Tips To Creating Your Personal Longevity Program
Breathing Is Boring
Good health is the foundation of our life. But what is the foundation of good health? The right food? Water? Living conditions? All of these are important but we can survive without food and water for a few days. But how long can we survive without the breath? There’s a famous Ch’an story about a young monk who complained to his master that "meditating on the breath was boring". His master grabbed the student, held him under water and then asked the student, "And now do you think that breathing is boring? "
Qigong Breathing Is The Key To Longevity
At the Shaolin Temple, the monks know how important the breath is. Every movement they do, every kick, every punch is done with the breath of Qi. They are famous throughout the world for increasing their martial power and the rate of their health and longevity through a series of breathing exercise called Qigong. If you are new to Qigong then you can find out more here.
Reverse Qigong Breathing
Qigong breathing is a different type of breathing to our regular breathing. When we practice Shaolin we reverse the way we breathe (Full details on how we do this can be found in my book: Instant Health: The Shaolin Qigong Workout For Longevity) Just as the heart pumps the blood, the lungs pumps the breath or Qi, which is why we don’t use our regular breath when we practice Qigong but a special breathing technique which gives us the ability to channel our breath where the body needs it most.
Martial Qigong
When I practice Shaolin Steel Jacket I channel my breath into my ribs so that I don’t get hurt when beat with bricks or metal bars. But Shaolin Qigong isn’t just about shaven headed monks and fancy kung fu moves, it’s one of the most effective ways I know to increase our health, fitness, happiness and longevity.
The Elixir Of Youth
It’s not just the Shaolin Temple that is famous for its longevity practices but also the Taoist hermits. Thousand of years ago, high up in the mountains of China, the Taoists studied Qigong and called it the elixir of youth. They wanted to see how long they could live so they could taste the secret of life. The Buddhist monks practiced Qigong so they could stay alive for as long as possible and gain enlightenment. Today, we practice Qigong to not only help us with our martial arts but also for many of the same reasons. Although many of us don’t like to think this way, we will all get old. But we can grow old gracefully. Doing regular exercise and Qigong helps to prevent illness, and keep us young.
Without my regular practice of Qigong I could not continue with the hard training that I do. I am thirty-six years old, if you look at most of the Shaolin masters, they look much younger than their years. And this is because we practice Qigong.
Instant Health
One of the motivations for writing my book: Instant Health: The Shaolin Qigong Workout For Longevity was to give people an accessible step by step guide to Shaolin Qigong, free from the secrets and myths that have accumulated in the West. It’s understandable that so much misinformation has amassed because Qigong was only allowed to be practiced in China from 1989, before that time it had to be passed secretly from generation to generation. I am very grateful to my master at the Shaolin Temple for transmitting such precious teachings to me.
The Longevity Workout
The Longevity Workout consists of warm up, stretching, Qigong and self-massage. It works on the same principles as acupuncture. Just as we have veins that run through our body, we also have an energy matrix that runs through our body. In China, we call this matrix, channels. And we liken them to a river. Throughout the day as we get tired or stressed, these channels get blocked, if the channels continue to be blocked, overtime the blockage becomes more serious and this is when we get ill.
Qigong For Liver
An example of this is when we are stressed our liver channel becomes blocked; we do Qigong for liver to unblock the channel. The Eight Treasures Qigong that I teach in my DVD and book works on opening up all the major channels including the liver channel. If we deal with these blockages on a daily basis then we are constantly unblocking the channels so that the Qi can flow smoothly. This is why a Qigong practioner experiences a much greater degree of energy, their skin glows, their immune system is strong because they are preventing illness before it occurs. This is the best form of medicine. To optimize our Qigong Workout we finish off with a self-massage.
Self-Massage
If you are seeking health, then you use a bamboo brush, and if you are a martial artist and you want to progress to body conditioning such as Shaolin Steel Jacket then you use a metal brush. But the massage technique is the same.
The self-massage takes less than ten minutes and is done after Qigong. It acts as a natural battery charger for the body. As your practice deepens, you can then massage yourself with more force, and the vibrations begin to clean the very marrow of the bone. This is where the term Bone Marrow Cleansing comes from. I demonstrate this massage in The Way of Qigong Volume 2 & 3 and also my Qigong book.
Jade Stone And Green Tea
Alongside Qigong and self-massage, Chinese people have always used Jade as a longevity tool. We often have a Jade Buddha around our wrist or neck or a Jade energy stone in our car or home. We believe that everything contains energy or Qi. And because Jade is from the earth, it contains a life force of its own. But you don’t need to have a blind belief. If you stand by a waterfall or on top of a mountain, you will feel very different than if you sit at your computer. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that a computer does not give us any longevity energy! Chinese people use Jade to cleanse and balance the body. In China, many women use Jade to prevent ageing of the face.
The other thing that we do is drink green tea. This has very high levels of antioxidant, which help to prevent ageing of the body.
Go for it!
If I explain to you the taste of an apple, it's not the same as you actually taking a bite from an apple. It's the same with the longevity program. I believe it will increase your success at work and help you to feel more at ease with life, it will help you to run faster or punch quicker. It will give you more energy not only for your martial art's training but your day-to-day life. But don’t take my word for it, go and try it out for yourself today.
Start Your Personal Shaolin Longevity Program Today
Alongside my book and/ or DVD, make a personal longevity training program with a weekly plan as to how many times you will train together with the times and dates and a note of how you’re feeling right now then check your progress as the weeks go by.
Protect Yourself From Negativity
Wearing the jade reminds you that you are taking positive steps towards health. It reminds you not to stop or give up. It's easy for us to forget or slip and go back to old ways. Wearing the Jade can protect us from our own negative thoughts. I wear a Jade Guan Yin amulet that my sister bought for me when I came to the UK. It reminds me to stay connected to my heart and to honour the teachings that I have been given as a great gift from the temple. More information about Jade can be found here.
I think you’ll be surprised at the increase in your focus, confidence, peace and energy levels. You’ll also find that your sleep is deep and restful, so that when you wake in the morning, you feel ready for the day. I get many emails from students all over the world, sharing their experiences and I read them with great interest. I hope that one day, you will share your own personal story with me.
