shake and bake: heat up the body, aerobic, cardio

Range of application

'Shake and Bake' is the name of an exercise. If there is any single exercise that is a cure all, or the main part of a cure all, this would be it. It fixes common ailments, and really exotic meditation problems from force getting too strong hitting against blockages and tightness in qi merdian network.

Didn't know about 'shake and bake' when I had carpal tunnel

I was a programmer, and my chronic pain issues (the actual pain part) were mostly wrist pain, carpal tunnel, cold numb hands. Western medicine's solution was wear a wrist brace and give that condition a name, "renaud's syndrome". Worthless. That's when I got into yoga and qigong seriously. Neck and  shoulder tension of course is a leading cause of the problems. The whole body is connected.

The exercise that I found the most helpful was the turtle neck/spine, doing that as much as every hour. I was in my early 30's when I started taking all this seriously, seeing the downward trend in health and deciding to reverse it. It took 10 years to make the renaud's syndrome, cold hands and weak nerves in the extremities get mostly fixed, but all along the way it was obvious the exercises were slowly fixing the body.

With what I know now, I probably could cut that recovery time to less than half, and that would  involve a lot  more cardio/aerobic exercises. Because of diet being vegetarian, more veganish, for more than half of my life, that contributed to having a body type getting cold easily.

The main exercise that would have accomplished this, cutting my recovery time by more than half, is what I call the "shake and bake". It's an easy aerobic cardio vascular exercise, takes only about 10 to 20% more energy than walking at a moderate to brisk pace.

Shake and Bake

(first examine how it interacts in synergy with other optimal health principles)

4👑☸ →  ☯🦍   🎱   🧘🐢 (⤴)

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Gorilla Mantra

always W.A.S.T.E. F.R.E.E.

acronym explanation in brief

W.A.S = Warm And Soft. Like a healthy supple baby full of qi, life, vigor. Not cold, hard, brittle, close to death like an old sick man. "W.A.S." comes first in the "always WASTE FREE" because before any exercise can be effective, you need to first heat up make things warm, soft, pliable.
T.E. = Tension eliminated. The process of achieving Passaddhi/Pacification, or Taiji's relaxation 'sung'. When you scan the whole physical body, while moving through any slow diagnostic movement, whatever feels hard, cold, brittle, pain, tight, uncomfortable, dense, massive, that's tension. And it can be eliminated by warming it up, melting the ice, going through "F.R.E.E" range of motion.
F.R.E.E. = Full range (of) expression, elastic. If you move through range of motion, you hear "snap, crackle, and pop" from your joints cracking, you have cumulative tension and sub-optimal circulation, you haven't achieved W.A.S state yet.

❤️ Gorilla Heart Sutra (8 lines)

1. always W.A.S.T.E. F.R.E.E.
2. f.a.r.m.i.n.n.n.g.: finish diminish, assess to progress, ramp not amp, measure for pleasure, inject bottleneck, no pain to gain, no harm alarm, no need for greed, grit to the limit
3. aware but don't care: don't care if they stare, don't care what you wear, don't care about hair,
4. shake and bake, tap and slap, jiggle and wiggle, fiddle and twiddle, splice and dice

Shake and Bake

Normal jogging, jump roping, are good exercises if you do the form properly, totally relaxed, elastic, bouncy, and springy. Most people don't have good form, otherwise you wouldn't see so many low back, knee, joint chronic pain from doing this exercises as people get older.

I experimented a number of years with slow jogging, and got some good ideas from that.
I also experimented some with jumping rope.

Being a taiji/qigong enthusiast, and jhana meditator, my natural instincts kicked in and discovered a way to do aerobic/cardio exercise in the absolute most efficient way.
That means using the least amount of input energy and getting the most output benefit, the most bang for the buck.

It looks like doing jump rope without a rope

 So the pace and rhythm is somewhat like this, or picture a jogger waiting at an intersection jogging in place to stay warm and loose.
Doing jump rope without a rope means you can relax way more, because there's no tension from the stress of needing to jump high enough to clear the rope, and coordinating  hand, wrist, whole body movement to clear the rope on each jump.

If you're doing it right, the input energy should feel like just a little more, 10-20% more energy than walking at a moderate pace. That relaxed. You feel like you could do this for hours effortlessly, just like you could walk for hours. Yet, your breathing is deep, using far more range than shallow sedentary breathing, your heart rate is somewhat elevated, your body is getting warm and soft and a light mist of sweat is building. That's the baking. Melting the ice (cumulative pain, tight spots, energy blockages).

2nd level of refinement

Getting 5 exercises for the price of one. Instead of moving your arms in slow jogging form or coordinating jump rope form, completely let your arms and shoulders go, so they're just hanging freely getting yanked around by your lower body locomotion. If you're doing it right, you should be getting many kinds of micro stretches similar to old people doing those arm swinging exercises in a China town public park.

3rd level of refinement

Let your neck, shoulders, upper back go. The neck you have to have momentary restabilizing moments to keep your head level enough to maintain your balance, but let the tension go in the neck the rest of the time. So it kind of looks like a funky chicken dance with the head bobbing. You're not aiming to look a certain way (that would just create tension), it's just how your lower body locomotion of the legs is going to affect your upper body in a completely relaxed state. 

4th level of refinement

Maintain passadhi/pacification relaxation of jhana the whole time you're doing the exercise. The only tension you should feel is one of your feet pushing off the ground. The rest of the body is doing taiji, doing at least first jhana. 

I could make a video of myself doing this exercise, but no matter what anyone's skill level is, it's going to look silly. You can't tell from looking at external appearance what someone's skill level and level of relaxation is. The only test would be you doing it for many hours effortlessly without getting tired.

This is similar to 80, 90 year old taoist masters (with highly developed 4th jhana and beyond level of samadhi) being able to hike for hours in the mountains in China, at a brisk pace, up mountains, looking spry like a goat and putting 20 and 30 year olds to shame and leaving them in the dust. It's a real thing. The higher the jhana, the lighter you feel, the more energy and degree of effortlessness is possible.

RDA: recommended daily amount

How much 'shake and bake' should I do everyday?

(This is a private email I sent to some friends)

recommended daily amount:

1 session, perhaps first thing in the morning.

20min in one session at moderate pace with slow deep breathing, light sweat, feeling really warm, soft, pliable, relaxed, not tired.

another 30-60min total, in 5-10min sessions, as needed throughout the day.

anytime parts of your body start feeling cold, or tight, uncomfortable, tired, and before doing other exercises like stretching and resistive weight training.

'shake and bake' is my way of getting RDA of optimal aerobic. You might customize or find something better, more fun (swimming?), or more suitable for you.

But if you do the proper amount of daily cardio, you'll prevent so many problems, and gradually fix existing ones. This can be done at any age.

By doing this exercise religiously, I was able to fix some weird exotic qi problems that famous monks and chinese doctors couldn't help me with. If I live to be 80, 90, I'll be like one of those taoist immortals blazing along on hiking trails up the mountain effortlessly. Don't ask me in old age why I didn's share these wondrous simple secrets with you! I've already told many of you about this, but you look at me with disbelief and skepticism. So now it is in writing. Don't regret things later, take care of your health now.