Mal

Best $400 (aus) I've spent, and I'm not even finished yet. Although my Tao bum subscription is darn good value too

haha Hi Yoda, Welcome to the 'bums. It's pretty new agey and all-good here I'm sure you have had and will continue to have fun

hehe funny you should say that. I was going to say that I taught myself to say "Good morning sir (or miss) do you speak English" in Cantonese. But it's not a good example because while I have a beautifully correct and formal sounding voice (imagine someone talking English with a posh English accent) it did take me a few months to learn the pronunciation. Thats the only thing I can say in Cantonese except for "Sorry I can't speak Cantonese I can only speak English" That one really amuses the Cantonese speakers So I would have got better value for money not spending $$$ on that pimsleur course and just talking to a Cantonese speaker. Basically I prefer to teach myself.... and currently I'm teaching others for a living too!

Yes. It depends on the purpose of the method too. Is it designed as a stand alone system where you actually CAN go away and practice by yourself eg kunlun {since it's been a while since we had a kunlun flame war may as well mention it here} Or is it something where the teacher needs to guide you and help/follow/assist your progress. But there is a huge difference between just learning stuff from a book for "fun" or "interest sake" and taking a book describing some cool stuff and trying to reverse engineer a complete system of practice from that. A teacher can certainly speed things up. That's why I decided to track down a teacher. I know people say that teachers are not out there..... what you WANT may not be out there in a way that you are willing to access. e.g. I'm sure my kung fu teacher won't be teaching for many more years. The ONLY reason I am still in this town is so that I can learn with him. Once he stops teaching I'm looking at moving to Brisbane (which I do not want to do) just to keep learning kung fu. So it will be a while before I actually get to do what I want to do. Which is move to Cairns.

Well, a photo of a master making dumplings is nowhere near as interesting is it Must admit I've often wanted one of those cool old pipes that you usually seen in those old HK Martial Arts flicks. Wonder what that 2,700 yo stuff was like..........

that does seem to be the way that these things work. I'm never prepared for the "cool stuff" It's always afterwards that finds me going "oh so that's what was happening"

Ohhh, balance and connection. Thanks for sharing, nice

hehe with a plate of herb that size I'd be smiling too

Thank you for the link, I enjoy Chuang Tzu. It's funny, just reading Before I came online I was reading Osho's "The Buddha said." Osho was relating how the sayings of Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu can contradict something else they have said because they are reflections of their listeners questions. Like a mirror showing what is in front of it. Where as philosophers like Kant or Confucius are not contradictory because they are not reflective. Philosophers have something to say, a point to get across. They are like a photograph, remaining the same. Not at all like a mirror. So contradictions from people like Lao Tzu should not be over analyzed. It's like criticizing a mirror for showing different faces depending on who is looking

A belated welcome to the 'bums lurker..... I mean Trenna1 Good to see more people posting. De-lurk, reply, even start a topic, it's all great fun

Weird IE is telling me there are 82 markers, but not showing the actual map........ There it is, refresh didn't work but deleting tempory internet files did. I always fire up firefox on the home computer.

Yea, just try to search for "Tao" "bum" or "map" anyhow for the new bums stick in a marker, if you feel like it edit: although the map seems to have disappeared oh well it was good searching practice.... was just trying to remember if we had any other Hong Kong bums.

Don't know what you are talking about, I think Jesus was cool extra smiles just in case

Hi Caat, Welcome to the 'bums. I'm sorry you didn't have any luck with Zen, hopefully you will have fun here. There are a lot of posts on Chia, it can be fun searching for them. You might also enjoy Trunk's site http://www.alchemicaltaoism.com/ enjoy

Cool, my misunderstanding. Cheers _/\_

Why? I don't really like the internal / external distinction. I've seen really old karate people who are soft and flowing. As well as fat unhealthy tai chi people I prefer a "complete art" which should integrate both the internal and external aspects..... Internal VS external tends to turn into a "mine is better than yours" debate. The aspects you talk about are important and should be present in a complete traditional system IMHO.

Different strokes for different folks. It all depends on what you are trained to do and what you want to do. We trap a lot. They don't "give" you their arm/hand/wrist. But it happens to be connected to the fist trying to land you on your ass edit: if you can't be bothered waiting for them to try to punch you, you can also fish/attract a hand first. Bruce was very mobile so it makes sense for his systemless system to use / prefer slipping and distance.

I hope that is fake I have enough trouble hitting the rolled up newspapers I get my friends to throw at me edit : Smoking j78HYNW_Qa0

I've wondered, thanks for the info and the other cool posts.

Yes that intro dream sequence is just hilarious, then you wake up back at home How many of us did that as kids, I wanted to be "Monkey"

Wow, that is so weird I look for intervals i.e 5th up from previous note yep, I have no idea. But give me 2 notes and I'll tell you the interval (although I could do with some more practice) Not wanting to devolve into a terminology debate but isn't that just harmonics, rather than a "cord" as such eg. if I want to play overtones on a sax (notes higher than the instrument is designed to play) I focus on different overtones and bring them out rather than the fundamental tone, which contains all of the overtones in its fundamental frequence, like you said Just like guitar people do when they lightly touch the string to get the higher frequency vibrations rather than the fundamental. Cool discussion you are obviously into music, what do you play?