About – Craig Mallett

ABOUT ME

I started exploring self-cultivation methods in 2003. I have always had a burning curiosity to discover and explore myself and the world around me, starting with the immediate reality of my body. I had many periods where I did the ‘deep dive’ into arts that would help satiate this curiosity, including almost a decade training traditional internal arts with my first internal martial arts teacher, and another decade in a focused Daoist school (see below for more details). Having a lot of experience with many different modern modalities, mixed with the more traditional studies I have undertaken, brings me a unique vantage point.

I specialize in teaching internal and external physical practices, helping people to explore and restore their relationship to their body and internal landscape, and how that landscape relates to the external world. I aim to teach methods that are sustainable and can be used by anyone from any culture, tradition or lineage, with the idea that these qualities can be explored as a layer over whatever activities each person enjoys pursuing. I have done my best to make my teachings of this complex topic as simple and clear as possible so they are accessible to everyone.

I hold classes on the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and teach workshops around Australia and internationally. I teach online through a variety of avenues, including an online or in person mentorship, as well as online courses for people who want to get a taste for a more specific part of the training.

I am also trained in both traditional and modern healing methods, which, along with my significant history of working with the physical form, has given me a potent skill set for dealing with physical, emotional and mental troubles. I hold a BSc in Acupuncture, and am perpetually refining and deepening my medicine skills through further study, along with Bazi, Feng Shui, Yi Jing and more.

In general, I love to geek out about this stuff and talk with anyone who is interested, so if you’d like to chat please feel free to drop me an email using the button below.

"With time and practice we can shift the body and the unconscious from being a slave to being an extraordinarily reliable friend - one with which you share a most intimate trust."

Craig Mallett

THE APPROACH TO INTERNAL CULTIVATION

Many people have walked these paths before, and it would be unwise to disregard the experience of those who came before us. Although not popular or very well known in the west, methods of this variety have been used for thousands of years in the east with great success, with many of the past masters having positions as advisors to government or other important roles in society. I did not come up with the things I teach, but I have learnt from many different teachers and always sought an underlying commonality in it all despite each teacher and tradition having its own unique vision.

As a result of this, rather than looking at a system of exercises, I became focused on the essence of the process that the given exercises create in a person. The exercises and techniques are not the process themselves, but the repetition of the technique acts as a catalyst to ignite and deepen the process within us. If we focus on the quality of the process itself and practice until it is embodied in our unconscious, we can eventually do away with the exercises and allow the process to continue to grow in our daily activities. It is for this reason that I stick to apparently simple methods – lying, standing, shifting weight or walking, with basic motions of the arms and legs. If exercises are too ritualized and disconnected from our daily lives, it becomes difficult to bridge the moments of practice with the moments of mundane activity.

My approach centers around 2 very simple qualities:

Opening and releasing.

The opening quality spreads out, connects and reveals, a movement from the center to the extremities.

The releasing quality softens, unhooks and lets go, a movement from the extremities to the center.

Each of these qualities have defects when they are used independently, however when they unite they allow a natural transformational process to occur.

I study this process from 4 perspectives:

Physical
Internal
Mental
Non-dual

My syllabus is outlined with the following diagram:

PHYSICAL

Opening the Structure to Increase Awareness

The overarching idea that I work with is about opening up the structure (primarily the body but this applies elsewhere as well) and spreading things out so we can see and connect to what’s going on inside. It’s the same idea as clearing some space in a messy room before you can take inventory of what’s there and start removing the unnecessary elements. An open structure will reveal the connections that were previously hidden so they can be worked on in a more effective manner, and will give space for a freedom of movement circulation in the system.

Deep Release & Relaxation

Once we open up, we begin to see that there are many areas of pathological tension. The practices give space for these tensions to start to release, and doing so will lead us towards a deeply relaxed system. Relaxation in this approach is directly linked to the possibility of connecting to (through the opening process) and deeply feeling the tensions that bind us in our habitual reactivity. Our attention is fuel, and the more we attend to these blockages, the more they are able to release from their stuck cycle and return to a natural organic rhythm.

Strengthening and Connecting the Weak Links

As we begin to deeply release, many aspects of the body that have fallen into atrophy from disuse will be revealed. These weak links must be confronted, and slowly strengthened and reunited with the rest of the system’s ongoing process of release. As this happens we go towards a more united strength, and a more robust body that distributes and uses force effectively, thereby allowing us to relax even more. This way of strengthening the body is a much slower approach but also is much longer lasting and continues to improve into old age rather than relying on the vigor of our youth.

