Last night Daughter and I attended a yoga workshop at Prana Shanti. It was called The Qi of Life and was an introduction to Qi Gong theory and practice. Mostly theory. It was proving to be a bit long for Daughter, who couldn't really understand what was being said. I told her we could call my sister, who was babysitting the boys, to come pick her up, but she stuck it out. The workshop was supposed to be from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, and when the teacher said we just had time for a 30-minute practice, I assumed it was 8 o'clock, but it wasn't. It was 8:45! Yikes! It's okay, really, but it was a school night and when we got home the boys were still awake so it was hard to get them out of bed this morning.
The workshop itself was very interesting for me. The only drawback was constantly wondering if Daughter was enjoying herself or not.
I have practiced Qi Gong yoga before, and with the theory from last night it makes more sense to me now, how it all fits in with the physical practice with our body and the link to the universe. I am glad I heard all the theory but, inversely, there is one exercise that I think could be really good for children, and they don't need to be aware of the theory to reap the benefits. Let me tell you about it.
The exercise seems to be a breathing exercise at first, but in reality it is so much more. First, let me tell you what the teacher - let's call him guide instead, shall we? - what the guide said about the human brain and the duck brain.
The guide said that whereas humans, when they confront each other with aggression, come away with the aggression, turning it over and over, reliving it in their minds and not letting it go, ducks, when mating season comes around, will make a great show of aggression, but then they turn away, seem to flap their wings as if to shake off the leftover aggression, and then continue swimming beside each other peacefully. They don't hold it in.
Well, we did this breathing exercise that is supposed to balance out the aggression in our bodies. It is an exercise composed of both a yin and a yang element. We stood with our feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent. When we inhaled, we gently opened our arms wide while holding our hands in a gentle fist. As we exhaled, we acted angry. We made an angry face, let our exhale come out in an angry huff, brought our hands together in front of us as if the two fists were to hit each other (but stopped just short of them touching), and our whole body tightened as if we were angry. The whole idea is that when the body imitates the emotion, the action acts as a hook and pulls the feelings out of the body, restoring balance. You don't have to actually GET angry in order to rid yourself of your anger.
I think this would be a great exercise for children with anger issues, especially because they would probably view it as fun. (It is kind of funny, seeing people pretend to be angry like that. I think kids would get a kick out of it.) So it could be a fun exercise, and we don't have to overstuff the children's minds with the theory. We don't even have to mention anger. We can just talk about it as acting tough, or acting like a warrior, or acting like a strong stone statue. I think it would be interesting to see what benefits kids could get from this. I wasn't feeling angry or anything in class, but I found the exercise very balancing. It is true what our guide said: This exercise is better at dealing with strong emotions than if, for example, a person were to count to ten and try to do slow yin movements. That might be calming, but it doesn't release the emotions. It just shuts them away where they can fester inside. This exercise lets them out in a very healthy way, I think.
The workshop covered this and so much more, I couldn't begin to get into it all, but I thought this exercise was important enough to share. There is so much violence in the world. I think people need all the tricks they can get their hands on to help children deal with it all.
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