Boston, MA Workshops

SUNDAY DRAGON & TIGER QIGONG SERIES

LEARNING LEVELS OVERVIEW

In our tradition as taught and articulated by our teacher Bruce Frantzis, there are nine levels of learning and practice of Dragon & Tiger qigong. Each level of study involves learning more subtle and powerful refinements - both physical and energetic - for how to do the seven exercises.

In this Sunday workshop series we're offering instruction in the first two levels of refinements. Each level is subdivided into two (a & b).

These workshops are designed to allow you to learn and train Dragon & Tiger qigong in a systematic and progressive manner - on whatever Sundays fit your schedule and learning speed.

One of the beauties of Dragon & Tiger qigong is that you can study and practice at any level and gain benefits. And the more you advance, the more benefits you gain. But there's no hurry to get anywhere; every little bit that you deepen your practice gives you a richer experience.

Once you advance to being eligible for any particular level, you don't have to take the workshops within that level in any particular order. You can take any one without having taken any of the others.

You can read about our levels of instruction in order below or click on any level of particular interest to you.

• Level 1a
• Level 1b
• Level 2a
• Level 2b

Level 1a Refinements

To participate in the Level 1a Refinements workhops, you must already know at a minimal level the basic movements of Dragon & Tiger qigong. To find out how you can learn them with an instructor or on your own, please click here.

Once you've learned the movements, then you are eligible for and encouraged to take Level 1a workshops.

These workshops are entitled Steady Breathing; Limber Shoulders; Lively Hands; Powerful Legs; Agile Feet; Soft Eyes; and Movement Transitions.

In these workshops you learn refinements of both the physical and energetic aspects of the exercises.

The physical refinements you'll learn primarily focus on relaxing, opening, and balancing your physical body. By doing so, you'll naturally gain more chi. You'll also become ready to learn the more advanced chi development practices that we'll teach you in later levels of learning.

Physical development is very important because your life energy flows through your physical body like a river flows in its channel. If the river's channel is deep, wide, and stable, then the river can swell enormously and still follow its proper course. If not, if the river rises, then it quickly overruns its banks and is lost.

Similarly, if your physical body is relaxed, open, and balanced, you can increase your life energy greatly with positive results. If not, your efforts to increase your chi will result in chi leaking out of and jumping between channels. Your efforts will be wasted and may even be counter-productive.

In our Level 1a Refinements workshops, we do teach specific methods for helping you learn to feel your chi as it flows in your hands, along your body, and in the field that surrounds your body. The better that you can feel your life energy, the easier it is to develop it more fully.

Your energy development goal at this level is to acquire the ability to feel chi between your hands and as many of the various parts of your body as you can.

In each workshop we'll focus on teaching you about the energy pathways of a key section of your body and how you can learn to better feel and enliven those pathways with your hands.

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Level 1b Refinements

Our Level 1b workshops also are organized with multiple workshops that you can take in any order that you like.

The major 1b themes are to learn how to use the exercises to:

• greatly improve your physical balance

• balance your chi

• gain greater continuity and flow, both physically and energetically

• develop deeper, longer, more relaxed, and continuous breaths

• circle every joint of your upper body continuously in every movement that you do

• consciously turn and connect all of the muscles of your arms and upper back and chest in every movement that you do

• explore the "gears" of your body and how they all work together in every movement that you do

• deeply relax and release all the muscles of your legs, feet, and lower back in every movement that you do.

Your energy development goal at this level is to acquire the ability to maintain continuous awareness of energy on the surface of your skin as you trace the energy pathways in each exercise.

Through supplemental exercises we also will teach you how to push and pull chi with your hands along the energy pathways of key sections of your body.

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Level 2a Refinements

Our Level 2a workshops also are organized with multiple workshops that you can take in any order that you like.

We'll teach you how to:

• incorporate the principles you learned in Level 1b into each of the seven exercises

• consciously turn the muscles of your arms and legs to move your body and stimulate every joint, muscle, and ligament of your body

• more fully explore the "body gears" of your lower body and how they affect your upper body gears

• extend and elongate your breathing and chi flows

• improve your ability to absorb chi into your body

• better and more clearly connect to the energies of earth below you and heaven above you

• draw in energy from and release energy to the earth below and the heavens above you

Your energy development goal is to learn to "push" and "pull" energy with your hands in an unbroken fashion along the skin of your body, continuously in every movement to and from the top of your head, the bottom of your feet, and the tips of your fingers and toes.

Through supplemental exercises we also will teach you how to push and pull chi in your "wei chi" (the protective layer of chi located just under your skin) along key sections of your body.

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Level 2b Refinements

Our Level 2b workshops also are organized with multiple workshops that you can take in any order that you like.

We'll teach you how to:

• let your breath become softer, more quiet, stable, and circular

• use the seven movements to more strongly and fully circulate blood throughout your body

• bring energy into and release energy from your eyes

• pull and push energy with your feet to bring them fully alive

• feel to the ends of your energy field

• use your chi to move your physical body

• more strongly and clearly draw in energy from and release energy to the earth below and the heavens above you

Your energy development goal is to learn to "push" and "pull" energy with your hands in an unbroken fashion along the wei chi of your body, continuously in every movement to and from the top, bottom and sides of your chi body.

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