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How to Get Better Faster (Step 2)

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A little while ago, we talked about how to find your intrinsic motivation and talked about kicking the bad habit of relying on extrinsic motivation. In this post, we’ll look at the next step in increasing your rate of progress.

At this point, you need to sit down and ask yourself a question:

what would it take for me to practice more?

What you’re really getting at with this question is clarifying your obstacles. Human beings are funny creatures. Very often it’s seemingly insignificant things that hold us back from achieving big goals. Any musician will tell you that just having an instrument out of its case and available will dramatically increase the amount of practicing the musician does.

Think about that.

Something as simple as where a musician puts an instrument in their house dramatically changes the course of their practice (and skill level).

Now let’s look at this question again: What would it take for me to practice more?

There’s a trick to answering this question. To really find your obstacles, you have to think about what you think about when you decide not to practice.

Sit down in a quiet place for just a moment and close your eyes. Imagine you are at a time and place during your day that would be optimum for practicing. But you don’t want to. What makes you not want to practice?

The answers can vary.

You might say “I’m tired from work and I don’t have enough energy,” you might say, “My house is too messy and I just can’t get in the right frame of mind with this mess all around me,” or you might say, “I’ve got so many things to do and I don’t know which of them I should do right now…”

You get the idea.

Now that you’ve got a better idea of your obstacles, you can answer the original question.

For example, if having a messy house is affecting your frame of mind so that you’re not able to practice, the answer to the question would be “If I were going to practice more, it would take having a clean space to practice in.”

If you’ve got a bunch of things to do and you’re not sure what you should take care of right now, then the answer to the question would be “If I was going to practice more I would need a time designated specifically for practicing.”

To recap, we’ve talked about finding your intrinsic motivation, we’ve asked the question “what would it take for me to practice more,” and we’ve outlined a method for how to answer that question.

Next we’ll tie everything together and talk about the last step for getting you on your way to practicing more.

Until then, go check out Clear’s Tai Chi Online for a vast library of Tai Chi drills and exercises that will ensure you never run out ways to increase your skill.
https://www.clearmartialarts.com/clears-tai-chi-online/

Stay Safe,
Jared Voelker

My attempt to fight chronic pain with Fa Kung Energy Healing.

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Chronic pain is a problem for many people.

Unfortunately, Western medicine hasn’t been able to kick much of a dent in the issue. Temporary pain can be treated with painkillers, but these drugs are harmful to the body if taken for long periods of time (as in the case with chronic pain sufferers).

Despite Western medicine’s longstanding disdain towards other healing modalities, Western doctors and researchers are just now beginning to look to Eastern healing arts for answers to the problem of chronic pain.

This is because these arts are effective and the side effects are… beneficial… which is not something most Western medicines are known for.

The big question is…

How well does it work?

I use Master Clear’s Fa Kung energy healing method on my wife, Colleen, when she gets migraine headaches. At my skill level migraines are very difficult to work on, but I’m glad to be able to produce results. Here’s what Colleen has to say:

When I experience a migraine, sometimes the symptoms are so severe that I can’t go about a normal day and can’t even get to sleep. The main symptoms I experience during a bad migraine are severe headaches, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound.

“When Jared does energy work to help my migraine, I can feel the throbbing in my head calming down, as well as my nausea beginning to let up. I am still left with a headache, but it’s a pain I can stand rather than a pain that brings me to tears. While the migraine isn’t completely cured, I can finally get a good night’s sleep which is vital to getting completely better.

“I think some people might wonder if the pain and nausea improved simply because I was laying still and relaxing while Jared did energy work, but anyone who has experienced a migraine will probably understand that they don’t tend to improve just by laying down and relaxing. In my experience, the only other things that provide any relief are sleep, medicine, or (in the worst cases) throwing up.” -Colleen

I also use this method on myself for regular aches and pains like knots in my shoulders and back and injuries from martial arts training. Fa Kung is one of those pieces of training I would not want to be without.

Today is the last day the Fa Kung Energy Healing Package is on sale.

Go here to get it while you can still save $100:
http://www.clearstaichi.com/fa-kung

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker

How I hurt myself with energy healing (& how I recovered)

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I started doing energy healing after about 4 years of kung fu training.

Based on some chi kung I had learned, I started to develop the ability to energy heal.

At first everything was working great. People were getting results and friends and family would ask me to work on various issues.

Until I started to get sick…

I started to get very weak. I would take 2-3 naps a day and it still wasn’t enough. I would get colds constantly and strep throat several times a year. I went to the doctor several times about the issue and we ran lots of tests… which indicated that I was fine.

This went on for about three and a half years, until I stopped energy healing.

My energy level was better, but still low (at least I wasn’t sick anymore).

I never fully recovered until I met Master Clear and began doing his Tai Chi and Chi Kung exercises. I had tried Chi Kung previously, but my energy level never bounced back. With Master Clear’s Chi Kung, I was able to fully recover and start doing serious training again (yay!).

