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So what are you guys feelings about feng shui? Is Feng Shui originally a taoist concept? Do you guys feel feng shui is an important aspect in benefiting proper chi flow? I know certain places I've been definitely hold different energies than others, some have great energy while other have a sense of bad energy( like walmart ). Also I'm just curious, I wonder if in China, entire towns or cities are designed or planned around the concept of feng shui?

Hi Rainbow Vein How long have you been practicing stillness movement? Is stillness movement your main practice?

Well personally, I am not even at that beginner phrase where I can practice for an hour a day, having never gone to a workshop . For now, once my finals and over, I will just slowly build up a practice of Gift of the Tao and then hopefully this summer I can actually attend one of your famous workshops. And once I do learn stillness movement, I will take that slowly as well, I am not a believer in rushing things; I have my whole life to get this right, why risk rushing and injuring yourself. I was just wondering for curiosities sake as to the details of your own practice. Do you think the practice would be more effective if done in one sitting, than spread out into 5 different times throughout the day?

So I just have a few questions. So Ya Mu, when you say a healer should do 4-5 hrs per day of concentrated stillness movement; do you mean 4-5 hrs straight in one sitting, or can it be say 5 one hour practices spread out throughout the day? Also just curious, you say that you do stillness movement 24/7, however how much time do you devote to "concentrated" stillness movement practice per day?

Ya I've actually been talking with Ya Mu about how to start getting a workshop together and another person from this forum said they could help out and know friends who would be interested in doing a workshop. As soon as my school work dies down I'm gonna try an figure out how we can make this happen. Obviously the UK can do it, so I have faith that we can too

Thanks Everyone for the great responses, I think I now have a better understanding of Reiki and energy healing

Awsome pictures, can I ask where these last ones from where you grew up are?

This just occurred to me and I'm wondering, would your Taoist Medicine, or medical qigong have any dental applications? It would seem that by balancing out the teeth area early on, then one's teeth would naturally come in straight and in harmony. Did the Taoists place any emphasis on dental hygiene?

How do you guys feel about electromagnetic radiation and its effects on the energy body? Heres an article talking about it and how the EPA originally deemed it a class B carcinogen ranking next to formaldehyde, DDT, dioxins and PCBs My link From my personal experience I feel I am defiantly affected negatively by EMR. This company Earth Calm actually really helped me My link. Ever since I began getting into qigong and becoming sensitive to my own chi, I also have been getting more sensitive to this EMR. In the past I was using my computer in my lap and I could just feel weird energy soaking into my body so I took it off, but felt noxious after. Recently it got so bad that the keys on my computer were literally stinging my fingers and I would just feel bad and get headaches after spending hours on my computer. So I invested in one of these earth calm products for the computer and it took the entire problem away. I also bought something from them to stick onto my cell phone, which I think was worth it. I also got one of there personal EMR pendants, which I discovered was too much and mixed with my energy field in weird ways so I stopped wearing it, but the other two devices I bought were way worth it to me. Just curious if anyone else has issues with this? Do you think in time, by raising your energy vibration, these sort of minor disturbances don't bother you anymore as you grow past them, or would things like EMR get worse due to your increased sensitivity? I've found since qigong, I have had to make many life changes as my sensitivity grows and my tolerance to things like junk food and alcohol decrease. Its like I'm getting more in touch with my body which is letting me know what is good for it and what is not.

I do believe in magic in the sense of Ya Mu's, (As above as below law). I think that by influencing the spirit level, the influence can then trickle down into the physical level, which we claim is "magic"; and I believe through spiritual arts such as qigong, one can better learn how to manipulate the spirit level. I think by using this law, this is how native american shamans have summoned rain and how healers can perform miraculous healings. This is just my interpretation and understanding of it.

Is this the KEY to true martial arts, moving very fast while stopping the world?

