This website is dedicated to the Students of Seifu A.S. Umar Sharif, MA. It is also dedicated to the promotion and propagation of the Traditional Afro-Asian Martial and Healing Arts. Our goal is to inform, educate, inspire, encourage, and motivate others to improve their lives by applying The Wisdom of the Ancients.
As your teacher and host, Seifu Sharif [aka: Xia` Xue' Gong] [aka: Tobi Alakoso] is dedicated to helping each of you to remember and nurture the Spirit of Wu-Te and the powers dormant within you.
Namaste’ Students and Fellow Martial Arts Enthusiasts!
It is difficult to imagine my life without my practice of the Traditional Martial and Healing Arts. In fact I would say that this knowledge and practice has saved my life many times and helped me to mitigate or heal a number of ailments. My short list would include an umbilical hernia, a broken finger, a traumatized back from a motorcycle accident, a broken toe, and more than my desired share of sprains, bruises, and fractures. Beyond the benefits of accelerated healing of physical ailments and injuries the knowledge of the Traditional Martial and Healing Arts can help you to avoid and evade people, environments, and circumstances the could result in harm or injury to you.
When most non-practitioners think of the martial arts they think of fighting. Of course fighting or more appropriately self-defense is a fundamental part of Traditional Martial and Healing Arts (TMHA) training. But from our perspective self-defense begins with mastering The Self. In TMHA training the student is encouraged and guided to confront every aspect of their self, their physical body, their degree of discipline and determination, their essential character, the elements of their personality, their emotions, their strengths and weaknesses, and their attitude towards life and death. One of the first things my teacher, Grand Master Alan Lee had his students do was to pot and grow a small plant, to nurture life and understand the process of growth. One of the most fascinating and awe-inspiring aspects of TMHA training for me was and is Qigong. TMHA is about more than just fighting. It is about Self-Defense in its purest and highest form. It is about striving to achieve a perfect expression of the unlimited potential that lies dormant in each and every individual.
Beginning with the mastery of your self is a fundamental aspect of many cultures around the world. During my travels to China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Africa I saw evidence of the importance that these cultures place on achieving the integrated self. Meditation, prayer, qigong practice, tai chi, tai chi sword, chanting, making offerings and burning incense to ancestors and at sacred shrines were all integrated into the fabric of everyday life. The practices convey the understanding that the individual who awakens in the home, walks into the school, or reports for work must be whole if the society is to remain intact.
Each morning in China the parks were full of people doing qigong and other traditional exercises of the culture before going off to work. In the schools, children did qigong exercises before beginning their academic activities. In the hospitals, patients were trained in qigong techniques to treat their illnesses or facilitate their healing process. In the factories workers engaged in various group qigong exercises during work breaks. U.S. companies would do well to look deeper into the benefits of TMHA training, especially Qigong. I left China understanding that the group that does qigong together, moves together. And that is true on a lot of different levels!
During my 50 years of qigong study and practice I have observed and experienced many things that benefit me, my students, and can benefit anyone who is willing to devote a little time each day to the practice of this powerful discipline. These things allow me to teach Qigong with conviction.
My teacher Grand Master Alan Lee’s body was virtually impregnable.
My teacher Master Abdel Muquaddim Abdur-Rashed could cut through two red bricks with one hand while holding them with the other.
I witnessed a Qigong master cut through three high-grade plastic chopsticks with an unfolded twenty-dollar bill.
I witnessed another master burn the foil coating off of a chewing gum wrapper while it was balled up in the palm of his hand. He used nothing but his qi (chi) to do this.
While teaching a Qigong class with about 20 students I was able to make the entire class sway in unison (eyes closed) simply by pushing them with my own qi.
A student with chronic asthma, on inhalers and in and out of the hospital two to three times per year, was asthma symptoms free after six months of Qigong training.
I have a video of a Qigong master cutting through two red bricks with a single page of newspaper folder over twice.
I spent about two to three minutes doing external qigong around the head of an executive with an executive size headache. No aspirin necessary! The headache was gone!
A student had suffered back pain for years with no relief from any source. During one of his first classes and his first complete repetition of one of the exercises in our Fire Flower System of Qigong he heard and felt an obvious pop. The agonizing pain was gone from that moment and didn’t return.
In my book, Unlocking The Healing Powers In Your Hands: The 18 Mudra System of Qigong I list some of the many ailments and illnesses for which Qigong has proved to be effective as a treatment or a cure. As a teacher one of my greatest rewards is when students come to me and report that their qigong practice has help them to feel more centered and calm, and that they are better able to maintain their control when confronted by the stressors in their everyday lives. That feeling of the integrated self is what I witnessed entire cultures striving for during my travels.
Have you seen the Shaolin Monks on any of their world tours and trips to Phoenix? They are awesome entertainment and offer a powerful demonstration of the potential in every human child. There is a whole world out there waiting for you to discover and explore it. And, there is an undiscovered fountain of potential that is there in you, also waiting for you to discover and explore it. Qigong is the vehicle that can take you on that journey into the realm of subtle energies!
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It is not simply practice that makes perfect. It is perfect practice and consistent practice that makes perfect.
