A Few More Words …

When Does an Exercise Become a Cultivation Practice?

I’ve been thinking lately about what actually makes something a cultivation practice. We use words like Qigong, Taijiquan, meditation, and Internal Alchemy, and we often assume that because an exercise comes from one of these ...

When I first began studying with Stuart in the early 1990s, I wanted to learn everything he knew. I wanted to learn the Taijiquan form, sword, saber, staff, the two-person sets, Taiji Ruler, Qigong, meditation, and Neidan (Internal Alchemy). If Stuart taught it, I wanted to learn it.

Like many stud...

Lately I’ve been teaching counting the breaths. It's one of the oldest and simplest meditation methods there is. Count the inhalations. Count the exhalations. Count both. Count to 10 (or any of the numerous variations I’ve been teaching) and start over. If you lose track, simply return to one and tr...

Stuart used to write a section for the newsletter called A Few Words. I thought I would continue the tradition in my own way with A Few More Words.

I dream about Stuart all the time. In the dreams, we’re talking, working on classes, planning things, or just interacting normally. Then, somewhere in ...