JessOBrien

Hi Robin, How many teachers did BKF have? Maybe it's time to follow his example? Take what you've learned and carry it with you into a new, more joyful journey of learning and discovery. Clearly you've reached the end of what he can teach you. Time to move on. Best wishes, JEss O

Hi Papayapple, Thanks! So glad you liked it. We are trying to give some informal history/experiences of our own along with an indepth review of the material in the book. It seems like most stuff out there is instructional, so we want to do something more personal and entertaining I hope. We have a new episode if you wanna check it out: https://neijiaquan.podbean.com/e/the-neijiaquan-podcast-episode-5/ The Neijiaquan Podcast Episode 5 February 19th, 2020 In episode 5 we discuss the principle of "raising the spine and dropping the chest" and it's application in energy gates qigong (chigung) and internal martial arts, like xingyi, bagua and tai chi. Also Jess tells a story about Bruce and Isaac reminisces about the old days at Anvil Ranch and Bruce's early retreats.

Hi all, Haven't been out here in some time, glad to see the board is still thriving. I thought some of you folks might be interested in this podcast that me and my buddy are working on. We are going to go through Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body by BK Frantzis page by page and discuss our experiences with this set, as well as some of the history and our training with the author back in the day. https://neijiaquan.podbean.com/ Hope you get a kick out of it! Let me know what you think and if you have any topics you want to discuss about this set. Take care, Jess O

Episode #4: In Episode 4 Jess and Isaac discuss the alignments of the head, neck and spine during Energy Gates standing. https://neijiaquan.podbean.com/e/the-neijiaquan-podcast-ep…/ https://podcasts.apple.com/…/the-neijiaquan-po…/id1495119728 Anybody do this set and want to discuss the finer points? It's a favorite of mine.

Hi all, Not to spam the group but we have our new episode up! Episode #3: Looking at the roots of Energy Gates we explore the teachings of the Japanese teacher Kenichi Sawai. We also go deeper into the alignments of standing practice and tips for unifying the body. https://www.facebook.com/Nei-Jia-Quan-Podcast-106298464246771/ Let me know what you think and if there are any topics about Standing Dissolving you may wish to discuss!

Wow very cool. Ancient Chinese astronomy is fascinating.

Hi Fugue, Nice avatar, do you train with Kumar Frantzis? I've learned some breathing in his chi gung system. In the first stage, Opening the Energy Gates, you learn to do all the exercises with normal breath, not matched with the movements. Just natural, even inhale and exhale. In the next phase Heaven & Earth, you learn reverse breathing and incorporate that into each of the movements, then pairing it with your actions. After that you do a variety of breathing skills, depending on for martial arts, chi gung or meditation, each having it's own use and purpose. -Jess O

I've had teachers famous and not famous. All had their faults. When I teach I find it really hard not to overwhelm people. I want to cover it all and help them see the things that took me years to realize. But it's really amazing how little body awareness people show up with at first. Just lining up the feet straight to stand can take weeks. Or months. Or never. As time has gone by I've reduced the amount of info I introduce. Slower seems to be better. On the other hand I needed to hear it a few hundred times before it sank in. Ultimately if they don't train in between classes and make it their own, they'll never get anywhere. Period. And if you DO train on your own, things will become clear as time goes on and it will reveal itself, sooner or later. Those are the only two paths.

Most of the Circle Walking that is the basic training of Kumar's system is outlined in his book: The Great Stillness. That's a good way to get a sense of how he teaches Ba Gua without investing a lot of cash in vids or travel. If you like that book, then maybe it's worth going deeper into his stuff. We spent many years on slow straight line walking with careful alignments, then circle walking then adding layers of dissolving, opening & closing the joints, vibrating the spine, moving intention in the body etc. The nei gung is what gives his system depth and man it really is hard work but rewarding. The palm changes themselves are the easy part.

