Combining Arts

[surfingbudda]

What do you guys feel about combining different arts? I asked my wild goose qigong teacher if one could create a routine by combining different aspects from different styles of qigong. She said that its all fine to do that in the beginning, but eventually if someone want to ever progress they should find a style and stick with it only. I feel really drawn to wild goose qigong and probably will make it my life's work to get as far into the system as I can; there are 72 levels of it so that should keep me occupied . However, I also feel drawn to other forms of internal work, such as Bagua Zhang, and Bruce Frantzis's taoist breathing. I have also heard that different forms of energy work move your chi in different ways so practicing different many kinds of qigong can be harmful to the energy body. Is there any truth to this?

Since Bagua Zhang is a martial art and BKF's breath work isn't his system but a way to naturally increase breath; do you guys think it would be fine to make Wild Goose Qigong my core practice, and use it to supplement my bagua training, while learning to increase my breath through BKF's method? It would probably be fine, however I don't exactly want to mess up my energy body. In any event, this is looking way down the road. For now I will just have fun working with Wild Goose, then I will think about adding to my practice. I am just curious as to everyone's opinion on combining arts, do you guys commonly add interesting aspects of other styles to your own qigong routines?

[Sloppy Zhang]

Well, if you've got an experienced teacher, who is also sensitive to energy or familiar with other systems, try asking them specifically about another system you are into, and if it will mesh. If you ask a general question about combining systems, you will get the general answer that sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's not!

 

For me, a guy practicing on his own, I gotta feel it out. Frantzis' published material is my base that I work with. My core practice routine. Anything else I do either meshes well with that, or I don't practice it. In the past, exploring other systems sounded like they'd go together in theory, but in application I felt my body was starting to go out of whack. So I dropped the practice immediately, and resumed with my usual practices for about two weeks, then tried again. I'd repeat that process about three times, then drop the system.

 

Usually stuff I do that isn't strictly Frantzis' material is stuff that is natural that I've been doing my whole life, or things that arose spontaneously during practice, or things that have meshed pretty much instantly as soon as I picked them up.

 

To be honest though, the kind of stuff that will mesh, for me, anyway, is few and far between. Frantzis' methods are pretty unique for me, as are their feel (again, for me). It's water method, but even it doesn't always blend well (for me) with other water method practices, even if the theory is the same. I can learn a lot about myself and the way I'm doing things by looking into other systems, and talking with their practitioners, but doing their practice just doesn't yield the same result (for me).

 

But the thing is, most well developed, complete systems have their own ways of doing things that other systems do. There's really no need to mix systems if you are working with a complete system. If you have an incomplete system, or incomplete knowledge, studying another system can teach you what you don't know. If you're a beginner, or even just want another perspective, another system can give it to you. However, with a full system, combining arts probably isn't necessary.

 

I'm not familiar with wild goose qigong, so I dunno how full of a system it is, even in theory.

 

So feel it out!