Although it is not a traditional tai chi training tool I’ve rather taken to using the heavy bag for practicing striking and developing power. My teacher Shifu Chao at first admonished me when I told him I was using a heavy bag. Later when he saw how I was using tai chi principals on the bag he did he not mind as much and began giving me tips to generate and increase the power of my strikes. Likewise the master Luo Dexiu told us at a seminar, train striking with a partner(including pad work) not a heavy bag.
The reasons good tai chi teachers avoid the heavy bag workout in tai chi training.
Of course the above masters are not mistaken in their dismissal of heavy bag usage in tai chi training. If a student starts training on a heavy bag before understanding tai chi body mechanics and force generation methods it’s likely to really destroy your tai chi. You will start to rely on the power generation and footwork of boxing or kick boxing. Boxing and kickboxing are all great arts, but they use totally different body mechanics than tai chi. If you have not been taught tai chi body mechanics you will be humbled by the heavy bag and you will try and compensate
The reason I started using the heavy bag as a tai chi training tool.
I have not had a tai chi push hands partner for a long time, and the heavy bag provides some substitute for one it’s resistance and movement. Also I have several boxers in my family and over the years I began to see the effectiveness of the heavy bag in power development, though it me some time to figure out how to integrate and adapt bagwork to tai chi.
Considerations in using the heavy bag in Tai Chi training.
The seven stars and three points is a core concept in tai chi that deals with the different striking areas we can use on the body. The three points are the hand, feet and head. These are used for conventional punches and kicks. The seven stars include the knee, elbow, shoulder and everything else.
Practicing only the three points on a heavy bag will make you overly-reliant on upper body power and you will get stuck at that level. The seven star methods make up a large portion of tai chi striking attacks in the form and during push hands, so you must carry this over to your heavy bag workout. Striking with the 7 stars you will keep the ground path and not rely on upper body strength as the primary source of power. Finally, you must use tai chi footwork when doing tai chi methods on the heavy bag. You must use gong bu, natural step, and whatever methods you have in your specific style of tai chi to generate the power. Do not start training tai chi striking on the heavy bag until you understand these concepts.
Example of a kung fu heavy bag workout with tai chi motifs.
Using the 7 stars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EllAPxshLxk
An example of striking with the seven stars, instead of the three points.
Example of Using the 3 points striking in Tai Chi heavy bag workout
Working on the standard tai chi parry and punch is an example of using the three points. Don’t overdo or under-do this important technique on the heavy bag.
This is a quick post to show how to do chi steps for beginners. I was digging through old tai chi videos on Youtube and found a good one of the great Wu style Master Wang Peisheng instructing a traditional outdoor tai chi class. In one part of the video he demonstrates Gong Bu step to his students very clearly.
I’m always trying to improve my tai chi stepping so I cut out that segment of the video and put it on a loop. I thought it might help others who may be working on the simple tai chi form so I uploaded the clip with awesome cgi edits.
Gong Bu – Mountain Climbing Stance
The weight transfer in Wu Style tai chi is like felling a large tree, it uses a lot of bowing power. This gives the Wu style its distinctive leaning posture.
Gong Bu is a basic of tai chi step for beginners
Note that the transfer of weight from the full to empty leg is like the felling of a large tree, hence the style’s slight bowing posture. This is ever so slightly different from the weight transfer in our style. If you’ve ever watched Luo transfer weight in his tai chi it seems a bit complex at first. The Wu method is similar but has less moving parts so it’s a good first step.
The Chen Pan Ling posture is straighter so instead of leaning into the weight transfer you slide onto it more like you have a swing under you bum, on top of this many of the CPL steps also include what Ed calls “pushing up off the side of the pool” at the end. The Wu-ish generation methods were an ingredient in CPL tai chi and it’s public form was made to be accessible so it is a good starting point for many things.
I’m assuming this clip is basically public domain at this point. Full video here.
