Tai Chi leads to better posture.

Carry yourself consciously in a more upright posture all day. Improved posture, frees and facilitates your Chi flow.

This leads to good health and better posture which reduces tension on your joints and tissues. Improved posture also improves the state of your mind. Tai Chi teaches you to take your body out of any misalignment so that you can be healthier and stronger.

You’re able to move freely and release the appropriate amount of energy needed throughout the day.

You may feel aches and pains from time to time because you have poor posture. You can have a sore neck because it is a little crooked. You can have back pain because you have a twisted spine. You can have one shoulder that’s higher than the other. All these misalignments lead to some level of discomfort.  

Constantly adjusting to your bodily misalignments is sapping your energy, knowingly or unknowingly.

Having a misaligned body can cause you pain.  This disturbs the mind, and you can’t get anything done as a result. It may feel like nothing is flowing.  You can’t seem to connect the dots in your head.

Learn good body alignments to enhance the circulation of all your bodily fluids and Chi.

Tai Chi teaches you to center your head over your torso, your torso over your hips, and the entire body over your feet.

The key joints are aligned to maximize balance and minimize strain. With Tai Chi practice, your posture can change over time from being poor, to being very good. You’ll be able to move with more ease, efficiency and awareness in due time. 

When you take a step forward in Tai Chi practice, you center your knee joint over the central axis of your foot. With each step, you suspend the elbows between the shoulders and your wrists.

The use of proper alignment leads to efficient movement patterns.  Good alignment protects your joints.  There is no pressure on them.  You feel like you are floating in the air.

Tai Chi teaches you to suspend your spine like a string of pearls from heaven. 

The main principle of the Tai Chi movement is one of verticality, which consists of the following:

1. At the beginning of the Tai Chi movement, you bring your feet parallel, shoulder-width apart, so that the shoulders, hips, and legs line up properly.

2. Then, your knees are centered over your feet. Exhale, relax, release the hips, bend the knees, and make sure your knees are over the balls of your feet.

3. Your tailbone is going to point straight down towards the ground. Exhale, relax, release, and drop your tailbone. Your pelvis is slightly tucked into place.

4. Your spine is gently elongated when you drop your tailbone and suspend your body from the crown of your head. As a result of letting go of your tailbone, your spine is nice and straight.

5. Check out your chest. Make sure it’s rounded and slightly sunk-in. How do you do that? Take your finger and press it gently into your solar plexus. Relax and release your solar plexus about 5%. Your chest becomes nice and rounded, allowing you to sink your energy further down your body.

6. Keep your head and neck straight, perpendicular to the ground. Notice your body’s vertical axis, and your spine as its central column. Position your head, release your neck and shoulders appropriately.

7. Finally, your eyes and nose are parallel to the ground or the floor. You are looking straight ahead with your eyes. 

How are these body alignments good for you? Elongating your spine, including the neck region, reduces wear and tear on your discs. These discs are in between your vertebrae and they help cushion your spinal movement.

Now, imagine you are suspended from Heaven. Everything is suspended nicely from the top, and you’re just hanging straight down to the bottom, until your feet touch the ground.

Everything is in alignment for your feet to be the foundation of your body.

Tai Chi is a weight-bearing exercise that keeps you feeling grounded and rooted in the Earth. This is the Heaven-to-Earth connection, which can only happen with perfect body alignment.

First, physically you have to get into the correct alignment as per the above steps. Second, begin to sink your energy into the ground. Plant the seed there. 

Sinking your energy is a mental process. This mental process can only happen after you have physically made your proper bodily alignments.

When everything is in alignment, you are the connection between Heaven and Earth. Start to sink your energy into the ground, by releasing, letting go and relaxing into your feet.  Feel the soles of your feet against the ground.

You can then borrow energy from the Earth.  Connect with the Earth. Bring its energy into your body and make good use of it. 

Remember: You are the connection between Heaven and Earth through proper alignment. 

If there is no alignment, it could lead to pain and dysfunction. For example, if your knee and foot are not in alignment, then you cause strain in the hip and back muscles. This leads to muscle stiffness and the strain then moves to the vertebrae and makes your spine come out of alignment, impinging the spinal cord. This may then impair your nerve impulses, and weaken your nerve signals. These weak signals may cause you to have weak legs which can cause more pain and more strain on the back. This becomes a vicious cycle that could go on and on.

So let’s avoid this vicious cycle and do some Tai Chi (follow along in the video):

1. Stand with your feet, shoulder-width apart. Release the hips, bend the knees, and relax into your feet. 

2. Take your arms out, straight in front of you. Raise them, extend your fingers out gently, and then bring them back down to your sides.

3. Exhale, relax, and sink deeper down into your feet. Relax your neck, shoulders, and chest. Extend your spine. 

4. Drop your tailbone. Feel the openness brought on by the suspension of your spine. Feel how opening the body is bringing energy to your body from the Earth. 

5. Place your mind onto your left foot. As you put your mind into your left foot, the energy flows into your left foot. Use your left foot to energize and turn to the right. 

6. Shift the weight, step, and put your left foot down. Exhale all the way.

7. Energize – one hand up, one hand down.  Feel your fingers tingling as they extend out into space.

8. Lastly, drop, relax back down. Exhale all the way. Let everything go into your feet.

Remember to release the hips, bend the knees, and allow everything to fall into the floor through your feet.  The spine is nice and straight.  Tailbone tucked in and pointing down.

Everything is drawn down to your feet. You are relaxed.

What if you can improve your awareness of alignment? How else can you prevent the flow of Chi from either being blocked or dissipated? Follow me on my social media channels where I give tips to increase your energy flow. 

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