Neck Pressure: Dahn yoga

1. Kneel. Sit on your heels with your toes pointing forward. Place your hands on your head with the fingers pointing upward and the thumbs on your BI 10 acupressure points at the base of your skull.
2. Inhale and tilt your head to the left. Press the BI 10 and hold for 7 seconds. Exhale. Bring your head back to center. Repeat on the right side. Perform this exercise five times.

The BI 10 acupressure points are located about one half to one inch on either side of the Ah-moon. Pressing these acupressure points helps to relieve headaches and hypertension.

Toe Tapping: Dahn Yoga

1. Lie down or sit up with your legs extended in front of you.
2. Keeping your heels together, tap your big toes together, and then separate them so your little toes tap the floor on either side.
3. Bring your feet up so the big toes touch again. Repeat as rapidly as you can 100 times. Increase repetitions and practice.

Ilchi Lee asks how we should use this life. When I saw this title, it was not that intriguing, but anyway I continued to read the article. He challenges readers, “Is the life given to you yours?” Wow. How strong is that? I felt like I got beaten in my head with hammer or something. If the life given to me isn’t mine, who should it belong to? Can’t I call the life my life? He moves on saying life belongs to no one, which was not less sensational.

Actually I don’t know where the life originally began. I don’t know why I have the life now. I do believe that I am given the life because I have wished for it, but it does not explain the whole story. Ilchi Lee says, the selfishness and obsessions within us begin with the thought that it is I who own this life. We came from the source. Yeah. It’s the same message with that of the movie the Matrix.

You came into this world wanting to be someone who makes things happen. From day one, you were a creation machine. You picked up objects in your tiny hands as soon as you could manage to grashp them. You fumbled them around in hands, feeling their shape and texture, and even popped them in your mouth, wanting to know everything about the world around you.

As you gained knowledge of the world, you wanted to assert your influence over these objects. You pushed your bowl off the table, just to see it fall. You cooed and squealed, trying to understand the nature of your own voice. All your senses were open to discovering the living world around you.

This same drive eventually pushed you up through your own developmental process as you experimented with your body, and you eventually learned to walk and talk. All the while, magical events were happening in your brain-brain cells growing and connections developing. Dahn Yoga practice can help expedite this process. As you grow older, you became more and more proficient at influencing the world around you. You earned money, gained status, and developed a solid sense of identity. But along with this came suffering and a yearning to go somewhere beyond this physical world. At some point, you may have asked, as Ilchi Lee, the founder of Dahn Yoga did, “What is this really about?”

The problem with the physical world is that it is easy to forget what lies under the surface of things. When you were that infant exploring the world, you had just come into the world with a purpose. But the world of form distracted you, and you forgot, for a moment, who you really were.

From Brain Wave Vibration by Ilchi Lee. You can practice this at a local Dahn Yoga center.

It has often been observed that there are two selves within the human being. There is the self who is present in the surrounding world-interacting, doing, making, having-and then there is the self watching the self. The false self is a mask we wear for the world, a manufactured product of the ego. It is something we build on and construct throughout life to give ourselves a role to play in the world outside ourselves. The true self, on the other hand, is the higher you, the essential and unchanging part of you. It craves the highest forms of human interaction, such as unconditional love and harmonious unity with others. The struggles of life stem from lack of accord between these two selves, a predicament that arises from humanity’s unique place in the universe. In Dahn Yoga center you can practice various programs to take care of this issue.

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Ilchi Lee, president of the University of Brain Education (South Korea), advises, “Don’t succumb to the impulse to hibernate during the winter months. Avoid the winter blues by staying active to circulate your energy, and building your vitality with a variety of Dahn Yoga’s Hold-for-Strength exercises.” These are effective postures for fending off winter depression, while keeping one’s body fit and stress-free.

Founded by Lee, Dahn Yoga (http://www.dahnyoga.com) is a body-mind fitness training, which focuses on brain-enhancing, energy-flowing health. With their roots in ancient Asia, the Hold-for-Strength exercises in Korean are called “Yeon-dahn” postures. “Yeon” refers to strengthening a sword’s steel blade by hammering it; “Dahn” means vital energy.

As Lee puts it, “Doing Hold-for-Strength circulates blood and energy throughout the entire body, opening the meridians [energy channels and chakras [energy centers to release stress, tension, pain, toxins and negative emotions that usually accumulate when one is less active.”

In Hold-for-Strength, people keep a position from one minute to one hour, depending on the condition of their physical stamina and mental focus. This concentrates energy in the lower abdomen area, which in traditional Asian health theory represents the body’s physical power center.

