The Orbit & Cold

[90_1494798740]

I have experienced that doing the orbit in winter (especially when it's very cold) intensifies the feeling of energy tremendously. That might be due to the fact that the blood vessels are much better trained in winter, because of the change of temperatures (inside vs. outside) - the chi follows the blood ... or is there more to it on an energetic level (kidneys/jing/water/winter)? Any ideas?

[Yoda]

I find cold to be very stimulating.

[Jeremiah]

one thought on this is that in most people the front water channel is very congested especially in the chest / throat area. as the winter deepens, the water season, maybe the water channel in resonance has additional support from the season to open up. just a thought.

 

:-)

[sean]

I find that I have very cold and dry hands and feet during the winter and it's annoying. I've been playing with Winn's counterforce breathing the last few days for that reason as I remember him saying he used it to warm himself up in his cave retreat. And it really works. At least for my hands. I did it for about five minutes the other night and it really warmed up my hands but didn't get to my feet. Any ideas?

[RedFox]

I find that I have very cold and dry hands and feet during the winter and it's annoying. I've been playing with Winn's counterforce breathing the last few days for that reason as I remember him saying he used it to warm himself up in his cave retreat. And it really works. At least for my hands. I did it for about five minutes the other night and it really warmed up my hands but didn't get to my feet. Any ideas?

9727[/snapback]

 

What solved my cold feet problem actually wasn't qigong. It was learning that my foot wasn't able to explore its full range of motion. Likely from too much shoe wearing. Anyway, what solved it for me was learning how to pronate and supinate the foot. This is where you rotate the foot at the ball, instead of the heel (which is inversion/eversion) It's easier to show than to explain, but the basic idea is to keep your ankle as still as possible, and practice raising and lowering the ball of the foot under the big toe. Then do the same thing with the pinky toe side of the ball.

 

The first time somebody showed me that, I was at Aaron Mattes' active isolated stretching seminar, and he was demonstrating on me. I didn't have a clue what he meant, but when he prompted my foot with his hands, after about 30 seconds, I felt this warm rush into my feet, as if a cork had been pulled out of my blood vessels. It was pretty wild. It took a while to get it down on my own, and it kept freezing back up, until I figured out that if I just left my shoes off when I didnt need them, I wouldn't lose that motion. No problems since then.

 

I'm in HI now, but next winter I'm going to test it out through the fall and see how much I can build up to staying comfortable with bare feet on cold ground. WHich is kinda funny because I'm still not too keen about trying RJ's treatment of ice water on the 'nads though. But if it's working for Yoda, I may yet try it someday.

 

Getting that motion back is also hugely helpful in removing painful conditions like plantar fascitis (especially if you're also working on your calf flexibility) Ken Bob Saxton (from barefootrunning.com) doesn't even recommend any specific stretching for those kind of conditions. Just going barefoot on uneven ground helps the foot keep that range of motion.

[DanC]

Yoda Im also a big fan of cold water dousing, I believe its great for getting the blood and Chi flowing. Running cold water over the genitals is mentioned in many of the old time physical culture and bodybuilding programs of the early 1900s, big advocates were Charles Atlas and Steve Reeves. After running cold water directly over the genitals for 1-2 mins I find the cirluation and blood flow in that region to be stimulated and I believe it actually increases sexual energy, this is probably due to the hormane release that RJ is refering to.

 

Dan

[sean]

The first time somebody showed me that, I was at Aaron Mattes' active isolated stretching seminar, and he was demonstrating on me.  I didn't have a clue what he meant, but when he prompted my foot with his hands, after about 30 seconds, I felt this warm rush into my feet, as if a cork had been pulled out of my blood vessels.  It was pretty wild.

RedFox, thank you for such a great response. Are there any resources for learning more about this method, I'm very intrigued.

 

Been meaning to get into barefoot running as well but I live in the freakin ghetto and would probably step on a syringe or some shit knowing my luck.

 

BTW, that's cool you are in Hawaii man, what do you do out there? Is it warm and beautiful all year 'round? That's what I need.

 

Sean

[90_1494798740]

Found something interesting about the effect of cold on the immune system: whole body cold therapy

[RedFox]

RedFox, thank you for such a great response. Are there any resources for learning more about this method, I'm very intrigued.