BKF's forms are not and have never been pretty. Nobody looks worse on video than him. But in person the experience is quite different. I'm here in Oakland, I studied with Kumar during his years in Fairfax, CA and we host him here in the Bay Area usually twice per year. He's pretty much retired from martial arts at this point. Recep- good call Jarek's website offers some very good info, well worth reading all his articles.

Dainin, I believe he posted some of his teacher on the thread earlier if I recall correctly. Jess O

Hi Ba Gua Kid, Yeah man I hear you, we all have our preferences. But trying to judge martial arts from a video is an amateur mistake. Better to judge martial arts by the speed, power and finality of the impact. Not by forms or videos. Kumar and other internal martial arts teachers can deliver that and lots of it. I've never been impressed with a video yet so I don't comment on them. Different boats/fiddles for different folks I suppose. JEss O

MIssed this post, thought I'd chime in. I've trained with Kumar for a while now and he has taught me some very cool stuff about Chinese martial arts. As for a deep understanding, I don't see how someone could devote the time and energy he did training in China during the 1970's and 80's and not be good at the art. The guy put his life into his practice. And he tested it rigorously. I've visited a lot of teachers, and all of them had some good things to teach. Just because I prefer some rather than others I wouldn't presume to say which one is deeper than the other until I got to cross hands with them. Kumar no longer teaches martial arts very much, so I won't tell you to bother checking him out in person. If anyone has any questions about his martial arts, I'm happy to relay what I know. Jess O

Best option is to find a teacher, take a lesson then work on it as long as you can. Then go get another lesson. I did Ba Gua with Kumar, but in person not from the vid. I'm sure the vids are good info if that's all you can get, so why not, might as well give it a try. Whatever you do, don't screw up your knees! Good Luck, Jess O

i am you are saying lots of nice stuff. but the deep meditative energy work side of it is a HUGE benefit if you want to spar. Making your mind more intuitive, reacting more smoothly and getting better timing and awareness all lead to way harder hits and better defenses. get out there and mix it up with some gloves on I'll bet you will get better results than you expect!!

Zhang Yun's article is great, as is his book that he published with Blue Snake. Terrific stuff with tons of detail. Kumar teaches 100% back weight in San Ti unless you are injured, then back off until you are healed. San Ti is good stuff, but hard work and take your time, don't get too frustrated. It's a lifelong pursuit and you must let your knees, and legs adjust so you don't hurt yourself. We hosted Kumar for a series of Hsing-I classes over the last few years that were good fun. We did many many sessions of San Ti with him over the years. One involved awakening the five elements of chinese medicine while standing in San Ti, using Nei Gung exercises within it to open up specific organs, energies and feelings within. Never did that before, it was quite an interesting approach and showed me how deep a simple stance can go.

One thing I came to realize after learning multiple stepping patterns in multiple Ba Gua systems is that all of them lead to the same goal: awakening your legs and connecting them to your torso. The goal is to have lively, swift steps, precise and automatic that put you in the right position during the chaos of sparring. To make your toes and feet become as sensitive and aware as your fingers and palms. To bring your legs to LIFE not just the dead wooden stumps that we often have below our waist. Excruciatingly slow stepping, faster and faster circle walking until you are practically running are both required to help your legs wake up. Ba Gua demands an absolute OBSESSION with the legs. All of Chinese martial arts do actually, but Ba Gua is even more extreme. Each time around the circle needs to keep bringing the nerves, fluids and energy of the legs to greater unity and awareness. Otherwise no matter which step you do, you are missing one of the things that makes Ba Gua so great. Jess O

First you learn the routines and conditioning. The freestyle part is when you apply Ba Gua to sparring. Then you can create some of the most amazing and beautiful techniques that you never even knew possible. You need two people to do Ba Gua, just like you need two trigrams to make a hexagram. Ba Gua applications are done spontaneously, you take some "energy" that's coming at you, and transform it into something new. When you let go and allow the movements to do themselves in freestyle sparring it's like hanggliding or something, you are free, flowing and awake like never before. You get punched in the face sometimes along the way, but that's the price you pay to experience a very sublime and timeless state.