If you want to learn tai chi online free there are considerable challenges to overcome. The good news is that not only can it be done but if you’re willing to put in extra effort you can learn tai chi online free. It’s always best to learn directly from a master but these days there are just not enough tai chi classes to meet demand. With a shortage of qualified tai chi teachers and other obstacles learning tai chi online is the best and perhaps only option for a many seekers. Whether you learn tai chi online or irl, the fact is that you must learn it from a good teacher.
Learning traditional Tai Chi Online Free
There are loads of resources available if you want to learn a short beginner Tai Chi form online. This is fine if you’re into that sort of thing. This article is for folks who want a more traditional path. There is little benefit to learning one of the modern short forms over one of the traditional forms. Learning the first quarter of one of these traditional forms is more benefitial that learning the full 24 form, even though it takes about the same amount of time. An exception to this would be the Chen Man Ching 37 form, which was not created for the same reasons as the modern 24 type forms. I recommend the Chen Pan Ling 99 form or the Yang 108 form.
To learn tai chi online free requires a considerable commitment
You will need good resources here are some videos.
Chen Jing Bao a student of Chen Pan Ling – Performing the Chen Pan Ling 99 Tai Chi Form in great detail.
I’m going to start putting up videos of simple chi kung exercises for beginners. Each video will be a simple chi kung posture in a flow, each posture and flow will teach a basic beginner chi kung principle.
1st Chi kung exercise for beginners
Lift Hands posture from Tai Chi. This teaches the chi kung principle of separate and extend to the extremities.
Lift Hands Tai Chi Posture done in a chi kung expression. The concept here is separate the crown point bai hui from the sacrum, ming men or hui yin point, depending on expression.
So you still want to try to learn qigong online against my advice, ok I understand. I have good news, you can in fact learn basic qigong online, and you can learn it for free. You must however be very selective when you’re looking for online qigong lessons, the same rules apply to learning qigong online that apply to learning it in real life, you need a good teacher. I’ve included some video resources below to get you started.
Note: I use the spelling qigong, chi kung and qi gong interchangeably in this article so that more people can find it.
It is easier to find qigong teachers online who know more about marketing than chi kung and if you’re a total beginner it’s very difficult to spot the difference. Whats more, some of the best qigong masters who’s content is available online for free, are very difficult to find. Their videos are buried under the marketing guys.
For me it’s very easy to spot a bad qigong teacher because I have been practicing for a number of years under very good teachers. Even from a still photograph I can tell a fraudulent qigong teacher by looking at their posture and their hands and feet. If you are a beginner to qigong it’s difficult to spot the difference between a good teacher and a fraud.
One way to spot the marketing qigong teachers is by the length of their sets compared to the difficulty of the individual postures. Progressing in qigong has nothing to do with the amount forms you know. In traditional public qigong classes, you usually first learn a short, easy, set of movements to work the basic meridians. If you want to go deeper into qigong, into the alchemy practices, the movements can get very difficult fast. The advanced qigong practices that don’t have difficult physical movements have difficult breathing and focusing practices. When I first started learning marrow washing for instance, the breath cycle had to be extended so long I felt as if I would suffocate while following my teacher. Anyway to reiterate, digital marketing based qigong courses, teach you more and more movements that don’t increase in difficulty to milk students.
Learning qigong has very little to do with learning very long forms. Many of these are recent creations design to milk students into subscriptions.
Last time I checked the entire first page of search results for online qigong courses were very poor, whilst some of the best videos don’t show up in a conventional search at all. I’ve dug around a bit an found some youtube videos of masters that are very good.
Top 5 things you need to begin learning qigong online, or offline.
First, you must get familiar with the basic qigong concepts and terminology. Most of these terms have to do with anatomy, breath, mind state and energy. The below video does a good job of easing beginners to qigong into this terminology.
This video gives a good overview of chi gong terminology. The qigong teacher who made it has a lot of free chi gong lessons online and on his youtube channel.
The second thing you’ll need learning qigong practice is a breathing method.
