How we practice

The practice of Tai-Ji Quan in this school.

What I will say here about Tai-Ji Quan I hold to be applicable and valid to more or less all Internal Arts.

Tai-Ji Quan is an Art, that transforms the human being, to make it as open as possible for that which is beyond effort, for Meditation. It progresses from doing to being. There are not to few people, who have touched upon, or realized Oneness, who report, that their body began to move in a way, that reminded them of Tai-Ji Quan, or Qi Gong (U.G. Krishnamurti, Nan Huai Chin and others). So if awareness becomes aware of itself, if the mind stops, something like Tai-Ji Quan is an expression of that realization.

That means we have two extremes, one is to go directly to the root of the mind, to the ‘who am I?’. The other is to transform body and mind slowly until mediation will swallow the person. Both directions are part of the training, from the very beginning, but usually only the seed of the physical and slow mental transformation takes root, the other drops to the ground.

Mechanics

A small set of exercises allows the transformation. One door is enough to enter the house. Its better, to go deep into one practice, than to have a huge portfolio, that stays superficial. The form makes only sense, when the body-mind is already sufficiently transformed.

First the joints need to be opened, the deep tissue (fascia, huang) needs to be detangled and thickened. The habitual mind, including the nerves needs to get into the habit, to move the body from that deep tissue or the ‘inner body`. Obstructions need to be dissolved, stagnations need to be led out of the body. Which includes the containment, or rather solution of all traumatic content. Energy (Jin and Qi) needs to be built. The lower Dan-Tien (Elixir Field), an energy center, or a nexus of body and mind has to be built. The Dan-Tien is physical, there are real changes within the structure of the body, the deep tissue (fascia, huang) and energetic.

For all that there are certain exercises. Some exercises cause a deeper transformation in one area, for example in the physical, others in the emotional, the energetic and so on. The effects of the different exercises overlap each other. One exercise causes transformations in different areas.

For each person another area of practice is more appealing. I will encourage them, to use that area as their door into the Arts.