14612123 eBook Martial Arts Erle Montaigue 10 Combat Healing

 THE COM P LETE G UI DE TO  THE I N TE TERN RN AL M AR ARTI TIAL AL// H EALI N G AR ARTS TS

September 2003 Vol. 54

C ombat &

Healing

Lead Story

DifficultTaijiquan

———— HeWhoFig ights ———— SideEffectso sofDim-Mak ———— SpiritualTaiChi ———— StreetSelfDefence ———— Reiki PLUS

WTBAN ANEWS

Eve verything rything You Want Want To To K now About the the Internal M artia l/ Heali ng Arts

C ombat &

Healing

Editor in Chief  Erl e M ontaigue ontaigue E x e cu cu t i v e E d i t o r San draM ontaigue M a n a g i n g Ed Ed i t o r s Ben Monta M ontaigue igue Eli M ontaigue Senior Writers M i chael Babin B abin Erle M ontaigue ontaigue Senior Copy Editor K athleen athleen M ontaigue C o p y Ed Ed i t o r Bonnie M ontaigue ontaigue Research Editor Blue Montaigue R e s e a r ch A s s o ci ci a t e s Erl e M ontaigue ontaigue  J ohn Sklotz Sklotz Art Director Goanna Blursnog Senior Copy Editor  Jack  Jack Black C o p y Ed Ed i t o r Sputz Narge N argett Research Editor LINDA Garnish R e s e a r ch A s s o ci ci a t e s Splitz, Spli tz, Spl otz & Spla Splatz R e s e a r ch A s s o ci ci a t e s Curl ey, M oe, Shemp Shemp

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C O N T E N T S ........................................Dif fi ficult cult Ta T aijiqa ijiqaun un Page 1........................................Dif  Erle Er le M ontaigue Fi ghts hts Page 8...........................................H e Who Fig  Ja  J amesReadman. U K  Page10...........L ...........L ongT erm Side SideEf fec fectsof Dim-M D im-Ma ak. Paul Brecher U K  Page 13........................................Spir ........................................Spiriitual Tai Chi. R on Beier: Ger many

................. ............ ............ ........... ......A .A Bagu Bagua aExperi enc ence e Page 16........... Klaus Baltzer: Ger many igong Page 17..............................................H ard Q igong Sherif Ab A bdelnaser: Egypt. Defence Page 18 ...................................Street Self Defence Gun Gunther Vanwe anwesemael Bel Bel gium gium Page 20 ......U se of Qigong Q igong & T ai Chi C hi in in Phys i cal cal The T her apy apy Swe den  TomasWald sWalde egren: Swe

......................... .........M M od ifie ifi ed T ai Chi Chi Ch’ C h’ua uan? Page 22................ ErleM ontaig ntaigue. Page 23.........................................................Reiki  TomasWald sWaldegren: Swe Sweden. den.

........... ... Sci en en tific tifi c Proof for Eating Ap Ap ples ples. Page 25........

Dif ficult Taijiquan  By Erle Montaigue

E

ach morning while I am  pr ac ti cing my form several times, things pop into my mind. Things of great relevance to one’s practice and which I am  passionate to pass on to others so that they too will feel and gain the great benefits that I have gained and am still gain ing. How ever, once finished my forms, that idea has ei ther been lost or it has been placed by my logical mind into a com pletely log i cal set of ideas that bears little or no sig nif i cance to the origi nal re flex idea. Some mornings however, the idea is so strong that it sticks with me until the end and I am able to put it all into logical words that do not lose the orig inal es sence of the thought. This morn ing was one of those times, so without even pick ing up my gui tar and play ing, with out even eat ing or talk ing to any one, I am now putt ing into words some infor mation that I hope will be use ful to ev ery one. By the way, we are now in our new home in the ‘freezer’! And it is so won der ful to per form a set of movements without ending up a lather of sweat! Only the fin ger tips drip drop af ter each ses sion as we have little humidity and

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the tem per ature this morning was 2 de grees c.

40’s! Then I go on to tell them how it af fects the liver and how the liver con trolstheskin and there foreit isthe skin that is greatly damaged. So they will look likeaprune at age25!  The answer was that they would get some skin cream and would I buy thecig a rettes for them any way! I guessI was the same at age 17, totally invincible and would not listen to anyone.

Most peo ple have heard me saying that Taijiquan must be dif ficult; if it is not dif fi cult then you are not doing Taijiquan! It was made dif fi cult and must re main dif fi cult for ever, no mat ter how hard or for how long you train, or how ex perienced you are. I have had ‘sifus’ come up to me and say that they really know their Taijiquan so well that it is no longer dif ficult, I have now There are two reasons that given up try ing to tell them that Taijiquan is made dif ficult. A t h e y a r e n o l o n g e r d o i n g  physical reason and an inter nal Taijiquan! It’s the same as yes - reason. The inter nal reason is ter d ay while walk ing in the  proba bly the most dif ficult of  street with my family, three all. young girls ap proached me to  pur chase for them cig a rettes! The phys i cal rea son is one that I usually tell peo ple; it is phys i There are two reasons that cally dif ficult because the old  Taijiquan ismadedif ficult. ge nius mas ters who in vented all of this stuff, built into each A physi cal reason andan in- movement a way of activating ternal reason. The internal each acu puncture meridian in reason is probably the most the body by a series of gentle stretches and twists. The ‘heat’ dif ficult of all. (Qi) is gener ated by the low er ing of the legs to cause heat to Cigarettes are illegal for peo-  build up in the cal dron ( tantien), pleun der 18. So I gavethema then the rest of the body di rects very friendly lecture, using that Qi to all parts by the twists some street lan guage that they and turns and stretches that we would understand, telling must per form. It does this by the them about some girl friends automatic reflex action of the of mine in my youth who were  body, which sends Qi to any part the most beautiful young of the body that needs Qi at any things that one would ever time. However, this activation find, only to grow into old must be done (in Taijiquan) in women who looked 60 or 70 exactly the man ner as it is ac tiwhen they are only in their vated in a 24-hour period nat u-

rally when we per form the form COR RECTLY. So each move ment was worked on and tested, then added to the form over hundreds of years. So when I see  peo ple walk ing through a set of  movements with no twists, no stretching, no yin and yang of  hands, feet, legs torso, shoul ders, knees etc, I know that they do not know, nor are they per forming Taijiquan. However, I have stopped giving lec tures to other than cap tured au di ences as I have been ver   bally abused on many occasions for inter fer ing with what their ‘sifu’ (what a stu pid word, it’s OK in China,  but not for westerners!) had taught them.

 Themain physi caldiffi culty that most peopleget wrongis the interaction between waist and hips.  The main physical dif ficulty that most peo pleget wrong is the interaction between waist and hips. You will see it all the time, whensomeoneper forms the form and the waist is do ing exactly the same things as the hips, there is no movement between waist and hips. This activation between hips and waist gives you the necessary stretch in the torso and whole upper body to generate Qi in that area. All internal organs are activated and healed becauseof thisin ter action of yin and yang between waist and hips. H encethe rea son for the ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ movements of the 2nd level of Yang

Lu-ch’an form. We per form this form larger because we are learning about the waist and hips and how they dif fer. It should not stay that way for ever  as the form will change the back  to a smaller frame so that eventually the large twists and turns are hardly no tice able; how ever, they are still there. Lifting the foot for in stance dur ing the set of pos tures known as ‘Wave Hands Like Clouds’ is one per fect ex am ple of a phys ically dif ficult movement. The foot must be lifted, heel and toe in per fect har mony, leav ing the ground at ex actly the same time. This makes it dif ficult because you are forced to use your whole abdominal area to lift the foot with out first lift ing the heel thus mak ing it eas ier. It is quite dif ficult to lift the foot in this man ner  es pecially when you are lifting the right foot af ter the large step to the left.

