Qigong, Tai Chi + Bagua for Beginners
How Much Practice Is Appropriate for a Beginner? Okay, I’m going to make this short and sweet because this has got to be one of the most popular email questions of the year: I advise new students to mind their 70% of effort in mind-body-chi, and save 45-minute to hour-long practices for many months (or even years) down the line, once you have a solid foundation in neigong. Otherwise, you may injure yourself or build up too much internal resistance and stop practising. Go with the flow and do whatever “clicks” for you yet try to build...
read moreTai Chi: The Softer Side of the Internal Martial Arts
Last month, I wrote a blog on tai chi’s softness, but is it possible to ever say enough about the form’s yielding nature? Even though tai chi is the youngest of the internal martial arts, it has a quality that is absolutely unique unto itself. The intrinsic yin nature of tai chi allows deep healing to occur while the practitioner executes the form in the most gentle of ways. It is this hyper focus on the soft quality that often leads tai chi practitioners astray. Relaxed Doesn’t Mean Collapsed The Asian concept of softness...
read moreTai Chi: The Art of Softness
Tai chi is a yin art, which is why it often gets disregarded as useless or only being good for the elderly and young girls. But in fact, the soft nature of tai chi is exactly why it is so effective as a means for developing chi power—whether for health, healing, meditation or martial prowess. First and foremost, exercise done in a soft way can prevent you from embedding existing, superficial tension deeper within the body. Tai chi is a superior exercise system for releasing the nerves, which in turn releases all soft tissues. This process...
read moreInternal Energy Exercise to Contact the Subtle Energy Anatomy
(Part 2 of 2) Re-educating Your Body The first step to living pain-free or improving your health is re-educating your body about how to move and perform even minor daily tasks, such as typing on a keyboard. In fact, most people have never received health or physical education that includes information about correct and sustainable body alignments and movements. Internal energy exercises are designed to provide you with an experiential physical education so you learn how to align your body and refine your movements. This will not only prevent...
read moreInternal Energy Exercises for a Healthy Back, Neck and Spine
(Part 1 of 2) Most people will experience back, neck, spinal or repetitive strain injuries at some point in their lives. For many, it will limit the mobility they experience for the rest of their life. Learning what you can do now will help you prevent needless suffering from chronic aches and pains. Startling Health Statistics An EU-wide study (by The Work Foundation www.theworkfoundation.org, reported by www.backpain.org.uk on 13 February 2010) found that musculoskeletal disorders, such as back pain, neck pain and...
read moreCircling Hands Qigong Video: A Guided Practice Lesson
Hiya, You can watch and follow along to the Circling Hands video below. It’s a great practice for deepening neigong and improving your qigong, tai chi and bagua forms. In Circling Hands, kwa exercises go deep into the body to create a powerful massage for the internal organs and further increase blood and fluid activation. In combination with the C-curve, kwa exercises generate strong hydraulic activity, so you can get a good workout while remaining extremely relaxed. Make gentle, smaller circles to help release your nerves, allowing the...
read morePulsing the Body’s Cavities in Qigong, Tai Chi & Bagua Circle Walking
My last blog introduced the concept of pulsing, and provided an overview of how to pulse the joints in qigong, tai chi and bagua for health benefits. However, the more dramatic, broad-ranging and long-lasting results come after the tuning in period, when you can go deeper than only pulsing the joints and gain some faculty in opening and closing the body’s cavities. Pulsing the Joints: The Middle Ground Activating the joints is only the beginning stage. Whether you only pulse the joints in the limbs (arms and legs) or the entire skeletal...
read morePulsing the Joints of the Body in Qigong, Tai Chi & Bagua
This article is Part 2; see Part 1 on Essential Neigong Exercises. Pulsing is a naturally occurring phenomenon replicated time and again throughout the universe as an essential aspect of every living organism, including human beings. Pulsing (also known as “opening and closing”) is little more than a synchronised, alternating rhythm of expanding and condensing energy. Paul Cavel Teaches Pulsing in Qigong In terms of qigong, tai chi and bagua, the concept of pulsing is simple: You want your entire body and its energy to pulse as one...
