "swim", but had to keep her head out of the water. 

Well, after just one round of using the EFT tapping method on her decades-old phobia, she happily dove under water and was shocked to discover that the phobia was... well... gone!

The Power of Qi

The more Carol and I taught over the three days, the more we became convinced that Qi Gong and EFT are the proverbial "marriage made in heaven".  Of course, the EFT tapping procedure is based on Chinese meridian science, and the ancient Taoist medical system teaches that emotion itself is an aspect of the energy or Qi flowing through you, such that particular emotional states are related to specific organ systems in your body. 

The good news that follows from this is that you can use your body to access and control your emotional state, which both EFT and Qi Gong allow you to do in different ways.  The bad news is that if you fail to look after your emotional life, these powerful currents can directly affect your major organs and other bodily systems.  

During the event, I took everyone through a specific organ meditation method that not only relieves stress and rejuvenates the body, it also teaches you the various emotions, elements and colors associated with each of your organs as you go, so you learn all this without having to memorize it.  And for some people, it also taught them where certain organs are located ;-)

In fact, we spent a lot of time talking about the all important aspect of transforming Qi Gong from an exercise practice you do at certain times of day into a way of life.  All in all, a great learning experience for everyone who attended... including Carol and myself!

Future Events

Just so you know, I will be doing a live event in Toronto, Canada on 14-15 May with my dear friend Michael Morningstar.  The official notice and all the details should be out next week.  So if you're seriously interested in boosting your health and immunity, you'll want to keep this next workshop in mind.  

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger  

The Power of Qi: Using EFT and Qi Gong to Clear Your Energy Patterns

I'm delighted to announce an upcoming live event where you will be able to learn tested and proven tools for mastering your energy, your emotions and your overall health and wellness.  

My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Carol Look, and myself are putting on a joint live event to teach you how to use the 5 top Qi Gong systems ever devised and how to apply the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT - a technique I personally consider to be priceless) to all aspects of your life.  

This event will take place in Jersey City, NJ at the end of February.  You can get all the details and reserve your place here:

http://www.attractingabundance.com/eft/The-Power-of-Qi/

Near the bottom of the page there's an audio link where you can listen as Carol and I take you through the event's schedule to help you get a clear idea of what you'll get.  Just in case you miss it, you can also listen to the audio or download it from here:

http://media.attractingabundance.com.s3.amazonaws.com/workshops/power-of-qi.mp3


If you've ever wanted to:

• Develop imperturbable inner peace
• Learn to eliminate stress and reach deep relaxation on demand
• Get relief from or entirely eliminate past traumas that are holding you back or making your life miserable
• Master your emotional responses and finally get free of emotional patterns that run (and ruin) your life
• Learn the same health Qi Gong methods that the Taoist longevity tradition has used for centuries to get people past their 100th birthdays in great health
• Transform your daily grind into an extended meditation session producing great health and inner peace
• Become stronger and more flexible on minutes a day
• Replace negative emotions harmful to your health with positive emotional content

...then this event could be exactly what you've been waiting for.


Carol and I will spend 3 full days with you, teaching you, guiding you and helping you become a happier, healthier and more resilient person.  


To check out all the details and reserve your spot, just go to this page:


http://www.attractingabundance.com/eft/The-Power-of-Qi/

Energy Medicine and You

As science advances and we learn more about the various energy fields, channels and structures in and around the human body, the one thing that becomes obvious is that working with energy is the most effective means of creating vibrant, long-term health.  


At this workshop, you'll learn a great deal about the structure of your energy body - the meridians, the extraordinary vessels, the chakras and more.  And you'll learn about them not just in an academic sense, but how to work with them, and with all the other structures of your body - your muscles, fasciae, connective tissues, bones and marrow, joints, nervous system, blood, major and minor organs, and more.  


Carol and I hope you'll be able to join us in Jersey City for this fabulous, fun and educational event!


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Get Out of the House!

One of the great advantages of living up here in Canada (other than the freezing winters and boiling hot summers ;-) is the beautiful autumn colors...

So over the past few weeks I've been hiking up in the Gatineau Hills, located just over the provincial border in Quebec, about a 20 minute drive away.  These hills are full of marked hiking trails, beautiful water falls, amazing rock formations and spectacular vistas.  

