TAI CHI

Tai Chi is often called "meditation in motion." It is a Chinese exercise system that uses slow, graceful body movements to achieve a state of relaxation and mindfulness in both body and mind. Tai Chi is one of the oldest known training methods for self realization and inner development. Best of all exercises to improve our balance.

CHI KUNG / QIGONG

Chi Kung is an ancient Chinese Healing Art which combines slow, graceful movements and controlled breathing to restore our health, rejuvenate our bodies and gain inner peace and harmony. Also called Qigong or Qi Gung.

ARTICLES

​Tai Chi – The Blissful Exercise

In today’s modern world, we are constantly told to push ourselves harder, push ourselves to be faster and stronger, to accomplish more, to multi-task and do many things at once, to work hard and play hard.

In our exercise programs we are told to push ourselves to do more repetitions, lift more weight, run faster, sweat more, really work those muscles, and “Just Do It,” and “No Pain, No Gain.”

But we are human. We have limits. It’s not healthy to push ourselves that hard 24/7/365.

Tai Chi is … different. 😊

When we practice Tai Chi, the goal is to remain as relaxed as possible while performing the movements, to continually focus on our body and scan for signs of tenseness and then relax those areas, and to NOT use our muscles.

How can that be effective exercise you ask? I could get the same benefits from sitting on the couch!

And yet Time Magazine has said that Tai Chi can be as effective a workout as Cross Fit training.

One answer is that stress is a major problem today. It’s estimated that over 80% of hospital visits are due to conditions that have their roots in stress. High blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety and gastrointestinal problems are common examples of stress related illnesses.

By learning to relax our bodies while at the same time performing an activity (in this case Tai Chi), we are ultimately learning to relax OURSELVES. And we can take this ability with us into other situations in our lives.

Pay attention next time you are pushing a shopping cart at the grocery store. You might find that the muscles in your arms are tensed as you push the cart along. But is this really necessary? The forward motion of our bodies is enough to push the cart forward, with our arms needing only to act as extensions to route that forward momentum to the cart. So, the arms can be almost relaxed, just channeling the energy already being put forth by our legs and body. And then it becomes apparent that we are often tense and straining in our daily activities when we don’t need to. We scrunch our facial muscles up tight when we are concentrating. We put forth 110% straining effort, when 10% effort will often accomplish the same goal. We are wearing ourselves out all day long!

With its slow, graceful and flowing movements, Tai Chi exercises our tendons, joints (and yes, even our muscles) without all that unnecessary straining. In fact, it’s often called “Meditation in Motion.”

Remember when you’ve seen demonstrations of, or perhaps even experienced hypnosis? The hypnotist will often tell the subject to relax, and imagine their hand is floating up in the air, without any effort on the subject’s part. This is very similar to the feeling we work with in Tai Chi.

You can try this for yourself right now. If you are right-handed, use your left arm for this exercise. If you are left-handed, use your right arm. Let your arm and hand hang down at your side, completely limp. Now, without using any muscles, imagine and feel your forearm and hand raising up to waist level, without any effort on your part. Do this exercise in slow motion. The slower the better. You can imagine a helium balloon under your palm, and the helium is ‘floating’ your forearm upwards. Your arm is completely limp, you are just allowing this to happen easily – almost on intention alone, and not relying on your muscles to lift the forearm. It may take a few tries, that’s okay. Just repeat a couple times until you feel it rising (as if by magic) without using your muscles. Relax into it and enjoy the sensation.

Isn’t this an amazing feeling? You have just experienced Sung (pronounced Soong), which is one of the deep internal principles of Tai Chi. Imagine performing an exercise routine that lets you feel like this. Imagine an exercise routine that can feel blissful and relaxing. Imagine an exercise routine free of stress, and full of tranquility and relaxation.

It seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? And yet hundreds of millions of people all over the world practice Tai Chi , know it to be true, and get to feel these blissful feelings regularly. It’s estimated that 250 million people worldwide practice Tai Chi. That makes it one of, if not the, most popular forms of exercise on the planet.

- James Hintzen, February 2020 - (www.ahintofzen.com)

​Tai Chi - An Inside Job

When studying Tai Chi, much emphasis is placed on learning the movements. And indeed, this is where all students must start. Learning and practicing the movements is essential.

But just learning, practicing and perfecting the movements is not your ultimate goal in Tai Chi.