read moreEssential Neigong Exercises
The system of internal power for generating health, healing and an overriding feeling of well-being that has existed in China for at least 4,000 years is driven by 16 neigong components. Each one represents cosmic potential for developing your body, mind and chi—capable of producing seemingly mysterious and enigmatic results. Wherever it may take you, the neigong system is rooted in extremely concrete, tangible and specific training techniques that start with the physical body. Two introductory methods that can take the average human being...
read moreChi Balancing in Qigong, Bagua & Tai Chi
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 8 All internal exercise ultimately intends to get chi flowing in your body. In fact, one reason external alignments are a main focus in the beginning is to help optimise fluid (such as blood) and chi flow. So now that you have the basics of balancing your outer casing in your form, we’ll look at two primary flows in the body: ascending and descending chi. Descending chi is responsible for: Relaxing the nerves Softening the tissues Releasing the stress and tension out of the body and into the...
read moreBalancing the Upper & Lower Body in Qigong, Bagua & Tai Chi
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 7 So far we’ve been practising exercises for balancing the left and right sides of the body with a focus on the legs, the arms and the turning of the body. Now we’ll look at balancing the upper and lower body in qigong, bagua and tai chi. The lower body is much more capable of developing and cultivating blood and chi flow than the lower body. However, most people focus more heavily on their arms than the legs because they’re used to using their arms to carry out everyday tasks, especially when...
read moreBagua Balancing Exercises: Balancing the Legs, Part 2
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 6 Now that you’ve reviewed the basics of balancing the legs, let’s look at how to balance the legs whilst in a forward-weighted stance. Many practitioners find that when assuming tai chi or other postures where the front leg carries the body’s weight, that the legs, especially the knees, become compressed. You definitely don’t want to programme this position into your body memory because, over time, you will cause more harm than good. So start by focusing on keeping your spine erect....
read moreBagua Exercises: Balancing the Legs
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 5 In the last lessons, we’ve balanced the arms in symmetrical and asymmetrical postures as well as while turning the body. Now we will look at balancing the legs. The three primary points to balancing the legs are: Keeping the pelvis level. Maintaining an even stretch through both legs. Not compressing the knees. Start by aligning the knees, move up to leveling the pelvis and then sink the tailbone. Stretch the knees without allowing the body to go down in height. The spine must stay erect. When you...
read moreBagua Exercises: Balancing Asymmetrical Postures
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 4 In the least lesson, we looked at balancing non-symmetrical movement in tai chi. Now we’ll apply the same principles to asymmetrical bagua postures with the goal of equalising the body’s halves, creating even stretches and maintaining the left-right balance. Happy practising, Paul Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury. © 2011 Paul Cavel—All rights...
read moreTai Chi Exercises: Balancing Non-symmetrical Movement
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 3 The last two lessons covered methods for balancing symmetrical movement, but many times in bagua and tai chi, the form calls for non-symmetrical movement. Even when one side of the body does not mirror the other, you still seek to create stability and continuity between both halves. In this lesson, I’ll take the ji movement (“to press forward”) of tai chi to look at how we can find symmetry in non-symmetrical exercise. Happy practising, Paul Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry...
read moreTurning Exercises in Qigong, Bagua & Tai Chi
Balancing Exercises Video Lesson 2 In this lesson, we continue our balancing exercises by looking at turning in the internal energy arts. Turning is a component of most qigong sets and all bagua and tai chi styles. So stabilising and equalising your turn (and weight shift into either leg) is a fundamental prerequisite to achieving a truly internal practice and the benefits that come from it. Many internal arts practitioners have greater flexibility and range of motion on one side of their body and they reinforce this imbalance by playing up...
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