“There seems to be a consensus amongst Tai Chi and Qigong practitioners that it is possible to have a middle-age spread and still be healthy and to regard exercises that focus on physical improvement as somehow inferior and cosmetic. But an expanding waistband is often a sign that visceral fat – the fat that sits around the major organs and linked to diabetes and heart disease – is accumulating in the body. After practising Jiangan for several weeks my middle-ages spread was gone and I felt fitter, leaner and stronger, more supple than I had for years. I hope that my book will be particularly useful to people attracted to internal Chinese health but who also need to reduce weight and keep fit.”

Recently, Richard Bertschinger stopped by the Singing Dragon offices in London to film a talk about his book, The Secret of Everlasting Life. On that occasion he alluded to some fascinating parallels between Chinese internal alchemy and the Arthuran legend. He kindly elaborates for us here. Click to watch the video of Richard’s talk. Well, this is all[... read more]

This month, Singing Dragon staff were treated to an afternoon talk with author Richard Bertschinger, author of the new book  The Secret of Everlasting Life: The First Translation of the Ancient Chinese Text on Immortality. In these videos, Richard explains the origins of this second century text, the Can Dong Qi, and talks about the careful[... read more]

“Understanding the Absolute by practising in the Relative – For me this is what t’ai chi is about. If everything in the world is a microcosm, then ‘life’ should reflect Divinity, and anything that happens in our lives (any skills that we learn, all interactions, etc.) should reflect Divinity and ‘life’. Therefore, t’ai chi should be able to explain 1) Divinity, and 2) how the structure of ‘life’ operates (although, these are probably the same, as it’s arguable that ‘life’ is ‘Divinity’ in process), and how best to function within this structure of ‘life’.”