Hi Djore, Yes, I've practiced with Kumar quite a few times and his Ba Gua is pretty cool stuff. When he demonstrates like that he goes totally freestyle with full power and speed, so it looks pretty crazy. Regular practice seems less wild and much more focused. In his system you train with very slow straight line walking, and later get going faster and faster on the circle. Often you will double your speed repeatedly, while trying to maintain some nei gung skill like abdominal breathing, or dissolving tension or feeling some part of your body, or bringing specific thoughts or emotions to mind, or seeking some specific spiritual aspect, and so on. And for each one your work on, you can then add more and more layers to your practice, and speed up the walking to get it deeper and more profoundly "wired in". To me you need chi gung first to build your system up and make it healthy. Martial arts then takes you from normal to strong and fully integrated. Then more spiritual pursuits open up, as you are now strong and resilient enough physically, and have faced all your fears and hang ups during martial arts sparring and fighting. Meditation is the step that comes after the first two. If you skip right into delving into your minds deepest corners, you won't have the strength and calmness that chi gung and martial arts provide. They are the bulwark you need to keep you grounded when working within yourself. His system has three steps: 1. Learn the 5 chi gung sets 2. Learn IMA for health: tai chi short form, hsing-i san ti, and ba gua circle walking 3. Pursue a specialization: chi gung tui na healing, Taoist meditation, or one of the three internal martial arts in full. Step 3 can take your whole lifetime, to master only one of the specializations. Jess O

Hi Djore, YEah many of the latest vids he put out were from the event's we've hosted him for in the east bay. His Ba Gua has some differences from other schools. He said his teacher learned 64 palms at the school of Cheng You Lung but that he boiled it down to 8. Each corresponds to one of the Trigrams of the I Ching quite closely. The first Palm Change is Heaven, and contains much of the work on alignments, weight shifting, walking and basic gong fu that will then lead you to success with the other palms. He spends a HUGE amount of time on the most minute details of Single Palm Change because if you can get it there, the other palms come more quickly. I've never seen anyone spend so much time on Single Palm, we learned it for years before he was willing to move on to the later ones. It's frustrating, but I have found that slow walking, kwa stretching, and all of the details of alignments have helped me a lot in making my practice more rewarding, and less prone to injury. We had a class with him last weekend and he talk a bit about how each of the eight palm changes contains the information and building blocks to move on to the next palm in the sequence. Unlike other styles where each palm is an independent technique, his palms are in order and one doesn't tend to learn them out of order. For instance the "heaven" energy of Single Palm Change means stretching, expanding, lengthening and twisting your body to the maximum. This gives you strength and power that you'll use as the basis for transmuting and changing with later palms. Without the yang power of the first palm, the others have no raw material to work with. Again, the process is lengthy, but the first palm is the hardest and most difficult one to learn. ONce you have that, you don't have to relearn knee alignments, structure, concentration, etc. Another aspect of his system is the speed walking, particularly in the meditation. The faster you walk the deeper your mind is driven into your body, it's very strange and extremely demanding to do. But I really found it a powerful way to get all your cards on the table, so to speak, and see what starts coming up in both physical and spiritual terms. At a certain point you are going so fast and you hit a sweet spot where you seem to stop and the room keeps going. Thats when you can almost hear yourself think all the things your unconscious mind is always chattering about. And there is a silence there too. Anyways, I spend most of my time messing with the HSing-I and Ba Gua forms and fighting applications. That's the most fun, the meditative side is way too hardcore. I hear guys talking about the distant planes of awareness they are reaching but when I push they fall right over. That's not cool. If your physical body isn't resiliant, your mind isn't either and without structure you are deluding yourself to think you are flying thru some astral plane. Maybe you are, but how productive could it be if you have no vibrancy, no chi, no connection in your body. He describes Ba Gua as a three step process: 1. Connect every physical part and energy path inside your entire body into one cohesive whole, becoming totally unified. 2. Link your mind into the Xin "heart mind" within your deepest core called the Central Channel. 3. Manifest the energies of internal alchemy, the Eight Trigrams. I met some cats last weekend who seemed to be skipping step 1 and that's a shame, self-delusion is not the path of meditation and Taoism. Being yourself, seeing yourself clearly and really being who you are counts more in my mind. Anyways, Kumar's system has a lot to offer and I've had a lot of fun doing it. Jess O

