Category Archives: Sports

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BreatheStrong, and our battle with the Lance Armstrong Foundation


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We’ve read that Lance Armstrong is scheduled to do an in-depth, ‘no-holds barred,’ interview with Oprah Winfrey on January 17, 2013.

Here’s a question we’d like Oprah to ask Lance:

Why would you allow your nonprofit organization, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, to persecute and sue small nonprofits for ‘harming the brand LIVEstrong’ by their use of the words BarkStrong, PurrStrong and even, in our case, BreatheStrong (among other nonprofits using ‘strong’)? Many other organizations and companies have attached the word ‘strong’ to another word, with absolutely no damage to LIVEstrong, such as ElderStrong, HerbStrong, HealthStrong, etc.

According to the tax returns of the Lance Armstrong Foundation – the organization’s 990’s which are publicly available – the Lance Armstrong Foundation spent ten cents of every donated dollar on attorneys’ fees. That is a whopping percentage.

We have personal experience with this persecution.

In the situation of the Paul D. Pickens II Research Foundation, we created a ‘deep-breathing for health’ program that we named BreatheStrong. This name was chosen to represent the instantaneous, long-lasting, profound health benefits of deep, full, abdominal breathing. This type of breathing has been proven in the medical and scientific fields to be among the greatest self-administered therapies for maintaining and restoring health.

From our files: “BreatheStrong is a proactive system of self-care, incorporating time-tested deep breathing methods and life-style modifications.”

PDP II Research Foundation spent its donors’ hard-earned dollars on this important, life-changing program. PDP II built a beautiful website (BreatheStrong.org), researched and designed elegant jewelry that would vibrate at self-selected intervals to remind people to take deep breaths, and wrote and printed ‘The Extraordinary Breath’ book to educate the public on a time-proven system of stress relief, health restoration and life-enhancement. Some of our volunteers translated the word BreatheStrong into many languages, and some of our volunteers even helped Donald write a song for this program.

PDP II Research Foundation was accused by the attorneys for the Lance Armstrong Foundation of irrevocably harming the brand LIVEstrong, and told to to immediately abandon its trademark for the BreatheStrong vibrating jewelry, to delete the website BreatheStrong.org, and to cease and desist in all of our activities pertaining to helping the public maintain and regain their health through the BreatheStrong program.

We fought this unfair attack for as long as we could. Through the attorney PDP II Research Foundation was forced to hire, we explained that the target demographic for BreatheStrong were people in all walks of life, in all stages of health; healthy people as well as those who were dealing with ANY and ALL illnesses and diseases. Deep breathing techniques benefit everyone in the world, not just people with cancer.

After two years, when our organization could no longer afford to defend itself against the attorneys of the multi-million dollar Lance Armstrong Foundation, we sadly abandoned the BreatheStrong program.

Not long afterwards, deep breathing methods and techniques could be found on the Lance Armstrong Foundation website.

Although the Lance Armstrong Foundation succeeded in bullying this small health education nonprofit (that has had immense global impact) into shutting down a vital public health program, our spirits were uncrushed and we immediately morphed the program into The Extraordinary Breath.

PDP II Research Foundation released a free digital eBook, The Extraordinary Breath, which features the One Part Breath from the larger version of The Extraordinary Breath book. This free digital eBook has been translated into seven other languages, with more languages coming.

PDP II Research Foundation has also sponsored ‘The World Takes a Breath Day,’ an annual global health event with worldwide participation, millions breathing the Extraordinary Breath (intentional breathing for love, compassion, health, tolerance, joy and peace). December 12, 2012, was the third annual The World Takes a Breath Day.

You can visit http://www.ExtraordinaryBreath.com to see how not even one of the largest organizations in the country could keep PDP II Research Foundation from flourishing and growing in its mission to improve the health our global community.

Being One with Universal Energies – Primordial Qigong


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This exquisitely beautiful form was purportedly developed by the  Taoist sage Chang San Feng, and is a precursor to Tai Chi Ch’uan.

