We believe our type of tuina training is unique and sets a standard of excellence in the UK. Whether an existing practitioner or a student, if you are at all interested in exploring the answers to the following questions, you would benefit from the training we offer:
What are the actual links between qi gong, tai chi and tuina?
Qi gong is often mentioned on a tuina course and maybe even a day or two is spent ‘learning’ qi gong…after which students are given a certificate in medical qi gong which presumably enables them to heal patients with their qi gong skill.
But, do tuina practitioners ever practice qi gong after their course? Or ever actually understand what it is and how essential it is in order to practice tuina? Is an actual appreciation ever gained of what this ‘qi’ is, because if it is, why is it that ‘energetic’ treatment styles are mostly very gentle? Are there not many ways to influence qi – just as there are many different types (including both hard and soft) of qi gong…
What is the advantage of training in tai chi? Why would it help someone interested in bodywork?
How and why is it important to empty your body of tension and fill it instead with qi…what does this even mean?
What is tension and how do you know if you have replaced it with qi…? What are the training regimens to help understand this skill?
Are you able to use physically demanding techniques and apply the Yi in treatment for extended periods, on patient after patient without tiring?
Authentic tuina is hard work and it takes dedicated training to achieve the strength, flexibility, and reserves of qi in order to deliver authentic treatment. Learning how to empty your techniques of li, fill them with qi and then develop strength and skill with complicated techniques such as Gun Fa and Yi Zhi Chan Tui Fa also takes time.
Can developing skill in treatment be learnt on a weekend tuina course…or on a 5 day tuina course, or a 24 day tuina course?
Why is it that many practitioners feel under-skilled using complex techniques like Gun Fa and Yi zhi chan tui fa and what is the best way to go about developing the relaxed power that is so commonplace with accomplished tuina doctors?
If a practitioner has studied tuina techniques with an accomplished practitioner for long enough it would be understood how these techniques place demands on your body. Similarly if one has trained with an accomplished teacher of qi gong then an understanding of how your body and mind react to stressors is also understood.
The problem is that if authentic tuina has never been experienced then the realisation that your game needs to be raised has never occurred.
Working through this difficult process along with hard and soft qigong training helps to develop the ability to apply treatment with (at least approaching) the power and subtlety that is routinely given in China. Some practitioners however have never heard of the techniques mentioned above… if you have never heard of them then perhaps you could ask yourself why not?
Is tuina a form of ‘energetic bodywork’…or is it a medical massage?
The answer to this one is of course both…but authentic tuina is (or at least should be) vastly different to the way other eastern massage systems have been modified and are now practiced in the West.
Tuina requires substantial training in hard and soft qigong, technique practice as well as tcm theory to be able to apply the necessarily powerful yet subtle techniques. Developing strength with tuina techniques and an understanding of Qi in reality as opposed to an esoteric concept takes time.
We specialise in teaching the training regimens which develop this skill.
Are you satisfied with the level of your skill in tuina?
So it follows that if a practitioner doesn’t know how to fill their movements with qi, doesn’t understand how to apply the Yi, has no real understanding of qigong and has never developed their strength and technique…what then is left…?! What ever it is it does not do justice to the tradition and effectiveness of authentic tuina massage.
Contact us if you are interested in improving your ability.