Mountain Pathways

04/17/2024

Here is a great way to open up your body. Use your breath to bring awareness deeper inside and to release tension.

Stretches to help open up the Kua and hips along with some other good ones. Breathe and release while you follow along!

04/15/2024

Gratitude.

This is a profound quality that one can cultivate. Indeed, it is simple and powerful when truly touched upon. While many people touch gratitude in their lives, I encourage you to touch it daily and often. You can find Gratitude in anything when you put your mind to it, even for something as simple as a meal in front of you.

Search and find deeper gratitude for all the experience of life we are given. When you touch deep gratitude there will be a quality present within your body, mind and Being. Touch upon this quality daily and you will discover an array of benefits and wellbeing.

Within Nei Gong, we study and develop skill of the inner world which includes our energetic system. The quality of gratitude has an energetic effect within our system. With training, it will produce more energy and draw it into your body, improving your mood, mental clarity and ability, and more.

How do you experience Gratitude in your life?

Please like and follow Mountain Pathways to receive more information like this.
...and I will have even more gratitude 😄🌞🌻

04/11/2024

Sit and Be. Listen Within.

I encourage you to try these in your own time and way.

This simple instruction can be daunting for our busy lives and yet it is also what has yielded the most in my life personally. When you can just sit and Be, you will eventually become quiet and still. This will naturally lead you to Listening Within, which will bring Clarity and Direction. Two qualities that I see lacking in much of society. Clarity will help you discern through the illusions all around us, and Direction comes when you listen to the wisdom and knowing that is already inside of you. Sometimes your Direction defies rational thought or social expectations, but trust in this and you will be lead into becoming a more evolved version of yourself.

Just Sit and Be, Listen Within and the Way forward will become clear.

04/06/2024

The energy of Spring is of the Wood Element - a strong driving force, like the seed sprout bursting up through the soil. It's beneficial to move your body and pursue activities that interest you. However if this Spring energy is impeaded or hindered it can produce anger, frustration and irritation. Use this Qi Gong exercise from the the Wu Xing (Five Elements) Qi Gong to harmonize and regulate the energy of Spring.

Join our monthly Qi Gong class tomorrow at Mission Creek Park to practice this! We meet 930am at the Ziprick rd. entrance and go until 1130am. Class is $25 and open to all levels of experience.

03/31/2024

Get your stretching on! Here are some basic stretches to keep your body open.

Some basic floor stretching to follow along with. Use your breath to release tension and relax the body.

03/22/2024

If you're wanting to wake up and activate the energetic body through Nei Gong training, be sure to stretch your body!...!

For the Lower DanTian and Qi to become more active, your body must be open and connected enough. Stretch lots and also exercise, particularly the core. This will all help to prepare the body for more energetic activity and intensity.

I will put up some videos soon to help you. 🙂

03/17/2024

Another gem for any internal arts practitioner 😊🙏 Be calm and at peace, be at ease...and the Qi will be accessible.

To be calm and at peace is the basis for the arising of Qi. To be in a state of turmoil, anger, resentment, obsession or similar is to disperse the Qi.
In this day and age, where many people do not even remember what peace and calm are; to be peaceful and calm is seen as a high level attainment. The truth is, to be calm is the prerequisite for work with Qi. It is, to me, the main reason why many have practiced these arts for years and still never accessed or experienced the movements and actions of their body’s Qi.
To be at peace is the starting block and not the finish line.

03/14/2024

Connect with the Earth. Connect with Nature.

There is far more value in connection with the Earth than simply a fuzzy good feeling or being a "hippy". The Earth has the largest and likely most powerful magnetic field in our current daily experience of life. We as Human Beings also have magnetic fields, and we can actually relate/connect ours with that of the Earth. When you harmonize your magnetic field with the Earth, you can experience healing and wellbeing, on physical, energetic, psychological, mental and spiritual levels.

I hope everyone can experience this connection with Earth and the wellbeing that comes from it. There are many ways to do this and you may find what suits you best. A good walk through the forest or any nature will begin this process of connecting to the Earth. Practicing Qi Gong in nature will surely help you harmonize.

😊😁🌻

02/26/2024

For woman practitioners of internal arts, I highly recommend this! Roni is a skilled teacher and lovely human being. Women have unique energetic anatomy that must be worked with in specific ways, and this course gets right into it. Check this online training out!

New Women’s Nei Gong program starting in two weeks, on our online platform the Internal Arts Academy! 🙌 😊 🌸 🧘🏼
Finally!
The first phase of the program is 7 months long, with a new class becoming available every week.
These classes focus on women’s cycles with the moon, women’s physical structure in practice, how to support the female body through menstruation and menopause, to help make the qi and the blood strong for internal cultivation and health.
Moreover, the course incorporates women’s nei gong exercises alongside fundamental foundational ones, making the classes also accessible to beginners. Our intention is to gradually expand upon this program in the future.
🙏😊

02/23/2024

Live your life how you would like to. Feel the power you already have to make change and walk in the direction you wish to be. I hear many people talking about all the things that inhibit them from going or being in the direction they want, but they neglect to acknowledge that they themselves are not even cooperating with their wants or wishes. Look within, develop and refine yourself, and create the change you wish for. The macrocosm and microcosm reflect each other.. and choose to have a great day! 😄👍

02/20/2024

Hey friends and practitioners, some exciting news!

