MENLO COLLEGE

Menlo College is nestled amid the quiet streets of Atherton, California, bounded to the west by coastal hills and the east by bay waters. It is about 20 miles away from both the San Francisco and San Jose International Airports. Menlo College offers a diverse selection of amenities including a lush green, redwood grove, recreational and game-room facilities, library, computer lab, pool and meditation hall.

Accommodations

Menlo College’s residence halls are situated around a picturesque courtyard. Onsite students can choose either a single or double occupancy dormitory-style room. There are six deluxe rooms with double beds and private bathrooms available—while they last.

Dining

The cafeteria at Menlo College provides three meals per day with a variety of menu choices for onsite students. The day rate for offsite students includes lunch. Both a meat and a vegetarian entree are offered at lunch and dinner including salad and sandwich bars as well as dessert. There is a wide selection of hot and cold beverages. No special requests are accepted; however, organic produce and vegetables, natural beef and low-sugar, high-protein selections will be available. Several stores selling health food are nearby including Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.

Note: Please do not call Menlo College with accommodation inquiries.

Ba Gua and Tai Chi as TAO Meditation

July 6-12

Bruce will teach the Moving meditation practices passed down from his teacher, Taoist Lineage Master, Liu Hung Chieh. Liu learned Lao Tse's Water method of meditation with Taoist masters during ten years of concentrated study in the mountains of Western China. Before this he was a major disciple of Martial Arts lineages of both Wu Style tai chi Chuan and Ba Gua Chang.

Beginners who have not learned a ba gua or tai chi form will be taught the basic ba gua circle walking technique, so that they can fully benefit from this meditation practice. Through Taoist meditation you can clear chi blockages and sharpen your intuition. You can apply these
techniques, for example, in self-healing and Chi Gung Tui na.

Bruce will teach two groups at once, switching between a beginning and a more advanced group. Possible topics to be covered: motion of the mind; Heart-Mind; healing your body and maintaining health; relaxation and inner peace; Taoist Breathing and opening the body's energy channels; inner chi flow techniques; accessing, removing and calming emotional, mental and psychic blocks to free the deeper parts of yourself; understanding stillness; and, Inner Dissolving techniques to convert chi into shen (spirit) and into stillness and Emptiness.

Possible tai chi topics to be covered:

• Ways in which the meditation method within Single Whip and the release of Fa jin is done to create and maintain a stage of deep silence within the Heart-Mind-when the energies of yin and yang either separate or combine.
• Working with the lower and middle tantiens and stilling the spine.

Ba gua has been practiced as a moving meditation method in Taoist monasteries for over 4,000 years. Bruce will discuss the history, theory, and basic principles of ba gua as a meditation art, including its relation to the I Ching, China's Book of Changes. Depending upon which group you are in, teachings will emphasize:

• The basic form; you slowly and consciously walk in a circle, and occasionally change direction using simple, careful movements. This walking helps develop better balance, heightens energy, and focuses and quiets the mind.
• Advanced techniques in which you very rapidly walk the circle, frequently changing direction using complex movements, and seek to feel the one place in and outside you where there is stillness and emptiness on the way to the TAO.
• Understanding and experiencing your relationship to the earth, the unseen world and the stars.

Prerequisites: Group 1-None; Group 2-Knowledge of ba gua circle walking or a tai chi form, and Taoist meditation.

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Openings and Closing in Martial Forms and TAO Meditation

July 13-19

Like breathing, opening/closing lies at the heart of all chi practices for making the body healthy, flexible and strong. Opening means to expand, closing to gather in and condense. Tai chi masters say that without opening and closing there is no tai chi. The methods of opening and closing begin in the joints, then expand to the whole body including the muscles, ligaments and internal organs. You will learn how to use openings and closings to move chi through your body and use chi to:

• Smooth your emotions
• Remove tension and stress from your mind
• Generate physical power and apply it to your personal area of interest, whether it is meditation, Internal martial arts or Chi gung tui na.

