Tag: Taoism

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Manipulators & Indoctrinators

Steve Rowe

“If men lack knowledge and desire, then clever people will not try to interfere.” – Lao Tsu This reads to most people like you should keep people simple and stupid, but the meaning is far from that. We are indoctrinated and manipulated from birth, by family, school, business, culture and society to ‘want’ and think what they want us to desire and think. In fact the true qualities of empathy, kindness, patience, tolerance and compassion are only true if applied in a simple way to everyone and everything. It’s only our indoctrinators and manipulators that tell us that this is … Continue reading Manipulators & Indoctrinators

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Soft Cotton Boxing

Steve Rowe

Yesterday we were looking at the practicality of self defence in Yang style Tai Chi. So many people seem to think it’s only for health or that it takes many years of training to make it work and that the moves have to be heavily adapted. Not true. The great thing about Yang Family Tai Chi is that it’s an art of self defence. The side benefits are good health and emotional intelligence as these are required as a base to protect yourself. It’s been passed down through the family uncorrupted and contains many of the deadliest techniques of kung … Continue reading Soft Cotton Boxing

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Speak Your Truth

Steve Rowe

Speak your truth.Walk the left hand path.Don’t run with the crowd.Those that clamour around the famous.Have no mind of their own.Separate yourself from them.They are the subjects of others.Don’t subject yourself to anyone or anything.View them all objectively.Tribal fear is not empowering.Lose the pitchfork and torch.Sit in the dark.Find yourself.Let your soul unfold.When you find your truth.There is no fear.No need for the attention of others.That inner knowing shines out.You become insightful.Wisdom finds you.You become the beacon.For those seeking the way. Continue reading Speak Your Truth

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Nebulous Principles, Ideas & Strategies

Steve Rowe

Student: Is it like this or this? Me: Yes. Student: how can it be both? Me: because it’s not what you do but how you do it that counts. If you are following the ideas and principles, depending on the situation, a technique can be done in a variety of ways. People want ‘easy’ and ‘simple’, they want rules. If you advertise ’easy to learn’, ‘simple steps’ and lay down a simple framework to follow, people will buy into it. The essential underlying principles, ideas and philosophy to a good martial art can be quite nebulous and require considerable study … Continue reading Nebulous Principles, Ideas & Strategies

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Explore Your Darkness

Steve Rowe

Do you feel that if you surrender to your darkness that you won’t be able to find your way back? Do you repress and try to ignore it? If you’re always trying to be happy instead, you’re not happy – and the lurking darkness is permeating your soul in a negative way. We all know the ‘positivity’ people always trying to convince themselves and those around them that they are happy and positive but that veneer is thin and the tortured soul behind is obvious. The darkness needs to be explored and understood as it’s the balancing factor to the … Continue reading Explore Your Darkness

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How Deep Can You Go?

Steve Rowe

How deep can you train your body? How well can you manipulate the spine and myofascial core that moves it along with the vagus nerve? This, along with plumbing beyond thought and emotions to finding the deepest parts of yourself that connect you to nature are what give you a health and inner peace beyond what any modern ‘health guru’ can. Good Tai Chi, layered from meditation to neigong (inner work) to qigong (energy work) to form, push hands and weapons carefully layers these skills, training body, emotions and mind at depths that I don’t see anywhere else. It was … Continue reading How Deep Can You Go?

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Were The Ancients That Good?

Steve Rowe

Were the ancients that good? No internet, travel was really difficult, most couldn’t read or write, what little video is available was made when they were old and most didn’t move that well. Of course we respect them as they were the founders of what we practise today and some obviously were really good, but how many? The lineage carriers were often bloodline and to be honest that doesn’t mean the talent of the originator was passed down, often, non family students were better. I’ve often heard people say that the masters ‘hide’ techniques from students but in my experience … Continue reading Were The Ancients That Good?

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Closing All The Windows

Steve Rowe

Closing All The Windows The computer was designed by and is like the human mind. When you close all the active windows, what’s left? It appears to be nothing, a blank screen, but it’s actually the potential to do anything the computer or its programmer can do. When we sit still, breathe deep and close all the activity of our mind, the mind appears to be inactive but is in fact in a state of readiness to accept the insight and wisdom that our ‘windows’ (thinking mind) has been blocking that has always been there in the background. Closing the … Continue reading Closing All The Windows

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The True Meaning Of Karma

Steve Rowe

Our oligarchs and their puppet politicians are telling us that the only way out of the ‘predicament’ that they have put us in, (where they have multiplied their personal wealth and multiplied the poverty of the masses as a natural balance) is to treat us as ‘straw dogs’, to tighten our belts, work harder and create more wealth for them to the cost of our peace, happiness and the environment. Lao Tsu wrote “the space between heaven and earth is like a bellows, the shape changes but not the form. The more it moves, the more it yields.” When they … Continue reading The True Meaning Of Karma

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I Am Beautiful

Steve Rowe

I am beautiful. That’s not a ‘guru’ style bogus affirmation, at 74, with a barrel rather than a 6 pack, riddled with arthritis, a missing leg, more wrinkles than a crumpled crisp packet and more scars than a Russian gangster my body is my best friend and a record of an exciting life. I am beautiful. Because despite its battering my body is suffused with chi (life energy), alchemised and educated into geng (warrior energy) and then shen (spiritual energy) by trained emotions and a mind that has trained and meditated twice a day for over 50 years. I am … Continue reading I Am Beautiful