Sharon Smith

Sitting practice combines gentle arm movements, breath, and meditation to settle the body and nourish calm. Iron Shirt Qigong brings a more dynamic dimension, using standing postures and powerful breathing techniques as life-force training. Across these methods, the emphasis remains on awakening chi, opening the major acupuncture meridians, and learning to circulate energy internally through regular practice.

Tai Chi classes are kept small, allowing for substantial personal attention and a more closely guided experience of the form. That intimate scale suits the larger teaching style suggested by the practice itself: less about spectacle or abstraction, more about steady cultivation, refinement, and the felt intelligence of repetition. The body is treated as a living system that can be trained toward greater ease, energy, and internal coherence.

A Taoist thread runs throughout. Alongside movement and meditation, the practice engages broader Taoist wisdom, including the energetics of change through the I Ching and the view of sexual energy as a potent aspect of life force connected to health and longevity. Rather than separating physical training from philosophical inquiry, it treats them as part of the same continuum—an elegant mind-body tradition concerned with how energy is gathered, directed, and lived.