All information© found on the following pages has been written and contributed by Sutapadas. All the Artwork© and photos© have been provided by Sutapadas. Sutapadas is a Martial and Energy Arts Practitioner and lives in St Ives, Cornwall. UK, where he teaches these skills. Should you wish to question, query or give general feedback then members can post a message to him on the General Message Board.   Any non-members who are just browsing this site and this particular material may, if they have any questions or queries, contact Sutapadas at his e-mail address:- mahdava@msncom  This also applies to any members who may wish to contact Sutapadas directly. Sutapadas wishes for these words of credit and acknowledgement to be added:- 'I should like to thank my teacher in these energy arts... Master John Barber, who was my teacher for nine years,  his teacher was a Master Lee who resided in Bristol which is where John was taught the way of Tai Chi and the forms of chi kung i am showing ....John for me was an exemplar in his manner of teaching and though a full on Tai Chi fighter...in no way showed aggression in his teaching...though if asked would certainly demonstrate the effectiveness if what we were being taught these days john is more interested in the healing aspects of these arts.  I should also like to thank Steve of St Just...Saul of the Shing Yi and Martin in Penzance with whom I have trained some ...and all my fellow practitioners with whom I have practiced ....and those I am yet to meet'    I hope that you enjoy and find all the information beneficial.    Thankyou.....Topaz INTRODUCTION     Until fairly recently Chi Kung and Tai chi were hardly heard of outside of china and even today people may still look at you with a perplexed look when you use these words.      Chi....a very big subject.......Fundamentally everything is Chi .... is energy.....from spirit to matter......it is both the refined spirit and the condensed as matter....the yin and the yang.....heaven and earth.....and all movements and the manifestations between.   This way of seeing the reality is by no means unique to the Chinese Masters, this manner of seeing things with all of the insights that arise, is the common realization of beings of enlightenment, at all times. ..Our modern scientific paradigm, pretty well states it in the idea that energy is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent...that it cannot be destroyed,...can only be transformed, which incidentally is just another way of talking about god who is described as being omnipotent, omniscient and ever present and in some places as male and female...yin and yang.   If  I seem to be putting legs on the snake... well it is a time of unusual surgery. So  WU CHI is the NO  THING  in which all manifests .... and since all are in its ocean, all are of its chi which manifests in various densities appropriate to the nature of the various manifestations in the octave of involutionary, creativity, thus Wu Chi arises as the realms of the apparent reality.   Right so we are part of this creation part of this octave, when we lose our harmony....our connection with the higher vibrations....call it god call it angels or whatever...we become deviant lose our true nature, no longer see things for what they are. We are run by the Po spirit as the Chinese might say ,or put another way our lower self takes over, and the way of heaven is lost to  us, this results in the degeneration of the body long before death,  misplaced values in life, unhappiness,  oppression, greed war famine etc, something very familiar here, familiar here....so what's this got to do with Chi kung............Well chi kung is a system of restoring one in body  and mind, as a consequence of which we are able to restore our connection with HIGHER SELF through re-establishing our connection with heaven.  Chi Kung is a practice that starts with movements that move energy. unblock energy held as pain and disease in the body, and also clears mental dottings [conditioning] for it is these that are the cause and are rooted in the Po   Depending on the form of chi kung you can either use the mind combined with movement, breath and awareness to guide chi to wherever it is needed to help in healing,  this method is known as the fire method. Whereas the water method is more about allowing the chi to find its own way as does water....the chi is very much helped by correct body alignments emptying of the mind.  movement, or just standing or in sexing and mating and in awareness, but the mind is not directly involved in guiding of chi.....but whichever method both forms are about maintaining balance establishing inner harmony. If we are to consider this in terms of computers.....our way of thinking is the software that drives our daily manifestations on the screen of life so as to say, and just as everyone is not connected to the internet, just so it is with many in this age when it comes to spirit connectivity...so one can say just as the computer needs to connect with the internet to get the bigger picture, we too need to reconnect with the cosmic internet of spirit to see the greater picture, and thus see our true relationship with spirit and all of around us. Chi kung and Tai chi are considered to be a means of doing this......such ways of practice are not unique to tai chi and chi kung.......throughout history various peoples in various conditions have used similar systems of reconnection....though the details may vary. Indian yogis ..shamanic peoples....tribes in jungles and deserts have each had their own means of invoking or connecting with higher spirit.....of rectifying their registration with higher spirit or beings.....So if you were to ask me.......I would say that the highest function of tai chi and chi kung is to re...establish our link with Dao, God, Spirit, or higher self   It is considered by the Chinese that each of our internal organs has is own mind and that the balance of each organ effects the balance of the other organs in the body, thus if there is sickness in one organ that soon affects the other organs, since the unbalanced organ or organs will draw energy from the healthy organs....which unless the organ illness is dealt with it will soon cause dis ...ease in the other organs as their energy becomes drained....It is also seen that various emotions are related to the various organs of the body...thus when the liver is unbalanced...anger may well result ...if the heart is ill then fear, instead of love and courage will manifest. It is these imbalances that CHI KUNG AND TAI CHI DEAL WITH thus rectifying our mis-registrations in our body programming, whilst healing the problem at source .   The opening of what is sometimes known as the microcosmic circle is considered to be most important....this is an energy circuit that forms a circuit around the inside of the body and runs from the crown of the head to the perineum in the front of the body and from the perineum to the crown of the head via the spinal column and  brain.  It is considered this is where we start since this energy path is the link between our brain and the physical organs, by conscious movement of chi using minds eye to guide it around this circuit, our neurological circuits are vivified in the spine and thus are able to transmit healing and regenerating chi to the body organs so this is where we shall start.             Wepage, Backgrounds & Codes By Topaz/Sandy© Information Provided By:- Sutapadas© This Page Is Not Shareware Or Linkware Please Do Not Copy Or Remove Any Part Designed Exclusively For A Jewel In The Crown