Most of these pictures are from a family hike we do every year on Canadian Thanksgiving.  This trail was a 4 Km circular route with easy climbs and great scenery - which explains why lots of families were out that day.  

That was much different than another hike I had done a few days earlier with an ex-special forces friend of mine whose idea of hiking, as you might imagine, is a little more rigorous!  That hike took us up 300 meters from our starting point and at times that climb was steep enough that we were using our hands to grip the rocks.  But what a view!  And a great feeling when you finally got to the top.

Advantages of Hiking:

To name just a few advantages of getting yourself out of the house and into uncorrupted nature:

• You get genuinely fresh air (or as close as we come to that on earth these days!) and that does wonders for your energy level
•  It lets you "push the envelope" a bit and get some really good exercise, especially cardio and leg muscle work
• Changing up your exercise routine by throwing in an good hike in the wilderness keeps things interesting
• It's a learning experience - you can learn all about the "flora and fauna" of the area, especially if you have a knowledgeable guide
  

The Taoist longevity tradition claims that raised areas such as hills, mountains, escarpments, etc. are great sources of Qi.  What better place to practice some of your deep breathing and Qi Gong?  


So no matter what the time of year or where you live, try to find some time to get away from it all and enjoy a hike in the natural world.  You'll feel truly energized and more resilient!


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Your Optimal Health Cheat Sheet

Turn up your speakers or read the text version below:

Over the last month I think I've given the "7 Deadly Spirals of Disease" teleclass about five times to various audiences totaling thousands of people.  It's one of the most in-demand health presentations out there today. 

And while there's a place for presentations that go into that much depth, there's also a place for the high-level check list of things you can do to ensure fantastic health for years to come.  So here's just such a list for you:

1. Detox your body - There are lots of great detox systems out there.  One of my personal favorites is from a company called Blessed Herbs.  Detoxifying your system two to four times per year is highly advisable, since your body is being forced to deal with a toxic load that's well in excess of its design specifications!
   
   
2. Stop loading your body with new toxins - yes it's time to start thinking about eating more organic fruits and veggies, meat that's hormone and antibiotic-free, free range eggs, and the like.  And, for that matter, to beware of any non-organic personal care products you use, such as toothpastes, shampoos, cosmetics and the rest.  If it goes on your skin, it goes into your bloodstream.
    
   
3. Get everything circulating - one of the greatest keys to excellent health is to take your entire body through its total range of motion on a regular basis, pack your organs, bones and fasciae with Qi (vital energy) and ensure that your blood, spinal fluid, lymph fluid and Qi are all circulating unobstructed throughout your body.  This alone will short-circuit the disease process. To find out more, go to http://www.rocksolidvitality.com/dvd. 
   
   
4. Optimize your diet - learn what your body really needs nutritionally.  Take Dr. Mercola's free nutritional typing test to figure out what you should be eating.  Learn from internationally famous nutritional expert Michael Morningstar by taking the course he and I put together at http://www.mindsetbootcamp.com/symeon/healthmastery.html.
   
   
5. Avoid the electromagnetic storm - learn about the dangers of information-bearing radio waves.  Avoid wireless internet, be careful about how and how often you use your cell phone, your cordless phone and your laptop.  And be especially careful to educate your kids about this too!
   
   
6. Cultivate gratitude - this the nature's most natural stress-killer.  Whereas stress sends your body's pH level into the disease-prone acidic range, the frequent practice of gratitude will have the opposite effect.  Remember, an alkaline body is a very poor host for illness.
    
   
7. Smile habitually and never complain - this has the same effect.  Yes, you're surrounded by the frustrating (and sometimes mind-bendingly stupid) actions of other people.  But the more you can learn to disregard it all, the more you'll stress-proof yourself.  When your friends or coworkers complain, propose a solution instead!
   
   
8. Give affection, get affection - people who give and receive affection frequently live longer and happier lives.  Become one of them!
   
   
9. Deal with your emotions - this is one of the greatest keys to dealing with stress.  Learn simple and powerful tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Be Set Free Fast (BSFF).  Then you'll never again have to wallow helplessly in a puddle of negative emotion and put your health at risk. 
   
