I have received many questions. My goal is to respond to one question/comment/concept on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next couple of weeks. Please check back for these updates.
I have received a number of inquiries regarding whether or not I did any “regular” exercises or aerobic exercises along with the Qigong exercises. Here is my response:
No additional physical or aerobic exercises. Two reasons for this: 1. I could not do them even if I wanted to. I could not even take my daily evening walk around the neighborhood with my wife. I was too stiff, too sore, and I lacked energy. 2. As a result of 1., I adopted a less-is-more philosophy. Here is an excerpt from one of my blog posts on this point:
“… less is more. When I push myself to the limits of my mobility, I tire easily, freeze more, hunch over, and experience terrible balance issues. I made the decision to move slower than my Parkinson’s permits. The results have been very good. When I walk slower, do not try to forcibly swing my arms, and concentrate on my steps, I can stand straighter and with better balance. When I walk up the stairs, instead of going every other step where I had to use a lot of upper body strength to help pull me up the stairs, I now step up and then bring the other foot to the same step. The energy to do this is minimal compared to the workout I had been going through to get up the stairs, plus, my hand rests on the railing for balance; no upper body assistance is needed to walk up the stairs.”
If you feel like you want or need to do other physical exercise or aerobic exercise, please do what you feel is good for you. Just a note on this: Qigong builds internal energy and stimulates the lymph system to cleanse toxins, and it does not use much external energy; hence, more energy stays inside to strengthen and heal the body. Vigorous physical exercise also builds internal energy and cleanses toxins, but one loses a fair amount of internal energy as a result of performing vigorous physical exercise. It is part of why Qigong heals slowly from deep within and why many people cannot stick with it — they cannot “see” results for a while, and it requires faith that something good is going on inside.
But this faith is the first step in recovery. First heal the soul (faith that you will recover), and the mind (no fear or worries that you will not recover) and the body (physical recovery) will follow.
See you Friday.
All my best,
Howard
