Beginning Bird Flaps Its Wings and General Teaching Tips

Beginning Bird Flaps Its Wings

By Dora Derzon, Albuquerque, NM

When I teach Bird Flaps Its Wings to beginning students, it’s always the second movement that they learn. Therefore, this movement becomes the real transition, the deep dive, into working with the Cosmic Rhythm.

After learning and practicing Rocking Motion, the students have stirred the Chi, perhaps for the first time, and feel “different” and feel “something.” Some are slightly alarmed; some are feeling great. Almost all are relieved to finish. The first, awkward-feeling movement is over; and, surely, the next one will be easier now that the first one has been practiced.

When I say, “The next movement is Bird Flaps Its Wings, and it is done very differently than the one we just learned…,” I can see their eyes widen just slightly. I know that they are thinking, “I’ll never get this stuff!”

Ahhh, but I know that they can!

Without any words and in an instant I show them the way and invite them to “play with the Sages.”

From here, we move on to “start with your feet in a ‘V’ and your body upright and relaxed.”

General Teaching Tips

Compiled By Dorene Krause, Midland Park, NJ

From the New Jersey Teachers Retreat in April 2007

PREPARE TO MOVE.

S (sink, sit on one leg), H (hands move), H (heel is placed on the floor)

FLOWING FROM THE CENTER MUST BEGIN WITH GOOD POSTURE.

VISUALS.

The pelvic area is a basin. As you sink and prepare to move, it fills with water. Move forward and back without spilling the water. Feel the heaviness in the lower body. Move forward as if someone were gently tugging a rope attached to your belt buckle.

PROPER YINNING/YANGING.

Experience the expansion (yang) and contraction (yin) with each weight shift.

TRY THIS.

Place your hands above and below the waist, with your palms facing the body and your hands touching. Move forward from the T’an T’ien. There is an expansion (yang) with a pelvic tilt and a slight separation between the hands. Move back from the T’an T’ien. The hands come back together. There is contraction (yin).

FOCUS ON THE SOLES OF THE FEET.

For awareness, massage the bottoms of the feet before moving. Envision energy traveling from the top of the head down to the soles of the feet. Feel yourself grounded. Feel four coins on the soles of the feet, with weight evenly distributed.

CIRCULARITY.

Energy is circular in our bodies and in the universe.

POLARITY.

You can feel polarity in many movements. There is a strong polarity in Daughter on the Mountaintop and Daughter in the Valley – at the top of the mountain and down in the valley and continually through the course of the movement. Feel the polarity as the palms pass each other in the “taffy movements,” when the hands form a ball. Bird Flaps its Wings begins with the palms facing each other; they slowly return to this polarity.

SOFTNESS & CONTINUITY.

Within the softness there is strength in the form. If there’s too much softness, the form disappears and the movement is empty. Move as if you’re in Italy cooking pasta –al dente – firm yet tender. Soft wrists do most of the movement. Movements should flow – make a patient transition.