Please understand how very different Tai Chi for Enlightenment is from the Tai Chi Chuan martial art long forms taught today. “Chuan” means “fist”. Most tai chi forms are designed for fighting, are complicated to learn, and take years to master the body skills needed to really get the chi flowing and understand the martial application of the movements.
I love these martial forms, they are a good workout for your joints and tendons. But you must have strong discipline and be ready to spend years in training, which I did. So I am speaking from experience when I say they are a worthwhile investment for the right type of person, but are not the best way to open up your Energy Body.
If you want to learn self-defense and at the same time want to strengthen your body’s tendon and bone rooting power, you are best off learning a short 8 movement/5 directions form called tai chi chi kung. The book describing this form, The Inner Structure of Tai Chi , by Mantak Chia and Juan Li, is the best book that you will find on Tai Chi in a market glutted with mediocre texts.
It gives 9 levels of practicing the same form, i..e. it goes short and deep rather than long and wide like most tai chi books. This 13 movement Yang Family “inner form” – what they mainly practiced at home – was likely derived from Chang San Feng’s original 13 movement 12th century tai chi chuan fighting form.
Healing Tao University has 20 summer retreats in North Carolina’s Smokey Mountains with the best short form martial and health-oriented tai chi in the market, plus the remarkable 8 Trigram pakua chuan training. But martial training alone won’t deliver enlightenment, and doesn’t claim to. If you want to both fight and be enlightened, the Tai Chi for Enlightenment form mixes well with any fighting form. Just do it at the end of your martial training session.
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