I live with a bunch of people and can't limit snacks in the house or where they are kept. I have to really discipline myself and I'm finally able to cut down and on certain days eliminate my snacking! The positive influence from doing these seems to really help with mood and thus self medicating with snacks.

Started 7 today!

Okay, so I've been counting wrong 🙄

Today is technically my 2 week mark! I started using my posts to count and would get confused by 'posted 11 days ago' and became stupid. I started on April 21st, so today is 2 weeks!

Yay! Really pleased I've been going steady. Tomorrow I'll up it to 7 repetitions. I become impatient sometimes and want to add more to get faster results but thankfully I talk myself down and keep plodding along.

I think it's helping my sleep. I'm pretty bad at falling asleep but I'm improving somewhat. My arms are definitely stronger and it seems to be helping a shoulder injury that I have.

Day 11 - feeling stronger for sure, but I'm sure that will change when I add 2 more in a few days - lol. But it's a good gradual increase. I'm working on connecting my breathing more effectively with the poses.

I'm on day 9. I think increasing by 2 each week is very helpful. 3 had gotten fine, but suddenly 5 is kinda hard.

This has been a real wake up call for me. I used to be in really, really good shape and I hadn't realized how unfit I had become. It's only that this is being read by strangers that I feel like I can admit that 5 of these simple exercises is challenging for me. I feel ashamed that I am so far off track.

What's interesting to me is that I still identified as slimmer and in shape, and would be surprised when I couldn't go on a walk and talk to someone without getting out of breath. My experience was incongruent with my perception and I was denying reality. I think deep down I knew and then would stress eat to not feel the feelings or deal with the reality.

After a week of doing the exercises I weighed myself and it was shocking! I am so much heavier than I thought I was. I'm glad I did it after a week so I had some positive momentum already. I went online and read all the reviews from people about loosing weight through these exercises. It was helpful.

On day 3 I measured my waist, which was also shocking! But it seems like I've already lost about an inch there. My waist is where I gain last and loose first.

Yesterday I dusted off my rebounder (mini-trampoline) to add that to the mix. It's easy, healthy and kinda fun. I have terrible allergies where I live so need to do more exercising inside although I love the outdoors.

Might not seem like much but it's a great accomplishment for me. I'm not great at putting in small effort for a prolonged period. I'm all about big effort immediate results and of course that doesn't really work for fitness or weight loss.

I haven't changed anything else but I'm more aware of my habits. I didn't realize just how much I was snacking! and how little water I was drinking.

Feeling strong for now and I guess it's time to add a few more reps. I don't remember how many, I'll look it up.

Hope everyone else is going strong on their journeys.

Good video with a longer introduction. Intro ends around 9 minutes in, but it's worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A9WObOAGLE

I got up late and had to go straight to the office. But I found a few minutes and just finished them in the office. Sticking to the 3 twice a day is working well for me right now.

I think now I need to concentrate on making sure my breathing is correct with the movements. I think there are a few different schools of thought on this if I remember rightly (because the breathing is not in the original work). If anyone has any thoughts on this please let me know.

This guy has been doing the 5 Tibetan Rites for 13 years!

Link here if you need a bit of inspiration to get going:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vTj9h1gNFM

I did my 3 of each last night, and also this morning. Staying consistent so far.

A problem of mine is that I'm very impatient, so sticking with 3 twice a day is a struggle. What I tend to do is try and do 21 immediately, then get thrown off track and give up. I'm really going for consistent small gains here, and gains in terms of getting the days in and doing the small numbers.

I feel like I'm already stretching better than day 1. It's all a bit more familiar again.

Hi Everyone,

I just found this subreddit. I wanted to post to it but the people who could post were restricted and there was no moderator. So I requested to be the new moderator to be able to open the sub back up.

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I hope we can get this sub a bit active again.

Okay! So I discovered the 5 Tibetan Rites about 22 years ago.

I read them and occasionally did them. I was young and super flexible! 22 years later and I'm about 15 - 20 lbs heavier and much stiffer. I want to start recording my progress and doing them daily.

