Five Element Qigong - Wood
Audio File
Instructions
Begin this practice by standing with your feet hips-width apart.
Step the feet together, and as you inhale, step the feet apart to about shoulder-width distance bending the knees as you place the palms of the hands against the inner thighs right above the knees and guide your hands up toward your pelvis and up the sides of your abdomen to just below your rib cage, tracing the liver meridian. Straighten the legs as you bring your hands up.
On the exhale, pressing the heels of the hands in towards the abdomen and down through the pelvis as you massage the organs of the gallbladder and the liver, bending the knees as you come down through the pelvis. When the hands are at the base of the pelvis, breathe in and let your arms float gently up to shoulder height as you bring the feet together and straighten the legs to standing. Arms float down to the sides of your body as you exhale.
In this practice, you’re working with the liver.
Do this 5-10 more times, keeping the breath and movement slow and steady. As you do the movements, think about breathing in kindness (sign of balance in the wood element) and exhaling out anger and frustration (sign of imbalance in the wood element).
Before moving onto the fire element, perform a clearing movement by stepping the feet hips-width distance apart or wider, bending the arms to 90 degrees sweeping them out from the centerline of the body and up to a little higher than shoulder height and then bringing the hands toward the centerline of the body, palms facing down as you slowly lower them, releasing anything you need to on the way down. Finishing this clearing movement by allowing the hands, one over the other, to rest on the Dan Tian, located in the lower abdomen.
Modifications
N/A
Contraindications
Type of pose
Standing
Parts of Body Benefited
Other poses that cultivate:
Other strategies from: