Bruce’s Teaching Style

by | Apr 14, 2010 | Teaching Tai Chi, Bruce's Picks

The best way to study Energy Arts programs is to attend a retreat or workshop, or take a class with one of my Certified Instructors. I personally certified all Energy Arts Instructors, passing down the Taoist methodology for teaching students the easiest and most effective ways to learn movements and continuously advance their practice. Most events are open to all levels of study—from beginners to advanced practitioners.  I often teach at least two groups within each teaching to ensure the material is clear and offers a systematic progression for advancement, regardless of students’ current level.

The core focus of my live teachings is to help students feel chi inside their body, find out where it is blocked and release these tensions—in body, mind and spirit—so they are free to live more fulfilling lives. —Bruce Frantzis

Learning Qigong from Bruce

Energy Arts offers the rare opportunity to study with a Westerner who is both a Taoist master and Lineage holder in Taoist energy arts. During his 10 years studying in China with renowned chi (qi) masters, Bruce followed the Taoist path of warrior/healer/priest. He is widely believed to be the first Westerner to be awarded authentic lineages in qigong, bagua, tai chi, hsing-i and Taoist meditation.

Bruce’s comprehensive study of healing, meditation, and martial arts, combined with his knowledge of Western and Eastern cultures, translates into teachings that can dramatically decrease the time it takes to learn and absorb the material.

Bruce says that the time for secrets has passed and therefore, allows students to ask reasonable questions and offers in-depth explanations that were not so easy to come by in his own training.

To fully appreciate the value of training with a master, we invite you to come to Bruce’s events with an open heart and an open mind. Much of what happens in a master’s teaching occurs at many layers of awareness, from the superficial all the way to the profound.

Bruce’s Teaching Style—What to Expect

Since Bruce’s return from China and the East, it has been clear to him that most Westerners have certain preconceptions about what they want from a path and a teacher. For people with this mindset, separating the teacher from the teaching presents a big challenge. The way that he teaches comes from the heart of Taoism, from its essence, without any cultural trappings or pre-conceptions of any kind.

The only way you can develop the full potential of chi inside yourself is through direct experience and practice. — Bruce Frantzis

Bruce’s I Ching Energy: Thunder

The nature of thunder is to shake everything up until it shakes loose. Bruce’s emphasis is on substance, not style. Taoism is beyond costumes, beyond East and West, beyond past or future. For Bruce, it is about living life authentically— right now.

In fact, there are two polarities of teaching in Bruce’s tradition: the first is represented by Lao Tse, the subdued, sagacious and terse elder, which Bruce’s teacher Liu embodied; the second is that of Chuang Tzu, who represented crazy wisdom, wild, raw and uncensored with nontraditional teaching methods, which Bruce himself embodies.

Bruce’s objective is to facilitate your emergence as an independent, fully-actualized human being. Thunder energy is unconcerned about why events are taking place and is much more directed to awakening life force, letting go of the past, and not worrying about that which is yet to come.

Taoists classically used both money and sex as metaphors for physical, emotional, and spiritual development. If you find this direct approach offensive, stick to Bruce’s multimedia educational materials!

Bruce’s objective is to get people comfortable with themselves. This might entail cutting to the chase and shaking them up a little if he feels like that’s what is needed.

Foundation Building, Chi and Safety

Some students come to study with Bruce already knowing a form. However, external movements alone cannot make you energetically fit. Bruce teaches the internals that drive the external form and creates a foundation for dramatic health benefits.

Bruce is the only known master trained in China teaching the comprehensive knowledge of the neigong (neijia quan) with the ability to systematically and safely teach it. The emphasis in all Energy Arts programs is on learning to feel, develop, and move chi, in order to develop a healthy body/mind/spirit that is free of energetic blockages.

Mind-to-Mind Transmissions

Direct transmissions are the heart and soul of spiritual bagua, tai chi and Taoist meditation.  They are also found within other genuine spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. These methods of direct transmission form a living link between the generations, which is why they are called “living traditions.”

The purpose is to energetically and directly communicate the reality of what is being taught in a totally non-verbal fashion rather than only hinting at it in words, or showing the outer surface of a physical movement.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get it immediately; if not, the seeds are sown within and if you practice, these seeds will manifest when your Heart-Mind has grown sufficiently.

Without the critical component of transmissions, the intellectual information relating to the methodology of these spiritual traditions never reaches its full potential. Thinking only, keeps concepts as abstract thought-forms. You may know that water exists and can relieve your thirst, but this is not the same as quenching your thirst with a drink.

In a similar manner, activating the Heart-Mind through practice of a bagua or tai chi is incomplete without experiencing—from the depth of your being—what this process inspires inside of you personally. These transmissions form internal landmarks so that students can then manifest those qualities by themselves through step-by-step work.

The necessity of direct transmission is the reason serious students are so concerned with lineages; who taught whom, who studied with whom; who taught what to which student. Lineages reveal when a clear transmission was given and verified by the teacher as having been authentically accepted and manifested in the student.

Traditionally, lineages would protect the integrity of the teachings, at least to some degree, by preventing those lacking genuine training from falsely making claims about their capacities. Without a good teacher, the transmission will be poor and this multifaceted living force of mind and chi is at risk of being diluted from generation to generation.

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