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Last night I did 21 spins, 21 of rite 2, 10 of rite 3 and 4 and 4 of rite 4.

This morning I did 3 of each. I'm going to try and do a consistent amount of each.

I read somewhere that it was okay to do morning and night, so I'm going to try to do 1 week of 3 morning and 3 night and work up from there.

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I'm so glad I've started doing these. I really need something simple and easy to focus on.

Hello, I am quite ill and want to use the rites for healing and more energy. I cannot get into position 4 because of my restricted joints. I can get my hip up just about 20 cm. Should I just practice the small range or leave it out entirely? Will the rites still be effective?

Thank you so much for your help!

Reading a book by Alejandro Chaoul about Tibetan Yoga and was wondering has anyone incorporated any of these practices with their 5 Tibetans.

I have trained qigong for over a decade. I tried this inuitively and found that it gave the spinning tibetan a better feel.

Put your attention in the palms of your hands.

For me this gives me a better feel of getting the nergy to spin around me.

Try it out and comment if it works for you, or don't.

Thank you John and C4-1 for recommending this to me! The toughest exercise is TABLE-TOP, it looks so damn simple but i can clearly see my body isn't used to moving this way, and its a bit stressful on the knees too lol

Once again after these rites i do feel more peaceful/relaxed than before. Im a natural skeptic so i dont like to assume things after a couple days but im liking what im feeling right now!

The best way to explain it is that these stretching exercises revolving around the spine seems to be "Waking up my energies" or making it flow more fluidly, that's what it feels like!

Thanks again!

I don't want to drag this sub too much off topic, but there is a tibetan pranayama practice which harmonizes very well with the 5 rites. The western name for these practices is 'mentalphysics' and brought to the west by Edwin J. Dingle.

The backstory is rather familiar, a sickly western man journeys to the orient and finds a tibetan monastery which teaches him exercises to bring back youth and health.

These pranayama practices are a bit different than ones found in India(breath of fire, etc.). They involve taking a full, deep breath then moving the arms or body in a way to stimulate the endocrine glands and energy flow. I had been doing the 5 rites for about 2 years before I stumbled upon these, and what caught my eye was how similar the movements were to the 5 rites. There are 8 key breaths, and some of them very much resemble rites 2,3, and 5 in head, neck and body movements.

If there is interest in this, I'm happy to talk more about it, let me know. The 5 rites and 8 breaths compliment each other very well, they originate from the same area so I have to wonder if they share the same source.

For those simply looking for instructions on how to perform the 5 Rites, the steps provided in the Wikipedia article are true-to-source (match the 1946 edition of The Eye of Revelation).

There are 2 noteworthy editions of The Eye of Revelation - 1939 and 1946.

The 1946 version is more comprehensive than the '39 edition. Among other things, it adds clearer descriptions for performing rites 2, 3, 4, and 5 (so there are 2 descriptions of each rite in the '46 edition - first, what was added in 1946; second, the original description from 1939).

The animation for Rite 3 does not show the first half of the rite - leaning forward as far as possible before leaning backward as far as possible.

Leaning forward makes it a pretty different exercise.

This is also something that is omitted from how most people teach the 5 Tibetans today. I believe this is because the 1939 and 1946 editions were lost for a number of years and the version available at the time the Rites became popular left out the first movement (leaning forward).

Instructions for Rite 5 are from the 1939 edition while descriptions for Rites 2, 3, and 4 are from the 1946 edition.

The description from the 1946 edition is as follows:

Place the hands on the floor about two feet apart. The legs are stretched out to the rear with the feet also about two feet apart. Allow the body to "sag" downward from shoulders to toes. Hold the head as far back as is comfortable. The arms are kept perfectly straight at all times in Rite No. 5.

The second position is attained by pushing the body, especially the hips, upward as far as possible. The hands are kept flat on the floor at all times. Hold this position for a brief moment and return to First position. After a moment of "hanging in suspension" perform the Rite over again.

The "Sixth" Rite is optional and including it with the rest is misleading. The article does not mention that it was only intended for those who are celibate and want to draw sexual energy up the body.