OFFERING CLASS AND HEALING
Chi kung class
Question
I wanted to let you know that I am very close to starting offering classes and healing now. I intend to start teaching a class near where I live in late Sept/early October, and I am developing my ability to offer chi kung healing as well. At present, I am still in full-time work but I intend to build up classes and other services and transition from employment to self-employment when I am supporting my family with the new services.
I am also working through how to offer chi kung healing at the premium fee in the UK given the rules about what can and cannot be said about any art's ability to heal, even though we know it can do so! I am working with a lawyer on this.
-- Matt, England
Answer
It is wonderful to hear from you.
I am glad you will start teaching and performing chi kung healing. London is a very big city. We can easily have 10 Shaolin Wahnam instructors in London teaching genuine, high-level chi kung.
Chi kung is so badly taught by others that it has become a gentle physical exercise without the knowing of other teachers. When a person says he practices "chi kung", he means he practices gentle physical exercise. Genuine chi kung will bring good health, vitality and longevity; high-level chi kung will bring a lot of these benefits in a short time. Gentle physical exercise can never bring these benefits.
It is important not to antagonize medical drug companites or medical circles. Medical drug companies and medical circles can benefit much financially from modern technology. Medical drug companies can develoop medical drugs coated with sugar to generate energy flow, and medical doctors have great respect from the public, whereas practicing genuine chi kung takes a long time.
Charging high fees is a good way to differentiate between genuine, high-level chi kung and gentle physical exercise -- a fact not many people know. Students will be glad to pay the high fees once they know that you teach genuine, high-level chi kung.
Teaching 18 Lohan Hands is a very good way to start teaching genuine, high-level chi kung. But you must guard against over-teaching. You will also learn the skills of teaching, which are quite different from the skills of practicing chi kung.
There is no definite syllabus for teaching chi kung. Shaolin Wahnam Syllabuses is a good place to start reading. You should also read Five-Animal Play and Other Chi Kung Arts in our School.
Chi kung healing will be a norm in future. As practicing genuine chi kung is very rare, chi kung healing is also very rare. What many teachers prescribe is gentle physical exercise using chi kung form. They don't even have any experience of "chi". As "chi" is life, chi kung healing can overcome any diseases, especially those considered "incurable" in Western medicine.
You need to be very careful legally in teaching genuine, high-level chi kung, and performing chi kung healing as a teacher. You must also be sure that the income from teaching genuine, high-level chi kung and performing chi kung healing be more than your present income before thinking of changing profession. Never pay any promoter any money up-front no matter how good he claims himself (or herself) to be. You may, if you like, give a high commission.
Personally I do not believe in a free introductory one-day class. It is too soon to generate energy flow -- to show the difference between genuine chi kung and gentle physical exercise. You should also let students develop on their own the skills of going into a chi kung state of mind, but you can help them.
Remember that courses with me are different from regular chi kung or chi kung healing classes. In courses with me you learn in a few days what I took months or years to learn as a student. I did not know about going into a chi kung state of mind until years later when I was already a teacher after reading about it from the greatest of chi kung masters, Sifu Yan Xin, of China. Things like "opening your mouth", "smiling from your heart", and "always having good thoughts" -- which our students now know clearly -- were what I developed from my many years of teaching.
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