Through his practice of Primordial Qigong, Master Zhu Hui cured himself of a potentially fatal case of hepatocirrhosis, and dramatically heightened his sensory awareness and intuition to such a degree that he could visually diagnose his patients and administer the correct treatment without error. Zhu Hui became quite famous in China, and after establishing the ‘Tian Ta Guo Qing’ hospital, treated seventy or more patients a day for several decades.

It’s claimed by its adherents that practicing Primordial Qigong enables you to ‘turn back the hands of time,’ because you are moving backwards through the seasons. The form consists of two parts, A & B, repeated for a total of four times. You begin the first Parts A and B facing East, moving counter-clockwise through the form, and conclude them facing South (which is clockwise from where you started, facing East.)  Starting the second Parts A and B facing South, moving counter-clockwise through the form) at the conclusion you are facing West (clockwise from South.) And so on through to the end of the form.

When you’ve practiced the form for a while, you’ll notice that you are creating a double circle, a circle within a circle. Women are usually the first to notice this phenomenon, interestingly enough.

Some of the movements in the Primordial Qigong form stimulate the pituitary and pineal glands, and help to awaken the Third Eye and increase intuitive abilities. Practicing this form has definitely increased our hyper-sensory awareness and intuition.

In its construct, Primordial Qigong can be viewed as a three dimensional physical mandala: it encompasses all of the primary aspects of Taoist philosophy: the concepts of yin yang, the trinity (heaven, earth and man), the Five Element Wu Xing theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM),  the I Ching, the Bagua and the mystical aspects of numbers.

The Primordial Qigong form reflects the Taoist theory of the birth of the universe. These concepts were based on the ancient Chinese sages’ observations of nature, their perception of the alternating balance of energy of the primal forces (yin yang) and the integral relationship between heaven, humanity and earth. These Taoist sages postulated that from the pre-birth state of WuJi (Original Emptiness) came the primal spark and from the primal spark, Taiji (Supreme Ultimate) was born. From Taiji, yin yang manifested as opposing forces.

The Bagua, which represents the fundamental principles of reality in Taoist cosmology, is integrated into the Primordial Qigong form: the eight interrelated concepts  – the eight trigrams-

are represented by the placement of the body in the Center facing the cardinal directions and awareness of the intercardinal directions: northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest, as one turns both counter-clockwise and clockwise throughout the form. The bagua signifies that change is constant, each movement of your body through time and space creates change.

Primordial Qigong has been called Wu Ji Qigong, Tai Chi Enlightenment and Enlightenment Qigong, by other teachers of the form.

You can learn more about this from in our eBook Primordial Qigong, by visiting http://www.PrimordialQigong.com.

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Quantum Healing on a Global Level


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For a while now, we’ve felt called by the Universe to bring our wisdom and healing on a global level. We released a free eBook, The Extraordinary Breath, in six languages so far, and have had thousands of downloads from just about every country in the world. This free eBook has the One-Part Breath, which we took from our larger eBook Extraordinary Breath, to give people worldwide a simple, easy and effective deep breathing practice to reduce stress, increase health and promote community and global harmony.

Part of our vision also includes gathering people together, wherever we are, for free events, and co-creating a state of health, happiness, prosperity and empathy for them, their loved ones, their communities and the world, because we remind them that they are connected with the whole world, not separate from it, and whatever good they do creates more good for everyone, regardless of whether we perceive them as enemies or loved ones.  

In our workshops, which are fee-based, whatever we teach is always enhanced with connecting people to their higher selves, deepening their intuition, and developing their skills and talents to benefit not just themselves but all others as well.  

Donald also does private appointments (healings as well as forms work) wherever we go, with this same intention, of reminding people of their own innate healing abilities, and their connection to Universal energies, and that they have the power, and the responsibility, to control and direct their own lives.

All our work is done through our global health education nonprofit, the Paul D. Pickens II Research Foundation. This organization was founded in 1997, and named after Cheryl Lynne’s brother, who passed away from complications of AIDS in 1995. Paul was a talented martial artist, a student of Kuo Lien Ying, who bore the unknowable pain and indignities of his fatal illness with grace, charm and courage. Every single person that we’ve helped through our work, and there have been thousands so far, has given us the opportunity to thank the Universe for Paul’s influence and inspiration.

