thehatinthecat

Thanks for the information Wudangspirit. I'm studying Tai Chi Chuan with one of my professors at the moment. But I'm looking to also study Bagua so once student loans come in (yaaa money) I'll be heading over there to check out some of his classes.

I haven't seen anyone post this link in regards to research yet so I guess I will: National Expert Meeting on Qigong & Tai Chi - Consensus Report

I'll be moving to the Chicago area soon and I'm looking around for someone to study Tai Chi and maybe some other internal arts with to help supplement my studies of Oriental Medicine. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about Master Hong-Chao Zhang who runs the Chinese Gong Fu Institute. If anyone has any recommendations for who to study with in the Chicagoland area I'd love to hear them.

Of course it would be intresting if Qi ended up reacting like light. IE being waves and/or particales at the same time depending on what you were messuring for. Perhappes that is what is happening to many of the Western researchers are exspecting it not to be there so it doesn't show up, and vice versa.

Which school did you go to Taoist81? I'm about to start at Midwest College of Oriental Medicine in Chicago. I'm not sure about the more esoteric aspects TCM, such as Qi actually be an energy as opposed to a bodies chemical response to the treatment(s). But I do enjoy the idea of Qi as energy, and I think that much more study on TCM needs to be done in the West.

Sounds a little bit like Roger Jahnke's Tai Chi Easy program. He took number of the most common movements from Tai Chi and broke them down, let me see which ones from what I can remeber off of the top of my head. Cloud Hands, Repulse the Monkey, Brush Knee, and there are a few more but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

I'd have to agree the stuff in The Healer Within is good and very easy to understand. He covers a little bit of massage in The Healing Promise of Qi but not as much as he does in The Healer Within. I took his Tai Chi Easy Facilitator training workshop and he has information in the manual on self massage as well.

Hello, I'm Erik. A little bit of background, I'm a soon to be student (hopefully) at the Midwest College of Oriental Medicine. I've been a seeker for a number of years, and I've found a lot of peace and contement in philosophies and religions that come from the East. I have a BA in Health Arts and Sciences from Goddard College where I focused on Male Adolescent Psychology and Rites of Passage. I met a number of wonderful people there including a great Tai Chi teacher Tim Regan who was working on his Masters relating to the history and study of Tai Chi and Qigong. His work, experiencing Qi healing (done by Tim) as well as having studied Yang Long form in the past (at a different college), got me exploring more aspects of alternative health. I worked for two seasons at the Omega Institute, and while there went to as many Tai chi and Qigong classes as I could. I moved to Missouri with the plans of getting an MSW, and entering private practices working with troubled youth, but after working for the State for a year I realized that a career in social services was not where I wanted to go. I began to wonder what I should do then as a career and during that time I started to read more on the Tao, and also picked up a book by Roger Jahnke called the Healing Promise of Qi. After reading that book and starting up my Qigong and Tai Chi practices again I decied that I want to go into oriental medicine. So here in a few short months I'll be off to Chicago to start my MSOM!