I moved away from the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu School and embarked on a new chapter within my martial path; I had always read books with a voracious appetite and came across a small book by James MacRitchie on cultivating personal energy, Chi Kung or Qigong. This book I never read, but I did clip Jim’s contact info and promptly gave him a call.

The initial contact with Jim was excellent, he was in the throes of publishing his book Chi Kung: energy for life. In addition to my acupuncture treatment with Jim, I entered the training programs he had on offer: ‘Everything you learn in Acupuncture School, without the needles!’ this was a course in Oriental Medical Theory – here, we we’re taken on a whirlwind tour of the broad and deep history of this ancient tradition; we mapped out the entire human energy system, including the deep pathways; I was taught the reading of the pulses; clinical diagnosis and procedure – the lessons were of unparalleled detail.

Sitting in meditation on the practices leading to a visualization of the root structures of the human energy system, during the ‘Eight Extraordinary Meridian Chi Kung’ training was true internal practice or Nei Gung at the highest level; early mornings, a group of well versed practitioners gathered and entered into the experience of our root energetic structures – the quality of participants and caliber of teaching, made for serious learning.

I served a three year apprenticeship under James MacRitchie, and in my final year often assisted in teaching, I was also introduced to some of the more advanced parameters of clinical operations. Over the past decade I’ve grown quite close with Jim, he has added to my teaching ‘an infinite source of interest’; and in terms of the efficacy of treatment, his method is well rooted – one could even say: all powerful.

I now have a considerable grasp of the transference phenomena, and understand that if we are ever to attain realization on the martial path, then Chi training is absolutely necessary and especially for martial artists, because: one only versed in the fighting arts and not the chi kung or healing dimension; can never truly understand and master the arts, and so become a fully evolved being. The preservation of these legacies for future generations, make the pursuit of Chi intelligence of critical importance.

“People may talk of energy, but this is external to themselves; herein lies man’s future!”