The Very Best of the Taoist Healing Arts Taught by a Master Teacher: Servicing the Internal Organs and Cleansing the Blood. Is it Yoga? Recently a friend from the local Tai Chi community commented that based on what he had seen on the internet he thought Zhen Hua Yang’s approach looked like a really interesting fusion between Tai Chi and Yoga. I also had a physiotherapy client have a look at Zhen Hua Yang’s upcoming workshop poster and ask so what is it, some kind of Yoga? So I thought I would make a few observations and comments that might clear up any confusion and flesh out a few important ideas. First of all regarding any fusion of Yoga and Tai Chi, a primary thrust of Zhen Hua Yang’s approach is to get those who practice Yoga asana to get better internal organ servicing, better blood cleansing, and better blood circulation during their poses as well as to get their poses safer from a musculoskeletal perspective. This is transposing the Taoist health and vitality techniques he is so familiar with into Yoga poses. The emphasis here is on the Taoist health and vitality techniques and certainly not on attaining difficult Yoga poses. It could be said that there is also a fusion between ancient Taoist internal alchemical techniques and modern physiology. This is done primarily with the clearest explanation I’ve heard as to how these techniques can positively influence human health. Some of these techniques have some similarity with those found in the Indian and Hatha Yoga traditions as well, if you really search for them. Regarding Zhen Hua Yang’s training, he was not trained by Indian or Western Yoga teachers. While the location of his family lineage, Mianyang, borders the Tibetan plateau, his teachers have all been from China. His first formal teacher was the senior teacher from the Buddhist temple at Shaolin. The Shaolin temple is one of the most well known martial arts centres in the world. Zhen Hua Yang started training with this teacher when he was seven years old and the teacher had to regularly travel over a thousand kilometers to Mianyang to do the teaching. To me this suggests that Zhen Hua Yang’s family is highly regarded by the Shaolin Buddhist tradition. Curiously Zhen Hua Yang confided to me that the Shaolin training involved a lot of stretching and that when he was a few years older and ready to learn his own family’s tradition, his grandfather took him aside and suggested he better not do all the stretching his Shaolin teacher suggested or he would end up hurting himself and that it was time for him to learn the “internal way”. Zhen Hua Yang’s Grandfather is still alive at 107 years old at last count! Zhen Hua Yang also had a Taoist teacher from a young age he speaks fondly of. Another observation that Zhen Hua Yang confided to us was that Taoist monks look young for their age and Buddhist monks don’t. When asked why he replied with words to the effect that Taoist monks look after themselves, while Buddhists monks try to look after everyone else. To me is a reflection of Taoist philosophy valuing harmony with nature and personal health and lies in contrast with Buddhist institutional philosophies which tend to value personal sacrifice for the well-being of others, which can include sacrificing one’s own personal health. For a discussion of authoritarian hierarchy in Buddhist institutions see The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Kramer & Alstad (1983). From what I have gathered from Zhen Hua Yang, and a handful of authors such as Mantak Chia, Bruce Frantzis, and Daniel Reid Taoists have been researching, experimenting, and refining practices for enhancing health and longevity for millennia unfettered by notions of self sacrifice. From my perspective most Western Yoga devotees have an enormous amount to learn from the Taoist vitality and longevity traditions and that such learning would help them to understand what was truly valuable in the Indian and Hatha Yoga traditions as well. In particular it would help Yoga teachers and practitioners understand some of the assumptions that at first seem to be O.K., but that in time prove to give rise to a practise that is risky at best and downright insidiously harmful at worst. In other words learning about the Taoist vitality and longevity traditions would help sort out the “wheat from the chaff” in Yoga. To give an example of a Westerner who I think has made some valuable contributions to the field of Yoga, but has expressed some assumptions about Yoga that I think fall into the camp of risky at best and downright harmful at worst, I will consider some of the contributions of Tom Myers (anatomytrains/at/whos-who/tom-myers/). He has contributed valuable insights into the field of Anatomy as it applies to Yoga, Massage, and Physiotherapy. He was instrumental in elucidating the importance of the actions of the fascia in the body rather than just the muscles and the bones. This has led to massage techniques that emphasize decreasing the tension in the fascia, rather than just the muscles. This approach has proved to be extremely beneficial in my own practice as a Physiotherapist. Nevertheless when Tom Myers discussed Yoga in an interview with the online Yoga education websight in 2011 he made what I believe is the mistake most modern postural Yoga traditions make, both Indian and Western, and the mistake Zhen Hua Yang’s Grandfather was referring to regarding the Shaolin temple teacher, that is, an overemphasis on stretching and strengthening. In the Tom Myer interview he suggests that: “…injury occurs when there is no give”. (yogauonline/yogatherapy/tom-myers) Furthermore, “And so the idea of Yoga is … to make it possible for that little bit of give to happen…so when you go into Yoga poses, when you go to the extreme of a movement and then extend your extreme by stretching, you are increasing the amount of resilience in your tissues so that all the tissues give a little”. (yogauonline/yogatherapy/tom-myers) Regarding strengthening as lengthening: “It’s important for yoga teachers to be able to see when their students are doing … and then take steps to either strengthen or lengthen, depending on what’s needed.” (yogauonline/yogatherapy/tom-myers) The trouble with strengthening muscles is that this can create a high resting tone that in certain muscles can both decrease blood flow and mechanically irritate nerves leading to pain. This is especially so in some of the muscles in the lower back, hips, abdomen, upper back, and neck. Learning the most advantageous muscles with which to hold up the body to avoid collapsing is the art of Tai Chi and can be of Yoga too once understood. Regarding the idea that extending “… your extreme by stretching…” is a primary goal or method in Yoga, I believe this is a primary cause of pain in Yoga practitioners. This pain often develops so insidiously a person does not know it is occurring or what is causing it until it is severe, sometimes severe enough to require major surgery. To provide some evidence of this from a surgeon who performs hip surgery on women who practice Yoga consider the following excerpt from an article published in the New York Times in November 2013 titled “Is Women’s Flexibility a Liability (in Yoga)” by William J. Broad: “It’s a relatively high incidence of injury,” Jon Hyman, an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta, told me. “People don’t come in often saying I was doing Zumba or tai chi” when they experienced serious hip pain, he said. “But yoga is common.” (nytimes/2013/11/03/sunday-review/womens-flexibility-is-a-liability-in-yoga.