10/30/09 GM minutes

1^st Speaker Rynne

• Acupuncture, Chiropracter’s office, home office
• Acupressure colleague: Susan
• Acupressure Institute nearby on Shattuck
• Institute has been around for 30 years, down on Shattuck and Cedar.
• Provides 3-hour classes for stress reduction, relieving back, shoulder, and neck pain

History of Acupressure

• Acupressure is over 5000 years old, oldest form of medicine we know based in Asian countries
• Acupuncture  stemmed from acupressure
• We help each other by touching, by herbs and plants that were local to our areas
• Fingers or whole hands, with various levels of pressure (gentle or firm, tapping, rubbing, squeezing)
• We call it now “massage” days gone by it was how we moved energy through the body
• What we do when we are constricted by stress is exist in discomfort and disquieting. It is manifested in pain and tension.
• Muscular tension, lack of oxygen, lack of circulation—STAGNATION

The river (flow of energy meridians) of energy that flows in your body

• If a river has a dam in it, it doesn’t flow and becomes putrid and stagnant.
• Acupressure is moving blockages and dams so the body can flow fluidly.
• Motto of acupressure: “Where there is no flow, there is pain. Where there is flow, there is no pain.”
• Acupuncture came along many years after acupressure. Application of needles into points.
• Breathing exercises, movement, points and applying pressure. These are things we can take with us when we’re stressed about school or family or friends. These are all ways of moving energy

Breathing Exercise

• Position body comfortably
• Close eyes and focus on your breath
• Feel your ribcage moving UP and OUT
• Lungs pressing inside ribcage lift ribcage and widen ribcage
• Bring attention down into belly, feel our belly button, enjoy the movement of your belly
• Take a full breath in and hold. Exhale everything completely and then relax.
• Notice that your spine gets longer, your shoulders depress
• When you’re ready, come back to the room, leaving the belly, leaving the chest, touching your shoulders.

Movement Exercise

• Helicopter/Windmill movement: both feet on the ground, twist back and forth, letting arms swing freely
• Wake up, re-energize body after sitting for a while
• Spine rub: rub your lower back up and down, side to side, in circles
• The Yolk: gently pound your shoulder (near neck) with the opposite fist
• Used fingers to tap along midline of back of your head
• Then brush along your forehead out
• Brush out along entire length of all the body’s meridians
• Allow your feet to be soft, feel the bottoms of your feet, let arms hang loosely, knees over ankles, hips over knees, shoulders over hips, and head over hips

Book in Chinese medicine: Between Heaven and Earth
Handouts available for 4 essential exercises to relieve tension
Use these handouts prior to going to bed so you’ll be able to sleep.
Chi-gung in Chinese Medicine—the art of using your body and tapping into your chi for healing arts.
Healing Arts:

• Promoting health
• Classes offered at the Acupressure institute on Shattuck
• Free ticket to attend a class if you have time—more information later.

Handout:

• 8 Essential Movements and exercises
• With partner
• Very gently rub your hands together.
• Point 1: Put your hands on top of the shoulder, come out to the edge, and come right behind right where the shoulder bone attaches to the shoulder girdle.
• Rub and then let fingers rest at this point
• Point 2: Bring fingers into toward the scapula’s top angle, put your finger  there and rub.
• Allow hands to rest lightly on shoulders with your fingers still in the spot.
• Point number 3: Right where neck and shoulder meets, come out a fingertip or two. With a very light touch, rub. Relieve the tension there.
• Allow fingers to rest there.
• Point 4: Right below skull, halfway down, put fingers there. Put your other hand on the person’s forehead.
• Point 5: Move up to the base of the occipital (base of skull) poking very gently under the base of the skull, on the underside o the bone.
• Put your hand on top of their head and other hand on their forehead.
• Point 6: Place hand below the clavicle and rest