TERRY DUNN'S TAI CHI FOR HEALTH / QIGONG FOR HEALTH NEWSLETTER #36
WORLD TAI CHI QIGONG DAY CELEBRATION ON APRIL 30 IN THE WEST STOCKBRIDGE TOWN HALL'S COMMUNITY ROOM IS 1PM TO 4PM!!!; QIGONG FOR HEALTH (SUNDAYS 4-6PM EST; INTERMED. QIGONG & KUNG FU (WEDS. 6-8PM)
The vitalities of heaven and earth, sun and moon, Are fundamentally inherent in our bodies. If reality and consciousness do not stray from each other, Creation is always in the palm of your hand. —Chang Po-Tuan, 11th Century (“The Inner Teachings of Taoism”, Chapter 16)
I. WORLD TAI CHI & QIGONG DAY, APRIL 30 (1:00 pm –5:00 pm)
Celebrate WTCQ Day with Sifu Terry Dunn and his Berkshires students in an afternoon of demonstrations and free classes at: West Stockbridge Trad. Town Hall, 9 Main Street, 2nd Floor.
• 1:00pm-2:30pm: Live demonstrations of:
(A) Tai Chi Chuan, Push-Hands, and Tai Chi Sword,
(B) Taoist Elixir Method (Tao Tan Pai) Kung Fu & Qigong,
(C) Ehrmei Mountain Flying Phoenix Healing Qigong
...including film lecture about Sifu Terry’s high-level masters/lineage-holders in these three traditions plus Liu He Ba Fa
• 3:00pm to 4:00pm: FREE Tai Chi Chuan class
• 4:00pm to 5:00pm: FREE Combined Tao Tan Pai Qigong + Flying Phoenix Qigong class
Zoom access:
Meeting ID: 869 3030 9537
Passcode: 257945
Log-on URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86930309537?pwd=cTgzZzkxMTBuMm9BRjNRWldJdUxZUT09
II. QIGONG FOR HEALTH FOR 1st RESPONDERS: FLYING PHOENIX QIGONG ON SUNDAYS, 4-6PM
Classes 94, 95, 96, 97 = April 3, 10, 17, 24
This extraordinary class that you will not find anywhere else on planet earth immerses you in—not one, but—two authentic and powerful ancient Taoist monastic systems of Qigong that impart tangible, repeatable and verifiable health benefits. That is, each one is a stand-alone health and cultural treasure from China but that due to the forces of history are no longer practiced there:
(1) Taoist Elixir Method (“Tao Tan Pai”) Qigong is a complete system of Taoist hygienics, martial art, hermeticism, and spiritual art that was created in Tang Dynasty and is attributed to Lu Tung Pin (Lu Deng Bin), the de facto leader of the 8 Taoist Immortals (saints). Tai Tan Pai Qigong is easy to learn, easy to practice, and will serve one for a lifetime because it tantamounts any published or commercially available system of Asian or Eurasian Yoga. The TTP-31 Basic Meditations consists of 15 standing moving meditations and 16 seated meditations, all of which involve movements except three.
This video above features 8 excerpts from the Basic 31 Meditations plus a rare glimpse of the Tao Tan Pai cane form at the end.
(2) Flying Phoenix Heavenly Healing Qi Meditations (“Fei Feng San Gung”) is an even more rare and equally powerful purely healing Qigong system that imparts tangible energizing and rejuvenating effects and deep meditative states of consciousness (absorption) in remarkably swift manner—within 25 to 40 minutes of practicing any 4 or 5 of the FP System’s 32 meditative exercises (8 standing meditations and 24 seated meditations). Even more remarkable than its swift onset of benefits is the fact that Flying Phoenix Qigong’s deeply integrative and sublimely restorative allostatic effects continue after one’s practice has concluded and have been widely reported to recur hours afterwards with full healing force. This video shows the cornerstone basic moving meditations called “Bending the Bows”
"Flying Phoenix Qigong practice significantly elevates parasympathetic tone. 90 minutes of practice of this Qigong is restorative in real time and over time afterwards."