Breath is the key that unlocks the benefits chi kung. There are many methods. If you’re learning online there is no use in studying an elaborate breath method, you just need one that syncs the breath, movement and chi. You also need one that syncs to your specific level of development. The below methods are from the monk Chan Fa who is friends with my teacher. Chan Fa has studied Taoism and “heart” Chan Buddhist methods all his life, he has achieved a very high level of skill, his students are highly skilled martial artists and practitioners, he is not known in the west and has no western students. His breathing methods are simple and direct.
Here we introduce to you two simple and effective breathing methods. One is the Five and Ten Dantian Breathing Methods. First, sit on a chair, relax your body, and place your palms in the Dantian of your lower abdomen below your navel. Close your eyes. Breathe out through your mouth and count from one to ten. At this time, you should simultaneously retract the Dantian of the lower abdomen inward and lift the anus upward. After exhaling, breathe in through your nose and count from one to five. At this time, protrude your lower abdomen forward and relax your anus. One exhalation and one inhalation is one time, and a total of ten times is one time. It’s up to you how many times you want to do it.
The second is the four-seven-eight breathing method. The method is also very simple. Sit up straight and relax. Breathe in and count from one to four. To stop breathing, count from one to seven. Then exhale and count from one to eight. This counts as one time (one breath), ten times is one time. How many times or how many times you want to practice is entirely up to you. Both of these breathing methods involve inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. They can be practiced while sitting or lying down. The counting speed should not be too fast or too slow, just
The third thing you’ll need is a set of movements or form.
Youtube makes this part of the process easy, there are thousands of options. When learning from free video, look for footage recorded before the current qigong trend. There are a massive amount of sketchy organizations and chi kung teachers that are cashing in on this boom. When you learn from an older source, certainly pre 2000’s, the teacher will be more dedicated to the art and not just making money off of it. The older routines are simple and effective whereas many of the new ones are stretched way out to milk students for ongoing subscription feeds. If you’re learning qigong online the same rule we use for a breathing method applies to the form, it must be simple and effective. For this purpose the Ba Duan Jin qigong routine is probably the best option. It is so simple and effective it has survived in one form or another for at least 800 years. This set has a symbiotic relationship with tai chi and xing yi.
Some of the best Ba Duan Jin Qigong videos are online for free.
Yes, I know it’s not in English, but in the coming weeks I will break down the separate movements of Ba Duan Jin or 8 pieces of brocade, chi kung routine online all for free.
Zhang Guang De, the chi kung master in the above video is the creator of the Daoyin Yang Sheng Gong chi kung system and one of the best chi kung teachers of recent times. Many of his chi kung videos are online for free, however most of these cover his longer routines. If you want to learn chi kung online for free it’s not going to benefit you to learn a longer system. The Ba Duan Jin, is simple and effective, practicing it everyday will provide health benefits.
Here is the Qigong teacher Yang Jwing Ming performing the same set.
it’s a shame people pay thousands for online qigong courses when this material exists…
Dr.Jwing Ming also performs seated ba duan Jin qigong
This seated qigong set is quite nice to follow along with.
The 4 thing you need in your qigong practice is the correct mind state.
In Chinese literature, the first and last items on a list are the most important, so pay attention to this one. Depending on your former training, or lack thereof, you may have a hard time picking this last concept up online. Although it is essentially a state of keeping your focus, it has a feeling. In my experience you need to be beside a master to have this feeling transmitted properly. It is strongly related to the breathing method. In a traditional setting the mental state, especially focus and intention, of a qigong student is constantly adjusted by the teacher, but this is often given little time on the modern chi kung courses. The coach Edward Hines is particularly good at teaching the mind states in an accessible way.
The 5th thing you need in a qigong practice is a clearly defined goal.
This is also a big difference from the marketing type teachers. Below are some goals that you can find in qigong practice. First you can start off with simple goals like perfoming a certain number of breath cycles every morning, performing the set a specific number of times a week etc. After you get comfortable you need to set internal goals. All qigong teachers I have studied with make this a critical point.