Coordination and Spacial Awareness

As we start to get more details about the nature of our physical body, it becomes apparent that we perhaps do not know quite where we are or where we are going. Coordination on a simple level is the mind directing the body to move in a particular way through space, but at a deeper level is about the body’s intrinsic awareness of where it is located. Developing this quality brings us into a clear sense of literally and physically knowing where we are and where we are going – a rather important detail for life!

INTERNAL

Dissolving Pressure Through the Centering Process

Untrained people tend to deal with pressure either by fighting and bracing against it (too much opening), or by evading and escaping it (too much releasing). Both approaches are inherently exhausting and leave you at the mercy of the source of the pressure. As we refine the processes of opening and releasing, we start to bridge these opposing qualities through the paradoxical center. The more we open, the more we can release, and the more we can release the more we will open. As this process propagates through the body, any pressure that is connected to it will naturally be siphoned and dissolved through the center. Being no longer bound by the pressure, we are free to express ourselves as we choose, and we are also freed from the need to constantly demand the outside world not put pressure on us.

Releasing the Mind into the Body

Once the process of opening and releasing is understood physically, it’s possible to translate this process into the mind. As we open to hidden mental structures, we can then learn to release them, allowing the energy bound by them to sink into the body. This process feels a lot like a viscous thick liquid draining out of the mental structures and soaking into the bodily structures, like thick water soaking into a sponge. For this mental energy to drain into the body, there needs to be space and relaxation, so the need for the physical process to precede this becomes apparent. As this energy becomes anchored in the body, it’s as if the fuel for all our thoughts is directed to accumulate elsewhere and we find less and less mental turbulence, and ever greater degrees of mental silence and clarity.

Understanding Intention

The more we are able to release the mind into the body, the more it becomes apparent that intention is also a mental structure that can be released. Slowly we discover a real possibility of giving our attention to aspects of our life *without* intent, and in this direct attention something marvelous happens – whatever is being attended to evolves on its own, in a profoundly effective way that would never be possible under the watch of our personal intention. As the great sage Lao Zi taught; in non-doing, everything gets done.

MENTAL

Getting to Know Your Mind

If the internal practices bring us into more direct contact with the tangible (yin) side of ourselves, mental brings us towards the more etheric (yang) side of our being. Training the mind can both help us understand our own mental tendencies and can also open new possibilities for relationship with external animate agencies for those who are interested.

The mundane need to simply get to know and improve the basic functions of the mind is certainly the more crucial of the two, and is a prerequisite before engaging too much with a more spiritual possibility of learning to relate to the world ‘out there’ through the imaginal structures of the mind. We must get to know the habits of the mind, the distortions, the understanding of how our own personal filters work and how to refine those filters so they can interact with the ‘objective’ world without being confused for the objective world (which we cannot directly access). We must also learn how to gather the mind without force, bringing conscious and unconscious into harmony.

Accessing the Animate Through Imaginal Spaces

These practices will help us to access and stabilize our imagination, while also learning to navigate the difference between actively shaped imagination/visualizations (i.e. our personal projections), and passively received imagination. This capacity draws much more on the active listening quality than projected intent.

The real risk of mental practices is that the attention towards the intangible mind pushes the Yang, which is both inherently unstable and energetically expensive – it can end up burning the Yin and destabilizing a person if approached poorly. These practices must be balanced both with mundane physical activity, and with internal work that cultivates the Yin aspect.

Approached properly we can start to create a real relationship with external animate agencies of all kinds, and this can bring richness and a deep sense of connectivity with and responsibility towards the world around us.

NON-DUALITY

Meditation and Glimpses of Direct Reality

Wrapping everything in this approach is the non-dual concept. As soon as we talk non-dual, it immediately goes into contrast against dualistic concepts: the non-dual vs the dual, the absolute vs the relative, and you once more have a necessary dualistic relationship. I consider both of these perspectives as equally important to one another, and simultaneously co-existing – this is the meta aspect of true non-dualism. The non-dualistic orientation speaks to the timeless context that everything happens within, whereas the dualistic orientation is more about how the stuff that happens in this context can change and evolve over time.

If you’ve not heard of the non-dual concept before, it’s the notion that everything is all ‘one’, that there is no ‘this and that’.
In linear rational thinking you have the idea that before anything existed there was just a condensation of infinite potential. From there you have the big bang, appearance of the universe, and then all of the untold, uncountable events that happened in the past that led up to this moment right now.

