Practice People

I want to thank everyone who took the time to answer this poll about meditation practice. You shared some really nice insights into what you experience and why you practice. In this post, I want to share some of the common themes and the particular language people used to express what happens in a typical meditation practice session. Body-Centered Meditation Practice The first big theme was how physically oriented many people are in their practice. Here’s one description that captured the body-centered practice well: ...

_This is a guest post from my friend and fellow instructor, Paul Cavel. I asked Paul to talk a little bit about his experience teaching all over Europe and what he’s learned after nearly 20 years doing it. There are some great insights here about the internal energy arts that you can apply to your own practice, whether you teach or not. Take note when he talks about practice mindset! _ ...

In part 1 of this interview, we talked to Dr. Mark Cheng about how his background as an acupuncturist, martial artist, strength coach and PhD in Chinese Medicine has shaped his point of view about the broader subject of fitness and wellness. Now he’s going to explain his thinking behind developing a project, called Tai Cheng, which aims to introduce Tai Chi to a much larger fitness audience. ...

Dr. Mark Cheng compares learning Tai Chi to studying a well-cut diamond, and as you’ll see in the following conversation, his background as an acupuncturist, martial artist, strength coach and PhD in Chinese Medicine actually allows him to look at the broader subject of fitness and wellness in the same multi-faceted way. With the depth and range he brings to teaching movement, it’s no wonder that he’s leading the way to introducing Tai Chi to a much larger fitness audience and in the process, asking all Tai Chi people to step back and take a fresh look at their art. ...

Trained in Evolutionary Biology, Peter Wayne, Ph.D., has spent the last 12 years in medical research and more than 35 years studying and teaching Tai Chi. He now serves as Research Director for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine jointly based at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where a primary focus of his research is studying the clinical and physiological impacts of Tai Chi on health. ...

I got an email the other day that was a little bit different than the usual requests for lessons. It read: “I learned the Short Form at Brookline Tai Chi under the tutelage of Bill Ryan back about 1996-1997. For seven years, I continued to do the short form three times every morning. Then for the past eight years or so, I have done the short form four times every morning. ...

I sat down with Robert Tangora to talk about his upcoming book on Tai Chi Cloud Hands when he was in Boston in October. When he discusses Tai Chi Cloud Hands, almost reverently, Robert explains it as a paradigm for understanding the complete art of Tai Chi, and also as a way to bring each practitioner closer to integration. The basic problem is that you have a spectrum of practices, from sitting, to standing, to moving, to fighting, that all feel very different and all develop different attributes. ...

Stability and flow seem to be at odds with each other. Stability can mean rigidity, or at least, it seems to conjure up something fixed, sturdy, and unmoving. Flow isn’t any of those things. It’s fluid and changing. So how does Energy Arts Senior Instructor Craig Barnes blend the two so seamlessly? Recently, Craig taught a workshop about awakening energetic sensitivity, drawn from principles of Dragon and Tiger Qigong. We worked a lot on the opening of the set. The goal was to “fill up your chi” before you start doing the movements, so that the body is awake and engaged and each movement is more alive and more connected. ...

Z-Health Master Trainer Jen Waak is a self-described “recovering management consultant”. These days, she helps other “Keyboard Athletes” improve and maintain their bodies and stay healthy even when they’re stuck behind a desk all day. What surprised me about reading Jen’s advice on “what you should do at your desk”, was that it sounded a lot like what she did last year to get ready for a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. ...

I asked my friend and fellow qigong practitioner Catherine Chenoweth to talk a little bit about her experience using qigong to manage a chronic health condition. Here’s what she had to say: When I was released from the hospital in 1996, it was after three months, and with a diagnosis of LAM (Lymphangioleiomyomatosis), a rare, progressive, untreatable and often fatal lung disease. I asked a friend who was well versed in alternative treatments what I should do for my health, and his response, immediate and emphatic, was “You need to do qigong!” ...