 

I don't know if there's a lot online on the techniques themselves, but this is Mattes' website for AIS (active isolated stretching, and strengthening is implied in that). He has a book for health professionals, a book for the layman, and a video for each. He also teaches seminars. which are MORE than worth the price of admission. The stretching you can pick up mostly from video if you wanted, but he treats people off the street whenever he's not lecturing. I dunno what the personal trainers taking that class to learn stretching saw, but as a therapist, watching him work will break down any preconceived notions you might have about how fast you can recover from an injury or chronic condition, or what you can recover from, or how much good an old man without lumbar vertebral discs can do (he invented the work first in his quest to tell his doctors to piss off that he be on disability).

 

No matter whatever else I learn, I will always be grateful to him for helping me make the largest leap from relying on other people to take care of me, to me taking care of me, and reaping the benefits of developing a daily discipline to do so. His work also completely freed me from needing an office to treat chronic pain, or doing any tissue manipulations with my hands, and can work with individuals who will or cannot be handled. I can be anywhere with nothing but the ground and my hands, and anything else i have is icing on a cake. And, the study and application of AIS made me realize very quickly that Sonnon and RMAX are giving away pure gold on their website, and what is not free, is worth the price of admission.

 

However, since you also study RMAX, I will tell you that I ran into limits with AIS, at least from what i've learned from Aaron that he teaches out publicly (i nearly, and may yet, pursued interning with him, given that he has hinted there are many ways to apply the principles of the method for helping some rather unlikely candidates for 'stretching', like tipped uterus, paraplegia and other stuff).

 

My current take on how they fit together is that AIS method is a series of elementary motor components. You need diagnostic skills and an understanding of what the body is supposed to be able to do to, to be able to apply them quickly in the case of chronic injury or pain. If you don't have the diagnostic skill to take shortcuts, you develop it by using a large range (or all) of the stretches until you find the few that target the condition.

 

It is also primarily a linear based system, versus the RMAX circular. You 'sort of' arrive at multiplanar mobility due to the dearth of stretches to isolate muscles across a given joint, but your focus is on the plasticity/elasticity of muscle and tendon, not the articular cartilage. The latter comes, but it takes longer and its only in the planes your EMCs take you. And, I actually did injure myself (I believe) by getting my hamstrings more flexible than the hip joint could support at that time. I had noticed before RMAX that mobility and flexibility gained thru AIS tends to stay longer without maintainence in the upper bod than the lower. My suspicion is that because the warmups and EMCs are more circular in nature up top, and cover more planes of motion. Also, being linear, it takes a long time to work the whole body. When I was timing myself for a while, I could never do the whole system with the recommended repetitions faster than 1hr10 mins. My clients almost never were willing to dedicate that kind of time unless they were injured and had nothing else to do.

 

You are also on your own to reintegrate all this new-found movement. Where RMAX gives you the path from joint mobility to EMC to BMC to kinetic chain, you have to rely on your intuition, sport or interests to do that for you, its not taught out. Hence my comment on the board a while back about my kata still feeling like I was a brick with limbs. They were highly mobile, but only in the isolated planes that I had trained them.

 

One thing that does prod me occasionally as a weakness of RMAX is the time they allow for recovery. You might be weeks or months applying WW to an injury to see any change, where with AIS, some conditions you can take to pain-free in an hour or less. But I temper that with the understanding that pain-free is very different from healthy, smoothly articulating, strong, and supple. Pain free is good enough for somebody who has to get back to work. It is NOT good enough if you want to learn parkour, gymnastics or any of the other really awesome stuff that's available to us to explore our potential, and after the age of 25 or so, survive it.

 

Hope that's not too much info. some of this has been scurrying around in my head the last couple days, felt good to try to summarize it.

 

Been meaning to get into barefoot running as well but I live in the freakin ghetto and would probably step on a syringe or some shit knowing my luck. 

 

I used tot say that about myself. Now, I have no concerns about swinging a pickaxe full-bore, barefoot. Has less to do with luck than developing awareness of where your feet are. You can also regain that particular movement and still wear shoes. It just takes more conscious attention.

 

BTW, that's cool you are in Hawaii man, what do you do out there? Is it warm and beautiful all year 'round? That's what I need. 