Yeah, Kumar's ba gua system is pretty awesome, I've enjoyed training in it. He's had many students since he started teaching it in the 90's. We have a class here in Berkeley: http://www.watertradition.net Come get with us and check it out some time. Jess O

Hi all, We are going to be teaching the five chi kung sets of BK Frantzis here in Berkeley over the next year. The first set is Opening the Energy Gates. It is symbolized by the element of Water. The practices all focus on the downward flow of attention and energy in the body, as well as the "dissolving" process where you use concentrated awareness to allow clenched parts of your body to release and deeply relax. The main point of the set is to get a continuous sense of downward flowing energy in your body while both standing and moving. This resets the nervous system and clears all the crap out of your energy body so you can then move on to more active practices. The next set is called Spiraling Energy Body which is symbolized by the Fire element. It teaches the upward flow of energy and attention. Anyone want to talk on these topics, let me know! More info here: http://watertradition.net/events2_12.html Jess O

Hi Djore, For sure, anyone can join in on the training. Obviously the more experience you have the better, but it's open to anyone. Both Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body and Spiraling Energy Body use the exact same physical movements. In the first you learn how to fuse the Dissolving nei gung into each move. In the second you learn to fuse the Spiraling nei gung into each move. The only physical difference is that Energy Gates has 1 standing posture and Spiraling Energy Body has 200 standing postures. Kumar will assign specific standing postures to each person so that they will open specific areas of their body or energy channels. So the Spiraling training is very much individualized, just like the Bend the BOw training where you get specific configurations of the bending that suit the specific needs of your spine. Whereas the other 3 sets are the same for everyone. We haven't yet set the date for our Spiraling class, it will probably be in April or May after Kumar comes to town to teach Bend the Bow in March. Take care, Jess o

Hi all, As someone who as completed the ba gua program that Kumar created, I can offer some perspective here. For one, it's the most detailed and vast self-study program I've ever seen. It's huge and would be years of training if you followed through with it. I suspect that most people who buy it just leave it on the shelf. However, if you really wanted to practice, this could help guide you through many enjoyable sessions. Of course you'll need a teacher in person to get into the depths of it. But this could be a good start for someone diligent. Then later spend time with a teacher questioning and correcting things as you go. Because it sounds like money is a concern, why not just get his book "The Great Stillness". It is a great intro to Kumar's ba gua system, and has plenty to work on. If you like that training, perhaps it's worth going for the bigger thing. Even better, save the dough and spend it going to a live training with one of the masters who teach. If you are inclined to Kumar's system, use the money to go to a seminar and take home a lot of good stuff to train. To me training in person is always the best option. Watching the vids and reading the books is a pale shadow. It can inspire, but the real deal is always in person. As for the walking, you guys are on the right track. The way Kumar teaches it, you push and pull energy up your legs and feet as you walk and it can be a very powerful Chi Kung practice. Over many years I've gone through a lot with it, and in the end have felt it's been great for my legs and a lot of fun. The four part step linear walking he teaches is a great way to rehabilitate knees and connect your mind to your feet. First you start slow to heal, then eventually the circle walking goes very fast. As for spirituality, that's all about blood, sweat and tears. The combat training of Ba Gua requires full contact sparring, but the spiritual training requires that you look deeply into your soul and that's not pretty. I prefer the sparring by a long shot. Ba Gua can be a lot of fun,and the basic circle walking contains many great lessons! Going on to the palm changes gets pretty intense and may not be for everyone. Kumar's system is a good one, but not the only one. My advice is to beg borrow or steal to get anything you can get your hands on!!! Take care, Jess O

