A Deeper Look at Opening & Releasing
Craig Mallett The way I use these two terms has layers of understanding. At a crude level opening is simply the act of spreading out physical tissue and releasing is an act of allowing tension to melt out of these structures. We can remember the cardinal rules of these qualities too: Opening without its […]
The Work of Endless Repetition
Craig Mallett There’s no two ways about it; internal cultivation requires effort. It’s not just any kind of effort either, there is a particular flavour of effort needed, particularly when using the methods of the Chinese internal systems (which I draw on heavily). The term they use is ‘Gong Fu’ (or more commonly written […]
The Perfectionist Paradox
Craig Mallett The work I am doing is mostly antithetical to what popular culture seeks these days, even the ones that appear on the surface to be working with similar techniques to me. The reason for this is that I am using the techniques not for the goal of getting good at the techniques, […]
Relaxed, Unanxious Breathing
Craig Mallett Releasing Control and Attention to Structure 2. How One Might Do This: Craig can be found at www.craigmallett.com and contacted direct at contact@craigmallett.com He is currently/indefinitely available for the following services: Online Training, Online Courses, Healing, Consultation
Finding Ease Through Connection
Craig Mallett Connecting the arms to the torso through the shoulder is not a simple matter of strengthening or mobilizing the shoulder, although both are involved to some degree. A connected shoulder is one that allows free passage of force. This force could be as simple as the weight of the arms themselves being […]
Trusting Tension
Craig Mallett View this post on Instagram A post shared by Craig Mallett (@craigmallettau) Craig can be found at www.craigmallett.com and contacted direct at contact@craigmallett.com He is currently/indefinitely available for the following services: Online Training, Online Courses, Healing, Consultation [Feature Photo by Demi Kwant on Unsplash.]
Expectations & Experience
Craig Mallett One of the things I run into a lot while teaching are loaded expectations. It’s when we have a preconceived idea of how it’s all meant to go, and are looking for some sort of specific experience from the training. It’s a very normal starting point, but If this escalates, it […]
The Problem with Language
Craig Mallett We (modern) humans have a great tendency to want to categorize things to make sense of them, and I dare say it’s linked directly to our allergy of the mysterious and unknown. Every week I run into the inevitable “so what do you do” question, and as I start my attempt […]
Cultivating a Skeptical Mind
Craig Mallett Despite diving quite deeply into an esoteric tradition of spiritual cultivation, I was and still am a very skeptical person by nature. If someone talks to me toting stories about enlightenment and energetic prowess, I’m even now usually inclined towards doubt, or at the very least to see it as just a […]
Clarifying Motivations & Losing Expectations
Craig Mallett Our imagination and dreams, linked to the hun and the wood energy, are an important tool for driving us to accomplish things in our lives. Without dreams for a better world we would hardly be motivated to get up and do stuff, and would become stuck in a big stagnation. The modern […]
Keys to Longevity
Craig Mallett Cultivation and longevity are not simple matters of “do this one trick and all your problems go away”. Like cultivating a garden, it takes regular attending to, and a slow understanding of context that means rules shift and change depending on circumstances. We can have guidelines, but there are no “if x, […]
An Introduction to Daoist Training
Craig Mallett What on earth is a Daoist? Why train in this strange Daoist way? After 20 odd years of training, it is often easy to forget that most people haven’t even heard of half of the things that I completely take for granted. Many of my friends are talented teachers in various niches […]
Am I Doing It Right?
Craig Mallett One of the most common questions I get when teaching people new to the Daoist approach is “am I doing it right?” While perfectly understandable in a modern world that encourages us all to not ever feel like we’re good enough (the honest answer “no, it’s terrible because you’re a beginner and […]
Removing, Not Adding
Craig Mallett We often say in the tradition that the Daoist way is one of removing, not adding. Yet the first thing we do is learn a million practices. So what do we mean by this? It’s useful to remind ourselves that the exercises (and the way we exercise) are the tools we use to aid […]
A Daoist’s Thoughts on Food
Craig Mallett I wanted to put together a basic guide on food and dieting from my understanding of the Daoist perspective. Although there are 20 million ideas about how to eat well these days, the Daoist way has been well established for many hundreds if not thousands of years, and so isn’t at the […]
A Daoist Perspective on Choice, Values, and the Virus
Craig Mallett I’ve had a good amount of people ask me what the Daoist view of the current situation with viruses and vaccines and lockdowns and so on is, so I thought I’d reiterate the main points I keep making with people by writing a juicy article. The Da Xuan tradition differs from many […]
The Beginner’s Mind
Craig Mallett Following on from the previous post, I wanted to talk this month about a concept that often gets referred to as beginner’s mind. It’s a simple idea, a way of looking at things as if we were a beginner or a child, seeing them full of wonder and possibility rather than writing […]
Marshmallows & Momentum
Craig Mallett The image of the dynamo is used in Da Xuan to give a feeling of how the training gets started. In the beginning, it takes quite a bit of willpower, effort and juice to get going, but at some point the momentum of your efforts begin to make the practices move themselves. […]
Daoist Self-Cultivation
Craig Mallett One of the major attractions I had to Da Xuan Daoism as a system of self-cultivation is that there is not really any fixed idea of how a person should act or behave. Despite this lack of pre-determined behavioural ideas, there is still the idea that we can always evolve and improve […]
Breath, Energy, & Upheaval
Craig Mallett Breathing is a big topic in the Da Xuan tradition. When we look at the view that the tradition takes of the human being, we see it split into thirds. One third is the physical aspect (Jing), which is all about the cultivation of the body. As the body is material and […]