Taikokyu-ka Hello I wanted to thank everybody for putting such a great effort in for the whole year. We are a couple classes away from finishing 52 weeks of Taikokyu Live. You should be proud of your commitment. I’m certainly proud of you. Especially those of you that I’ve gotten to know over the last months by tuning in on Fridays directly so I could have a chance to meet you all. I know some of the most exciting times of the year have been taking my Taikokyu on the road with me wherever I go and elucidating that to all of you. Actually, I’ve always made time for movement so that my body doesn’t stiffen up, either through Travel itself, or sitting around, or after getting sick, or having an accident of some kind. Our bodies demand to move and it is pretty loud at times. If we simply ignore signs our body gives us, bits and pieces will just fall into disuse and at times disrepair. I know that sounds kind of glum. I don’t mean it that way really but I am saying that wherever you go and wherever you are, our bodies are there serving us so it’s a darn good idea to take care of every aspect of our movement and enhanced movement and over all Health. Now it sounds cliché but whatever it takes for us to switch on to the altruism of health then so be it. I have talked about the notion of eating well many times, this too cannot be overstated. In many parts of the world, but especially the west, the winter solstice and Christmas holidays beckon our attention and are calling us to eat foods we wouldn’t normally eat and drink things we wouldn’t normally drink, or at least not in the quantities we get exposed to at this time of year. Our fortitude to moderate the intake of the “questionable”is at peak attentiveness right now! Even though it might not seem like it, our diet and mental health are directly proportional to one another. If you can’t trust that just remember a time that you ate something that you later either regretted or it made you ill in someway. This is a great place to feel that out.

Hello, I hope this message finds you all well. I want to talk a little bit about a question that was poised to me today in class. The question was: “how do you deal with pain, especially if it’s felt every day.” I gave a few answers to this as they came-to me, however I would like to address the subject a little bit more deeply now. In our modern lives, we are put under tremendous toxic strain, not just on our vital organs and glands, but also on the bigger organs, the stomach, the intestinal tract, the lungs, our spine, and in fact, basically our whole body not to mention our psyche. Our stomachs are often perpetually stuffed with foods that are often denatured and are taken in horrible combinations, and in fact, often incompatible combinations. The next tubes in line are, of course, the small intestine and the large intestine, which are also often packed with the same. Our organs like the liver are swollen and strained with their effort to try to break down massive amounts of foods that are often as I say incompatible. Imagine our organs having to deal with massive intakes of animal, protein, fats, and then of course, maybe drugs and poisons that we are exposed to in our daily lives. Our pancreas balloons beyond its normal size, mainly due to the fact that it’s constantly demanded of for digestive enzymes that are often overloaded into the small intestine. Even at our jobs we can be exposed to fumes, chemicals, aerosols, dusts, noise etc. Really this is just superficially, not mentioning how these things are taken in voluntarily but also how we take in poisons orally by eating fast foods or grabbing a soda conviently from the vending machine. Our small intestine, but especially the large intestine gets lined with layer upon layer of glue like substance that contains poisons, and Auto intoxicates the bloodstream. Honestly, in many ways, a self fulfilling prophecy of inhabitable health. All of this puts tremendous load on our bodies. Because the intake of foods are somewhat iffy and not always healthy or compatable our organs are called to process enzyme-less foods, that is, of course often why they expand themselves working that much harder to process what we are stuffing into them and exposing them to.

When we think about breathing, we must always remember the fundamentals of what breath is to sustain life. Fact is we can go for a long period of time without food and even long periods of time without water, but we can only live for a few moments without air. Even when we consider going out there for a few moments, one cannot help but think of the amazing Pearl divers off the coast of southern Japan. The Ama 海女 can work for long periods of time collecting seaweed and shellfish, especially abalone. But they are only holding their breath for up to two minutes per dive, but in very harsh conditions. Nonetheless, the most important thing to realize is that breath can never be taken for granted and its connection to our life and overall health is not just important it is essential. Having said this, the nutritional value of breath itself is far more vital than the life essence we receive from food or water through our digestion. What’s most important is a breathing influences the bodies bioelectric balance just his diet influences the biochemical balance Basically our breathing apparatus is capable of dualistic function those functions are both cleansing like detoxing and literally cleaning the air as it’s breathed through the sinuses as they act as a filtration system. Then of course our inhalation is energizing by charging the body with a vital nutrients it gets from the air itself. When our breath is used as a cleansing or detoxification element the body cycles the air out through exhalation and this is releasing into the atmosphere things like carbon dioxide. Why this is is because as we breathe oxygen in to energize the cells in our body the process that takes place creates carbon dioxide as a byproduct. This is exactly why our body exhales carbon dioxide as it is considered byproduct waste. The fact is our exhalation breath contains many volatile organic compounds as they are sometimes called VOCs. There are more chemicals, besides carbon dioxide in these byproduct accelerations chemical such as: acetone, ethanol, and other alcohols; methanol, isoprene, ketones, water, and even hydrocarbons.

I can't wait to see you all for our first LIVE Taikokyu session tomorrow! I just wanted to share my testimonial for what this incredible practice has done for me.