River Guerguerian—Visualization

This one or two minute visualization warm-up can be more effective than ten minutes of mindless tapping. The most important thing is to be in the moment of every note we play, and to be conscious of where the sound is coming from.

Let us begin with a Taoist exercise that helps you experience energy moving up from the sacrum. The sacrum is that large bone at the bottom of the spinal column (our root), and provides tremendous balance. Close your eyes, drop your hands by your sides, breathe deeply and slowly, and focus on the sacrum. While inhaling, gently squeeze your perineum (muscle that is used to stop urination), and use your third eye to focus up to the very top of your head. Visualize energy (chi) traveling up your back to your crown. You might get light-headed after doing this a few times, but don’t let the energy get stuck there. Now, while exhaling, move the energy down the front of the body, moving over the eyes, face, chest, and abdomen. Then, as you inhale again, visualize it rolling back up through the sacrum again. This will create an elliptical flow of energy called the microcosmic orbit (http://www.healing-tao.co.uk/ht_microcosmic_orbit.htm).

Surround your sacrum with light (any color you wish), and imagine it expanding and becoming lighter. Now, slowly move your energy upward, illuminating one vertebrae at a time (we have 24). When you get to that place between the shoulder blades, branch out and massage them with this light. Then keep moving up the spine, and when you reach that point at the base of your neck, branch out again and travel along the very tops of the shoulders. They MUST be relaxed at all times. If they creep up even 5 cm., it means there is some constriction and your energy is not flowing at its optimal level. The strong and solid foundation of your back and posture will help support soft shoulders. Then, use your inner eye and go into the shoulder sockets (first major hinge) to find any points of tension. Sometimes, just sending your breath there can open up and clear out these places.

Create two circles of radiating light that surround each arm. Feel your skin and bones expand and almost tingle as you travel down the arms. When you get to the elbows (second major hinge) pause, and feel them soften. Then, and this is crucial, when you get to the wrists (third major hinge), pause again and feel the whole bracelet of muscles and nerves inflate with your bands of glowing light. The wrists are very important, so really feel that area open up!

Now, feel this energy that has been flowing from the sacrum travel straight to the center of the palms of your hands. You can gently rock your arms back and forth like two giant pendulums on a grandfather clock. The hands may feel heavy, warm, and tingly. Do not stop at the hands though, let that energy shoot out of all ten fingertips (or however many you have). Now, let’s recycle that energy and have it go right back up the sacrum. If you were looking at your back, you would visualize two ellipses of energy moving up the back, down the arms, out the fingers, and back up the sacrum again.

Here are two more ellipses. The energy of the soles of each foot should go straight to the center of the planet, and then brought back up to the sacrum, and down again. That will really help ground you, and keep your rhythm solid! Now we have five ellipses of fluidity moving through our body.

Once you become comfortable with this, you can do the inner visualization while playing. Within a few seconds, you can use your inner eye to find the tense spots. Send your breath there to open it up. You should feel that sacral power coming through each tone. Using our fullest potential keeps us vibrant, flowing, and healthy.