Modern fitness clubs offer a huge variety of oriental practices. But how to choose the direction and degree of load? Here is a simple guide.
How to understand which direction of Eastern practices is right for you? Of course, you need to try and experiment. But in order not to abandon this venture after five or even ten unsuccessful attempts, it is initially important to determine the priorities.
When choosing, you should focus not only and not so much on the physical results that you want to achieve, because traditional practices affect not only the body, but also the psychological state. For example, in Chinese medicine, all diseases of the body are considered psychosomatic: the disease is always associated with out-of-control emotions. So, choosing a direction, it is necessary to rely on priorities in general. What do you want from the body and from yourself? What qualities do you lack to restore harmony in your life?
Likutis
If you want to learn how to concentrate and increase stress resistance while remaining relaxed and calm, choose areas of practice that have a lot of static balance exercises. They are found in yoga (Iyengar yoga is especially suitable for beginners) and qigong (Zhang Zhuang). In both cases, the emphasis is on finding relaxation and balance within a strictly fixed form.
If you feel a lack of stability in all areas of your life, even a seemingly boring static practice can bring you a lot of new discoveries. But if you lack movement or relaxation skills, the lesson can seem like real torture.
Veikla
By mastering oriental practices, you can learn a new type of movement — and, moreover, quite energetic. An example is Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, in which all elements are connected by a certain type of movement. In the course of practice, you master the same skill of balance, but you do it dynamically.
Poilsis
If you want to learn how to really relax deeply after a hard day at work, choose practices whose goal is to train the body to find and release habitual tensions. One of the most striking examples is Qigong for the spine Sing Shen Juang.
Stages of practice
Often in the classroom, the instructor gives the task not only to repeat the movements, but also to perform breathing practice in parallel or to concentrate in a certain way, turning off the internal monologue. For a beginner, this can cause a lot of questions: why inhale here, and exhale there? Why direct the «inner eye» somewhere between the eyebrows?
To understand what happens during this or that exercise, it is important to know that almost any Eastern practice consists of three steps.
The first stage is the study of the structure of the body. The task is to build the correct posture, relieve the usual tension, make the body more flexible and free. For example, in qigong, these results can be achieved with the help of Sing Shen Juang gymnastics, aimed at relaxation.
Having mastered special breathing techniques, we get the opportunity to accumulate vitality and become more energetic.
The second stage is the practice of silence or meditation. The main skill to be mastered within the framework of these classes is “entering silence”, stopping the internal monologue. This state can be reached in different ways. In the Taoist tradition, one of the simplest meditation practices is Nu Dan Gong. During the mastery phase, the student sits down, closes his eyes, and does a series of exercises to gain inner silence. Then the practice can be combined with Sing Shen Juang gymnastics: you perform the movements, and your mind, being in silence, controls them. Thus, gymnastics turns from a set of ordinary exercises into a practice of managing vital forces — the energy of the body.
The third stage — energy practices, most often they are associated with breathing. Having mastered special breathing techniques, we get the opportunity to accumulate vitality and become more energetic due to this skill.
You can immediately come to classes, which are based on a “cocktail” of these three areas: movement, concentration and breathing, or you can master these skills in stages. Choose the path that suits your priorities and learning habits. After several attempts, you will definitely find the direction in which you want to develop.