Ramel Rones - Sunrise Tai Chi: Simplified Tai Chi for Health and Longevity

Ramel Rones

with

David Silver

YMAA Publication Center

Wolfeboro, NH USA

YMAA Publication Center

Main Office

PO Box 480

Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, 03894

1-800-669-8892

2007 by Ramel Rones with David Silver

All rights reserved including the right of
reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Editor: Susan Bullowa

Art Direction/Cover Concept: Ramel Rones

Cover Photos and Illustrations: Ilana Rosenberg-Rones

Cover Concept: Vadim Goretsky

Cover Adaption: Axie Breen

ISBN: 9781594390838 (print) ISBN: 9781594391446 (ebook)

Publishers Cataloging in Publication

Rones, Ramel.

Sunrise tai chi : simplified tai chi for health & longevity / Ramel Rones with David Silver. 1st ed. Boston, Mass. : YMAA Publication Center, 2007.

p. ; cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59439-083-8

ISBN-10: 1-59439-083-5

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Tai chi. 2. Exercise. 3. Health. 4. Longevity. 5. Stress management. I. Silver, David. II. Title.

Disclaimer:

The author and publisher of this material are NOT RESPONSIBLE in any manner whatsoever for any injury which may occur through reading or following the instructions in this manual.

The activities, physical or otherwise, described in this material may be too strenuous or dangerous for some people, and the reader(s) should consult a physician before engaging in them.

This ebook contains Chinese translations of many terms and may not display properly on all e-reader devices. You may need to adjust your Publisher Font Default setting.

This book by Ramel Rones has been anxiously awaited by professionals and all those dedicated to health promoting activity. We scientists and professionals committed to the dissemination of knowledge which will help people maintain strong and healthy bodies have long needed to refer to a book which clearly makes the connection between exercise and spirit, between the mind and the body. Ramel Rones captures the essence of how the ancient Eastern concepts of mind and body can connect with our modern ideas of health-promoting exercise. He presents this approach in a way that we can understand and begin to use immediately. I have personally worked with Rami and have experienced the benefits and insights of his blend of Tai Chi, yoga, and balance control. This book is a powerful tool for our efforts of motivating people to adopt and use healthy practices to strengthen the body and mind.

I strongly believe that Ramel Rones instruction of low-impact, stress-reducing exercises and meditations has strong potential to immediately help people that are seeking good quality of life and excellent health and longevity, as well as to complement the journey each individual needs to take with various medical issues.

Some of the medical studies, R-21, which were done with Ramel Rones approach have showed promising results: improvement in balance, flexibility, and arthritis symptoms, reduction of pain, stress, and anxiety, and improvement in cardiorespiratory function.

Miriam E. Nelson, Ph.D.
School of Nutrition Science & Policy,
Tufts University

In order to obtain the full benefits of this book, first read through it completely to understand the theory and become familiar with what I call the different mind/ body prescriptions, the exercises/visualizations.

Once you begin training, start practicing the physical skills separately from the mental visualizations. Practice the various physical and mental skills individually until you sense that it is time to put them together. Use my concept of the Art of Using 80 Percent of your Effort when advancing through the physical skills, which will help you to prevent injuries, leaving the other 20 percent of your attention for focusing on the breath and the mental tasks. Being able to visualize three or four visualizations at once is not easy. It is a process that takes time. Do not overload your brain; give yourself enough time and slack, and do not be hard on yourself.

For beginners, it is natural, when you are trying to put your mind in the energy centers, for other thoughts to steal your mind away from staying focused on the visualization. Instead of fighting your thoughts and trying to pull them back into your energy centers, try to loop them back in a natural, curving arc. Let the thoughts happen and then just loop them back in, and regain your focus on your breath and the sensation of the energy center. When you realize a thought has taken your attention, you can visualize looping your attention in through the Third Eye, into the pituitary gland area or energy center, and connect into the baton in the center of your body, and then lead it down into the lower energy center in your abdomen, your center of gravity energy center. As you read this book, all of these concepts are explained.

Again, this will take time and energy. Therefore, you must invest the time and the effort to achieve these internal goals. Once you achieve them, you can gradually mix this skill with any other stretches, stances, moving Tai Chi drills, and the Tai Chi form we will show you in this book.

Advance through the theory as well as through the action while referring back to the detailed instructions until you have a strong understanding of the various mind/body prescriptions, the separate Tai Chi movements, and the Tai Chi form. Practice the Tai Chi drills and the form both ways, to the left and right. Remember, one of the main objectives of the exercises in this book is to free your skeleton from being a prisoner of the soft tissue. If you cannot perform certain physical skills, it is often because the soft tissue is shortened from lack of use or insufficient stretching. It is restricting the full range of motion of your skeleton. Once you are free of this shortness in the soft tissue, and you have built enough strength, you can do what your body is potentially designed to do and the quality of your life will change tremendously.

Try to experience simultaneously the heavy force from your bodys Center of Gravity Energy Center downward, and the light force from the Center of Gravity area upward, and then through the center of the body and the spine. One day you will be able to differentiate between the two at all times. You will discover that when you inhale, it enhances the feeling of the light force through the spine, and when you exhale, you lead the heavy force through the legs.

As you become more advanced or experienced, you will see that you can change this at will. When you inhale, you can emphasize the heavy force through the legs while monitoring the light force through the spine and when you exhale, emphasize the light force through the spine while monitoring the heavy force through the legs. This skill can be very useful in your Tai Chi practice and in developing a stronger ability to monitor your bodys internal properties.

Connecting with the forces of nature, especially the sun, is very important. You will need to remember the experiences and sensations which you have had with each one of these natural forces and try to apply them when you are visualizing the forces.

For example, when you work with the earth energy, you may recall the experience of working in the garden, digging into the earth with your hands, planting, and feeling the earth between your fingers. This physical feedback can help you have a stronger sensation of earth energy in your visualization.