Combine Breathing Stretching and Meditation

October 26, 2013

Combine Breathing Stretching and Meditation.

Stretching takes time. Meditation takes time. Your training takes time.

We live in a fast paced world where people don’t have as much time as they used to. It’s easy to miss out on some aspects of training.

So here is a method of practising breathing techniques, stretching and meditation all at the same time. It cuts down on time without you missing out on any of these aspects of your training.

Once you know the principles of how it works you can apply the method to any stretch.

First let’s find the body’s point of power; it’s called the Dan-Jun point. It’s located a few centimetres below the navel at the centre of the body.

Picture yourself standing. Imagine a steel rod going through your body a few centimetres below the navel from front to back and another rod going through your body from the left side to the right side at the same level. Where they cross is the Dan-Jun point.

You need to focus on this point when meditating.

We will use the sitting open leg stretching position as an example of how to stretch breathe and meditate together.

1. Sit on the floor with your legs wide open as in adductor stretch.

2. Picture the Dan-Jun point and try and place your mind there. Don’t worry if you find it difficult at first, just practice.

3. Sit upright with your eyes closed. Slowly breathe in and hold your breath.

Turn to you left and slowly lean down toward your knee breathing out as you go. When you are at your lowest point, take very shallow breaths; about four seconds in and four seconds out, whilst maintaining the stretch.

Do those twice, on the third exhaling of breath, allow your body to go fractionally lower into the stretch by a couple of centimetres and continue until you are at your maximum stretch.

4. When completed, slowly come back up to the centre position (with your eyes still closed and your mind at the Dan-Jun point.)

5. Repeat to the right, when completed.

6. With eyes still closed, come up to centre position.

7. Forward and down to the centre and repeat the sequence.

During the shallow breathing use your mind to sense tightness in any muscles not being stretched, head-neck-shoulders for example and make a conscious effort to relax them.

Use the same procedure for stretching other muscles.

When you finish you will feel very relaxed and invigorated.

This is an excellent method of increasing mental focus as you stretch and is time effective.

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