fallSTOP: Qigong for Fall Prevention

• Qigong’s gentle, rhythmic exercises mirror themovements and character of benign nature - the fluidity of water, the fresh,open lightness of space, and the true, deep support of the earth. Chi Kung is uniquely suited to heighten body awareness, sense of ease, balance andcoordination. It relieves stress, cultivates presence and trust, an ongoing attention to sensation, boundaries, centre, ground and space, and proper use of the body.
• This way of proactive exploration of one’scapacities is empowering for fall-sensitives: gradually developing mindful awareness of self as centered and grounded in the body, as well as learning movement sequences imbedded in sensory reality and having some but not too much complexity, builds self-confidence and self-efficacy.
• Relaxation: Facilitates proprioception when tied to soft, directed attention, thereby building somatic intelligence and adaptive environmental responses. Unfolding process of releasing armouring,habit and control and accessing the natural, self-organizing integrity of thebodymind. Encourages descent of the centre of gravity towards belly and stronger “rooting” in the earth. Reverses the destabilizing rise of the centre of gravity to the upper chest which occurs overtime for most adults in our culture. Releases musculoskeletal tensionsthat compromise sensing, alignment and energy flow and helps inoculate against learned anxieties, eg. “Post-Fall Syndrome”.
• On a related front,  physical or emotional insults/trauma that persist and are not energetically released  often go underground and manifest as chronic muscular contraction, deeply unconscious and involuntary, and either everpresent or tripped by some kind of expectation, like doubts or fears about falling. Dubbed “Sensory Motor Amnesia” by somaticist Thomas Hanna, this crippling scourge of aging is reversible through psychophysical re-education, the re-awakening of sensation in frozen shoulders, backs, hips or bellies.
• WHAT WE CAN FEEL, WE CAN MOVE!
• Precision of movement: Flows from balance of opposites, “yin” and “yang”. Skeletal alignment is critical for sense of connection through bones down to ground and up to sky. Energy balances typically by rising from pelvis to head and sinking from hips to feet. Acute awareness of weight shifts from one leg to the other, facilitated by Qigong, develops sensitivity and gait efficiency. Mindfulness ofplacement, angle, and weight distribution of feet (so often encased in shoe “coffins”)is particularly highlighted in this activity. At the other end of the body, practitioners emphasize relaxed “soft eyes”, processing the extra data fromperipheral vision that can defuse falls, and de-emphasizing culturally preferred but constricting tunnel vision (“hard eyes”)
• Body as holistic process, not mechanical object: Qigong acknowledges we are “beings” first, then “doers” and “thinkers”. Beings are in the body. Thinking more than a little is disembodying, and objectifies the body and environment as “other”. This ensures a vulnerable, unbalanced state that the thinking mind will always try to solidify and secure with even more thinking about the matter, thereby distracting attention from present physical reality, eg. a body about to fall in the current flow of things. The solution is to break the over-thinking habit by returning over and over to the body and its somatic cues and wisdom, via practices like Qigong.
• Emphasis on focus of attention (“mind moves chi”),intention, mindful repetition, overcoming “sensory-motor amnesia” evidenced by faulty “image body” in order to sense the real body, the “feral self” vs. the “civilized self”.  Releasing a lifetime of holding tensions, and allowing, not forcing or stretching. Quality of loving and self-respectful movement (“body as temple”). Locomotor choice not compulsion, awareness not mindlessness. Hence empowering, vivifying and balancing!
• “Balance” itself is a whole systems process, tied to physical posture and alignment, full-body movement coordination, attentional flexibility, emotional equilibrium, optimal physiology, and compensations and counterweights of many kinds. Qigong activates layers of somatic intelligence to serve all these systems.

fall STOP: Qigong for Fall Prevention is available as a Teacher Training on-site at your organization. Details here.

Public trainings for health/recreation professionals on occasion. Stay tuned.