My Daoist Journey: Brookline Tai Chi

This is part 2 of a multipart series.

In my early twenties, I found myself going to graduate school in Computer Science at U. Mass. Boston, and sharing an apartment on the border of Brighton and Brookline with three other dudes. There was a lot of sorrow in my life at that time. My mother was dying of cancer, and I had recently gone through a breakup with a woman that I loved deeply. I had graduated from college a couple years earlier completely disillusioned and unable to get a decent job. Graduate school was initially about being able to support myself, but it quickly grew into my only outlet for feeling good about myself. I excelled in the program, and the people in the department there took good care of me. At least, as much as they could. The money I made for teaching introductory programming was terrible, but there was not much the department could do about that, and at least my tuition was covered.

One day - by my best estimate it must have been spring 1994 - as I was wandering around the neighborhood, I came across a flyer taped up to a telephone pole advertising a weekend seminar on something called “Dragon & Tiger Qigong”. I knew what qigong was at the time, but I never had any direct experience with it. The school offering the seminar, Brookline Tai Chi, was only a short walk from my apartment. I had somehow never expected to find an opportunity to actually learn qigong. It was not even remotely a part of the culture that I lived in. I was surprised, and excited. Of course, I signed up for the seminar.

At the time, Brookline Tai Chi was located in a large, multi-room building in Washington Square in Brookline, Massachusetts. It was a beautiful, wide-open space with hardwood floors, lots of large plants, and big windows that the sunlight streamed through. My instructor, Bill Ryan, was an extremely kind and gentle man, and as I quickly found out, an amazing teacher. In that first weekend workshop, I learned the basics of the Dragon & Tiger Qigong form, relaxed a lot, and cultivated some good, positive energy. I immediately signed up for weekly classes after the seminar, focusing on Energy Gates Qigong and the Wu Style Tai Chi short form.

Bill Ryan is a long-time student of Bruce Frantzis, who in turn learned these arts over many years of study in Asia. More than once, I heard Bill tell the story about how he asked Bruce what the best form was to learn for someone who had limited time and commitment to learning these arts. Bruce replied, “That’s easy, Dragon and Tiger Qigong.” Dragon Tiger is an extremely forgiving form, where you can still get a lot of benefits if you practice it sloppily, or without deep study. Its seven movements focus on the meridians, which is a qi system that is close to the surface of the body, and easy to work with. It doesn’t necessarily take direct awareness of what is going on to activate this energy system, and gain energetic benefits from it. For these reasons, Bill was (and still is, I imagine) extremely fond of this form. As someone who has probably taught thousands of students in these arts, he was probably painfully aware how difficult it was for people to learn and stick with some of the other arts that Bruce taught. Personally, I always took Dragon & Tiger as a sort of adjunct form, an extra tool in my toolbox, as I was more deeply drawn to Energy Gates and Wu Style Tai Chi.

Energy Gates Qigong, in contrast to Dragon & Tiger, works with an energy system that Bruce aptly calls “energy gates”. Unlike the meridian lines, which are close to the surface, energy gates are deeper inside the body. They include what are commonly known as the chakras, as well as perhaps one or two hundred minor gates. They tend to be located at the center of the joints of the body, although many lie on the surface, and some, like the chakras, lie along the central energy channel, which goes from the top of your head, through the center of your body, down to your perineum.

The Energy Gates form consists of standing meditation followed by five movement exercises. There is a strong focus on relaxation, and releasing any tension. Special care is taken to get the alignments of the body correct, to aid in releasing blockages and the proper flow of qi. While it’s beneficial to do the entire form at once, some exercises can be incredibly powerful on their own; particularly, standing meditation, and the first movement exercise, known as cloud hands. If there was one single thing I could take with me into the next life, it would be my standing meditation practice, as taught to me by Bill, Bruce, and other Energy Arts instructors. This single practice has brought me peace, health, and inner awareness more than anything else I have experienced in life.

Bill also introduced me to Wu Style Tai Chi, which Bruce Frantzis learned from Liu Hung Chieh in Beijing, and brought back to America to share with us. As the original, long form takes about 20 to 30 minutes to complete, and a couple years to learn, Bruce created a shortened version of the form that would be more digestible to westerners in our modern, fast-paced society. While I went on to learn the long form later on, Bill initially taught me the short form. The health and self-awareness benefits of this practice, when internalized, are similar to those of Energy Gates Qigong.

It was an immense blessing that I found Bill and Brookline Tai Chi at this time in my life. Possibly the best thing that ever happened to me. I was so lucky to stumble upon such a wonderful instructor of Daoist movement arts, but it was still a difficult road, because of all the baggage I brought with me. For example, before that first weekend seminar I attended, I told myself I wouldn’t drink that Saturday night between sessions. I ended up drinking three beers, which, while a lot less than I would usually drink on a Saturday night back then, exemplified my inability to keep commitments to myself for the benefit of my own health. I couldn’t maintain a regular practice, or even come to class regularly. I would drop out for a bit, and come back a few weeks, or maybe a few months, later. I wasted a fair bit of money signing up for classes that I never finished. Bill knew this, and I think he felt bad for me, because he was always willing to cut me a break on costs when the opportunity came up.

I have more to tell about Bill, and Bruce, and the other instructors at Brookline Tai Chi, but I should try to wrap up this post. Bruce’s website, EnergyArts.com, is a great starting point if you are interested in learning more about these forms. Bruce has excellent books on Dragon Tiger Qigong and Energy Gates Qigong, but please be aware that it is very difficult to learn these arts from a book. There are online classes for both on the Energy Arts website, and Bill leads the Dragon Tiger course. It’s really good, but my advice is to find a teacher who can teach you in person, if at all possible. Some of the most important aspects can only be imparted through qi, which, generally speaking, works best in proximity.

Here’s a demonstration of the Wu Style Short Form by Paul Cavel, who has a very good form in my opinion:

Here’s the form demonstrated by Bruce Frantzis himself:

Here’s Paul Cavel demonstrating Dragon Tiger. Typically, we would do 20 reps of each of the seven moves:

Here, Paul demonstrates Energy Arts Qigong in three minutes. We would typically spend 15 minutes or more to do this set: