Joint mobility: a warm-up for people who sit all day

Hello, friends. In this lesson I will show you a short joint mobility sequence, which you can and should do at least once or twice a day. You can do it instead of or together with your morning exercise, if you have the time and the inclination, or during the day in a break in work, at the end of the day, at any time — the only restriction is that it is not recommended straight after eating. About an hour should pass after a meal. Any place will do. Here, as you can see, I have the corner of a room. No more than two square metres, and perhaps even less. My desk is here, and it is enough for me simply to get up from it, step over to this corner, and I can do the sequence. Our task is to turn every joint. All the joints that do not work properly while we are sitting, lying down, travelling by car, and sometimes even while walking. It might seem that we are walking, yes, but most of our joints are not working in every direction, and our task is for them to be turned in every direction. Let us begin. Breathe in, breathe out. Shougong — gathering. Breathe in. Reach up a little. Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out. You do not need to control the breath at this point. You can simply breathe freely. Feet shoulder-width apart. A little narrower is fine, but not together and not spread wide. The legs are almost straight. Bend the knees just the smallest amount, only slightly. Let us continue. Rotation in the shoulder joints. The arm is free. I will turn side-on for a moment. Look, they are slightly bent, as it were. I do not bend them deliberately, but I do not straighten them out like this either. That is, we are not stretching taut here at the elbow joint, at the wrist joints. We rotate freely. Our task is to turn the shoulder joint. Let the arms be like this. How do they go? Slowly we make circles like these and try to do it softly, about nine times. And backwards the same, we do not straighten, we do not do that. Like this. The crane spreads its wings. Here you can put the feet together. It is more comfortable that way. You need not press the heels right against each other. Leave half a heel between them. Roughly the width of half a heel. Like this. And we open the chest a little, we close the shoulder blades. We open, we close the shoulder blades, we open the chest, we close the shoulder blades. If you are controlling the breath, then breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Shougong. Between exercises it is best to do it one to three times. Like this. Shougong.

Rotation of the hands inwards and outwards.

One more rotation in the shoulder joint, but we do it as though striking forward with the elbows. Vertically. We try to describe a vertical plane, but we do not strain. If it does not come out vertical at all, you can do it like this. The initial movement of the elbows should be along the vertical plane. After that, however it works out. We take it back and lift it up. Back and lift up. Back and lift up. And the other elbow. Exactly the same. Notice that the body turns around the vertical axis, while the elbow travels —

that is, the planes of rotation end up intersecting perpendicularly.

And the reverse movement downwards. In the same way we lift the elbow and lower it down. Lift, lower, lift, lower down. Here with this arm we lift and lower down. Like this.

Now, here you should not clench the fists, you should not splay the fingers. When we clench tightly, when the palm is closed, the fingers are tense too. When the fingers are splayed, they are tense as well. Our task is to do everything in a relaxed way. So this position, a free position, the fingers slightly apart, a little, like this. If we close a fist, then it is as though we were holding something lightly in the palm, but not gripping it — that is not needed. We must do everything in a relaxed way.

Rotation of the head. We look, we find a point on the wall. Ninety degrees from our straight-ahead gaze. And we look at that point. Slowly we turn, gently, we do not jerk the head. We are not building up the muscles of the neck here. We are simply looking, training.

Our task is to rotate the cervical spine. And now we look straight ahead. Well, right now I am looking into the camera, but it is better to choose a point further away. Some point or other, and to make exactly the same rotations without taking your eyes off it. Right now I am trying not to take my eyes off the camera. In this way we train peripheral vision on the same movements. Now a half-circle downwards, along the lower arc, as it were. Freely, like this. Along the upper one. Carefully — the main thing is not to make sharp movements. And we rotate. We lead with the eyes, as far as we can take it, but slowly and gently. Slowly. We describe a circle with the eyes along the ceiling, along the wall, along the floor, along the ceiling, along the wall.

We describe circles. Finished. Shougong. Raised, lowered.

We take a ball. An imaginary ball. You could take an actual ball, but why waste time? Turns of the torso around the vertical axis. You can turn a little, you can turn more, but it is not obligatory. Our task is to rotate around the vertical axis like this.

Finished. We have been going from the top down. Now we go from the bottom. Ah, the cup as well. We set down an imaginary cup. We bring it out towards ourselves, we turn it over, we raise it in a circle, we carry the circle over the head and bring it back to ourselves.

Once more towards ourselves. We turn it behind the back, we carry it round in a circle, in a spiral, we raise it above the head. Once more round the circle and back to ourselves. And we repeat it like that nine times.

Many people ask why not take a real plastic cup. You can, you can take a cup, but at this point our task is not to reproduce the movement exactly so that the water does not spill, so that the cup does not fall and break. Our task is simply the rotation of the joint. So cups are not needed. For anyone who cannot turn the arm out exactly to the horizontal position — mine does not come out perfectly either. Not perfectly at all. Do it however it works out for you. The task is rotation all the same, the reeling of the silk thread, what we would call chansigong, in our school, in the Chen directions. And with the other hand we set the cup towards ourselves, turn it behind the back, carry it in front of us, above the head, and take it back towards ourselves. Circles with spirals is what comes out, circles with spirals.

