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Journalist Tyler Midkiff interviewed Ilchi Lee for the following article, published February 15, 2008 in the Red Rock News of Sedona, Arizona.
South Korean author and lecturer Ilchi Lee believes he’s discovered a series of techniques for maintaining and improving the functioning of the human brain.
Seated comfortably in a room atop the Brain Respiration Clinic, in Uptown, one of Lee’s several Sedona-based businesses, Lee spoke through a translator about the last 30 years he’s spent researching exercise and the brain.
On Sunday, Feb. 17, Lee will visit the Sedona Public Library from 2 to 4 p.m. to speak about his latest book “In Full Bloom: A brain education guide for successful aging,’ which he co-wrote with Jessie Jones, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology and health science at the Center for Successful Aging at California State University-Fullerton.
The book is intended to promote optimal brain functioning, particularly in the elderly, according to Lee, who said he’s able to assess a person’s overall brain functioning through a series of questions, which he’ll demonstrate during his talk at the Sedona Public Library.
The most important thing Lee believes he can teach people is how to understand the effects their actions have upon their brains.
“Brain waves change depending on what kind of information we get,” Lee said, and those changes, either good or bad, produce emotions.
The state of a person’s health is dependent upon those emotions, he said.
It’s difficult, or even impossible, to eradicate feelings of stress and depression simply by thinking about them, so changing one’s brain wave requires attention to other key elements, like exercise, music and specific information, Lee said.
Exercise can include activities as simple as shaking one’s head or tapping one’s toes together, according to Lee, who said he’s developed more than 300 exercises helpful in preventing illness and aging.
As people grow older, common knowledge says their brain functioning decreases, Lee said, but with moderate exercise, he believes people can maintain many youthful functions.
“The important thing to remember is that every action changes your brain waves,” Lee said. “When your brain waves are different, you produce different hormones.”
While exerciseing, most people are able to reach a point where they feel really good, but when they become depressed, it usually never occurs to them to try exercising, he said.
By remaining immobile and alone, it’s easy for them to become immersed in their negative emotions, Lee said.
Lee believes there are benefits to his methods, but like most anything, there are also risks, he said. If there’s an accident, someone can get hurt.
That’s why Lee continues to refine and improve his methods, he said. It’s a process of growth. Lee recalls himself as a cynical, often pessimistic, young man with no dreams for the future and no real purpose in life.
“I always had issues with why I was here on Earth – what the point of my life was,” Lee said. “I wasn’t enjoying myself … and I felt that I couldn’t wait for somebody else to help me with my problems. I had to figure them out on my own. I was he only one who could solve my problems and by overcoming these various obstacles, I came to know myself more deeply.”
Thirty years ago, Lee began teaching what he learned in a park in South Korea. He entertained no thoughts of taking his teachings to the world, he said, but through word of mouth, one person at a time, his groups began to expand.
Advanced breathing methods evolved into meditation, then brain respiration and so on, but the philosophies never changed, according to Lee.
Years later, he now claims he can teach anyone to develop heightened sensory perception.
“You can train your brain to perceive a color through your hand without using your eyes,” Lee said. “What that means is that it’s possible to train your brain to develop many different abilities.”
Every year, Lee said he hosts an Olympiad where both children and adults can demonstrate their heightened sensory abilities in a competitive environment.
The jury is still out on how HSP works, Lee said, but he believes his techniques are demonstrable.
“With training, anyone can do it,” he said.
Lee is aware that such clams are regarded with skepticism among many in the scientific community, and that’s natural, he said.
“Whenever there is the introduction of a new method, it’s natural for some people to have a positive response and for some people to respond negatively,” Lee said.
In Sedona, which Lee said he considers his second home, he believes his techniques can help the elderly and he’ll visit the library to demonstrate.
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