Tag: meditation

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Tai Chi Teachers

Steve Rowe

When someone spends ages telling us what taiji/qi/neigong/qigong isn’t, I’m waiting for them to tell me what it is. When they’re telling us that we’re all ignorant and don’t understand and only they do, my spidey senses are alerted. When we’re told that you have to spend years to understand and train it I can definitely smell snake oil. Whatever art or system you train in after your first session you’ll be better than you were before it. Then you build your skills as the days, weeks, months and years go by, exactly the same as if you were learning … Continue reading Tai Chi Teachers

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Semantic Satiation In Tai Chi

Steve Rowe

Semantic satiation is when you’ve repeated a word many times and it loses its meaning and becomes just a sound, this can also happen with tai chi techniques. You’re practising your form day after day, month after month and year after year, the form has become a moving meditation, suddenly that technique that you’ve done so many times feels wrong. This is how when your mind and movement have gone from ‘absorption’ to ‘insight’, the conditions are right for these insights to arise. Your mind is receiving messages from the body to tell you ‘this isn’t right’ and that it … Continue reading Semantic Satiation In Tai Chi

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Body Intelligence

Steve Rowe

Body IntelligenceThe more we train, the more get to realise and utilise this skill. The mindfulness aspect of training means that as we develop good posture and deep breathing: Our body calms down,Then our emotions calm down,Finally our mind calms down and becomes more aware, focused, sensitive and intense. This means that instead of trying to train subjectively and having to take instruction, as we’ve been indoctrinated to do with the desire to ‘become’ something, our new state of being is able to observe objectively to see and feel what is actually going on. This unified state of inner calm … Continue reading Body Intelligence

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My Day’s Training Schedule

Steve Rowe

I always start my Tai Chi coaching sessions by asking the students how they’re getting on with their training programme, any questions, any problems or any comments, and it helps me to shape the day’s study. I thought over the next few days I might share some of the most common thoughts. One of the most common comments is ‘I’ve been concentrating on one particular form or part of it’. The problem is that while they are doing this the other forms and skills slide. I practice everything in the syllabus every day, in the morning I’ll meditate, do the … Continue reading My Day’s Training Schedule

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Your Body Knows Best

Steve Rowe

Back on the antibiotics for infection in my knee and have all the side effects of bad stomach, pain in all my arthritic joints, fatigue and a bit of nausea so my morning training took a strange turn. You know how when you do your morning stretch it’s different to a ‘training’ stretch? I often refer to it in qigong because it has a ‘stimulate, store and release’ quality to the energy. Well, today my body spontaneously did it in every tai chi technique and it alleviated a lot of the side effects of the antibiotics. Sometimes our bodies know … Continue reading Your Body Knows Best

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Mudras & Martial Arts

Steve Rowe

Every Tai Chi and Karate body and hand ‘attitude’ and shape can be considered a mudra. Mudras are internal actions, involving the pelvic floor, spine, joints, cavities, diaphragm, throat, eyes, tongue, anus, genitals, abdomen, and other parts of the body and the energy of these actions are then expressed through the hands. In Tai Chi it is said that’s its important to have ‘beautiful hands’. All the hand shapes in Tai Chi are categorised in the Karate kata ‘Tensho’ also known as ‘Rokkisho’, ‘Heavenly Palms’ or ‘Spirit Hands’. The ‘6 Hands’ of Tensho represent the ‘5 Animals’ and are grafted … Continue reading Mudras & Martial Arts

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Don’t Overtrain

Steve Rowe

I think I overtrained yesterday, by the time I went to bed, everything hurt and this morning everything is sore and due to low testosterone from the cancer hormone therapy, radiation and age, emotionally fragile. So morning training has to be ‘small frame’ and ‘double meditation’ to heal. The 8 core skills are soften, connect, open, close, stretch, compress, twist and release, so small frame meant that I didn’t use stretch and compress meaning no fajin. This meant that I moved the energy around the body and kept it in to nourish it and heal ‘monk’ style. Double meditation means … Continue reading Don’t Overtrain

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The Top Of The Mountain

Steve Rowe

Anyone training in the martial arts needs to educate and alchemise their body, mind and emotions. There are only so many ways they can effectively do this. If they train to fight, they have to train the body and also their health, including the emotions and mind. If they train for health or skill the same also applies, so whatever the reason, to reach the top of the mountain. the route has to contain the same basics. The mountain can have many paths, soft, hard, internal, external, different arts and styles, but when they reach the top, they have to … Continue reading The Top Of The Mountain

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Freedom!

Steve Rowe

Life is based on desireThe desire to have or not haveWhen we free ourself from desireWe are enlightened from itNo one can control usTemptation is goneAdverts and media pressureHave no effectWe walk a solitary pathBecause others can’t understandWe don’t fear lifeBecause it is as it isWe don’t fear deathBecause we don’t desire lifeThere is no pressureNo anxietyNo fearWe’ve found peaceAnd acceptanceA deeper happiness arisesBecause we weren’t trying. Continue reading Freedom!

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Emotional Alchemy

Steve Rowe

REALLY IMPORTANT if you work with qi/chi/ki in your technique is to understand how the energy is coloured by areas of the body and how this affects areas of your life. The ‘alchemy’ is the study and journey of how your emotions affect you and therefore to be able to understand them and develop emotional intelligence. I’ve stripped away any ‘spiritual’ dogma to show how useful they are to practical martial artists. I’ve used my keywords for each chakra here to help you see how practical this study is to help you become a more balanced martial artist. Root Chakra … Continue reading Emotional Alchemy