John Du Cane is the author of Qigong Recharge, publisher, fitness guru, and accomplished businessman. I was lucky enough to talk to him recently. At first, I thought we would be steering the conversation towards all things kettlebell, and John’s pioneering work on seeding the fitness industry with quality kettlebell trainers, but something else caught my attention. And so, we talked about resilience and longevity.

John’s journey started in South Africa, where he spent his youth. At a young age, he sensed a connection between life and energy. I understood this as his awareness of the human body’s life force and the energy connection between humans.

John says, “I was constantly surrounded by nature, and it made me think about the world.”

John began his Qigong and Tai Chi practice in 1975 and has owned and run Dragon Door Publications since 1990 where he has embraced everything from martial arts to isometrics, beyond the popularization of hard style kettlebell training under the RKC banner.

Qigong and Resilience

As a qigong student, John Du Cane understands how our breath is a tool that we can use to develop physical and mental resilience.

Qigong is an art that originated in China and is taught to warriors to develop full self-awareness of their bodies and movements. I asked him if a specific qigong segment would help modern-day martial artists create this type of resiliency.

He suggested the iron shirt qigong.

If the breath is energy and energy is life, it will make sense why we would breathe in a way that flexes our core muscles as we engage in exercises like running, pull-ups, or lifting heavy weights in general.

Master Your Breathing

There have been many books and courses published on breathing techniques.

If you ever get intrigued enough to pick up a copy of John Du Cane’s qigong series on Amazon, I would also suggest picking up a copy of Breathing for Warriors by Belisa Vranich and Brian Sabin.

These books contain lots of information, tips, and tricks to get you started on your journey to mastering your breathing.

According to John, learning to master your energy through qigong can take many years. It takes a long time to develop because it goes beyond the physical aspects of our being. It helps us develop mental fortitude that will go on to sharpening our intuitive mind.

Train Your Inner Self

This ability can help us navigate through life by making decisions that make sense. I have made some choices in life that were logically sound but didn’t exactly feel right. Ultimately, those decisions led me to square one because I chose to ignore this sense of inner knowing.

That sense of inner knowing is your intuition, and if you choose to cultivate it through qigong, everything that happens to you starts happening for you.

It’s a shift in perspective—a deeper understanding of your purpose on this planet.

Teamwork makes the dream work. John began his friendship and working relationship with Pavel Tsatsouline when he enrolled in Pavel’s classes. Pavel’s technique, charm, and articulation skills made John approach Pavel to publish his programs.

In an interview with John, I asked him, “Was it because of all those decades of cultivating and training your intuition that you had an inner knowing that this partnership was going to be a success?”

John Du Cane replied that it might be challenging to comprehend what was going on in his universe, but it makes sense that he derives his strong self-knowing from training his inner self.

Kettlebell Movement

At that time, kettlebells were neither a trend nor incorporated in mainstream training programs. Even Pavel stated that it was probably a very niche market where he could reach out to elite strongman lifters and other interested professional athletes.

Little did they know, the kettlebell movement would become a worldwide phenomenon.

The kettlebell challenge provided a platform for people to develop their strength, breathing, and resilience all-in-one. At this point, it’s probably safe to say that as long as we are alive and enthusiastic about life, we will always want to push the limits.

We push boundaries to find the answer to the question that we’ve all been asking—Is there more to life than just our daily routines and duties?

A training program emerged called the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) and led to millions of people worldwide having the initials RKC tattooed on their bodies. It’s safe to say that there is more to life for anyone who decides to challenge themselves by enrolling in this rigorous program.

Like Pavel says, “I’m going to show you how to be a better man. If you don’t know, I’ll show you. If you don’t want to, I’ll make you.”

Kettlebell Mechanics

I am a reflective learner who takes knowledge from the external world to make it my own internally. My experience with kettlebell workouts has been amazing.

But to do it well, it will take even more years of training because the pursuit of perfection is the journey of a lifetime.

