You know how you can be banging your head against a wall, trying to figure something out? Then, you sleep on it, take a shower, or go for a walk and suddenly a solution pops into your head. Have you ever wondered why this happens or how it works? So have I…and I don’t know HOW it works, but I do know that we are practicing the exact same skill in qigong.
As you know from other episodes of Qigong Radio and other interviews, I always try to track down authoritative sources when I want to learn more about a subject and share it with you. Now that my teacher Bruce Frantzis is releasing two more DVD sets on Xingyi’s Five Elements, I wanted to talk to someone about these practices. To the best of my knowledge, Isaac Kamins is the only person actively teaching the Energy Arts Xingyi curriculum who also trained with Bruce Frantzis in weekly classes for several years in the Bay Area in the 90’s.
When you set out to learn Taoist Energy Arts like Tai Chi, qigong, or meditation, you come across the lore of masters with supernatural abilities or techniques too deadly to teach openly. Or more insidious, we grasp after images of unattainable perfection, always slightly beyond reach, unless we just find the right technique or are initiated into a secret practice. And even if we’ve given up silly kung fu fantasies of flying through the bamboo reeds, on a subtle level we still chase ideas and dreams that only live in the mental realm.
Inspiration for Rooting and Lengthening in Chicago On November 9, I’ll be teaching a seminar for my friend Chris Cinnamon at Enso Tai Chi (registration details here). This year we’ll continue the “Put More Chi in Your Tai Chi” theme that we started last year by focusing on Tai Chi Rooting, Sinking Chi, Dissolving, and more. The goal is to give everyone a clear sense of how nourishing it can be to find your root and feed it through solo exercises and interactive partner practice.
When you read the Tai Chi Classics and look at photos of the old masters, everything looks graceful, flowing, and full of life. The problem is, your daily practice can be full of aches, pains, kinks, binds and the feeling that you’re never really going to get it. There is a lot of territory between, “oh man, it hurts, I’ll never get past it” and “be still like a mountain, flowing like a great river”
Feng Zhiqiang was a famous Tai Chi Master from Beijing who was a major influence on my teacher Bruce Frantzis. Master Feng did some teaching in the West as well and we are fortunate to have access to a transcript of a 2001 workshop he taught in the Bay Area (thanks to the folks at SilkReeler.com for making this transcript available and thanks to Igor for sending it my way!).
One of the most satisfying things about running this site is when you guys reach out and ask questions about Qigong and Tai Chi. Today, I wanted to share with you 3 of the most common ones I get about starting up a qigong practice (and if you have a different one, something I’ve missed, let me hear about it!). Hopefully, these questions will line up with something you’ve been thinking about in your practice too (again, let me know in the comments!
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.
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:
