Clare Balding's Visit and Interview on Monday 12th May 2014

At 2PM on Monday 12th May 2014 in a deep rumbling giant Jaguar sports car, Clare Balding and her producer, Karen Gregor arrived in the midst of our woods to welcoming birdsong and sunshine bursting through our woodland glade.

They came to interview me while walking through the woods down to the River Wye, the Biblins, across the swing bridge to Symonds Yat East, to rest at The Saracens Head.  All this for the BBC Radio 4 Ramblings programme, which will be broadcast on Thursday 19th June at 3PM and on the following Saturday at 6AM.

Why would such a prestigious lady who presented the Olympics and Paralympics, and the Badminton Horse trials and many more programmes want to interview an ordinary person like me?  Well, it's not how I planned it!

My "calling" for lack of a better word, is to help the Public find their own self-healing powers through a system I discovered while busy healing myself from severe osteo-arthritis which resulted in two metal hips.  This system is now trademarked and called "True to our Roots Qi Gong".

In order to share this magical system with the public I decided to run a free walking group, on the Doward, called The Doward Masai walkers!  Bringing our awareness back to our posture and breath while absorbing the beauty of our environment.  At present I am running a study on how to maintain replacement hips for the rest of our earthly life with a group of volunteers who all have one or two artificial hips, with the same goal in mind.

One of my clients suggested I got in touch with the Ramblings programme which is what I did, and after a long phonecall from Karen Gregor, the programme's producer, last Monday became the surreal afternoon of our interview!  My initial idea was to involve The Doward Masai walkers, but after Karen asked me a lot of personal questions, they decided they only wanted to interview me by myself!

To be honest, I have no idea of much that I said, and was so grateful that they asked my husband, Roger Smith, to accompany us, as he is a mine of information regarding our environment, especially as he is our local Parish Council's Footpath Officer!

The walk turned out to be a real adventure, which I won't reveal any more, as you will have to listen to the programme when it'll be aired!!  All I can add is that I was very lucky to be able to give Clare a little impromptu treatment, so she had a little taster of the work I do!

Emilie Conrad, Founder of Continuum Movement, June 14, 1934 - April 14, 2014.

Emilie Conrad, the founder of Continuum Movement, somatic pioneer, visionary mentor, passed away in her home Encino, on Tuesday 14th April 2014.

How privileged was I to have spent three full days with her last year on Emilie's very first visit to England.  I arrived a little early at the workshop on a lovely sunny spring day end of May 2013, in the middle of London.  How lucky that was as Emilie walked up to me and asked if there was anything she ought to know about me.  I told her I had two metal hips, at which she raised her eyebrows in surprise, but without judgment.

Later during the workshop she singled me out and asked me to go onto the little stage to demonstrate my range of movements, and to compare after having done some fluid movement later on.

Another lucky moment for me was when having immersed myself in my own fluid system, and allowed the movement to emerge from inside out creating gorgeous and liberating stretches, feeling my internal fascia to release, or using my own simplistic language, "feeling the internal cling-film effect", upon opening my eyes, Emilie was standing in front of me, her arms crossed on her chest, half smiling half serious she whispered to me:  "I love the way you work!"  I thanked her, and said:"You don't know how much that means to me!"

That was just one intimate moment I shared with dear Emilie, whom I, like so many other people around the world, admire.  I am so grateful for having had the opportunity to attend her workshop, at The Breath of Life conference, especially as I was one of many on her workshop's waiting list!

It was a connection of great importance to me, and reminded me of another very powerful connection I made in 2001, with my Chinese Grandmaster Yang Meijung, who opened the Wild Goose Qi Gong system to the world.  That is for another time and blog!!!

Wednesday 15th April in the evening when my True to our Roots Qi Gong group meet I had the most astounding and wonderful connection and channelling from Emilie Conrad, which I want to share with the world!

To celebrate springtime, and also Emilie's transition, we focused on the Liver with the "SSSHHH"sound, and while everyone was in open attention and waiting for our body to guide us into spontaneous self-healing and fluid movements, suddenly Emilie's face floated right in front of me!

