Went to push hands in the park in Austin, today. A really nice group of people. Old and new friends. If you’re looking for Push Hands in Central Texas, check out Austin Pease Park push hands here.
Tai Chi the sport is a great one. Today I pushed with several people. Very different styles. Some teachers, all students! Very different attacks and counters. An excellent workout. Last weekend they had a visiting push hands teacher in town. I was away in Japan, but I heard it was good.
The object of stationary push hands is to push or pull to get the other person until they lift their foot. If they raise a foot then the other player gets a point.
The video above, is a stationary push hands video here, from Taiwan. Click here if you can’t see it. Notice how low they get, lowering center of balance to increase their root and make it harder for their opponent to push.
Another push hands allows contestants to move their feet and the goal is to use Tai Chi to push the other out of a circle. Moving push hands video here from a competition in Beijing in 2003. The video is below, or you can click this link if you can’t see it.
As you can see from these videos, moving push hands is far more than just a few old people in the park moving slowly! And while it’s hard to see the techniques in play, rooting and breaking your opponents root are fairly clear. In actual combat, the push is just one of the tools of the tai chi player.
Good Tai Chi fundamentals greatly aid one’s push hands practice: soft body, strong root, sit hip and elbow, listening.
Tai Chi is kung fu. Tai Chi is a martial art. Tai Chi teaches you how to use your power.
Brain areas influenced by IBMTEUGENE, Ore. — (Aug. 16, 2010) — Just 11 hours of learning a meditation technique induces positive structural changes in brain connectivity by boosting efficiency in a part of the brain that helps a person regulate behavior in accordance with their goals, researchers report.
The technique — integrative body-mind training (IBMT) — has been the focus of intense scrutiny by a team of Chinese researchers led by Yi-Yuan Tang of Dalian University of Technology in collaboration with University of Oregon psychologist Michael I. Posner.
Photo of Yi-Yuan TangIBMT was adapted from traditional Chinese medicine in the 1990s in China, where it is practiced by thousands of people. It is now being taught to undergraduates involved in research on the method at the University of Oregon.
The new research — published online Aug. 16 ahead of regular publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — involved 45 UO students (28 males and 17 females); 22 subjects received IBMT while 23 participants were in a control group that received the same amount of relaxation training. The experiments involved the use of brain-imaging equipment in the UO’s Robert and Beverly Lewis Center for Neuroimaging.
Photo of Michael PosnerA type of magnetic resonance called diffusion tensor imaging allowed researchers to examine fibers connecting brain regions before and after training. The changes were strongest in connections involving the anterior cingulate, a brain area related to the ability to regulate emotions and behavior. The changes were observed only in those who practiced meditation and not in the control group. The changes in connectivity began after six hours of training and became clear by 11 hours of practice. The researchers said it is possible the changes resulted from a reorganization of white-matter tracts or by an increase of myelin that surrounds the connections.
“The importance of our findings relates to the ability to make structural changes in a brain network related to self regulation,” said Posner, who last fall received a National Medal of Science. “The pathway that has the largest change due to IBMT is one that previously was shown to relate to individual differences in the person’s ability to regulate conflict.”
In 2007 in PNAS, Tang, a visiting scholar at the UO, and Posner documented that doing IBMT for five days prior to a mental math test led to low levels of the stress hormone cortisol among Chinese students. The experimental group also showed lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than students in a relaxation control group.
In 2009 in PNAS, Tang and Chinese colleagues, with assistance from Posner and UO psychology professor Mary K. Rothbart, found that IBMT subjects in China had increased blood flow in the right anterior cingulate cortex after receiving training for 20 minutes a day over five days. Compared with the relaxation group, IBMT subjects also had lower heart rates and skin conductance responses, increased belly breathing amplitude and decreased chest respiration rates.
The latter findings suggested the possibility that additional training might trigger structural changes in the brain, leading to the new research, Tang and Posner said. The researchers currently are extending their evaluation to determine if longer exposure to IBMT will produce positive changes in the size of the anterior cingulate.
Deficits in activation of the anterior cingulate cortex have been associated with attention deficit disorder, dementia, depression, schizophrenia and many other disorders. “We believe this new finding is of interest to the fields of education, health and neuroscience, as well as for the general public,” Tang said.
In their conclusion, the researchers wrote that the new findings suggest a use of IBMT as a vehicle for understanding how training influences brain plasticity.
IBMT is not yet available in the United States beyond the research being done at the UO. The practice avoids struggles to control thought, relying instead on a state of restful alertness, allowing for a high degree of body-mind awareness while receiving instructions from a coach, who provides breath-adjustment guidance and mental imagery and other techniques while soothing music plays in the background. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture, relaxation, body-mind harmony and balanced breathing. A good coach is critical, Tang said.