 

Would you believe i packed up my practice, gave away 90% of my crap and became a Tao bum? Well, at least temporarily. I needed a sabbatical. Right now I'm doing something similar to uh, Niemad I think, doing a work trade on a farm on the kohala side of the big island. Before that i was doing the hostel thing, and will again after January.

 

HI is a fun place to visit, but living here has its problems too. I like it and all, especially going barefoot and shirtless most of the time, but I'm actually jonesing to get back to the mainland and pick up my life. Had planned to be roaming arond here until almost May, now it's probably gonna be more like february. Once I found RMAX I realized it was gonna be the next major focus of my life, I knew I needed to be in one place for a while again, with a place to store all the stuff I was studying (and acquiring, like books, dvds... clubbells ) . Only thing I have left to figure out is, where to land.

[sean]

RedFox, awesome post. You got me hooked on foot awareness now. I really want to hunt that circulation technique down. And in general I am focusing on "foot flow". As silly as that may sound, I think it's a neglected area of development. You know that flow on WW where Scott makes "waves" with his hands? I'm playing around with doing that with the foot. Also trying to develop more sensitivity in the toes ... moving all the toes up, down, then left, right (left,right is still really difficult) and then also trying a "toe wave" where I start with my big toe, bend it down, then bend the next one down, next, etc. to my pinkie toe than back. It's amazing how crude my toe control is, and yet there are people missing arms who can do amazing shit with their feet/toes .. type, paint masterpieces, etc.

 

Would you believe i packed up my practice, gave away 90% of my crap and became a Tao bum?

That is awesome! And Hawaii seems like the right place to do that at. I did something similar once. Just packed up all my shit in my car, put $50 in my pocket and travelled the US for about a year as a bum ... getting stuck in random towns until I could work/barter for a new tank of gas to move on. Good times.

 

Once I found RMAX I realized it was gonna be the next major focus of my life, I knew I needed to be in one place for a while again, with a place to store all the stuff I was studying (and acquiring, like books, dvds... clubbells  ) . Only thing I have left to figure out is, where to land.

California man. Or maybe Oregon. I think about moving up to Eugene sometimes. PS, I'm saving for IOTA so we should meet up.

 

Sean

[Yoda]

Red Fox,

 

You should do a thread, "where should I move?" and give your basic preferences and requirements and we'll hook you up.

 

Keep the SE in mind, though. Cheap, nice weather, slow pace, your car won't rust.

 

-Yoda

[RedFox]

RedFox, awesome post. You got me hooked on foot awareness now. I really want to hunt that circulation technique down.

 

Its not so much a technique as a release of fascial congestion, or removal of what Sonnon would call sensory motor amnesia. most people don't know that the foot can move like that until they see somebody doing it. I've only reviewed beg & int intuflow so far, and I haven't seen that movement in there either (it would be the rough equivalent of the intermediate routine for the fingers, from the okay to the ice cream cone hold, but applied to the foot, but obviously the ball of the foot would allow an exact movement like that in most people)

 

You also might not get the same kind of obvious release I did. Mattes brought me to a point in 2 minutes what takes a person an hour or two of practice to get on their own. What you might notice is that your bare feet start molding to whatever you're walking on more.

 

And in general I am focusing on "foot flow". As silly as that may sound, I think it's a neglected area of development. You know that flow on WW where Scott makes "waves" with his hands? I'm playing around with doing that with the foot. Also trying to develop more sensitivity in the toes ... moving all the toes up, down, then left, right (left,right is still really difficult) and then also trying a "toe wave" where I start with my big toe, bend it down, then bend the next one down, next, etc. to my pinkie toe than back. It's amazing how crude my toe control is, and yet there are people missing arms who can do amazing shit with their feet/toes .. type, paint masterpieces, etc.

 

Not silly at all. I spent part of an afternoon lying down pretending to paint with my toes and foot, then (trying to do) circumduction with my big toe, etc. I haven't taken it further than that yet.

 

California man. Or maybe Oregon. I think about moving up to Eugene sometimes. PS, I'm saving for IOTA so we should meet up.

 

That would be most cool. PM me if you're going, I'll be travelling again soon, might miss a post or three.

 

RIght now I'm leaning northwest or southeast. I'm not sure if I could handle the Governator! But I will be in the LA area in May, i'm going on Winn's china trip, so I might be able to catch up with you then, maybe help me see what i'm missing about CA.