The Arts

Ideal for improving balance and physical confidence, Tai Chi also gently opens up the body through the release of tension as the soft tissues are massaged during the movements. This in turn provides an antidote to stress and a sense of deep relaxation.

Tai Chi is a series of graceful movements, performed slowly and consciously, with a beginning and an end. Keeping a relaxed state of mind and body throughout, you transition weight, stepping from one leg to another, and coordinate various arm postures/ movements throughout the form.

While initially less technical than Qigong (“chi-gong”), all the Qigong ‘technology’ is eventually incorporated into the Tai Chi forms and many students practice both to help this come to fruition.

Yang Style: The more widespread of the Tai Chi styles, the Yang form is a wide frame form that opens the body and develops circularity and flow.

Wu Style Short Form: This is a smaller frame Tai Chi form, developed from the Yang style to further develop the internal content and better apply the meditation techniques.

Superb for honing specific ways of moving and the finer nuances of the internal content (Nei Gong), Qigong is renowned for easing joint problems, releasing tension both generally and in specific areas of the body, and developing your personal awareness. It is within Qigong that you can easier begin to develop your sensitivity to your Qi (“chi”).

Qigong forms, of which there are many, rely on repetition of movement used to deepen the effect of various internal nuances of motion. Again the movements are performed slowly and consciously, repeating a single move a number of times before transitioning to the next move.

Qigong is choreographically simpler than Tai Chi on the surface, with fewer moves and no or very limited stepping. However, it enables you to quickly develop physical musculoskeletal alignments and enliven the internal Nei Gong ‘technology’ that makes it a very powerful practice.

Dragon & Tiger Medical Qigong: A seven move set designed to balance internal energy flows, work through blockages and can be used on particular areas of the body that require attention, after injury for example. This form is also used to clear “leached” or negative Qi that therapists and care workers may acquire.

Energy Gates Qigong: This Qigong form embodies the Water Element and is the foundation upon which all other internal arts are based. Energy Gates introduces standing and alignments, sinking Qi and breathing, Cloud Hands Qigong in which the weight shift is explored, the Three Swings and the Spine stretch.

Marriage of Heaven and Earth Qigong: This Wood Element Qigong form begins to develop opening and closing, and pulsing. This form also works the macro and micro cosmic energetic orbits of the body. Taking the Spine work from Energy Gates Qigong, Heaven and Earth progresses into the ‘C’ curve, beginning to unify the spine.

Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong: As one of the original monastic Qigong sets of the Taoist priests, Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong is at least 4,000 years old. Consisting of six moves, this Earth element practice brings together the various internal components (Nei Gong) weaving them into each move, bringing together the physical, energetic, breathing and meditational Nei Gong as a unified One.

The form of Ba Gua Zhang, as another of the original Toaist Monastic practices, seeks to embody the continuously changing spherical flow of the world around us, removing inertia from the body and the mind.

It is an aerobic and fluid practice where physical motion, personal awareness and varying sensory experience are continuous throughout walking the circle and changing direction. The direction changes are performed using eight different series of movements, each of which signifies a particular energy of change, as depicted in the Ba Gua symbol.

A highly developed Art, Ba Gua Zhang is one of the most difficult of the internal Arts to learn and perfect. However, the fundamentals practiced in Qigong are also the foundations of Ba Gua and all of the Nei Gung ‘technology’ of Qigong is incorporated and then developed upon.

8 Changes Palm: Each Gua of the Ba Gua symbol is represented by a particular palm change (a choreographed movement) and used to change direction whilst walking the circle. This is then used as the container into which the Nei Gung learnt in Qigong are brought and unified.

Circle Walking Meditation: This uses the circle walking and the Swimming Dragon palm change as the container into which you meld your meditation. This assists in removing inertia from your mind and body, allowing you to remain in the moment easier and feeds back into the other practices.

The meditation of the Taoist Water Tradition uses the process of ‘becoming aware and letting go’ to release and sink bound Qi and nurture a state of ‘Sung’ or ‘being unbound’.

Practised either standing or sitting, this process gently brings the mind into the body, releasing tension in both. Through sinking Qi a deep sense of being grounded and centred is generated growing a depth of awareness within your being.

The postural alignments learnt in Qigong are a crucial part of meditation which is practiced without movement initially. Once the meditative practices have become second nature, the techniques can be brought into all of the movement forms giving them another dimension and deepening their quality exponentially.

Ideal for releasing and smoothing out the nervous system, as well as gaining access to your internal space, breathing is a corner stone in the internal Arts. As such it is a Qigong/ Nei Gung practice in its own right.

Engaging the diaphragm directly to inhale and exhale, the organ base is pressurised and released, whilst relaxing the chest. Becoming aware of the breath throughout inhaling and exhaling, relaxing and removing inertia from the cycle, allows the nervous system to empathise with this process.

Initially developed on its own to make the breath smooth and seamless, it is an integral part of meditation and other internal arts. The quality of your breath is crucial to your development within all the Internal Arts.