So is it that the slower you can perform each individual move and really be in "the moment" is when the moves become the most effective and beneficial. What exactly is your qigong routine, does it involve: Living the stillness movement 24/7 while very slowly performing the Gift of the Tao, while stopping the world, for several hours per day? So in this sense it is more about quality than quantity, it doesn't matter how many times you perform the Gift of the Tao, if you are rushing through the exercises you are not receiving the same benefit you would get from going through the exercises one time but really putting your heart and feeling into each move.

Ya, I thought this was an interesting way to put it, I read one of Michael Tse's (Wild goose teacher) articles about qigong. Someone asked him how long do we practice, he replied "you don't ask how much do we eat, you just stop when you get full, the same goes for qigong, you stop when you are full". I guess just like lifting weights, you will know when your body is done. But is there truth that over working at qigong can harm the body, or are your methods safe enough where I could just pop in the Gift of the Tao DVD and just keep doing it for 3 hours, or should I work up to that level? I guess at least with your stillness movement, there is no maximum, 24 hours a day would be the best, although it might take me years to achieve that.

Ya so far Wild Goose and Michael Lomax's stillness movement are the two qigongs that have really spoken to me. I plan on checking both out and judging for myself which one I will stick with as my main practice.

Ya Wild Goose Qigong is a complete 72 form system that seems. However I have heard mixed things, such as over half of the forms were never passed on from Yang Meijun and she only was able to teach the first 23 in her life time, while people such as Dr. Bingkun Hu claim to have been taught the entire system by her. I am actually going to meet Dr. Bingkun Hu in person for a private qigong session at his office in Berkeley, looking forward to it . He seems like a man of true compassion and is one who really understands the workings of qigong.

just a question about practicing the Gift of the Tao. So I believe you said the entire practice takes roughly 15-20 minutes to do. So I guess the minimum amount of time to practice Gift of the Tao would be about 20 minutes, however is there a maximum amount of time? I read or have been told from other qigong sources to never over do qigong as it can over strain the energy body. They compared qigong to wieight lifting in that if you over workout, then you can injure your muscles, and they said the same goes for qigong in that if you over practice past what your body can handle then you can over strain the energy body and cause harm to one's self. Is there any truth to this? Does this concept apply to your gift of the Tao? If so, can one simply start out doing 20 minutes, then work up to 40, then 60 minutes and so on until one could possibly do Gift of the Tao for say 2 hours straight or even more?

Oh heres a link from The Hub's website, its for the option of renting one of their rooms, they have two rooms available it says for workshops, one is 950 square feet and the other is 850 sq ft. It says the price is negotiable, heres the link My link I would just love to see this workshop become reality, maybe this summer it could happen? I don't exactly know is Michael is already booked for the next two years or something or if he just finds out a new workshop plan every year. BTW Michael, do you ever do workshops in Santa Fe New Mexico, or anywhere in New Mexico? I have family there and my mom said if you had one there she would love to go to it, as she wants to go back and visit anyways.

Hi Unmike, Ya, I live in Los Angeles and currently go to USCS in Santa Cruz. As for TCM I am basically looking at either Five Branches in Santa Cruz and Yo San in Los Angeles. Both look like they are as good as it gets for western TCM and both incorporate all 5 aspects of TCM including a large emphasis on qigong, Five Branches even offers a 200 hour medical qigong certification course that takes one through 4 levels of healing qigong. I am really leaning towards Five Branches, just because I like the feel of it and the town of Santa Cruz, but both seem like the two best TCM I have looked into. The rest I have seen do not emphasize qigong or barely and I think qigong is the key factor to true healing, anyone can learn to put needles into someone, but without adding healing energy I think the benefits are quite subtle. I would LOVE it if Michael could come out to California, particularly Los Angeles during mid december or during the summer because that is when I have break from school (I would be very sad if he came at a time where I couldn't go because of school). So do you live in Los Angeles? One place that would be great for one of michael's workshops is The Hub, its a very good yoga studio near my house in West LA and they are always hosting workshops there with different spiritual people, heres the website My link We should just start planning a workshop, people in London did it so we can too. I am sure LA has enough people who would love to do this. My only request would be to please have the workshop mid december or summer because I would really love to be a part of it. Also a good place in Santa Cruz to host it would be The Chi Center in Santa Cruz, I think they also do workshops there, or at least have many qigong teachers that teach there. heres the link for this site My link

