K’ai Men

A Kai Men exercise, part of the Base Ten.

K’ai Men in the West is known as Taoist yoga, but K’ai Men simply means ‘Open Door’. These two simple words refer to the doorway to all the channels of the mind, body and spirit. As the exercises are performed, we bring all three together in wonderful harmony. K’ai Men has also been known as Ho Ping (Unity) and Ho Hsieh (Harmony).

K’ai Men is the Taoist form of Ch’i Kung or energy activation, control and utilization, and with practice will lead to Li Kung (Energy of the Universe) supply and storage.

Within the main sections of K’ai Men there are five ‘openings’ (K’ou) or ‘doorways’ (Men K’ou). These are:

• Spirit
• Mind
• Body
• Energies
• Healing

There are subsections — every step we take within each section helps us to become more aware of the depths of our own bodies, and the unity and harmony we can acquire within them.

K’ai Men tends to be Yin in its external movements, but is balanced by dynamic Yang muscular-change during the exercises, together with the harmonizing of the strict mental control of all the energies within the body. K’ai Men conforms to the principles of the Five Elements (Wu Hsing), which lay down the basics for the dynamic work within the Taoists Arts.