Co-authors with Tang and Posner on the new PNAS paper were Qilin Lu of the Dalian University of Technology and Xiujuan Geng, Elliot A. Stein and Yihong Yang, all of the National Institute on Drug Abuse-Intramural Research Program in Baltimore, Md.
The James S. Bower Foundation based in Santa Barbara, Calif., John Templeton Foundation in West Conshohocken, PA, National Natural Science Foundation of China and U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse-Intramural Research Program supported the research.
For fibromyalgia sufferers who disdain the sterile smell of gyms, a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine offers another option to deal with the constant pain and fatigue: the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder that interrupts sleep and causes stiffness and other psychological and physical issues. Exercise, along with behavioral therapy, wellness education, and medication are typically part of the multi-pronged treatments for the syndrome, but nothing has yet proved to be a silver bullet in eliminating the pain.
Tai chi involves meditation, deep breathing, and smooth, slow movements to enhance relaxation.
A small body of earlier research has indicated that non-traditional therapies, such as tai chi, could improve patients’ ability to manage pain and even overcome depression, but these studies were less rigorous than the new one.
This latest study, led by Dr. Chenchen Wang, an associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, was a randomized trial geared specifically to explore tai chi’s effect on fibromyalgia.
Wang’s study was conducted between July 2007 and May 2009 at Tufts Medical Center, with 66 patients with fibromyalgia. Half took part in twice-a-week, hour-long tai chi sessions for 12 weeks, and the other half was exposed to an education and stretching routine for the same duration.
Throughout the 12 weeks, tai chi patients exhibited a dramatic decrease in their scores on a widely accepted questionnaire for assessing the severity of pain symptoms compared with those in the education and stretching group.
The study tracked outcomes in several other ways, and across nearly all measures, the tai chi patients exhibited significantly greater pain reduction than the other group.
Wang acknowledges that a larger and longer-term study is needed to determine whether the effects of tai chi are applicable to the general population.
But some researchers doubt that a definitive study will ever be possible: typical drug trials involve administering fake pills to some participants so as to account for the placebo effect, or the improvements that result solely from patients’ expectations that treatment will help them.
In the case of tai chi, a placebo approach would require the development of “sham tai chi,” or a version of tai chi that tricks participants into thinking they are learning true tai chi principles, but one that really has no effect on their symptoms.
And that is a slim possibility, said Dr. Gloria Yeh, an assistant professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who wrote an editorial in the New England Journal that said the study was thorough but not definitive.
“Tai chi is a multi-component intervention,” she said in an interview. “It doesn’t just have that one active ingredient that we can isolate. It really has many, many different ingredients.”
Without a viable version of “sham tai chi,” future studies will not be able to definitively determine whether the benefits of tai chi stem from the actual practice itself, or merely from patients’ expectations that tai chi will help them manage their pain.
Even so, Wang said what matters most is that tai chi seems to help reduce fibromyalgia symptoms. “Complementary medicine is a little different than standard Western medicine,” she said. “[If] the patients feel better — symptoms improved, the quality of life improved — this is important, like with some acupuncture research. … Who cares about what the mechanism is?”
Both Wang and Yeh said they would at least suggest tai chi to their fibromyalgia patients, if only because it is an intractable syndrome that has so far eluded effective treatment with drugs.
“It may not be for everyone,” Yeh said. “But if they are interested in doing something else for themselves, there’s no reason not to try.”
We would love to share with you an article that we just posted on our own blog! “50 Meditation & Mind Control Techniques for Weight Loss” (http://www.nursingschools.net/blog/2010/06/50-meditation-mind-control-techniques-for-weight-loss/) would be an interesting story for your readers to check out and discuss on your blog. If you find something interesting or similar, please let me know.
Thanks
Ken Martin
50 Meditation & Mind Control Techniques for Weight Loss
June 22nd, 2010
As a nurse, you know there is no magic way to shed pounds or become fit. The only way to get there is through hard work and eating right. Yet you can give yourself a leg up in the process by changing how you think about food, weight loss and eating healthy. By changing how you think, you’ll also change how you act and hopefully impact your health for the better. Here are 50 tips to help you learn some tricks to get your mind ripe and ready for weight loss.
General
These general tips will help you learn to adapt your thoughts to healthy weight loss.
1. Be patient. Losing weight in any kind of healthy way is going to take time. Give yourself a break and relax, and the weight will come off.
2. Don’t stress. Stressing about weight loss will likely only make it harder to lose.
3. Be realistic Setting unrealistic goals for your weight loss isn’t healthy for your body or mind. Get your mind set on more realistic accomplishments and you’ll be happier and healthier.
