Thank you: all those who attend the First Baguazhang Dreaming Workshop. I appreciate your support and the powerful roles each of you played in capturing your dreams. Let me tell you a few things.
I typically prefer teaching specifc and peculiar details about form or about partner drills or about proper anatomical movements. I can tell when people get it and understand it. I cannot tell what you dream. Dreams defy specific teachings. And teaching people to unite with their dreams, in their own, personal way is beyond the scope (so far) of being me. So the latest workshop was a challenge.
I set up opportunities. I gently directed attention. I kept lessons brief and made space for inner exploration. The deep secret: put pressure on normal living expectations, in this case pressure was on sleeping.
The Starry Night
We contorted sleep while moving in a Baguazhang way around real, live blazing fires in the middle of the starry night. And I wondered often: how is it working for him, for her, for him, for her, for him?
In the First Dreaming Circles Workshop, practitioners got a mellow taste of proper Baguazhang and drank deeply of Earth Palms in the starry night. We started right at 10pm and rode a wave of sleepiness through 7am. In five teaching episodes, spaced by 45 minutes of sleep, people practiced:
Read Teaching Abstractions»
Through the evening of January 31-February 1, Near Goblin Valley, Utah:
Imbolc Baguazhang Dreaming Circles 2009
It was great. Look for the next Dream Circle in May.
Explore inner realms and celebrate transformation using Baguazhang palm changing, poetry, and dream cycling. This Baguazhang Dreaming Circles Workshop coincides closely with several holidays worldwide—Imbloc, Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, American Ground-Hog Day, Setsubun, and Lichun—suggesting that this poetic time of year means
Brigid's Cross
- returning of warmth and wisdom
- increasing light
- inner growth
- new beginnings
Using a fusion of Baguazhang circle walking, Baguazhang partner-training drills, circular-free writing, and brief wake-sleep periods, participants explore inner realms and personal development, while enhancing dream visions and dream states.
Participants are welcome to spend a longer time at the camp. The intensive Baguazhang Dreaming Circles Workshop encompasses one entire evening. By switching, in 45 minute intervals, between artistic activities and sleep-dreaming, we provoke profound states that deepen our consciousness of being-awake and dreaming-awake. Situated in Goblin Valley Area, magestic mountains, chilly nighttime temperatures, and dreamy starry skies accompany practitioners on their inward journey. Please bring these things…
- a sleeping bag rated for at least -20° Fahrenheit
- an 8×10 tarpaulin
- writing tools and an artist’s sketch-pad or notepad
- some healthy snacks
- one gallon of water
- one open mind
Read Dreaming Circles Workshop»
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Photo by Malene Thyssen
Baguazhang, solemn sister of Tai Chi Chuan, is well known among internal artists. While she’s whispered about by Tai Chi practitioners and envied by Xingyi-ists, the diversity of her changing palms wraps a serious face around practitioners.
We take our practice seriously, almost religiously, certainly ceremoniously, circling deliberately the center of something. We walk around trees. We slip circles in mud. We step around and around posts and poles, bushes and barrels, and we saunter ‘round and ‘round on circles we find or circles we make on the floor, on the ground, or in the Earth.
We try to act humbly. But we’re so self-centered. Who else stares at themselves so much, so often, with such intensity? We gaze at our palms. We stare at our hands. We look right into those metacarpals, our eyes wisting and wondering right into our center(s). It’s so serious, self-centered circling.
She’s so deadly—Baguazhang with her rising, writhing, falling, coiling, drilling, screwing, turning, twisting—she’s very hot. Consistent play with power and passion turns Qi over into Jing! We learn Dim-Mak and Fa-Jing and we slip past, around, and behind opponents while attacking with multiple deadly blows. Our deadly practice with deadly seriousness provokes grace and beauty. The freedom of grace and power of beauty emboldens passionate practice: quaking Qigong sessions and round after round of form work, circle walking, and palm changing.
It is serious—sometimes too serious.
Read 8: Deadly Serious Reasons To Laugh»
A exciting and humorous taste of what you might expect from Baguazhang…
Read Bagua Flavor»