This meditation is both progressive relaxation and vivid guided imagery.  It reveals 3 gifts of wisdom from your inner teacher, to guide you on your life journey.  Charles calls it Three Symbols of Liberation.

Close your eyes and begin to journey inward.  Become lighter as energy begins to flow easily and freely.  Relax deeply.  Open with each breath.  And release resistance.

Allow your awareness to expand.
From this perspective, you’ll find the keys you need.

The music is “Steppe” by Doc and Lena Selyanina, generously shared under a Creative Commons license through Jamendo.com

To download the mp3 file of this Meditation, right click the “meditation” link above, and choose “Save Link As”.  It will download the file to your computer or mobile device.

This meditation is about 35 minutes in length.

We reminded everyone last week how important it is to do Kai Chi Do at your own pace.  Doing the movements smaller and slower is a way that you can regulate the intensity of the experience.

So we thoughts we’d share with you a video of The World’s Smallest Chi Circles.  Do try this at home. Remember to breathe!

At the start of each Kai Chi Do session, Charles reminds us to listen to our bodies.  This is so important!

First of all, it’s so much more fun when we’re not pressuring ourselves to do more than what feels right.

Second, it helps us learn self-regulation, how we can modify the intensity of our own experience by varying our movements and breath.

And third, learning to listen to the signals of our body is part of what keeps us safe in the world.   The New York Times made this point strongly in an article this week entitled How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body.

I don’t really know why people try to push themselves into positions (or places) that don’t feel good.  Is there some kind of rule that says you have to?  If someone, somewhere, made that rule and is trying to put that on you – just give your attention to your inner teacher instead.

And if you haven’t already checked them out, we have a few great old posts about doing Kai Chi Do the easy way.   We like easy.

Yoga in Nature’s Way photo by Tony Gladvin George on Flickr Creative Commons.

Last year we posted a bunch of spiritual games that we often play on New Years Eve.  This year, sweet Tina came up with an idea that we just love – Chi Messages from Love Buddies.  Here’s how we play:

Every night send a text message to a close friend or a bunch of friends that you know support and love you more than you can even imagine.  The message is just a number – and the number represents the percent of the day that you spent taking really good care of yourself, no matter what you were doing.  The number represents the percent of your day that you felt like your thoughts and your actions were giving you life.  Time spent in your very own true groove.  It might be time you spent thinking good thoughts, or feeling happy and uplifted.  Or time you spent just being kind to yourself.  Or time that flew because you were doing something with so much focus and enjoyment.   Time without resistance, without contradiction, without doubt or fear or frustration or armor.  Chi Time.

Did you know that people are more successful quitting smoking when they receive motivational text messages each day?  And people are more successful at losing weight when they keep a food diary?  It raises awareness of their own choices.  It helps them to stay more conscious of what they are doing.

Well, Tina’s idea – Chi Messages – is meant to help each of us be more aware of and responsible for our own choices and our own thoughts and feelings -  and to be open to a community of support for our Aliveness.   The more time you spend feeling uplifted, the more familiar the vibration becomes, and the quicker your recovery time when you have a down moment.  It’s not about blissing out all day -  It’s just about feeling comfortable with yourself and feeling connected to Life.

Wanna participate in Chi Messages?  Email a friend with a  link to this post, and invite them to exchange Chi Messages with you each night.

Blessings to you.  And much Chi in the New Year!

Helping Hands illustration by Dwight Davis at Fotolia.com

“Write it on your heart
that every day
is the best day in the year.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Everybody ought to see the sunrise at least once a year.
And to me, a perfect way to celebrate the emergence of 2012 is SA-ing on the beach with the rising sun.

How do you feel about the new year?  What are your hopes and dreams?

What would you like to improve or change?

What successes did you have in 2011? What would you like to be different?

Come, bring your clear intentions and we’ll all pour our love into them.

Kai Chi Do is a dynamic process that involves connection with ourselves as well as the environment.
Resonance with the earth is grounding and serene.
Positivity and support from the group inspires me to resolve conflicting emotions and cleanses my spirit.
Feeling at peace with myself and the world, the new year becomes exciting.

We’re meeting for sunrise Kai Chi Do at 7:00 AM this New Years day, January 1st 2012 at Sunset Beach in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

Hope to see you there!

Sunrise photo by David Ashford at Flickr Creative Commons

A hypnotic 12 minute meditation that runs deep.  Restore a lost part of your Self.  Listen and release resistance, open to the pure flow of Life that runs through you like a great River – The Waters of the Heart.

Try it with this mantra:
“I am drawn closer and closer to the Source of my Self.”

Many Blessings!

The music is Anjey Satori’s River Surround. His music and the River of Life meditation are both shared under an Attribution-Share Alike Creative Commons license.

To download the mp3 file of the River of Life Meditation, right click the “12 minute meditation” link above, and choose “Save Link As”.  It will download the file to your computer or mobile device.

How was Kai Chi Do at the St. Petersburg Yoga Festival?  AWESOME!  Check it out:

My friend Kate saw a preview of this little video while I was making it.  She said, “All the people are so beautiful!”

And I said, “People are beautiful when they’re happy.”

Love the music?  It’s “Story of Ohm” by Paniq
Shared under Creative Commons copyright CC-BY-SA

The Kai Chi Do Weekend Retreat is November 11-13th, and there’s still a few openings.
Uplift your consciousness.  Join us!

These folks are cool!

Come join Charles in Kai Chi Do at the St. Petersburg Yoga Festival in Florida.

Next Sunday —
October 23rd from 2:45 – 4:00 PM in the Oak Pavilion.

The next Kai Chi Do Weekend Retreat will be held at the Flowering Heart Center in Clearwater, Florida on November 11 – 13th, 2011.

The Kai Chi Do Weekend is a discovery of your Path of Connection – what it feels like, how to get there, and how you can live there.  It’s about finding your Connection to your Source, your Self, and other people.

And – if you are interested in becoming a Kai Chi Do instructor, the Weekend Retreat is the first step.

Wanna know how to make the magic?  Join us!  Click here to Learn More…

Kai Chi Do is meditation in movement, a kind of aerobic yoga – helping you to connect with yourself, your Source, and others.

In this video, Charles Robinson leads you in some of the Kai Chi Do Basics. He introduces the powerful SA breath to help calm your mind and release resistance, and a few of the basic movements of Kai Chi Do: Chi Circles facing the Earth, Chi Circles facing the sky, Crossovers, Side Strikes, and Thrusts.

The music is “Sacred – Horns and Flutes” by The Beastmaster.

Give it a try and see how you feel! Free the Chi!