Excercise for the New Year: Five Tibetan Rites

The following instructions are for the Five Tibetan Rites. When performing these exercises, you may begin with just one, move to increments of three, working up to a maximum of twenty-one. Be mindful of your body and how you are feeling, only do as many as you can without straining yourself.

Rite 1

Stand erect with arms outstretched, horizontal to the floor. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, hold your left palm facing up, right palm facing down and spin around clockwise.  If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, hold your left palm facing down, right palm facing up and spin counter clockwise.

Gradually increase number of spins from 1 spin to 21 spins, in increments of one or three.

Breathing: Inhale and exhale deeply as you do the spins.

Rite 2

First, lie flat on the floor, face up.
Fully extend your arms along your sides, and place the palms of your hands against the floor or under your sacrum for support.

Then, raise your head off the floor, tucking the chin against the chest.

As you do this, lift your legs, knees straight, into a vertical position. If possible, let the legs extend to 90 degrees, using your abdominal muscles; do not let the knees bend.

Then slowly lower both the head and the legs, knees straight, to the floor. Allow all the muscles to relax, continue breathing in the same rhythm.

Gradually increase from 1-21 in increments of three.

Breathing: Breathe in deeply as you lift your head and legs and breathe out, as you lower your head and legs.

Rite 3

Kneel on the floor, with the body erect.

The hands should be placed against the back thigh muscles. Incline the head and

neck forward, tucking the chin against the chest. Then, lift the head and neck backward and arch the spine. Your toes should be curled under during this exercise.

As you arch, you will brace your arms and hands against the thighs for support. After the arching, return

to the original position, and start the rite all over again. Repeat in increments of three, up to 21.

Breathing: Breathe in deeply as you arch the spine, breathe out as you return to an erect position.

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Rite 4

Sit down on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you and your feet about 12 inches apart.

With the trunk of the body erect, place the palms of your hands, facing your feet, on the floor alongside the buttocks.

Then, tuck the chin forward against the chest. Now, drop the head backward as far as

it will go.

At the same time, bend your knees, feet flat on the ground and lift the hips up. There should be a straight line from the collar bone to the knees, your back is straight, and the knees bend while the arms remain straight.

The trunk of the body will be in a straight line with the thighs, horizontal to the floor.  Relax your muscles as you return to the original sitting position.

Breathing: Breathe in as you raise up, breathe out fully as you come down.

Rite 5

To begin the fifth rite, begin on your hands and knees. The hands should be shoulder width apart with the fingers facing forward. The knees are directly under the hips, shoulder width apart.

Curl your toes forward, to get ready to come up, take your knees off the ground and raise your hips up, to be in a triangle position or downward dog position, the second position  from the pictures.

Then, bring legs down to the ground and lift your head up. The spine is arched. Make sure not to strain your back and only go as far as your body is comfortable.

Throughout this rite, the elbows are kept straight.

Breathing: Breathe in deeply as you raise the body, breathe out fully as you lower it.

Live Well,

Darren Gibson

Defense Physiology-Why do I need to Know?

Why is it so important to know about the defense physiology?

The defense physiology takes up a lot of your energy; it takes 60 to 80% or even more of your energy to hold yourself in the defense physiology.  The defense physiology is brought about by the primal brain.

There are three parts to the brain, the frontal lobe, the limbic brain and the reptilian brain, which I refer to as the primal brain.

The frontal lobe is where we process our conscious thought and where we have the ability to make decisions.  This is what sets us apart from animals, they do not have a frontal lobe, and they do not have the ability to make a conscious choice.

The limbic brain is where our emotions are and also is concerned with the functions of the body.

The primal brain works in order of priorities of the body, in other words the heart would keep beating before the function of the leg.

The top four priorities of the brain are first of all survival, then feeding, reproduction of cells and the ongoing of the species and the fourth being the auto immune system.

The first priority of survival is flight, fight, fear and faint or freeze.

So the primal brain only knows now, everything that has happened in the past or it thinks it will happen in the future is happening right now.  If there is a fear it will put this as the top priority and put the body in a defense physiology therefore this programming is always there until there is release of that programming.  With that release it enables the body to use the energy in other priorities of the body.

When the body is consistently out of the defense physiology you will hardly if ever get sick, since the body has all of the available energy to use for the other functions in the body.

I will be talking in later posts about how to release the programming that is holding the body in defense physiology.

Live Well,

Darren Gibson