Here’s our travel schedule so far (more to be added!)

San Blas, Mexico:

Healing Begins in the Imagination – Free Healing Evening for the Community – April 27, 2012. The Rubbos present an inspiring evening of deep, joyful healing. Using transformational breathwork, meditation and movement, they will help you call in Divine energies for healing mind, body, spirit and planet. Connect to the Earth and the Heavens to bring about miraculous healings for you, your loved ones, your community, your country and our world. Donald and Cheryl Lynne’s mission is to awaken and inspire as many people as possible on the planet to the infinite potentials and limitless possibilities within each one of us.

Awakening Your Inner Nature Day-Long Workshop – April 29, 2012. Awaken all your senses and deepen your intuition. The Rubbos will help you to develop a felt-sensation of living continually in a higher vibrational state, which is the state for manifesting your heart’s desire: whether it is good health, abundant wealth, better living, better relationships or a deeper connection to the infinite universal energies and higher consciousness.

Boulder, Colorado:

Healing Begins in the Imagination – Free Healing Evening for the Community – June 2, 2012. The Rubbos present an inspiring evening of deep, joyful healing. Using transformational breathwork, meditation and movement, they will help you call in Divine energies for healing mind, body, spirit and planet. Connect to the Earth and the Heavens to bring about miraculous healings for you, your loved ones, your community, your country and our world. Donald and Cheryl Lynne’s mission is to awaken and inspire as many people as possible on the planet to the infinite potentials and limitless possibilities within each one of us.

Qigong Tui Na  – Increasing Intuition, Sensitivity and Ability through Directed Intention Workshop – June 9 & 10, 2012. Sponsored by James MacRitchie, L.Ac., Diplc. NCCAOM, and hosted by Adam Shapiro, L.Ac., MSTCM

Qigong Tui Na, as we learned it and as we teach it, is more than just physical manipulation of the patient’s body. The practitioner’s mind is the agent of change here, and the more time and effort you spend training your mind, the greater the heightening of your hyper-sensory awareness you will gain.   The advanced level of Tui Na practice involves all of the senses, and a calm, focused and directed mind. This requires more of a connection between the practitioner and the patient, quiet listening time, a felt-sensation of the energy flows of oneself, one’s patient and the environment, and a commanding of these energies, than might be usual for the practitioner.  But the rewards are so much greater as well, the potential for the practitioner’s intuition, diagnostic abilities and positive treatment results to expand are limitless, the more one engages in this type of bio -energetic medicine, the more one’s skills and certainty, and number of happy clients/patients, will grow.

New York City, NY:

Healing Begins in the Imagination – Free Healing Evening for the Community – July 7, 2012. Sponsored by Douglas Garn. The Rubbos present an inspiring evening of deep, joyful healing. Using transformational breathwork, meditation and movement, they will help you call in Divine energies for healing mind, body, spirit and planet. Connect to the Earth and the Heavens to bring about miraculous healings for you, your loved ones, your community, your country and our world. Donald and Cheryl Lynne’s mission is to awaken and inspire as many people as possible on the planet to the infinite potentials and limitless possibilities within each one of us.

Quantum Mind Power Day-long Workshop – July 14, 2012. Sponsored by Douglas Garn. Deepen your Intuition, Awaken your Third Eye, Engage all of your senses, Connect to the Source, Live stress and fear free. Transformational Breathwork: The Extraordinary Breath, deep breathing system based on ancient Chinese healing wisdom. Energybody Chakra Clearing: Cleansing and clearing your chakra system and strengthening  hyper-sensory awareness. Develop a felt-sense of the subtle energies of the universe, learn how to receive and send information.  Third Eye Opening: Modern meditation techniques to merge with one’s Higher Self; connecting the pituitary and pineal glands to awaken your superconscious. 

Scuol, Switzerland

Holistic Wellness Retreat  – July 22 to 27, 2012 – Our annual retreat, training body, mind and spirit in the pure mountain air of the Swiss Alps.

Check our website for more information!

