IKF Magazine Jun07, Power At The Speed Of Light (PDF)
IKF Magazine Mar05, The Art Of "Cooking" Jing (PDF)
IKF Magazine July94, 28 Minutes A Day To Internal Power, including The Gold Bell Training (PDF)
IKF Magazine April89, Temple Style Tai Chi (PDF)
IKF Magazine April87, Introduction to Chi Kung (PDF)
Chicago Tribune - Qigong Article June03, Large Print (PDF)
Chicago Tribune - Qigong Article, Normal Print (PDF)
Chicago Suntimes Article 1/13/06 (PDF)
Chicago Suntimes 1991, Trader Article (PDF)
Holistic Chicago Magazine: You need more CHI! (PDF)
Chi Kung is an ancient Chinese system of energy cultivation which enables you to develop internal power. It is the same source of power behind the Chinese internal martial arts, and without which, the movements in these arts are only calisthenics. For centuries, Chi Kung has been used for health, vitality, increasing longevity, transforming martial art and athletic ability and accelerating the mind. Ultimately, it can help you achieve your personal vision by strengthening the "muscle of your WILL."
Chi Kung is often confused with meditation. Chi Kung is different. In most meditations, the mind is calmed and simply registers the flux of consciousness to naturally reach a state of pure awareness for eventual union with the Absolute. In Chi Kung, the mind is focused on directing energy, not on thinking or not thinking. The principle is called "Hsing Chi" meaning "wherever the mind goes, the energy follows."
Neither is Chi Kung a form of visualization. Visualization is something created in the imagination, something not existing or not yet existing, as in Creative Visualization. In Chi Kung you are not visualizing the energy condensing, circulating or projecting through the use of images... you are actually doing it, physically. It is the conscious directing and use of the energy.
The energy transformed in Chi Kung exists in three states, like ice, water and steam. The first state is called Chi. Chinese Taoists believe that there was a single eternal power that moves the universe. They called it Chi. In Chinese the word has several meanings. It can mean "air," "power," "motion," or "life." It is the "intrinsic energy." Everyone possesses it.
Accumulating or circulating large amounts of Chi by itself, however, will not produce great benefits. Like gasoline in a motor, the Chi must be condensed and burned to produce power. The name of this internal power is Jing. It is the second state of energy transformed in a complete system of Chi Kung. When Chi is converted into Jing, it is the same as converting your internal energy into your internal power. Chi is the energy source, Jing is the power, and Chi Kung is the method of transformation.
The concept that allows you to transform internal energy into internal power is called the Condensing principle. It is the single most important element of Chi Kung. Without practicing Condensing, there will be no "alchemical agent" or "essence" to be circulated. Through Condensing techniques you draw energy into every cell in your body and condense it down, tighter and tighter, to fit into less and less space. The denser you become, the more powerful your internal vacuum becomes, the more explosive your internal power will be. Using Condensing techniques, you fit 18 inches of internal movement into one inch of space. The resulting transformation changes the vibratory frequency of the Chi into Jing. The energy is now ready to be used.
After condensing the energy, the next process is to circulate it through a series of Chi Circulations utilizing the Macro-Cosmic principle. In this manner, you learn to open and close various doorways in your body in order to create pathways for the flow of energy. These pathways are not already in existence, like acupuncture meridians. You must create and burn them through. The flow of energy through these pathways connects each cell with every other cell. The result is that you can move the energy to where it's needed, as the torso and extremities become a single unit.
The third stage in a Chi Kung process uses the Micro-Cosmic principle. Utilizing this principle, you learn how to take the energy you have accumulated and circulate it in the internal pathway through the Central Channel in the spinal cord. This raises the amount of energy that your central nervous system can carry. The last stage of Chi Kung is to apply the Projecting principle. In this way you learn to extend your mind, and energy, outside the confines of your physical body. It allows you to influence your environment in a positive way. The final result is an evolution of your Shen, your spiritual essence, completing the energy transformation.
Tidal Wave Chi Kung will raise your level of deservingness, improve your performance, strengthen your will, give you healing energy to prevent or cure illnesses and raise your level of assertiveness. Results are dramatic and permanent.
Several guidelines are suggested if you want to achieve this kind of transformation. First, find a complete system of Chi Kung which contains all four of the essential elements of internal power work, namely, Condensing, Macro Cosmic circulations, the Micro-Cosmic circulation and Projecting techniques. While practicing a mixture of Chi Kung techniques that are less complete can produce benefits, ultimately, evolving on all the necessary levels for the alchemy of change will be impossible if you are missing an ingredient.
Next, you must practice regularly, preferably 4-5 times per week. Accumulating and transforming energy is like boiling water. If you keep turning off the heat and letting the water cool, it will never boil. The practice sessions, however, need not be lengthy. The daily practice routine for a system like Tidal Wave Chi Kung can be completed in exactly 28 minutes a day.
Finally, when you practice, you must do it with passion. Simply running though the techniques will produce little change. My teacher told me that the intensity of the practice is like being held underwater and fighting to get to the surface for a breath of air.
Remember, "Masters are made in the beginning... not at the end." Good luck on your journey.
To order videos: FOUNDATION FUNDAMENTALS - Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan and/or TIDAL WAVE CHI KUNG by credit card, use the order form on my home page or call my 24 Hour Voice Mail Energy Hot Line at (800) 7 TAI-CHI = (800) 782-4244 and I will call you back to confirm your order information.
© 1990 Gary J. Clyman
by Gary J. Clyman
In the past, the internal arts have been obscured and were made nearly inaccessible. That no longer is true. The development of the internal arts is easy to understand and is accessible. The topic of internal power and internal energy has been confusing for the general public. They have been often led to believe that it is an obscure and complicated issue, difficult to understand, taking years to learn and its applicability was limited to the martial arts. Things couldn't be further from the truth.
The developing of internal power based on a structured, systematized method such as the method I teach is easily accessible. This material is easy to understand and perform and the rewards are prompt and ongoing, becoming geometrically more effective the more one practices.
An understanding of the structure of internal power and the truths around it will be helpful in helping the novice or advanced student further his study. The elements I'd like to explain are Chi Circulations, Chi Kung, Nei Kung and Gold Bell Training. It is important to understand that these techniques lead to what is called cultivating your vibration.
While people have often been led to believe that the particular form or how you are doing it physically are important, it's really not. The essence of the movement is with the mind, not with the particular position, posture or movement your body is doing. For example, in The Daily Practice Routine which is the structure of our Chi Kung system, simply doing 10 minutes a day of what I've termed "Basic Path Training," which consists of the Chi Circulations in the postures for Upward and Downward Meditation, Inward and Outward Meditation and Tai Chi Stance Meditation, you're able to build pathways for the later development of your internal energy.
Don't confuse these meditations with their simple counterparts in Tai Chi. These meditations have common names, but they are anything but common. "The Mind Training" in these Chi Circulations is what makes these meditations so important. You only need a handful of them because you spend a tremendous amount of time on each of them. Tai Chi students generally spend very little time on too many things. The ratio of practice time per form using this method is very high.
Chi Circulations are very special. Using Chi Circulations, you open and close various doorways in your body so you can create pathways for energy to flow through. This connects each cell to every other cell. This is important for fighting the aging process and in staying healthy and vital.
There are a handful of these Chi Circulations in my Chi Kung system starting with 1) Condensing Breathing. The rest are 2) Upward and Downward Meditation, 3) Inward and Outward Meditation and 4) Tai Chi Stance Meditation, as previously mentioned.
Chi Circulations are most important to the intermediate or advanced Tai Chi student. Without Chi Circulations you just do forms. The results most Tai Chi students are searching for do not come from the form. Your internal power ability does not develop from the form. Your martial art ability does not come from the form. You can do forms forever and never become exceptional. When Chi Circulations are added to your Tai Chi framework, that makes a world of difference. Speeding up the rate at which you can vibrate, that's important. The purpose of this article is to explain cultivating your vibration through using Chi Kung, Nei Kung and lastly, Gold Bell Training. If anyone is interested in learning more about how to cultivate your vibration, the first place to start is with my Chi Kung video instruction program.
In Tai Chi, generally the ratio of physical to mental is about 70% physical. In these meditation forms, the ratio is 70% mind training. Storing Jing (internal power) depends on how frequently you practice. If you practice everyday using this method, you will get results quickly. If you practice only a few times a week, your results will be slower. When I was a student, I lived to practice. I practiced 3 or 4 times a day which equaled 6 to 10 hours a day for the first 10 years of my Tai Chi career.
Imagine your internal vibration as a fragile little spark. The more you practice and take care of your spark, the more it grows. Someday it can be a torch. Take care of your spark and someday your spark will take care of you.
After spending years systematizing and structuring this material, it is formatted in a way that is easy to follow, understand and accomplish. People can do the final version of The Daily Practice Routine in 28 fun filled (joke) minutes a day. Intense practicing will reap the benefits associated with many more years of normal practicing. The first year is the most important. It sets the pace for your Tai Chi future.
The elements of The Daily Practice Routine are built upon the main elements of Chi Kung. In The Daily Practice Routine first comes The Condensing Principle which is the single most important element of Chi Kung. Through Condensing Breathing you learn to fit 18 inches of movement into one inch of space. By drawing in from all directions through a very simple method that can be taught, you learn to draw energy into every cell in your body and condense it down, tighter and tighter, to fit into less and less space. This practice has tremendous health benefits. The denser you become, the more powerful your internal vacuum becomes and the more explosive your internal power will be. You will be able to draw on your internal power as your vacuum grows.
The next part of Chi Kung is The Micro-Cosmic Orbit. In The Micro-Cosmic Orbit you are learning how to take this energy that you've accumulated and circulate it in the internal pathway through the Central Channel in the spinal cord. This will raise the amount of energy that your central nervous system can carry.
Immediately you can suck in and store this energy. Over a period of time you will be able to accumulate a greater and greater storehouse of this internal power that you can use for a lot of avenues. Many people use it for increasing their WILL, improving their health, abundance thinking, improving relationships, and removing negative beliefs, habits and attitudes. In fact, most people that learn my Chi Kung system never do martial arts. They take the Chi Kung training and quickly get what they need.
