Neigong and Tai Chi

Although some forms of qigong/chi gung/chi kung start working with chi purely at the energetic level with minimal physical work, this is not so for tai chi. The foundation of energy work in tai chi/taiji is working the body, jing, the physical. Even though your emphasis may be on chi/qi, the physical work of tai chi/taiji must be accomplished. Comments like "just feel the energy flow within you" are normally insufficient to develop chi. Students must learn the physical movements and body alignments for tai chi/taiji to produce its energetic benefits.

Intermediate Practice

At intermediate and advanced stages, students are introduced to all the possibilities of how chi/qi works. The fullness of this level of tai chi/taiji is generally only known or taught by martial tai chi/taiji masters. Push Handsⁱ, traditional weapons, and all of tai chi's martial arts skills are usually the medium by which the overwhelming majority of genuine masters teach tai chi's complete chi/qi methods.

Specific details and aspects of all 16 neigong/nei gungⁱ/nei kung (components of internal power) are taught. Mastering them is crucial to obtaining success in the highest worldly possibilities tai chi/taiji has to offer such as health, stress relief, longevity, or developing tremendous high-performance physical skills and internal power.

Standing postures and sitting techniques may be used extensively at this stage of practice.

Developing Your Internal Power

Progressively, your awareness focuses on different invisible places inside your body. These spots then generate the fundamental impulses to move the muscles of your hand or waist. The progression might move from stretching the insertion points of various muscles, to activating specific energy channels, to expanding the fluids inside your joints, or any of the other internal techniques contained within the Taoist 16-part neigong/nei gung/nei kung system. With increasing awareness, familiarity, and experience, you begin to consciously understand how moving and affecting the deep insides of your body can create your external movements. In tai chi this is called "the inner moves the outer." Gradually, the mental and energetic abilities necessary to support your inner journey through tai chi/taiji are created.

An essential part of recognizing and releasing the buzz inside your nervous system is to release any stagnant chi. This may happen naturally as your tai chi/taiji improves or because you learn to apply various techniques from the 16-part neigong/nei gung/nei kung system to specifically address stagnant chi issues.

Neigong/Nei gung/Nei kung methods within tai chi/taiji that resolve stagnant chi situations include:

• Getting the balance right between sinking your chi to the lower tantien and raising chi to the top of your head
• Clearing stagnant energy from the central, left, right or other channels of your body
• Working with various openings/closings so that when you are pulsing between opening/closing you don't get stuck on either end of the pulse

To obtain optimum performance, you will need to learn and embody the 16-part neigong/nei gung/nei kung system in greater depth for two basic reasons. First, to maximize the amount of exercise, chi flow and power each minute of your practice time will generate. Second, to prevent unnecessary injuries, which reduce your ability to train and use up valuable time in recovery. At the most extreme level, injuries could compromise your abilities for life, as often happens to competitive athletes who get so damaged that they must retire and suffer lifelong pain.

Finding a Teacher

Although some teachers may introduce some chi/qi principles in beginning classes, chi development occurs most strongly in intermediate and advanced classes-taught by teachers trained in the 16 neigong/nei gung/nei kung. The better ones have been trained to teach students to progress according to their individual developmental needs, as have Bruce's instructors.

If you want to learn chi development, you need to ask teachers if they know and are willing to teach it to you.  Before working with more advanced methods that can strongly develop your chi, you first need a strong foundation in tai chi's basics.