shows this step done incor rectly by lifting the heel slightly first. This is how most peo ple, even so-called great mas ters, will do it. Photo No. 1

Number 2

shows the cor rect and dif fi cult way to do this step. Another step such as this is when we per form the ‘step back  and re pulse monkey, nor mal’ step. The front foot must be lifted, heel and toe together. Photo No. 3 shows how it is nor mally done in cor rectly while Photo No. 4 shows how it is done cor rectly. Another dif ficult step is at the end of each third of the form when we have to squat down and then lift the left leg to bring it up to shoul der  width (from dou ble shoulder  width). The left foot must be lifted heel and toe to gether and this is dif fi cult. Photo No. 5 shows the incor rect way to do Photo No. 2

Number 1

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this by lift ing the heel first thus that we can squat straight down mak ing it easier while Photo  by sim ply turning the rear foot No. 6 shows the cor rect and  back by 90 degrees only once. more dif fi cult way. This longer posture in itself is dif ficult to get into when done

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‘Snake Creeps’ down is an other  movement that is dif f icult. How ever, this one is usu ally dif ficult for most peo pl e even cheating the move by shuf fling the rear foot back wards rather  than tak ing a much lon ger step (sin gle whip step) to be gin with. Photo No. 7 shows the initial stance for single whip done in cor rectly as a nor m al ‘bow’ stance. You can n o t s q u a t straight down from this pos ture as your legs are too close to gether so you have to either  shuf fle back ward with your rear  foot or even worse slip your  front foot for ward in or der to get the necessary stretch for this  pos ture. Photo No. 8 shows the cor rect single whip posture so

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Number 4

cor rectly, caus ing you to have to hold your bal ance on one leg for  much longer and causing great stretching of the lower ‘kua’ (groin area). Most peo ple will  per form this posture the easy way as in Photo No. 9 by swinging the left foot around and placing it on the ground before the rest of the body turns. Then it is relatively easier to change the weight onto it and then turn the  body to the West. How ever, you will see that we do it in a to tally dif fer ent way in or der to make it dif ficult. We have to stand on the right leg and turn the torso al most to the West with the left leg off the ground, only then do we stretch the leg and place it down slowly! Photo No. 10 and 11 shows this way of step ping.

So there is much more to per form ing Taijiquan cor r ectly than meets the eye. Un for tunately most peo ple only ever get to per formTaijiquan in cor rectly

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and so lose all of the great healing ben e fits that this won der ful set of move ments can give.

T h e I n t e r nal Way The inter nal way of mak i ng things dif fi cult is even more dif fi cult both to per form and to ex plain; how ever, I will at tempt to ex plain it. Most peo ple, well our  students anyway, know that Taijiquan is indeed the highest level of Qigong. I see other  Taijiquan schools teaching the ‘Flying duck Qigong’, the ‘shitting dog’ Qigong, the ‘Flapping Goose’ Qigong, the ‘Ea gle Qigong’, the ‘8 Bro cade’ Qigong etc. etc. It would seem that newer and more exotic ways of Qigong are being in vented every month! If they

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were doing real Taijiquan they would know that all they would ever need would be ba sic 3 cir cle standing qigong and the Taijiquan form itself! And the only rea son that we have the basic 3 Cir cle Stand ing Qigong is

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Taijiquan as a per fect Qigong as we have to learn the move ments first. So the 3 Cir cle Qigong takes the place of what we are not get ting from our Taijiquan at a ba sic level un til we work our  way up to do ing it at a very advanced ‘Qigong’ level.

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So why is it so dif ficult. Most  peo ple know how dif fi cult sim ple Stand ing Qigong is, es pecially in the beginning. It is mainly the mental process that is dif ficult once the physical thing of having to stand with  be nt knee s fo r 20 mi nutes. (Photo No. 12 shows the 3 Cir -

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Number 10

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 be cause in the be gin ning it is almost im pos si ble to per f orm

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the way it is with Taijiquan.  Thelegs hold you up likegreat pillars; never a thought is given to the legs and feet as they have been trained to step correctly and to hold you up. We never think about the things that hold our walls of  our houseup do we. Wemight think about the windows and doors etc., but the most im por tant thing is what holdsthe whole house up and we never think about it becausethere is no reason to. It is the same When Taijiquan is performed with our legs; we do not have cor rectly. You can not even feel to think about them. your hands or know that they are there! You will feel (with- Once you have learnt each out think ing about it) a swell- movement and know exactly ing and ebbing of Qi within how to per form them, each posthe body, rising up the back ture will change slightly to em uand then subsiding again as late what the inter n al Qi is you move your arms up and doing. You will feel this. The down. Your eyes will not stare,  biggest mistake that most stu but will not look at anything dents make is that they per form either. It’s as if you are asleep the form exactly the way that while walking. You must be they were taught by their ‘sifu’. aware at all times that your This is HIS or HER way of do hands are not moving at all, they are being moved by Qi and the rest of the body. As soon as this Qigong state is broken, you must get back into it as soon as possible so that thelink is not bro ken. You will feel your backbone straighteningoutandelongatingautomati cally,youwill feel your waist and hips mov ing in harmony against each other, your breathing will become natural and deep as if you are taking in so much more oxygen with each breath. You will not even notice that you are Number 12 step ping, asyour legswill take care of them selves. And this is

cle Qigong). So how much more dif ficult is it to then have to move, tak ing steps and mov ing the arms while still trying to main tain a ‘no-mind’ state? This is very dif ficult indeed. How ever, in or d er to en joy real Taijiquan, this must be achieved. Totally ‘sung’ (re laxation) of the up per body in par ticular is essential dur ing the whole of the 20 or 40 min utes of   prac tice. And even more im por tant is the ‘sung’ of the hands.

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ing form, not yours! All a teacher can ever do is to teach you the very basic building  blocks exactly the way that it was invented. Then he or she should allow you to see what their form looks like at an ad vanced level so that you will have some idea of what to strive for later. How ever, it should also  be pointed out that you would gain your OWN form, one that will be dif fer ent to every other   per son because you are dif fer ent! The Qi move ment will dictate to you exactly how you should per form your form and you will only ever feel this once you are able to per form the whole form as a Qigong, the high est Qigong ever in vented in fact. And this is dif fi cult! I am of ten asked what to do when the space that one has to  per form his or her Taijiquan is not quite large enough. Now that I am in a much colder cli mate I am also dis cov er ing this.  No way that I am going out in the freezing sub-zero, ice or  snow on the ground, tem per atures to practice, although I re mem ber hold ing a work shop in Can berra many years ago with my old friend Jim Marincic who would take great joy in tak ing his stu dents down to the lake in minus 8 de grees to train!  No- one wa s c om p l a i n i n g though as we were all try ing to  be macho! Although I have al ways known how to get around it as I have ex per imented with smaller spaces so that I would now what to tell peo ple.

