Mindful Movement is Great for Everyone!

Mindful Movement is one of the Eight Limbs of Chinese Medicine and an essential component of health and wellbeing for everyone. At The Wellspring School for Healing Arts we enjoy being able to offer quality classes for the community that fall under the Mindful Movement umbrella, including both T’ai Chi Chuan and Qigong. Mindful movement helps synchronize your mind and body, keep you focused, in balance and healthier overall. The best part of Mindful Movement is that absolutely anyone can do it!

We also view these practices as indispensible components of our Amma Bodywork Therapy program and have incorporated 90 hours of T’ai Chi and Qigong classes into the overall curriculum. Giving students the opportunity to learn and practice mindful movement throughout the course of the program is a differentiator for their success as students as well as future practitioners. Our next Amma Bodywork Therapy program begins in February 2013! Click here to learn more about the program and to download your copy of the student handbook.

Check out a brief T’ai Chi demo in the below video given by lead Amma instructor, Michael Guida, BPS, LMT #19016. For more information and to register for any of our movement or meditation classes, click here.

Take care of yourself, this fall and beyond.

The warm, sunny weather we’ve been enjoying this past week here in Portland makes it hard to believe that it’s fall. However, next week brings the first of October and most likely cooler, damp weather. It’s really important to take care of yourself during the seasons, especially as we transition between different kinds of weather. In this post, Michael Guida, one of our Amma Bodywork Therapy instructors, shares three simple T’ai Chi exercises specifically for your joints, to help keep you moving through fall and beyond. Keep reading below and check out the video!

Please join us for any or all of our community classes this Fall. In addition to T’ai Chi with Michael, we will also be offering Qigong, meditation, holistic nutrition and whole foods cooking. You can find the complete list with dates, times, class descriptions and more:

Below three exercises recommended by Michael specifically for joint health and what he had to say about the benefits of each for this time of year.

Autumn is a natural time to be outside and active, whether it’s gardening, going for a run or heading out for a hike. Taking care of our joints is essential and doing exercises specifically to open joints helps us enjoy these and more activities all year long. Joint opening exercises range the joints in the directions that they normally move to increase circulation of qi and blood, but don’t necessarily focus on ‘stretching’ the muscles. Here are 3 basic examples where you can warm up major areas of the body simply. This is a great place to start for everyone, regardless of the activity.

Stand with your feet parallel and your arms hanging at your sides. Without engaging the shoulders or arms, rotate your hips & torso left and right allowing your arms to just flop and follow the movements of the hips. Like a washing machine rotate left and right. Do this for 30 – 60 seconds. This is great for opening the spinal joints, the hips and the shoulders.

Stand with your feet parallel. Shift the weight into the left leg and lift the right knee as far as you can while maintaining balance. Then point that knee out to the right as far as you can, then slowly lower the leg until the toe touches the floor. Then bring the leg back to center and repeat. If you are feeling adventurous reverse the direction. Do about 10 of those then switch legs. It is important that you move slow and controlled.

If you are doing things with your hands where grip is especially important (climbing, gardening, massaging, kayaking, fishing, etc…) it is a good idea to do some joint opening for your hands and wrists. Simply hold your hands in front of you and ‘shake them out’ as if you are trying to shake off water droplets from your fingertips. This can be pretty vigorous and you can repeat for 30-60 seconds. This is great to do before, during and after any activity involving heavy hand use. It is also good to do if you sit at the computer for long periods of time.

Michael recommends you take the time to do these before, possibly during, and after activity, to feel better during your activity AND help stave off injuries. After all….who wants to be sidelined during the fabulous fall season or ever for that matter?

Community Classes in Portland Start This Week!

We are very excited about launching our first series of community based self-care classes entitled Nurture Your Soul This Holiday Season & Beyond.  We are bringing together a number of Portland-based practitioners of various modalities and interests to offer a variety of low-cost community classes created to sustain the mind, body and soul through the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.  Classes are a mix of meditation, self-massage, progressive relaxation, building the immune system and nourishing one’s whole self.  We are excited to bring a lot of great practitioners together and bring a healthy close to 2011. We hope everyone can take advantage of these!