- Yetsa A. Tuakli-Wosornu, M.D., M.P.H., IOC Dip. Sp. Med. Assistant Clinical Professor, Yale School of Public Health Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology
The Flying Phoenix Qigong was created in 1644 by the famous Taoist, Feng Dao Deh (Feng Do Duk in Cantonese) of Ehrmeishan. The video below shows my spontaneous demonstration of the capstone moving meditation called “Flying Phoenix Heavenly Healing Chi Meditation,” which is taught step-by-step in the fourth volume of my best-selling Chi Kung For Health DVD series that I produced in 2004. Once the choreography is memorized, it is performed with the eyes closed and at a speed three times slower than Tai Chi form speed. Once this Long Form Meditation is learned, its practice subsumes the practice of the preceding 7 standing meditations of the Flying Phoenix system, such as ”Bending the Bows” (that are taught on Volumes 1 and 3 of the DVD series). Regular daily practice of this capstone exercise, which takes 10 to 40 minutes depending on the practitioner’s level in Chinese internal arts, maintains peak immunity and ensures continuous cultivation of a tangible reserve within the body of the Flying Phoenix Healing Qi.
“Moonbeam Splashes On The Water” (below) is the second most advanced Flying Phoenix Qigong meditation, next to the capstone meditation.
“Monk Holding the Peach” (click link below) is one of the basic sedentary standing meditations of the Flying Phoenix Qigong. It begins with an esoteric breath-control sequence done once at the start of the exercise.
https://www.facebook.com/236579434951/videos/303496763708076
**SEE THE POSTSCRIPT FOR TESTIMONIALS ON VIDEO ABOUT THE MEDICAL EFFICACY OF FLYING PHOENIX QIGONG.**
Joining the Livestream Session
To learn these two extraordinarily transformative Qigong arts that are both easy-to-do and profoundly restorative holistic health regimens, and join a lively worldwide community of students dedicated to health, personal growth, self-empowerment, inner peace and outer peace, sign up for the next Sunday session:
The Zoom Meeting ID is: 828 1622 1377
Registration URL:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYldu-qrDopHdPmWX5jNr_K8HBFiFLN5Ahg
FEE: $40 per class; $280 / 8-class series; or $500 / 16-class series
• Please send tuition via Paypal (to zenbearinc@gmail.com) or via Zelle (to terencepdunn@gmail.com) before 1:00 PM on the day of he class) —or send an email to zenbearinc@gmail.com asking to be sent a Paypal money request that you can use any credit or debit card to pay.) You will then be sent the Meeting Password by 2pm.
• All participants must register in advance for this meeting at the above URL.
• Berkshires students are welcome to attend this class in person (with physical distancing and proof of vaccination required).
III. INTERMEDIATE QIGONG & BASIC KUNG FU
Classes No. 68, 69, 70, 71 = April 6, 13, 20, 27
April 6 will be the 68th intermediate-level Qigong & Basic Kung Fu class of this ongoing weekly series (from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST). This course concentrates on the intermediate and advanced levels of the two rare and powerful Kung Fu/Qigong system— Tao Tan Pai (Taoist Elixir Method”) Nei Kung created in the Tang Dynasty and Ehrmei Mountain White Tiger Kung Fu, created in 1644 by Taoist monk Feng Dao Deh, and which includes Flying Phoenix Celestial Healing Qigong, the medical qigong system and health safety “net” of Bok Fu Pai.
Prerequisites for joining the Intermediate class have recently been adjusted—please note:
1. Proficiency in all of the Flying Phoenix standing Qigong exercises up to and including “Moonbeam Splashes On Water” moving meditation—i.e., proficiency in performing all the meditative exercises in Volumes 1, 2 and 3 of Chi Kung For Health DVD series. —i.e. you should have “Moonbeam Splashes On Water” moving meditation memorized and be able to do it and its breath conrol sequence from memory and with the eyes closed.