4. Create a routine. Success with any weight loss program requires creating a routine and sticking to it in what you eat, when you work out and how you think about your progress.
5. Listen to your body. It will tell you when you aren’t eating enough, you’re eating too much, or you’re pushing yourself too hard.
6. Use your imagination. Our imaginations are powerful things and you can use yours to picture your body and your life the way you really want it to be.
7. Take it slow. You cannot expect to change your mindset or your body overnight. Take the process slow and steady for the best results.
8. Be honest with yourself. Being honest might be more difficult or more painful, but you cannot move forward in changing your body or how you think about it without facing some hard truths about yourself.
9. Find out what you truly want. The reality is that you might not be ready to lose weight or commit yourself to the work that it takes. Find out what you truly want in your life. Knowing that you really, really want to lose weight can be a huge factor in motivating you.
Mindset
Learn how to change your mindset with these tips.
10. Always be accountable. There is no one else who is responsible for you losing weight. You have to be accountable for what you eat and how often you work out.
11. Break the cycle of excuses. We all make excuses to try to justify our behavior, but these kinds of excuses aren’t doing you any favors when it comes to weight loss. Force yourself to accept your failures and work to improve them.
12. Deal with your emotions. For many people, food is an emotional thing and a coping mechanism for other things that aren’t right in their lives. If you want to change your mindset about your body, you’ll first have to deal with these powerful emotions.
13. Make the decision to be thinner. Sometimes all it takes is a firm resolution to make a change in your life. If you want to lose weight, make the choice to do so and let your actions follow suit.
14. Take responsibility. No one is forcing food down your throat or keeping you from the gym. Once you realize that and can take responsibility for your own actions regarding your health and fitness, you’ll be one step closer to meeting your goals.
15. Think clearly. Weight loss, body image and personal health can be emotionally charged issues. When you think about these things it it important to separate them as best you can from your emotions and make logical, thoughtful decisions about what is best. For instance, our emotions might tell us we need a piece of cake after a hard day, but our logical thinking would tell us it will only make you feel worse about yourself.
16. Change your programming. Many of us have programmed our brains to think we are fat, unhealthy and will never look or feel like we want to. Thinking this way is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, but by changing your mental programming, you’ll change what you’re capable of in weight loss.
17. Stay positive. There is no upside to negative thinking when it comes to losing weight. Staying positive will help you feel better about yourself, keep you motivated and reduce stress — all of which will help you lose more weight.
18. Train your mind to think in your best interest. If you want to lose weight, focus on replacing your unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones. After a while, you will think less unhealthy thoughts and be a step ahead in reaching your goals.
Motivation
Give your mind some motivation with these ideas.
19. Pick out a motivational photograph. Whether you want to look more like you did 20 years ago or have the physique of someone else you admire, choose a photograph you can look at when you’re struggling to help keep yourself motivated.
20. Set smaller daily goals. While your larger goals are important, focusing on smaller, individual goals will give you more of a sense of accomplishment and change your mindset on a daily basis.
21. Use support from friends. There are few things that can change how you feel about yourself and your progress like motivation from friends around you.
22. Reward yourself. When you’ve worked really hard for something it’s only fair to reward yourself. Give yourself an indulgence, though not a food-related one, that you’ve really been wanting.
23. Tell yourself you can do it. Change your mindset about weight loss by constantly reminding yourself that no matter how hard it is that you can and will do it.
24. Never stop thinking about your goals. Keeping your goals in mind throughout the day will help motivate you and keep you on the right track.
25. Surround yourself with good role models. You won’t do yourself any favors when you’re trying to lose weight if you surround yourself with people who practice bad habits and influence you to do so as well. Spend time with friends who motivate you to be healthy instead.
26. Have a mantra. Finding your own personal weight loss mantra can be a great way to help keep yourself positive and focused on your goals.
27. Look at the bright side. Setbacks don’t have to ruin your motivation for weight loss. Instead, think of them as a chance to work harder and prove your commitment to your goals.
28. Create a map to your health and happiness. Spending some time laying out your goals, collecting photos that motivate you, and planning out your steps along the way can help make process easier, more real and something you’re more motivated to do every day.
Food
Change your relationship with food by changing your thoughts using this advice.
29. Think yourself out of bad habits. Bad habits with food don’t have to take down your weight loss goals. Instead, use the power of your mind to fight these bad habits. It will take some doing but you can overcome them.
30. Look at food differently. Food isn’t your enemy or your friend — it’s neutral. Learn to look at food as a source of nourishment rather than a reward or a way to deal with emotions.
31. Picture what food is doing for your body. When you look at what you’re eating, picture what that food can do for your body and how the nutrients will help you feel.
