I recently took another look at meetup, and I’m pretty impressed by how much the application has matured and noticed that its user base seems to have grown very quickly in the last year or so.

Of interest to me, I found two Bay Area NLP practice groups; the East Bay NLP Meetup Group and the San Francisco Bay Area Hypnosis and NLP Practice Group. In addition I found a Universal Healing Tao group. Just last night I attended the taoist group and was very impressed.

We did Mantak Chia’s “inner smile” Qi Gong set, and it was very pleasant being in this room with about 12 other people while spending the time to resonate with each of my five elements and their associated organs. I’ve discovered that doing any type of Qi exercise in groups can be very beneficial, because in addition to getting your own mind and body to harmonize, you’ve also got the other participants resonating with your energy, thus amplifying your strength, and improving the overall power and serenity of the result.
Attending this meetup were several students and instructors of Chi Nei Tsang, an abdominal massage system based on Taoist principles and taught by Mantak Chia.

Check out these other Mantak Chia Resources.

Oakland has a couple of great Taoist attractions: The West coast Chi Nei Tsang institute is located here. In addition, Dr. Alex Feng runs the Zhi Dao Guan – The Taoist Center which hosts a free Taoist Meditation class on the last Friday of every month.

If you live in the bay area, I highly recommend expanding your social circle by getting involved in any of the organizations mentioned above.

Bruce Frantzis has produced an excellent introduction to taoist water meditation in the audio set TAO of Letting Go: Meditation For Modern Living
. Water meditation has a lot to do with releasing things which are “stuck” in the body or the mind. Bruce has written a couple of books on this same subject: Relaxing into Your Being: The Water Method of Taoist Meditation, Vol. 1
and The Great Stillness: The Water Method of Taoist Meditation, Vol. 2.

Another Frantzis resource is the Ancient Songs of the TAO: Music of the Spheres
which are ancient taoist liturgies which Bruce himself sings.
He actually has different songs for different parts of the body and different types of emotion.
I find it an unusually trancey experience where I can feel parts of my body resonating with his “overtone” singing.
I really enjoy getting into a nice open state while playing one of these songs while doing an afternoon round of tai-chi.

It was serendipitous to find the The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin in a library recently.

This guy is phenomenal, first he was a childhood national chess champion, and then he learned tai-chi well enough to win the world title (twice) in international push hands tournaments.

I found this book to be very inspirational. It rang a bell with both my NLP (how do I learn?) and Taoist (how do I get good at Push Hands?) interests.

If you’d like a preview, check out this youtube video.

Well, it’s been a while, but I have not been standing still.

Since my last post, I’ve created a new morning ritual (These things should change depending on your need, don’t stagnate). I listen to an hour of holosync www.centerpointe.com while practicing Tai-chi Sword, Tai-chi open hand, Qi Gong and standing meditation. I try to do this 6 days a week (whenever possible) every morning at 6am.

This has been great! My Tai Chi has improved so much! my ability to percieve my surroundings has also expanded greatly. I now have a dedicated hour of practice and meditative activity every morning, and I don’t need to set any alarms, the one hour holosync session does my timing for me!

In Tai-chi practice there is this skill called “push hands“. Basically you and a partner remain in contact with each other while each player alternately pushes towards your partners center. The practice is to absorb the push and/or redirect the push in useful ways.

Push hands is based on the sequence: listening, following, interrupting, and redirecting.

The primary skill in push hands is listening. This isn’t listening with your ears, it is listening with your body. This is a skill is built from many weeks of practice. To succeed at listening you must quiet your own mind, and be open to feel (listen) to whatever your partner is doing. If you do this successfully you can track your partner 100% and you will always know how they are applying force, and where their center is.

By listening well, you enable following. This is the gentle matching of your force with your partner’s, ideally, if following is done well, your partner will not even be aware that you are doing anything at all. They will continue to move with the illusion that they are in total control.

Once you are listening to, and following your partner closely, you can then choose an appropriate moment to interrupt your partner’s pattern of movement. The goal is to use as little force as possible to redirect what they are doing, and lead them into a new and unexpected direction. The more force your partner is using, the more force you are able to reflect back onto them in your response.

The interruption and its follow through effectively redirect your partners pattern, moving them into one of your choosing. Once you have them in your own pattern, it is easy to bounce, trap or throw them into a nearby painful object.

In push hands this process is practiced many times, until it becomes instinctive for the practitioner.

In NLP, a short therapy may be conducted in a similar manner:

Once again the sequence is: listening, following, interrupting, and redirecting.

You listen to your partner by quieting your mind, and keeping it open to what your partner is doing. Instead of listening for a physical center, you are looking to understand their map of the world, and working to identify their existing behavioral pattern and their desired outcome. In essence you are looking for their emotional center.

You then follow their actions by subtle Mirroring and by using their vocabulary, gestures, and map of the world. This increases their trust in you and builds general rapport.

Once you identify a pattern you wish to change you wait until you see it, then you interrupt it. This can be done through some sudden shock to their system, for instance, a loud noise, or a unexpected gesture. The interruption should momentarily cause your partners pattern to be broken.

Before the old pattern is re-initialized, you have the opportunity to create a new pattern by redirecting your parner to a new behavior at this point.

Rinse and repeat, always replacing the old pattern with the new.

There is a common thread between these two activities, I find it fascinating!

I’ve taken a qigong course with Arnold Tayam (Highly Recommended) recently. And I’ve been studying Tai-chi for many years. One of the primary precepts of both is that:

The Imagination leads the mind, and the mind leads the Qi

That makes imagination the root skill of both!
Both also encourage a kind of “trance state” where you remove the mental noise of the day and focus on just what you are doing now.After continued practice you will be able to “feel” the Qi flowing along the same path where you only “imagined” it earlier.

In self hypnosis, it is also common to “imagine” or “visualize” a positive outcome while in a trance state. This trains your subconscious and “retrains” your brain accordingly. By repeating this visualization with belief and intensity, you prepare yourself to allow the desireable outcome to occur.

Very similar underneath, don’t you think? I guess it’s not too suprising, since our brains seem to be hard-wired for it internally.