The Natural Voice

Having a natural, powerful voice today is especially important. Folks who used to sing and play and dream remain still and stifled behind desks and shallow breathing! No More!

It’s time to reclaim your birthright: to be a natural singer, breather, and mover!

The course weaves the study and practice of melody, harmony, rhythm, and patterns in a way that invites you to be a natural musician. The focus is on breathing, movement, and vocalization. If you want to free your voice, go to:

The Natural Voice

Behind every exquisite motion, is an internal act: a smile inside. An internal smile allows access to kindness and it implies a subtle, and necessary, kind of power; it provokes long term freedom; and it allows connection to people and to the world.

It may sound selfish, but it’s not. The first touch of kindness must be with the self. It’s an inner act, remember? Yes: it happens inside. While reading, press the back of the neck into the collar, and smile inside. Creating an inner smile fine-tunes the body, lifting it up lightly.

This motion gets neglected by computer readers, reaching instead with faces drawn toward the screen, many readers defy common courtesy to their selves, dismissing impeccable posture as secondary to reaching the face down and toward the ravishing light. Moths to flames.

No doubt, while reading, you understand and perhaps empathize with other readers, those who lost this subtle sensation. But you lift lightly at the nape, resting in kindness. You know that, because this is so subtle, kindness is a less-than-accurate description of such a sublime motion. So much depends upon this little act, that personalizing is luxurious. Not a luxury in the sense of unnecessary (but you knew that too, this sentence must be for haphazard viewers, not for regular readers), luxury in the sense of personal artistic intention.

Some personalities, some environments, and some peculiar circumstances drive the inner smile towards a sensation of sinister, cold, free vision: a sardonic subtlety. Other circumstances or proclivities feel and perhaps portray an aura of bliss, and for others: inner, lifting smiles are simple, friendly expressions that maintain some sense of subtle humor.

Because it’s inside, and our world draws us outward with so much finesse, so many magnets tearing at our foundations, allow a brief sojourn with 4 external pillars of kindness that help hold up that inner smile.

External Manifestations of Kindness

Consider 4 external foundations for the inner smile: supportive mechanisms that create appropriate social functions. Though often neglected in our modern, anxiety driven media culture, slowing down and immersing in these will engineer each act toward integrating grace. Imbue each act with one or more…

1. Courtesy
2. Manners
3. Politeness
4. Respect

…and notice how the inner smile lifts up.

In Taiji some of this feeling is called to ward off by lifting upwards. In Qigong notice energy raising up the back. Baguazhang proclaims sky palms an upward, creative sensation, and in vocal motions, one discovers an ease of projecting expression, however large or small such an intended expression may be.

No doubt, a cursory glance wonders the difference between courtesy, manners, politeness, and respect. Those with Integral Grace understand the subtle differences, attached as they are to the refined power of luxurious arts. Nevertheless, we’ll explore these more in depth in subsequent articles, if only to delight in refining applications and awaking kindness ever more deliberately.

As old as the humanity, Mother’s Day is an Ancient Tradition, celebrated world-wide. An important holiday because motherhood holds the keys to both the surviving and the thriving of people, and by analogical extension, this wonderful world.

When we consider “Integral Grace” we’re drawn to consider motherly visions: we imagine connecting, keeping warm, and moving with tenderness and sensual delight. We may be drawn to deepen the images: giving birth to creativity or creating flowing movements. We’re subtly aware of a pining for peace; eyes brimming silent tears, while we watch with tenderness, a world filled with life and the essence of kindness.

Forces for Peace

But this world, for all its beauty, also contains war and pollution, the Earth herself torn asunder in many places. How important is it then: that women retain (or remember) their innate capacity to speak powerfully, move freely, and be an active force that helps the world remember peace?

Thank you…

• Mom
• Wife
• World

…for giving birth. Thank you for life.

Now and through Mother’s Day, discover the gentle process of the refined Yang Lu-chan Taiji Form.

Sophisticated Experiences Online

In some browsers, our theme rounds corners with added elegance. Its background, darkened to assure a luxurious viewing experience, suggests the intricacies for which the movement arts — Baguazhang, Qigong, Taijiquan, and Voice Mastery — are so well known.

The Old Yang Taiji Course, previously available at Realtaiji.com, now resides here. We renamed it Yang Lu-chan Taiji Form Course 1, to reflect a more authentic and traditional Taiji learning process. Watch for an extra Mother’s Day opportunity, beginning on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010, on the 8-month arrangement of Yang Lu-chan Taiji Form Course 1.