However, if you want to use it for martial arts, then you are going to need to develop a Tai Chi body. When a Tai Chi body is developed, it allows you to take this internal power and transfer it into a physical manifestation. When you've acquired your Tai Chi body using your form practice and the other components, you are then able to move on to Nei Kung.
The purpose of Nei Kung is to move the mind training into an accelerated and spontaneous reaction mechanism for martial art. WARNING: This practice will bring up your warrior spirit.
Nei Kung is considered a "formless" practice. When I say formless, I'm referring to the mind going faster than the body can keep up. When you practice Nei Kung in the system that I teach, Nei Kung is called "The Inside Form." "The Inside Form" means "regardless of what particular form of Tai Chi you are practicing, the principles stay the same, but the physical, structural, and mechanical details can be relatively dropped." Practicing Nei Kung still resembles the actual form, but the physical details become unimportant. What matters is how fast the mind is going in these specific moves. In Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan, Nei Kung is taught the same way you would learn First, Second, Third section or any other specific body of material. The Tai Chi form is only about 30% of the complete system.
Gold Bell Training relates directly to Chi Kung in its martial application. The main purpose for learning Gold Bell Training is to develop the ability to absorb and bounce off incoming punches. Gold Bell Training is a direct branch off the Chi Kung training, using the Tai Chi body and your vibration. The Gold Bell Training is your body shield.
Gold Bell Training is done by attacking the oncoming force by chopping it into little bits and accelerating the vibrations in your body. It's like sticking a pencil into a pencil sharpener. The pencil never gets past the blades. Gold Bell Training is discussed in depth later in this article.
As I have already stated in this article and in all my other articles (IKF April 1987 and IKF April 1989), Condensing Breathing is the most important single ingredient in Temple Style. When learning Gold Bell Training, Condensing Breathing is again a prerequisite. Remember, without Condensing Breathing there can be no explosion of any magnitude. In the first lesson of my new video I teach Condensing Breathing the same way it is taught in my Chi Kung/Personal Power Training(tm) workshops.
There is very specific material that you must learn before you learn Gold Bell Training. The first is Condensing Breathing. After you learn Condensing Breathing, the next piece you must learn and practice is "Chi in Voice and Action" or "Hung and Ha Training." I have included photographs that will illustrate the posture this is to be practiced in. Part of being able to give a good punch is based on your ability to take one. This training is aimed at sensitizing and desensitizing your body at the same time. There could be all sorts of emotional releases associated with learning this procedure. Don't worry, if any extreme emotional reactions come up, they will shortly pass.
Step 1) HUNG AND HA TRAINING - Hung training is a process in which the Tai Chi practitioner sends his energy down to the ground or floor. As one practices, he yells HUNG and directs his energy down his body and into the ground with his mind. This should be performed two times in a row before performing one single HA training practice.
HA training is quite different than HUNG training. HA training is taking the vibration or Jing and projecting it forward and out. Considerable time should be spent learning how to coordinate HUNG and HA Training with physical body motion. At first the body motion will appear rough and jerky, but after reasonable practice your coordination will become smooth and much more undetectable.
STEP 2) Understand that the use of Gold Bell Training is situation specific. It's to be used as a last resort. In other words, one should first neutralize the oncoming force. That means yield at the same time the force is approaching. Don't be there when it gets there. Next, only if you can't neutralize it, deflect the oncoming force. That means change the direction in which the attack or incoming force is approaching. This can be done with nearly any technique or form. However, do not confuse deflection with what other martial arts call blocking. Deflecting is a circular motion that does not stop the incoming force, but merely redirects it. Lastly, if you are unable to neutralize or deflect the incoming force, you must be prepared to absorb the incoming force. This requires a great amount of skill. When I say absorb I don't mean just to tighten up and take it. Absorption is a very specific method and requires a high level of skill.
This part of this article is aimed at teaching you how to absorb an incoming punch, kick or other strike (except from a pointed weapon). As any seasoned martial artist should know, you want to avoid taking direct hits to the head, neck or face to the best of your ability. If it is inevitable that if you take a hit in any of these areas, you want to remain as relaxed as possible without losing the integrity of your structure. That means stay relaxed and yield, but don't go further than you have to avoid serious contact. If you practice Condensing Breathing, your body will eventually develop the ability to distinguish the difference between a harder hit or a lighter hit. Developing this ability requires practice and this ability will soon become a valuable asset.
This section of this article will coincide with the accompanying photographs. The method for learning Gold Bell Training is quite simple, don't make it complicated. Just practice it in the order given.
1) Practice neutralization gently, that means letting your body go with the flow. The specific areas this should be practiced on are the chest, stomach, collar bones, hip and knees in order to train the body how to respond to the incoming force or pressure. Use large circles to reduce impact and to increase sensitivity. It is important again not to move too much. Only move enough to neutralize the incoming gentle pressure. Moving too much is as bad as not moving enough. Also make sure that when you practice your neutralizing movements you move in exactly the direction of the incoming pressure.
2) Practice gently repulsing, which is meeting the incoming pressure with the exact direction. Match the incoming direction as exactly as you can. Again the specific areas this should be practiced on are the chest, stomach, collar bones, hip and knees.
3) Gradually increase the incoming pressure or force while learning how to repulse in the exact direction. This is quite the opposite to neutralization. Now you are going against the incoming force.
4) Improve your directions and angles to develop spontaneity. Close to the incoming direction is not enough. Your directions must now be perfect and exact.
5) Repetition with increasing force and eventually building up to FULL power, bouncing off the incoming force. Make sure your practice partner understands the purpose of this particular training. When you practice this part of Gold Bell Training, you can expect to get bruised, feel achy, and hurt, but it should not be serious and no bones or ribs should be fractured. Remember, if you want to develop this ability, you must be prepared to pay your dues. No pain, no gain.
Understand and remember that you don't want to rely on your ability to take a punch, but in the event that you do let one slip in on you, it is not the end of the world. If you practice Gold Bell Training it is using the principle of taking care of yourself, "An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure." Invest in loss and you will win. The first place to start to learn Temple Style is with my Chi Kung Video Instruction Program.
My Chi Kung video instruction program entitled Flexing The Muscle of Your WILL gives you a final version of The Daily Practice Routine that will take you 28 minutes to complete. To become proficient in Tai Chi takes a long time, but to utilize Chi Kung in your life can happen almost immediately.
When I say utilize Chi Kung in your life I'm referring to real life applications, not Tai Chi applications. Learning Chi Kung will raise your level of deservingness, improve your personal performance, strengthen your WILL, give you healing energy to prevent illnesses, and raise your level of assertiveness. Results are dramatic and permanent.
Good luck on your journey and remember, masters are made in the beginning, not at the end... GJC
To order videos: FOUNDATION FUNDAMENTALS - Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan and/or TIDAL WAVE CHI KUNG by credit card, use the order form on my home page or call my 24 Hour Voice Mail Energy Hot Line at (800) 7 TAI-CHI = (800) 782-4244 and I will call you back to confirm your order information.
© 1994 Gary J. Clyman
by Dennis Franke R.N.
This interview was printed in part in the April 87' Issue of Inside Kung Fu magazine. The response to this article gave me a national and international reputation and visibility. Since this publishing, clients and students of all levels have come to study with me from all over the country for my special 2-Day Private Instruction Format. This is that article in its entirety.
Gary J. Clyman is director of the Chicago Wholistic Health Center, a unique clinic where the ancient arts of Taoist self-cultivation still live - 20th century style. Clyman's practice is one of Bio-Mechanics, Spinal Touch Treatment, Orthomolecular Nutrition, Muscle Response Testing, and PERSONAL POWER TRAININGx. But behind this modern terminology, and the doors of his downtown loop office, hides the Chinese arts of Tai Chi boxing, Tao Yin corrective exercise, An Mo massage, Wai Tan alchemy, and Chi Kung meditation - practices of Chinese Taoism shrouded in secrecy and rarely practiced today as a unified self-healing system. In each of these arts Gary J. Clyman is an expert, a modern Master.
Ever since the age of twenty he has been studying, cultivating, refining, and teaching the arts of Yang Sheng - Taoist practices for the "nourishment of life and the strengthening of it against disease." A life-long Chicago resident, he is a senior member in the city's martial arts, macrobiotic, and wholistic health circles. He has appeared on numerous T.V. and radio shows; twelve of the latter with his friend and mentor Dr. Robert Mendelsohn M.D. (deceased April 1988). And in an ever-continuing effort to spread the Illinois Wholistic Health Network: a forum of health care practitioners dedicated to the education and promotion of wholistic healing in the greater Chicago metropolitan area.
If there's still meaning in the epithet, "a self-made man" then Gary Clyman embodies that ideal. All of Clyman's training as a wholistic health practitioner was secured by direct, one-on-one apprenticeship and thousands of hours of intense, disciplined practice. The adventure began in 1974.
After a year and a half of studying the Korean fighting art of taekwondo, with Grandmaster Han Cha Kyo, and enlightened by the new Feng and English translation of the Tao Teh Ching, he went in search of a martial art that could offer more than just fighting know-how. He wanted to develop vitality, assertiveness, self-esteem, and character. Han thought him "so strange for an American to want to be Philosopher"? Eventually, Clyman discovered Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan and the city's premier Tai Chi Master, Waysun Liao; and for the next six years he studied full time with Liao and his two branch school instructors. It was during the period with his second Tai Chi instructor that he immersed himself in the Nei Kung - to develop the self and cultivate the Three Taoist Treasures of Jing, Chi, and Shen.
To cultivate his Chi, his inner energy, Master Liao put him on "the monk's diet": a regimen of grains, beans, vegetables, and seaweed. Living the Monk's life, he ate the diet, became celibate, and practiced Tai Chi from six to ten hours a day. To learn the classical Taoist path his textbooks became the Secret of the Golden Flower, Charles Luk's Taoist Yoga and Secrets of Chinese Meditation, and the tenth-century Ishimpo: Tao of Sex.