The reason I was so sick from energy healing was that I was using (and depleting) my own energy.

This is a common issue with energy healers. I’ve known many over the years who struggled with this issue of feeling depleted and weak from energy healing.

Fa Kung is an energy healing method Master Clear learned while in China.

One of the things I like best about this method is that it teaches you how to develop a way to improve and build your own energy while healing others. This enables you to funnel a lot more energy which helps them and you at the same time.

I use this method frequently and have never had the issues I had with the previous method of energy healing. Quite the opposite, I feel stronger and healthier than I have in my whole life.

If you’re interested in energy healing but have heard about or experienced this issue with energy drainage, Master Clear’s Fa Kung method is a safe and effective way to heal and take care of other people without hurting yourself.

Tomorrow is the first day you can save $100 on Master Clear’s Fa Kung Healing DVD package.

The sale only lasts 3 days. So keep an eye out for that tomorrow.

Until then study the “Three Powers: Heaven, Earth & Man” lesson in week 10 of The Practical Guide to Internal Power.

The concepts introduced in this lesson are an important pre-requisite for the skills that let you do energy work without burning yourself out.

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/practical-guide-internal-power/

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker

Tai Chi Fighting through Disability

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Right now, there are a lot of people who are fighting through a physical disability of some kind.

It might be slight, where the person is limited in minor ways.

It might be severe where the person can hardly move.

One of the things that persons with disabilities often suffer is a sense of vulnerability. Because of a physical limitation, some feel like they cannot defend themselves.

Or, they used to practice martial arts but, due to a disability, are not able to any longer. When we meet these folks, there is a genuine sense of loss at not being able to train to defend themselves.

So are people with disabilities just out of luck?

Are there no good answers for this problem?

Thankfully no, this is not the case.

That’s because this is where Tai Chi Chuan lives.

As a martial art, Tai Chi specializes in taking a weaker, potentially disabled person and giving them a combat advantage (through internal principles like relaxed structure and whole body power) over a stronger, healthier person. This gives Tai Chi practitioners the ability to fight and successfully defend themselves despite a disability or physical weakness.

Additionally, Tai Chi has a variety of practices that specifically work to remedy physical disabilities. In some cases the ailment can be improved significantly, in other cases the disability can be healed to almost complete restoration.

One of the methods for working on an injury or disability is something called “Old Feeble Style.” This is where the practitioner listens to their own body, and very carefully works the range of motion of the affected area while running the Tai Chi form. What happens is that the affected area begins to open up, receive proper circulation, and gets better, stronger, and healthier.

Add to this proper energy flow and all kinds of healing potential opens up for the body.

If you feel like your options are limited for self-defense because of an injury or pre-existing disability, don’t give up. Clear Tai Chi can give you the training to fight through your condition on the street and within yourself.

See what Tai Chi can offer, check out Clear Tai Chi Online:

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/clears-tai-chi-online/

The first two weeks are only $5.

Stay Safe,
Jared Voelker

How to get better Qigong skill faster by cutting out the middle man

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There’s an approach to doing energy work that’s very common in qigong instruction and particularly in most of the books you will find on qigong.

This will probably sound familiar.

“Imagine as if…”

People who have done internal training before they start training with Master Clear have commented that he doesn’t tend to say this as much before describing an exercise or training.

His sentence starts off differently.

He describes what you are trying to get your energy to do, and then instructs you to do that.

For instance…

Instead of “imagine as if you have tree roots that grow out of the bottoms of your feet deep into the earth,” he would say: “feel your root drop slightly past your feet.”

You might be asking what is the difference between these two approaches.

The “imagine as if” approach has some value when used as a stepping stone.

The problem is that if you primarily use imagination to build something like root you will not develop a clear perception of your ability (ie depth, width, and quality of root to a precise degree) and won’t be able to control what you are doing as effectively.

This imagination method can actually obscure what is going on, making it harder to develop high level skill.

When you use imagination to affect your energy, your mind is not on the energy… it is on what you imagine. Imagination is a middle-man (which, if you’ve ever bought straight from a dealer online, you realize can be unnecessary). You can still build some perception as to what is going on, but your focus is split between your imagination and what is actually going on.

With Sigung Clear’s method, you gain a much clearer picture of what is happening and how to control it.

So cut out the middle-man.

Instead of using imagination, tap into your actually energy and gently manipulate it with your mind. You will build a clearer perception of what you are working on and will also be able to utilize the skill in real time much more effectively.

Clear Internal Push Hands will rapidly build your ability to tap into your energy and increase your skill at manipulating it.

Later this month we’ll have details on our Internal Push Hands Instructor training and what it takes to become certified.

In the meantime, take a look at Clear Tai Chi Online course. This extensive online course will show you how to gain skill with energetics like rooting so that you can have direct control over what your doing. There is an online forum for asking questions, so you’re never left in the dark if you get stuck.

The first 14 days are only $5, so you have plenty of time to see how extensive the training content is.