Zen Mindfulness - Sei Ki HeartTouch - Tai Chi Qi Gong

What is Hara Conditioning?

God knows what I'm doing!
Something my body wanted for some reason...

Just Sitting otherwise known as Zazen is an amazing practice.

But there are times when other ways may be more beneficial, especially if you have emotional / mental health difficulties or trauma. I believe what I call Hara Conditioning meets this need.

Hara Conditioning blends Japanese Katsugen Undo regenerative movement with Tai Chi Body Conditioning exercises.

There are also influences from Chi Nei Tsang / Thai Abdominal Massage and Dao Yin self-massage.

This fusion came about naturally as I worked to find better ways to help my students and then started to explore intensively within my own daily practice.

My body does the creative work. I just give it lots of time!

I've been blessed over the years with access to the root masters in China & Japan.

The aim of Hara Conditioning

The aim of Hara Conditioning is as it sounds, to strengthen the Hara, the spiral of energy or life force that underpins the human being, with special focus on cultivating the abdominal centre, the rest of the body being trained to move as one around it.

The Tai Chi aspect is an amazing system in itself, and superb for ones health, but I've deepened the sensitivity of it by bringing in more spontaneous adaption of the martial body training movements to meet therapeutic needs.

The patterns of the basic exercise at the same time as being enhanced by the Katsugen, help us to relax and 'have something to do', while the body warms up and feels safe to let go into the spontaneous unknowns that come up in Katsugen. For some, this is not easy to do.

The Katsugen is the real magic in this work and is often called regenerative movement as the life force is renewing or re-ordering itself.

This re-ordering is crucial. I would say most illness patterns whether mental or physical are associated with a distortion of the Ki of the person, creating a certain 'ordering' pattern to the body. Katsugen cuts through this static pattern, opening up the possibility of a fresh, healthier order coming into being.

And consequently we change or grow.

The Roots of Katsugen Undo

I see Katsugen Undo as a natural dynamic Zen practice, though traditionally in Japan there is more of a connection with Shinto.

I learnt it with a Japanese Ki & Shiatsu Master, Akinobu Kishi who shared it as part of his Sei Ki training.

I also explored it with Kayo Tatebe, one of the old masters of Noguchi Seitai. Haruchika Noguchi 1911-1976 was the charismatic founder who popularised this work in Japan.

There are similar practices within the Chinese traditions and in many of the cultures with strong shamanic traditions.

The way of entering the state varies, but the experience is rooted in the body, not the culture and this is universal.

What do I mean by Katsugen?

The body has an inbuilt intelligence to manage its inner balance, a homeostatic force which keeps us alive every minute, by adjusting the balance of chemicals and temperature.

This intelligence goes much further, but for most people it has been repressed by the control habits of the conscious mind.

Through the training we learn to relax the mind and allow the natural intelligence in the body to move us or cause us to express sound or emotion.

Letting go of 'control' can be challenging for many people, as you don't know what 'you' will do, but it is superbly healthy for us to do, especially when there are 'mental health' type difficulties or extreme emotional holding patterns.

The practice is about establishing a more natural relationship between the conscious mind and deeper aspects of the body intelligence.

For me it is a mutual meeting in which both parties are there to learn and humble themselves a little and come to respect of the other.

The conscious mind needs to learn to relax and trust the 'unconscious', but equally the 'unconscious' needs to learn to respect the intentions and needs of the conscious mind as well as the energy levels of the body. It may need to learn patience.

I'm not sure whether people will be able to understand these words without experiencing the work with me in a class. But they give you a feel of what to expect.

The energy coming through can be anything from 'deep relaxation into a hot bath', to 'releasing tears', to contagious laughter and craziness to something feeling like the Warrior Haka.

What you end up with is an amazing embodied mindfulness practice which cuts through states of 'mental health' and trauma.

The body intelligence with a wisdom far greater than our conscious minds could dream of cleans itself of the mental/emotional/physical complexes and traumas limiting it as it follows its desire to shift toward greater aliveness and vitality.

We can see this in action in the trauma release mechanisms that wild animals display, shaking spontaneously to throw off the chemicals left in their body from being in a dorsal vague freeze state after being captured.

But it is equally present in the shaking of horses, stretching and yawning of cats and the tossing and turning of young children in bed.

And we as adults can remember this capacity also.

The Importance of energizing breath for dealing with older trauma.

An important element of the practice is 'priming' with the breath.

I have noticed on occasions when my bodymind has been suddenly overcome by a terrible emotional state, that my body will spontaneously go into Katsugen to free itself, once my mind has loosened and given it space. There was no need for the priming breath.

This is a healthy natural response that is strengthened when your body has 'remembered' its katsugen capability, but it will usually be a short release.

At other times while do intentional sessions, when there was no acute tension or stress situation and a more established imbalance was being challenged, then the pre-energising practices felt important.

They help my body to soften, giving it vitality to process the changes and deal with what may be a much longer session than the 'natural' ones.

At times when I haven't done this I've been left depleted and sometimes ungrounded.

So for me, even though it is possible to enter katsugen without a 'warm up', I generally like to follow a pre-energizing process before allowing the system to take over. Lots of good yawning...

We still usually want to lie down and melt into the ground afterwards or chill out on the sofa, perhaps with legs in the air!

It feels good...

Final Words...

I am confident, if more people had access to these practices, alongside resonance connection ones like Sei Ki or my simpler HeartTouch, then the psychiatric hospitals would be less busy!

This is a practice which has to be experienced. My words only prejudice the work, but are hopefully useful pointers.

What you want is that sense of 'ping' inside - I want to try this... :)