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) For the most in depth and I believe open minded discussion on the issue of injuries in Yoga see Mathew Remski’s websight (matthewremski/). Not only does the stretching and strengthening approach carry with it a relatively high risk of pain, injury, and dysfunction, but it also does not adequately embrace some the “gold” that is in the Indian and Hatha Yoga traditions. Krishnamacharya, a seminal figure in the development of modern postural Yoga, travelled a great distance from his home in Southern India to seek out a Hatha Yogi living in Tibet from whom he learned for over seven years. Presumably he went to Tibet because he could find no one suitable to teach him in Southern India. He then moved back to Southern India and taught Yoga initially to school children. Two of his students were B.K.S Iyengar (Iyengar Yoga) and Pathabhi Jois (Asthanga Vinyassa Yoga). These two brought modern postural Yoga to the West arguably more than anyone else. In his first book, Yoga Makaranda (1934) Krishnamacharya states that: “Asana practice renders correct blood circulation.” (p. 9) And “If the blood is not clean, then the nadi cakras will not function (rotate) properly.” (p. 10) “Nadi cakras” are what Western Yogis call “Chakras”. Indeed there are many references to the blood, twenty four in all including sixteen references to “Blood circulation” or “blood flow” and seven references to “Clean blood circulation” or “purifies the blood”. This suggest that clean blood and it’s circulation was quite a high priority to Krishnamacharya. Just how this was accomplished I think can be found in instructions of what to do with the abdomen during downward facing dog: “After pulling the abdomen in and pushing it out, exhale the breath out.” (p. 68) Of course it is difficult to understand exactly what Krishnamacharya meant as he is no longer around to ask having died in 1989 at the age 101 years old. This emphasis on cleaning and circulating the blood seems to have largely not made it through to modern postural Yoga. Possibly this is because the blood is something internal that cannot be easily seen. Zhen Hua Yang also emphasizes the importance of cleaning and circulating the blood and points out that doing so successfully can be seen, especially in the eyes. The eyes have a large number of small capillaries that Zhen Hua Yang says won’t get an ideal blood supply if a high proportion of the blood’s cells are clumped together as occurs with aged blood cells. The clumped cells literally won’t fit through the small capillaries. This tends to clog up the capillary beds and impede the free flow of blood. Zhen Hua Yang points out that this process of poor circulation will worsen with age and occur in all body’s tissues including the very organs whose job it is to filter and clean the blood, especially the liver, spleen, and kidneys. This creates a “vicious cycle” where poor blood flow to these organs means they cannot filter the blood of aging clumped cells, which results in poorer blood flow in the capillary beds of these organs and so on leading to poor health (and dull eyes). This is why one of the first points Zhen Hua Yang makes in his workshops is that learning how to “service” the internal organs is first thing to do in practise. This begins the process of cleaning the blood. Learning how to improve the function of the bone marrow by improving it’s circulation comes next because it is the bone marrow that produces new blood cells. According to Zhen Hua Yang and in my own experience these techniques lead to greater health, vitality, longevity, and enhanced physical function. They are largely responsible for his own and his familys martial arts ability and longevity. None of these techniques requires deep or prolonged stretching, but they tend to be challenging, not because they are painful or uncomfortable, but because in some ways they oppose the postural tendencies all human learn from a young age. For example, Zhen Hua Yang (and for that matter my other Chinese teacher Wee Kee Jin) will frequently point out that most people hold far too much tension in their lower back, hip, abdominal, upper back, and neck muscles even though most people are totally unaware of it. This tension impedes the free flow of blood and tends to pinch and tether nerves leading to pain. It should be pointed out that Zhen Hua Yang did not make these concepts and techniques up. They are held in the cannon of knowledge in the Taoist tradition (Mantak Chia discusses some similar techniques in his publications) and at least to some extent in the Hatha Yoga tradition as alluded to earlier with Krishnamacharya’s Yoga Makaranda (1935). Nevertheless Zhen Hua Yang’s understanding is very deep and broad. I think his formal training in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering in China has contributed to his understanding and allows him to discuss Taoist body technology in straightforward scientific terms when required. I hope I have got across the idea that whether your interests lie in Tai Chi, Yoga, Western gym based health and fitness, or just wanting to be a healthy human, Zhen Hua Yang’s workshops are very worthwhile. It should also be pointed out that many of the techniques used to cleanse the blood also improve the function of the digestive organs, which is a key topic Zhen Hua Yang has chosen to discuss along with musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction in his upcoming workshop this Fri to Sun 28 - 30 Nov 2014 at the Maroochydore Sailing Club Chambers Island. Times are: Frid 28 Nov 2 pm to 5:30 pm Sat 29 Nov 9 am to 12:30 and 1:30 - 5 pm Sun 29 Nov 9 am to 12:30 and 1:30 - 5 pm Cost: For all sessions: $370 Individual sessions $90 Contact Sarah Johnson for booking and payment: Ph. 0404 420 205 or sljohno74@gmail Visit calligraphyhealth.au for more information Hope to see you there. Warm regards, Ben
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 07:31:30 +0000
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