Sinking Qi To the Dan Tien (this is a good goal to set after you are comfortable with the breathing and some movements, it is difficult without a teacher in real life but I believe it would be achievable in a disciplined online practice. This practice causes a deep sense of well-being and is good for everyone)
Agitating Chi in the Dan Tien (same as above)
Burning Impurities From the Mind (This is extremely difficult and can’t be learned online, this is one of the practices that causes a change to the practitioner on a very deep level. As someone who has experienced this I wouldn’t say that it would benefit people who don’t want to have practice take over a large part of their life)
Clearing Negative Energy through the Lao Gong points. (this can probably be learned online)
Holding Yi on Void (This can be learned online by those with good mental faculty, it is good for everybody. )
Opening the Large Heavenly Circle ( Although it is often taught in digital courses, there is no chance you will achieve it without a skilled teacher. This occurrence will change the internal and external circumstances in the practitioners life. Really these things are not for everybody )
That’s it, enjoy your qigong practice and stay healthy!
As you all know, things in life are often unsatisfactory. As a Taoist, when facing these unsatisfactory things, you must know how to let go. Once you can let go, your mood will naturally feel much better. So how to let go? it’s actually really easy. As long as you know how to let go and let go, you’ll be right. Accommodation means that when faced with these unsatisfactory situations, you must accept them happily and no longer reject or resist. Even if these unsatisfactory things make you fear, uneasy, sad, unfair, and dissatisfied, you must completely obey these unsatisfactory emotions and allow them to stay in your heart. You just need to look at them and it will be fine. After a while, They will naturally disappear without a trace! If you don’t believe it, just try it yourself. remember! Thoughts are like water in your heart, allow them to flow through your heart and don’t worry about them. If you have an attitude of rejection or resistance, it will block the flow of unsatisfactory thoughts, so why bother! This surrender and letting go is really a panacea for healing the body, mind and soul, and the effect is extremely fast. I’m afraid you don’t know how to make good use of it, that would be a real pity!
Here we introduce to you two simple and effective breathing methods. One is the Five and Ten Dantian Breathing Methods. First, sit on a chair, relax your body, and place your palms in the Dantian of your lower abdomen below your navel. Close your eyes. Breathe out through your mouth and count from one to ten. At this time, you should simultaneously retract the Dantian of the lower abdomen inward and lift the anus upward. After exhaling, breathe in through your nose and count from one to five. At this time, protrude your lower abdomen forward and relax your anus. One exhalation and one inhalation is one time, and a total of ten times is one time. It’s up to you how many times you want to do it. The second is the four-seven-eight breathing method. The method is also very simple. Sit up straight and relax. Breathe in and count from one to four. To stop breathing, count from one to seven. Then exhale and count from one to eight. This counts as one time (one breath), ten times is one time. How many times or how many times you want to practice is entirely up to you. Both of these breathing methods involve inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. They can be practiced while sitting or lying down. The counting speed should not be too fast or too slow, just about one second per second. Both of these exercises are simple but very effective. Both of these are considered deep breathing qigong, and both are rhythmic breathing methods. Regular practice can allow the brain’s brain waves to enter the alpha wave band that is both relaxing and focused. This is very helpful for physical and mental health. It can enhance the natural self-healing power, the body’s immunity, promote the secretion of the happiness hormone ─ serotonin, and even balance the autonomic nervous system, allowing you to sleep well every night. And it will make you feel refreshed during the day! You may not know it yet, but rhythmic deep breathing is actually the best natural tranquilizer. And there are 100% no side effects. People with sleep disorders, anxiety or depression should practice these two deep breathing exercises more frequently. Moreover, it will also be of great help to ordinary people or the elderly. The basic rule is to practice easily and don’t force yourself!
Calm mind and spirit, a good recipe for health and longevity.
Life has energy or aura, and even everything has energy or aura. But energy or aura can be both positive and negative. That is, there are good or bad ones. When you have good intentions and live in a clean and tidy environment, you will naturally have good energy or a good aura, and it is easy to attract good luck in life, giving you continuous good luck. However, if you have bad thoughts or unhealthy thoughts and live in a messy environment, your aura or energy will become negative or bad. In this way, it is naturally easy for you to have bad luck again and again. Therefore, when you wake up in the morning, you must first take care of your mind and home environment. This is a good way to change your luck, why don’t you give it a try!
