Placebos and Nocebos Question: If you have a health problem and someone gives you a placebo, what does it mean if you actually get better? As you know, a placebo is something that is often used in clinical trials or studies to assess the effectiveness of a treatment. The administrator may give one group of patients a bona fide treatment (a drug, for example) and give another group a placebo, that is, a pill or other “treatment” that actually contains no medicine whatsoever. This type of medical study is referred to as “placebo controlled.” There’s a school of thought that says: Regardless of whether a treatment was a true treatment — one containing ingredients that are generally expected to help patients’ conditions — if it helped, it helped. You may also be familiar with “nocebos.” I found this interesting: A nocebo occurs when a patient thinks she is taking a certain type of treatment, let’s say, a blood pressure medicine.
![Bagua circle walking pdf to word download Bagua circle walking pdf to word download](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125618651/821005706.jpg)
Baguazhang, is said to be the sister of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, the mother of the three. By walking the circle and performing the 64 changes we bring ourselves a. Spoken word and movement of body leaving us with only the classics to go.
The person giving her the treatment, however, substitutes a placebo instead. A nocebo happens when the patient takes the sham treatment but experiences a common side effect of the real treatment (e.g., she gets dizzy, assuming that’s one of the possible side effects of her perceived treatment). So what does all this have to do with tai chi, qigong or bagua? However, it relates to something that happened to me this past Sunday. For a few weeks now, when I lie on my back in bed at night, I’ve noticed a little “click” when I inhale.
No problem breathing, no pain, no pressure or discomfort. Just a new, weird little click. I was with my wife recently while she was seeing a lung specialist, and one of his first questions to her was, “Any new clicks or pops?” (She didn’t have any.) So, when I noticed my little noise, I thought that maybe I, too, would get my lungs tested. I also had a slight cough at the time. Well, here’s where you need to bear with me. I’m not generally a willing believer.
I’ve never been abducted by aliens; never got a look at big foot. In fact, some might say that I can sometimes be a bit of a poster-child for the term “ye of little faith.” However. Master Yao-Wah Chan conducted a preview/demo of his upcoming Bagua Circle Walking class this past Sunday, from 9:30 a.m. To about 11:30 a.m.
I attended and did a lot of bagua circle walking, along with everyone else. As I said, before this, I had been experiencing some chest congestion and a mild cough. Fast-forward to about mid-afternoon that same day. All of a sudden, I was coughing more than usual. Without being too graphic, suffice it to say there was a whole lot of expectoratin’ going on.
Anyway, here’s the punch line: That night, lying in bed on my back, something was missing. I stayed quiet and listened for that stupid little clicking noise, and I couldn’t hear it. I started to think about what had happened that afternoon. At that time, I remember wondering why I was coughing so much and so suddenly. In addition to that, my voice seemed clearer — not raspy like someone who has congestion or a cough. After walking the bagua circle for two hours in the preview class, something seems to have happened. I don’t know.
This is why I want to take advantage of this opportunity with the new Bagua Walking class: to test for myself whether the practice is something that be of benefit to me. Why Is This Supposed to Be Good for You? The unique “mud step” of bagua is a big part of it. Think of walking in such a way that someone behind you can never fully see your heels.
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Another analogy: Walk as if you’re in mud and you need to ensure your show doesn’t come off as you move. You keep the soles of your feet parallel with the floor or ground as you move. This engages different muscles from those used for regular walking. In the martial art of bagua, or “baguazhang,” the benefit of this is that, if your leading foot is swept or kicked, all your body weight is still on the rear leg and you therefore don’t fall down. There is also something about how the twisting of the torso as you walk affects the meridians or energy pathways. Here’s a very good book on the “nei gong” or health-promoting aspects: How Can Walking in a Circle Be Part of a Martial Art?
As the author of this book explains, there is an adage about circle walking and fighting, something to the effect of: “With one step I’m next to my opponent; with two, I’m behind him.” It has also been said that, for martial purposes, the center of your small circle is the point at which you make contact with the adversary. The martial art of bagua features a lot of spiraling, twisting movements, all of which play an important role in the self-defense aspects. Take a look at this: Notice: They’re all spiraling, twisting movements. Most of the circling movements used are very small, tight ones. It’s amazing when you see the leverage and power it can generate. Another example (in which an American teacher demonstrates the application of one particular movement): And one more: Master Yao-Wah Chan’s Approach: Bodhi Meditation Master Yao-Wah Chan bases his approach on that created and taught by the Bodhi Meditation Group. A testimonial about one person’s experience, from the group’s site: Here’s Bodhi Meditation Grandmaster Jin Bodhi teaching bagua walking (sorry, no English): A New Year, A New Practice It’s 2014.