In those early days when Liao's was a center for imported Chinese talent, Clyman had the opportunity of being exposed to Chinese wrestling, Shuai Chiao, with the Grandmaster of the art, Ch'ang Tung Sheng, who died April 1987 at 78 years old. Acupuncture was exposed to Clyman in 1976 as he received his first lessons in natural healing. And of course, Master Liao opened the door to the inner workings, the temple secrets, of Temple Style Tai Chi and Chi Kung.
In the fall of 1979 Clyman attended a Chiropractic seminar as the assistant of Dr. Ineon Moon, his acupuncture teacher. The lecturer was Dr. Lamar Rosquist from Salt Lake City, and he was teaching the original John Hurley D.C. technique under the name of "The Spinal Touch Treatment," a non-force, gentle, soft tissue technique that works by releasing hypertonic muscles that misalign the spine and pelvis, he had found it the most helpful technique in his large Chiropractic clinic.
Gary immediately sensed that "The Spinal Touch Treatment" was after the same results as Tai Chi - perfect alignment of the spine through "hanging by a string at top of head" and "tucking the pelvis under." He saw that The Spinal Touch Treatment's goals of proper body mechanics and unimpeded neural flow were the same as those of An Mo massage with its manipulating of the sinews and stroking of the Chi tracts. He added it to his repertoire of natural healing arts and it soon became the center of a successful wholistic health practice.
Gary J. Clyman is an imposing, fiery personality. He often comes on too strong, with his ever-present handshake and booming smile, that new acquaintances are hard put to peg the man. And so they should be -- because Gary Clyman is one of those rare spirits totally enmeshed in the joy of living. If his sense of life could be labeled I'd call it Yang Chu hedonism, after the fourth-century Taoist, because he finds real joy in every action and endeavor, whether it's doing the Tai Chi form, meeting a new client, sparring with a parking lot attendant, or yes, even jostling a drunk driver from his car to perform another citizen's arrest. Optimism and vitality are his trademarks. The years of Tai Chi practice show in his military posture, erect and buoyant, yet still pliable and rooted in his every move. He uses and somehow remanufactures more energy in one day than most of us do in a week, and it just may be that his daily Tai Chi and Chi Kung practice has something to do with it.
In his interview he shares the secrets of Chi Kung meditation, the central practice of Taoist Yang Sheng without the mysticism, which is the foundation of his PERSONAL POWER TRAINING Workshops.
IFK: Just what is Chi Kung meditation?
GJC: Chi Kung is an ancient Chinese Taoist method for rejuvenating your internal energy systems - your Jing, Chi, and Shen. It's done using various postures and different kinds of breathing, but it's the internal exercises behind these outer movements that's important. So right here it's different than say Hatha yoga or Chinese calisthenics, which it can look like; plus, the postures aren't for stretching. Traditionally, it's part of Taoist yoga - the practices of the Taoist monk's. Today, it's the backbone of the internal martial arts of Tai Chi, Hsing I, and Pa Kua. (If it's taught that is!) Right now in China, a popularized version is getting attention as a kind of cancer therapy (see Chi Gong: Chinese Cancer Patients Exercise their way back to Health in East West Journal, March 1983. Ed.) There are similarities with Tantric yoga, but the language, exercises, and objectives are different. What makes Chi Kung unique is the conscious directing and use of the energy. So, it's really a meditation for self-development, for creating change in your life; and it can be done by anyone, I've had doctors, commodity traders, attorneys, teachers, housewives, and business people do this training, and everyone has experienced important, positive changes in their life.
IFK: Many articles are now appearing in martial arts and new age magazines on Chi Kung. With your busy practice, have you had a chance to read them? And if so, what are your conclusions?
GJC: All the articles I've read have been too superficial to do justice to this Nei Kung practice, so deep-rooted in Chinese culture. People have been led to believe that if they sit in the lotus posture and stretch one hand over their head and hold the other at tan tien while they abdominal breathe, that's Chi Kung. No way! Chi Kung means internal energy work, internal training! And it's tied into the oral secret teachings of the Taoists, and martial arts Masters. What we're talking about here is a sophisticated inner science involved in this art. People have spent their entire lives doing this and never moved off a cushion. I mean, if they're doing - why the superficial material? But there is always a purpose in putting something forth: they've prepared the public for what's to come.
IFK: Many of these articles describe "abnormal reactions" or "danger signals" occurring as a result of practicing Chi Kung. Have you seen these reactions in your students?
GJC: I don't know why these reactions are being called "danger signals!" If you're a body builder you're always at risk of hurting yourself somewhere along the line. If you're a surgeon, work in the operating room is one big risk! If you want to be good at anything in life you must develop the warrior spirit to handle the so-called "dangers"; which, by the way, I still haven't acknowledged - and it's been over eleven years now. You have to look at the American people and the prevalent attitude. If they don't get it in five minutes, it's not worth working for. Everyone has to understand that when we're talking about Chi Kung or internal Kung Fu training, this stuff takes awhile to learn. No, I don't mean they should get ripped off by thinking that it will take ten or twenty years. If a student has the right teacher, the right material, and is really motivated, then he can excel in a relatively short time: say, from six months to two years. He doesn't have to sit on the doorstep for five or ten years before the "venerable Master" decides to share a secret or two. So, you have to listen to where the articles are coming from. Does the person giving the warnings really know what he's talking about? Usually the warnings are coming from a place of fear, of trying to protect the system.
IFK: But isn't there a kernel of truth in the articles regarding headaches, ringing in the ears, dizziness, and emotional catharsis that might be triggered by this meditation?
GJC: Yes, but these aren't problems to worry about or to deter you from practicing Chi Kung. The more of these symptoms that a student has when practicing, the better, because as they figure out how to work through all these little bumps on the road, they're going to become masters, powerful, fearless! My advice is "do not worry about these reactions. No pain, no gain, no risk, no nothing!" Years ago in the heart of my Tai Chi training, I learned a valuable lesson applicable here. I'd often see my Tai Chi master whenever I had a problem with another student, a problem at work, or a problem at home. I'd go to him and ask: "What should I do about this?" His standard answer to reduce it's importance was: "When you're on a long road and you run over a little rock, do you stop to see what's happened to the rock, or do you just continue on, more concerned with the actual journey?" That's the approach I use with my students. When a student calls me up and has a problem and says: "What about this. I feel like ....." Whatever it is, I say: "O.K. Don't worry about it. If you just sit it out, you'll get through it" - because the human body is amazing. Look at what we've been eating and breathing all these years, so for a little while you'll be uncomfortable, big deal. Just take a break and come back with a different exercise and slow down." This kind of reassurance is usually all that's needed.
IFK: One last question about "danger signals." Quoting a popular author here: "Another common sensation is shaking or trembling. This is most pronounced in static postures, but may also be experienced in moving forms such as Tai Chi Ch'uan or Pa Kua Chang. Trembling may be in the joints, particularly in the wrists and knees, or even internally, in the abdomen. Shaking should be neither resisted nor encouraged. It is caused by a blockage in Chi flow."
GJC: Only 50% true. First of all, when practicing Tai Chi or sitting in a Chi Kung posture that you're not used to and you start shaking, that doesn't mean there's a "Chi blockage." It means your sinews, that is, your connective tissue, tendons and ligaments, and your muscles too, aren't used to working in these positions. From a Tai Chi point of view, if you look at the way most people move and the way they sit, they sort of jerk around from one position to the next. Look at our favorite Western sport, Baseball. If a baseball game lasts for three hours, are the players exercising for three hours or is it really for only maybe thirty minutes? However, when you're practicing Tai Chi or Chi Kung, it's a continuous thing. So, yes, you're legs and arms will tremble. In fact, I'd say that if somebody learned from me and they didn't tremble or shake, they weren't doing something right: either not working hard enough, not standing low enough, or they were just day dreaming. So, its no big deal, and it's certainly not a "danger." But! With the experienced student who's trained well and who has vibrations in the abdomen or up the spine during meditation, that's what he's been chasing after! He should be excited and grateful about it! It's just here that the student needs an understanding of the traditional Three Treasures so he can make sense out of what's happening, and what's in store for him too.
IFK: So you consider exposure to the "Three Treasures" theory important for success in Chi Kung? What about elusive concepts of Chi, Jing, and Shen?
GJC: Most books confuse this and make it impossible to understand. I'd rather give the student four or five sentences he could relate to and say: "I know what he's talking about." And even taking the risk that the concept he gets is incomplete, at least it's a beginning that he can build upon during his training. It's best to look at Chi, Jing, and Shen as levels. On the deepest somatic (body) level is Jing - sexual energy. When you're sexually attracted to someone, or when sexually aroused and you have an erection, its the energy of raw Jing surging up within you. To harness that energy and work it into a purified form, to cultivate it for purposes other than the sex act, say for fighting or personality development - that's the motivating fiber of Chi Kung meditation.
As the student uses this concrete idea to guide his practice, and as begins to understand my wholistic health orientation, with the emphasis on diet, nutritional supplementation, and proper body mechanics, it's not hard for him to expand this idea into the more abstract one of seeing Jing as the organism's generative and regenerative energy system, a power source that at conception activated cells, and then tissues, organs, the mind, the total person, and now - repairs them too. So, the vibrations then are cultivated Jing. Going back into my own Tai Chi training, I remember my first intense vibrations and having my Tai Chi brother touch the base of my neck to see if he could feel anything. He couldn't feel a thing, but to me I was on a roller coaster. I wasn't afraid though. Remember, there's two attitudes you can take: "Oh my god what's happening to me"! , (wimpy way) or "Oh boy, here we go! This is what I've been working for all these months" (warrior way). So, when my students have their first vibrations they're very excited; they think it's great.
IKF: So how does this contrast with the famous "Chi" or "ki" so often written about?