Beginning in August of this year I'll be part of the teaching team for the 2.5 year Structured Foundations Program of Lotus Nei Gong International. We'll be helping students build the foundations of practice and assisting their development of Nei Gong. This course is an incredible way to dive in and establish a solid foundation. It will take place primarily in Toronto and includes an intensive retreat with Damo Mitchell - Lotus Nei Gong each year.

If you'd like to know more about this Structured Nei Gong Foundations Training, please visit https://lotusneigong.com/toronto-foundations/

Happy training!

Toronto Program This 2.5 Year Long Program will be taught in Toronto, Canada Live Events Online Events Foundation Program The Academy 2.5 Years of Structured Training in Toronto, Canada + 1 Yearly 10-Day retreat in Houston, Texas   Over the course of 4 weekends per year (for the first and second ye...

02/12/2024

When the mind can settle down and the thoughts become quiet and still like a tranquil lake, then we can better listen to the subtle aspects of life. Thoughts become like stones thrown into the lake causing ripples as they splash. And with good discernment we can even differentiate between the stones we throw and the stones thrown by others and their ripples. A helpful skill in the journey of personal development and internal cultivation.

This analogy is not new, but it is indeed a useful communicative tool for describing the effect of a quiet mind. Happy training! 😁

02/08/2024

When you can find the somatic experience of release from your exhalation and seperate it from exhalation so that it can become a quality of release, you may begin to find Song~release. Once that somatic experience is untangled from your breathing and can be touched upon as a mental quality, you can develop it further. I've found this a great entry for beginners to experience Song. The quality of Song is a key to internal practice.

02/06/2024

Our February monthly training was quite lively with an emphasis on Song ~ Release and lower DanTian work. Students beginning to tangibly work with their Qi is always a joy.

01/11/2024

This is such a key understanding to have of internal arts and progression with your practice. That the signs of progress are not instructions in themselves. Many modern teachers do not know and understand this, likely because they were never told or experienced progression in this way for themselves. And so we have many newly formed "systems" or methods of practice that include instructions for visualization of things and more - when in fact these were supposed to arise naturally in your experience as you progress through various stages of training. Discern carefully and train diligently!

So many of the writings of past masters and ancient traditions discussed confirmatory signs of progress as you walked the path. Many of these signs took the form of visual, auditory or other somatic outcomes which would arrive naturally after many years of diligently applying the correct conditions in your practice.
A common mistake is for people to have have taken these confirmatory signs and turned them into ‘instructions’ which are to be generated within the mind through visualisation. In doing this, the original, functional causes have been lost and so the root of the practice is cut.
Be careful to ensure that you identify what are instructions and what are confirmatory signs; it is important that clarity is applied here or given to you via the teacher.

12/19/2023

Damo sheds some truth about Qi development. It requires great discipline over time and correct conditions of the body and mind for Qi to build. 😊🙏🫶 train your Nei gong diligently friends! Think of practice like watering your garden, it must be tended to daily.

The development and building of Qi, within these arts is not something that may be done in a short space of time. Neither is Qi something which you already have and it simply has to be ‘found’.
Qi is not a metaphor for the fascia, or the nerves; neither is it a description of a particular movement or action.
Qi is a substance that has to be accumulated over a length of time. It is accumulated after we have changed the manner in which both body and mind function. Once these two have been adjusted, the mechanism is in place and then, we need to give both of these aspects of our being time to work for us so that the elusive Qi of practice begins to increase in volume.
There is no such thing as a short cut in this regard. There is no technique that may be mastered in a short space of time; only counterfeit versions, based upon non-Qi-based paradigms, may be learnt quickly.
The development of Qi takes time and hard work…Gong Fu.

12/15/2023

It has been a great year with some excellent improvement for those who've attended classes this year! Well done everyone! My heart is always warmed when I witness the personal transformation that the internal arts bring when truly engaged with. The arts of cultivation are profound in their scope and study. It is a continued honor to share this with those seeking it and willing to listen. We return to classes Sunday, January 7th of 2024, more on 2024 classes at https://mpneigong.com/events/

May you all make merry and stay warm these holidays!

Now to relax for a little bit until classes begin again next year!

11/25/2023

Some insight into the role of an internal arts teacher, not for the faint of heart!

