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!).
In this episode of Qigong Radio, I answer some questions about different sensations readers have been experiencing when they practice. In the Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong Instruction Manual, Bruce Frantzis lays out important guidelines for what kinds of “chi reactions” to expect. I want to show you how to apply these guidelines to your practice. Expect Chi Reactions Dragon and Tiger is a powerful tool for awakening your body on physical, energetic, emotional, mental and spiritual levels.
In this episode of Qigong Radio, Energy Arts Senior Instructor Eric Peters describes what it’s like to work with the energy of the spine, using Bend the Bow Spinal Qigong. Bend the Bow is an advanced qigong set that requires precise alignment and refined sensitivity, but it gives you access to a much deeper level of internal connection and coordination than standard ways of moving your body through space. Eric performing Bend the Bow Spinal Qigong:
After teaching thousands of people of all ages and physical abilities over the last eight years, it is clear to me that there is one technique in Tai Chi that is more powerful than all others. My main teacher, Bruce Frantzis, introduced me to this technique and taught me how to use all its variations, under different conditions. He has encouraged all his instructors to pass along this technique because it is practically a lost art.
As part of the Tai Chi Mastery Program, Bruce Frantzis recently published a report called “The Eight Principles of Tai Chi Chuan.” The report is full of detail about stages of training 8 different energies of Tai Chi, laid out in clear and straightforward language. But I always have a problem with writing like this…. On the one hand, it is invaluable for anyone who wants to understand the bigger context of their Tai Chi practice.
One aspect of Tai Chi that tends to get overlooked is testing. I don’t mean testing for rank or belts. I mean testing the smoothness of your nervous system that should be evolving as you go deeper into your practice. In this video, Tai Chi Master Bruce Frantzis demonstrates an exceptional degree of smoothness. Even though he is demonstrating a Ba Gua rolling exercise, all of the internal arts aim to cultivate this degree of fluidity:
Movement can be a powerful tool for creating a calm mind, but only when you follow some very specific rules. Tai Chi was designed with these specific movement rules because the goal is to take you from tense to relaxed and from relaxed to vital and strong. When my Tai Chi teacher, Bruce Frantzis explains the learning progression for Tai Chi, he makes it clear that when your primary focus is on the mind, and your goal is to calm your mind, you must follow this progression.
My friend Jess makes a point of studying with as many different teachers as he can. His goal isn’t to dabble in a lot of different styles or systems. He is faithful and dedicated to his main practice, but he knows that each time he gets exposed to a new system, he learns something about his own. See if you can glean one new thing from each of these qigong videos from YouTube to refine and improve your practice today.
