Laughing Really Is The Best Medicine

Monday, November 24, 2014

I love our Monday night Tai Chi class; not only are we the only two in the class and so get more advanced, individualized instruction than in the Tuesday class, but on Monday there are no classes before or after our class, so we can go a few minutes early to stretch, and our class always goes at least 10 minutes over the scheduled time. What I love and am grateful for is what we learn after class officially ends. We usually spend another 20 minutes visiting with Sifu, where he expounds on the nuances that make Tai Chi so fascinating – and how we can refine our practice to utilize it for healing, strength and even self-defense.

I should’ve been writing about our “classes-after-class” all along, but I haven’t, so I’ll start with tonight’s session. I’ve noticed an unbelievably tender spot on my arm in the last week or so, and I asked Sifu about it tonight. He ran his finger down the arm and stopped right at the tender spot. He has explained in the past that tender spots are energy blockages, and this spot is on the liver meridian. As we know, the liver filters all toxins, including the emotional variety. Hmmm, I’m a bit stressed and out of sorts just now, so a liver-related tender spot wouldn’t be surprising. Several Tai Chi pressure points that we do regularly really hurt, which Sifu says is to be expected for someone with fibro. Interesting that a fibro diagnosis is based heavily on the presence of specific tender points – and even more interesting that scientific studies show that Tai Chi is one of the best things for fibromyalgia treatment.

So what to do about this particular tender spot and energy blockage? Rub the hands together until they get warm – the warmth is good, but the purpose of rubbing hands together is to signal the brain to send energy to the palms, a major energy center. Then you rub one hand on the shoulder of the affected arm, then rub the elbow, then rub the arm between the shoulder and elbow. This initiates healing energy flow to break up the blockage. We’ll see how it works.

In the course of tonight's discussion, we learned that the healing properties of Tai Chi come from Qi Gongs, not from postures and forms. The movement of the Forms is interesting to do and to watch, but Forms are designed to build strength and to improve balance and flexibility, not to heal. Sifu said I should be doing Qi Gongs morning and night, and doing Points two or three times a day. He also said it’s important not to hold anger and frustration in, and showed us an exercise called something like “Shaking Body, Laughing Baby” where you bounce from your feet to shake and vibrate the body while making a loud laughing sound. I've known for some time that bouncing activates the lymph system to clear the body of toxins. So I came home and did a little searching about bouncing – sure enough, it’s known to have the physiological effect of releasing stress and tension. But it’s also known that yelling or laughing releases negative energy. According to Tai Chi philosophy, the sky is positive energy, the earth is negative energy, and people are neutral (or should be, unless – or until, it seems – they get out of whack). Sifu says that rather than holding anger and tension in, we should release it by yelling – not at another person, because heaven knows we don’t want to spread negative energy around – but at the earth, because earth can receive negative energy with no harmful effects. He said you can also yell at trees but not embrace them, because people with more experience in energy movement can sap the tree of its energy. I’m not sure what my neighbors will think, but they might find me more neighborly after I’ve done some therapeutic yelling (and shaking) in my back yard!

Oh, one last bonus tonight: a pressure point for insomnia! Laying on your side, lightly touch the Third Eye point (between the eyebrows) with a finger from the pillow-side hand. Visualize energy flowing to the point, and you should fall asleep shortly because it gently redirects the brain from racing thoughts to the point. We did it with Sifu, just for a few seconds, and I’ll be darned if I didn’t feel immediately relaxed. It’s beyond late, so I should go give it a try.