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Qigong Tui Na – Gentle techniqes and methods


We winced as we watched the patient on the video squirming in obvious discomfort while the practitioner applied force and torque to her torso and various limbs as she lay on the table. The voice-over of the practitioner was telling us about his method and the positive results he was achieving in this patient, and many others, with his forceful Tui Na techniques.

We saw this video at a Traditional Chinese Medicine conference, while we were presenting our Five Element Balancing Qigong workshop, and this was but one of several videos shown by different presenters. We noted that all the patients featured in these videos showed signs of mild to extreme discomfort. The practitioners who were showing these videos claimed 100% positive results by the use of force or violence from the afflictions suffered by their patients.

We’re not claiming that hard Tui Na techniques are not good, and shouldn’t be used, in fact some of our teachers did incorporate the more forceful applications along with the lighter-touch hand techniques.

However, our philosophy is to treat our patients as we would treat our mothers, or a baby. You can get the same, and sometimes even superior, results from the gentle, painless Tui Na methods, techniques and mind-training exercises in our soon-to-be published eBook.  These methods are based on our decades-long immersion in the martial, healing and meditation arts, and are time-tested and effective.

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Exercise, what’s really in it for you?


We all know that exercise is good for us, although there have been some scientific studies done recently that seemed to indicate the benefits from exercise weren’t that great.

But as we know from our own lives as athletes and as teachers, movement of any kind brings positive physiological changes to our bodies, releasing endorphins that elevate our moods, flushing toxins that get stuck in our bodies and increasing our endurance and strength.

Now, according to the Harvard Medical School, the secret to better health is, wait for it, exercise!

Regular exercise improves your mood, boosts your ability to fend off infection, and lowers your risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and colon cancer.  Today, hundreds of studies have demonstrated that exercise helps you feel better and live longer.

The secret to better health — exercise

Children, adults and senior all benefit from regular exercise, with discipline you can enhance your health and well-being at any age. But although many people understand that exercise is important to living a balanced life, it’s become too easy to put it off and sit around watching TV, surfing the Internet, or playing computer and video games.

The minimum threshold of activity for good health is burning at least 700 to 1,000 calories a week through physical pursuits. Experts are now saying that ‘decades of solid science confirm that exercise improves health and can extend your life.’ By adding a minimum of half an hour of moderately intense physical activity to your day will prevent many serious ailments  – heart disease, diabetes, depression, and several types of cancer, particularly breast and colon cancers.

According to these experts, regular exercise has been known to help you sleep better, reduce the symptoms of stress, help you control your weight, definitely brighten your mood, sharpen your mental functioning, and, as an extra bonus, improve your sex life!

Research shows that your balanced exercise program includes four types of exercises  – aerobic activity, strength training, flexibility training and balance exercises  –  and each component benefits your body in a different way.

First, Aerobic Exercise

 Aerobic exercise should be the centerpiece of your fitness program. Research shows the disease-fighting benefits of exercise revolves around cardiovascular activity – walking, jogging, swimming, and cycling. If you are just starting your new exercise regimen, you should begin by working out at moderate intensity when doing aerobic exercise  - we suggest brisk walking while doing the Extraordinary Breath. (To learn correct deep abdominal breathing, download our free eBook, Extraordinary Breath, available on our website http://www.extraordinarybreath.com/.) Moderate intensity exercising is safe for almost everyone and will give you the desired health benefits. As you build up strength and endurance, you can increase the intensity of your aerobic routine and enjoy even greater health benefits.

We’ve found that our Shao Lin Chuan martial arts routine (which we learned as teenagers) is a perfect aerobic exercise, from the envigorating warmups, the sinew-strengthening stretching exercises to the powerful forms themselves. Shao Lin Chuan is a dynamic, fluid, powerful system of martial arts developed by Buddhist monks in China to cultivate a philosophy of wellness, and strength, flexibility, balance, and endurance are developed through this practice.

Second, Strength Training

You can build muscle and protect your bones with strength or resistance training, such as elastic-band workouts and the use of weight machines or free weights.

