Introduction
I have been looking forward to posting this interview with Chi Skills – Armand & Didi. They are such lovely people, and I always take something away from when they share their knowledge on platforms like the Bard Inn with Phil Rice.
If you enjoy this interview please let us know in the comments and share it with others. Contact details have been provided at the end of the post if you would like to learn more about Chi Skills and their approach, I highly recommend their YouTube channel.
Interview with Chi Skills – Armand & Didi
PAA: Can you share how you accomplish demystifying the Chi Kung process in practice? What core exercises or methods do you use to help beginners genuinely feel their internal energy from day one, and how does this immediate immersion create the paradigm shift in self-experience that you’ve described?
For us, demystifying the Chi Kung process begins with direct experience. Rather than speaking about energy as an abstract concept, we start with a very simple but powerful practice called “Building the Ball.”
In this exercise, students begin sensing an energetic field between their hands. Because the hands are naturally sensitive, this is one of the easiest places to direct awareness. In many cases, within a single session — sometimes within twenty minutes — people begin to feel sensations between the palms. At that moment the training truly begins, because energy is no longer theoretical.
From there the practice deepens quickly. At first a student might say, “I feel energy.” Soon, the perception shifts. Instead of experiencing energy as something separate — something you have — the realization begins to arise that this energy is part of your own being.
This is the real paradigm shift: the movement from “I have energy” to “I am energy.” Once that shift occurs, the exploration changes completely. Students begin asking deeper questions: What is the state of this energy I am? How is it behaving? Where is it going? Is it free? What is the personality of this energy? What is its aligned purpose? How is it manifesting, knowing it is part of a larger energetic whole?
Once someone has felt energy directly and identified with it, the entire journey becomes grounded in lived experience rather than belief.
PAA: The Chi Skills methodology emphasizes practicality and clarity, offering a step-by-step pathway for the internal journey. What distinguishes your approach from other Chi Kung or internal arts schools?
One of the main differences in our approach is that we constantly ask: how can this training be lived in everyday life?
Many internal arts schools focus primarily on forms or routines. Those practices are valuable, but for us the deeper question is how the training translates into the way someone actually lives. The goal is not to perform exercises well, but to develop real energy skills that can be applied in life.
A principle we often use in our teaching is this:
Does the method serve the person, or does the person serve the method?
In our system the method always serves the person. Practices are tools that help people understand and regulate their own energy.
This principle becomes especially clear in our private mentoring work. We look at where someone actually is in their training and life, and from there we select the practices — within our framework — that support their next step in development.
Our training focuses strongly on state awareness and state regulation. Students learn to observe their energy: how it behaves, where it flows freely, and where it becomes stagnant or contracted. As awareness grows, people begin to see the connection between their internal state and what they manifest in their lives.
In this way the training gradually becomes a path of self-mastery. Energy work is no longer limited to training but becomes a living practice throughout the day.
Ultimately, our aim is to provide people with practical energy tools for navigating life. The practices draw inspiration from Chi Kung, Hermetic training and modern approaches to personal development, but they are integrated into a coherent system.
That is why we describe the work as Energy Skills for Life.
PAA: What does internal alchemy mean to you on a practical spiritual level, and what kind of transformation do dedicated students typically undergo over time? Ultimately, what higher purpose does this path lead to?
Internal Alchemy is the process of transforming energy from one state into another state.
On a practical level, that process immediately starts in the physical training we teach: transforming muscle tension into fascia stretch through the process of ‘song’ — which is often translated as relax. But we prefer the word release because it describes a conscious activity.
Done right, this demands your awareness, your consciousness to be fully involved. Remember — it’s a process. It demands presence. Done wrong, just “relax”, it does not demand that sort of presence at all — you could be daydreaming. That changes nothing fundamentally and leads to weakness.
This awareness, this presence, is the spirit. And it is the spirit that ascends, reconnects, refines, heals and masters. It is the spirit that wants to come out and manifest its purpose. You changing you — now that is powerful.
Releasing is also the method to connect to and move through the different aspects of our being and beyond — Akasha and non-dual light. As we elevate our awareness up the vibrational scale, we start with form — the physical, as mentioned before. From there we move through the vital, astral and mental frequencies through different transformations: releasing time, releasing space, and so on. Moving from form to formless, on our way back home to universal consciousness — the drop seeking the ocean.
Alchemy is thus also the practical tool to connect to, and move between, these frequencies. Think of your awareness stepping into an elevator. Every floor is reached through a transformation — a release. This makes it possible to step out on every floor and explore. What’s happening here? What can I heal, strengthen, balance, transmute?
At the same time, the power that drives the elevator upwards is stillness. So we teach this as two paths: cultivating stillness on the one hand, and refinement and transmutation on the other. Because there is work to be done.
The elevator shaft is the pipeline. It connects heaven and earth. Over time, what happens with students is that by strengthening their structure, they strengthen the pipeline. And as we guide them up in the elevator — step by step — they gradually start to open that pipeline through different methods, identifying and releasing conditioning, stagnations, contractions and stickiness.
This has an incredible effect on how their energy starts to move. Before, when light touched them, it would be met by unconsciousness — and that would then also manifest in their lives. Through this process, as consciousness grows, the light can work through them in a much more conscious way.
And that changes the story — and the outcome.
Food is one of the most direct ways we can influence our energy. When people begin to observe this more carefully, they start to notice how strong this effect is.
Didi & Armand
PAA: Nutrition appears to be a unique pillar of your system – you even refer to “Nutritional Chi Kung.” How do you incorporate dietary guidance into internal energy training? Are there specific nutritional principles you recommend, and how does diet support the meditative, Chi Kung and Hermetic practices in your system?
