Qi Archives | Faulk TaiChi

Flowing Qi for Lunar New Year

February 14, 2024 By Arlene Faulk

What a wonderful afternoon with Tai Chi students and friends celebrating Chinese (Lunar) New Year! We filled the afternoon with red and gold colors, Chinese snacks, learning about the Year of the Wood Dragon (we had several year of the dragon born people in the room!). Then for an hour+ we all moved our energy together through Tai Chi.

WinterJade Forest illuminated us with fun lore, traditions and history of the Chinese Zodiac system.

She explained that “in Chinese mythology , the Dragon is a powerful and auspicious creature representing courage, creativity and innovation. This portends a promising year, full of possibilities and opportunities. For those born in the Year of the Wood Dragon it will be a fantastic time to start a new business or to begin growing and expanding their hopes and dreams.”

*Faulk Tai Chi students flowing through Yang style Tai Chi by Cheng Man-ch’ing*

We celebrated the energy of the New Year with Tai Chi, starting with a demonstration with my students.

Then the entire group gathered to experience gentle Tai Chi principles and moves, led by Daniel Thatcher. His calm and clear instruction relaxed us and filled our bodies and the room with wonderful Qi. Qi is the vital energy or the life-force energy that keeps a person’s spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health in balance.

As we closed everybody felt refreshed, renewed and re-energized. Ah, the quiet power of Tai Chi lifting us up, emptying out thoughts, feeling centered and ready to go out to our worlds. It’s two days since this New Year’s experience and I’m still feeling the energy.

One more thing — Although not part of our celebration I came across a creative Chinese food sculpture that I need to share. Happy New Year, Year of the Wood Dragon!

Celebrating 2018 Chinese New Year

February 25, 2018 By Arlene Faulk

A very fun afternoon celebrating Chinese New Year, Year of the Dog at Heartwood in Evanston. Look at Judy’s t-shirt and how apt, because she she is a “dog”. Four of us attending the celebration this afternoon were “dogs”.

We honored our Tai Chi and QiGong ancestors and teachers, particularly Cheng Man-ch’ing. He was instrumental in bringing Tai Chi to the U.S. and stressing relaxation in doing the form, push hands and sword. We viewed a wonderful documentary “the Professor: Tai Chi’s Journey West” about his integrating Tai Chi, poetry, calligraphy, Chinese Medicine into all his teaching.

Michelle Bobier led us in some QiGong to move our energy together and Arlene and some students demonstrated part of Cheng Man-ch’ing’s Yang style 37 Form, the basic form we learn in both Evanston and Chicago classes.

What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, learning about Qi, relaxing with Tai Chi, improving walking through Tai Chi and all using our bodies in motion to create a room filled with good focus and intention.

We are grateful to Cheng Man-ch’ing and remember his saying, “The most important reason to study tai chi is that when you finally reach the place where you understand what life is about you’ll have some health to enjoy it.”

The Qi of High School Kids

March 19, 2014 By Arlene Faulk

The sophomores and juniors in my high school Tai Chi class like to move around. They like variety. They like saying the new terms they’re learning — lagong, bahui, tan t’ien, Qi. Now they regularly refer to their energy as Qi.

It seems they come into class, either bouncing off the wall or dragging and yawning. There are so many pressures on these students, to excel academically, to participate in extracurricular activities, to be involved in civic activities. Those pressures seem to be on many, if not most, high school students today.

So, it’s a challenge for them to slow down, to breathe and move through Tai Chi. We’re now about mid-semester and they are doing it! We practice walking — forward, backward, into bow and arrow stance. They love to practice walking and some are already commenting that their posture is better as is their balance. I see it — more awareness of standing straight, hands out of pockets, looking straight ahead rather than down.

This week they asked if I would talk to the head of the Upper School and ask if they could show their classmates the Tai Chi form they’re learning. I felt so warmed that they feel invested and want to share their Tai Chi experience with their friends. I always feel that if we reach a student or two or three, it’s worth the effort. How wonderful to hear that it’s happening.

Biking the Bridge

November 19, 2012 By Arlene Faulk

What an amazing Tai Chi story I heard last week! Denise Kirshenbaum, a committed Tai Chi student and my writing coach, really took Tai Chi outside of the classroom, and into a life experience. I asked if she would share her story on my blog so you can benefit from her good Qi experience. From Denise:

I’ve been practicing Tai Chi for thirteen years with Arlene. Often she talks about learning to move our Qi. Qi is a funny thing. . . unlike our arms and legs, which we can clearly see, Qi is invisible. Over time, I learned to follow Arlene’s moves — Ward Off Left, Crane Spreads Its Wings — but what did it mean to move my Qi. And why would a person want to move it at all?

Here’s why:

If you can move your Qi, you can do some pretty amazing things.

Recently my husband and I took a vacation to San Francisco. The thing he was most looking forward to was biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. My husband works very hard so when we travel, I want with all my heart for him to have a wonderful time when he is away from his job. Also, I love doing things with him. However, this bridge idea was freaking me out. I HATE heights, loud noise, wind, and crowds — all prominent features I imagined in a bike ride across this very large bridge.

On the morning of the ride, my mind was racing as we rode along the waterfront on our way to the bridge. How would I conquer my fear and do this ride without spoiling my husband’s special day? We pedaled up the steep hill to the bridge. At the top the noise was deafening as trucks and cars sped past. The bridge was packed! Bikers and pedestrians were all mingled together in an outer lane — a slender thread between two landmasses — surrounded on all sides by an endless expanse of sky and water. Buffeted by the wind, my heart was pounding. But as I mounted my bike and fell in line behind my husband, a thought suddenly came to me: Perhaps I could do this by moving my Qi?

I took a deep breath and concentrated all of my attention to moving my Qi out of my head – where, frankly, it was doing me no good – and into my hands that were gripping the handlebars and my and legs and feet that were doing the pedaling. To reinforce this, with every other stroke of the pedals, I chanted the word “Qi” — ALOUD. And it was working! Twice, we stopped for my husband to take pictures of the beautiful view that he had long imagined, while I just kept concentrating on keeping the Qi out of my mind and into my body. Each time I got back onto the bike, I repeated my strategy… “Qi”…”Qi…

It probably took ten minutes to cross the bridge, and another ten to get to Sausalito where we took a ferry — bikes in tow — back across the harbor to San Francisco. Looking across at the massive bridge, I could barely believe I had done it.

I had biked the Golden Gate Bridge!