While this can certainly appear to be the case from the relative perspective, the non-dual notion considers it all from another angle. It is suggesting that instead of life emanating from this perfect source, there is no emanation. Rather, the divine infinite shapes itself as whatever finite forms are appearing right now. In a great act of self-deception, it appears as layers emanating from itself without actually ever emanating anything. Whatever shape it takes, whatever the display, however crude and disconnected it appears, it is always and already still this perfect source: the infinite appearing as a bunch of finite linear things and events but never ceasing being infinite.

In a more pragmatic sense, this non-dual orientation means that whatever skills you develop, the overall orientation is primarily towards the always and already: the first reality of the divine ground as it appears now. It’s a recognition that all your past, current, and future perceptions (and skill levels) are simply the open divine ground shaping itself temporarily into that particular array of perceptions, and that the capacity to recognize this is not at all dependent on any particular skillset. Being already divine, there is no need for this display to appear or change in any other way than the way it happens to be appearing and changing right now, and this is completely inclusive of all internal (personal physical, mental, and emotional) perceptions and all external (everyone and everything else) phenomena. This can be practiced through various formal meditations, but also simply as an ongoing act of recognition or seeing through whatever is going on for you in any given moment. The recognition is both already completely whole and operational, and can always develop to a newer, more refined recognition. Neither of these factors ever cease.

From this orientation the motivation for development of all the skills stops being about arriving at a particular mastery or level, but simply towards a deep cooperation with what is currently appearing in this moment right now, as well as curiosity for what else might possibly reveal itself in this moment right now. As you practice, whatever is happening in your practice is what is appearing in your reality in that moment, and you can get better at connecting to that rather than being stuck on the classic mindset of “wouldn’t it just be better if it were different to this”.

Practice in my approach is an expression of reality, not a path to reality. It’s not there to take us anywhere, but to help us turn back around and attend to where we are right now, even (especially) if it’s not quite as skilled our mind would like us to be.

Past Training

I’m an extremely curious person by nature, and was always inclined to dig, explore and experiment with ways of practicing to learn more about myself and the world around me.

I was lucky enough to formally train with some incredible teachers and wonderful arts listed below:

Traditional Chinese internal arts of Xin Yi Liu He Quan (Heart, Mind & Six Harmonies boxing), Cha Quan (Cha family boxing) and Yang Style Tai Chi with my first teacher Dapeng Wang [2003 – 2012]
Stretch Therapy with Kit Laughlin and Olivia Allnutt [2011 – 2017]
Certified Personal Trainer and Group Fitness instructor [2012]
Physical Alchemy with Dave Wardman [2013 – 2019]
A Daoist school focused on traditional arts (Neigong, Neidan, Bazi, Feng Shui, Chinese Medicine, Daoist Medicine, various Internal Martial Arts) [2014 – 2023]

Less formally, there are several people who have either directly or indirectly heavily influenced my thinking and approach, and you will find obvious or subtle traces of their approaches throughout my work. These include (in no particular order):

Adyashanti (Open Gate Sangha)
Loch Kelly (Effortless Mindfulness Institute)
Emmet Louis (Modern Methods of Mobility)
David Grey (David Grey Rehab)
Damo Mitchell (Lotus Nei Gong)
Simon Thakur (Ancestral Movement)
David Chaim Smith (Thirty Two Keys)
Aidan Wachter (Six Ways)
Denis Poisson (Foolish Fish)
Josephine McCarthy (Quareia)

These people have each made a significant contribution to my education and helped shape who I am today. I am forever indebted to these teachers who dedicated themselves to diving deeply into their chosen arts and were kind enough to share their wisdom with me directly or make it accessible to the public for me to learn from indirectly.

My personal explorations into physical development were originally done under the handle ‘Aware Relaxed Connected’. In 2017 I decided to dissolve ARC and merged into Physical Alchemy, presenting teachings from my various tinkerings alongside Dave Wardman. Soon after that, it became clear that I wanted to dedicate my attention fully to my Daoist studies, and I broke away from Physical Alchemy to focus on training and teaching on my own. I taught as a formal instructor in the Daoist school I was a part of from 2017 – 2023. As of 2024, I have made the decision to continue my explorations independently from any specific system, and have returned to my original handle, Aware Relaxed Connected.