In our experience, anyone who begins training seriously will eventually encounter the topics of nutrition and lifestyle, which are closely connected. As people’s awareness grows through Chi Kung and meditation, they naturally become more sensitive to the influences that shape their energy.
Food is one of the most direct ways we can influence our energy. When people begin to observe this more carefully, they start to notice how strong this effect is.
Many people believe they are already eating “healthy,” often meaning avoiding processed foods or reducing sugar. Those are good first steps. But from an energetic perspective the deeper question becomes: does a specific food support clarity and stability in the system, or does it create disturbance?
Over time students begin to observe cause and effect more clearly. They start to notice which foods support clarity and vitality, and which ones create heaviness, stagnation or emotional turbulence.
At the same time, nutrition can be one of the most challenging areas for people. Food is closely connected to habits, emotions and conditioning. Sometimes people are drawn to certain foods because of patterns that developed earlier in life, and those choices can reinforce the very patterns they are trying to change.
For this reason we do not promote one rigid dietary system. Instead we look at the energetic principles behind food. Many traditional cultures explored this deeply — Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and Western traditions such as the teachings of Hildegard von Bingen.
When you compare these traditions, you often see similar principles appearing in different forms. Again and again they point toward the same idea: food should support balance and vitality in the system.
Once students can feel their own energy through Chi Kung practice, the effect becomes much clearer. Over time they develop a natural sense of which foods support clarity and stability, and which ones disturb that balance.
In that sense nutrition becomes not a restriction, but a practical tool — helping people support their energy, their awareness and their development through the training.
As stillness deepens, awareness expands and eventually connects with universal consciousness.
Armand
PAA: Sifu Mark Rasmus – a renowned teacher known for combining Chi Kung with Hermetic principles and training sensitivity to different energy frequencies from vital to akashic – has been a significant influence on your journey. What were some of the most impactful lessons or practices you learned from him? How have his teachings shaped the way you teach within Chi Skills?
Armand:
Before I met Sifu Mark Rasmus, I had already trained in the internal martial arts for eleven years. I was deeply committed to the practice, but I was searching for something deeper than the martial aspect alone. My interest had shifted strongly toward internal alchemy. That led me to Mark.
One of the most impactful things Mark gave me was a clear developmental framework. Up to that point I had learned many powerful practices, but they existed somewhat separately. What Mark did was show how all those pieces could fit into a coherent path of development. Suddenly the training was no longer a collection of techniques — it became a structured journey.
I remember a moment very clearly from the first week I trained with him in Thailand. At the end of that week he said to me: “All you’re looking for is eyes of a hawk and a large mental space.” That description resonated deeply and gave me a clear direction in my training.
Another principle he emphasized was that the entire path is essentially a cultivation of stillness. As stillness deepens, awareness expands and eventually connects with universal consciousness.
These insights shaped the way we teach today.
Didi:
When Armand began studying with Mark Rasmus, he shared what he was learning with me. At that time I was studying Traditional Chinese Medicine, so I was reading a lot about energy and how it functions in the body, but only from a theoretical perspective.
What changed for me was that I began to experience these things directly through energy awareness. Instead of only reading about someone else’s experiences, I could actually feel and recognize these energies myself. It all became very practical and made much more sense.
PAA: Beyond Sifu Rasmus, were there other important mentors in your development? How did those influences shape your approach today
Armand:
I trained internal martial arts for eleven years under Dutch teacher Roel Jansen, who taught a combination of Yang-style Tai Chi and a Kuntao style called Tit Khun. Besides that, he taught Nei Gong and Chi Kung, and there was a great emphasis on Taoist thinking. There were bruises and books at the same time. Looking back, those years created a deep foundation for which I am forever grateful.
When I later met Mark Rasmus, his teachings refined and built upon that foundation. In many ways I see these two teachers as part of a natural evolution: the earlier martial training built the structure and openness, while Mark’s teachings revealed the deeper energetic side of the practice and shaped direction.
PAA: Can you share more about your Private Mentoring program? Would a student expect to go through the stages shown in the image on your homepage?
Yes. The image on our homepage shows the alchemy framework we use to guide people through the training. You can think of it as a treasure map for the journey.
It illustrates the journey through the different energetic layers of our being and beyond — physical, vital, astral, mental, akasha and non-dual light. Within each of these levels we explore the five pillars of our system: Reconnection, Self-Healing, Self Mastery, Purpose and Manifestation.
Our Private Mentoring program allows us to guide students through this process in a very focused way. It is a six-month trajectory consisting of twelve one-on-one sessions, held every two weeks. This rhythm gives people time to integrate the practices and experiences between sessions.
Alongside the mentoring sessions, students can work with exercises from our Core Essentials Chi Kung Course. Sessions are recorded so students can revisit the material, and after each meeting we provide a written recap with reflections and suggested practices.
Before joining the program we always schedule a no-obligation introductory conversation. In that conversation we explore where someone currently stands in their training and what they are looking for. Because the work is personal and intensive, it is important that the connection feels right on both sides.
Every student’s journey is different. Some come from backgrounds in Chi Kung, Hermetic training or meditation, while others simply feel a strong calling to explore energy more deeply. The one-on-one format allows us to adapt the training to the individual while still working within the framework.
For some people one six-month cycle is enough to gain clarity and direction. Others continue for additional cycles as their exploration deepens.
Where to Find Us
More information about our work can be found on:
– our website: ChiSkills.com
– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/chiskills
Contact us:
– email: chiskills@outlook.com
– WhatsApp: +31624498309
PAA: Many thanks to both of you for answering our questions.
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