   
10. Meditate - it's one of the key elements of the ancient Taoist longevity system.  Moreover, it gives you mastery of your mind and emotions, and makes you totally stress-proof.  That's in addition to all its spiritual benefits, of course.
     
    
11. Learn to breathe - learn Normal Abdominal Breathing, the way the human being was meant to breathe.  This has enormous physical, psychological and spiritual benefits.  It's even more powerful when you join your breath, your movement and your mental attention into one.  You can learn more at: http://www.harapower.com/
    
    
12. Aim at harmony - we live in an anti-harmony culture.  Just walk down a busy street in any of our cities and you'll realize we've constructed a way of life hostile to our physical and emotional health.  When you aim at physical and emotional harmony in your own life, you counteract the persistently destructive influence of the man-made outside world.  Again, http://www.harapower.com/ will teach you more about this.
    

Please note you shouldn't try to do all of this or too much of it at once.  If you can implement just one of these this week or this month, you'll be making great progress!  

Remember that there's no one, single silver bullet for your health.  There are several and you need to take them all into account when you're building your new, healthier and more resilient lifestyle.  

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Breathing Your Way to Superb Health

You can learn a lot about a person just by observing how they breathe...

• When they're relaxed, whether standing or sitting, can you hear their breathing?
• Do their shoulders and chest rise when they inhale?
• Does their lower abdomen move at all?
• Are they inhaling or exhaling through their mouth or their nose?

All these are key questions that can tell you volumes about their physical health and, for that matter, their emotional health and how they relate to their body.

Compelling Reasons for Breathing Right:

Simply put, your body-mind organism has been designed to breathe in a particular way, and if you knock that natural breathing out of whack, you'll eventually reap the consequences.  The breathing that's natural to the human person is what's sometimes called "Normal Abdominal Breathing".  Why should you bother with it?  As Bill Nye the Science Guy loves to say, "consider the following";

• It enhances the circulation of blood, lymph fluid and energy (chest breathing restricts all of them)
• It takes the burden off the heart (chest breathing makes your heart work harder)
• It massages your lower digestive tract, leading to more efficient elimination of toxins (chest breathing leaves your lower digestive tract stagnant and sluggish, leading to auto-intoxication)
• It calms the emotions and reduces the energy-sapping "inner dialogue" (chest breathing tends to increase negative emotional content)

Practicing Basic Normal Abdominal Breathing:

Getting started is super-simple.  You can start with the following exercise while sitting or standing, and later graduate to doing it while walking:

1. Keeping your chest and shoulders relatively stationary, expand your lower abdomen outward as you inhale through your nose
2. Contract your lower abdomen as you exhale through your nose
3. With each breath, use your mental attention to feel the breath sink down to your lower abdomen
4. Breath at whatever pace is comfortable for you - this should feel completely gentle, natural and unforced, even if it seems a bit awkward at first ;-)

Once you've got the hang of that, you can experiment with these auxilliary practices (NOTE: If you have high blood pressure, please consult your physician first):

1. As you inhale, instead of just expanding your abdomen to the front, allow your waist to expand all the way around, as if it were a big inner tube
2. As you inhale, relax your perineum completely and feel the breath move all the way down to it and push against it.  Then, when you exhale, pull up on the perineum, more or less as you would doing a Kegel exercise (the Kegel or PC muscle exercises have lots of other health benefits I don't have time to get into here). 

Breathing and Your Personal Resilience:

Proper breathing can dramatically increase your physical health on all levels, balance your emotions, reduce your stress and, over time, utterly transform your relationship with your body.  It's pretty hard to overstate the benefits of paying attention to your breathing.

Of course, its real value comes when you transition from doing Normal Abdominal Breathing as an exercise for a few minutes a day to making it the "default setting" for how you breathe all day long. 

To get the whole story on how to do that, go to this website:

http://www.harapower.com/

Now, go enjoy a few good lung-fulls of fresh air!

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Resilience Tip: Cultivate Flexibility

Many years ago I was out taking a walk with a friend of mine, a woman, when we suddenly found ourselves face to face with a fence.  Without a second thought, I hopped over the fence and said, "Well, are you coming?"  Her jaw was almost on the ground and she said, with an awe that quite surprised me, "You're SO at home in your skin!"

