The Art of Agility

Preface

It is common knowledge that eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly is needed to have a healthy and strong body. Without exercise, the general condition of the body suffers. Without a healthy diet, we lack the nutrients we need for physical and mental health. However, air is arguably more important that diet and exercise. Because we work hard to earn copper to buy food (or work hard to grow food to eat), we have learned to value food. Air is free, and so it is easy to forget its importance, but we can go far longer without food and water than we can go without air. Breathing (along with digestion, sleeping patterns, and blood flow) is a part of the body's cyclic patterns, but is often overlooked and rarely practiced. Way Of the Open Hand breathing exercises are breathing practices designed to activate the diaphragm muscle, expand the lungs, and invoke the body's innate relaxation response. There are four major types of breathing (调息tiao xi) used in Open Hand practice. These are natural breathing, reverse breathing, dantian breathing, and bryonic breathing. These breathing practices can be used on their own as a spiritual meditation practice, or used to compliment your martial arts training, allowing your to reach a deeper level of mental and physical health.

Natural Breathing 顺呼吸 (shun hu xi)

Natural breathing describes the type of breathing that we typically use throughout the day. In this type of breathing, when you inhale, your chest contracts and pulls downward, pushing the belly out, and the lungs expand. Exhalation is a passive act, so on the exhale, the chest relaxes back up into a dome shape, air leaves the body, and the belly contracts inward. The breath should be slow (慢man), deep (深 shen), fine (细 xi), and even (均 jun). This allows your body to take in more air and release more breath. This leads to many health benefits: a lowering of blood, slowing of heart rate, and faster elimination of toxins.

Chapter 1

"Lizard" is a popular pose that focuses on stretching the ligaments and improving flexibility in your hips. Beginners may find this pose hard to do and that’s quite normal. It does require flexible hips. But even if your hips are tight, you should focus on doing the exercise slowly.

Since this is an advanced stretch, you don’t have to push yourself through pain and over the limits of your body. If you feel any pain, focus on slowly working your way up to this level of flexibility.

Lizard pose  also improves balance since it stretches the hips and hamstrings. Also, don’t forget to breathe while performing the pose. This way, exercise has many mental benefits in reducing stress and improving your focus. You can perform lizard pose together with the pigeon pose to experience full benefits.

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