First off let me add that all the practitioners at the workshop were some of the nicest people I have ever met. Everyone there was so friendly and I hope to have the pleasure to meet up with some of them again some time in the future. I would also like to thank Michael for being so helpful and down to earth with his teachings.
For my review I will do my best in describing my experiences but do to the nature of these types of events, I doubt I could ever fully portray what I experienced. Also the purpose of this review is not to outline the entire workshop in a linear manner (you’ll just have to go to one and find out yourself if your interested), but to attempt to give others the feel of it and note some interesting events that I observed.
The room for the workshop radiated with positive vibrations. Even before beginning the workshop I was fine just sitting there basking in the energetics of the place. Practicing Gift of the Tao was much fun! It felt like swimming through a warm hearty soup where the broth was qi. Or as Michael would put, “floating in a sea of light”. Later we cranked things up a notch and started doing Gift of the Tao 2. The energy, power and tranquility I experienced behinds these forms have not been matched since. There were many moments of sheer joy practicing both forms of Gift of the Tao throughout the workshop. Many people at the workshop, myself included and still am, were amazed at the how these movements can be SO simple yet SO effective and powerful. If you simply watch someone else doing them you’ll never be able to comprehend benefit behind these forms. Its about the doing part, not the thinking about doing or as Carlos Castenada puts it, “A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting. ” Something I thought was very interested was that we started out doing warmup “body oriented qigong” such as eight brocades and some more quick forms from the knowledge banks of Michael and I noticed that I could not or barely at all feel the energy from these forms. Then Michael jokingly said now were gonna do some “real” qigong and we switched over to Gift of the Tao and like a flash I instantly felt a change and lots of energy began being felt all around me. To me that was instant validation for the efficiency of Michael’s system versus others that I have experienced.
The first day in which we did stillness movement Michael gave us all the projections. I felt different sensations around my body and almost felt like a wind was hitting me, I would still consider my personal energy sensitivity to be in its baby stages through, many people besides myself reported some very significant energy/spiritual experiences during the projection. After doing the sitting stillness-movement for around an hour through my whole body was vibrating with energy and I felt a supreme sense of peace within me. As far as I could tell I had no spontaneous movements that I could notice during the first sitting practice. After the workshop later that night I still felt full of peaceful vibrations and then something cool happened. I was just laying in bed reading when suddenly my whole vision lit up with bright white sparkles and lines, for a while before the workshop and a little during it I had been seeing occasionally a random white sparkle here or there, which Michael has told me means I am starting to see the qi. However that event after the workshop has definitely been the largest amount of qi I have ever seen.
The next day was full of more magic. We started with some more gift of the tao to get the energetics going and then kicked off into standing stillness-movement. I found stilling the mind and focusing on the dantian was much easier today after taking in so much positive energy from the day before. After standing there for a while I felt someone running around the room and a vortex like sensation had been created. In fact I even saw a vortex of spiraling purples in my vision which was really cool. While this was happening I could feel my energy body going to town and having a blast while the energy of the room was being taken to a higher level. Michael describes the projections he does as energy based information and until you actually experience that your rational mind says, “sure man whatever you say”. However While I was standing there I kept hearing a particular thought that kept telling me to just give into the universe and reside in my dantian, it was interesting because I had not initiated this thought yet it kept trying to get my attention. I thought ok I’ll try it and virtually as soon as I followed the thoughts advice my feet began vibrating, then pretty soon the vibration went up my legs, and then suddenly my whole body was bouncing/shaking/ vibrating/wiggling/flowing. Spontaneous movement was happening all over the place which is at the same time very cool and very bizarre the first time you actually experience this. When Michael finally brought us out of stillness movement I truly felt like I was in higher state of being with energy vibrating all over the place.
The third and final day of the workshop was the medical qigong part. This truly was a day of miracles as everyone who showed up had helped heal each other’s injuries by at least 80 percent, many had their pains completely eliminated. This kind of healing really is unbelievable until you actually experience it for yourself. My partner treated me for my digestion problems I have been having. The treatment utilized both medical qigong and the Daoist medicine which were both very relaxing. What was very cool was that I could actually physically feel my digestive tract re-balancing itself after the treatment. Since then my bowel function has been much easier on me. The Daoist medicine really is something else and I felt such at peace with the world after receiving the treatment, it truly does put you into an altered state of being. I know my dad just about went to sleep after the treatments he received. I then went on to treat my partner for a broken toe he had received and had been having pain in the site of injury. I projected qi and pulled sick qi from the places Michael showed me to do and after only a 10-15 minute treatment my partner said that I had easily removed 80% of the pain he had been experiencing. Michael talked to us about low virtue and high virtue, where low virtue being regular everyday helping people out kinda stuff and high virtue when you actually give a part of yourself in helping someone and I know after doing the healing giving my own energy to the patient I felt a great surge of compassion that was quite emotional and if I could describe it would be a deep love and gratitude for being alive and part of this vast universe of ours.
There you guys go, that was a small taste of what I could linearly portray of my experience in Springfield; there were of course many more magical events but it would be impossible to describe everything. If anyone is in the least bit intrigued or interested by this system I would definitely recommend checking it out. I am not saying all this because I’m on Michael Lomax’s secret pay roll, I writing this because I sincerely believe in the power and energy behind this system. The system really speaks for itself. My qigong history includes practicing wild goose qigong for a bit and I trained with Master Jo for a few months, however IMO both pale in comparison to the depth of Michael’s practice. I have never had more energy awareness and development than with the stillness movement practice. I practiced Michael’s Gift of the Tao DVD for about four weeks before attending the workshop and even just doing that raised my energy more than any other system I had done. There was simply no comparison between the Gift of the Tao DVD with the other qigong DVD’s I had lying around the house.
I have been practicing each day for a week since the workshop and I have steadily noticed my own energy development increasing. I can only repeat the words “Sea of Light” to describe the utter joy and energy experiences I have felt with this practice. If anyone is interested in this practice I would recommend messaging Michael himself or seeking out some of the more advanced practitioners of this system.