The Beatles hit the Sullivan show 50 years ago next month (gulp!). We’re 30 years past Orwell’s 1984. The desktop computer is going the way of Betamax and IBM Selectric typewriters. It’s a new day! If you’re like me, you may occasionally feel like there’s more mass than energy in your body. Master Yao-Wah Chan has said that bagua walking faithfully (every day) increases one’s energy. And that increased energy ameliorates many minor health complaints (headache, backache, etc.).
Within the Bodhi Meditation group, there is anecdotal evidence that several significant health improvements have occurred. Bagua walking is a wonderful compliment to arts like tai chi and qigong. Someone would have to have been living under a rock to be unaware of the latest findings on the many benefits of meditation (cognitive, physical, mental, spiritual, etc.).
With bagua walking, you get all those advantages — plus excellent exercise to strengthen your legs and power your energy meridians. If you feel like you’re stuck, like you want a new direction, why not consider a circular one? It certainly beats being on a treadmill. And you get to meditate, exercise and socialize, all at the same time. While walking the circle early one evening during Master Yao-Wah Chan’s advanced small-group class, I mentioned some reading I had done regarding the many health benefits attributed to bagua circle walking.
Master Chan had commented on his experience with it, saying that when he walked the circle, he felt he had more energy throughout the day. He and Jian had also told us about their experience in Vancouver, where the Bodhi meditation group walks the circle outdoors every morning from 5 a.m. With the little bit of bagua walking I had done, my experience was similar to Master Chan’s, though he had done much more of it than I had. Like tai chi chuan, baguazhang (which, roughly translated, means, “eight diagram palm,”) is many things to many people. Both arts can be practiced as moving meditations.
Baguazhang is said to have correspondences with the well-known Chinese classic book, the Yi Jing ( I Ching). The founder of the art, Dong Hai Chuan, is thought to have been a highly skilled martial artist who married his vast fighting skill with circle walking methods gleaned from taoist monks. And both tai chi chuan and baguazhang, when studied and practiced seriously, are powerful martial arts.
Keep It Simple I learned a little about “ding shi,” that is, “fixed-posture” baguazhang, from the publications of a well-known baguazhang teacher, Tom Bisio. Ding shi involves walking the circle while holding the upper body in various fixed positions, e.g., one resembles someone holding a spear overhead, another requires one hand reaching up to the sky and the other reaching down toward the ground. When I mentioned this to Master Chan, his reply was characteristically polite and wise: “Don’t make it too complicated; just do the simple way for now. When it’s complicated, in the beginning you can make yourself crazy.” He recommended building up the stamina by doing the simple walking every day, and increasing the duration of the practice gradually. Tai Chi Wisdom Heading home after our Friday 4:30 p.m. Class, I noticed again a phenomenon I had picked up on shortly after we started doing a Friday session a few years ago. I always drive more slowly and feel much more calm after leaving class. Part of this, of course, can be attributed to not having to rush to work at this time.
But it’s more than that. I’m less tense and more apt to let other drivers “cut in.” I tend to put on some classical music during this trip, which further enhances the effect. Try this sometime: Think of tai chi principles while you’re driving somewhere — move more slowly; stay soft (physically relaxed); be ready to respond as soon as you sense what the other drivers are trying to do; don’t get distracted; focus on the process, not on the outcome (i.e., don’t obsess about getting to your destination by a super-specific deadline time). Now, if I could just incorporate more of this into my midweek trips! Expert Tai Chi Tip Corner My latest effort to attain more of the “taste of tai chi,” as Master Chan refers to it, involves doing the form while imagining that I’m submerged in mud. He commented that the movements of the form should sometimes be light and sometimes heavy. Master Chan suggested the mud imagery is an attempt to gain more heaviness.
