The Inner Structure & Inner Power of Tai Chi

A weekend class with Senior Universal Tao Instructor Andrew Fretwell

Imagine the power of the earth being transferred up from the
ground through your feet and legs and up your spine and out through your hands. Can you get a sense of how your bones will feel as the life giving earth force energizes them and adds real tangible strength to them?

This earth force stretches and envelops your tendons, muscles,
ligaments and joints. You feel rooted to the earth and intimately
connected in a very real way to the ground.

You move your whole body as a co-coordinated whole. If some one tries to apply force to your structure you can transfer that persons force to the ground no matter how big or strong they are.

Tai Chi if practiced correctly will allow you to live longer and look younger then your physical age. This is a fact proved by many pictures of Tai Chi masters in their 100’s.

Your health will improve greatly and you will become intimately connected with parts of your body that we normally don’t even think about until we injure them.

Your mind will become very still and peaceful as it sinks down into your heart and rests in your tan tien.

 
The Tai Chi form I teach is very easy to learn. This form has only 13 movements repeated in 4 directions. This form was taught to the Yang family members only, it was never taught in public. So while at other schools you may need to take a year just to learn the correct movements. With this easy to learn style of Tai Chi you will not only learn the form but also start to master the rooting and inner structure of Tai Chi. 

The Inner Structure & Inner Power of Tai Chi teaches you

how..............

• To move the body as a whole.
• How to keep the bone structure aligned with the forces of Heaven and Earth,
• How to transfer the Earth force through the bone structure into a single point of discharge.
• How to clearly distinguish Yin and Yang in the form
• How to practice skin and bone breathing and re-grow the bone marrow for radiant health and longevity
• How to relax the musculature and body armor and develop tendon power.
• How to open all the joints so Chi can enter and be stored in unlimited amounts in the bones
• How to develop and enhance the "chi belt" and  increase the internal pressure and Chi in the fascia.

Here is what Dr Jampa McKenzie a long time student of many forms of Tai Chi and a fellow senior instructor and good friend had to say about Master Mantak Chia’s Tai Chi Chi Kung.

"When I first met Master Chia in 1982 I had already learned Old Chen style, Yang style, Wu style, Cheng Man Ching style and Twenty Four style Tai Chi in fact I knew so  many different Tai Chi forms that I could not practice them all in one day.

The Last thing I wanted to learn was another Tai Chi form! When I first saw Master Chia's Tai Chi Chi Kung form there seemed nothing to it - only grasping the birds tail and single whip. I already knew five ways of doing these movements. I was therefore able to learn Master Chia's form in one day. 

I was quite proud of my Tai Chi and when I went to the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York for Master Chia's teacher training retreat in the summer of 1986. Master Chia required that all his instructors learn Tai Chi Chi Kung as a prerequisite for the higher-level practices of the Universal Tao. No sweat I thought, my years of prior training will stand me in good stead.

What a rude and humiliating awakening I was in for! Master Chia was merciless with me, and brutally frank in his assessment of my Tai Chi.

"You barely passed," he told me. "How can you practice Tai Chi for so many years and still have no root. Each successive year he would say. “You still don’t get it!”  “No spinal cord power.”  “No spiraling.”

This is what allows advanced Tai Chi masters to not allow any force be applied to them and to push opponents effortlessly without applying very little physical contact

There are many styles of Tai Chi today. Regardless of the style the first step is to learn and remember the outer movements. When one practices all the movements in a sequence, that is what is called the Tai Chi Form. Once you learn the form the rest of the work in mastering Tai Chi involves learning to use energy in each posture. Working with Chi or energy is what is called internal work.

The internal work is what makes Tai Chi unique and what distinguishes it from the external forms of martial arts. The inner structure is what allows the body to move as a whole. Not learning the internal part of Tai Chi is like never looking inside the oyster to find the pearl.

Andrew Fretwell is one of the leading teachers today on the application of Taoist Inner Alchemy to everyday life. A senior instructor of Mantak Chia’s Universal Tao System he has been studying and practicing the principles of Chinese Medicine, Taoism & the Oriental Healing Arts for 25 years, teaching Chi Nei Tsang, Qi Qong, Tai Chi and Inner Alchemy.

He has taught internationally in the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe and the Far East, and is currently serving as Vice President of the Healing Tao Instructors Association of the Americas, the professional organization that sets standards and ethics for all instructors in the USA.

When not traveling he resides at the Tao Garden Taoist training center Chiang Mai Thailand where he assists Master Mantak Chia in teaching and educating students from all over the world.

Andrew is committed to helping people find their own unique destiny and has recently begun promoting Enlightenment QiGong (WuJi Gong) worldwide (An 800 year old spiritual transmission lineage) as a means to achieve this.

email: tao.alchemy@gmail.com for any questions