"Biofield ....." Is what she started to say, and then in my head I quickly said to her that I found her vocabularly difficult to understand, and the next thing she said was: "I'm young, I'm free, I'm floating, I'm everywhere ....... I'm everywhere .... (Which she repeated several times like in an echo).

A bit later her face re-appeared close to mine to then merged with mine.  She said:  "I'm you ..... I'm them ...." (That was when I was observing my students/or co - Qigongers).

Later in the session I was just "pulling Qi (energy) with my breath", to raise the energy field around a person and to keep my energy levels up!  Emilie's voice came to me as strong as anything:

"You don't need to do that!  Just connect to the Source ..... to Love ....!"

At the end of our class I thanked Emilie and her reply was:

"ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE"

I don't profess to know Emilie as her loving students around the world or her closest family do, but I can only say that she has touched my life, my heart, I feel it in my gut (Lower Dantien), and know that we are connected for eternity.  

Her spirit will continue to inspire me as I feel will inspire everyone who has been connected with her.  

I know and trust that from now on I can continue to rely on her support, wisdom and guidance in my own expansion as we continue to explore Spontaneous Qi Gong.

THANK YOU EMILIE,  I LOVE YOU.

True to our Roots Qi Gong Workshops

I am launching my new system of spontaneous Qi Gong, "True to our Roots Qi Gong" and am looking for anyone interested in me giving workshops.

It is a discovery into our primordial self-healing system, which is directed by our entire fluid system.

The aim is to bring our awareness back to our innate self-healing abilities through re-adjusting our posture, re-familiarising ourselves with our breath, and connecting with the flow of our energy (Qi or Chi)

True to our Roots is about connecting with our primordial selves again, allowing spontaneity of movement to occur, while our mind naturally retreats and becomes the observer.

This is totally removed from forms and disciplines, and breaks through whatever boundaries are limiting us from being fluid, re-awakening our senses and reclaiming our self-power regarding our bodies' well-being.

Anyone interested please contact me on 01600 890 737, or email me at nadiasmith@tiscali.co.uk, www.tumplaneclinic.com

Masai Walking

The Doward Masai Walkers
Every Thursday I guide a group of enthusiasts in walking with body awareness, in the beautiful surroundings of our Herefordshire countryside.

I've introduced the Masai Nomadic walking technology in honour of my formative years spent in Africa.  It is a great excuse to socialise, enjoy the great outdoors, and have fun!

Who are the Masai people?

The Masai are nomadic cattle herders who live mainly in the East African Rift Valley.

Research has found that Masai Nomads have no knee, hip or back problems.  One witnesses how proud and straight their posture is with beautifully aligned bodies.  In fact most indigenous societies around the world, who walk barefoot, have well-aligned bodies.


What is Masai walking?
Masai walking trains your body in an appropriate way, from a physiological point of view, and also biomechanically engaging muscles you don't usually use, and those that support your body.

Walking barefoot encourages us to use our entire foot, from the heel, the outer edge of our feet which connects to the ground, to pushing off from our toes, encouraging our feet to become supple once more.

How we use our feet affects the whole of our body, and unfortunately footwear in general does not encourage this flexibility to occur!  Either the soles are too rigid (so toes are made redundant), or heels are too high, throwing the upper body forward and shortening the Achilles tendons.  Shoes tend to stabilize our joints moving them passively instead of engaging the muscles naturally.

When kicking off our shoes does that not feel wonderful?  How many of us have felt the benefits from walking barefoot on a sandy beach or on lush green grass? If you no longer remember when you last did this, try it now!

Another benefit of Masai Walking is improving our body shape!  Walking "tall and proud" gets your back, buttock, abdominal and thigh muscles, and your joints to work as they are designed to.

Our Doward Walkers have already felt muscles they did not know they had!  That was merely after adjusting their posture and walking slowly with new-found awareness, Masai Style!

Masai Nomadic Walking stimulates blood circulation and massages the arch of your feet. So, barefoot walking means re-alignment!  You will simply hold yourself straight again, which in turn will improve your posture and elongate your body.

Masai Nomadic walking on rough ground:-

You are probably wondering about the practicalities of walking with shoes?