The classics tell us that we can  per form the form in a one metre square space. This is B.S! However, it is possi ble to per form form in a small area. I have just  preformed my own form in a space that is about 1.5 metres width by 2.5 metres length. We still have not made a training space in the house. I was think ing of using our huge ‘man sized’ shed up the back for training as we used to in the trop ics. How ever, I think that in side that tin shed is actually colder than the tem per a ture out side!

space. So here’s how. We be gin from Single Whip. Photo No. 13. Go into the first pos ture; by turn ing your left toes 90 de grees to your right weighted and in hale. As you do this, your left  palm will move to about chin height as your right will move under it as shown in Photo No. 14. Notice that the waist and hips are not the same! Do the first hand move ment (as in Yang Lu-ch’an’s form, last ver sion) and take the step behind your  left foot. Ex hale. Photo No. 15 .  Now, if you are get ting close to that wall, rather than step ping So when you are coming to a the left foot a dou ble step to the wall, you will sim ply ad just left, you will now take the right your step ping so that you will foot back to where it was by a not run into the wall. Per haps a dou ble step. In hale. Photo No. side step or a cross step or a cou16. Now you can take that right  ple of steps back ward in stead of  foot again to be hind the left foot for ward. These must of course lift ing the heel and toe to gether   be done in the same slow and and you have not moves to the ‘sung’ way that the rest of the left. You can do this for the Wave Hand Like movement is done so as not to whole 4 steps of the pos ture unClouds lose the es sence and ‘mo ment’. til you come back onto Single Even tually, you will get to know This set of pos tures is the most Whip. This will save space and dif ficult to fit into a smaller  you have not lost any pos tures.

Number 13

your own room and more im  por tantly you will get to sense what is around you so that no mat ter where you are, your body will sim ply ad just to the new area au to mat i cally, you will not have to think about it so that you are able to maintain the ‘sung’ state for the whole form. Wave Hand Like Clouds is the pos ture where most peo ple get into dif ficult in a smaller space as it takes you a larger distance to your left each time. So you sim ply get into the habit of wither  do ing that group of pos tures in a cir cle so that you have only moves one step to the left, or  you do the postures to the left AND to the right dur ing each ses sion. This will have no ef fect upon the Qi activation but will get you out of trou ble as far as space is con cerned.

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 Bru s h Kne e & Twis t  Step If you are having dif ficulty com ing too close to a wall sideways dur ing this set of pos tures, it is a rel a tively sim ple mat ter of  ‘cross-step ping’. From the ini tial posture Photo No. 17 , Rather than lift ing you right leg and step ping straight for ward, thus tak ing you too close to the right hand wall, af ter you brush your right knee, take a step across your left leg and place it as shown in Photo No. 18 . To finish the posture lift your left leg and place it into the cor rect  po si tion as you strike with your  left palm. Photo No. 19 .

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Number 17

You can see from the above that it is rel a tively easy to ma neu ver  your body cor rectly with out losing the ‘sing’ state or Qi flow in or der to get out of the way of  walls and fur ni ture. You should ex per iment with those postures that you are having dif ficulty with. Just re mem ber to keep the move ment in con text rather than  just stop ping and mov ing out of  the way, then resuming, as this will have a det ri men tal ef fect.

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Number 19

Hewho fights

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the third scar rep re sents my almost get ting it right!’ If a man ‘H ewho fightswith mon sters with skills such as Erle’s can should look to it that he him- still comeout of anencounter self does not wounded how will the rest of  us fair? become a monster’ y JamesReadman UK 

I

So what is the answer? I believe that it will be a very long time before guns are gone from our streets (af ter the tragic murder of two young women in the UK earlier this year a ‘gun amnesty’ was hosted by po licein which people were able to hand in weapons they might posses free of  prosecution.

abuseat you and mak ing crude remarks toward your partner hasa small bladecon cealed on himsomewhere.  This seems to be what the world has come to in some places. So what will it come to in the end? Will we all end up afraid to leave our homes if we live anywhere near a big city? will all our training come to nothing in the face of fear caused by a small piece of  metal. All we are, all we have learnt and all we could one day become extinguished by 6 inches of metal.

will always remember where I first heard this fa mous quote, it seems to ring true now more than ever to mar tial artists in today’s society. We livein the mid dleof somevery dangerous times. In the last few months there have been reports of some vicious beatings, knife attacks and murders. Now thismight not besuch a Now this might not be such a bigissuetoadvancedstudents L ike I said, we li ve in a big issue to advanced stu- of the WTBA, but beginners dangerous world. We have to dentsof theWTBA, but be- like my self are far more at risk begin to ask our selveswill our ginners like myself are far by not being 100% sure how barehanded methods of self  more at risk by not being we would react in that situadefense protect us? The 100% surehow wewould re - tion. Now obviously I ’m not chances are increasing that we blamingany onebut myselffor act in that situation. will not be confronted with this. I should train harder in  just the fists of a gang of yobs these ar eas than I do, but if I but the sharp and shinny Over one thousand were were ever faced with a knife in blades which they carry. handed in in Eastern regions the street would I remember alone. at least this shows that what I had learnt? would I go people are trying to reform, overkill (or worse, for me at Now we don’t carry weap ons, but it also gives some indi ca- least, un der-kill) not know ing because we obey the law. Betion of the weapons which when to stop? all these are cause of this the ma jority of  were around before and the worries which spring to mind weapon defenses will be when considering the intri caamount which probably still barehanded against a knife. fill the streets) But knives are cies of knife survival. We’ve all heard how Erle himsomething which will never self has three scars on his body go. As long as someone can So what’s the alternative? from encounters with knives. buy a simple kitchen knife What if it was legal for peo ple In his words, ‘The first two there will always be the risk to carry weapons for the purrepresent my han dling aknife that theman who iscor ner ing pose of self defense from othattack the wrong way, while you as you walk home, yell ing ers who do? what if it was le gal

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for me to carry deer horn knivesin pub lic, or for a friend to carry a wakizashi? it would cer tainly even the odds when it came to a confrontation between my self and a guy with a knife who wasn’t just out to rob me.

‘He who fights with mon stersshould look toit that he himself does not become a monster’

within our power never to add MTG244 to this. Taijiquan’s ‘Waving Form’. Wemust defend our selves, the peo plewe know and love, but we must never create violence whereno vi o lence needsto be.  The temptation to carry a weapon to protect our selves has prob a bly ap peared in a lot of minds, but surely this is not the answer. In the (hopefully, un less its your job) rare occasions in which we deal with monsters, we must try never to become one ourselves.

But what would we be doing to the world? Af ter all ‘He who fights with monsters should look to it that he him -  Thanks for reading self does not become a monster’ I’m not say ing we should start carrying weapons to defend our selves, in fact I think N E W VI D E O that’s the worst possible out T I T L ES F R OM come of this violent society.

MOONTAGU

I would hope, with all my MTG243 heart ,that it will never come Advanced Knife Fighting to this, that one day we could Volume Two live without the threat of violence, that the vi o lent would On this ti tle, Erle shows and always be arrested and con - teaches the next two forms in the advanced knifefi ght ing meth ods, victed and the in no cent would those of “Bending Form” and “Fast Foot work Form”. These two forms always be pro tected. But when you defendyour life (at the risk of tak ing theirs) are you still in no cent? I think that goes beyond the scope of this article (and the scope of my brain!) I will sum up by saying this.  Theworld isin deed becoming a seemingly more violent place. We must do all that is

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were taught at Erle’s re cent I n terna tional work shop in Aus trali aand all were in awe of the grace ful move ment and deadly ap pli cation that these forms give. T hey also allow your brain to push out a bal anced level of ‘Fight or Flight’ hor mones/chem i cals into the body so that the cor rect one will be chosen in any given sit u a tion etc. So if  it’s fight you must, then you will fight with the great est amount of  en ergy and ag gression etc. Some very in ter est ing tech niquesare shown within each of these forms.

 This is the form that is said to be the clos est em u la tion of the in ternal flow of Qi in the body. I t is not a new form but rather a ‘way’ of  per form ing the forms that you already know. I t is im por tant to see some one do ing this form as that is the only way to learn it. Y ou take it into your sub-con scious and slowly over the years it grows un til one day you are do ing Wav ing F orm.  This could be called the high est level of H ’ao chuan. E rle taught it at his lat est work shop in Aus tralia and the way he taught it, ev ery one was able to grasp the con cepts rel atively eas ily even though it will not grow within them for a cou ple of  years.  This form is thehigh est bal anc ing of Y in and Yang in the body and also teaches us how to fight without think ing about it. I t is s truly beau ti ful form!