GJC: With Jing you can transmit its energy, or the manifestation of your internal development, to another person and they can feel it. So here, if I hold both of your hands and decide to give you a shock, the feeling you can get from my cultivation of raw Jing, and its release, the fah, is pure Jing. "Fah Jing" is the "mysterious" power of the great Tai Chi Masters. It's sometimes labeled "Fah Chin." Jing can be transmitted for healing purposes also, but when we're talking about Chi, the energy of Chi can manifest as a sensation I feel that has nothing to do with the vibrations I can transmit to you. Chi energy (internal energy) has a completely different vibratory frequency. Chi vibrations are in the next level and are shorter, smaller, and faster vibrations. Jing vibrations (internal power) are more guttural, more physical, and a slower. Chi of course, moves the entire universe, and is in all of us from our first embryonic breath as the source of organic change and movement, of breathing, eating, walking, fighting, thinking, and even aging too. But to sense it and use it with purpose takes technique, practice, and work. An analogy is helpful here to my students. An internal combustion engine must have an energy source, gasoline, and a method of igniting the energy, the ignition system, into the more usable form of energy, horsepower. For us, Chi is the energy source, Jing is the power, and Chi Kung is the method of transformation.
IKF: So how do you put this mechanism to work? How do you harness the Chi and make it work for you? What's your basic approach here?
GJC: The concept that cuts through the fog of ignorance and secrecy, the concept that allows the student to use Chi with purpose, to cultivate Jing, to develop and "burn" it into form, to become a dynamic self-powered individual is "The Condensing Principle." "The Condensing Process" is one of creating an inner vacuum with Chi, Jing, and Shen all at the same time. It's the process of packing the essence of things into every thought, intention, and action. Here's one basic condensing technique for developing Jing: whatever the posture, on the inhale focus on the body to expand, and at the same time focus on the inhaled Chi to contract, to condense, into the core of the body; then, on the exhale focus on the body to contract, and at the same time focus on the inhaled Chi to expand. On each inhale and exhale there is a simultaneous mental focus to expand and contract. This particular technique does two things: first, it sensitizes you to where you are in space as a physical, material body, and second, it introduces you to the first glimmer of Chi sensation, so much used in later training. This is just step one. As we go on and on, what we're doing is refining this same basic technique to the point where it goes from as gross as the body contracts, to where all the molecules in your body condense into one single atom.
IKF: I understand that you Basic Path Training and the Sitting Forms make use of many postures and coordinated movements. What's the idea behind the variety?
GJC: Basically they all accomplish the same thing - to help the mind direct the Chi and Jing through the auxiliary Chi tracts. It's like dancing: when you're studying it, you have to learn more than one step. A similar problem exists here as in Tai Chi. Many students base their choice of a system or the quality of their chosen system on how many movements there are in it. "Oh, my form has 108, his has only 68, but I know of one that has 138." This is an attitude conceived in ignorance.
What's important is, at he end of the training, what does the interpretation look like, not how many movements there are. In Tai Chi there's only thirteen forms anyway, no matter how you count them: ward off, roll back, press, push, elbow, shoulder, roll/pull, split, and the five style steps or the four directions and center. So, no matter how you concoct the name, the form is still only going to be a combination of "The Original Thirteen Forms."
In my Chi Kung training, I've used "The Condensing Principle" to condense all the material into something that makes sense, and that can save the student years of struggle. Four standing forms in Basic Path Training and "6 Forms and 7 Circulations" otherwise known as "The Sitting Forms with the Mind Training" is the result. More important than the Chi pathways used during the movements is the specific emotion that becomes associated with that movement for each student. They get angry with one movement, they laugh with another, get depressed or excited with another. The forms initiate a real, observable cleansing process, what I call "Retracing/Releasing." For example, if a student has a history of physical violence and was abused as a child, when practicing "The Sitting Forms with the Mind Training," they get in touch with the emotional trace of that experience held in the body tissues by the Jing Chi "burning" it out. Such a history manifests in bursts of crying with one form, anger with another. Its different for each person. So when the material base for the emotion is destroyed and the emotion is reexperienced, they release this pent-up energy. They set themselves free of the past and come to live more "in the moment." A new, clearer vision develops. "The Sitting Forms with the Mind Training," especially help "burn" the way through whatever trace is holding back their development, whether it's in muscle tissue, nerve tissue, Chi tracts, psychic blockages, whatever. This is the "secret" Taoist process called "transmutation of energies."
Chi Kung is such a great system of meditation, and coupled with Tai Chi, its the ultimate. I'd say it's the "Grand Ultimate." (Tai Chi Ch'uan is translated as Grand Ultimate Boxing. Ed.)
IKF: In most meditation the mind is calmed and it simply registers the flux of consciousness to naturally reach a state of pure awareness for eventual union with the absolute. In Chi Kung however, the mind seems to be very active and directed. GJC: It's active, but it's also concentrated, that is, focused. The mind is active only in the sense of "guiding the Chi," not thinking. This is called "Hsing Chi" and it means "wherever the mind goes, the Chi follows." Most meditation restricts awareness to mantra, a mandala, a chant, or the breathing. Most articles treat Chi Kung as a form of visualization - wrong! This is not. My concept of visualization is something created in imagination, something not existing, or not yet existing, like in the method of Creative Visualization. In Chi Kung you're not visualizing Chi condensing, circulating, or dispersing through the use of images, you are actually doing it, physically.
The proof is that you can feel the forewarned effects, and later, the personal power is there and you feel it. When using Tai Chi in a martial application, someone else feels it. This is not like other meditation systems in which consciousness is worked at the expense of the body. In the Taoist view, there is an innate wholistic union of Chi, Jing, and Shen. Whenever one is being exercised, the other two are right there getting worked also. The Taoists wanted us to develop all our innate capacities so we could experience the joys of living here on earth for as long as possible. In Chi Kung, the person develops as a total unit, more fit for living.
IKF: You've talked about Jing and Chi, the basic concept of condensing, and a few other techniques, where does Shen, the third "Treasure," fit in?
GJC: Well, how do you take all this, the whole system of Chi Kung, and use it in your daily life? That's what Shen is about. When you develop the personal power of Jing you have to express this excess of vitality in some way. Since you've released latent Jing energy stored in armored muscles, tendons, and ligaments and added it to your pool of retained sexual energy, you're no longer a composite of everything that's happened to you in the past. You become "in the moment." You're not distracted by what happened last week, or six months ago. Now you can focus all the energy that you are on something new, on new goals, on a new direction for yourself. What I see in my classes is my students and clients developing the ability to recognize events for what they are. They make decisions more quickly and confidently. Their lives become simpler, less cluttered with emotional baggage, and the fear of doing new things disappears.
The cultivated Jing manifests in their physical presence and awareness, the Chi, in their ability to think more clearly, to make up their minds and not be distracted. The Shen is their ability to "follow through" on what they've decided upon. "Shen is the way you can manipulate your universe to be what you want it to be. Its your outlook on life - the way you work in the world." That's my understanding of the "Three Treasures." It grew out of my Kung Fu training, not out of the philosophy books.
IKF: Give me an idea of the energy paths your students use in your PERSONAL POWER TRAININGx.
GJC: "Basic Path Training" makes use of the basic forms from my Temple Style Tai Chi System. This is a non-moving standing meditation where the Condensing Principle is integrated into Upward and Downward, Inward and Outward, Holding Tai Chi Ball, and Raised Hands and Stance. In The Sitting Forms with the Mind Training, they learn the 'well points' for drawing in and releasing Chi, how to circulate along the Chi pathways, The Micro Cosmic Orbit, and the seven subtle tao yin forms. Breath training exposes them to the different breathing methods, and sphincter training helps the student comprehend how to pump Jing, and it prepares them for the advanced Taoist Sexual Technique. And Tai Chi Chi Kung is another advanced course where all basic concepts and techniques come together using moving Tai Chi forms. Many students then decide to take my Temple Style Tai Chi and over a longer period learn the principles of proper body mechanics, how to transfer Jing, and of course my favorite, self-defense.
IKF: Isn't Chi Kung usually taught as part of Tai Chi training? At least isn't that the martial arts tradition?
GJC: Yes. But in my Tai Chi classes I was rarely able to teach this to any of my Tai Chi students - they had to be around for two or three years first and complete the Tai Chi System. The chances of a student surviving my Tai Chi system was about two in a thousand. The training I give is like being in a monastery. It's as if you signed yourself up for five or six years in Taiwan or China and said: "don't let me out until my time is up." This is the intensity of how I teach in Chicago. So to share these secret oral teachings, and to help people with physical or emotional problems take an active role in their own well-being, I've set up the training so I can take someone with no background in internal kung Fu, and I teach them the basic concepts of Chi Kung, the basic techniques, and the practical application for modern, high-intensity living. When they work hard, they receive the personal power benefits of Chi Kung, as if they had studied Tai Chi for ten years. Traditionally, Chi Kung was taught only as an extension of Tai Chi training, only after however long the teacher wants to keep the student on the hook. If the teacher even knows Chi Kung, that is. I'm not doing that. This material is too valuable to keep a secret any longer.
IKF: The basic premise of your work then is that Chi Kung and Tai Chi offer a comprehensive program for optimal health?
GJC: Right! But it even goes beyond that and introduces the element of longevity into the students life. All we've discussed thus far is part of the Taoism Nei Tan program of internal transformation, what I call PERSONAL POWER TRAINING.
Natural diet is important too. It's from our food and air that we receive the Jing and Chi components to manufacture new raw Jing energy for later cultivation in Chi Kung. The more pure and balanced the diet, the better the Jing production. That means basically a macrobiotic diet of grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits. Scientific research is showing that a low-fat, high complex carbohydrate diet like this can zap degenerative diseases and extend the life-span. Even here the Taoists had another trick up their sleeves. Their Wai Tan program of external elixirs was an attempt to create anti-aging medicines so they could experience life with the intensity of the Hsien Immortal - "to fly on the clouds," as Chuang Tzu said. This idea, that certain chemicals could extend our life-span, lives today in gerontology research labs. Scientists like Leonard Hayflick and Roy Walford have written that using vitamin and mineral supplements to neutralize cellular oxidants may be the best method to retard aging and extend the life-span to 120 years. Not quite enough time to become a Hsien Immortal, but good enough for we modern city folk!
IKF: So, as a wholistic health practitioner you've found that changing to a natural diet is pretty important for creating more energy and power in a person's life?