For me it was the first time I realized that not everyone is "at home in their own skin."  And today, some 25 years later, I could hop that fence every bit as easily as I did it that day.  


Flexibility is one of the great keys to becoming a resilient person.  Physical flexibility is the foundation of mental and spiritual flexibility, of your ability to adapt harmoniously to any situation, even the most extreme kind.  Trust me; if you aren't physically flexible, you're not mentally flexible either.  


Of course, there are some other really compelling reasons for building your physical flexibility:


- It improves the circulation of your blood, lymph fluid, spinal fluid and qi
- It protects yours soft tissue from injury
- It greatly relieves psychological stress
- It boosts your overall health, immunity and longevity


So how do you go about getting more flexible?  There are lots of ways, of course; everything from calisthenics to certain types of dancing, to Yoga to Qi Gong and many more.

Here's a great video I came across that can give you some ideas.  It contains some innovative warm-up exercise used in the pioneering Russian martial art known as "Systema" (meaning "the system", as if you hadn't guessed ;-), as it's taught to members of "SpetsNaz", the Russian special forces.


http://bit.ly/28snit

(Note: as with any program of physical exercise, you should only engage in this with your physician's approval, particularly if you have any existing health concerns.  Use common sense.)


Learn, apply, feel great!


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Resilience Tip: Expand your range of Motion

That's right, expand your range of motion.  

One of the great keys to personal resilience is to maintain a full range of motion throughout your body for your whole life.  In the world of health and wellness, there are very few things you can do that will give you this much benefit... and on minutes a day!

Where should you start?  Simple... think of a range of motion you used to have and would like to reclaim.  It might be touching your toes while keeping your legs straight, or spreading your legs wide apart (side splits) or being able to stand on one spot and turn your head and spine far enough around so you can look behind you.  Starting today, take a few minutes a day to stretch and expand this range of motion very gently and slowly, being careful to breathe into the tissue you're stretching.  Warming up a little before stretching is also highly advisable.


(NOTE: If you're planning to stretch a previously injured area or one that's particularly delicate, make sure you consult a physician, chiropractor, osteopath or physiotherapist first).


Notice here that range of motion involves a) joints, b) muscles, c) connective tissue (tendons and ligaments).  What most people don't know is this: as you stretch, you're also massaging and toning the fascia layer under the skin and the fascia that wraps the tissues you're stretching.  This strengthens your overall posture and improves the flow of blood, energy, synovial fluid, etc.  

In other words, every stretch you take not only contributes to your flexibility and range of motion; it boosts your overall health and immunity in ways you don't see.  Want to be resilient - STRETCH!

Want to learn the world's top system for using simple body motion and breathing to boost your health and immunity through the roof?  You can learn about it here:

http://www.blogger.com/

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Making Your Life a "Work of Art"

You're walking through your neighborhood, enjoying the sunshine, the crisp, clean air and the birds. Everything is peaceful and you're very content...

...and then a diesel truck speeds by, spewing black smoke and leaving you coughing and sputtering for the next 60 seconds.

Sound familiar? We all seek harmony and beauty in our surrounding, but those surroundings are anything but harmonious and beautiful much of the time. All too often, we're engulfed by noise, air pollution and visual "pollution". Then it dawns on us that maybe harmony and beauty have never been high on our society's priority list.

That's changing, of course, as I outlined in my Special Report called "Gong-Fu" last year. (You can find a copy here: http://bit.ly/4pyuw6).

In Monday's post we talked about health. In Wednesday's about spiritual life. In the end, we all realize that it's harmony and beauty that are the key to both. What does that mean?

It means that we need emotional harmony within ourselves, otherwise both physical health and spiritual life will elude us.

We need tranquility of thought - to bring our thinking processes under our control.

We need a lifestyle that cultivates and builds harmony deliberately on every level.

Now what if there were a way to access the fundamental harmony and beauty of the universe already build into us? What if it was a matter of simply accessing what we've buried inside rather than "inventing" anything? That would be much easier, wouldn't it?

The good news is... that's the case. Not only do we have a built-in way to access the harmony and beauty of the universe, but that harmony and beauty is already inside, just waiting to be rediscovered.

