David Carridine's Chi Kung Workout

Let's get one thing straight, this is a work within not a work out. You will not sweat, you will not squeeze out that last rep. You will not reach your target heart rate. What you will do is breathe, focus and visualize. Chi kung is based on chinese breathing exercises and forms the foundation for tai chi, kung fu and other martial arts. With chi kung, you focus on your internal organs while imaging directing energy into your body for cleasing, healing and strenghtening. This energy is called chi. In yoga it's called prana or is western terms breath of life. Picture Jackie Chan, Stephen Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme breathing intently and building up their energy before taking out the bad guy in their movies. You get the idea.

The video is broken up into six sections. You can do all of them or just one or two.

First is "stillness and movement" which begins with meditation in a comfortable postition followed by stretches and accupressure to stimulate "energy centers or the five main yang organs." (more on that later. ) david tells you what each accupressure point in for including the famous one at the base of the thumb for headaches.

Second is emptying and filling. In this section you are to imagine stagnant energy being broken up while doing tai chi like arms movments, focused breathing, shaking and bouncing. Throughout the video there is nature footage. Actually, it's to help you imagine what's going on internally. In the section, it is dark cloud being dispelled. The section ends with the small orbit exercise in which youimagine energy between your hands then visualize directing that energy into the torso.

The third section in buidling. Now that the body has been filled with fresh energy , it's time to build and chanel the energy by focusing on the five organs, which are the kidneys, liver, spleen, heart and lungs. There is nature footage such as waterfalls, still water, light filtering through the forest, sunshine and clear sunny skies to correspond with each organ.

Next is purification. Here you lay hands on various places on your torse while uttering sounds such as ahhhh, fooooo, seeeee, ... Again imagine directing the sound into the organ to dispel dark and negative emotion and energy.

The fifth section is integration. Here, you pretend you're huggin a log while directing engery to the upper energy center, middle energy center and lower energy center.

The sixth and last section is grounding. It starts by rubbing the hands until they are hot. You then cup the hands over your eyes, ears, then on to massaging the eyes, temples and patting up and down the legs and arms. It ends with centering yourself. ...and a preview and david carradines tai chi workout, this is a new one, not the one he made in the 80s.

Do I like this video. It is great for balanacing before and after work, or in between hard workout days. I like to do it before may period starts or after recovering from a bug. After doing this video several times, I felt a burning sensation inside my torso. Other times my skin tingles. The sensations are nothing to worry about. But I didn't think breathing exercises could do this. This is serious mind/body work.

Another thing, the cues are not mirrored, do david's right is my left, however, this video is about focusing and breathing, not complicated choreography so I can follow and focus.

Instructor Comments:
if the reader is familiar with david carridine's character from the kung fu tv series, then you will have the right idea, hollywood example of the oriental mystic. David is calm and low key but the instruction is precise and clear. Sometimes he does voice-over, other times he talkk to you. Arnold Tayam is slent throught the video, instead you watch him for perfection of form and movement.

jeanleslie wakefield