The Journey of a Thousand Miles..Tai Chi Style

    I would say that 99% of the people who google the word chikung will probably end up seeing the website, chikung.com.  I would then say that of the 99%, at least 50% of them will click on that website.  They will see a man who claims to teach authentic temple style chikung and neikung.  I'm not going to debate whether or not that's true.  I'm not going to touch his material at all in my blog.  If you are interested in this then I suggest you contact him and ask him whatever questions you may have.  My journey however put me on course with this man and his website. The material presented looked very interesting so I made the decision to get both the chikung and neikung.  I started to practice the material and while doing so I was hunting for temple style practitioners.  I found a very interesting site.  If you are interested in the temple style system and are located in the Florida area then I highly recommend you contact Sifu Ron Hoffmann.  You can check out his site at houseoftaichi.com.  He is very open and will discuss damn near anything you want to discuss.  He also has real juice as well.  I decided to call him up.  A fellow tai chi brother of mine actually called him before I did and suggested that I do the same.  I did.  We had many conversations about what I should and shouldn't be doing and he also added that I needed to come out to train with him.  The first order of business was to switch gears and start learning form and flow work.  I discontinued my practice of the material mentioned earlier.  I purchased several DVD's off of the taichitaocenter.com website and started practicing flow work.  I then planned a trip to see Sifu Hoffmann for a 2 day intensive.  I flew out on a Friday evening.  I trained 2 days with him and then left early Monday morning.

    When I bring up tai chi most people say something to the effect of "Oh I've done tai chi, it's an exercise for older people".  What they don't realize is that tai chi is much deeper, now granted most of the tai chi you see on the market today is empty and without substance but temple style isn't this type of tai chi.  Temple style is an authentic road back to the source.  It has many tools to work with but ultimately it's goal is to transform the practitioner into a new being.  It will take you back to the original source.  When my plane touched down in Ft. Lauderdale I was excited.  I couldn't hardly sleep and as a matter of fact, I didn't sleep my first night there.  The time change messed me up for one.  I was 3 hours behind the local time.  The second thing was that Sifu Hoffmann starts his training in the early morning.  He came out of his room at 2a.m. and asked if I was ready to start.  The training was fantastic.  He taught me 1 single meditation that is by far the most powerful that I've ever come across.  He also gave me my first fa jing experience.  It was as if I was in a car wreck.  My mind went blank, my ears rang and felt like they imploded, and the explosion at the end of the push form was as if I was slammed with a brick in my chest followed by a firecracker that went off in my chest cavity.  It was the first time in my life that I was fearful of a 63 yr old man lol!  I flew back after having a great trip.  I met a lot of great people.  They are my tai chi family and always will be.  The single best teaching however was in the actual flow of qi.  He taught me how to flow correctly while performing my tai chi form.  Having said all of these great things, the only real downside to this is that I don't live in Florida, nor do I live in Illinois, nor do I live in India.  These 3 places are home to the top temple style masters.  Florida is home to Sifu Hoffmann.  Illinois is home to Sifu Kimball Paul, Waysun Liao and the Tai Chi Tao Center.  India is home to Sifu Gregory James.  This style will always have a place in my heart although it appears that my journey with this system may have to take a detour for now...