In terms of the spine chi gung, that's one of Kumar's favorite topics. One reason being he's had spine injuries and wanted to work toward healing them. Also because that's the center of your nervous system and the spine has to be fully awakened and enlivened to then move on to working with the brain. The first set has Spine Stretch, where you dissolve each vertebrae. The second set teaches you to pull energy up and into each vertebrae, and to spiral the chi between each one. The third set is all about pulsing the space between the vertebrae. The fourth set is called Bend the Bow, Shoot the Arrow and is entirely focused on spine chi gung. At this point you begin to bend the spine in the shape of a "C", stretching the spine from the top of the skull to the tail bone. By now you've strengthened and opened the spine, so you can begin to work on moving each vertebrae, and getting in touch with the movement of the dura and spinal cord. This type of work is not to be trifled with, which is why each previous set builds on the last so you have a solid sense of being able to feel every nuance within your spine. If you try too hard or too soon you can crank it out of whack. The fourth set Bend the Bow is also prescriptive, there are many many hand postures used to connect your arms to your spine and manipulate your spine with the pressure of pumping your arms. If one vertebrae needs to be moved, you'll use a specific posture and pump to being gently moving it to it's more natural position. Eventually you can learn to move each vertebra individually and I've seen and felt people do it with more or less precision. This set can get extremely complex as you move from a general pumping of the spine and associated tissues to insanely precise workings of individual nerve clusters and vertebrae. If the early sets are more like fitness and overall health, this one is more like spine surgery, and requires a comparable level of training if you want to take it to the maximum. It's a deep well of knowledge, that can only be found through your own experimentation and experience. The set gives you the tools to explore, but you can only find the answers through your own efforts, which takes a lot of concentration and care so that you don't hurt yourself by overdoing it. Bend the Bow can be exhausting for this reason. Bend the Bow relates to the Metal element, which emphasizes the Spine and lungs, as this is where Reverse breathing is emphasized along with all the most advances spine training. In terms of Kumar's sources for the sets, the third set Heaven and Earth is a generic chi kung form that he said he'd learned many times from many sources with many different variations. He made his the most basic and simple form, including Macrocosmic and Microcosmic orbit. The outer shape I suspect is a combination of many forms he learned and the inner nei gung work comes from the Taoists in Hong Kong and China he learned from as well as his chi gung tui na training there and in Beijing. Like I said, it's the most generic of the sets and a real combination of influences from all the different training he did. The fourth set is Bend the Bow, and I think a lot of that comes from one of his chi gung tui na teachers in Taiwan, Huang Hsi I, who he profiles in his book. Ultimately he gives credit to his last teacher Liu Hung Chieh as the one who helped him put it all together and went through everything with him start to finish and make it all into one big whole. The final set is Liu's personal set that he learned at a monastery in Sichuan province, called Gods Playing in the Clouds. That's where Liu also learned Taoist circle walking which may be one of the influences that led Dong Hai Chuan to creating Ba Gua Zhang. In Kumar's system, each of the sets also corresponds to the internal martial arts: Opening the Energy Gates emphasizes the softness and relaxed power of Tai Chi. Heaven & Earth teaches the opening and closing, explosive and growing strength of Hsing-I. Gods Playing in the Clouds focuses on the twisting, spiraling, winding movements that support Ba Gua. In the long run all the 16 nei gung skills are direction signs to try and connect to the Central Channel, the deepest of the energy channels that connects to the primordial life giving energy of the cosmos itself. This requires awakening to the "Xin" called the HeartMind in Buddhism and Taoism, the deeper source of all thought and intention before it is formed. These nei gung skills help you get deeper into your body and mind, and eventually they will help trigger awareness of the Xin and you can return to where you began. That's way over my ability at this point but it's a cool concept and worth investigating! Hope you've enjoyed my ramblings! Jess O