Bruce will teach this course moving between two groups:

Group 1 will learn basic openings/closings and how to apply them to areas of personal interest, such as for martial forms, fa jin, physical health, power generation or chi gung tui na. In terms of chi gung tui na training, those who first learn to do opening and closing within their own body, normally progress much faster than those who do not. This course will also complement the teachings of the previous week's meditation retreat by helping to develop your intuition.

Group 2 will be for those who wish to study and develop openings/closings within ba gua or tai chi as meditation. Major subjects Bruce hopes to address will be how to develop continuous awareness, the ability to change and stillness. Filling in gaps is essential in the internal martial arts as any gap of consciousness-whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual-could weaken chi flow, rendering the fighter defenseless even if only for a second. Equally, gapping out in chi gung tui na can significantly reduce your therapeutic effect.

Prerequisites:

Group 1-None, but knowledge of Nei gung would be very helpful;

Group 2-Knowledgeof nei gung openings and closings, an internal martial arts form-ba gua, tai chi or Hsing-I, and preferably Taoist meditation.

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Chi Gung Tui Na: Energy Bodywork

July 20-26

Bruce rarely teaches chi gung tui na. In China, he studied it for over a decade including clinical experience with thousands of patients. He will teach what he feels will most practically benefit the participants, given their energetic capacities and specific needs.

Chi gung tui na combines knowledge of chi healing with hands-on Chinese bodywork. It makes your hands extremely sensitive and enables your intuitive techniques to become increasingly precise. It has many energetic techniques rarely taught in the West, as well as unique variations of what is found in other healing practices. This course is particularly useful for therapists of all backgrounds and the techniques can be integrated into any kind of bodywork.

If you would like to use chi to heal, this course will give you clear methods for doing so. In the hands-on healing methods of chi gung tui na, the practitioner directly moves energy in and out of the person being worked on, fluidly moving between physical and purely energetic techniques. This course will introduce you to the concepts underlying chi gung tui na, demystify energetic healing methods and show you how to do specific hands-on healing techniques.

Potential topics include: hands-on techniques to induce and balance energetic pulsing within the body's energetic points, centers, internal organs, joints, cavities and glands, and thread the energy which connects them; methods to release energetic blockages within the body's spiraling pathways; more in-depth explanation and advanced techniques for those who have experience in the Frantzis Energy Arts system; recognizing if you or another therapist is undergoing excessive energetic strain; and releasing negative chi you may have absorbed from your clients.

Prerequisites: None, although the more knowledge of chi practices you have the more you will gainfrom this training. We especially encourage you to attend the Opening and Closing retreat that this course follows.

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SUMMER RETREAT COURSE FEES & POLICIES

Onsite fees include the 6-day course, three meals daily and accommodations. Offsite fee includes course plus lunch. See payment terms below. Bruce Frantzis will teach for four hours a day. His Senior Instructors will teach for an additional 2 hours a day, answering questions and providing more personalized training.

                                           Pay by June 6, 2008            Pay after June 6, 2008 

Offsite course w/lunch                             $1175                                $1325

Double Occ. w/twin beds                         $1550                                $1700

Small Single  w/twin bed                          $1645                                $1795

Large Single w/twin bed                          $1695                                $1845

VIP room w/bath (6 available)                 $1775                                $1925

Sign up for 2 courses:                              $-100 discount                    $ No discount

Sign up for all 3 courses:                          $-200 discount                    $ No discount

Nonrefundable deposit due May 1, 2008 

Energy Arts Certified Instructors with current certifications are eligible for a 10% discount on fees(the multiple course discounts cannot be applied on top of this discount). Please call to check the availabilty of large singles and VIP rooms

Payment Policy

Your reservation for each retreat is held with a nonrefundable, nontransferable deposit of $375. The balance is due by and nonrefundable as of May 1, 2008 after which date no refunds will be issued. If you cancel before May 1, all payments except the deposit will be refunded. In special circumstances, course changes may be permitted for an additional $50 administration fee per course. If you have not paid in full before June 6, 2008, there will no longer be discounts for signing up for multiple courses and rates will increase as listed above.