All classes will be held at the Portland school location at 214 SE 18th Street, from 6-7PM unless otherwise noted . Advance registration is requested and payment due at beginning of each class.  You can call us at 503.688-1482 or register directly. 

A brief snapshot of each class is provided below and you can find additional information on our website. 

COMMUNITY CLASS SCHEDULE

NOVEMBER

9th: Progressive Relaxation & Guided Imagery w/ Rylen Feeney – $10.00

14th: Qigong Self-Massage w/ Jennie King LAc & LMT. $12.00

16th: Holiday Health Survival Guide: Renewing your energy and mood to thrive during the holiday season and beyond! w/Elise Schroeder ND. 6–7:30pm.  $25.00

21st: Pivotal points. Using ancient exercises learn how to rehabilitate our joints and keep them healthy w/ Sylas Navar, LMT, Tuina Practitioner.   $12.00

28th: Acupressure and Massage for Hand, Feet and Shoulders w/Jennie King & Rylen Feeney.  6 – 7:30pm.  $20.00

30th: Progressive Relaxation & Guided Imagery w/ Rylen Feeney – $10.00

DECEMBER

5th: Enhancing the Immune System Using Jin Shin Jyutsu (Japanese  Acupressure) w/ Patricia Blakeslee LAc, RN. 6:00-7:30p,. $25.00

7th: Exploring Your Breath & Managing Stress w/ Michael Guida. $10.00

12th: Fertility Awareness for natural birth control, achieving pregnancy, and reproductive healthw/ Leilani Wong Navar, certified Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner. 6 – 7:30pm. $25.00

14th: Progressive Relaxation & Guided Imagery w/ Rylen Feeney – $10.00

19th: Still Points. Exploring your center through movement & standing practices w/ Sylas Navar LMT, Tuina Practitioner. $10.00

The Wellspring School Settles Down in Portland « The Portland Pedal Power Blog

The Wellspring School Settles Down in Portland « The Portland Pedal Power Blog.

Come Move with us in the New Year! PDX class

The New Year is  always a time for evaluating our lives, reassessing our priorities and making new commitments.  Often those commitments include improving our health.    The winter is a great time to try a mindful form of movement, such as T’ai Chi Chuan.  T’ai Chi is a great way to improve balance, support your joints and get focused.   Centuries old Chen Style T’ai Chi is said to be practiced with “a serene heart and a concentrated mind.”  Your nervous system is able to recharge, achieving deep relaxation.  Your body is rejuvenated by harmonizing the function of the inside and the outside of the body, circulation of blood and lymph is circulated, bone structure is improved, muscles are toned, and metabolism is regulated.

Chen T’ai Chi is composed of spiraling movements and practiced muscle control.  The qi flows from the tan tien (core center of energy) to the entire body through the spiral movements.  The Chen style is characterized by spiral movements that are soft and gentle with some fast and explosive motions interspersed, which facilitate the movement of qi.

Chen Style T’ai Chi Chuan can benefit the body by relieving pain, correcting digestive problems, relieve stress and build self-confidence, and discovering internal energy flow.

Come rejuvenate yourself and join us in Portland for a 13 class series of Chen Style T’ai Chi Chuan.

This class is devoted to learning the 19-movement form of Chen T’ai Chi. This is a simplified form developed by Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang to serve as a powerful introduction to the ancient Chen style T’ai Chi Chuan.

Class dates: (13) Fridays. Class dates (2011): January 14th, 21st, 28th, February 4th, 11th, 25th, March 11th, 18th, April 1st, 15th, 22nd, 29th, and May 6th. There will be no class on February 18th, March 4th, March 25th April 8th or May 13th. There will be an additional class hour on March 11th and May 6th for Amma students only to accommodate a midpoint and final form review.

The first three classes are open enrollment and drop-in’s are encouraged.  Enrollment closes before the beginning of the 4th class.  All students must be registered to take the series before the start of the 4th class.

Class Cost: Public attendees: $170 for 13 class/hour series (paid up front) or $14/if paid per class.  Current Amma and existing Yan Li students please contact the office directly for information on class pricing at 503-752-4840.

Introductory Special: Paying participants may bring a friend for free to one of the first three classes (only).

Or see: http://redirectguide.com/isavegreen/display.asp?isg=3511 for a coupon.