With the ancient Taoist art of HARA, that's what students most frequently report - that a whole new universe of profound peace, great beauty and wonderful harmony has just opened up to them.

There's a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon we loved so much we had it framed. Calvin asks his dad why old pictures are always in black and white. His dad mischievously replies that the world only turned color a few decades ago.

That experience of feeling your world turn from black and white to color describes the feeling of practicing HARA. It also explains why HARA is the very foundation of both Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Must have been pretty successful ;-)

You can learn more about HARA here:

http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/hara.html

For anyone who grabs a copy of this unique course before Sunday at midnight, I'll toss in a free copy of The 5 Pillars of Life as well.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Becoming a "Hollow Bone"

Hi all,

Just a couple of days ago I was teaching a University class on Native American Spirituality. We were talking about the famous Sioux medicine man, Frank Fools Crow, and how he approached his spiritual path and his healing of others.

Fools Crow said that since the power that healed himself and others wasn't his own power but just came through him, he first had to make himself like a "hollow bone" (i.e. a tube), so that the Power from on high wasn't obstructed or blocked.

To do this, Fools Crow used some Sioux rituals for expelling unwanted thoughts, energies and emotional content, and for refocusing himself on his relationship to this Power that comes from "Wakan Tanka" (the Sioux name for God).

This way, he noted, the medicine men and holy men of the Sioux typically lived longer and happier lives than most of the people around them. And, true to form, Fools Crow passed away in 1989 in his 100th year of life.


How to Become a "Hollow Bone":

Obviously, learning Sioux rituals is highly impractical for anyone outside that culture. Fortunately there are alternatives.

We all know that if we make our happiness dependent on our circumstances, life will always seem like a struggle. And we can pretty easily understand that if our minds are full of negative emotional states, we're the opposite of a "hollow bone". Instead we're a blocked pipe, and the energy of God can't penetrate.

That's the essence of the teachings of the "Authentic Ancient Traditions" I described in The 5 Pillars of Life. They all teach methods for becoming a "hollow bone" - that is, for emptying your self-concern and entering into inner silence - because human happiness depends on that.

So exactly HOW do you do it?? Yes, the intention to do so is vital, but how do you defeat your habits that create the opposite result?

Centuries ago, Taoist masters came up with their own method, one that's simple, direct and can be used by anyone. When they took it to Japan, the Japanese eventually named it "Hara-gei", the "art of the belly".

By doing a makeover of your breathing, posture and movement, and then combining them with your mental attention, the ancient masters came up with a fool-proof way to return your entire mind-body organism to its natural state - a state of positive emotion, where no thoughts arise to disturb you... unless you decide to think about something.

This method was so powerful that the famous Chinese physician Sun Simiao - who himself lived over a hundred years in good health, wrote: "Tranquility then attains to concentration, and the body continues to live for years eternal."

To learn more about this amazing method, you can go here:

http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/hara.html

This course is, so far as I know, the ONLY one in the entire English speaking world that actually shows you how to master HARA step-by-step.

And for anyone who grabs a copy this week, I'll throw in a free copy of The 5 Pillars of Life.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Want Health? Then You Can't Afford to Ignore This...

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
- Thomas Edison

Hi all,

Edison was right, all those years ago, and despite the power and political clout of the pharmaceutical industry, people will likely look back at the medical and health practices of the our time and shake their heads saying...

"What WERE they thinking??"

Ancient cultures made some miraculous medical discoveries, and none more far-reaching in its effectiveness than the science of BREATHING. Sounds ridiculously simple?

What if I told you that just by using certain breathing methods for minutes a day, you could detox your whole body? Here's the scoop...


Beyond "Deep Breathing"

Taoist longevity masters discovered that although ordinary "deep breathing" is really good for you, there's something even better. Yes, it's a great idea to go outside first thing in the morning, expel all the stale air from your lungs and take in some crisp, clean air to oxygenate your system (and wake you up ;-), but there's more...

They discovered that the human body is designed for "abdominal breathing", not the chest breathing adults are used to, and that when you change over to abdominal breathing, amazing things happen. For one thing, it will detox your whole body continually (a big plus in our toxin-filled society). Here's how:

Your body eliminates toxins in 3 main ways - through your lungs, your skin and your bowels.

