Zhang Zuren
The Taoist Longevity Health Exercise originated as a method of cultivation in Chinese Taoism and has a history of more than two thousand years. After the 1980s it swept across China and became very popular among practitioners. It is an exercise that unites mind and body, and a method especially suited to older people for keeping fit and healthy.
Practicing the elderly health exercise helps people maintain a healthy nervous system; its remarkable effects on the nervous system are plain for all to see. Through regular practice of the elderly health exercise, the benefits to the sympathetic nerves are hard to put fully into words. It can regulate the endocrine system—the pituitary gland, the pineal gland, the thyroid gland, and so on—with beneficial effects that keep the body healthy; a person's behavior, emotions, and even state of mind are directly related to the endocrine glands. In practicing the elderly health exercise, the whole body—from skin to bone, from the crown of the head to the toes, from the nervous system to the digestive system—benefits. Practicing it massages and strengthens the organs and balances their functions, and promotes blood circulation and metabolism; its breathing method regulates the heart and mind and extends vitality. It can also adjust the spine and increase flexibility, help with weight loss and skin care, expel toxins from the body, and ease and eliminate the chronic illnesses of old age, thereby raising psychological and spiritual energy and bringing peace and tranquility to the heart.
This article discusses the methods of practicing the elderly health exercise, and the precautions to observe, under the following headings:
1. Postures of the Health Exercise for Older People
Standing, sitting, lying, lying prone, upright, and kneeling are all acceptable; choose a posture according to your own condition.
2. Head Exercises
1. Head rotation.
2. The bowing posture.
3. The headstand.
4. Neck exercises.
3. Abdominal Massage
1. Rub the abdomen in circles with both hands.
2. Tap the abdomen with one hand.
3. Press the abdomen with both hands.
4. Rub the abdomen with one hand.
5. Swell the abdomen by inhaling, for one to three minutes.
4. Hand Exercises
1. Stretch both arms forward, parallel to the ground.
2. Turn both palms up.
3. Bend both elbows and lightly pat the shoulders with the fingertips.
4. Raise both arms out to the sides, parallel to the ground.
5. Turn both palms up.
6. Begin by making small circular rotations.
5. Leg Exercises
1. Sit down and stretch both legs forward; this is the basic position.
2. Sitting cross-legged, bring the thighs and chin as close together as possible.
3. Sit down and stretch both legs straight forward.
4. Place both legs on the ground near the sides of the buttocks.
5. Straighten both arms and lean the upper body back.
6. Spinal Twist Exercises
1. Sit with both legs stretched straight forward.
2. Inhale and turn your head as far to the right as you can, thereby twisting the spine.
3. Interlace the fingers, inhale, and raise both arms high overhead.
4. Exhale and bend forward until the legs and back form a 90-degree angle.
7. Waist and Hip Exercises
1. Twist the waist left and right.
2. Move the waist up and down.
3. Lean the upper body back and lift the hips.
4. Kneel, stretch the waist, push the abdomen out, and bend backward.
8. Guiding Words
Guiding words can increase energy, give those practicing the elderly health exercise good rest and relaxation, help them enter a state of stillness, and improve the results of practice.
Examples of Guiding Words
A. Lie on your back, ready to practice the elderly health exercise.
B. Close your eyes and let your whole body form a straight line.
C. Quietly observe your own breathing in and out, breathing in and out in an unending cycle.
D. With each breath in, silently say “relax” to yourself.
E. Pay attention to adjusting your whole body, your own body.
F. Attend to your head, and let your head relax.
G. Attend to your shoulders, chest, abdomen, arms, and legs, and let them all relax.
H. Relax your whole back, relax your buttocks, attend to your whole body from head to toes, relaxing quite naturally.
I. Guiding words during practice: now you are highly focused; I will now name pictures and images one by one, and you will see each of them in your mind. A calm lake like a mirror, clear and still; a beautiful white swan glides across the lake; pure white snowflakes drift softly down from the sky; a peacock is dancing, spreading its tail; a clear blue sky, with masses of white clouds floating overhead; in the distance a beautiful, fragrant flower, and a bee gathering nectar; a golden butterfly in flight; high mountains and flowing water, flowers and birds, insects and fish, heaven and the human world, beautiful women as many as the clouds, like a landscape painting. You seem to become a bird flying in the sky, waving your hands and arms. Now rub your face with both hands—rub your forehead, your eyes, your nose—gently rub your face, gently pat your head, pat the crown of your head lightly with your fingertips, rub your face, pat the crown of your head. Now open your eyes and relax your legs. The elderly health exercise is now complete.
9. The Benefits of the Elderly Health Exercise
1. It opens the Conception and Governing Vessels and the Eight Extraordinary Vessels.
2. It opens the qi wheels and the central channel.
3. It opens the navel wheel, heart wheel, throat wheel, brow wheel, and solar wheel (the genital region).
4. It opens your Brahma-aperture wheel (the Baihui point).
5. Through meditation, the vital qi rises slowly from the navel to the heart, and then from the heart to the chest cavity.
6. From the chest cavity it rises through the whole body.
7. Weight loss, slimming, and beauty.
8. Preventing aging and decline, and improving physical and mental health.
9. Raising the body's immunity, resisting and preventing disease.
10. Breathing Methods for Practice
1. Abdominal breathing: when you inhale, draw the air straight down into the abdomen; the deeper you breathe, the higher the abdomen rises. Now as you breathe, you will feel the abdomen draw inward, toward the spine.
2. Chest breathing: inhale deeply, but do not let the abdomen expand; it should stay flat. As you inhale you will feel the ribs expand outward and upward. Now breathe: as you do, the ribs draw downward and inward.
3. Complete elderly-health-exercise breathing: inhale gently into the abdomen, then into the chest, expanding the chest with air as fully as possible; your shoulders may rise slightly and your chest will also expand.
11. Precautions for Practicing the Elderly Health Exercise
1. Practice time: generally about 30 minutes is appropriate—a little longer for those in good health, a little shorter otherwise.
2. The practice area should be kept quiet and free from disturbance, to avoid being startled during practice.
3. Women should not practice during menstruation.
4. Patients with fever or who have had surgery must not practice the elderly health exercise.
5. You may practice standing, lying, lying on your back, upright, kneeling, or lying prone.
6. Empty the bladder and bowels before and after practice, and wear comfortable clothing.
7. Concentrate your awareness on a particular part of the body, and avoid forcing or straining, which causes needless injury.
8. Combine the practice with meditation to increase its effects, using guidance to aid the qi and promote physical and mental health.
9. Eat well, avoiding greasy and spicy foods and foods that cause excess stomach acid. Eat only half an hour after practice ends, keeping mainly to a vegetarian diet with plenty of soy products, vegetables, and fruit.
(Zhang Zuren, born in August 1958 in Fuzhou, China, has loved sports, Taoist studies, and literature since childhood. He has written more than ten books, including 200 Questions on Physical Education Teaching, 200 Questions on Qigong Practice, and 100 Questions on Keeping Fit.)