By Ms. Miu on March 24, 2012

Many people pay attention to their legs when doing Lajin in a reclining position, because their legs are tied and hung with sandbags. They feel pain easily from their legs. However, it is a misbelief that Lajin merely works on the legs instead of the entire body. As a matter of fact, Lajin is a unique way to dredge the meridians all over the body. So please don’t ignore the posture of your arms and hands.  Otherwise, you may only get half results from same effort. Please read the following wonderful sharing.

It’s been over ten months since I started to do Lajin in last May. Each time, I tried my best to meet the standards for the legs, but didn’t pay much attention to my arms or hands. When I felt numb or sour in my arms, I would swing my arms for a few times before putting them back into place.

I was in a bad mood in the past a few days, thus felt the tightness in my chest. I happened to be reviewing the PaidaLajin handbook during the time. When I read “You can dredge three Yin and three Yang meridians in arms during Lajin in the reclining position,” I realized that both the Heart Meridian and Pericardium Meridian connecting to our heart, run through arms. So I thought it might be a good idea to stretch the both arms to alleviate the tightness in my chest during the Lajin exercise.

Here is what I did. I put my hands together with fingers crossed and stretched my both arms as far above as possible. I had never felt how my arms would feel after static Lajin for half an hour. My left leg was up in air for about 15 minutes, when I felt my right hand began to numb and my left hand was numb long time ago.

After a while, I felt a cold chill on the right arm slowly descended from the armpit to the elbow and then to the wrist through the Heart Meridian. As the cold continually extended, the feeling of numbness in the right hand also receded a little, but the left hand became more and more numb. When my right hand touched my left hand, I felt like that I was touching the hand over a glove, meanwhile, I was experiencing some discomfort in my breathing. I told myself this had to be healing reactions.  I instinctively wanted to rest my arm like before, but a little voice reminded me to persist, to bear with it, and to wait to see what was going to happen. 25 minutes or so later, I felt a similar chill traveling from my left armpit down to the wrist, just as I felt in the right arm earlier. At this moment, the chest tightness began to loosen up a little, and as the chill continued to spread to the fingers of my left hand, the feeling of numbness also receded a little. When I completed the 31-minute’s long stretching in one leg, both my arms felt completely normal and no longer felt tightness in my chest. After I got off the bench, I felt that my shoulders and arms were particularly relaxed. I sighed: Whether we execute Lajin seriously or not really makes a big difference!

More to share. In the middle of the next day’s night, I suddenly felt my left shoulder and left elbow were very sore and chilly, no matter how I arranged the arm, I felt discomfortable. I thought I completely cured my perishouder arthritis through 10-month’s Lajin and occasional Paida. Strangely enough, I felt it came back again. Did I induce the deeper shoulder problem after yesterday’s serious Lajin? I wondered in bed.

I thought it was a good sign. But the discomfort in my left shoulder and arm made me sleepless. So I decided to do a stretching in bed. I lay in bed, put my hands in the sleeves of a cotton jacket, and stretched both arms behind my ears. Though it was  not as effective as on a Lajin bench, after seriously raising the arms for more than half an hour in bed, I felt a bit cold in my arms. So I put my arms back into the blanket, by then my shoulders were no longer bother me. I worried the soreness would come back,  but fortunately it didn’t.

After this experience, I made my personal reflection as below:

1.During Lajin in the reclining position, the standard posture of the legs is very important, but the standard posture of two arms is equally important. I have neglected the requirements for my arms and hands before, and I will make up this lesson from now on.

2. Before I practiced PaidaLajin, my body was very vulnerable to common cold and fever. I used to have cold at least once a month, and often had fevers. After I started to practice PaidaLajin, my body was getting stronger. For instance, this year’s flu was widespread, but I was not infected. If I am more serious about PaidaLajin, meditation (sitting), and Zhanzhuang (standing like a post) , I am sure my health will be improved to a different level. How joyful I am.