To develop the vigor and strength to dissipate winter’s depression, Lee recommends these healing exercises, progressing from the easiest to the more-challenging postures. Play pleasant music and try to empty your mind to a relaxed, almost meditative state. In all postures, relax your chest and breathe comfortably.

1. Reaching the Stars. This posture opens the acupressure points in the palms of the hands and in the soles of the feet to help release stagnant energy. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, toes pointed inward and knees bent slightly. Curl your tailbone up under you. Raise your arms above your head, palms facing the ceiling, with elbows slightly bent. With fingers pointing inward toward each other but not touching, your arms should be above your head. If you are full of emotions and thoughts, bring your hands farther behind your head. Breathe slowly and comfortably into your abdomen. Initially hold the position for 3 to 5 minutes, and increase it gradually over time.

2. Embracing the Earth. This posture circulates energy through the heart, restoring vigor to the upper body, and relieves fatigue from depression, stress and emotional trauma. Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart. Curl your tailbone up under you. Bounce your knees up and down a few times to release tension from the shoulders. Raise your arms and hold them as though you are gently hugging a globe. Your palms should face your body, and your fingertips should be an inch apart. Bend your knees, as though riding a horse. Maintain this posture for 10 minutes, and work up to 30 minutes over time.

3. Sleeping Tiger. This exercise builds energy in the lower abdomen, the body’s power center. It is good for fatigue originating in poor nutritional habits, chronic illness or sleeping problems. Lie on the floor with your arms to your side and your legs parted slightly. Relax your body completely. Now raise your arms straight up into the air, keeping your elbows slightly bent. Hold your wrists at right angles, so that your palms face the ceiling. Raise your legs to form a 90-degree angle at the knees and hips. Keep your knees parallel and shoulder-width apart. Hold this posture for 10 minutes, without dropping the legs. Work up to 30 minutes. After holding the posture, bring your hands to your abdomen. Slowly lower your legs into a comfortable cross-legged posture.

After completing a Hold-for-Strength exercise, people should shake their hands and feet and walk slowly around the room for around two minutes, breathing naturally.

It is best to select a posture that corresponds to their physical and mental condition at that moment. The aim is to increase people’s stamina so that they can maintain the position for a longer period. Lee suggests, “Build up the time you hold the posture slowly and don’t push too hard. Instead, relax, breathe, focus on your abdomen and smile.”

While performing Hold-for-Strength, most people experience various sensations in their bodies, such as muscle fatigue, joint pain, heat or cold, shaking and vibrating. Within reason, it is best to endure these physical responses as long as possible. Lee affirms, “Try to enjoy these physical responses, as they are actually positive signs that the body is releasing toxic energy and becoming healthy and strong — bringing you out of depression.”

For more information on Dahn Yoga, phone 1-877-HSP-YOGA.

Stars do it. Sports do it. Judges in the highest courts do it. Let’s do it: that yoga thing. A path to enlightenment that winds back 5,000 years, yoga has suddenly become so hot, so cool, so very this minute. It’s the exercise cum meditation for the new millennium, one that doesn’t so much pump you up as bliss you out. Yoga now straddles the coninent — from Hollywood, where $20 million-a-picture actors queue for a session with their guru du jour, to Washington, where in the gym of the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and 15 other faithfully take their class each Tuesday morning.

Everywhere else, Americans rush from their high-pressure jobs and tune in to the authoritatively mellow voice of an instructor, gently urging them to solder a union (the literal translation of the Sanskrit word yoga) between mind and body. These Type A strivers want to become Type B seekers, to lose their blues in an asana (pose), to graduate from distress to de-stress. Fifteen million Americans include some form of yoga in their fitness regimen — twice as many as did five years ago; 75% of all U.S. health clubs offer yoga classes. Many in those classes are looking not inward but behind. As supermodel Christy Turlington, a serious practitioner says “Some of my friends simply want to have a yoga butt.” But others come to the discipline in hopes of restoring their troubled bodies. Yoga makes me feel better, they say. Maybe it can cure what ails me.

The article above is from Time Magazine. I hope many people can benefit from Dahn Yoga. Thank you.

 Try it, and let us know!

Lie down on your back, or sit with your legs stretched out in front of you. Bring your heels close to each other, and start shaking your legs rhythmically, toes tapping against each other and then out towards the floor. Relax your leg muscles as you do this, and focus your attention on your feet and toes.

 I have found this very helpful for focusing myself. What was your experience?