A person’s mind determines a person’s pattern; a person’s pattern can determine a person’s outcome or achievement. If you have a big heart, the pattern will naturally be big. And if the pattern is big, the achievements in this life will of course be relatively high.
Talk less in your mouth, eat less in your belly, and worry less in your mind. Having these three young men will really make you less sick and less troubled. Of course, “less” means just don’t be greedy for too much.
Don’t stop hate with hate, stop hate with love. Love is the natural law of life. That’s right! There should be love in life, not hatred.
As far as the highest concept of Zen Buddhism is concerned, don’t be greedy for too much Dharma, but rather the less, the better. That’s why Goode once said, “One sentence of clarity is worth tens of billions.” In the sect, all laws are facilities of last resort. All these laws are like yellow leaves turning into gold, and the theory that they stop and cry cannot be taken seriously.
Goode once said: “It’s not the mind, it’s not the Buddha, it’s not the thing.” So what could it be? You might as well take a look.
Time and space are both illusions in life, so what would be beyond time and space? You can also refer to it.
When your parents were not born, let’s talk about it. What would it be like? If you can’t explain it, it doesn’t matter. Just work hard and look in your heart to get to the bottom of it. Remember! Never look outside yourself for answers.
“Life” all arises from the true self-nature or the original nature of the mind. There is no “I” that arises or acts. Remembering this sentence will be of great help on the path. Because it is a guidepost on the path of spiritual practice. On the road, it will guide you on the right path and not go astray.
Taoists, you should observe that the five aggregates of body and mind are not the origin of life. They are only “things” temporarily available in the world, and are not the true face of life. On the Tao, you should keep this concept in mind. Because it is the compass in your heart. With it, you will not fall into the self-confusion of the five aggregates of body and mind, and it will even guide you to the shore of Nirvana, which has no birth, no death, no coming and no going!
On the road, there is a “Nine-Character Sutra”. It is extremely important on the Tao and is the foundation of the Tao. Therefore, we reluctantly gave it the pseudonym “Nine-Character Sutra”. Which nine characters are they? In fact, it is very simple, just these nine words: “see through, let go, and think openly.” In short, you can completely see through, let go, and think openly about everything inside and outside your body and mind, and all this will not affect your heart at all, and that’s right! This does not require you to abandon or give up anything, it is unnecessary. This is purely a matter of your mentality. As long as your mentality is completely unaffected or influenced by everything in your body and mind, that’s fine. Of course, this may be difficult for ordinary ascetics to do, but if you are a true Taoist, it will be easy. Because what a true Taoist wants is to return to the original nature or the body of truth. Everything inside and outside his body and mind was not what he wanted, and of course he couldn’t see it. It’s better to have it, it’s better not to have it. All this is insignificant and insignificant to it, so it is natural for it to see through it, let it go, and think about it. In fact, even if you are not a Taoist, as long as you know how to see through, let go, and think openly, you will find that every day is a good day, there are benefits everywhere, and your heart will be filled with peace and joy. Love!
As the saying goes: “The width of the house is not as wide as the width of the heart.” That’s right! When you know how to forgive or consider others, it is the best gift to others and the best way to treat yourself. Because it can enhance the positive energy of the mind and put you in a good mood.
Taoists should keep in mind: It doesn’t hurt if you suffer some losses, so why not give him three points? If you are willing to suffer a loss, you will receive a hundred blessings. If you want to get cheap everywhere, it turns out that you are the one who suffers the big loss.
The sea accepts all rivers, and it is great if it has tolerance. Treating others with a magnanimous heart will bring endless blessings. If you are narrow-minded, easy to compare, and easy to care about, your blessings will be pitifully small!
Thousands of health cares, ten thousand health cares, mental tranquility, peace, serenity and freedom are the key.