It’s a fact that bones lose calcium and weaken with age and strength training can help slow or sometimes even reverse this trend. Strength training will make you look and feel better, and increase your endurance for everyday activities: climbing stairs, carrying groceries, and even better performance at your job. By strengthening your muscles your body will have better mobility and balance, with a lower risk of falling and injuring yourself. You can also control your weight with strength training, because each pound of muscle burns more calories than its equivalent in fat.

Tai Chi Chuan, and in particular the lively Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan that we teach, is excellent for improving your health. Regular practice of Tai Chi Chuan, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, has been shown to maintain and even increase bone density. Practicing Tai Chi Chuan on a daily basis has greater health benefits as well, among them improving balance and increasing musculoskeletal strength.

Third, Flexibility Exercises

Stretching or flexibility training is the third prong of a balanced exercise program. Muscles tend to shorten and weaken with age. Shorter, stiffer muscle fibers make you vulnerable to injuries, back pain, and stress. But regularly performing exercises that isolate and stretch the elastic fibers surrounding your muscles and tendons can counteract this process. And stretching improves your posture and balance.

For those with chronic back pain, doctors are now recommending daily exercises to ease the pain, keep the spine flexible and recover faster from the injury.

As some of you know, Donald suffered a severe back injury about twelve years ago, a frank injury that ruptured the disc between L4 and L5. You wouldn’t know it today by looking at him, though, because he used all of his wisdom and knowledge to avoid the surgery his doctors were insisting upon and brought himself to full recovery. Paramount to the robust spinal health he enjoys today is his intention-driven bio-energetic exercises.  

As you can see in this video from our 2011 summer retreat in the Swiss Alps, Donald has no difficulty demonstrating the demanding Chinese Pushups for our students (watch for it at the 1:14 mark).  

 

Fourth, Balance Exercises

In most people, balance slowly erodes over time, leaving people fearful and hesitant at home and in public places. Being fearful of falling while you are doing simple tasks and exercises is a very real concern, and stops you from enjoying your life to the fullest.

Thankfully, we’ve found that mindfully performing balance exercises is one of the best ways to protect yourself against falls that can lead to temporary or permanent disability, and we’ve helped many seniors regain their joy in life because they could resume beloved activities in their daily lives.

Doing your balance exercises will take only a few minutes a day, and you can easily incorporate them into the warm-up portion of your workout. According to the Harvard Medical School, many strength-training exercises also serve as balance exercises, and balance-enhancing movements may simply be woven into other forms of exercise, such as Tai Chi Chuan, yoga, and Pilates.

We have an excellent series of balance exercises that we teach in almost every one of our retreats, and the results in our older students (and even the younger ones!) have been phenomenal.

When you exercise on a regular basis, you will:

  • Reduce your chances of getting heart disease. For those who already have heart disease, exercise reduces the chances of dying from it.
  • Lower your risk of developing hypertension and diabetes.
  • Reduce your risk for colon cancer and some other forms of cancer.
  • Improve your mood and mental functioning.
  • Keep your bones strong and joints healthy.
  • Help you maintain a healthy weight.
  • Help you maintain your independence well into your later years.

And who wouldn’t want all those wonderful health and longevity benefits?

Source: Harvard Medical School.

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A Decade of Transformative Arts in Switzerland


Flyer for Basel workshop 2002

Looking back on ten years of teaching transformational arts in Switzerland, it seems like only yesterday that we began, and each time we return we experience such incredible joy and fulfillment.

It’s kind of hard to believe that it has been a decade since we taught our first workshop in Basel. We feel so blessed to have helped to improve so many lives, in Switzerland and in the last several years in Romania. It’s a great an honor be such an integral part of our students lives, whether we meet them for a just short time, for one workshop or retreat, or much longer –  and we cherish the ones who return to us year after year.

We have some rather phenomenal students, and four among them are our heart-students Petra (Rusch) and Cory Martinet, Frank Hediger and Elaine Yap-Hediger. At our urging, the two couples, who live on opposite sides of Switzerland, opened up their own schools, Kunst der Energie and the Institut für Chinesische Medizin, which are now thriving.

