Yield to the Ground
Conrad Ho, (Hongkong, China)
14 February, 2011
These days, I am practicing the Classic of Ligament Transformation, which is a qigong movement set for relaxing and releasing the ligaments all over the body, not only for the general health reason but also for a particular purpose. When I was doing my Christmas shopping in December 2010, I fell on the hard granite floor in a mall because I was not aware of the surface being wet right after cleaning. The impact point was on the left side of my sacrum and I felt my sacrum had been rotated to the right a little bit as a result. My right leg was felt to be longer and the right hip was felt to be tilted up when I lied down. It shifted my skeletal structure obviously and I was really uncomfortable from the consequential change in my gravity sense. It also hurt on the right side of my sacrum in a subtle and continuous way.
Last night, on 13 February 2011, after I had been in bed but before sleep, I did my usual awareness exercise of calming my mind to focus all my attention in my body, this time on my whole spine, starting from my sacrum which was the foundation. Not long, an image of a flattened figure “3” emerged. I instantly rationalized by relating it to my spine, the upper arc being my cervical curve and the lower, my lumbar curve. It was clear to me intuitively that the stress point was the first thoracic vertebrae (T1) area. So, I let my focus naturally flowed to the base of my neck and there, I felt two “strings” on either side of T1 really pulling hard so that my spine curvature was pronounced.
Without giving them any instruction to relax, I just stayed with the experience, factually appreciating the thickness of the “strings”, the force with which they were pulling, their positions on the spine, the sensations around the area, etc. I asked myself, “Is there any reason for the “strings” to pull so hard?” My response was none, and right at that moment, the “strings” softened and the pull weakened, like some tube-like, dry sponge soaking in moisture. It felt absolutely comfortable as they lengthened. My body yielded to the “ground” as more skin surface around the T1 and the scapula areas actually touching the mattress surface.
I told myself, “It was so nice to sleep in such comfort.” But then, a response said, “Not yet! Feel it.” OK! I stayed on focused. It had to be at least 20 minutes or so and some more wonderful things happened. I felt many little valves shallow beneath my skin all over the body opening up and I felt something was flowing, warming my whole body up (my theory was that it was my capillary circulation, by the way). Then, I felt the feet relaxed and lengthened, then the hip area, then my cranial area, then my face, my lower jaw, my teeth and eventually my stomach. This was the last thing I could remember when I woke up this morning feeling very refreshed.
According to my identity card, I was 170 cm in height in my late teenage years. In my health checks in my employment records in my late 20s, it was 167 cm. In my late 30s, it was 165.5 cm. I had been aware of the trend only in my early 40s and had determined to do something about it. This was the general background in which I did my skeletal structure awareness exercise and practiced the Classic of Ligament Transformation. This morning, right after rising, it was 168 cm; after coming into the office, 167 cm. I am not saying the incident last night had given me a taller body by 1.5 cm, because I had measured my height periodically and had the 167 cm result since last year. I am saying that, in my opinion, through my various integrative practices in the body/mind system, including kinesiology balances, in body and intention trainings and exercises, including qigong movements, I have observed a reversal of a long-term trend in my body height.
