I’ve been having a hard time getting warmed up lately. Even on sunny days in spring, my limbs- my hands and particularly my lower legs and feet- feel cold from the inside out.
I recognized this pretty quickly as an issue with my kidneys, blood flow and especially the Ming Men. The Ming Men is an energy center that is so important for generating strength, power and vitality. Its name actually translates to Gate of Life, Gate of Power, Gate of Destiny (“Ming” meaning Life, and “Men” meaning Gate). It is located between the two kidneys on the inside of the spine, between the back and belly button.
The kidneys play a crucial role in cleaning the blood and sending it to the areas it needs to go to to warm up and invigorate the body. We feel the result of this either way, especially in our extremities. “Each kidney is said to develop an opposing energy,” writes Scott Prath, a lead instructor of Tai Chi whose article on the Ming Men really fascinated me. He goes on to write that, “it is between the two kidneys that these energies are blended. Not just any energy, but the essence of energy. Power originates in the kidneys and is transmitted throughout the body,… for building up energy to heal or storing energy… to strike”.
When the Ming Men is healthy and not obstructed, we feel alive and powerful and strong and warmed up. It rejuvenates our Radiant Circuit energy which is responsible for our ability to feel awe, wonder and joy. The Radiant Circuit that the Ming Men is connected to is the Belt Flow– which wraps around our waist. In my last blog entry, I wrote about how Tango really accentuated the Belt Flow area for me- in the reaching up- or “Oil” of the upper body, and the grounded, weighted feeling- or “Water” of the lower body.
When outside sources like stress, trauma, toxins, and injuries interfere with the natural flow of energy and blood, our upper and lower parts of the body no longer work in unison. The Belt Flow no longer has the balance or space to flow. Well, the Ming Men can also become very weak from these stresses. We end up feeling uncoordinated, cold, lacking of energy, and uncentered overall. Because its our center, literally, that is being shaken, the place where our life force energy and “energy essence” comes from, we become out of synch, undone from our center, which affects all aspects of our being outwardly.
But there are many ways we can access that energy and re-enliven the Ming Men once we are aware of what is missing and which part of the body to target. Bringing focus to the Ming Men, meditating on it, breathing into it, warming up, massaging, stretching it, and bringing space and movement to it is highly recommended by energy medicine practitioners.
But the more I learn about the Ming Men, the more I realize that there are many tango techniques, principles and practices that do exactly this, bringing attention to the Ming Men.
I believe my Ming Men center was the strongest and healthiest when I was dancing a lot of tango. I didn’t know anything about the Radiant Circuits back then, but in learning about the Ming Men now, I am reminded of a particular concept I like to refer to as “The Longer Legs of Tango” which to me, really targeted the Ming Men area.
It’s the idea that to be a strong tango dancer, with a beautiful long looking stride, and power and intention in your walk and movements, it’s important to reconsider where your legs actually begin. What I mean by this is that the reason the dancers I admired looked so elegant and poised as if they had legs that went on forever, is that they understood that the projection of their legs started at their waist, not at the upper thigh or lower hip where we usually think our legs start from.
Even with my petite size, and sometimes choosing not to wear high heels, my legs felt stronger and longer and more powerful when I executed movements with this concept in mind. And the place where the longer legs of tango was said to start actually lines right along the belt flow, particularly in our lower back where the Ming Men area is concentrated.
Even though I wasn’t familiar with this energy center when I was practising the longer legs of tango, my body was being made to repeatedly feel this center, with the way I moved, with where I moved from, with generating my power from that center, and constantly bringing attention to the Ming Men.
We were always breathing into our lower backs, activating this area by reaching from it. This got me centered and grounded. Little did my I know what a crucial Chinese Medicine concept this was and how much the practise of tango was helping my overall health.
Sitting between our kidneys, our Ming Men is really the center of our life force energy. The kidneys are connected to our flow of life- the water element. It’s how we came here- in water- in our mother’s womb. But when we are out of balance in that water energy, it can drown our vitality, drown out our fire element– our passion, pleasure and excitement.
The result can be a coldness and frozenness in our body like what I’ve been experiencing lately. We just can’t heat up from the inside. It stagnates our blood flow and circulation. That can also make it hard for our food to digest because the food is not getting cooked in our bodies. Even when we are eating cooked foods, the digestion process requires a cooking or heating up of the food inside as the nutrients are taken to different parts of our bodies. We can’t absorb the nutrients if our blood is frozen and doesn’t flow well. We lose our overall flow of life.
But when the Ming Men is activated, we can bring back the fire element. We can bring back the life force which is imperative for our vigor and vibrancy.
“The life and liveliness of each of the movements in Tai Chi originates at the center of the waist,” I heard a martial arts practitioner share. It was exactly the lesson I learned from “the longer legs of tango.” Tango was keeping that Ming Men area warm, agile, alive and free for me.
Whether it was a forward, side or backward projection and extension, ocho or boleo I was making in the dance, when the movement came from my waist rather than the top of the leg or bottom of the hip, I felt more empowered. My life force was being reawakened with that practice.
Tango was reminding my body to honor my energy essence. And if my legs look sexier, and my walk more confident and assured in the doing of it, all the more reason to tango my way back into my power and glow.
I know which dance I will be incorporating more of into my daily workouts. Thanks, Tango for having my back, quite literally. And for rejuvenating my passion and presence in life.
Here is my YouTube version of this blog post where I show more visually what this tango concept looks like on the body.
Dance Me Free 
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