2. Proficiency in the Tao Tan Pai Short Form Power Yoga—and familiarity with the overall sequence of TTP 31 Basic Meditations—as acquired through attendance of two 3-day TTP Qigong workshops at Eastover Estate over past 3 years, or 3 months of weekly community classes.
Class Agenda:
1. Warm up with the Tao Tan Pai Cane Form
2. Instruction in the basic Tao Tan Pai Monkey, Crane, Snake, Tiger, or Dragon forms.
3. Refinement of “Moonbeam Splashes On Water” (2nd most advanced Flying Phoenix moving meditation)
4. Refinement of capstone meditation, “Flying Phoenix Heavenly Healing Qi Meditation”, aka, the Long Form Standing Meditation (taught on Volume 4 of CKFH DVD series).
** NOTE: The following advanced arts (#5 - #10) are only available to students whom I have been certified as instructors in Flying Phoenix Qigongh and/or Taoist Elixir Method Basic 31 Meditations:
5. Practice of “Monk Serves Wine”, advanced seated FP Mediations (#9 - #24)
6. Introduction to Advanced Flying Phoenix Qigong (9 standing moving meditations)
7. Instruction in the Bok Fu Pai “Eagle Claw Ten Hook Attack Form”, an excellent comprehensive form.
8. Instruction in the preparatory exercise of 8 Sections of Energy Combined Kung Fu
9. Introduction to “10,000 Buddhas Ascend To Heaven” Meditations
10. San-shou (free sparring) and how to use the Mok-Gar “Browns” techniques effectively.
JOINING THE INTERMEDIATE COURSE LIVESTREAM: Wednesdays 6pm - 8pm
To experience these two rare and powerful and restorative holistic health traditions and join a lively worldwide community of students dedicated to health, longevity, self-empowerment, spiritual growth, and attaining inner peace and world peace, sign up for the next session:
The Zoom Meeting ID is: 896 0406 3723
Registration URL:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rd-2oqDgtGNeRiIIHgc8ijH6zV8wml26d
FEE: $60/ class or $440 / 8-class series or $800/16-class series
• Please send tuition via Paypal to zenbearinc@gmail.com or via Zelle to terencedunn@gmail.com (well before 4:00 PM on each day of class) to receive the ZoomMeeting Password by 5pm EST.
IV. TAI CHI FOR HEALTH class teaching the 60-part Short Form and Tai Chi Sword Form of Grandmaster William C.C. Chen will be starting in May. Time and place to be announced.
IV. Music Pick of the Month:
THE GREAT GATES OF KIEV — by Emerson Lake and Palmer (1971) written by Keith Emerson
The very gifted musician Keith Emerson of the group Emerson Lake and Palmer passed way on March 4. He wrote one of my favorite honest love songs of all time, “From the Beginning”, on the group’s legendary Trilogy album released in 1972. But the War in Ukraine takes precedence here and instead of “From the Beginning”, I’m posting Emerson’s incredibly prophetic, “The Great Gates of Kiev” in honor and in support of all Ukrainians fighting for their lives and freedom against the Russian evil.
In 1974 at California Jam, Emerson Lake and Palmer performed this glorious, evocative but the enigmatic rock anthem. Listening to it today, we all know that Emerson was channeling a higher Knowledge in creating this prophecy.
THE GREAT GATES OF KIEV
Come forth, from love spire
Born in life's fire,
Born in life's fire.
Come forth, from love's spire
In the burning, all are yearning,
For life to be.
And the pain will (must) be gain,
New life!
Stirring in, salty streams
And dark hidden seams
Where the fossil sun gleams.
They were, sent from (to) the gates
Ride the tides of fate,
Ride the tides of fate.
They were, sent from (to) the gates
In the burning of our yearning,
For life to be.
There's no end to my life,
No beginning to my death
Death is life!
