Shiang's Bodywork: Rob Williams - instructor of Chi Gung of Shing Yi and Ba Gua

I started studying Kempo Karate and other external martial arts in 1985. In 1996 I began learning chi gung with a Healing Tao instructor who was taught by Mantak Chia. My instructor certification is from my current instructor, Tom Morrissey, who I met in February of 2001. I am now exclusively studying internal arts, due to their usefulness for both healing and self-defense purposes. I have also studied with a couple of the many instructors who were either not teaching everything they knew, or had learned a watered-down version of the system themselves. There is a long-standing tradition, especially among Tai Chi instructors, of withholding things and not teaching the entire system to all students. But in this school we feel that this is knowledge that the world needs, it must be preserved for future generations, and anyone who would not use the knowledge wisely will not learn it even when we try to teach them.

“Chi” is the Chinese word for bioelectric magnetism, or the energy that all life forms have. “Gung”, also spelled kung as in kung fu, means any kind of skill that is gradually developed through practice. The internal arts of Shing Yi, Ba Gua, and Tai Chi, when properly taught and practiced, develop control over this energy and increase the intensity of it. In the hands of a skilled practitioner the energy that is used for defending oneself against an attacker is the same energy that can be used to heal oneself or to treat others. Well-known external martial arts such as karate, judo, and tae kwon do derive their power from physical principles such as balance, momentum, leverage, and other laws of physics. They are also spiritual practices that have a lot to offer psychologically but don’t emphasize the development of chi energy, also called “internal power”, and therefore don’t have the same healing applications.

Physical health depends on many factors, some of which have long been recognized by modern Western science and some have not. Learning more about energy in general can help us to live more in harmony with nature and learn ways of taking advantage of the many links between the mind and body.

With enough time, the practitioner’s control over his or her own energy can become sufficient to inject a burst of chi into an adversary’s body that can short-circuit the person’s nervous system or cause an internal organ to explode. When used for healing, the same energy can be used to shatter kidney stones, dissolve tumors, or remove other severe obstacles to good health. Long before that level of mastery is reached, many other benefits can be realized. My own practice of chi gung cured some chronic lower back trouble that other treatments couldn’t touch.

“Shing” means shape or form. “Yi” is mind. “Chuan” means fist or boxing. So this system, Shing Yi Chuan, is literally “mind form boxing” for the power comes from transforming the mind, or the shape that the mind is in.

Obviously the most effective self-defense technique ever devised is to not get into a fight in the first place. A very important part of that is the development of awareness so it becomes easier to avoid dangerous places and situations or to defuse confrontations before they become dangerous. By becoming more centered and learning how to keep better track of the relative importance of things, the truth’s protective layers can be peeled away. As a result of my Shing Yi practice, I have developed some ability to look at cars moving normally in traffic and predict which drivers are about to do stupid things.

A large part of this practice is reawakening that which you were born with, the natural wisdom that was left behind at some point because it didn’t fit in well with the cultural or religious ideas you grew up in. A gorilla is physically not that much different from a human but a typical adult gorilla is perfectly capable of turning a car over with its bare hands. That’s not only because they are physically stronger, but also because they have never been taught that they couldn’t.

In recent years there have been more and more of these stories in the news about teenagers bringing weapons to school and lashing out against personal enemies. The bullying that they are carrying out or retaliating against is not a new problem, but if more attention had been paid to it long ago it would not have gotten this serious. According to Chinese Daoist philosophy, which shing yi is based on, whenever anything gets pushed to its most extreme form it resembles its opposite or leads to its opposite - the classic example being the brightest possible flash of light which is just as blinding as pure darkness.

Those who try too hard to avoid conflict, those who seem shy and unsure of themselves, especially when they lack athletic ability, are the most tempting targets for bullying and ridicule. If nothing is done soon enough these kids may become like a pressure cooker that blows its top after heating up gradually for a long time. Those who are secure in the knowledge that if attacked, they will be safe, will not be easily intimidated and the troublemakers will sense this and not want to bother them anymore. A well balanced person is more capable of looking at the ridicule objectively and seeing it as a reason to feel sorry for those it is coming from. This makes a fight far less likely.

Those who are starting fights and joining gangs are generally doing so because, in spite of appearances, they lack self-confidence and don’t really have any reason to feel proud of themselves. Therefore, they need someone else to push around in order to boost their own egos. When these people try to learn the martial arts they will frequently drop out due to a lack of patience or else they will be changed by their training. When you are in your center and aware of what’s important and what isn’t, you don’t need to engage in bullying, road rage, or proving things to people whose opinion shouldn’t matter to you.

As I said in the beginning, this system tends to purify itself. Those who would not use the knowledge wisely will not stick around long enough to understand it. That’s one thing that makes the martial arts different from firearms. There is a powerful tendency in human nature that causes people to go through life noticing or overlooking new information as needed to protect and preserve the old, familiar picture of what reality consists of. Occasionally the need to start by reexamining old beliefs and habits will cause large numbers of students to turn away soon after being introduced to this practice, but it is there for those who need it.

Disclaimer: This practice takes a long time to learn effectively and is not intended to replace the assistance of a qualified healthcare practitioner. Consult your doctor in the event of health problems that may require professional treatment.

Contact info and fees

Tuition for ongoing group classes will be $60 per month, and $20 per hour for individual private lessons. At this time I don’t yet have a place for the group classes, so if you know of a good place to use or if you would like to get started now in a group class, contact me and I can introduce you to a class that is going on now in Ahwatukee.

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