After learning and becoming familiar with the movements, you can begin to do fascinating & rewarding work inside the movements, which are where the real benefits come from.

Tai Chi is an Inside Job.

As you master the movements, you can begin to practice Fang Song – the art of staying relaxed inside while practicing the movements. As you begin to practice this skill of staying relaxed, you will naturally find yourself taking this skill with you into the rest of your life. You will one day find yourself tense during a meeting at work, and you will practice the relaxation skills you’ve learned in Tai Chi to calm yourself and release the stress.

As you practice and learn how to focus and hold your concentration inside your body while performing the movements, you will master the skills of focus and concentration, and can use those skills to bring your attention back to where you want it to be in work or in everyday situations.

As you practice the movements day after day, patience and confidence will grow inside you and you will gain mastery over your self-sabotaging inner voice. At some point your inner voice will tell you, “This is too complicated, I can’t figure out how to do this form.” But you will master it, if you just continue practicing. (In fact, this is the fundamental key to success in Tai Chi – just continue to practice. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world practice regularly, and most are average everyday people, just like us.) When you practice regularly, one day you find yourself thinking, “I can’t master this,” but then another thought will follow it quickly, “Of course I can. I mastered that other movement and that seemed difficult to me as well at the time. This will also come as I continue to work on it.” And this will transfer to your life, and when things seem difficult, you will find yourself becoming calm, and thinking, “It’s okay, this seems hard now at the beginning, but with patience and perseverance, I will achieve success at this as well.” This will happen naturally with practice, and without even realizing it you will have gained patience and confidence, and mastery over these types self-sabotaging thoughts.

As you work on the “internal arts” you will practice & learn how to focus on the stillness and joy inside your deepest self, and to maintain mindfulness and happiness while performing the movements. Obviously, mindfulness and happiness are two qualities we all enjoy bringing to our everyday lives!

As you learn to gather Chi (life energy) and to circulate it inside your body while doing the movements, you can also then learn how to direct this energy to areas where you are hurt or experiencing illness or pains. This is one of the core foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which is practiced by billions of people to this day. To be clear, I am not saying we should forego Western Medicine. Seeing our doctor is often necessary and appropriate and I, for one, am not giving up my health insurance plan! But Tai Chi (& Chi Kung which is very similar, and from which Tai Chi originated) can greatly aid in maintaining and restoring your health and can solve some health issues that Western Medicine isn’t able to heal at this time.

If you practice Tai Chi movements with a sparring partner for the Martial Arts skills, you learn that resisting an opponent’s attack only strengthens it, and that accepting it & moving with it dissolves it. From this you learn that resisting or avoiding a personal issue only makes it more powerful, but if you face it (and perhaps redirect its energy into a desired benefit) it disappears.

Tai Chi is a very “deep” practice with many levels to explore and countless benefits to be gained. This has been an overview, and not by any means a comprehensive list of benefits. Tai Chi is like an Onion - as you peel back one layer, there is another (usually fascinating) layer beneath that.

Tai Chi is an Inside Job, and it is by doing the deeper internal work inside the movements that we achieve truly wonderful (and often blissful) benefits.

- James Hintzen, February 2020 - (www.ahintofzen.com)

Stretching & Our Fascia

Our bodies have a sheath of connective tissue (primarily collagen) beneath the skin that attaches, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs. It’s called Fascia and it "reaches" out and entwines itself in and around organs, bones, tendons, whatever gets in its path. Dr. Helen Langevin, of Harvard Medical School, started researching the Fascia after she noticed this sheath was reaching out and “grabbing” an acupuncture needle when it was inserted into the human body.

Fascia can also be found as the milky-white sheath underneath a chicken skin and as the almost transparent separating skin on oranges or lemons.

We know that nutrients and neurotransmitter signals and energy get transmitted throughout the whole body through this connective tissue. They’ve researched with rats and mice and found that the effects of an acupuncture needle are transmitted all throughout their small bodies (through the Fascia) from that one small insertion point.

Stretching is very important for us because when the Fascia is dormant (when we sit all day at work, sit on our couches at home, etc) it starts becoming stiff and overgrown within THREE TO SEVEN DAYS! It’s appearance changes from an elegant matrix of overlapping layers to a tangled growth that seems similar to a tumor or a stainless steel scouring pad. Yuck! It’s also theorized that this stiff, overgrown connective tissue may be the cause of chronic pain in some people that have pain which cannot be diagnosed by modern medical methods.

This Fascia (or connective tissue) also plays a large role in our bodies ability to move. It was originally thought that movement occurs when a muscle is triggered - which pulls on the tendon, which pulls on the bone, which moves the limb. But recent research has shown that the Fascia around a muscle transmits a large amount of energy laterally to the muscle next to it.

Our Fascia also has many receptors and passes information to the brain about our movements, posture, balance and muscular tension. When the Fascia becomes damaged, overgrown or stiff it has a negative effect on our immune system also, since our Lymphatic System passes through the Fascia.

When we start to understand the vast amount of functions the Fascia perform in our body, it becomes vitally important to stretch or bodies every day and to keep our Fascia in good shape. There are many excellent Chi Kung styles that emphasize stretching, and I encourage you to join me for a class at A Hint of Zen to learn more about stretching and how to improve your mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health.

- James Hintzen, July 2021 - (www.ahintofzen.com)

Our Hips

The Hips are a neglected body part for many of us. We often sit slumped in our chairs, with our hips pushed forward. Especially in recliners. Our hip sockets become filled with calcium and become stiff from inactivity. We probably all know someone who has had hip replacement surgery. Although it is often a “successful” surgery, no replacement hip will ever perform as well as our original hips. There will usually be significant pain, recovery time, out of pocket expense and even with physical therapy there will often be loss of mobility.

Also, within 3 – 7 days our Fascia also becomes overgrown and stiff, adding to the difficulty of moving with hips that are also stiff.

With this in mind, it is vitally important to exercise our hips and keep them flexible. And as we learn to “move from the hips” it becomes very enjoyable and feels like we are gliding.

Tai Chi and Chi Kung are fantastic exercises for the hips, as they constantly involve moving them, swiveling them and shifting the weight between them. One of the things I emphasize at A Hint of Zen are exercises like “The Silk Reeling Exercises” to loosen the hips, bring flexibility and increased mobility. This benefits a person’s Tai Chi practice as well as their movements during everyday activities.

The ultimate goal of Tai Chi is to bring what we learn into the rest of our lives. Learning to move the hips and loosening them for easy mobility is one of many ways we do that. Please join me for a class and learn more about how Tai Chi and Chi Kung can benefit your health and life.

- James Hintzen, January 2022 - (www.ahintofzen.com)

Vitamin D

With the Sunniest climate in the United States (around 296 Sunny days a year in Phoenix, Arizona), you would think everyone in the state would have healthy levels of Vitamin D in their system. But Arizonans typically have LOWER than average levels for the United States. This is mostly likely because we have to avoid the Sun so often and the rest of the time we use Sunscreen.

Being Vitamin D deficient can lead to multiple health issues - bone fractures, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, pain, fatigue and depression. Inadequate levels may also contribute to heart disease and high blood pressure, diabetes, infections and immune system disorders, falls in older people, and some types of cancer, such as colon, prostate, breast cancers and Multiple Sclerosis.

On the other hand, having proper levels of Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium (keeping bones strong), helps fight off infections and keeps your nervous system healthy and working efficiently. Additionally, in Europe they often recommend Vitamin D as a preventative to ward off Covid-19.

Currently there is almost an epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency. It may be hard to obtain from food alone, as it's absent from all natural foods except fish and egg yolks (source: Harvard Medical School).

When your skin is exposed to ultraviolet rays from the Sun, it converts a form of cholesterol into vitamin D3. But not instantly. Current theories say that the conversion process happens on the surface of the skin.

SO WHEN YOU’VE BEEN OUT IN THE SUN, YOU SHOULD IDEALLY WAIT A FEW HOURS AFTER RETURNING HOME TO WASH OR TAKE A SHOWER. Otherwise you might be washing all that natural goodness right down the drain before it has a chance to sink into your skin and become available through your blood to the rest of your body. (Hopefully you have an understanding significant other or roommate!)

You can boost your Vitamin D levels by taking reputable Vitamin supplements. Practicing Tai Chi in the early mornings is also a great way to help get your Vitamin D during the Summer months, and all year round. A Hint of Zen classes meet at 8am all during the Summer. Feel free to join us Saturday and Sunday mornings at Sereno Park in Scottsdale (56th Street & Sweetwater). And have a Sunny day!

- James Hintzen, March 2022 - (www.ahintofzen.com)