GJC: Of course, but since our farm soils are so over used and crops are force-fed with growth-stimulating fertilizers, its not enough to rely on just the nutrients in foods to supply the needs of a modern people. What's needed is a reliable quick method to check our low energy states and the deficient nutrients that may be responsible. Only then can a wise choice be made in choosing "the right supplements," if they are needed. And its just here again that the Taoists and acupuncturists were close on the track of how to monitor out own nutrition. The acupuncture tracts and their Chi circulation can now be tested using Applied Kinesiology, or muscle response testing, to discover low levels of molecular vibration and the corresponding nutrient deficits. We're all heirs to this tradition and its modern application. If the ancient Taoists are up there" flying on the clouds." I'm sure their earthly pleasure of pride is in full bloom. May they live forever!
To order videos: FOUNDATION FUNDAMENTALS - Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan and/or TIDAL WAVE CHI KUNG by credit card, use the order form on my home page or call my 24 Hour Voice Mail Energy Hot Line at (800) 7 TAI-CHI = (800) 782-4244 and I will call you back to confirm your order information.
© 1987 Gary J. Clyman
The original reason for organizing this information was to help improve a new student's Tai Chi practice. My friend had been in Tai Chi for nearly 14 years when he approached me for instruction. I accepted him as a private student/friend. His advanced level of Tai Chi compelled me to organize and prepare a curriculum of instruction for near-master level students.
This article represents that instructional organization. I have broken my system, Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan, into various categories and subsets with the intention that this material will enable you, regardless of your martial art persuasion, to improve and interpret your own system more fully.
Everyone assumes "length of time equals expertise," but nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, time in the art is a factor, but there are other equally important factors.
These questions are important for understanding where you stand in relationship to your own art. Did your teacher know what he was doing? Did you understand what you were taught? What percentage of "the teaJings" did you comprehend and retain? Did you "practice" or just "run through" your material as a student? Did your teacher "care about you" when you were learning? Was your teacher trying to reproduce himself? Is your system "real," and yes, how many years have you been in the art? You might not be able to find the answers to all these questions, but you must look.
The answers to these questions will have an important influence on your level of achievement, now and in the future.
This particular practice is very important not in the beginning so much, but after a student has been in Tai Chi for over a year. There are specific forms that are more appropriate for Low-Stance Training, but in my opinion, the most valuable is practicing First Section by itself repeatedly.
Long-term implications: Low-Stance Training develops enormous strength in the lower body and is a primary component of Endurance Training. When you practice Low Stance, you will lose some of your details. That's okay: you give and take. You give up the details but you get added strength. A problem that many students have is they think they are supposed to practice correctly all the time. That's not important at this stage of your training. Low-Stance Training falls primarily into Endurance Training, but is also in The Body/Mind Relationship.
These meditations incorporate condensing breathing into your ward off, roll back, press and push. Practicing these specific Tai Chi meditations is the first link to The Mind/Body Relationship. When practicing Tai Chi Connective Meditations, you will learn to focus with your mind sequentially on three or four specific areas in a row. Theses meditations are unique because they are halfway between doing forms and standing meditation. These are the most basic meditations in the system. Long-term implications: Great changes for the better will show up in your form after even a short period of practicing Tai Chi Connective Meditations. These Tai Chi Connective Meditations are prerequisites for Nei kung, which will be explained later. Tai Chi Connective Meditations falls into the categories of The Mind/Body Relationship and EnduranceTraining.
These develop sensitivity to your partner. These act as the measuring devices to your Tai Chi progress. This is not competition like fighting, but can be used as a way of gauging how you compare to others. Long-term implications: Practicing these give your Tai Chi life and develop your communication and fighting skills. Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan is structured so you learn various Two Person Practices. This falls into the categories of Structure Training, Endurance Training and Corrective Resilience Training; they are not the same. In Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan, Two Person Practices start early in the system. Completing The Long Form or even First Section is not necessary or a prerequisite for learning the Two Person Practices. The Foundation Fundamentals have to be practiced and absorbed, but that only takes about 5 to 7 months.
This teaches you how to convert coal into diamonds. This is the single most important factor related to improving your Tai Chi. As far as I know, Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan is the only system that contains this practice. Learning Condensing Breathing by itself without learning the rest of the system will enormously help your Tai Chi. Condensing Breathing is one of the first things I teach in The Personal Power Trainingx and on my Tidal Wavex Chi Kung video program. Long-term implications: This will always be practiced and should be treated as a single unit. Even after 20 years, Condensing Breathing still remains an important piece of my daily practice. Condensing Breathing falls into the categories of The Mind/Body Relationship, Endurance Training and Structure Training (See IKF Magazine April 87 article #1 for detailed instruction in Condensing Breathing).
I created this out of the need for students to learn how to use Tai Chi fighting applications. This is all practical. Some might say it looks like street fighting. I teach Close Encounters Trainingx in my Tai Chi fighting workshops and on video. Long-term implications: This improves and leads to good fighting skills. Smoothness in changes, timing and practicality are obtained through practicing Close Encounters Trainingx. This falls into the category of The Body/Mind Relationship, The Mind/Body Relationship and Endurance Training.
This is often talked about but rarely taught by anybody in Tai Chi. Gold Bell Training develops the ability to take a punch, diffuse the energy, and bounce the punch off without being hurt. This is very simple but you need good Condensing Breathing, great timing, courage and the desire to learn. It is not dangerous - it tends to be on the rough side because it is accelerated. It starts off relatively gentle and progresses to full contact over a period of time.
Long-term implications: Gold Bell Training is the practice of repulsing incoming forces or attacks. Practicing Gold Bell Training helps prevent injuries while practicing or fighting. In the order of preference when fighting and being hit are: 1) deflect, not block; 2) neutralize or evade; and 3) absorb or repulse. You do not want to use your Gold Bell Training unless it is absolutely necessary. Gold Bell Training falls into the categories of Endurance Training and The Mind/Body Relationship.
Fah Jing Training is where you release your condensing, contracting and sucking meditation practices. Fah Jing Training can be practiced by practicing in any individual Tai Chi forms, such as ward off, roll back, press, push, elbow, shoulder, roll pull, and split. Each Fah Jing Training practice is done differently. These lead to improved fighting skills, but are reliant on your Condensing Breathing ability. There is no Fah Jing Training without first learning how to suck, draw in, condense, and store your internal energy. Long-term implications: Learning Fah Jing Training will give you a technical release of energy in your forms and applications. This falls into The Mind/Body Relationship and Endurance Training categories.
This is very specific Tai Chi footwork and can be performed on top of five patio stones. Long-term implications: This practice will give you versatility in spacing, the ability to match your opponent, and the ability to create false openings for your opponent to fall into. Categories: Endurance Training, The Body/Mind Relationship and Structure Training.
Most Tai Chi classes are not systems and only teach "The Long Form." In Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan, each student first learns individual pieces, which later will be constructed into sequences. This characteristic makes Style Tai Chi Ch'uan unique and better than most other Tai Chi systems. Long-term implications: This is the basis of your Tai Chi practice. Categories: Individual Forms Practice fall into Structure Training, Corrective Resilience Training and The Body/Mind Relationship.
This is the first five to seven months of basic training. This is where you develop your various stances, preliminary movements and structure. The rest of the Tai Chi forms are built on this material. Work hard here, it will pay off forever. Long-term implications: At a certain point these basics do not have to be practiced because they are contained in all the material that follows, but that is only if you have worked hard through this stage. Categories: Structure Training, Corrective Resilience Training and The Body/Mind Relationship.
This is learned after you have gone through and allowed your body to absorb each movement in First Section. When you learn First Section, if you have practiced correctly, you can almost be talked through it without losing the details. Long-term implications: First Section will always be practiced as a single unit with different flavors and attitudes. Categories: Structure Training, The Body/Mind Relationship, Corrective Resilience Training and Endurance Training.
This is an important piece in your Tai Chi big picture. While practicing First Section in repetition, you can train many different ways. You can concentrate on continuity, you can concentrate on details, you can concentrate on lengthening and lowering you stance and you can also track your concentration abilities. First Section will remain important throughout your entire Tai Chi career. First Section Repetition falls into many categories, primarily Endurance Training and all the others because of the versatility that can be applied to practicing it separately. Long-term implications: First Section is possibly the most versatile tool in your Tai Chi arsenal. It can be used for anything.
People who say "all things come from just practicing The Long Form" are either dreamers or liars. Most teachers don't know much else besides The Long Form, but when you have a greater overview and perspective of Tai Chi, The Long Form is simply one single tool, one thing, but all most other Tai Chi teachers have is the form and nothing beyond the form. To become a master or to become a professional, you have got to learn from a professional. You have to know more than just The Long Form.
In Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan, The Long Form is merely a beginning phase of your Tai Chi practice and does not represent a majority or even a large piece. In Temple Style there are three sections, as is other Yang styles. Long-term implications: For the first ten years, the framework of your Tai Chi will be based around your practice of The Long Form. At more advanced levels, The Long Form is a minor category, but what's very important to understand is at no time are any of these steps to be skipped, neglected, under practiced or disregarded. Category: Like First Section, The Long Form has many uses.
This is important in advanced training. This practice helps each cell in your body communicate and transmit to every other cell, very similar to Condensing Breathing. However, Chi In Voice And Action is more advanced than Condensing Breathing, not more important.
Chi In Voice And Action trains your body and is a precursor to Gold Bell Training. This practice teaches you how to take your voice and effect energy. Coordination is developed in the mind. This practice relates to Gold Bell Training as a solo exercise prior to being stimulated or punched by a practice partner. Long-term implications: This practice brings your spirit up to the surface and contributes to your physical presence, awareness and helps develop your "speed of the mind" for advanced Tai Chi practice. Categories: Chi In Voice And Action falls primarily into The Mind/Body Relationship category. It's not hard to do; it's just specific.