This way of thinking about the form seems to work better for me than another that is sometimes suggested — imagining pushing or pulling something very heavy. I think my problem with this method is that I associate such activity with straining and tensing the muscles. When I think of moving through the form as if submerged in mud, there’s uniform resistance throughout due the viscosity one associates with mud. This seems to slow me down and lend more weight to my movements. For the Meditationally Minded Be sure to check out this nice website — all about meditation! Finally, Take a Look at Persistence Personified Related articles.
(taichiinstituteblog.wordpress.com). It was a brisk, breezy fall day in Hartsdale, New York. A few tai chi students of Master Yao-Wah Chan gathered outside, a bit early for their twice-weekly lesson. Two of them were hoping to conduct class outside in the park, on the grass, beneath the trees — in the traditional way.
When Master Chan arrived he beckoned them indoors: “It’s too easy to get sick — winter’s already here.” The students were very pleasantly surprised when Master Chan and his wife, qigong healer and teacher, Jian-Yang Rong (qigongwestchester.com), had prepared a room for a lesson in bagua circle walking, an ancient Chinese form of moving meditation. The teachers and students were soon walking in a hushed, soothing circular pattern around a large potted tree that had been placed in the center of the room. Jian talked the group through the special posture, hand movements and unique “mud-stepping” patterns of the art. Twenty minutes later, one student commented that his breathing seemed slower and deeper now than when class had begun; another simply reported, “I feel good.” The next morning, immediately after getting up, I rigged a central focal point in the middle of my living room (alas, I don’t have a tree yet), and walked the circle for more than 20 minutes. It’s a great way to kick off the day.
Tai Chi Wisdom In his excellent book, Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power, Dr. Yang Yang offers this: Shi ban gong bei, that is, if you study anything in an efficient way, you can master it in a fraction of the time. Literally, the statement translates as “half the work, double the result.” Finding an experienced, knowledgable, caring teacher may be the single most important key to this strategy. Expert Tai Chi Tip Corner This tip from tai chi Master Yao-Wah Chan focuses on Play Guitar from the Yang short form. When your left leg goes out in front of you, you can think of it as a kick to the opponent’s knee or instep.
Your rising left hand is going to the opponent’s elbow; the descending right hand is coming down onto the opponent’s wrist/heel of his attacking hand. One benefit of being very relaxed during this movement: Your right hand being in a relaxed, “soft” state as it settles onto his wrist facilitates covering more surface area of his wrist and the heel of his palm. Your relaxed right palm, in effect, enables you to “stick” to the opponent’s wrist and have more of an effect on him.
Exercise charts previously available only as pdf downloads, have been changed over to being available as hard copy Laminated 8.5″ x 11″ charts. Some charts will be available as both pdf and hard copy where as others will only be available as hard copies.
Noble stances are a combination of various stances from different styles of Chinese martial arts. Stances, in this case, meaning correct placement of the feet, knees, hips, and arm positions relative to ones center of gravity. Executing static positions and holding the particular body positions for anyway from a few seconds to several minutes reaps many benefits foremost being able to cultivate a strong and healthy core. Baguazhang, Bagwa, Pakua, Walking Meditation or “walking of the circle” are all names for this style of Kung Fu training. Bagua is an internal developing style similar to Tai Chi and Hsing-I.
Tai Chi is often considered to be the softest, Bagua somewhat harder and Hsing-I the hardest style of the three main internal styles. Hard and soft refer to the control applied to the various movements practiced. Bagua develops stability in motion amongst many other things. There are various versions such as Cheng, Chung & Emei styles of Baguazhang. The Small Circulation, Small Circle, or the Microcosmic Orbit, is the practice of circulating one’s internal energy (Qi or chi), within the human body.
The illustration represents the awareness of energy flow throughout the Governing and Conception meridians; in this case, the fire path. These meridians are located on the center line of the body and in turn govern and regulate the other meridians. This practice has been considered to be the foundation of Internal Qigong.
It was a fundamental step on the path of meditation training in ancient times. Over time, this practice has gradually been lost from many meditation traditions, and its importance diminished.
Though meditation is popular today for relaxation, stress relief and gen-eral health, the ultimate goal for some people, is spiritual awareness and enlightenment. Small Circulation Meditation transform the body from weak to strong while training the mind to be calm and focused.