Water Method Blog

By Paul Cavel

La version en Français est disponible ici.

My teacher, Taoist Lineage Holder Bruce Frantzis, released a short video on how to strengthen the immune system. He demonstrates three basic exercises to achieve the goal, which received two general responses:

• Primarily positive - fro

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What's Holding You Back?

In this follow-on talk with TTCS Instructor Javi Martinez, we discuss healing with Taoist neigong. Topics include:

- The benefits of training, such as better sleep, increased flexibility and growing a younger body

- Healing physical, energetic, emotional, mental and...

By Paul Cavel

Breathing is one of the most direct and simple ways to gain access to your internal landscape, and encourage a calm, relaxed state in body and mind. The ability to breathe well can dramatically affect your health and well-being—not just because you do it all day, but also because...

This is Part Three of the Water Method series with Mir Ali.

Start with Part One:
• What Defines Water Method Training

In this third video, Mir and I drill down into the question: What is the point of training? We also discuss the training progression as you develop skill with fundamental neigong...

By TTCS Senior Instructor Jackie Smith

When I first saw titles like this one, I thought, “Sign me up for some of that”! Now though, I can’t even remember how long I’ve been  attempting to wrap my brain cell around the concept and training to embody these simple yet profound words. There are in...

I’m pleased to have teamed up with MysticMag to discuss physical and mental well-being in this age of anxiety, depression and chronic pain. I hope you find the post useful: click here to read.

This is Part Two of the Water Method series with Paul Cavel and Mir Ali.

Much of the documentation on Daoism has been destroyed, but the oral tradition has been preserved with the teachings being transmitted from master to student for millennia, to us in the present day.

In this video, Mir and ...

The stress and pressure of life coupled with the constant comparing of ourselves to others creates competition. Only super athletes and the highest of high-performers can operate well under these conditions. It creates a push — in the body, in the mind — which ultimately leads to a glass ceiling,...

By Paul Cavel

In a previous post I offered exercises for opening up the musculoskeletal frame in a coordinated fashion to create space in your body. As you begin to feel a sense of more space, you want to transition your focus from the muscles to the nerves.

In order to target nerve flow, you w...

By Paul Cavel

When learning any internal energy art, such as qigong, tai chi or bagua, there is a major hurdle that must be over­come to create sustainable, long-term training results: feeling instead of visual­ising. I’ve watched how this has become more and more difficult for students over the ...

By Mir Ali, LicAc, MBAcC

I love qigong … so much so that I don’t think I could be a practising acupuncturist without it. Qigong helps me keep healthy, informs my diagnosis, helps my patients keep healthy, helps me treat patients!

When I started learning Shaolin Kung-fu in 1991, I began practi...

By Paul Cavel

Two Methods for Growing Your Life-force Energy

There are two primary methods of moving energy in the body, which can be broadly classified as beginning and advanced phases. Many qigong systems are designed according to the principles of the beginning phase and remain within this re...

In this video, I meet with my friend and fellow Water Method teacher Jason Roberts to discuss how to practise to cultivate qi and manifest the energies of the Five Elements.

We discuss:

• Where to put your focus and strategies for practising the Water Method as it is comprised of five neigong

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Audio from a recording in California, March 2024 on how to make practice effortless with a video of an evening tai chi practice in California, May 2024.

Javi Martinez teaches tai chi and qigong in London

In this talk, I sit down again with Javi Martinez to discuss the three integrated streams of Taoist arts training: health/healing, martial arts and personal/spiritual development. Let us know in the comments which is your path... We can centre future discussions on the levels of practice you wish...

By Paul Cavel

In Part 1, we looked at how Circle Walking is the minimalist’s paradise. Once you have some understanding of and become proficient in Circle Walking, you can progress to the Single Palm Change, the core of both the monastic bagua and bagua zhang taditions.

The Single Palm Cha...

If you really want to be healthy, to feel freer, to become a better human being, you must first create balance. Taoist energy arts have been practised for millennia for these reasons, and many more.

Most popular is qigong (and younger tai chi), but in the Water Method, the focus is on neigong an...

In this video, I discuss bending-and-stretching neigong and lengthening neigong, and how they become one.

Wu wei is often translated literally, based on the Chinese characters. But Water Method practitioners have a much different understanding of the Taoist concept of wu wei. Following the principles of water, it starts with the physical body and goes through the Three Treasures, the Taoist path of a...

 By Paul Cavel

Bagua is a pure energy art derived from Taoist philosophy and the I Ching (Book of Changes). It has been practised for millennia to embody the universal energies of change and, at advanced levels, can become a vehicle for spiritual development.

For more mundane yet meaningful purs...

By Paul Cavel

With my new bagua online course starting today, I’ve had a handful of people who’ve asked about bagua for meditation. I suspect there are more of you out there who might want to train bagua as a form of moving meditation, as classically trained for millennia in the monastic tradition....

Classically Taoist Meditation was done while sitting in the Emperor’s position. In this video, I’ll show you how to sit in a chair (or on a rock!) for meditation.

I’ve trained the monastic bagua tradition (focusing on the Single Palm Change) AND the bagua zhang (martial) tradition — including learning all Eight Bagua Mother Palms — from my teacher, Bagua Master Bruce Frantzis, in private and public tuition since 1994.

Find a Bagua Course

• Courses with m...

 By Paul Cavel

Most internal arts have a specific learning progression, which begins with a set of six or more movements in qigong, and up to 108 moves in tai chi. Then, as you practise the form over weeks, months and years, you sink into your body, mind and qi by adding layers of internal con...