MTG245 The Formal Day to Day Training of the Montaigue Children V. 8 Carries on from V. 7. I n clud ing  Y L C form up to and in clud ing Wave H ands Like clouds

MTG246: Advanced Knife Volume 3. On this vol ume, E rle teaches the next two ad vanced knife fight ing forms of “R e verse K nife” and “Quickly Moving H ands” form.  The re verse knife form teaches excel lent co-or di nation and foot work and tim ing while the Quickly M oving form teaches the use of the knife and hands against many attack ers, also re ly i ng upon ex cel lent foot work. Both areexcel lent for health work ing upon acu punc ture merid i ans and gen er ally ton ing the whole body.

LongTermSideEf fectsofDimMak Strikes

by Paul Brecher TheSenior LondonI nstructor for ErleM ontaigue’s World Tai Chi Boxing Associ ationLondon England

I am a martial artist and a

thelessini ti ateaprocessei ther through the acu punc turemeridian system or through the ner vous systemthat will cause a weakening of some part of  the body enough to cause knock out, collapse, paralysis or death.

If a per son ishit in thehead, it does not matter which acu puncture point was hit or whether K O occurred, there will be slight brain damage.  This damage is most clearly noticeableinpeoplewhopracticebox ing. Theef fectsare not noticeable when people are It is my recommendationthat young, they be lievethat there you don’t ever vol un teer to be is nothing wrong and that eva person who dim mak is go- ery thing is fine. ing to bedem on strated on. medical practitioner so I am writ ing thisar ti cleso that people who are interested in the use of dim mak within their mar tial artstrain ing are aware of the some of the occasional possible side ef fects of being hit with a dim mak strike.

I never knock my stu dents out and always make it clear that dim mak is only to be used for defeating opponents who at tack you, it is not for any other reason. If a strike is a dim mak strike it usu ally means that the strike is landed on an acupuncture point. The points that are selected are be cause they are on top of par tic u larly weak or vulner ableparts of the body.

If aper son ishit inthehead, it does not matter which acupuncture point was hit or whether KO occurred, there will be slight brain damage

H owever the ef fects begin to emerge as the years go by and peo plede velop whatisknown as symptoms of being punch drunk. I n extreme cases there are more severe symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, Or thatbystrik ingapar ticu lar shak ing of the hands and an inpart of the body that it self may abil ity to con trol thelimbs. not be vulnerable it will non

If a dim mak strike does cause knock out (whether it was through a blow to the head or not) the sudden blood pressuredrop de privesthe brain of  oxygen enriched blood for a period of time. This dam ages the abil ity of the brain to functionproperly. We can see the ef fects of this when we watch a person get knocked out. As they go into knock out they loose their vision, they loose power in their legs and arms. They loosetheir bal ance and whilst unconscious they loose their memory. It is also pos si bleto seeatremor of the body occurring as they fade into unconsciousness. (Some slip into a coma for a few days or weeks and then re gain consciousness, some never regain con scious nessand stay in a coma till they die which could be in a few hours, days or weeks later, or not for many years.) Theheal ing abil ity of a young person may be suf ficient to heal the brain damage but maybe not. Peo plewho al low them to be repeatedly knocked out in creasethe chancesof im mediate serious problems occurring. They are also in creasing the cumulative long

Sep tem ber 2003 10

term damage explained previ- response time and hands eye ously. coordination. If the dim mak strike was to a point that is on a ma jor nerve then theknock out, col lapseor temporary or permanent paralysis that occurs is due to damageto thener voussystem.

People who have been knocked out also of ten develop a suscepti bil ityto being knocked out more easily in the future. With out a doubt the body is always made weaker by being knocked out; certainly it is never madestron ger Again if a per son has ex cel lent fromtheexperi ence. self healing ability then the damagetothenervoussystem I could say a lot more about will be healed by the body it- the long term ef fects of dim self. Some times the body is mak strikes but I feel I have not able to do this and there is said enough to clearly make per manent damageto thener- the point that dim mak strikes voussystemei therontheloca- aredesignedto causedamage. tion of the strike or to the  They do achieve this and to nervous system in general or there forevol un teer to be hit is both. the same as saying that you volunteer to be knowingly Again if a person has excel- damaged.

A N ew Vi deo By  J enni fer P ress.  J P 1:  The Eigh t Secret Trea sures Qigong

The Eight Secret Treasures from China are a set of eight excellent simple but ef fective Qigong methods for getting the body ready to heal itself.  They are used as a forerunner to learning Taijiquan and other Qigong methods in China. Especially for stark beginners and older people, these make an excellent start into one’s internal mar tial/healing training.

 J ennifer Press has been training in the Internal H ealing arts since 1972 and has studlent self heal ingabil ity then If you would like more infor ma- ied in China, Taiwan, India the damage to the nervous tion on Paul’s classes in London and the UK . system will behealed by the please call Paul on 020 8264 body itself. In Australia it is available 8074 or visit www.taiji.net through JP W orld:  [email protected]  The damage could be per manent pain with occasional inI n the U K , through voluntary spasms or it could www.kunzhi.com bean in abil ity to havefinemotor movement of a limb or it I n the U sa through could be limb weakness or if  www.taichiamerica.com the nerve damageis very serious then there could be muscle wasting and atrophy of the limb.

 Therearealso someother long termeffectsof nervoussystem damage, like an increased senseof nervousnessor uneasiness and reduction in reflex

11 Sep tem ber 2003

DEERHORNKNIVES&WTBATAIJIFARMJUMPERSNOW AVAILABLE  The WTBA in Australianow haveavail ablefor sale, arangeof jump ersand other tops sporting the new and beautiful Taiji Farm Australia WTBA L ogo.  The WTBA has also gone to great lengths to make the perfect Deer H orn knives from Spring Steel and has them for sale at a very reasonable price (compared to what they are sold for for in stancein theUSA. Pleasecon tactMause Eaglen at [email protected] for fur ther details or write to her at: Po Box 22, Uki NSW 2484, Austra lia. Or you could Phoneon +61 (0) 2 6679 7015 Once Moontagu Books moves to the U K in November 2003, WTBA Australia will takeover thesell ing of ErleMontaigue’svideo and VCD ti tlesaspostagefrom the UK to Australia is huge! Email: [email protected]

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Sep tem ber 2003 12

Spiritual Taiji Ron Beier WTBA Ger many

A

few months ago a woman whom I had never  seen before entered one of  m y “ b e g i nn e r p h a s e 2 " classes, those classes where the few hapless stu dents who have sur vived my introductory classes and decided to put up with my jokes for another semester try to learn the sec ond part of Yang Cheng-Fu’s form. She introduced her self and said that she had attended taiji classes near here, run by a man whose name I was n’t famil iar with. Mas ter so and so. Master of what? Master of  Reiki, Qigong and Taiji she said. This dear woman had decided that she wanted to try to follow my class even if  the taiji I was teaching was somewhat dif f er e nt from what she had learned. Why? I asked, thinking smugly that my fame as a teacher had fi nally begun to spread. Be cause my classes were nearer her home she said. She would n’t have to drive so far. So much for the spread of  my good name. What had she learned, I asked. Peking 24 she said. OK, I said, the basic principles of taiji apply to whatever style is prac ticed, so why not just see how things go.

13 Sep tem ber 2003

She was able to follow reason ably well and did seem to have integrated some of the basic movement principles, though there wasn’t much precision in her form. Af ter wards I asked her how she felt and she told me, well, it was dif fer ent from what she was used to. I asked her, differ ent in what way? Well, she said, many of the move ments were dif fer ent of course, but most of all the classes she had attended were more spir itual.