••• Come on, all you artist-alchemists, poet-warriors, and smart warriors out there; you know what to do--to focus your shape-giving psychic energy ("shen" in Chinese--the purely speculative aspect of action) and to muster your formless metabolic energies (qing-qi) through whatever yoga suits you, and channel them through this anthem to strengthen the GREAT GATES OF KIEV and its defenders.\
[To all my Ukrainian friends and students: please refer to my Facebook post of Feb. 28 to find solace and then reach far with war Psalms 18, 59, 83, 94, 91, 110, 118, and 109.]
mitakuye oyasin,
(Lakota prayer that means “To all my relations” or “All are related”, or “Help and Health to all my Brothers and Sisters” )
Sifu Terry Dunn
P.S. “Qigong For Health For First Responders” Class Agenda:
A. Warm-up: We begin every class with this easy and healthful basic Qigong routine called “the Silkweaver’s Exercise”, which you can learn on your own by practicing to this Youtube video that I excerpted from one of my accredited Medical Qigong I course for Emperor’s College of TCM:
**If you practice to this video this as homework and memorize the Silkweaver’s Exercise choreography, you’ll hit the deck “running” in all of my weekly classes and be able to attain deeper levels of relaxation, mind-body integration, physical comfort, emotional calm, and mental concentration during each class.
B. After warming up with the Silkweaver’s Exercise, we practice 50 minutes of the Basic Tao Tan Pai 31 Meditations (“TTP-31” for short), which in and of itself is a complete system of Yoga, compared to what has been taught in Yoga classes throughout the western world. We start off by learning a distillation of this series of 31 called the “Tao Tan Pai Short Form Power Yoga” consisting of the first four standing Meditations followed by the third of the 16 seated meditations (aka, Meditation No.18). This is a classical practice, not a recent advent or abbreviation—which I practiced daily every morning during my first four years of kung fu training—from 1976 to 1980. It is one of the most reliable and effective self-empowering yogic practices to elevate and organize one’s energies, and to instantly concentrate Qi flow to the hands.
We practice 4 to 15 of the standing meditations and 2 to 5 of the seated meditations in each class. By adding new meditations each week, we cover all of the 31 Basic Meditations of Tao Tan Pai in about 12 classes. This easy and yet profoundly healthful and transformative practice can be started by beginners in any class.
Both the practice of the Basic TTP-31 Meditations and the Flying Phoenix Qigong involve standing and seated, moving and sedentary meditations. Both are complete and powerful health-enhancing and consciousness-transforming systems of Taoist hygienics in and of themselves. And as I explained in earlier issues and in the Flying Phoenix Chi Kung discussion thread on www.thedaobums.com (started in Nov. 2009 by businessman and qigong practitioner Lloyd McClelland of Orlando, FL), ever since I began learning Flying Phoenix Celestial Healing Qigong in 1991, I’ve marveled over its energizing and rejuvenating effects that continue well beyond the end of each practice session. As one contributor to the FPCK daobums.com thread posted about 7 or 8 years ago, he was riding his bike about 12 hours after he had practiced FP Qigong when suddenly the tangibly sublime, deep, circulation of FP Qigong’s healing Qi suddenly enveloped him.
This restorative process has been corroborated by scores of Qigong students year after year after year… Here is a spontaneous testimonial given by my dear friend and student Rori Kanter, who described her healing experience that set on one after she got home after taking her very first 2-hour lesson in Flying Phoenix Qigong in a free class that I gave on April 28, 2019 during World Tai Chi Qigong Day weekend at Eastover Estate in Lenox, MA (click the blue ”Watch on Vimeo” button:
• Six months later on November 4, Rori gave this amazing report of her annual physical check-up by her primary physician:
Tao Tan Pai Qigong catalyzes Flying Phoenix Qigong, deeply enhancing and prolonging the healing effects of the latter.
But beyond this fact that Flying Phoenix Qigong induces a healing event in the practitioner that continues long after the practice of the Qigong has ceased and can also induce a healing event several hours after the practice has concluded, I discovered seven years ago—after practicing Flying Phoenix Qigong for 23 years and the Tao Tan Pai Qigong for 38 years—that the Tao Tan Pai Qigong if practiced prior to practicing the Flying Phoenix Qigong, acts as powerful foundational catalyst or “accelerant” that enhances the restorative effects of the Flying Phoenix Qigong and prolongs “normal” duration of the energizing, rejuvenating, and self-healing events activated by the latter. Hence the format of every class in this Sunday series is one hour of Taoist Elixir Method Qigong followed by an hour of Flying Phoenix Qigong.