Abdominal breathing uses the whole lung and eliminates toxins through the lungs more efficiently than chest breathing. Abdominal breathing continuously massages the lower digestive tract, allowing your intestines, kidneys and bladder to eliminate waste products far more effectively than they usually do.

And now the "piece de resistance"... they discovered that through breath control they could access the body's energy field. You can too. Focus your attention on the tip of one finger as you practice abdominal breathing and you'll notice something...

Your finger feels like it's breathing too! Eventually, you'll learn to feel this sensation everywhere. To make a long story very short, using this dynamic allows you to eliminate toxins directly through your skin.

The Taoist masters also noticed that normal abdominal breathing and the special exercises that use it radically improved the circulation of blood, lymph fluid and energy throughout the body and eased the burden on the heart muscle. And they enable you to gather energy all day long instead of just expending it.

There are further benefits on the emotional and spiritual levels too, but I've run out of space for today, so...

To learn more about these miracles, just hop on over to:

http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/hara.html

For anyone who grabs a copy this week, I'll toss in a free copy of my book, The 5 Pillars of Life in case you don't already have one ;-)

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Take Charge of Your Health-Immunity-Longevity NOW

My wife and I recently had dinner with an old friend from out of town, a middle aged guy who, on the outside, looks healthy enough. Turns out he wants to drop about 20 pounds, so we asked him what he's doing about it. He said, "I'm doing a lot of walking, but for some reason I'm not dropping any weight."


Well, that was my first clue, so I asked him what he eats... and that's when it all came out - junk food, too many carbs of the worst kind and absolutely no regard for food combining. Hardly a surprise, alas...


He was actually proud of his recent switch from regular Pepsi to diet Pepsi! It's enough to make a health coach drive his head into the nearest two-by-four ;-)


Anyway, given our short time together and where he was at, there wasn't a lot we could do. My wife taught him how to maximize the weight loss from his walking and gave him a diet that will almost certainly get him to his goal of losing those 20 pounds.




THE STUPIDEST THING YOU CAN DO IS THIS...


...to focus narrowly on "losing weight", rather than on your overall health and immunity. And that's especially the case if you're looking to lose less than 50 pounds or so. The ironclad law here is this: Focus on your overall health and immunity first, and only then worry about the rest.


The most common stupidity I run into is that people haven't a clue about the exercise they need most. Our friend is typical - he thought that by going for a walk every day he had covered his bases. And then you get other people who only run or only lift some weights or only swim. Why's that a problem?


Well, the Taoist longevity masters, who figured outhow to RELIABLY GET YOU PAST YOUR 100TH BIRTHDAY IN GREAT HEALTH, knew the ONLY approach to exercise that really works. They knew about the "7 Deadly Spirals of Disease" and how to avoid them all. And they knew that just "staying active" and getting conventional exercise didn't cut it.


And here's the system they came up with:


http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/RSHQG/details.php


It has worked for them for the last 15 centuries or so and it can work for you. This is the cornerstone of their health-immunity-longevity system.


And here's the GOOD NEWS: If you grab a copy this week, we'll send you a FIFTY DOLLAR rebate off the posted price. So don't wait. Learn the most important facts and take charge of your own health, immunity and longevity today.


Or you may want to give it as a gift to someone who,like our friend above, is on the wrong track at the moment. Just because our friend and millions like him are on the wrong track doesn't mean you have to be!


http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/RSHQG/details.php


To your health!


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International - transforming your mind, body and spirit into SOLID STEEL......wrapped in cotton ;-)

Putting "Strength in Your Belly"

"If there is no strength in your dantien, vices such as jealously, envy, anger, greed and distrust appear."
~ Okado Torajiro

We could also add "stress", "anxiety" and "fear" to the list.

Everything I've shared with you over the past week has been to prepare you for today.

If you've been practicing this stuff daily you can't help but feel a whole lot better. That would be impossible. Our problem these days is that nobody will practice anything consistently and diligently. Instead, they just dabble, and dabblers don't get results in any area of life.

Okay, so we've already talked about your breathing and how you need to learn Normal Abdominal Breathing in order to stop creating stress accidentally.