More programs are due this month. Expect a sensual experience with The Natural Voice and a fine-tuned engineering of breathing mechanisms with Breathing Within.

Finally, if you’ve purchased from us before, please consider signing up for the Club Memberships. Diamond is forever available to aficionados who utilize our products or services, and Onyx offers a peek behind the curtain. Onyx Members receive exclusive access to preview our upcoming products.

Exquisite programs, with in depth features and refined high definition videos, flow into our store. Martial Arts Online has never been easier to access or this powerful to learn. Steven Smith from RealTaiji.com reveals Yang Lu-chan Taiji Course 1 today.

It’s good for health development, fundamentals of fitness, and foundations of self-defense because it’s a beautiful form that unfolds more and more freedom and power through time. You can see the inspiration and resources that started it all at RealTaiji.com. It’s designed to enlighten with Taiji specific writing about movement and philosophy.

Sign up at Vocal-Motion.com and she delivers a Voice Lesson called Lucid Singing right to your inbox.

By now you know that Shannon’s one of the owners at Integral Grace, so it’s no surprise that I’m revealing this little secret. And I helped make sure that the video gets to you (so I know all about it).

I thought your should know, because it’s worth it…

• It’s fun.
• It’s simple.
• It’s inspiring.

Go get Vocal-Motion.com/email-updates to discover Lucid Singing.

April 5 – 19, 2010…

Old Yang Course reopens at RealTaiji.com/Courses.

It contains 32 classes that weave: easy teachings with detailed instructions of Old Yang Taiji Form. Plus — the Course integrates additional layers of healing applications and fundamental fitness methods.

The previous version, designed to take 2 months, was so packed full that many practitioners have taken longer with the Course. This version (sort of a 2.0 if you will) is more packed.

Purchasing options include choosing 4 months or 8 months to receive step by step classes, and you’ll have options to pay at once or pay monthly.

Keep your eyes on Old Yang Form Course at RealTaiji.com.

This new way uses the best of both worlds, Online, because that’s where we are at and Outside in the fresh air, because that’s where we need to be.

Why is it essential to learn martial arts?  For 3 reasons:

1. To fight for ourselves
2. To fight for others
3. To heal our body and mind

Using Steven Smith’s Yang Style Taijiquan Course, discover power, strength, calm, healthy, and happy. He engineered this course to provide consistent excellence over 4 or 8 months:

• 32 Integrated High Definition Video Lessons
• 32 Action Checklists
• 2 Potent Classes Arrangements

It’s great Taiji and the best value out there. We make that possible because we build a communities of powerful healthy people and we provide the best martial and fitness lessons.

This system will enhance your mobility and concentration and teach you physical self-discipline. The bonus is you can take a break from the mania of the world and get your power back.

The online course offers:

• User Friendly Downloads
• Professional, High Definition Videos
• Integrated Teachings

We want folks to get involved, because this is a great community of people who are changing the direction of their lives while practicing the art. Taiji fuels change.

RealTaiji is four years strong and we are proud to offer this service. This is what we are great at and you’ll be great at it too.

Join us, have fun, and get strong.

For more information- RealTaiji Courses.

Why do Qigong? Concentrate your personal power so that you can heal yourself, heal others, and gain great self defense. Hear about it here.

“Qigong is a Relatively Easy Thing”

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the most widely practiced martial arts in the world, Taijiquan, also known as T’ai-chi Chuan, is often recognized as the movement system practiced slowly by older folks in parks worldwide.

You’ve seen it.

You’ve seen it practiced at the Olympics, you’ve seen it in the movies, or you’ve seen it practiced in parks.

Did you know it’s a martial art? A very potent self-defense system?

Yep…

Reviving Taiji is an e-book (it’s free as of this writing in Jan 2010) that describes ways to get Taijiquan back to its roots as a martial art.

Check it out: Reviving Taiji. And then take a look at the first 3 moves of Taiji.

The author (me) recently moved to Montana. You can find me teaching Real Taijiquan south of Missoula, in a couple of little towns: Hamilton and Darby, in Ravalli County.

Discover Real Taijiquan, both the martial and healing versions, at River Park in Hamilton on Saturdays and at the Right to Bear Arms in Darby on Tuesdays.

[Note: the picture above is not Steven Smith ]