Join Tai Chi Master-Instructor Don Ethan Miller in a ground-breaking new program to increase your physical stability and overall well-being: The Tai Chi Way to Better Balance DVD and eBook Set.
Each exercise and key Tai Chi concept is explained in detail and organized in a safe, easy-to-follow progression of levels.
By practicing the 3 Levels of Tai Chi Balance Training, you will soon embody the Tai Chi principles of Rooting, Central Equilibrium, and Yin-Yang Balance, through such ancient exercises as:
The name “tai chi” has become fairly well known in the United States and the ar t is being used by the western medical community for the treatment of a number of different conditions. The fact is however that the art of tai chi was developed from an older art called qigong. While there are a number of different styles of qigong the focus of all of them is to focus the body’s natural energies.
Tai Chi is becoming ever more popular in the West but the Art itself has some catching up to do. The best books on the subject are written in Chineses and the number of recognized “Masters” that are from the West can be literally counted on one hand. The only Grand Masters are China and it is extremely rare for a Westerner to be invited to study with them. But if the Art is to be truly understood, if Westerners are to get the most from tai chi, this cultural gap must be bridged.
I was thrilled to receive such a positive response to my last post on Standing Qigong. And it wasn’t just support, even though I confessed that now I have to climb back up the mountain on the way to 2-hour sessions again.
You guys asked really great questions about standing qigong.
Instead of answering them in the comments of the last post, I decided to turn the questions into a post of their own.
Update: After you read this post, check out my answers to some great questions that were asked in the comments, here.
Last spring, I set out to enter “the 2-Hour Gate” in standing qigong. And I got there. In fact, it was easier to get there than I thought it would be.
Before you think I’m bragging about my practice, though, there’s something else I have to confess. As soon as I missed a couple weeks of practice, going through the gate became impossible for me.
Allow me to share with you a Tai Chi principle so simple and clear that it is often overlooked, even by practitioners who have been doing Tai Chi for 10 years or more.
The Five Movement Centers is a template for understand HOW you move and applying it to any form you know or any repetitive movement you can perform, like going for a walk, is going to have a serious impact on how grounded, fluid, and connected you feel.
When my first Tai Chi teacher, Bruce Frantzis, came back to the US forty years ago to spread the Tai Chi he learned in China, he found out that many basic Tai Chi concepts were not being taught, either because of communications issues or lack of knowledge. Only a fraction of the vast potential of the art was being shared. Bruce set out to teach the Inner Form of Tai Chi and that’s what I have studied for the last 15 years.
If you listed to the recent Qigong Radio episode on Rooting, Central Equilibrium, and Balance, you probably want more insight into how to put Tai Chi balance training to work in your practice.
Now you can start Tai Chi balance training with our new eBook, “An Introduction to Rooting and Stability,” where you will take the Tai Chi Way to re-gaining, one of life’s simplest yet most essential treasures–the gift of balance.
