Brain Wave Vibration Class

Needless to say there was lots of interesting body, mind, spirit stuff in the Sedona area. Case in point - our campground was located directly next to a Tao Center. What is a Tao Center you may ask? I wondered the same thing, so went to check it out and found a variation of yoga classes offered for merely donations. I thought, "Cool - been missing my yoga, maybe a class will help get me started again."

I believe it was a Saturday morning that I walked all of 100 feet from our RV to the center. When I arrived I was greeted by the man running the establishment, a 40-something male Korean by the name of Sam. He was a nice guy with a thick accent, so much so that as he was telling me where to go and what to do - I missed the part about not entering the exercise room with my shoes on (oops).

Five other ladies joined us that day, all middle-aged except for one - I later learned she was in her late 70s. Class felt fairly normal as we started with easy to follow moves for getting warmed up, after which I was relieved to find us doing some yoga positions I already knew. Moving around felt good and I was glad I decided to go...until the beating started. Ha, ha - not that kind of beating. Turns out this was a "brain wave vibration class" that involved cupping your hands or forming a loose fist and lightly tapping your lower abdomen (or pounding if you really got into it with all the drum music that started up). Yeah...that was weird, but when in Rome! So here I am feeling awkward and uncoordinated...trying to find my rhythm, eyes closed, drum music blaring, arms starting to hurt (we "tapped" 1,000 times). Being the youngest of the group, I couldn't allow myself to be outdone by a 70+ year old so I stuck it out, but boy was I happy when we stopped!

After class Sam invited us to have some hot tea with him. Everyone else did, so I went along with it (sidenote: I'm not a big fan of hot tea but managed to be polite and eventually get it all down). Once again - glad I did because that's when I got to chat with the ladies and hear their take on all this craziness. For the most part they'd all been coming three months or more and all enjoyed it (with the exception of one lady who said she'd been in a recent car accident and clearly didn't enjoy the end of the class when we each laid down and everyone "tapped" us along our backs and legs). The 70+ year old said she'd been coming for almost a year and had seen wonderful results in being more flexible, healthy, energized, etc. She even admitted to getting one of those little trampolines so she could bounce while "tapping" at home. Which led to the discovery that Sam assigned everyone homework that slowly ramped up how many times they "tapped" at home (along with a general explanation about it). Of course his explanation was a little hard to understand, so I got on the website and put it together with what he'd said and came up with:

• this is called Dahn Yoga, which was started in 1980 by IIchi Lee in Kore
• it somehow follows old traditional methods from their culture/spirituality and IIchi Lee wants to share it with the world
• brain education is an important aspect of this yoga; there are 5 levels to go through to become an expert; the yoga helps by harnessing the power of the brain
• the "tapping" of the body creates a vibration in the body that changes the vibrations in the brain so they resonate properly with the rest of your bodily functions
• the idea is that through these rhythms you'll release tension and create a calm, meditative state

Huh. Interesting. Being into metaphysical type stuff, I sort of get where they're going (though it doesn't all seem to jive). I actually went back for a Chi Healing session in which Sam found my heart and sacral chakras to be blocked and worked to release them. I've since heard similar info about my sacral chakra and as for the heart chakra, well you may not believe this but... I got really bad heartburn, which is unheard of for me so I was a big baby about it. It came back for a few days with me trying all kinds of things, including a shot of vinegar and honey that made me gag and almost puke. Finally a few days after my session and all this pain, I was meditating outside and when finished I laid down on the ground. Roux got on me, as he often does since I'm his human pillow, but this time he laid across my chest. As we laid there I had the weirdest sensation that he was trying to help me and wouldn't you know, the heartburn hasn't returned since. How sweet - the little puppy heart helped the big momma heart ;)

Okay, so back to the Tao Center. I don't doubt the physical excursions are helpful and maybe the "tapping" does something, but still - it's not for me. Not because it's weird, no - that I could get over (lord knows I'm getting comfortable with going down my own path). Not because I don't believe in the energy meridians that flow through the body (see paragraph above). No, for me it just didn't feel right. Sure enough, when I dug a little deeper I found some pretty negative references about it being fraudulent, cultish, and generally an unscrupulous organization. While I'm pretty sure most religious organizations are looking for more recruits and dollars...the repeated accounts I saw took it further (see http://www.rickross.com/reference/dti/dti2.html).

Even so - I'm still glad I went, donated, met a few fans of it, got Roux's help with my heart chakra, and had something interesting to share with you. Long live new experiences!!!