My initial encounter with the kettlebell helped me expose my bad habits with posture, breathing, and timing. I was a strong young man in my late teens and always found ways to add to my training program.

The first thing I noticed was that you could easily hurt yourself with bad form.

More specifically, it’s not advisable to curve your back when you are on the down-swing. It also means that I was using my arm strength and hip strength without utilizing my core strength’s full potential.

Having abs is cool but having the ability to flex and relax your core at the exact timing you want is the next level.

The repetitive movement of tension and release that we use to perform the kettlebell swings can apply to other fitness forms such as martial arts and rugby.

It’s a lot to take in, but the good news is, if you have a kettlebell sitting in your room or office like I do, you can get more training time to perfect your form and breathing. It only takes about 10-20 mins for a real workout which means it’s less invasive on your time.

As UFC multiple weight-class champion Connor Mcgregor once said, “Accuracy beats strength, and timing beats speed.”

I hope you have embarked on your journey to finding your form of perfection. If that journey is in fitness, I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of John Du Cane’s Qigong Recharge and Pavel’s Fast and Loose- Secrets of Russian Champions.

The post Longevity in Fitness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A recent editorial by Extreme Physiology and Medicine reviewed the role of the mitochondria in extreme situations.

History of Mitochondria

The author began by outlining the extreme origins of the mitochondria. The founding of complex life (even on the level of single cell organisms) had a shot in the dark when the first phospholipids (a kind of fat) came together to create the first membranes. Numerous organisms took advantage of this biological technology because it separated the internal environment of the organism from the outside.

Initially, there were two different cells – one large cell and the smaller mitochondria. No one is sure which was the predator, but one of them was out to get the other. The large one either swallowed up the mitochondria, or the mitochondria was an invader. Either way, the two different cells lived together for so long that they became one and are now found in most eukaryotic cells, the type of cell that every multicellular organism (like humans) is made from.

The little organisms that became organelles now fuel everything you do, and it’s a tall order they have to meet. Mitochondria can live in situations of extremes, such as high acidity, high temperatures, and low light. Today’s study shed light on how mitochondria behave in three extreme conditions: hot and cold temperatures, high altitude, and fasting.

Temperature

According to the author, more complex organisms have to work harder to maintain stable conditions inside the body. This is especially true for endotherms, or warm-blooded animals like birds and mammals. Exercising, or even surviving, in both cold and hot environments requires constant energy output. When you’re out on a run in freezing temperatures, your mitochondria don’t just make energy to move. They also act as a literal furnace to expend energy and generate heat.

Altitude

Mitochondria also provide protection during changes in altitude. During altitude training, the mitochondria undergo several changes to maintain the level of oxygen in your blood. They burn less fuel (and thus need less oxygen), use different fuel, and even go away entirely. These changes help maintain oxygen levels in the face of thinning air.

Fasting

Speaking of fuel choice, many factors can influence what fuels mitochondria use. For example, the author of the study points out that in times of nutritional plenty, mitochondria prefer pyruvate. During short-term fasting, fat becomes the preferred energy source. During long-term hunger, the mitochondria switch to ketogenesis for fuel.

This research supports the idea that food choices and timing should reflect which fuels you want to use. Generally, consuming fat regularly and practicing short-term fasting will, in time, increase your ability to use fat as fuel, right down to the mitochondrial level.

The review also reiterated that exercise helps determine the number of mitochondria in your cell. The less frequently you exercise, the fewer mitochondria you’ll have, and energy, coordination, and overall fitness will suffer as a result. But it works the other way, too. Your body will actually grow more mitochondria in response to exercise, which means a greater ability to produce energy. So get out there and move!

References:

1. Andrew Murray, “Mitochondria at the extremes: pioneers, protectorates, protagonists,” Extreme Physiology & Medicine 2014, 3:10

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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This sixth sense is the central intelligence or unconscious self, running all systems and storing and organizing information. It picks up on the body language of others and helps us discern peril from pleasure. It essentially is our survival sense. Its base function is to keep us alive and help us decide if we should fight, run, or stay.