The practice of Floating And Sinking is done in basic Tai Chi postures. You train your mind to accelerate up or down, at a very high velocity, but you move very little. This practice is tied into Still Power. It's sort of the Condensing Breathing of the body as opposed to stillness. This is a single direction meditation acceleration practice. This will improve you Pushing Hands and all other Two Person Practices including fighting. Long-term implications: This is an advanced practice but applies everywhere. Categories: Floating And Sinking falls into the category of The Mind/ Body Relationship.
This is the single most important part of the advanced Tai Chi Two Person Practice. Learning this material will immediately improve your fighting skills and these individual forms are the reasons for you to excel in Two Person Practice. Very few people know this material.
Long-term implications: You will always be practicing this subset as a single, self-contained unit. First you learn the forms in this part, then you learn the Two Person Practice forms. Last comes the meditations. Categories: Rolling Hands Parts falls into the primary category of The Body/Mind Relationship at the first level of details. At a more advanced stage when the physical forms are perfected, the category changes to Endurance Training and The Mind/Body Relationship. This subset is really cool. The importance of this subset cannot be overemphasized.
Many practices fall into this category, including change door, individual martial art forms, and almost unconscious forms practice. High Reps/Low Variations Trainingx is used to develop instinct and precision in your Tai Chi applications. My favorite forms for this practice are: fist under elbow, long and short hand, fan through back, turn and chop opponent with fist, and fire flame hand. These forms are done while performing change door or 5 style steps. Long-term implications: Fighting skills, sensitivity, improved natural human response and reliability are developed through this practice. Category: Usually this kind of practice is an equal mix among Endurance Training, The Body/Mind Relationship and Corrective Resilience Training.
There are too many Chi Kung techniques. What is important to understand here is that the positions and/or movements the body appears to be using are not important. What is important here is what the mind is doing. Do not forget this.
There are four basic categories into which each individual chi king technique falls. Many techniques do indeed fall into multiple categories, but all are clearly members of one primary type. I have put this section at the end, so you can more fully understand this article.
The following is a list and explanation of the four basic categories in the Chi Kung system I teach. These are my classifications:
This is the single most important ingredient and the first principle to understand. Condensing Breathing is the source of all the energy cultivation exercises. Without practicing this, there will be no "alchemical agent" or "essence" to be circulated. Practicing Condensing Breathing is a meditation that will cause consolidation on all levels. This practice can and will aid in the transformation of one's constitutional properties.
The Micro Cosmic Orbit or The 10 Point Cycle: This principle is used in regard to chi circulations limited only to the torso.
This combines the whole body as a single unit. Each body part is in communication with each other body part. This term is used when relating the extremities to the torso as a single unit with intimate communication.
Using this is sending your spirit out into the world. Practicing the following exercises in the prescribed order will produce immediate profound results. These practices are distinctly different from other affirmations and visualizations in that they are performed after practicing Condensing Breathing. They are linked to your body and will manifest in a very real, physical, and obvious way.
It is rare to find anybody who knows anything about this practice. Nei Kung is clearly different than Chi Kung in that it speeds up the frequency of the mind faster than the body can possibly move. It is as if it changes your metabolism and the speed at which you think. Nei Kung creates excitement in all your practices. When you learn Nei Kung, your Tai Chi will never be the same again. Results will show up immediately.
Nei Kung is like doing the form with your mind and body struggling to keep up. This is an advanced practice and should be learned only after you are very experienced. This will keep improving year after year and will never get boring. Long-term implications: Nei Kung can be used as a self contained system; it does not rely on forms. Nei Kung can be added to other kung-fu systems and will automatically improve your martial art skills. Categories: It falls equally into The Mind/Body Relationship and Endurance Training.
To order videos: FOUNDATION FUNDAMENTALS - Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan, TIDAL WAVE CHI KUNG, and/or MIND LIGHT NEI KUNG by credit card, use the order form on my home page or call my 24 Hour Voice Mail Energy Hot Line at (800) 7 TAI-CHI = (800) 782-4244 and I will call you back to confirm your order information. © 1989 Gary J. Clyman
(This article was completed 5 years before the Sash Testing and Ranking System was created. Please see that section for rank qualifications and requirements.)
If "Internal Power" is what makes Tai Chi Ch'uan special, then why is it the best kept secret in the martial arts?
The purpose of this article is to give readers a Grand View of Tai Chi Ch'uan including a understandable description of what the word "internal" really means when used to describe the high level of achievement possible in Tai Chi Ch'uan. The system I am describing is Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan which I began studying in 1974.
When people practice what they call Chinese "internal" arts, all teachers have their own interpretation. Most of the articles used to describe what Chinese internal arts have left me hungry for a definitive answer. This is my attempt to fill in the blanks.
Many transformations that take place inside the body. This is what makes an art Internal. Internal Energy is stored for latter use. The difference between an "internal" art and an "external" art is an "external" art is visible to the untrained eye. That means you can actually see what the actual technique is by the way it appears. For example, a external punch is usually one single long movement. However, when we are describing "internal," we are talking about the transformations that take place inside the body. It is as if the body is the gun and the Jing (Internal Power) is the bullet.
There are three basic categories of Jing: Long, Short, and Cold. Long Power consists usually of one long vibration similar to the motion of a garden hose when shook once. Short Power consists of many vibrations crammed into one small space. Short Power resembles the inside of a laser tube. The vibrations bounce back and forth without leaving their confinement. Cold Power consists of many vibrations that don't take up much space but usually move horizontally and vertically. Cold Power looks like what happens when you throw a bucket of water against a wall. The water moves horizontally and vertically. With Cold Power there is usually no perceivable penetration.
Long Power is usually painless. The person receiving Long Power usually feels nothing at the point of contact, that is, until they hit an unmovable object like a wall or the ground. Long Power has been described as feeling like you were hit by a truck. Believe it or not, Long Power is the "friendliest" variety of Jing.
Short Power usually hurts. The vibrations go too fast for the receiver to neutralize. That means the tissues receiving Short Power could get damaged. People don't like getting hit with Short Power. Short Power is not friendly and can be used to break your opponents will. Short Power possesses the variety of expressions.
Cold Power is used to knock an opponent silly or unconscious. Concussion or shock is the usual outcome of being hit with Cold Power. Cold Power can overload the central nervous system of your opponent and end an altercation immediately. Cold Power feels like you ran into a wall that you didn't see. Permanent damage can result from using this nasty application of Fah Jing. I have been in fights that have lasted only one punch because of Cold Power. Cold Power releases the most energy in the smallest possible space.
There are many variations and expressions of this so called "bullet" or the Jing. Many different variations of Jing and still within Short Power has the most possibilities for expression, so what we have here, is an internal art. When I want to transfer power, I decide what kind of frequency and what speed the vibration will manifest prior to the expressions of the technique or internal power. Then I release my Jing. Not only do you have five element flavors; fire, earth, water, metal, and wood, you also have any kind of design of the vibration that you want to create. It's like bouncing a basketball on the floor, which is "bounce" power or driving in a screw which is "twisting" power, just to name two.
You have all these different variations of Fah Jing otherwise known as Exploding Power: the way that Jing can be expressed. No one ever tells you how you do that, what processes do you go through, or what steps you take to develop the ability to release internal power. Then when you develop the ability to release internal power, how do you develop the ability to hold it or change the frequency to the type of vibration you wish to let out. No one ever told me how, I practiced it for many years, 6-10 hours a day before I figured it out.
It's important to understand, you don't begin as an external practitioner and then suddenly switch to be an internal one. You begin internal and just get better!
When I hit somebody and let out the various frequencies and flavors of Fah Jing, "What are you letting out?" is the question. Not, how do you do it? If you understand the concept of what you're letting out; how do you do it is very simple.
How do you flavor what you let out? First, you have to have developed the ability to suck. You don't get that from doing forms. You get it from practicing Chi Kung or doing what I call "The Tai Chi Connective Meditations." You have Chi Kung which is one aspect, and Tai Chi, the other aspect. Tai Chi gives you the structure. You will find the answers in my Tai Chi structure where all the meditations in the entire system are outlined.
The commodity of energy and cultivating internal energy in yourself comprise step one. Step two is transforming your Chi, which is your cultivated internal energy into cultivated internal power, which is your Jing. So one is your Chi and one is your Jing. Chi you feel and they don't, Jing they do feel. So a lot of people have Chi (Internal Energy), but very few people have Jing (Internal Power). Cultivating this internal power requires special training. We are talking about modulating the amount of Jing and varying the type of frequency that the Jing manifests.
How do you do that? Is it all here in the mind, pointing to one's head? This commodity of energy that you circulate in your body is an exact reflection of your WILL. And your WILL therefore is a direct reflection and extension of your cultivated sexual energy. That's why when you have sex, you don't want to ejaculate.
When you cultivate your internal energy (Chi), the goal is to transform it into Internal Power (Jing), you express your Jing in your life or through applying these energy principles through Fah Jing (Exploding Power). Fah Jing is directly related to your ability to condense. You can modulate or alter your frequency as well as the amount of energy you let out. The important thing to understand here is "when you practice this and you cultivate internal power, it is the kind of thing that can be released from your body without you losing any when you release it." That's why when I hit someone, I don't get tired. But also when I hit someone, I remain intact, and the energy that's released on contact remains my energy in their body. You must invest years practicing condensing breathing before you can do this. What's reflecting here is your ability to create your internal vacuum which will be directly related to your ability to explode.
I'm not trying to make it sound like not ejaculating is the same as cultivating Jing, it's not, but not ejaculating is an important step in cultivating Jing. So you have this commodity of energy that stays intact in your body. After you can circulate this commodity of energy as a capsule throughout your body, the question is, "How does this set you up for being able to release your Jing outside of the physical boundaries of your body to use it in some other space?" Now we are talking about real Jing (Internal Power).
When you cultivate Jing, you develop control of where your energy is packaged in your body. When I hit you very gently, I release the vibration in the form and flavor that I choose the vibration to be. I determine what that vibration will look like. I can draw it on paper and give it to you and you will draw the same picture of the vibration. That is the kind of control that can be developed. But before you can even think in terms of releasing energy with a specific frequency or modulation, you must cultivate it first.