Sat in the training hall rebuilding the body’s Qi after nearly a year of teaching and training full time. A part of the internal arts teachers role is to maintain his or her health and level of energy alongside the responsibilities of teaching. The ‘battery’ of the Dan Tian must be kept strong so that the teacher may assist the students through direct emission of Qi in order to help them in their growth and development. Too much Qi output and the teacher becomes drained and sick, no output of Qi and the students are not assisted as they should be. It is a fine balancing act which means that for every session of teaching, equal effort must be put into spending time to rebuild and recharge the body’s own Qi. This kind of teaching is labor intensive but also highly rewarding. The challenge involved in it is also good for one’s own development as you learn more about the building, conserving and issuing of Qi.
Now, at the end of the year, I don’t mind admitting that I am feeling it. The last couple of sessions of the year involved a larger output than normal as there is always the winter time to recharge now!
This, to me, is what Qigong teaching is. Not just guiding students through the exercises and movements but direct involvement with the students development on a more subtle level as the body’s channels are opened and the body filled with Qi.

11/04/2023

An update for our November training session - we will be training Sunday, Nov 19th instead! Mark your calendar and send an email to trugongfu@gmail.com to get the location invitation.

We'll be studying this winter how to go deeper into your nei gong process. This involves how to stand to touch the floor internally as well as using your energetic system to circulate qi in various postures.

This aspect of nei gong is not commonly explained in usual qi gong classes, and so we'll be getting into the details of how to go futher with your qi gong development.

See you there! :)

Niko Bene

10/06/2023

Our last outdoor class is tomorrow morning 930am at the Ziprick rd entrance to mission creek greenway. Bring some warm layers as it may be cool, though we’ll get the blood and qi moving with a warm up. As we wrap up the outdoor classes and move indoors next month, we’ll be adjusting our focus to harmonize with the seasons. Happy training!

09/30/2023

Hello friends! The next 3 months of training session dates are now listed on https://mpneigong.com/events/.

Please check them out and message me if you would like to join in. We'll be wrapping up our summer practice focus and moving into a winter practice focus. From movement to more still, subtle level of training....standing it is! :) See you there!

Here you will find information and updates about classes and events: Monthly Classes Classes will usually occur the first weekend of each month, unless noted otherwise. Please check back regularly …

07/04/2023

https://youtu.be/XlAhKzg4Azw Part 2 of Opening the Joints is released - check out more details for making practice work better for you!

Part 2 of Opening the Joints. This brief video goes into more details of how to make this standing exercise work better for you. Please don't mind the baby c...

06/16/2023

https://youtu.be/SvhSRJ1oJ-o

Part 1 of Opening the Joints is now live!

This is the beginning of a series of short videos on the basic mechanisms that create the correct internal conditions for qi development and building a Nei Gong practice. Check back soon for more!

A short video introduction on how to open the joints for Nei Gong training. Learn a basic exercise that helps to stretch the connective tissues through open...

03/28/2023

Standing to reshape the internal body is definitely hard work, but necessary to go deeper into the arts. Making the body more efficient takes time, diligence and dedication. We’ll done friends who engage on this level!

Two students of the internal arts completing two hours of unbroken standing whilst they work on a particular set of principles to reshape the body.
Standing practice can be an incredibly uncomfortable process as the connective tissues are pulled in many different directions; it is also mentally taxing as the mind must stay focused upon the task at hand.
People are often surprised at the lengths one must go to in pursuit of expertise in the internal arts and the difficulty involved. I am often surprised at how quickly people give in!

03/25/2023

Monthly training sessions resume Sunday, April 2nd! Next week is April and we'll be getting outdoors for training. Details for monthly training with us can be found at https://mpneigong.com/events/

See you there!

Here you will find information and updates about classes and events: Monthly Classes Classes will usually occur the first weekend of each month, unless noted otherwise. Please check back regularly …

03/08/2023

Check out the new article on the Mountain Pathways Blog titled “Guard your Time, Guard your Essence”. There is a great deal that can be said on the topic of Yang Sheng Fa ~ Healthy living. It’s an important discussion in this age of time and this article is just starting the conversation.

If you’d like to read more about healthy living, check out

Written August 2019 The concepts of Yang Sheng Fa are important beyond internal arts practice if one wishes to live a long, healthy life. Most things in society are asking something of us, whether …

02/11/2023

It's been some time since posting online, I've been busy creating a family... and also building a website and blog! - I have lots of written content to share from the many years of intensive training and travelling around. I'll be uploading articles regularly on my website (mpneigong.com) that regard many different aspects of an internal artists journey of development and transformation.

I will link some of the material here as I can. I hope you will come to my blog to check it out! :)

09/08/2022

Some wise words from Damo..

A practice is repeated day after day. I am personally not a fan of ‘free movement’, ‘spontaneous flow’ or ‘creative movement’ in practice for a very long time. It is my experience that, for a long time, we need to repeat and build the same patterns into our body’s daily. Full freedom of movement and expression should not be a thing for beginners in practice. As well as training set patterns into the body, we also go through an important process with our minds. Free movement and spontaneous expression has a kind of ‘trap’ built into it where it becomes a kind of escapism. Rather than face the effects of monotony head on, we escape into the distraction of creativity; whilst this creativity can be good, it should always come after discipline and focus, qualities that are built as a part of repeating our practice daily and going deeper into the same movements, exercises and principles. When we teach the body that escapism is okay, it will begin to transfer into our psyche until avoidance of anything unpleasant or uncomfortable can become the norm. What we train, we become.