Tai chi and EFT - why do both?

This article is written primarily for people with at least some experience of Tai Chi (taiji) practice, and some familiarity with the effects of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. What I'm offering here is an entirely subjective report of my own experience, and should not be understood as authoritative medical advice.

Tai Chi and EFT - the background to my discovery

I've been practicing tai chi (or taiji) since 1980 with excellent long-term health and anti-aging effects. I've also benefited from the healing power of acupuncture treatment over an even longer period. Since moving abroad and unable to find a suitable English-speaking acupuncturist, I recently took up EFT, the Emotional Freedom Technique popularized by Gary Craig. I was encouraged by it's firm foundation in acupuncture principles, and especially by the fact that you can do it on yourself.

EFT corrects disturbances in the energy system.

Working directly with the chi (qi) to heal emotional and physical complaints is the domain of chi-kung (qigong), but the dangers of incorrect or unsupervised chi-kung practice are well-documented.

I've found the results from EFT for treating such complaints to be promising right from the start, but I'm now convinced that combining EFT directly with tai chi is an even more powerful and yet safe way of balancing and strengthening the flow of energy along all of the major acupuncture meridians.

EFT seems to be an entirely beneficial practice with no negative side-effects, and tai chi is widely acknowledged as being a safer and more balanced practice than many of the individual therapeutic chi-kung (qigong) forms. EFT heals by restoring the natural energy state whereas some chi-kung, like chemical medicine can be poisonous when applied inappropriately.

The practice of even a brief selection of tai chi movements immediately after applying EFT seems to have the effect of consolidating and deepening the effect of the treatment.

Combining tai chi and EFT has given me the strongest sensation of my own energy, chi (or qi) that I've experienced to date, even compared with some potent chi kung forms. If you've learned some tai chi, even just a little, and you've ever needed to be convinced of the existence of and power of your chi, there can be no safer or more effective way to access it than this. Try it for yourself.

How I discovered the winning combination

I woke early, troubled by a family crisis which I felt powerless to resolve. I couldn't get back to sleep. My usual solution for sleeplessness is to listen to a particular 'deep sleep' binaural beat audio track which works 9 times out of 10 but in this case, because I knew well the cause of my insomnia I decided to try EFT.

I've learned that an excellent time to do EFT is when you're having a very strong incidence of the feeling or condition you're trying to treat, because it's easy to tune into and accurately target the energy disruption. Not wanting to wake my family, I went off to the small kitchen of the apartment where we were staying and ran through the technique.

The moment I'd finished, I felt a strong tingling sensation in my hands and arms. This is something I normally associate with practising tai chi (taji) or chi-kung (Qigong), and the association was so strong that I decided to practice a tai chi form right away.

There wasn't enough room to practice the tai chi form in the usual way, so I limited myself to running through the sequence on one spot with both feet rooted to the ground throughout.

As any tai chi practitioner knows, playing the form this way, it's necessary to pay special attention to weight-transference and how the movements are conducted through the whole body from the ground upward, otherwise it becomes a meaningless waving about of the arms. This is a method I've used many times before, but this time, the sensation of energy both kinetic and bioelectromagnetic surging through the body was the most profound I've ever experienced.

Results

I followed up the form with another run through the EFT sequence. The result? The intensity of my target emotional state was effectively reduced to zero, and all of this in under 12 minutes.

After this I spontaneously entered a profoundly peaceful meditative state with a very strong sense of chi circulating in the 'microcosmic orbit' (that is up the spinal column, over the top of the head and down the frontal centre-line of the body to the perineum).

I was so deeply impressed by the effect of combining EFT with tai chi that I have now established this as my first activity every day. I feel that it's well worth getting up 15-20 minutes earlier to experience the astonishing transformation of mood, feeling, energy-level and well-being.