How does your Jing fit in with a business transaction? Your WILL is a direct reflection of your Jing. You do not cultivate energy when you need it you must cultivate energy before you need it. You must have energy already stored. You are going to use "stored energy." Your WILL is a direct reflection of your amount and ability to circulate cultivated sexual energy you possess. So if you practice in the morning and feel alive, you are not going to be a wimp in a business environment. Shen is your level of assertiveness in the world. I have the ability to transmit my internal energy to someone else over distances if I've already worked with them. When I touch you after you've learned Chi Kung from me, you will pick up the vibration from me, then you convert it into yours. When you sit back to back with me, you're getting my energy to circulate throughout your system until you have practiced enough where the energy that I've transfused to you has been adopted and accepted as yours. A little bit of me always stays within you. For instance, if you are under stress, I go back and rev up that piece I left behind.
First you cultivate Chi. Next you transmute Chi into Jing. What we are referring to here is the various expressions of Jing (cultivated sexual energy or Internal Power). There is a difference between Internal Energy and Internal Power. Internal Energy is Chi, Internal Power is Jing. Jing can look like lightning, a whirlpool, or it can look like bouncing a basketball. These are all various expressions of Jing. What do you cultivate or generate to develop the ability to express these specific frequencies and modulations of energy? I am talking about cultivating this golf ball that is moving around under your skin from practicing Chi Kung. You move your WILL inside your body freely. After that has been accomplished, you can then allow your will to leave your body while also still remaining in you. A tiny part can leave which can then be vibrated into another person. The sensation that you can feel, you can eventually shoot. You can separate it from you yet still stay in contact with it. The golf ball that moves under your skin is what you shoot out into the other person. This information has been kept quite a secret. Many authors write about it, but few can actually perform it. This high performance level is one of the major goals of Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan. The Seven Levels of Mastery will describe what is involved in becoming proficient in Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan. Cultivating your vibration is the main purpose for learning and practicing Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan.
Level #1 in Temple Style is geared toward creating a strong, yet fluid foundation. In the beginning of the system, during the first year, your Tai Chi must be carefully and patiently practiced. You must allow enough time between learning new forms for your body to change, structurally. Many new Tai Chi students have no idea how frozen and immobile their hips, knees, ankles and other joints actually are. The Foundation Fundamentals (available on video) appear simple and easy while watching, but are extremely difficult and may even appear impossible to perform correctly at first. Beginning Tai Chi students should spend enough time on each form and not be concerned with getting to the next form. Your body will make the necessary adjustments and you will successfully move through the system by concentrating on The Foundation Fundamentals.
Level #1 is not restricted to only Foundation Fundamentals. After creating a foundation to build upon, you will soon begin to learn new material at a faster, yet appropriate rate. Level #I contains all the forms up to and including the construction of The First Section, right and left sides. The Two Person Practices are also taught from the very beginning and will be emphasized throughout your Tai Chi training.
Unlike many other Tai Chi methods, Temple Style encourages learning all the forms on both sides. This feature is and will become even more important in your Tai Chi future. By the time you complete Level #1 in Temple Style, your body should have changed considerably. Your joints will function more smoothly and securely. Your posture will be corrected considerably. You will be breathing more fully in a coordinated fashion, and you will develop a new way to move using your whole body and become firmly rooted to the ground. There may be many other benefits as well depending on your level of health.
This first part of Temple Style training should not be skimmed over. You must realize that your Tai Chi future is based largely on your first year. Be patient and careful not to skip a single detail during your first year. The first year is also your hardest. If you neglect anything in your first year, it will reappear to haunt you until you have successfully repair it.
Level #2 begins with a new method of practicing Pushing Hands called "2 Hand Pushing Hands" incorporating Ward Off and Push as a two person practice. Your hips must move fluidity in order to perform 2 Hand Pushing Hands correctly. This takes a lot more work than is apparent. You will then begin learning the Individual Forms that are included in Second Section. Again, being thorough and patient cannot be over emphasized. I do not want learning Second Section to sound like an extension of First Section. It isn't.
Second Section builds on your Temple Style foundation and introduces more variations to your movements. Diagonal and more difficult movements will be introduced and incorporated thus making it obvious how hard you worked while learning First Section. These new kinds of movements will stress your joints differently than the more basic moves in First Section.
The Breathing Training taught at the end of Second Section is important in giving you more endurance, control, and extension of your breathing. This is the only time in Temple Style that this kind of breathing training is taught, so you must successfully and competently be able to perform this breathing training. The breathing training in not related to meditation or some sort of internal power development. It is clearly practiced for endurance purposes only and should not be skimmed over. You will never see this again, so don't skip over this.
It will be clear that you are unable to learn and practice Second Section without first absorbing First Section. Level #2 includes everything up to and including the completion of Second Section.
Level #3 contains, completes, and connects the remainder of The Long Form. The primary components of Level #3 is Third Section. However, in this level, a large percentage of the material is dealing directly with the aspect of Tai Chi martial art applications. Fair Lady Works At Shuttles is the main Third Section addition and introduces Upward and Downward movements combined with diagonal movements. Roll Hands, 6 Kinds, is an extremely important subset and must be practiced totally as a unit. Do not pick and choose which ones you like more. All 6 must be practiced equally to insure equal proficiency. These Roll Hands Parts are in preparation for Methods of Roll Hands in Level #4. 5 Style Steps and all its variations is of great importance in the big picture since 5 Style Steps can be combined with nearly every other form. In a fighting situation or while practicing your Two Person Practice, smooth 5 Style Steps will prove to be invaluable.
Well, now that the form is done, that means that your Tai Chi is done also? Right? No way! Now the fun begins to start. In Level #4, you will learn some of the most potent Two Person Practices that will give your Tai Chi the hormones it has been lacking. We start with 4 Forms Pushing Hands which gives you applications for using Ward Off, Roll Back, Press, and Push. Temple Style has a very specific order and structure for learning and practicing all the Two Person Practices. It is important not to skip any of these specific practices. There is one video that contains all these Two Person Practices. Don't skim over any of them. They all lead somewhere.
Next in Level #4 we come to what is named Temple Style Martial Art Foundation Forms. This subset is important because it helps create the physical structure and connections you will need for utilizing your internal power in a martial art situation. Again, this subset should be practiced in its entirety to assure even progress.
Now we come to one of the two most important subsets in Level #4. This is called Methods of Roll Hands. These 5 Roll Hands Parts will be responsible for you developing great instinct and ability when performing any Two Person Practice with either your best friend or a total stranger who only speaks a foreign language. You get these down pat, and you can deal with nearly any situation without hesitation. This subset is in The Top 5 Important Subsets in the whole system.
Next we come to the Making Chance subset which teaches you how to apply the various Tai Chi forms to your roll hands practice. This subset will be valuable to your Tai Chi fluidity latter when you start performing Free Style Roll Hands. Condensing Breathing traditionally is introduced at this place in the system approximately 2 and a half years into your Tai Chi practice. Condensing Breathing is taught Personal Power Trainingx and on my Tidal Wavex Chi Kung video program. Condensing Breathing is the single most important factor and principle in Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan. It changes not only your Tai Chi practice but your life. No kidding. Practicing Condensing Breathing will give you an internal vacuum that is responsible for packing 18 inches of movement and power into one inch of space. Condensing Breathing is in The Top 5 Important Subsets in the whole Temple Style system.
After Condensing Breathing has been practiced sufficiently, another extremely important subset is introduced call Basic Path Training which contains the mind training in Preparation, Beginning, Upward and Downward, Inward and Outward, Raised Hands Stance, Tai Chi Stance, and Slanted Flying. This Basic Path Training subset is so important it is also taught in Personal Power Trainingx and on my Blue Sub-set video.
Now we come to a favorite part of Temple Style; First Section Low Stance Training. This is an extremely difficult part of the system but has enormous benefits when practiced sufficiently. First Section Low Stance will give you strength like you have never imagined in the lower half of your body. After practicing First Section Low Stance over a period of time, all other practice will seem much easier in comparison. This is practiced to raise your endurance. You will practice First Section Low Stance forever. It will never become easy. Make sure you keep it that way.
By the time a student has completed the first four levels, more attention is paid to developing a higher ability to develop and utilize Jing or Internal Power. Soong, Hwa, and Bii Jing are specific explanations of the 3 different ways to express Jing or cultivated internal power. It is important to understand that Soong, Hwa, and Bii Jing are recognized by the user and are extremely difficult to distinguish and quantify without expert level Tai Chi skill.
"Soong" Jing translates from the Chinese as "loose." By this, I mean Loose in its truest sense of the word. Loose should be interpreted as Zero, or nothingness. In applying Soong Jing, Tai Chi students should practice being insubstantial or as "not there" as possible.
"Hwa" Jing translates from the Chinese "to make heavy or thick." Use the image of moving your hand in a bathtub full of Jello. Hwa Jing is used to make your opponent increase his effort, while you can control him by using your mind, not strength. A Tai Chi practitioner of greater ability can easily confuse his opponent into increasing his use of strength while he has the ability to decrease his own. In applying Hwa Jing, Tai Chi students should increase their resistance without relying on force. The difference between Hwa Jing and force can be detected by an expert's eye.
"Bii" Jing translates from the Chinese as "quick acceleration." This quick acceleration applies to your Tai Chi Two Person Practice. Your ability to increase your velocity, without relying on strength, is the true use for Bii Jing. It is important to note and understand that Bii Jing exists only before the actual contact with the other person. Once you make contact with your opponent or practice partner, Bii Jing turns into Fah Jing.
Next in Level #5, we come to the Change Door Forms. These forms are important in helping you to develop mobility in general. These Change Door forms are related to your martial art forms practice. This gives you the ability to completely change your position thus giving you all new targets and protecting yours.
