Running Thunder Fist

Spiritual Progress

I remember talking to John Kells, my late teacher, about spiritual progress. This must have been around 1983 and we were sitting in the basement room in the Tai Chi centre in Upper Wimpole Street.

He told me that whilst many talk about spiritual progress and comparing it to going up a mountain, in fact, we are all already at the top of the mountain.

To make spiritual progress, we just need to take a step off the top of the mountain peak.

Can you?

What makes practice, Practice?

Lovely article from Embrace the Moon website, embracethemoon

Read about what makes practice, practice here

Excellent Preparation Exercises

Open Close

A little bit about Open /Close or Kai / He from traditional Sun style Taijiquan.  You find this 13 times in the form. It feels as if it gives you a moment to gather your energy amidst the form. All errors are mine!

My Favourite Books

One of my early purchases was Breathing Underwater- the Inner Life of T'ai Chi Ch'uan by Margaret Emerson.

It's the kind of book I like the most; talking about her own experiences, thoughts and feelings, discussing Silence, the Tan Tien, Gurus, Teaching, Circles and much more.

She describes a lovely exercise - the Light Exercise - in which a continuous stream of white light enters through one arm, fills the entire body and exits through the other arm. This reminds me of an early Christian meditation described by John O'Donohue of white light descending from above and permeating the body, going into the ground.

I think the book is still available and her website is here.

Strength and Conditioning for Martial Arts Training

John Kells used to say that if you wanted to fight using Tai Chi, then you needed to train like a fighter.

This is an interesting article discussing a number of training methods at the Martial Way blog.

The article can be read here