Petra and Frank are Swiss citizens, and Elaine was originally from Malaysia. Twelve years ago, Petra and Frank, who had both trained as physiotherapists in Switzerland, were in the Bay Area studying at Tamalpa, Anna Halprin’s ground-breaking expressive arts therapy program in Marin County. Frank was also a long-time Aikido practitioner. And Elaine, who had been an Olympic rhythmic gymnastic champion in Malaysia, was attending the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Francisco. Petra had been a Swiss national champion in Vaulting, or Equestrian Vaulting, and while in the Bay Area she met her future husband Cory Martinet.

Petra started with us first, she was living near Gerstle Park, where we had held our classes since 1980. She had heard of us from friends, and had seen us teaching in the park when she walked through the neighborhood, and was curious to find out what we were doing. Elaine came next, she’d heard of us through the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and wanted to learn qigong to boost her TCM skills. Elaine brought Frank, who moved gracefully between our school, Tamalpa and the Aikido dojo he adopted in San Rafael. We were happy to have Elaine earn community service credits for her ACTCM diploma by doing volunteer work for our nonprofit, the PDP II Research Foundation.

(We were beyond delighted when Frank and Elaine asked us to perform their marriage ceremony just before they moved to Switzerland; they choreographed an exquisite ritual of music, movement and joy with their friends in a place special to all of us, in the sacred grove of old growth redwoods in Roys Redwoods, San Geronimo Valley.)

One day at class in Gerstle Park, Donald looked deep into Petra’s heart and asked her, “Do you want to be a teacher?” She was a little taken aback, but she recovered quickly and said, “Yes!” Once she had determined that this was a direction she wanted to take in her life, we dedicated many hours of personal training time, teaching her all of the forms that we had been entrusted with by our teachers, before she left with Cory to go back to Switzerland.

After her return to Switzerland, Petra continued her practicing of the arts, and also started her physiotherapy career. With our encouragement, she began teaching classes, the Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan and various systems of Qigong she had learned from us, and quickly developed a loyal following.

And so, ten years ago, when we were planning a holiday through Europe, we decided it would be good to visit our heart-students Petra and Cory, and continue their training.

Whenwe were planning this trip, Frank and Elaine were still in California studying with us. We mentioned to Frank that we wanted to do a workshop in Basel, Frank’s hometown, and he immediately contacted his former Aikido teacher and arranged for us to have the use of the dojo.

The  interview on Primordial Qigong that Robert Bergman had done with Donald had just been published in the Summer 2002 issue of Solala Towler’s The Empty Vessel, A Journal of Contemporary Taoism, and we felt compelled to bring this profound Primordial Qigong form to Europe. It had reached the shores of the USA, brought by Professor Zhu Hui, but it hadn’t arrived in Europe yet. We felt it was very important to plant the first seeds of this rare, unique and transformative Qigong system in Europe, and allow Petra to continue to cultivate that garden in Switzerland.

When we told Petra that we were coming to Basel to teach a Primordial Qigong workshop, she was very excited. She gathered her students together, and she, Cory, their students and some new people met us at the dojo in Basel for a lovely, fun-filled three days: Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday, transmitting the form and some of the inner wisdom to enthusiastic people with open hearts and receptive minds.

This was the first of many magical events in Switzerland, and northern Italy, and the start of a decade of bringing our wisdom and establishing the Rubbo Art of Energy forms and systems in Europe. We look forward to the next decade, as we develop our plans for expanding the Centers that are in place, and creating new ones.

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‘Secrets of Qigong Masters’ – Donald & Cheryl Lynne Rubbo Interview


Yin Style Bagua Hand Techniques: Sending and Pulling

Our interview on ‘The Secrets of Qigong Masters’ Blog Talk Radio is now available on Lama Tantrapa’s Blog Talk Radio program: www.blogtalkradio.com/qigongmasters 

Please listen, we’d love your feedback!

Donald & Cheryl Lynne

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http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Secrets-of-Qigong-Masters-8-1-11–Talk-Show-Interview–Donald—Cheryl-Lynne-Rubbo.html?soid=1102763268330&aid=QZZpAM4GVxg


http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Secrets-of-Qigong-Masters-8-1-11–Talk-Show-Interview–Donald—Cheryl-Lynne-Rubbo.html?soid=1102763268330&aid=QZZpAM4GVxg.