When you're practicing this kind of breathing during meditation, you want to bring your breath down into your "lower dantien". Dantien means "elixir field" and it's your body's main energy storage area just below your navel. This will help you to put strength into your dantien, as Torajiro says above.

It's easy to feel the breath filling the dantien because your abdomen is actually expanding as you inhale.

We've also talked about how you can learn to integrate your mind, breath and physical movements into one. The next part of that equation is to learn to move from the dantien. In other words, you should feel every movement you make coming from the dantien, as if it moves a nano second before the rest of your body.

That kind of movement may seems strange to you, but keep in mind that all of Tai Chi (and other internal martial arts) and most of Qi Gong are performed just this way.

Go "play" with these approaches and you'll soon experience a world of difference!

~Dr. Symeon Rodger
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Disclaimer: This material is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition, nor toreplace the advice of qualified medical practitioners. You should not engage in any of the exercises suggested here without consulting your physician, particularly if you have anychronic medical issues or have reason to suspect these exercises could cause injury to you. If you are pregnant or think you might be, do not attempt any of these breathing or movement exercises without the express permission of your medical doctor and a licensed practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
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What to Do When Your Body HURTS...

Hi there,

Have you ever put your fitness program on hold because your muscles are sore, given up on Qi Gong because Muscle-Tendon Changing makes your back hurt, or stopped meditating because it makes your thighs ache?

If you’ve ever cut short any kind of personal development program because of physical discomfort, you need to read the uncomfortable truth here and find out how to get back on track…


Okay, So I Didn't Hurt it Skydiving ;-)

As I was off travelling last week, I did my best to maintain my minimum daily fitness routine that includes, among other things, 100 push-ups and 100 squats.

I had a sore right shoulder when I left home – not sure where it came from. And I was tempted to give the push-ups a rest for the week. Then I remembered a key lesson I learned some years ago…

…in many cases, training THROUGH the pain is the only way to make the pain go away. It sounds counterintuitive, yet it’s often the case. Let me give you an example.

Years ago I wrenched my right knee. I’d like to pretend I did this doing something sexy like skydiving. If fact, I did it getting up from a picnic table! Yes, my shoe lace got caught on a wing nut and that’s how I wrenched my knee. Nothing honourable about it ;-)

I never sought medical attention for it, since it wasn’t that serious. But after that I always had to treat that knee gently when exercising, doing martial arts or even sitting for meditation. It became one of those little annoyances of life that you just learn to live with.

Then, some years later, I changed my fitness program by adding squats (in this case, the ‘Hindu Squats’ that Matt Furey recommends in his program, ‘Combat Conditioning’ – a program that we recommend as the world’s best in the Warriorship Black Belt Program).

After about two weeks of squats, the problem went away and has NEVER returned. That made me realize the error of my ways. You see, the continued pain I was putting up with was not simply the result of the original injury; it was the result of my own failure to STRENGTHEN the injured soft tissue so it could heal property and completely.

The fact is, we’re in a culture that’s taught us to coddle ourselves to a degree that’s often ridiculous and counter-productive. The moment something hurts, we
think, ‘Oh, I must be ‘over training’. Perhaps I should give this a rest.’ The TRUTH is that there’s hardly ANYONE among us who’s in the remotest danger of ‘overtraining’.


On the Other Hand... Use Common Sense!

The caveat, of course, is that you need to know when continued effort will in fact aggravate an injury and delay healing. And that discernment only comes with time, experience and the insight that consistent training gives you into your own body and what your body is trying to tell you.

When I had lunch yesterday with Marc, my oldest friend (we met in grade 6!), he told me about how he had once started to play a university basketball game out of town, assuming that the leg injury he’d just suffered was only a Charlie-horse.

Well, about half way through the game the pain was too much and he walked off the court. When he had the leg x-rayed, it turned out the bone was cracked! So there’s an example of when it’s time to stop training!

However, for most of us in most situations, that’s not the case. Most of what you go through will resemble my knee more than Marc’s thigh. So keep training and don’t be thrown off by every little discomfort or you’ll never get anywhere.

And, at the same time, use your common sense.

- Dr. Symeon Rodger