Also maybe you should stay away from meat, especially red meats for a while because I think meat tends to be very yang while vegetable more yin. Also especially if say the cow died with alot of stess and fear or tension, I think that essence of stress is carried into the meat and then into your body upon consumption, for this reason and many others, I really try to always eat organic humanely treated meat from animals. Thats my two cents

Great! Can't wait to get started! I am the inquirer type of person always asking questions in what I am fascinated about, but I am sure that once I begin doing your practices everything that you talk about will just start making sense to me. Happy Thanksgiving Ben

Thank you so much Michael! You your advice has been immensely helpful in helping me find my path. I think my "True Heart" is pushing me towards becoming certified in TCM, that is really what I truly want to do. I live in California and I think acupuncture is viewed WAY differently here than it is in Missouri. I would say the common open minded individuals here really accepts acupuncture as having benefit and many people are transitioning to alternative healing as western medicine continues to fail. It says on wikipedia (although I don't know how always accurate wikipedia can be), that a study showed in 2004 that 59% of medical doctors had at least some faith in the healing ability of acupuncture. I think we are slowly transitioning into a new age where healing such as your Taoist Healing will be the future of medicine (wouldn't that be great ). My goal is to help make this future a reality, by showing the world what it truly means to be healed. I greatly look forward to attending your workshop, by that time I probably will have over 6 months of Gift of the Tao practice under my belt I just want to say keep churning out the great responses and advice that you give on this forum. If it wasn't for your involvement here, I may have never had the desire to follow your practice, so thank you.

So you never had the goal of making your own qigong set, it just kind of came to you and you went along with it. Would you say upon making the Gift of the Tao and practicing it everyday, you experienced a further increase to your energy vibration that was not there when you only practiced stillness moving qigong? So would you say the Gift of the Tao starts out as a linear practice, but once one goes to your workshop and learns the stillness movement, then the Gift of the Tao can become a non-linear qigong which yields a much greater healing potential then if it was just linear?

I remember Bruce Frantzis mentioned this exact kind of condition in his book Opening the Energy Gates. He said he found his way into White Frukian Crane style qigong which was also a hard qigong. He said it gave him a sense of intense power, but of a detructive nature and said that he eventually had to forced himself to stop when he realized the practice was turning him insane and making him crazy for power. He mentions that this kind of qigong is very addictive and said eventually the intense power your body attains and craves can no longer be sustained by the body which eventually leads to serious health problems. I believe he said he just stopped practice and changed to a more softer more healing type of qigong. If stopping cold turkey is too hard for you, then at least try and wean yourself off of the practice, I think it is VERY important you begin to stop this destructive qigong. I am in no way an expert on qigong, but I know enough, and I trust Bruce Franztis enough to listen to his warning. I would SERIOUSLY recommend quitting your practice as soon as possible and begin a softer one and maybe receive qigong healing on the side to balance your situation. If possible I would contact Bruce Franztis, or better yet, there are plenty of knowledgeable people here on these forums. Particularly I would talk to Ya Mu, I have found him to be Extremely knowledgeable and being a qigong master he offers distance healing which people have claimed great results from. Ya Mu would at least know what you should do. I am not trying to force you into getting his healing, or buying his DVD (which actually could really benefit you, being a soft method which many people on this forum claim to be terrific), but I am advising you talk to someone with higher knowledge of these things, and one of the best candidates I can think of is Ya Mu, however I am sure there are many others who could also help you greatly. Never stop believing in the mind. You have the POWER over your mind and do not let yourself get fooled into believing this qigong has control over you. You have the power to change and I believe that you will overcome this and become a STRONGER person. Good Luck