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Health and Fitness in the Swiss Alps


Shao Lin Chuan in Scuol, Switzerland

We just completed the first session of our annual Rubbo Retreat in Switzerland, and we are so delighted to be creating magic with our Swiss students once again.

We’ve got a great group here, it’s a joy to share our wisdom with open hearts and receptive minds.

There’s a great range of ages practicing the aerobic martial art Shao Lin Chuan with us, from 25 to 75.  Although Shao Lin is traditionally taught to young people, we believe that anyone can do this health-enhancing system and have watched with joy as our students who are seniors move with grace, confidence and power across the court.

Of course we’ve included our breathing exercises in this retreat. Scuol is at 4,000 feet, and deep breathing exercises done at this altitude will increase lung capacity for not just here (leading to greater health, endurance, clarity of mind, power and effortless energy) but for the lower elevations also.

Elaine, Frank and Mikko doing Chinese pushups

The Shao Lin Chuan Group!

The second session of our retreat began this morning, Awakening the Inner Healer ( Erwecke Deine innere Heilkraft). We are all healers, and at this session we are teaching how to cultivate and express your innate healing abilities. We’ve noticed big shifts already in our retreatants, such a delight to facilitate those aha! moments.

We usually give a name to our tours, previously we had the Rubbo Magical Mystery Tour (a spiritual journey to India, Nepal and Thailand in early 2010), the Rubbo Love is the Answer Teaching Tour (last year in Europe).

We were waiting for the universe to indicate the name for this current teaching tour, and it came to us a few days ago: The Rubbo Limitless Love and Gratitude Teaching Tour. We are infusing our all of our teachings with love and gratitude and transmitting to all of our students the felt-sensations of limitless love and gratitude, for them to appreciate all of the blessings each of us receive, from the universe, from our families and friends, from our communities and from the world.

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Peter Max’s painting of Donald’s father, Don Rubbo


Several years ago we heard that Peter Max would be signing copies of his new book of paintings at a Borders store in San Jose. I insisted to Donald that we go to the book signing.

We drove down to the Borders store and purchased a copy of the book, and then stood in a long line. One of the employees announced that if you wanted Peter Max to sign the book to a particular person, to write the name of that person on a slip of paper.

We wrote down ‘Don Rubbo’ on a piece of paper. We know that Peter Max hadn’t seen that name in many, many years.

In 1962, Peter Max, Tom Daly and their mentor Don Rubbo started a small Manhattan arts studio together, the Daly & Max Studio. Although his name wasn’t listed, Don Rubbo joked that he was the ampersand in Daly & Max Studio.  In 1963, Daly, Max and Rubbo did the illustration, design and color for Helga Sandburg’s (the daughter of poet Carl Sandburg) children’s book Joel and the Wild Goose. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Rubbo)

At the book signing, we waited patiently for our turn, inching slowly up to the table where Peter Max sat hunched over the books as he was signing them. He rarely looked up, only glancing over at the slips of paper and writing a quick inscription.  Finally we reached the table, slid our book to him and placed the piece of paper with ‘Don Rubbo’ on top of the book.

He stared at the piece of paper for a few moments, and then looked up at Donald with a big smile. He leaped over the table and grabbed Donald in a bear hug, exclaiming, “Your father taught us all!”

As the long line of people watched, Peter and Donald were engaged in a lengthy conversation, and finally Peter said to Donald, “Send me a photo of your dad, and I will make a painting of him for you!”

Several years passed, and recently I emailed him again, gently reminding him of his offer, and saying how much it would mean to Donald to receive the painting. I sent again a photo, one that Don Rubbo had taken of himself sitting with his sons, with Donald just behind his shoulder.

Peter’s assistant called me, and said she thought the photo was so exquisite, and that Peter would be creating a painting for Donald and that it would be shipped soon. We were beyond excited, so thrilled and honored, and looking forward to seeing the painting.

It finally arrived, and it is truly a magnificent piece of art. We are deeply grateful to Peter, and as Donald examined the painting, he could feel the energy and love that Peter put into every brush stroke.

Thank you, Peter!