32. Allow yourself to eat when you’re hungry. Losing weight should never mean starving yourself. Listen to your body and feed yourself when your body tells you it’s hungry. Just make sure it’s actually hunger and not boredom or thirst you’re giving into. Likewise, stop eating when you are full.
33. Eat foods you crave. You can have foods you crave while you’re trying to lose weight if you can do so in moderation. Keeping things totally off limits could cause you to binge.
34. Be conscious. Always be aware of what you’re eating. Eating mindlessly while watching TV can lead to a lot of unwanted and unneeded calories.
Self-Image
How you see yourself can make a big impact in how much weight you lose. Try these solutions to feel good about yourself no matter how much you weigh.
35. Change how you think about your body. If you think you are a fat person, you’ll likely stay that way. Train your mind to see yourself as attractive at any weight and you’ll see more weight loss progress.
36. Get control over your thoughts. When your thoughts are out of control it’s easy to think cruel things about yourself and put yourself down. When you start to feel your thoughts heading in that direction, take the wheel and steer them somewhere positive.
37. Stop looking at the numbers. Weight isn’t everything when it comes to health. Some people look super skinny and feel healthy at one weight while another person might be totally different. We all have our own comfort zone, so listen to your body, not the scale.
38. Focus on how you feel. You might not have met your goal weight yet, but focusing on changes in how you feel can help keep you motivated and feeling good about yourself.
39. Stop berating yourself. Negative thoughts aren’t going to help you lose weight. If you have a misstep or aren’t progressing as fast as you’d like, never berate yourself. Simply get up the next day and start again from a positive standpoint.
40. Fill yourself with love. If you want to get the most out of your weight loss journey, make part of the process learning to truly love yourself. No one is perfect so get a handle on accepting and appreciating your faults.
41. Take pride in your appearance.It doesn’t matter how much you weigh, you can look good and feel good about yourself. Shower, put on a fragrance, style your hair, and wear your favorite clothes. It will change how you see yourself and how others see you as well.
Meditation
Learn how to turn your meditation practice into a reflection on your personal weight loss goals with these tips.
42. Imagine yourself eating like you should be. The more you imagine it, the more likely it will become reality.
43. Picture yourself thin. If you believe that you can and will be thin, then you give yourself the motivation and drive to actually make it happen.
44. Think about activities you’ll do when you’re thin. If you’re too overweight to do things you love right now, picture yourself doing those things as the new, thinner you.
45. Relax. You can’t take control over your thoughts and your mind if you’re stressed out and distracted. Simply relax and let go the problems of the day.
46. Picture yourself wearing something you’ve always wanted to wear. A big reason many people want to lose weight is to fit into the clothes and style that they love and admire. Get a mental picture of how you’ll look sporting something you’ve always wanted to wear to give you some motivation.
47. Imagine that you love to exercise. Rely on the power of imagination to help give yourself the initiative you need to get fit and in shape.
48. Don’t let negative thoughts interfere. It’s easy to think negative thoughts about yourself when you’re tackling a big and difficult obstacle like losing weight, but you have to make sure to keep these kinds of thoughts out during your meditation. Replace them with happy, supportive ones instead.
49. Kick all unhealthy habits and foods out of visualization. Don’t let your mental fantasies include unhealthy foods and behaviors. You might really crave them but the purpose is to retrain your mind to let them go.
50. Breathe deeply and calm yourself. Once you’re calm, relaxed, and in control of your mind and body, you’ll be able to start thinking clearly about who and where you want to be.
Adults often teach children to be honest, but when we getting older we know it’s difficult to be honest in some situations. Below is a joke from the internet. I wonder how many people can be the same as this honest wife?
A police officer pulls over a speeding car. The officer says, ” I
clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir.”
The driver says, “Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at 60,
perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating.”
Not looking up from her knitting, the wife says: “Now don’t be silly
dear, you know that this car doesn’t have cruise control.”
As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his
wife and growls, “Can’t you please keep your mouth shut for once?”
The wife smiles demurely and says, “You should be thankful your radar
detector went off when it did.”
As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar
detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth,
“Damn it, woman, can’t you keep your mouth shut?”
The officer frowns and says, “And I notice that you’re not wearing
your seat belt, sir. That’s an automatic $75 fine.”
The driver says, “Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took
it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back
pocket.”
The wife says, “Now, dear, you know very well that you didn’t have your seat belt on. You
never wear your seat belt when you’re driving.”
And as the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver
turns to his wife and barks, “WHY DON’T YOU PLEASE SHUT UP??”
The officer looks over at the woman and asks, “Does your husband
always talk to you this way, Ma’am?”
“Only when he’s been drinking.”
