You Are How You Move: Experiential Chi Kung

Chi Kung is the best kept secret on the planet. It is a powerful way of becoming fit, healthy and balanced through opening and mobilising the body and joints, breathing techniques, slow movement exercises, standing postures, special walking methods and meditation. It can be done anywhere, any time, in whatever you are wearing. With consistent practice you can transform your health to a high level of vitality. Ged Sumner writes with rich insights into how to begin to think about your body and how to take the steps that will enable you to transform your practice. Completely accessible to those new to the field, the book will also be transformative for more experienced practitioners, providing many new ways of looking at `old' elements of Chi Kung practice, and exploring the essential parts of the body most affected by Chi Kung. This modern, accessible approach to Chi Kung by a highly experienced teacher integrates mind and body and shows you how to become sensitive to yourself. A free website shows video footage of the forms in the book for easy reference.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements. Introduction: What is Exercise? 1. Finding Your Spine. 2. Listening to Your Body. 3. Natural Alignment. 4. Breathe More. 5. A New Pelvis.6. Know Your Feet. 7. Moving in Three Dimensions. 8. The Art of Standing Still. 9. Opening Your Joints. 10. Chi Flow. 11. Fire and Water. 12. Transformations. 13. Be Spontaneous. 14. Chi Meditations. 15. Chi Kung Applications.

About the Author :
Ged Sumner is a practicing craniosacral therapist, and teaches craniosacral therapy and chi kung. He has also studied shiatsu, healing and attachment based psychoanalytical psychotherapy, and has a degree in chemistry. He is the director of Body Intelligence Training, which offers biodynamic craniosacral therapy practitioner courses in Europe, North America, Australasia and the Middle East (www.bodyintelligence.com), and is also the director of Natural Movement – Elemental Chi Kung (www.naturalmovement.info).

Review :
Recommended for any martial arts library. You Are How You Move - Experimental Chi Kung. Practicing craniosocial therapist and chi kung teacher Ged Sumner beleives chi kung is the best kept secret on the planet. In You Are How You Move, Sumner says that exercise has long been considered as a stressful activity - in fact, he says in modern society there's an overwhelming tendency for everything to be stressful. That's where chi kung comes in. There's an alternative way to exercise that involves being gentle with yourself and enjoyable, while being no less powerful. You Are How You Move shows the reader, using photographs throughout the book, how to tap into their body, find the body's centre and spine, and listen to the message it gives them. Using this traditional and ancient form of Chinese movement, Sumner says we can become fit and healthy - vital, even - through opening and mobilising our body and joints. As a practising craniosacral therapist and tutor Ged understands how important the simple things can be. It is a practical book that needs to be used and not just read. It includes clear and intuitive insights for getting the most out of your qigong exercises...This is an excellent book not only to serve as an introduction to qigong but also to help us gain clarity and reconnect with the basics. With Sumner's guide as a source book, you are introduced to many useful techniques of self-awareness and self-cultivation. Some of the material is uniquely his; the remainder is useful in the way he draws it together into a single body of work.