The second hand can be free, or put it on your waist. Whichever is comfortable, it does not matter. And now the feet together. And with both hands. The same thing. Here you can and should help yourself with the back. Like this. When we bring it towards ourselves, the back is naturally straight. Here we are suspended — do not forget — the whole time by the crown of the head. It goes forward a little, and that is fine. And like this it goes back, and like this forward. And like this back. Forward.

Finished. Rotation of the feet — this is something our feet never do. Our foot works like this when we walk, but it never works like this. And it does not rotate. The joint in this place does not move. There is complete stagnation there. We must do it in both directions. We rotate circles. And then a circle inwards nine times. We raise

the knee to about ninety degrees. A little less is fine. Higher is not needed, it is pointless. Excessive. There. Well, you can do it like this. And we rotate in the knee joint. Whoever finds it comfortable can stand like this; you can put your hands on your waist, one hand — the right hand for the right leg — on the knee, I find that more comfortable sometimes. Or it just rests there doing nothing. If you are unsteady, take hold of something — I have a piece of furniture here — or you can lean against the wall, or, if you are doing this outdoors, some tree or other, it does not matter. The task here — yes, of course, it is good when we can build such a fine stance, with a kind of rod running through us from here and down into the ground. It is a pleasant sensation, but if it does not come out, never mind, it is not obligatory. We are working on the knees at the moment. There. Well, this is rotating. It is very pleasant, because the knees — we sit, we sit in an office at a computer, in a car. The knees are tired from these static positions, from a constant, constant lack of movement. We give them a chance to move. You can also swing them back and forth a little.

And shake out, loosen the legs, because during these exercises, however much we try to do them in a relaxed way, it never comes out perfectly. It is quite difficult, so a relaxing exercise is always good — to shake things out a little like this. Rotation in the hip joint inwards. The same thing: if it is hard to stand on one leg like that, or awkward — it happens outdoors, you know, there are dips in the ground, something of that sort. Take hold of something, hold on like this, and that is all. In a hall, hold the wall bars, perhaps, if you are doing it in a hall. And in the other direction. Lift as high as it comes out. Perhaps here, if outward rotation is difficult, then you can do it like this. It does not matter. The task is that the hip joint turns in both directions. And with the other leg, inwards,

outwards. That is, these are very individual things. With me, for instance, inwards comes out with a fairly large range. It comes freely, without forcing myself. Pleasantly, you know. But outwards is not so good, it does not respond too well here, so I do not lift it high, but all the same, up to the level of comfort is best. We are not building up fitness here, we are not chasing any sporting results. We are simply turning the whole body through.

Two more exercises. The bear splashes in the water. So, we take a step forward. This kind of stance. Here, roughly between — the toe points forward. The toe of the back foot is at about forty-five degrees. A natural position. Between them, along the axis, about the length of a heel, give or take. We take it back, we come in. We take it back, the bear is splashing. Like this. This is the kind of winding

that we work through here. Now, the toe of the front foot can lift a little. It is better to stand fully on the back foot. Choose the length of the stance yourself, comfortably. Whoever can, go longer, perform a feat. Well, a natural one, not a gymnastic one, not one for display. So we turn like this and we change legs. Through the front or through the back, it does not matter in principle. In the same stance — the bear is splashing about, in the river, that is. He is enjoying himself. Finished.

From the same position, with one hand, we rotate the body, only we do it vertically. There we were moving straight, and here we have the possibility, because it is one hand, and we make a range of about, oh, thirty degrees this way. One, and back to ourselves. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. And the other hand towards ourselves. Breathe in. Breathe in. Breathe in.

Mm-hmm. The white monkey offers fruit. The monkey. Take some. It took some and rolled back. It took more fruit and more and back. And more fruit. More, please, I do not begrudge it. There is plenty here. A kind monkey, that one, on the whole.

Finished. The same thing with one hand. The same story. We rotate vertically around this axis here and carry it only over to here. Only the monkey takes from here and gives it over there to someone very tall. A little higher, to about the level of the nose, the eyes. That is how it comes out. And over here, and from here. There. It waves it away like that. Whoops.

Well, let it be that way. It is not at all necessary to picture a monkey. Come up with any other visualisation for yourself. Whichever seems more suitable to you.

What is the point of it? There is no mystical or sacred meaning in this whatsoever. It is simply so that it is easier to remember and more fun to practise. Shougong.

Expelling turbid qi. Breathe out. We roll down. We fold. Breathe out. Down along the knee. We take it from there. We lower it.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe out. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe out. Finished. The last one. You can shake out. We shake ourselves out. If you are not in an office. You can do the same kind of thing. Gathered up, dropped, gathered, dropped, gathered. Look, I rise a little onto the toes and drop onto the heels. Only not hard, just slightly. The legs bend a little at the knees as this happens. Not on straight legs. Not like this. Like this. Like this. Like this.