As I love collecting shoes of all types (I know what it's like for "us girls"!), I would recommend for casual outdoor walking, very pliable shoes in which your toes are not made redundant, and preferably shoes without heel raises, so flat shoes (Vivo Barefoot shoes are excellent for example).

For those special times when we dress up wear your heels with renewed awareness at how you walk in them - keeping distances as short as possible, and kicking your gorgeous stilettos off as soon as is practically possible!

Osteo-arthritis:-

After having had both my hips resurfaced with metal, I re-educated my entire body in order to avoid damaging it any further with the help of Esther Gokhale's book "Eight Steps to a Painfree Back" who studied indigenous societies to re-address our bad postural habits.  Her work resonated totally with my own African upbringing, and made me understand that after years of pounding hard floors as an Aerobic Instructor without awareness of a misaligned body, which then caused the wear and tear in my hips, it was time to change!

Having scoured the country for successful treatment of the excruciating pain which I lived with for over ten years to no avail, I found freedom from pain by re-addressing my posture thanks to the Gokhale Method and also thanks to my wonderful African models who never complained of aches and pains despite all their hard manual labour.

Anyone interested in joining the Doward Masai Walkers, or wishing 1 on 1 sessions, or workshops please contact me on 01600 890 737, or email me at nadiasmith@tiscali.co.uk, www.tumplaneclinic.com

Reference:  Catherine Maillard from Doctissimo 2011 and MBT Physiotherapist Jocelyne Rolland

From Fitness Instructor to Cutting Edge Holistic Therapist

As a retired Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer and Qi Gong Instructor for twenty years, I have over the last fourteen years been working and developing as a Holistic Practitioner.

My training is mainly influenced by Traditional Chinese Acupressure and Energy (Qi or Chi) transmission.  I have created a method of re-aligning the skeletal, muscular and visceral system by allowing the person's own natural fluid system - your self-healing mechanism - to adjust itself.  This, therefore does not require invasive manipulation, or bone-cracking, just fluid motions which the body does by itself with me as facilitator.

The beauty of this method is that it does not bring forth pain, or only momentarily as the body sorts itself out, and also that once recovered a person can trigger this movement all by themselves, creating an amazing feelgood factor and new-found flexibility.  The difference between external exercise and this internal motion is that we no longer feel pain through stiffness of muscles or taxing our internal organs, but instead stimulate the production of all the various fluids our bodies produce in order for our entire system to stay well lubricated right into our old age, rather than drying out!

In True to our Roots Qi Gong I guide people gently to become aware of how they are in their body, and how to re-address their posture, so that whatever activities they do they can enjoy without injuring themselves.

The result is like having found the Elixir of Life and the Source of Youthfulness.

Tsunamis' power!

Have you ever felt your own Fluid System at work?

Have you tried focusing on the area in your body which needs the most attention, and then gently saying to your Fluid system:  "Please go and check this part out."  Then just allow the time for the fluid system to flow to that area, and allow and feel the liquids start to re-organize themselves.  Gross or minuscule movements may occur, externally or internally, allow it.  (This can be be done standing, sitting on a chair, lying down or on all four's).

These movements will feel involuntary, therefore, allow your mind to become the observer, rather than the controller.  It may cause you to make spontaneous sounds or breaths as well as physical movements.  Allow It!

This will do nothing more but to feel "delicious", and remember that this is your self-healing mechanism, so no harm can ever be done.  It all aims at liberating stiffness, and blockages within our system, using our own body's wisdom.

Remember that when you finish your Fluid Session, to always reconnect with your Lower Dantien, your Centre (The Belly), to ground and feel at peace.

This is the new way forward in Health and Fitness!  Based on Trust, and Self-Belief!!

The Essence of True to our Roots Qi Gong

The Essence of True to our Roots Qi Gong I have just read in a wonderful book Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh:

" A true Master is not the one with the most students but one who creates the most Masters...
A true teacher is not the one with the most knowledge, but one who causes the most others to have knowledge...."

It's essence is about finding your inner True Master and your inner self-healing Treasure, that which is our true Inheritance as Human Beings.

Our essence is that of True Love versus Anger and Fear!