Bruce Kumar Frantzis

In Tai Chi: Health for Life Bruce Frantzis gives several compelling reasons to do Tai Chi practice no matter your age. Most of the 200 million practitioners happen to be in China, but that isn't really important. The health benefits of doing Tai Chi are numerous and somewhat well documented in the Western Medical tradition.

This book mostly lists why you should do Tai Chi, it doesn't really have that many movements or postures. There are a few of them in there, but they are mostly scattered show more throughout as a visual aid. Then again with Tai Chi, the best thing to do is to practice rather than read about it. In this way, the book does offer suggestions for what you should be looking for in different styles (there are five major ones) and teachers.

Since Tai Chi practice is really deep, it does make sense that one book can't convey all of the information on the subject. Thankfully nowadays there are ways to find things through the magic of the Internet. show less

the 7 movement consist mainly of more basic motions found in the lohan skills, 8 brocades, and tendon changing

there is some merit to frantzis' minute level of explanatory detail for pedagogical purposes, but not much else

For millennia, billions of people have harnessed the power of chi to become incredibly healthy, relieve pain and anxiety, sleep better, reverse the effects of aging, recapture the spontaineity of youth and reclaim genuine joy and happiness. You can do the seme. In this poineering book, Taoist lineage Master Bruce Frantzis shares once closely guarded and ancient secrets ofchi as the power behind:

Spirituality, prayer and meditation.
Acupuncture and potent self-healing methods such as chi gung show more and taoist yoga.
Enhances sexual vitality and intimate relationships.
Internal martial arts, such as tai chi.
Divination methods of the I Ching.

The Chi Revolution challenges you to free yourself from negative emotions and the incessant chatter of your monkey mind, and optimize your health and well-being. The unique energetic exercises that comprise the Chi Rev Workout will teach you how to activate and strengthen your chi so you can start relaxing into your life today.

Bruce Frantzis is a Linage Holder in Taoist energy arts. He studied healing, martial arts and meditation with renowned teachers in Asia for 16 years-including more than a decade in China. Since 1987, Frantzis has taught chi gung, martial arts, TOA yoga, TAO meditation, and energetic-healing therapies to over 15,000 students in the United states and Europe. Frantzis is the author of several widely praised books about the power of chi including: Tai Chi: Health for Life; the chi gung book, Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body; and two volumes on TAO meditation.

Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Angela Hicks
Section One The power of chi to transform your life
Chapter 1 Awakening your life-force energy
Chapter 2 Creating your inner revolution
Chapter 3 Making your body conscious
Chapter 4 Self-healing with chi
Chapter 5 Overcoming your angels and demons
Chapter 6 Twelve myths of health and fitness
Chapter 7 Energetic fitnes: A new paradigm for longevity
Section Two Diving inward and beyond
Chapter 8 The chi in tai chi and chi gung
Chapter 9 The secret power of internal martial arts
Chapter 10 TAO yoga and the man in the suitcase
Chapter 11 The TAO of sex
Chapter 12 Exploring your inner world with prayer and meditation
Chapter 13 The I Ching: The mother lode of the chi revolution
Chapter 14 The law of return: Accessing your karma with chi
Section Three The chi rev workout
Chapter 15 Five energy exrcises for life
Chapter 16 Longevity breathing
Chapter 17 Chi scanning
Chapter 18 Chi balancing
Chapter 19 Heart opening
Chapter 20 Freeing trapped chi
Chapter 21 Nothing left to do but to do it
Appendix
Taoism: A living tradition
The Frantzis energy arts system
The living taoism collection
Bibliography show less

from cover

In Opening the Energy Gates of our Body, Bruce Kumar Frantzis introduced a huge audience to a potent method of Chi Gung the ancient Taoist art that has revitalized generations of Chinese and is attracting many practitioners worldwide.

Now, Frantzis gives us, in two accessible volumes, the theory and practice of the Water method of Taoist meditation. Frantzis' tradition was originally passed down from teacher to disciple in an unbroken lineage through the Taoist sage Lui Hung Chieh show more to the author.

Relaxing Into Your Being explains the Water Method with its complete internal energy system, and teaches how to slow your breath, use more lung capacity, massage your internal organs, and develop meditative awareness. Frantzis provides tools, unique to the Water Method, to reduce stress and help maintain optimal health in today's fast-paced computer age.