I was taken aback for a moment and could n’t think of  any thing to re ply. What did she mean, more spir i tual? I was taken aback for a mo ment and couldn’t think of  anything to reply. What did she mean, more spir itual? For a whole week I bounced ideas off the inner walls of  skull, hear ing them re ver ber ate, knocking the wax out of  my ears. I looked up the source of the word and found something about the Latin roots meaning “of breathing or air”. Well, I cer tainly continue to breathe while prac ticing taiji. On some days I may breathe very little and very slowly while practicing, but this thought did n’t get me any fur ther. I de cided I would ask my student to elaborate

when next she put her self at my mercy. “What did you mean, your  for mer classes were ‘more spir itual’?” She had come a little early and I used the oppor tunity to ask before the other students ar rived. “Well, we always meditated for ten min utes be fore we began. And then we watched our breath ing for ten min utes or so. Some times we walked around slowly holding round stones to try and feel the qi.  And we spent a lot of time at first just holding the qi-ball between our hands and try ing to feel it ex pand and contract. And there were always candles lit. He (her for mer  teacher) talked alot about our  as tral bod ies and we spent a fair bit of time just sens ing the au ras around our bod ies and around those of the others while we walked around slowly with our eyes closed.” I was speech less. This is for tu nately some times mis in ter preted as the si lence of deep wisdom. I asked my wife that eve ning, af ter class, whether she felt I was leaving out a whole big impor tant part of Taijiquan in my classes and I repeated what my new student had said. She looked at me with that sideways glance which means: what kind of crap are

you trying to pull now? I repeated what my new student had said. “M aybe I should do more of that kind of thing in my lessons. What do you think?”

front of their chests un du lati n g l i k e a j e l l y fish in pee-warm water. One other  fellow-suf ferer who had only  joined the course to impress his future girlfriend labeled them “bliss nin nies”. The ex“Are you off your rocker? One treme cases were re ferred to of the rea sons stu dents keep as “space ca dets“. coming back to you is be cause you don’t do that sort this same species of creaof thing. Why would you start ture sometimes showed up now? For get it. Your classes at certain taiji workshops are fine.” With that she turned back to her eques trian and gatherings. magazine, for her the case For some reason I kept on was closed. meditating but I did stop at Still, the idea that I was not tending retreats, only to find giving my students ev ery- many years later that this thing they were en ti tled to get same species of creature gnawed at me. The idea that I sometimes showed up at was possibly missing a cer tain taiji workshops and whole big aspect of taiji that gather ings. I was again cono t he r s h a d t a p p e d i n t o fronted with the question of  galled. I be gan to con sider if  my own approach to this and how I should approach thing called “spir ituality” and this whole business of “spir i- my own lack of manifest tuality”. And what was it re - signs of such as I had seen ally? What did it have to do them in others. And now, af ter years and years of med iwith can dles and qi balls? tation, practice of inter nal I remembered when I first arts, searching, contemplalearned to med i tate in a “spir - tion, reading, introspection i tual re treat” al most three de- and frequent, heartfelt excades ago, in the heart of the pectorations and expletives, death throes of the flower  I had some one tell ing me that p o w e r e r a . I n a v e r y my classes weren’t spir itual. heterogenous group it was  Ah, the pain of it; my vanity easy to see which of the was sorely in jured. wannabe gurus considered himself more spir itual than My jour ney to this point had the rest of us; be tween med i- t a k e n m e t h r o u g h a n d tations the halls would be around many experiences, graced by these creatures realizations and seemin g walking with half-closed epiphanies. I realized with a eyes, slow premeditated start that I had long ago given pace, hands of ten folded in up looking for any of these

things, had given up searching for spir ituality. Why? Be cause I had come to feel that, by its very nature, the spirit of things is man i fest in everything we do. Like the polar forces yin and yang, where there is materiality there must also be spir i tu ality. We can’t invoke it or create it, we just have to pre pare our selves to become aware of it. I’d come to believe that one of our pur poses here is to refine our own awareness us ing whatever vehicle or tool we are given, so that we may increasingly clear the dark glass clouding our per ceptions. The more we do this, the less we work against our  selves, or rather against our  Selves. For the more I see, the more I am aware that my Self extends far beyond and below this small localization of experience, this receptor  of sensory signals I had come to re gard as “my self”. I am climb ing a moun tain, and each time I turn around to look, the world is big ger, I am smaller, the air is cleaner and more rarified. Taking the view is easy, it is the climbin g which re quires dis ci pline and strength en ing of the ma te rial tools we have at hand, our  bod ies and minds. I will never  get a broader view by con centrating on my powers of  vision; I have to concentrate on my powers to climb and the eyes which I already have wil l be enough to grant me the vision. The view, the

Sep tem ber 2003 14

knowledge, the spir itual vision is a by prod uct avail able to us at any time; we need only put our selves into a posi tion to take ad van tage of it. It seems to me futile or at best inef ficient to approach spir ituality by pretending or  wish ing to be spir i tual. I’m not likely to be come rich by walking around pretending to have money or even worse, printing my own. Instead I have to ex pend my ef forts on cre at ing the con di tions which allow for income, either  through hard work (not very likely) or acquir ing power  over oth ers (the most se cure source); the money comes then of itself. In the same way, I have to cre ate the condi tions nec es sary to the sustenance of that inher e nt awareness of even the finer  work ings of the man i fest and unmanifest ener gies around me, I have to refine the ves sel which is to carry the awareness so that it doesn’t dissipate; the awareness it self already exists, it of ten  just doesn’t have a vessel fine enough to hold it. I cannot teach anyone to be aware, but I can show someone a set of movements which can, if used properly and conscientiously, guide her or him to a somewhat more refined awareness. I can’t “be spir itual” or show anyone else how to be spir itual, but I can constantly strive to refine the exploration of move ment I re fer to as

15 Sep tem ber 2003

taiji or Qigong so that in pacing my aware ness to the ever  finer tuning of movement within, I am graced with a con junctive awareness of  that which I still per ceive as being without. In following my example, others might find the same. True to the principles of polar ity we all know and cher ish, the fur ther  I go in the “physical”, the more I in crease the un-man ifest “spir i tual” or the po ten tial thereof.

con sti tute wise part ing words which they could take with them into the summer, and one brave soul responded: “Yeah, but I want to feel the qi en ergy tin gling in my tantien. When do we learn that stuff?” I had some questions in answer to that one, but I didn’t want to spoil their summer  holidays. Maybe I’ll try out those questions when we all gather again in the autumn.

It seems to me futile or atbest in ef fi cient to ap- Ron Beier is theWTBA RepresentativeinGer many. proach spirituality by pretending or wishing to be spiritual. This same student who got me ruminating in this vein continued to the end of the course without missing even one day of training. On the last day she told me she would be signing up for the next course as well. I was naturally pleased, but was afraid to ask her why, fig ur ing she would probably say that the time of the day on which the course was held was convenient for her. Having heeded the words of my wife, I had n’t added any qi-balls or  candles or walkie-feelies to the course, I’d just tried to get across to my students that ev ery thing was there, wait ing for the day when their dil igence and openness would make them ready to ac cept it. I ventured something to that ef fect, hoping these might

 A Bagua Experience on the beauty of the tech niques, trying to get better, Erle, I m happy to share with knew and no ticed the postive you what came over to me ef fects of BaGuaZhang on ( n e v e r w i s h e d i t ) t h r u my physical con di tion. BaGuaZhang.

Klaus Baltzer: Germany

I recognized your saying “A snake never poison it self” somewhere in your videos, I under stood that rationally how ever noth ing hap pened.

