Goals of Practice

• To teach beginners to open their heart and minds to the beauty and healing power of nature – Sickness is the disruption in the flow of energy between humans and nature. As  you strengthen your connection with the natural world, your sense of beauty, wonder, awe and curiosity is restored and your brain and nervous system are calmed. Stress levels are lowered and the immune system is boosted. The medicine of nature is the antidote to our modern stressful lifestyles.
• To teach beginners to feel their qi – Beginners usually do not have even the slightest concept of qi. Our courses gradually give you an understanding of qi through feeling and experience. This kind of knowledge is necessary for any kind of advancement in Qi Gong and Tai Chi Chuan. For this reason, beginners are usually taught some of the many simple Wai Dan forms. 
• To teach beginners to regulate the body, breathing, and mind – Once you have grasped the idea of qi, you then start to learn to regulate your body. This includes how to relax the body from the skin to as deep as the internal organs and bone marrow. Through this relaxation you are able to feel and sense your center, balance, and root. You must also learn to regulate your breathing—normal abdominal breathing for relaxation and reverse abdominal breathing for qi expansion and condensation. Most important of all, you must learn to regulate your mind until it can be calm and concentrated without disturbance. All of these criteria are the critical keys to the correct practice of Qi Gong and Tai Chi Chuan. If you start learning the sequence without having already done this basic training, you will be preoccupied with the complicated movements and will only be able to perform them in a superficial way. 
• To teach beginners to use their mind to lead the qi efficiently – Once you have regulated your body, breathing, and mind, you will then be able to use your concentrated mind to lead the qi to circulate smoothly and effectively. 
• To teach practitioners to circulate qi in the twelve primary qi channels and fill up the two main qi vessels – If you are able to use your mind to lead the qi efficiently, you have completed the basic training. This is then the time for forms or sequence training. In addition, you should continue your Qi Gong and Tai Chi Chuan training and learn to build up your concentration to a higher level and, consequently, build your qi to a higher level. In addition, you should also learn to increase the qi in the two main vessels—the yin conception vessel and the yang governing vessel. Still meditation is normally used for this. 
• To teach practitioners to expand their qi to the surface of the skin and to condense the qi to the bone marrow – When the body’s qi has been built to a higher level, you then start learning to lead the qi to the skin to increase the skin’s sensitivity and into the bones to nourish the marrow. 
• To teach practitioners to use the qi to energize the muscles for maximum jin manifestation – When you are able to lead the qi to the skin and condense it to the marrow efficiently, you can then use this qi to energize the muscles to a high level. This is the secret to internal jin. Internal jin is the foundation and root of external jin. 
• To lead advanced practitioners into the domain of spiritual cultivation – The ultimate goal of Qi Gong and Tai Chi Chuan practice is to lead you into the domain of emptiness, where your whole being is in the no-extremity (wuji) state. When you have reached this goal, the qi in your body and the qi in nature will unite and become one, and all human desires will gradually disappear.