Category: Classic

  • Wang Peisheng creative interpretation of some Taiji principles

    Master Wang’s Creative Interpretation and Application of Some Taijiquan Principles in Self-defence Master Wang makes it a point of emphasis and has set an example to his students of how one should use one’s mind and learn from experience of success and failure after having studied carefully the theories set in the Taijiquan classics, listened…

  • Walking the Circle

    The body is like the movements of a swimming dragon, a wild goose ascending the emptiness, a tiger crashing, a turtle diving, or a snake slithering, turning the circle at will in connected and united postures, angled or crossing, advancing or retreating while talking and laughing. Dong Haichuan (The founder of Bagua on walking the…

  • Song of the Real Meaning

    真義歌 No shape, no shadow. Entire body transparent and empty. Forget your surroundings and be natural. Like a stone chime suspended from West Mountain. Tigers roaring, monkeys screeching. Clear fountain, peaceful water. Turbulent river, stormy ocean. With your whole being, develop your life. 無形無象。全身透空。 忘物自然。西山懸磬。 虎吼猿鳴。泉清水靜。 翻江鬧海。盡性立命。 When practicing taijiquan you must let go of…

  • The Dantian of Xingyi

    THE ELIXIR FIELD The elixir field is the source of the active aspect, the mansion of energy and power. If you want to be proficient in the art, you must first strengthen your elixir field, and if you want to strengthen your elixir field, you must first practice the art. The back-and-forth of the two…

  • Yang Banhou Explaining Taiji Principles

    太極法說 EXPLAINING TAIJI PRINCIPLES 楊班侯 attributed to Yang Banhou [circa 1875] [translation by Paul Brennan, Sep, 2013] 目錄 CONTENTS 八門五步 [1] The Eight Gates & Five Steps 八門五步用功法 [2] On the Training Method for the Eight Gates & Five Steps 固有分明法 [3] Our Innate Ability to Distinguish 粘黏連隨 [4] Stick, Adhere, Connect, and Follow 頂匾丢抗…

  • On Constant Purity and Tranquility

    The Wonderful Scripture on the Constant Purity and Tranquility, Spoken by the Ultra Supreme Elder Lord The Elder Lord said: The Great Tao, being formless, creates heavens and earths; The Great Tao, being emotionless, runs the sun and the moon; The Great Tao, being nameless, eternally nurtures all beings. I do not know its name,…

  • Ancient Life Cultivation Methods

    15 Advisable Actions It is advisable to comb your hair often. It is advisable to rub your face often. It is advisable to move your eyeballs often. It is advisable to rap on your ears(occiput) often. It is advisable to click your teeth often. It is advisable to swallow your saliva often. It is advisable…

  • Secret records of understanding the Way

    TRUE AND FALSE The Old Man of Clear Serenity said: There is nothing in the world that does not have both true and false versions. Practice of the Way may also be true or false, so students should first distinguish the difference clearly. True practice is total sincerity. It is not a matter of avoiding…

  • The Origin of Five Animal Frolics

    Hua Tuo said to Pu, “The human body needs physical labor and movement but not to the extreme. Movement aids digestion and activates blood circulation. Thus it can prevent disease, just as a door hinge does not rot. Ancient immortals practiced ‘bear—hanging’ and ‘turning the head like an owl’ to stretch and relax the waist,…

  • Book of Balance and Harmony

    The waning and waxing of energy and matter are the movement and rest of things; rising and retiring by day and night are the movement and rest of the body. Everything, including the advance and retreat of the person, the arising and vanishing thoughts, the fortune and adversity of the world, the success and failure…

  • Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine

    Precelestial breath, Postcelestial breath. Those who obtain them always seem to be drunk. The precelestial Breath is the original and initial Ancestral Breath.1 This Ancestral Breath is in the real center of Heaven and Earth within the human body. [Placed between] the Secret Door and the Gate of Life, hanging in the middle, it is…

  • The Natural Mechanism of Turning Attention Around to Gaze Within

    Bai Yuzhan said, “The path of inner refinement is extremely simple and easy; just get the fire of the heart to descend into the elixir field. The elixir field is the chamber of water, while the heart is fire. When fire enters water, then water and fire mix and true yang is produced. Therefore people…

  • The Nei-yeh Inner Cultivation or Inward Training

    Translated by Harold Roth One The vital essence of all things: It is this that brings them to life. It generates the five grains below And becomes the constellated stars above. When flowing amid the heavens and the earth We call it ghostly and numinous. When stored within the chests of human beings, We call…

  • The Wisdom of Dao Yin in Baopuzi

    Dao Yin treats the condition ‘not yet sick’, it releases inharmonious energy. The movements must be practised in order to circulate energy without discomfort in the hundred joints. Without movement, blood remains blocked in the three places. Dao Yin uses this great rule to maintain health and is a subtle and complex technique for eliminating…

  • The Ten Chan Pictures

    (1) In the Wild Troubled by all kinds of thoughts and desires, people are liable to get nervous anal disturbed in daily life and with their natural character con-fused and the ability to sustain themselves lost, they are quite ill with vari-ous worries and diseases. The poem reads: Displaying its horns, the buffalo bellows aloud,…