Eight Treasures

Eight Pieces of Brocade - The External Way to Develop Your Qi

The eight treasures have fantastic all round tai chi benefits for all those who practice this fine exercise set. They are an extremely powerful external set of exercises that will strengthen your whole body. Practised as tai chi basics in most good classes, for qigong purposes; to develop powerful chi.

Eight pieces of brocade were once composed of a set of 12 exercises but have now been refined into a set of 8. The eight treasures are otherwise known as the eight pieces of brocade, and were developed by Marshall Yueh Fei in the twelfth century.

Marshall Yueh Fei was very forward thinking, even by today’s standards and wanted to encourage preventative health for all his troops. He found that his troops easily tired and formulated these set of formidable exercises as an extremely powerful tool to help prevent this.

Marshall Fei also founded the external martial art of Eagle Claw, and the very effective internal art of Hsing-I.

Silk is very precious throughout the world, but even more so in China as it is part of their cultural heritage. ‘Brocade’ is described as richly coloured silk, with gold and silk threads interwoven into the cloth.

How do I practice these very powerful set of exercises?

Keeping in mind the silk aspect of these exercises; imagine that you are gradually pulling silk from a cloth. The pace must be kept even and done very slowly throughout each exercise. In your stance do not go to low. If you feel any tension in your lower back, come up in your stance slightly.

General rules to observe for these exercises

• Please ensure that you breathe very naturally and do not force your breath. Keep your breath slow and even breathing through the nose.
• Relaxation is the key element throughout these exercises; ensure that you do not have tension in your body as it will hinder any progress.
• Start and end each exercise with your feet together and hands crossed over your lower Dan Tien, in order to return your Chi back to this very important area. This will also encourage you to stay very relaxed and focused throughout your training.
• Where necessary keep the back upright and shoulders dropped and relaxed.
• Do not lean forwards, unless it is part of these exercises.
• Make sure that you are wearing loose fitting clothing and ensure that you have adequate ventilation in the room.
• Repeat each exercise at least three to five times. Gradually overtime this can be increased to eighteen or thirty six repetitions. But build this up gradually over a few weeks.

What is the order of the eight treasures?

1. Supporting heaven with both hands
2. Bending the bow, as though shooting a hawk
3. Single handed push up to heaven and down to earth
4. Turn the head and look back to prevent illness/injuries
5. Sway the head and swing the tail to rid heart-fire
6. Bend from the waist and hold the feet with both hands
7. Screw the fist with fiery eyes – to increase qi li (muscle)
8. Keep all diseases away by raising the heels