• These two reviews came in after each had taken my first “Qigong For Health for First Responders” class on March 29, 2020 consisting of one-hour of TTP Basic 31 Meditations followed by one hour of Flying Phoenix Qigong:
I felt a surge of tangible sensations coursing through my entire body, streams of subtle vibrations and tingling with a particular focus in the chest and head areas. Unlike the typical calming, relaxing, and sometimes sedative effects that I usually experience from FP, this pattern of energy was more invigorating, enlivening, and longer-lasting. I was alert and full of energy with an underlying sense of ease and contentment. Its effects were still mildly present three hours after the session ended, and most surprisingly, after a heavy meal, something I haven't quite experienced before even having attended a dozen intensive workshops. Although we only practiced basic exercises from each system, my experience mimicked ones I’ve had practicing advanced meditations from TTP and FP separately in longer sessions. I can only attribute these effects to the thoughtful, specific, and unique combination of TTP and FP that was offered.
--Spencer Lawrence, Jersey City, NJ
I’ve studied with Sifu Terry Dunn for 3 1/2 years at Eastover and any place else I could get the chance. The major focus of that study had been Flying Phoenix Qigong and related Bak Fu Pai arts. I’ve taken a couple of workshops in Tao Tan Pai but never gave it any thought, devotion or practice. Recently I’ve partaken in Sifu Dunn’s Sunday class “Tao Tan Pai + Flying Phoenix Qigong for Peak Immunity...” It consists of one hour of Tao Tan Pai followed another hour of Flying Phoenix. For the last 12 weeks I’ve faithfully practiced TTP daily with profound results. My lung capacity has greatly increased; my inhalation and exhalation are longer and deeper now (something useful In this time of pandemic). I’ve noticed, too, that my heart rate has slowed down by 5 beats per minute.
As to the synergistic relationship of these two seemingly unrelated disciplines, I’ll mention a few. Tao Tan Pai is the perfect warmup for Flying Phoenix Qigong. It loosens both the body and mind. It deepens the relaxation response putting one in an altered state much sooner. This state of relaxation is so deep that by the end of Sunday’s class I can barely keep my eyes open. This is especially true of the Monk Serves Wine series of exercises. My personal practice will forevermore start with TTP and end with Flying Phoenix.
--Tony Arcuri, Queens, NY
Numerous similar testimonials have been received via email, Zoom, Skype, and phone messages expressing thanks, elation, and joy over the demonstrable and verifiable synergy between Tao Tan Pai Qigong and Flying Phoenix Qigong.
Because Flying Phoenix Qigong in and of itself is outstandingly effective medical qigong system that produces repeatable and verifiable restorative health benefits, as confirmed by thousands of practitioners around the world using my DVD series since 2004 (as documented on the 11-year running “Flying Phoenix Chi Kung” discussion thread on the www.thdaobum.scom blogsite) and using my VHS cassettes with the same content since 1996, today, after having taught 58 weekly classes, students have attested that this combined regimen (of one hour TTP Qigong followed by one hour of FP Qigong) is an exceptionally effective therapeutic recovery regimen for first-responders (military, police, fire-righting and medical professionals) that will stave off stress caused by exposure to high-risk situations where injury, disease, violence, abuse and trauma are commonplace. Furthermore, based on my experience and the experience of my students over the past15 months, I am absolutely certain that his combined Qigong regimen is an effective pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for first-responders and health workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic to increase their stamina and maintain peak immune levels. Thus I have been actively seeking rigorous clinical testing of Tao Tan Pai Qigong + Flying Phoenix Qigong by any top medical center in the world.
• See you on Sundays to explore the profound holistic health benefits of these two remarkable Qigong systems.•