Ai Chi II

Cultivating the Chi

Description

This Ai Chi experience is designed for those comfortable with the Ai Chi movements and progressions.

It is an extension to traditional Ai Chi that increases energy or life force with simple, natural movements. We go beyond basic Ai Chi with experimentation in physical positioning and we use the new Ai Chi terminology in the Physical Focus.

When we cultivate a garden we sow (prepare the ground, plant the seeds, etc.), we work (weeding, watering, protecting from the elements, etc), and we reap (harvesting and using our harvest to bring us health, energy and life). Likewise the purpose of the Cultivating the Chi movements is to cultivate the Chi (our vital life force), which surrounds our physical body. We work with it, prepare it, acknowledge it, weed it, protect it, care for it, and take the best to feed ourselves.

Needs Identification

Following an Ai Chi Basic progression is helpful to clients. Adding information on energy and teaching ways to increase intrinsic energy life force will give clients a progression to elicit more benefits. Ai Chi Practitioners will want to add this level when they and their clients are ready.

Course Objectives

· Work toward precise recruitment of muscles during positioning

· Experience physical movement coordinated with breathing patterns that can take Ai Chi to a new level

· Experiment with the new postures – Encircling, Surrounding and Nurturing

· Compare upper and lower trunk stabilization with extremity movements

· Discover how Cultivating the Chi can increase energy so it becomes palpable