This article, WUDANG SINGLE SNAKE MOVE QIGONG is part one of the series Introduction to basic Qigong for beginners.
WUDANG SINGLE SNAKE MOVE QIGONG
WITH OPEN AND CLOSE
FIRE ELEMENT (HEART & SMALL INTESTINE)
Opening a Qigong routine:
Preparation.
Stand in stillness before you begin. Calm the breath and allow the mind to become quiet. Bring yourself into the moment. Take your time with this preparation. It is as important as any movement in Qigong. Give yourself time to relax the body and the breath. Bring your awareness to yourself. This is where you begin to develop your ability to ‘listen’ (ting) to the body and the breath to then help in developing and guiding the Qi.
Guiding Qi to Dantian:
Sink your weight down through the right foot and step out to your left. Stand with the feet parallel and around shoulder width apart. The focus is to gather and guide Qi to the Lower Dantian. Begin by bringing the mind to the Lower Dantian in the belly. The movement will begin from the belly and extend down through the hips, down through the legs and out of the feet into the ground. Simultaneously we want to guide movement from the Dantian up through the spine, passing through the shoulders, along the lengths of the arms and out through the hands and fingertips. Raise the arms from the side of the body up, out and around to the front of the chest. Allow the mind to guide the movement in the body, bringing the focus from Dantian to the hands and feet. Then we bring the mind back to the Dantian as we draw in the palms of the hands back in toward the body and to rest on the belly. The thumbs come together at the navel and one palm rests on top of the other to form a circle on the belly where the Dantian rests behind. This opening movement is repeated three times.
SNAKE: ‘Rotate Heaven and Earth’
Raise the arms in front of the body, palms facing inward, till you come to a zhan zhuang or pole standing posture. Turn the body to the right and then lower the right arm to come to a ‘ball holding’ posture. Turn the body back to face the front so as you have your ‘ball’ in front of you with your left hand on top. Rotate the arms rotating your ‘ball’ until your right hand is on top. Then, expand your ‘ball’. Allow the arms to expand out sideways from your body. The bottom arm stays curved, palm up, the top arm extends out at shoulder height, particularly feeling pressure through the Heart Source Point and extending to the fingertips. Feel a kind of pressure build up in this move of extending and expanding, through the chest and the arms. Then release the pressure. Soften the body and allow the arms to return to naturally ‘holding the ball’ with your right hand on top. Then, rotate your ‘ball’ again to repeat the process on the other side. This action from side to side can be repeated as many times as you like. When you are finished, return the body to face the front, the weight evenly placed between the two feet. Prepare to sink the Qi to Dantian.
Video “WUDANG SINGLE SNAKE MOVE QIGONG”
Author: Tina Faulkner Elders
Images: Tina Faulkner Elders