Ace

I definitely agree that I need face to face with alive teacher. Locally, I was going to start with a Wu Taijiquan teacher. The idea behind gathering material from other sources that I was asking about was to "overlay" that material over what I'd be learning locally and hopefully deepen my practice.

I appreciate the feedback, Snowmonki (and others as well). Do you have some examples of teachers/lineages "that are respected by their peers" that you'd be willing to share?

I echo these thoughts. I'd like to see if there's anyone that has actually developed anything from these Mastery programs (the Bagua, i suppose as the Tai Chi program is not out yet). I've gotten some mixed reviews on the value of Frantzis' material. My original thought was to train in Taijiqua/Bagauazhang or Xingyiquan locally and use one or more of these Mastery programs to deepen my practice, but I don't know how valid that idea might be. From what I've seen, Ricahrd Clear seems to have some very good distance trainng material and I'm looking at that as well. I have also run across Yuanming Zhang's system. Does anyone have some real expereince with any of the above? I think one of the things I'm looking fro is not only "proof" that the teacher or system has "the goods" but that they are able to trnsmit/teach "the goods" to the student.

Hello All, My name is Marcus & I'm in the SouthWestern USA (Texas). I joined here because of my interest in all aspects of Taoist studies and I'm hoping I can get soem good feedback & lively conversations!

Thanks for the link, MithShrike. I believe I've come across this school in my local searches, but I'll give it a deeper look. Thanks for replying. Anyone else have suggestions/opinions?