We receive thousands of bits of information from the external world in a matter of seconds through visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory modes. In these few seconds our body is filtering and assessing what to do with the information.

When we empath, or sense energy coming through, it is a signal that we need to be on heightened awareness and focus. It’s time to pay very close conscious attention to the person or situation. We need to be even more present at this time and keep awareness to how the energy moves.

In many cases when I’m working with students or clients and have my hands on their bodies, I can see their thoughts, emotions, and past memories. This information lends an opportunity to assist the person who came to me for help. I often then ask questions to further understand if what I’ve just picked up is accurate. It becomes a tantalizing conversation between us about what this information means to them and how to address it.

Then there are other times I feel some other pulse of insight come through, like thinking about someone right before they call. Or when a loved one in another state is communicating telepathically, feeling a sense of “something is amiss” or that something great is about to happen. These are personal examples. What are yours?

How to use energy:

• As internal GPS on which direction to take in life.
• As a filter for discerning other people’s energy and your own.
• As a divining rod toward truth; let it take you deeper and closer to getting to know self and spirit, so as to let go of the values, beliefs, and rules that are right for others. Listen to you for self-governance.
• To ease tension around the heart, let go of survival needs, and stay present with the beauty around.
• As a forecaster for your future projects or works of art. This is the ignition of creation.
• Use the colors you see as they relate to chakras, spiral dynamics, or organisms, to help comprehend their many meanings.
• Use the positive internal voice as a way to encourage, affirm, and relate to others. Life conditions can cloud present and future happiness. Listen intently for all signals of good coming through you. Write these down and condition yourself to be responsive to these, especially if you tend to be responsive or reactive to concerns.

Becoming a trained sensor is about remaining open to the external world and the internal world, for it is a two-way street. What we think creates actions and behaviors, and what we sense outside ourselves influences our psychology. The energetic ranges can be explored when one is open enough to trust that something greater than intelligence exists.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Intuition: Sensing and Using Energy appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

How do you know energy exists and how do you sense it? Are you naturally a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic sensor? When you sense something someone is speaking about, do you get a picture, hear words, or feel something? Of the three the one that happens first is called your lead representational system, or, the lead sensation with which you internally represent external information. This is why we have different ways of defining, describing, and sensing what energy is. It can be experienced in different ways.

Energy is within and around us everywhere and our body is a complex system of moving energy. We transform external sources of energy (sunlight, water, food) into fuel for mitochondria in each of our cells to use for our own physiological needs. We receive energy from external sources, and conduct, emit, store and transform energy. We are an energy receiver, conductor, producer and transformer. We sense when things are about to go wrong, we sense a person’s bad mood, we manifest what we want with a single thought, and we communicate our internal feelings or thoughts without eye contact, producing sounds or feeling the touch of someone or something.

With so much energy out there, it could be useful for you to protect yourself from other’s energies or know how to cleanse yourself of negative energies. These can both be done through different methodologies based on different belief systems and practices.

How to shield from receiving people’s energy:

• Wearing ceremonial attire
• Adorning with symbolic pieces of jewelry or accoutrements
• Setting an intent or saying a prayer prior to encountering a situation
• Thinking and focusing on what outcome you want to have happen as a result of the upcoming situation
• Smudging yourself or the room with incense, sage, sweet grass, aromatherapies, or water

How to let go of energy that has contaminated our own field:

• Take a shower and visualize the contamination going down the drain
• Focus on each exhale, blowing or releasing the energy out of the body
• Singing, humming or Bhramari Pranayama
• Washing hands
• Digging in the dirt

These are all ideas created from many people and ultimately there are only right answers. Know your lead representational system to know how you sense energy and train yourself to skillfully discern energy coming in and energy you are emitting. In this way, it becomes easier to shield and release energy that is not serving you.

Next week will talk about how to use energy and apply it in different ways to assist our personal growth and empathy for other people.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post What Is “Energy” – How You See & How You Keep Bad Energy Away appeared first on Breaking Muscle.