'B. K. Frantzis's insight into the heart of these ancient meditation techniques can make the understanding of these precious teachings easily accessible to the mind of the Western seeker.'-Namkhai Norbu, Tibetan Dzogchen Master and retired professor, Oriental Institute of the University of Naples, Italy; author of the Crystal and The Way of Light

'B. K. Frantzis' style of teaching demytifies ancient Chinese Taoist arts that have rarely, if ever, been tought in the West.'-Elizabeth Witney, Yoga Journal

'This is an important work. the author obvioiusly has studied intensely for many years and brings that experience and knowledge to bear on his subject.'-Solala Towler, editor, The Empty Vessel

'The practices in Relaxing Into Your Being and The Great Stillness are offered to us like pearls along a necklace. It's the closest a book can get to the original oral tradition.'-Cindy Banker, Shiatsu therapist, founding president of the American Shiatsu Association.

Contents

Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1. Connecting with Chi
The Taoist Tradition
About the word Chi
Focus on Practice: How to tell teh difference between feeling phsical sensations and feeling chi
What is Taoist meditation?
Focus on Practice: Taoist internal brating Lesson 1: feeling the breath
Who are teh Taoists?
The way of Liu: My teacher, the Master Liu Hung Chieh
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing, Lesson 2
Chapter 2. Taoism in Perspective
Taoists of teh Right and Left
The Eight Bodies
Focus on Practice: Taoist internal breating, Lesson 3
Focus on a special topic: The sixteen-part Nei Gung System
The three treasures and emptiness
Focus on a special topic: Jing (Body), Chi (Energy), Shen (Spirit)
Chapter 3. Water and Fire: Two methods of meditation
The water method: an orientation
The dissolving practice: initial descriptions
Two kinds of dissolving
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing, Lesson 4
Chapter 3. Water and Fire: Two methods of meditation (continued)
The Fire method: an rientation
The way of Liu: Addiction to psychic power: The traps
The Fire and Water methods compared
Focus on practice: Taoist internal brating, Lesson 5: Breathing techniques to increase conscius awareness
Focus on a special topic: The fiv elements: Reeconnecting with yourself
The way of Liu: teacher of Two traditions
Fire and water cycles over a ifetime
Chapter 4. The Teacher-student relationship in the Fire and Water approaches
Mind-to-mind transmission
The Teacher-student relatinship in the Fire tradition
Focus on a special topic: REcognizing the problems of cults for both teachers and students
The teacher-student relationship in the Water tradition
The way of Liu: The decision to teach
How a student should relate to a tacher/adept in Taoism
The way of Liu: A teacher-student relationship
Dangers inherent i all manipulative cults
How a genuine spiritual teacher helps an aspirinng student
The importance of respect and integrity in the teacher-student relationship
Focus on practice: Taoist internal brathing, Lesson 6
Not all meditation experiences mean that someting is afoot
Correcting bad spiritual habits and instilling good ones
Chapter 5. Taoist meditation: an overview
The way of Liu: Liu explains the process of meditation
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing, Lesson 7
Focus on practice: Taoist Internal breathing, Lesson 8
Tha standing mode of Taoist practice
Chapter 5. Taoist meditation: an overview (continued)
Standing meditation exercise
What is in the mindstream
Chapter 6. The Taoist Preparatory Practices: An Overview
A word about Taoist yoga
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing, Lesson 9
The way of LIu: The story of Hui Neng
The moving mode of Taoist practice
Moving meditation with feet fixed in place, body moving
Focus on a special topic: from movement comes stillness,and from stilness comes movement: the relatinship between chi and emptiness
Moving, balance, and meditation
How to stay in the mindstream while you are moving
summary
Chapter 7. The intermediate Stage of practice: Meditation and stillness
the road to emotional maturity
Pre-birth consideratins: resolving birth traumas and dissolving blockages from DNA to birth
Focus on a spedial topic:
Can Taoist meditation replace psychotherapy?
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing, Lesson 10: Lower back breating
Post-birth considerations: exorcising ghosts
Focus on a special topic: Releasing internal demons: 'my back will never recover'
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing Lesson 11: upper back breathing
Emotional maturity from te Taoist view
Being unattached does not mean being incapable of action
Focus on practice: Taoist internal breathing, Lesson 12: breathing energy into the tantien
Chapter 8. The Deeper challenges of Taoist meditation
The center of your awareness: Hsin, or heart-mind
Ru Ding: Rear of teh daeth of the ego
The way of Liu: The horror of theloss of ther ego
The way of Liu: ferocity of the ego
The next level: manifestatin
The way of Liu: The root of the mind
Appendix A: Frequently asked questions about Taoist meditation
Appendix B: Energy anatomy of the human body
The main energy channels and the three tantiens show less