Ta Lu is the introduction of your diagonal Two Person Practices. When learning Ta Lu, you will be taught how to use the forms of Roll Back, Lean Forward, Split, and Roll Pull. Learning and practicing Ta Lu will give your Tai Chi the ability to move your whole body as a single unit while doing your Two Person Practices. This also will have direct reflections on your martial art ability. (Brown Sub-set video)
Meditations in Methods of Rolling Hands Forms cannot be over practiced. These meditations will add life and substance to your Two Person Practice as well as to your martial art ability. These new meditations are a direct extension of Methods of Rolling Hands that you learned in Level #4 (Two Person Practice Video). There is a prerequisite to learn these meditations. Each Tai Chi student must be extremely proficient in the Methods of Rolling Hands subset. Practicing this meditation subset will significantly improve your Two Person Practices and your martial art ability. Spend as much time as you can designate to perfecting this subset. It will be some of the most productive Tai Chi time you can invest.
Non-Arms Training is a subset where you learn to use your body as though you have no arms. It consists of evasive whole body movements as well as trapping practices. After satisfactorily performing and practicing Non-Arms Training, your arms will be reinserted back into your Two Person Practice. This is the only place you will spend time practicing Non-Arms Training, so be careful not to skim over it.
Now we come to Fah Jing Training. Fah Jing Training is the releasing part of all your Condensing Breathing and Tai Chi Connective Meditations. Most students at one time or another ask the question, "What do I do on the exhale?" Now comes the time to pay attention to the release part of most of your meditations that you've learned up until now. I hope you have been seriously accumulating energy for a long time, you'll need it.
Fah Jing Training is how you will learn to convert many of your Tai Chi forms into your martial art applications. Each specific form has its own Fah Jing practice. Take your time and get these right.
At this point in The Temple Style Tai Chi System you will be taught the difference between Long, Short, and Cold Power Fah Jing. Each one of these different powers have different vibrational frequencies. Long Power Fah Jing resembles the movement of what happens to an empty garden hose when you give it a solid single shake. Short Power Fah Jing resembles the movement of a jig saw when you are cutting a piece of ply wood. Cold Power Fah Jing resembles a firecracker explosion. In this I mean it seems to come from nowhere and cannot be detected until it appears. No telegraphing. I will now explain each individual power in a general sense. Please remember that each Fah Jing can be expressed in nearly any Tai Chi form, but some are easier than others.
Long Power is the practice of releasing one single vibration and sending a person flying across the room. Long Power Fah Jing is usually performed with a wall or backstop behind the person being propelled. The backstop is important for the other persons safety. Without the backstop, you run the risk of the propelled person falling and getting injured. You want to avoid this at all costs. I like using very hard wood walls or solid wood doors for demonstrating Long Power. Concrete is too hard and can do structural damage to the other person. If no backstop is available, I advise not practicing Long Power Fah Jing. Wait until the situation is more suitable and never practice Long Power on a fragile person, they can be hurt by accident.
Short Power Fah Jing is the practice of releasing a huge amount of energy and vibrations in a very small space. There are very little space requirements in order to perform Short Power effectively. You can utilize the space inside your practice partners own body. This is different than the practice of Long Power Fah Jing. In Long Power Fah Jing your practice partner must have room to fly backwards. In Short Power Fah Jing your practice partner requires very little space.
Cold Power Fah Jing again is a very specific way of releasing energy and vibrations. However, when performing Cold Power Fah Jing, your practice partner or the person you are demonstrating on, must be prepared for an intense and surprising shock. Not an electrical shock, it's more like getting hit by a car and never knowing it is there until it is too late. Again, Cold Power Fah Jing requires absolutely no space to perform. Cold Power Fah Jing may also be performed in almost any Tai Chi form and it utilizes shock or concussion, so you need a resilient practice partner.
Practicing Long, Short, or Cold Power Fah Jing in the beginning will appear somewhat crude or rough. You must have patience and faith that you will soon begin to see results. The first time I used or rather it used me while I was practicing Rolling Hands was in 1977. I dumped one of my seniors who had been considered better than me since the start of my Tai Chi training. However, we were both extremely shocked when something unconsciously came out of me and he landed on his head in a deep puddle of water from recent rainfall. I don't know who was more surprised, he or I. I was in Temple Style Tai Chi about 3 years when this happened the first time. Shortly after that, I developed more control of my internal power and eventually began to be able to use my Fah Jing at will.
Now we come to some specific directional meditation practices called Sink Jing and Uproot Jing (Brown Sub-set video). These two Jings train you in sending your mind in single directions, namely, straight up and straight down. The practice of Sink and Uproot Jing does not require the use of any specific Tai Chi forms. Rather these are done in your basic Beginning Stance. Sink and Uproot Jing practice will give all your Two Person Practices more thickness and the ability to control your opponent.
We have now completed Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan Level #5.
Level #6 starts out with the various applications of internal power (Jing). There is only one simple way to describe the concept of En-Jing and that is to slam a door. You close the gap on your opponent and leave no space for any additional movement. This is not only a physical technique but also a psychological technique.
Next is Control Power which is exactly what is sounds like, controlling your opponent. Jie-Jing is to borrow the other persons energy and hold them in place.
Next we come to the precursors for Gold Bell Training which is developing the ability to take and repulse a punch from an opponent. Gold Bell Training is also sometimes known as Iron Shirt, only the translation is different. When learning Gold Bell Training, you start with relatively light pressure and accelerate it to full contact. (See IKF Magazine article #2 for details.)
Our next practice we come to is San-So and all the various applications. San So is directly related to your martial art practice. There are literally thousands of variations in techniques. This will help your free fighting.
The next section we come to is Low Stance Training. Here you will get a chance to practice some of your favorite Tai Chi forms, but not in your favorite way. You will use Low Stance. Hang in there, you will eventually get good at this.
In Temple Tai Chi Ch'uan, Chi In Voice And Action is very important. Here is where you learn to coordinate your voice with your ability to repulse hits from a practice partner. This adds coordination ability to your Gold Bell Training.
The next section we come to is related to advanced pushing hands which I have named Intercepting Hands Attaching, In & Out. This is using what you learned years before in your pushing hands practice.
Mother Meditation is the precursor to Nei Kung. Mother Meditation teaches you how to suck energy into your palms and other areas or doorways in your body. Mother Meditation uses many of the basic forms you have already been practicing for years (Brown Sub-set video).
Arms Connected Rolling Hands takes your Free Style Roll Hands a step further. In this I mean, you learn to roll hands with yourself which will give you added sensitivity and fluidity for your Free Style Rolling Hands. To take thisprinciple a step farther, we come to Arms Separated Rolling Hands which will compound your fluidity, which is so important in Tai Chi martial art applications. Here is where I have added Blind Folded Pushing and Rolling Hands with a partner. You can imagine what this will do for your sensitivity training practice. This ends Level #6 in the system.
Level #7 contains some of the most important material in the whole system. Some of the subsets are complete in and of themselves.
Level #7 starts with Free Style Mother Meditation. This is a formless practice using whatever you wish to use. Free Style Mother Meditation is rarely found anywhere except in Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan.
Close Encounters Trainingx is the way I designed to teach Tai Chi martial art practices which does not require many years of traditional practicing. Close Encounters Trainingx is divided into three basic segments. The first is segment is called Ten Tai Chi Principles which describe and illustrate the underlying ideas and general ideas to use Tai Chi as an effective martial art.
The next segment in named The Ten In-Fighting Applications which teach you how to use isolated moves not necessarily derived directly from The Long Form.
The next and final segment is called Ten In-Fighting Sequences. This segment is fairly difficult and requires absorption of the first two segments to be done effectively. This is the equivalent of learning street fighting martial art forms. They are fairly viscous and require a good amount of skill to be done well. All these three segments are taught on my videos.
After a Tai Chi student has progressed this far, they are about to begin to learn Free Fighting with Contact. You have been waiting a long time to get here, about five to seven years.
The Linkage Exercises are not exactly Tai Chi but they contribute to connect your body mechanics. These were taught to me after I had already had my school for a few years by my last teacher. I decided to place the Linkage Exercises here in the system. The Extension/Expansion Exercises are the flip side to the Linkage Exercises.
Tao meditation, Standing using two Fingers is a practice that helps you develop the ability to release your internal power at will. It is done in a Preparation Stance. The energy comes from Tan Tien and projects out from your first and second finger on your right hand.
Tao Meditation using Four Directions is performed in a sitting position, preferably cross legged and on a cushion. Tien is for Heaven, Tee is for Earth, Soon is for Man, and Tao is for the explosion into the Universe in all directions at the same time. This practice must be passed orally to another person in order to be practiced correctly.
Pulse Coordination Meditation is extremely relaxing and is used to help become sensitive to your own internal clock. This is a very advanced meditation and should not be practiced too frequently, maybe one per month.
Omei Mountain is a fighting meditation that is used to help bring out your fighting spirit. It is done as a circulation from Tan Tien and is very similar to Standing Tao Meditation except for the contribution to your aggressiveness.
Tiger Chi is also a fighting meditation that is used also to bring up your fighting spirit. Practicing this meditation should be controlled since it does increase your aggressiveness vastly.
The following material is taught in detail in The Personal Power Training(tm). For further descriptions and instruction you should read my book entitled Beyond Self-Help: Mastering Personal Power(tm). Condensing Breathing, Basic Path Training, Inside Air, Sitting forms with The Mind Training, Palms on Knees Meditation, The Micro Cosmic Orbit, The Macro Cosmic Orbit, Heaven and Earth Meditation, Creating your Daily Affirmations and Visualizations, Impregnating the Universe, and Layered Condensing are all in my book.
Free Style Chi Kung is a formless method of practicing Sitting Forms with The Mind Training. This practiceconnects your chi circulations with your sitting movements.
Tao Kung is closely related to the practice of The Micro Cosmic Orbit except you circulate your internal energy faster than 1,000 circulations per breath or faster than the speed of light. While practicing Tao Kung, your body will vibrate violently however, you should not become alarmed. This violent vibration is due to the fact that your body cannot keep up with your Chi circulations.
Other teachers warn against this phenomenon, I advise practicing it. Most of this material is taught on the videos.
Nei Kung is the grand finale of The Temple Style Tai Chi Ch'uan System. The practice of Nei Kung is also called "The Inside Form." The important thing to pay attention to is how you circulate Chi. While practicing Nei Kung, you will purposely drop many of the physical details that you have been practicing for many years. Remember, the circulations are important, not the forms. Good Luck on your great journey. GJC
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