There is an area of meditative training that is usually over looked, it’s called physical meditation. Unlike mental meditation, physical meditation requires you to be open eyed and moving around a lot.
Its best explained by referring to Tai chi, it involves movements that are not really preset or pre-learned, in fact it is not taught to any martial arts schools that I know of and if it is it probably isn’t referred to as physical meditation. But it tones the body, strengthens the mind and calms the spirit.
It actually has a very large health benefit to it and it does support the immune system like any meditation does. Anyone can do this. Just stand up and start doing very slow but focused Tai Chi style movements mostly with your hands, there is not really any kicks in physical meditation so you won’t have to worry about that.
Move the arms and hands as if you were defending a number of attackers around you, where all the attackers were sending different attacks at you.
The idea is to pretend you are being attacked by multiple attackers at once and you are blocking then striking back at the attackers’ one at an time but in very slow time.
At the moment the strike would make contact to the attacker you tense up the muscles and then relax them to continue to block and so on.
You should be moving in different directions using footwork that is sliding opposed to actual stepping; this will keep the meditative state more serene and stable.
The foot work should be moving your whole body as a whole. It should move your body around almost like a pattern which you can develop yourself during the meditation. Now while doing this form of meditation you must visualize what is going on, see the attackers, see the attacks, and so on. Without the visualization it’s to much like shadow boxing and the meditative state will not be there and no benefit will arise.
After years of practice the result is that it does improve strength in the legs and the arms, due to the slow movements and the muscles having to hold the arms in motion so long.
Also the meditation should last anywhere from 10 minutes till around 20 minutes, but to much will only bring about exhaustion, which then it’s a workout and not meditation.
If it is done right you should find yourself zoning out and actually focusing on a pretend battle and time will slip by quickly, people have reported a loss in time because of the meditative zoning.
That’s when you know its done right. Any questions on this please feel free to ask, I usually am able to answer questions rather quickly. Good luck with the meditation !
Author : Merlyn Seeley
Source : www.examiner.com