Last week I watched a My wife died February 2002, Bagwa video, some one I was very very sad. How ever  walking the cir cle, with Nr.3 af ter 2-3 weeks Istartet try ing Palm “The Dragon Wan Sometimes life is to live as nor mal as pos si- dering around”, I thought rahard. ble again. Even af ter 4 weeks tionally the name fits, not Since I knew that my wife will of her death, when driv ing my anything else. die; I fled with her and my son car saw her sitting on my right side. Last Friday Morning -sitting in my bed. Suddenly with a I trained now al ways in a way feeling of the warmth and or mindset that I tell my self: if  coldness both at the same thoughts arise in me, they time, and an enor mous joy flow away like the clouds in an a lot of tears I recogthe wind. nized that I’ m the wan der ing Dragon. This spring I built my Wooden The rain (tears) washed Bagwa-Cir cle and practiced, (my)the wounds of the 3-6 hours each day. dragon , h e s t a n d s u p  At the end I concentrated s t r e t c h e s its legs more on the names of the and wings (Bagwa-playpostures and the transla- ing) and dances (be ing tion in my lan guage. happy). I watched regularly (1CD each day) your BAGWA TO MAX DVDs (Cir cle-form) into the and the BAGWA Es sen tials 1 moun tains. I live in a beau ti ful and 2 again and again. n at u ral envi r o n m e n t . I worked at my home of fice, From where is thi s picdid supporting my wife, an ture? I t changed my life en joy ing the days.

 A nd t he s eco n d p i cture: Dragon (snake) does not poison itself  (the bad thoughts are gone - I know this is from your video somewhere). It’s also a feel ing that something Power inside me wanting to break out.

weather, snow, ice, wind etc . My thoughts al ways fo cus ing

day long , even snow and a temper ature of about 0 C

completely (al wayswhen I  At the same Friday there  And for each day 1-2 hours of  remember thisthesameex- was a last rear up of the winp l a yi n g B a g w a . A t a l l perience!). ter, hav ing stormy weather all

Sep tem ber 2003 16

(=-32 F). Next day the real summer was here having sun an temper ature of about 16 C.

H A R D Q I GO N G From Sherif Abdelnaser Egypt.

From where is this pic ture? It changed my life completely I got an other one of those meditations: (always when I remember  1. Do the previous relaxation method in the first email which this the same experience!). I swim with my car in the Motor traf fic, get not excited not wanting to race (like I did be fore).I smile to peo ple I met and u nd e r s t a n d them deeper as never be fore. I made some days off, visiting people and shar ing my joy (but did not telling them what hap pened to me however telling them the story of the dragon if I meant this could help them) I never  had such a deep experience (opposit of the feel ings when my wife died? BaGua the Art of Change or opposites?) , lasting for such a long time, hope it never stops. Thank you very much for produc ing your Videos and shar ing your knowledge with it, and please keep on doing. This fantastic power ful art should never disappear. This is my real story and I´m very happy about the Change. Dragons are very sel dom. If you have a sim i lar  story like this - let us col lect it somewhere. The wand er i n g D r a g o n leaves his cave and flies away :-)

17 Sep tem ber 2003

was briefly breath ing in and belikefill ing thehole body with air and breath ing out and have the body just drop more and more in each ex hale un til your body feels like it stuk to the placeyour ly ing on or sit ting on.

2. On thein breath its likeyour fill ing your holebody with the white color, don’t do like your painting your body white! But like if the color it self were like something filling your body, bone, mus cle, and skin.

3. On the out breath be likeyour expel ling something black out of your body.

4. Thebreath ing is likein breath your push ing the air down using your di aphragm to thetantien area and on the out breath it’ll be like your pull ing out the air form thedantian using also the diaphragm.

Streetself-defence:Theparadigmsofcopingwithstreetencounters Gunther Vanwesemael:Bel gium does not oc cur with out an inci dent, acausal reaction which can start with eyeballing: rit ual behaviour. f one day you will be con fronted with an aggressive sit - Additionally, your behaviour uationor aper sonwhocreates and his behaviour or reaction an aggressive situation, you upon asit u a tion isfunc tion of  should always remember in the person and the environstreet self-defence, or street ment. I n other words, if you fight ing if you like, there is no act or even look like a (potensuch thing as a free lunch. You tial) victim you yourself are haveonly one chance, so never creating an opportunity for ever be indecisive or hesitate. mob sters to take(rob) you asa In or der to gain that preoc cu- vic tim. For in stance, if you like pa tion, usewhat ever you con- to drink, never walk down the sider use ful to knock out your street be ing drunk: that is creopponent. Thus, i n street ating an opportunity – you’re fighting there are no rules at easy prey. all. As a matter of fact, street enPsychologically, in the street counters are quite uncompliani mal behaviourism reigns, cated; they are mainly based people prefer to behave using upon stimulus and response. certain (animal) rituals, for it And they should besim ple, for is much more convenient (in hu mansbe haveand think simsoci etyfornor mal peo ple or in ply as well, it’s much easier. a peer group for criminals). H ence, understanding the I would like to consider three fundamentals of human be- paradigms which ought to al haviour you are entering the low you for not becoming world of dealing more easily prey or a victim. Con sid erwith street encounters. More- ation at any timedoes n’t mean over, you will survive! declining personal happiness. In fact, it in creasesthewell-beMost important, as animals, ing and safety of your life. people do not like to be hurt.  The aggressor, act ing aloneor  The first paradigm when you in a group, will not immedi- get out “minding your own ately attack, but will use his busi ness” is to beaware, espeper cep tion of the per son, i.e. a cially of the environment potential victim; theaggressor (which includes persons). is look ing for sig nals of weak- L ook around you and ask ness. Even a fight in the café yourself what do I see – look

I

for po ten tial dan ger. Seeing is know ing: if you seeagroup of  youngsters in a dark alley and you feel a little awkward then leave. D on’t hesi tateand wonder about how beautiful and peaceful life is. Reality is that death might watch you. R eed the newspapers and don’t go walking in dangerous areas.  You can have all the training you want, you never match a bullet flying towards you. Maybeyou can fight sim i lar to  J ohn L . Sullivan or J ack Demp sey, but you’d better not try your luck in the street, where there are no rules at all and no ref eree ringing a bell. Being aware complements with knowing yourself: your limitations and your strength. No need for telling you to train the mind as well as the body. The goal of your training must al waysbe balance in mind and body. R emind the old yin and yang principle in taiji. When the (your) surroundings have been determined and you are now at least prepared, thenext re flec tion is to have an intention. This intention is the willingness to kill, i.e. to de fend your life and the life of your beloved ones. Willingness signifies controlling the situation. I n other words, it is acop ing strat egyand amplifies a positive outcome.  This willingness reflects not only a mental or internal state

Sep tem ber 2003 18

of the per son (amen tal set); it also appearsin thephysi cal appearance. And, I don’t mean to build muscles (as in pumping iron); I mean to look confi dent and to let the eyes speak.

