A Study on the Health-strengthening Philosophy in Practicing the Method of “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body to Relieve Stress”

Heart looks upon as the sovereign while the kidney as minister. Heart-kidney harmonious interaction contributes greatly to people's physical well-being. The method of “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body to Relieve Stress” in Health Qigong • Ba Duan Jin is an classic exercise, which regulates the heart and kidney and achieve the  Sovereign-minister harmonious interaction, and it embodies the philosophy of body-building, that is "holding the moderate way so as to achieve harmony". This article will choose and illustrate several main ideas of it.

Exercising moderately is the precondition of practicing the method of “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body to Relieve Stress”. The moving techniques of this practice are as followings, “Standing the horse stance and the feet should be slightly wider, putting the palms on the knees, turning the head right while inhaling, bending the knees and lowering the body to see the tiptoes. The head turn with the waist and hip while exhaling, swinging to the left and right to stimulate the waist. The coordination between the heart and kidney contributes relieves stress, merging ourselves into “Qi” and laying down our preoccupation. “The theory and stances of this method is that achieving the balance of Yin and Yang and regulating the viscera by means of swinging and ascending and descending. Its movement process is conducted by the position moving of the end of the backbone and neck, which includes up and down, right and left, going forward and backward. It focuses on the heart-kidney harmonious interaction, that is, every movement and stance accommodate this focus. In that way, how can we accomplish it? We might analyze in these aspects as well: First, according to the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, heart, which is in the upper location of the body, has the nature of Yang and characterized by fire, and kidney, which is in the lower location of the body, has the nature of Yin and characterized by water. In the normal physical condition, the Yang of the heart should descend to the kidney to nourishing the Yin of the kidney, and the Yin of the kidney should ascend to the heart to nourishing the Yin of the heart. The heart-kidney harmonious interaction prevents the ascendant hyperactivity of Yang of the heart. If this regular relation is destroyed, people may have a syndrome of heart-kidney disharmonious interaction marked by palpitate, insomnia, amnesia and profuse dreaming, etc. These principles stated in the Traditional Chinese Medicine stress that only in the moderate way, the heart and kidney can interact well. Second, from the perspective of kinematics, “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body” make the backbone bend, turn around and whirl by a large margin, and make the muscles of head, neck, waist, abdomen, buttocks, thigh and legs take part in contraction, which is not only increase the flexibility of the joints of the body, but also strengthen the waist, abdomen and legs. Therefore, we should follow the rules of “be moderate” in the process of practicing method of “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body to Relieve Stress”, in case of the injury of the organism while the backbone bending, turning around and whirling. In the meanwhile, from the perspective of body-building mechanism, shaking one's head can stimulate the Dazhui Point, which is the intersection joint of six yang channel, in order to promote the Yang Qi. Lowering the body can stimulate the backbone and Mingmen Point to achieve the water and fire harmonious interaction and nourish the internal organs, and then achieve the purpose of relieving stress in the moderate circumstance.

What need further explanation is that “be moderate” embodies abundant humanity philosophy. In a broad sense, “be moderate” is impartial and just right. It contains three aspects of contents, namely moderate external environment, moderate internal environment and moderate unity of internal environment and external environment. Moderate external environment contains the natural and social two aspects. “People are cross-referenced with the heaven and the earth.” The composition of the world is no more than the state that man is an integral part of nature, in which heaven is in the first place, earth is second and people is the third. Heaven is Yang in the upper place, earth is Yin lower place and people live between heaven and earth, which embodies the principles of nourishing of life in Traditional Chinese Medicine. ”If Yin and Yang is in equilibrium, the mental states is well, and yin-yang dissociation leads to perished spiritually.” If Yin and Yang do not get along with each other well, it just as only spring without autumn and winter without summer. The physiological status of people will be damaged. “Moderate internal environment” means that recognizing people as a whole microcosm. If the exercisers can “be quiet, have few desires, and keep a sound mind”, and there are not demands beyond moderate, then the exercisers can strengthen their Immunity of the body and resist the  invasion of all kinds of pathogenic factor effectively. “Moderate unity of internal environment and external environment” emphasize that people should not only accommodate to the natural changes, but self-regulation of the body also play a role. When there is sufficient healthy Qi inside, the pathogenic Qi have no way to invade the health body". Thus, moderate external and internal environment and unity of both are preconditions of the life of human beings. To be moderate is the natural rule to promote the quality of human life that the culture of Health Qigong going after, Moreover, “be moderate”, the humanity philosophy with universal significance, is fully demonstrated in the method.

Exercising reasonably is the constraint condition of practicing the method of “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body to Relieve Stress”. What we will search and discuss deeply here is the issue that the position moving of the end of the backbone and neck should be reasonable, which includes up and down, right and left, going forward and backward. This point is critical in practicing method of “Swinging the Head and Lowering the Body to Relieve Stress”. In other words, people should exercise not only moderately but reasonably as well, learn to move in moderation and choose the key points well in the practice. The key points are both ends of the degree, which are the highest boundary and lowest boundary of the scope of operation of the quantities that definite qualities can hold. Degree is the range of the scope of the key points. The quality of things remains unchanged within the range, and the quality of things change out of the range. Therefore, people should prevent the transformation of movement range in the practice, which is the foundation to ensure exercising moderately and embody the value and function of this method.