Standing meditation

Qigong

Bagua Zhang

Classes consist of three core components:

1. 1.Standing meditation and stance training (yiquan)
   

2. 2.Movement phrases and experiments (qigong)
   

3. 3.The art of circle walking (baguazhang).
   

1. The practice of standing meditation or stance keeping is a vast and varied art in the Chinese tradition.  Students will learn a basic vocabulary of standing postures, some which can be worked with for a few minutes, others that can be maintained for up to an hour a day.  In the Chinese arts, standing is considered central to developing proper alignment, flexibility, physical structure, and energetic sensitivity.
   

2. 
   

3. The term “Qigong” has been so badly misused and mistranslated over the last twenty years that a clear definition has become impossible.  For the purposes of this class, qigong movements are warm-ups, movement phrases, and movement experiments given to students to clarify different kinds of body use and different qi qualities.  Qigong movements can also be prescribed remedially to deal with old injuries and deficiencies.
   

4. 
   

5. Baguazhang is a traditional Chinese internal martial art (in the same category as Taijiquan).  Performed while walking a circle, Bagua movements embody eight different qi qualities which emerge from and change into each other.  The art makes extensive use of spiraling in the body, more so than any other movement art.  It is a classical art which uses experiments in effortlessness to reveal the power of our true nature.  Its origins are deep in the hermit and performance milieus associated with Daoist ritual.  It can be practiced for health, meditation or self-defense.