Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Polaris - "if you can get into the habit of observing those changes from the perspective of the lower Dantian"; i.e. take the Yi away from your thoughts and operate from your centre, examining everything passively from there? Louis - Bizarrely, I ordered two Ames books yesterday afternoon ...

Louis wrote: "So I would quibble with the wording “placing your thoughts into your dantian.” " That is the crux of my point; I have read so many statements along the lines of 'place the mind in the dantian' that I was interested to know exactly what was meant by this as, potential translat...

In class, when practicing the form or chigung, we are advised to place our thoughts into the dantien. Initially I took this to mean 'place one's mental focus on the dantien' but now I'm beginning to wonder whether the idea is to try and move your seat of conciousness from your head/brain down to you...

Wu,

Sounds like you are busy creating your own lineage/dynasty?

;> )

So am I right in thinking that you and Polaris took this training as part of your Wu-style instruction? Any Yang stylists have similar experiences?

Aha, I believe that my teacher's master may do something the same or similar - I know that at higher levels the spiralling energy techniques come more and more into play in his curriculum. I will have to ask my teacher whether he has has any experience of spiralling with regards to shielding. At my ...

Polaris, Wu Shuer,

Are you talking about some form of iron shirt Qigong training which you have both undertaken, or something different?

Regards,

Brit

Wushuer, Right - but as a caveat, I'd say that for the less experienced among us doing Chi Kung seperately from the form is probably much more important than it is for experienced practitioners like yourself. Personally, I find that during standing practise my focus is much clearer and I can work on...

Weird - the answer to almost every question in class about improving almost any aspect of Tai Chi is 'More Ch'i Gung'! It's certainly a major emphasis on Yang style over here.

Hi all, 'Expansion through relaxation' and 'Power generation' are exactly what we concentrate on through our 8 standing movements. Focus is on correct body alignment, sinking chi to the tantien, rooting, expanding, and getting correct intention going. As to what type of Chi Kung I do, it's called 'T...

Hi, Just wanted to do some more brain picking, so here goes... Chigung is an integral part of my Yang Tai Chi class - we are taught that standing Chigung is every bit as important as form practice - but from reading around it seems that this is in no way a universal situation. Do other Yang teachers...

Louis wrote>>>I wonder if there are semantic issues here that may be clouding the discussion. In my opinion, if someone’s energy were “drained,” they would no longer be able to stand up. Perhaps W.B. did in fact end up in a slump on the floor, drained of energy, but the situations I described in my ...

I've made a mental picture of your sifu's face and I'm giggling to myself. My colleagues are looking at me funny... Thanks for taking the time to ask him. It's fascinating that people with so much knowledge and experience in the arts can have such wildly differing opinions about what is and isn't po...

What a thread...so much to digest. Audi, can I echo the comments others have made about your epic post earlier in this thread - I too have printed it out, stapled it together and taken it home in order to re-read and attempt to digest the information within it. Great stuff. Anyway, reading this thre...

Hi all, Thanks for the welcome and all the comments - lots of interesting stuff there which has made me think about the experience and try to recall it more clearly (it happened about 8 years ago). WuShuer - I look forward to hearing your findings! Michael - The contact was very soft. if I recall co...

Hi, I'm pretty new to Yang style Tai Chi - in fact to the internal arts in general - and have been trawling round the internet looking for sources of information. I've been reading threads on this board for the last week and it seems to be populated by really helpful, insightful people, so if you do...