Obviously, the aggressor also hasan in ten tion: to rob you or even worse. T hat’s why you don’t want to give him an opportunity. If you did foresee the aggressive act and you still couldn’t prevent it from happening, you only haveone op tion left: to strike, without hesitation.  You need to be ready in a split second and strike as hard as you can (be ef ficient) and strikecon tin u ousun til theaggressor is out of ac tion (be ef fective). Ef ficient striking depicts moving the entire body – not just striking with the hand, use your full body. Ef fective striking illustrates the goal of finishing the ag gressor. In his mind (or mind-set), the aggressor doesnot antici pates that you re-act physically (striking). H e expects you to freeze (physically and emo tionally). Nonetheless, you will be stressed, as adrenaline will occur and you must deal with it. You must understand therami fi cationsofadrenaline and its reac tions on thebody: if you react too slowly, you will freeze. Therefore: don’t hesi tateat all. You might ad ditionallydeterminetheincrease of adrenaline as fear (trem-

19 Sep tem ber 2003

bling of the legs), which is R eview of M ay W est quitenor mal (cf. fight or flight L ondon Workshop response),so, again: nohesi tation is allowed. U se your with Russell M organ and R oss L ardner knowledge to your benefit! Conclusion: in daily life all you ever need is awareness, willingness and readiness.  These paradigms are interdepen dent and causeyou to have the power and the knowledge to make things hap pen or not instead of letting things happen to you. Vanwesemael Gunther LawEn forcement Offi cer Anti-AggressionTeam Brussels PoliceForce- Bel gium

Russell and Ross held a sinking workshop for their students in Chiswick, West London. 23 of  us gath ered in the lo cal com munity centre and spent a happy four hours re view ing the basics. Af ter threeyears of learn ing the form it wasan eyeopener to have corrections right from the first move. Whilst we were all learning more advanced ver sions of the moves or corrections to our basic form we also were learning to finish the moves and sink ing at the end. A ttaining the state of "sung" through the form is dif ficult. Fo cusing on sink ing at the begin ning and end of ev ery move makes a dif fer ence. As an examplelet's re view Sin gleWhip from the end of Fishes in Eight. To pick the left foot up: sink and close up the C spine this lifts thefoot. Turn and sink to place the foot. As the weight moves forward sink into the left heel. Three times to think about sink ing in one move! Whilst this is def initely the beginners form and learn ing it "square" is one step on the path to enlight enment, it was amaz ing to no tice the dif ference in the feeling of the moves.

Crispin WhiteUK 

 Theuseof taiji andqigongin physical therapy to play, that means the H ao Chuan level of train ing.

 TomasWaldegren, Sweden

Being both physical thera-

pist and martial artist one inevitable tries to combine the two. This goes both ways. The way of the physiotherapist is to analysemovement, to try to understand and feel how and where the movement takes place. This benefits me, and sometimes, when I do not explain too much, it ben efits my students.

this can only be taught if  the patient is genuinely i nterested, and i f not, which is usually the case, basic exercises are taught instead. Being a physiotherapist also means that I have patients, people in need of physical rehabilitation. The dif ference between the average patient andtheaveragestudent isthat the student usually can be goaded into doing an exercise because it teaches you somethinguseful, whiletheaver age patient want an exercise that gives maximum, quick result with the least amount of ef fort. N atu rally, the aver agepatient is not interested in the long-termef fectsoftaiji , but is rather fo cused on be ing ableto go back to the previous lifestyle that per son had lived.

In university we were introduced to a simplified version of taiji that could be taught rather easilytopatients.I nvestigations on similar methods shows that elderly people fall lessof ten and takemoreso cial inter estwhen do ingtaiji.  Taiji could also be used for back problems because of the focus of a vertical spine and how the waist muscles are working. This naturally includessin gle push hands.

 Teaching some thing less than this, in the knowl edgethat the per son will not try to prog ress, is not very satisfying. For me, this prob lem hasbeen solved in another way. Not willing to di lute taiji I try to find qigong exercises that “stands on their own”, that is, that can be done separately rather than being an in tegrated part in a specific form.

 The post exercises, for examUnfortunately this can only ple, can be integrated in probe taught if the pa tient is gen- grams for knee and ankle uinely interested, and if not, rehabilitation with very good which isusu ally the case, basic results. exercises are taught instead. I havefound that theqi devel There are two ma jor fall op ing qigong from taiji (doudowns with theYang Lu’Chan ble p’eng in to pull down) can formwhenit comestorehabil- be used as a part of a reg i ment itation: for lower extremity problems aswell asshoul der gir dleprob1.The fa-jing. lems. 2.It is somewhat dif ficult to learn.

Actually, the list goes on.

I tend to mix basic strength en The first point is easy to ing ex er ciseswith taiji/qigong amend, just don’t do the methods that teaches fa-jing! body/mind-coordination for the best result (like the  The second one is the prob - qigongsassoci atedwiththe12 lem. short dim mak forms). One reason for thisisthatitactually In my opin ion, the true value seems to work best this way, of taiji comes when you put another reason is that it is the the waist- and hip-muscles in only le gal ap proach for a phys-

Sep tem ber 2003 20

iotherapist in Sweden where For modern man this is the law for bids usto useal ter- enough to give posi tivebenenative therapies but allows an fits like improved health, but integration. does not give the deeper ef fects on the body that proper  This integration is only ac - qi gong does. cepted if west ern med i cal theory can ex plain theef fect.  Taiji and qigong does have a For physiotherapistsat large, placein physi cal ther apy, both taiji is less pop ular thanit was theextremelysimpli fiedmethten years ago and qigong has odsandtheclassical methods. taken its place. The uprising of “medical  The patient/student will gain qigong” has led to the sit ua- in proportion to the ef fect of  tionwhereoppor tunistsmake the method presented to up their own forms based on him/her. (and this is an actual quote!) “the movements that felt best And al though all will not learn and those that looked most how to fight or what qi can be, graceful” an sell them to the most will haveapos i tiveex pemedi cal society. rience. H ereisashameful at ti tude on behalf of west ern trained therapists. We (as a group) tend to look down onalter nativetherapists be cause (frankly) too many of  them still lack proper train ing. But at the same time it is accepted to go a “qigong in structor course” in less than two weeks whilean tradi tional organization usually demands at least two years experience and basic train ing in TCM. This has led to, just as what hap pened to taiji, that qi gong in many cases is degenerated to slow-moving Chinese-inspired relaxation movements lacking all but relaxed breathing and slow, graceful movements.

21 Sep tem ber 2003

Personally I tend to frown on simplified methods where effort is no longer needed but hey, I might be wrong on that one.

 TomasWaldegren Physiotherapist Instructor WTBA Sweden

ModifiedSimplifiedForms W hy you shoul d N OT do any shortened or modi fi ed forms of   T aijiquan! No, you should give up the shortened form immediately as it will eventually damage your body and mind!  The masters of old were genius and they in vented a set of  movements which emulated the Qi flow in a 24 hour period. I n fact dur ing prac ticeof  an original form (not a shortened ver sion), wecausethe Qi flow to be activated three more times, hence it's great health giving nature. If we were to then leave out pos tures or change others to different places in the form, the Qi is being ac ti vated in all the wrong places to the flow is broken. And it is broken and changed Qi flows in the body that allows illness to slowly come in!

those energy release points. H owever, having said that, if  for in stancean older per son or someone who is ill learns the all slow mov ing form, thiswill only ben efit him or her astheir body is probably too stiff to begin with. The dangers only comewhenweareprogressing with our form train ing and everything that is supposed to happenbeginstohappen.This is the time to then go into the Older Yang Style with its energy re lease points.

But why not teach the Yang Cheng-fu form to begin with? Why give a form to someone that has been modified and therefore inferior when the  Yang Cheng-fu form was invented solely so that the el derly and sick people could learn Tai Chi and gain some of  the great healing benefits that thiswonderfularthastoof fer.

In modern times when many people see a quick buck in teaching Tai Chi, they learn the simplest and quickest Tai H aving said all of that, Chi in order to get out there shortened forms are not go- and start earning money, but ing to do much damage in doing so do not realize nor do they care that they co7uld when taught merely asa set be do ing dam ageto their stuof relaxingmovements! dents in the long term.

H aving said all of that, short ened formsare not go ing to do much damage when taught merely as a set of relaxing movements! For instance where agroup of older cit i zens  The fa-jing (explosiveenergy) is tak ing Tai Chi for their genmovements of the Old Yang eral health and for some easy System provide outlets for exercise etc.  Yang Qi that builds up dur ing practice. This is very impor-  The problems come when tant as building up too much peo ple get hooked on Tai Chi  Yang Qi (by doing all slow (and they do!) and wish to movements) then goes in to its takeit fur ther to ad vanced levopposite of Yin, thus causing els of Qi flow and man age'Yin Dullness' which is what ment. N ow, it isim per a tiveto many of the old Chinese mas- learn one of the orig i nal forms ters who only ever did the all with out any changes. slow form died of! So we need

We have two great original styles of Tai Chi. And anyone no mat ter what state of health (pro vided that they can move) or what age can learn one of  these to gain much better health, or take it to its higher levelsof self defenseandmedical heal ing.  You do not have to learn an inferior unhealthy ‘style’ of Tai Chi as you have everything you need in the Original Styles.

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In thesearch of healingarts– Reiki  TomasWaldegren: Sweden

All martial art istsaretaught

that theheal ing artstradi tionally were taught to fighters. Most classi cal systemsof kung fu for ex am ple had some healing meth ods in them.

More so are internal martial artists, usually the fighting form also is the healing form al though that isnot al waysthe case. For myself it was the healing art that took me from ex ter nal to internal in –94, and the fighting art (Erle’s two first Dim Mak books) that made me change to Yang Lu’Chan style in –95.

Parallel to this I started to practice qi gong, to be more pre cise, I spent a few years going through the ma jor so called medi cal qi gong-styles active in Sweden, looking for the one style that would make me a proficient healer. Well, I found one, but that is an other story. But in this search I started to come across the method called Reiki.

will act like a channel for the en ergy and very lit tleor nothing at all will come from you, thus one’s own supply of energy is not depleted when treating others. It is usually taught as an non-religious method although there are hints to a Christian background as well as Buddhist. Many Reiki Masters are actually teach ing aTheosofist version.

planted in the person.  Thelevel of in for mation given out var ies but it is not un usual for level one-prac ti tio ners going away from a week end having no more true information than the recommended hand positions for the basic treat ment. Level two teaches distance healing and the use of  symbolsin heal ing.  The master level teachesad ditional sym bols, how to do the actual initiations, and some  This method sounded inter- additional ways to treat cliesting to me, and yes, af ter ents.

the first weekend I felt the energy going through me (A note. The serious student and into my clients. of in ter nal arts might ask how  This method sounded interest ing to me, and yes, af ter the first week end I felt the en ergy go ing through meand into my clients. H ow ef fective the method is as a treatment modality is beyond the focus of my writing today, I will instead speak of  the system.

Reiki is normally divided in three lev els, level one and two usu ally taught in oneweek end each, level three (called the master level) is sometimes taught in one weekend but usuallyinfour-fivespread over maybe a year. Reiki is a method of lay ing on In each level there is an ini ti ahands, thus transferring en - tion that opens up the sys tem, ergy. When done prop erly you and some symbols are im -

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long time it takes to be come a Reiki Master. The answer is:  You can go from total beginner to R .M. in less than one year if you have an available teacher and enough money.) Thelack of in for mation about the substance of the system made me realise, as so many other doing Reiki has done, that a huge amount of in formation had been lost in the way from Japan – U SA – Sweden, and I started to do some re search on my own. The conclu sion of my studier led meto thebelief that Reiki pri mary is a meditative system based on Buddhist mystic experiences, which,naturally,sincehumans havereasonablesimi lar minds, parallels what Christian and Muslimmysticshasbeenexpe-

riencing the past two millennia. The healing ef fect is secondarytothepotential religious path you are set upon when en gag ing in Reiki.

ting thebasicscor rect. There is For you non-swedish speak timefor thespir i tual path later ers: Sorry, but do you know on when thebaser func tions of  how tedious it is to translate a the bodymind are work ing op- book? timal.

Many, if not all, spir i tual paths from the east haveas their central teaching that one shall be freed from delu sion. Unfortunately, that is not the casewith a high per cent ageof  the Reiki practitioners I have met the last years. The idea that “since I have got Reiki I have no use of any other method” is quite prevalent. I have met a man saying that since he became a Reiki Master he no longer had to do his qi gong be causeev ery timehe treated an other patient healso treated himself. I find that kind of thinking “interesting”, like finding matches in the hands of a small child.

Many, if not all, spiritual paths from the east have as their central teaching that oneshall befreed fromdelusion.

Or per haps I just lack faith! Personally, I do taiji, qigong and Reiki med i ta tions.  Taiji because it is the best method I have ever experienced to unite the mind and body, and of cause because of  the fighting training. Med i cal qi gong be causepractisingamethod with thefo cus of making you a healer does make a dif ference. R eiki meditations because they give a glimpse of a spir itual break through, al though I must admit that at this mo ment of timethisisnot im portant to meand I tend to spend most on my training on get -

Af ter nineyears train ing in the internal arts I have found out that there are only two short cuts that actu ally works: 1)Doing aclassi cal styleunder a competent teacher. 2)Putting in a lot of time both on the physi cal part and par allel with that study the theory that ex plains the method.

Ev ery thing else seemsto be an illusion,or perhaps,delusion. As most of you that reads this magazine already know, nine years is ashort timeprac tic ing, and with accumulated experience more knowledge will come. Un til then, have a great life. For you who would like to study the dif ferent aspects of  Reiki including the religious part, my book on the sub ject might be published in Swedish as soon as I can per suade a publisher that it is worth the ef fort.

Sep tem ber 2003 24

Scientific Proof for EatingApples the compounds in the not peeled fruit.

been tell ing peo plefor Iyeahave rs that an ap ple aday re ally  They measured the total an tidoes keep the Dr., away! So it is nice to receivesomeevi denceas fol lows.  The photochemicals in fresh ap plescould playanimpor tant rolein the fight against can cer, ac cording to research pub lished in “Nature” (2000, 405, 903).

As Rui says; ‘eat ing fruits and oxidant activity of the apples, vegetablesisbetterthantaking bycarryingoutatotal anti oxi- a vitamin pill. You can obtain dant scavenging capacity enough antioxidants from (TOSC) assay and found that food without worrying about apples with skin had a higher toxicity’.  TO SC value than those without. By comparing the total antioxidant ac tiv ity of the unpeeled apples (83.3 TOSC) with that of the average level of Vi tamin C foundin thefruit (0.32 TOSC), the researchers concluded that almost all of  the antioxidant activity in applescould be at trib uted to the photochemical.

A team of researchers led by Rui H ai L iu at Cornell Uni ver sity, U SA re ported that the antioxidant activity of fresh apples is primarily due to the highconcentrationof particu-  T he r esear cher s then lar phytochemicals, namely treated colon cancer and flavonoidsandphenolicacids, liver tumor cells with excon tained in the fruit.

tracts of theRed Delicious  The proven antioxidant and apples possi bleanti cancer activityof  Vitamin C means that it is a pop ular dietry supplement, despite stud iesshow ing that a high dose(500 mg) may act as apro-ox i dant in thebody. The teamof researchershasdiscovered that 100g of fresh apples has an antioxidant activity equivalent to that of 1.5g of  Vi tamin C.

 The researchers then treated colon cancer and liver tumor cells with extracts of the Red Delicious apples and found that the cell prolif eration was inhibited, with the extracts of  unpeeled apples being about 60 percent more ef ficient at halt ing cell growth than those of peeled apples.

Rui and co-workers were able to extract phenolic acids and flavonoids from fresh red delicious apples, finding particularly high concentrations of 

 The researchers suggest that the consumption of whole fruits, con tain ing amix ture of  phytochemicals, may provide the anti oxidant balance

25 Sep tem ber 2003

needed to quench reactiveoxygen species.