Mal

Those sort of topics have always been popular here. Personally trying to police the insult police is as close to telling people what to say as I really want to go and that's usually a last resort.... and if people can't work out what advise to take they really shouldn't be out unsupervised on the net But if you feel like posting links to old threads you remember that would be helpful for those that want to be less interactive.

My name often gets shortened to Mel so it could be Mel and Mel

I really like the stories in 7 Taoist masters (Eva Wong) and her Shambhala Guide to Taoism covers the classic examples- Weather magic, Talismans (Fu's ) Feng Shui, I Ching etc. but if you mean "real" as in "show me a picture" well.....

Hi Franklin, Nice to see you around. Sweet looking site. I hope your DVDs/book have been doing well too, I enjoyed that preview you posted here last time.

Thanks m8t, no worries

Hi Sue, Welcome to the 'bums, Hope you enjoy your stay.

Welcome to the 'bums Mar Thoma, Thank you for sharing your inspiring story. Hope you have fun here.

Moved to the main discussion board

I've practiced Lin's technique and I can remember feeling like how you describe. (instantly ready to EJ) It doesn't happen that way anymore and I can't actually remember what I did or even if I really changed anything. I did learn more practices but basically just got better at moving energy generally. I feel this could be the key So you seem to be progressing, give it time Don't worry about the "going backwards" feeling, solo and dual both take practice IME success in one area doesn't automatically translate to success in the other. A good excuse for more dual practice if you need one as dual tends to be more fun than solo I tend to prefer to EJ with partners, physical retention isn't a goal for me. But if you've read S.Biels you have probably seen http://www.alchemicaltaoism.com/ and hence have a good idea of the traps and pitfalls of the retention path.

A brief discussion of collectable mud figures in relation to historical Chinese Pen'Jing & modern Bonsai

I felt like smiling, finding a suitable picture, and pasting the text I found under it

That's my usual method for trialling practices. But it seems that the both the practice time and the length of trial may be to short for standing to show results (eg like vortex mentioned)

I tend to agree. I see a lot of people come to classes over the years with great "book-fu" They've read lots about Tai Chi and can discuss this principal and that energy....... Unfortunately they can't actually "show" what they are talking about and often seem to prefer just talking about it after class (rather than practicing) and tend to give up before the end of the course. (I know this type well as I started out with awesome book fu but no actual skill ) Teachers tend to see a lot of this. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as you wouldn't expect people to be interested in attending a class if they weren't interested in all the "stuff" that you hear about Tai Chi. But talking about eg "Chi" while a lot of fun, isn't that helpful for the students. Especially if they are not at that level yet, my Sifu likes to say "less talk, more practice" So I'd suggest looking around at the students and the teacher in that next class. If you would like to be like the teacher, and you can see the other students moving towards that goal as they spend longer with the teacher. Then it's a good class p.s. as far as "Repeating the movements the teacher does" After several years I still can't do that. As I improve I am able to notice finer details and nuances that I couldn't even see before, let alone copy. Yet we often have beginners in our kung fu class saying they already know a certain technique and are doing it exactly correct. But as teachers we can see numerous "errors" and differences, and are actually still trying to perfect our own version of that technique But the student is just at a level where they can't see those differences yet. It's particularity frustrating for the students when they encounter this, many move on to something else before they have put in the time and work to progress. hope that helps a bit...

I think the goal is to integrated it into your life, over time, so that it's not just something you stop to go and "do" (e.g. going to church once a week without applying those teaching into the rest of your daily life and actions) into something that happens naturally during your everyday life....... well that's my goal

If I can tag a question on here too. I've switched a 20 min morning meditation session to standing. How much time should I allow as a decent "test run" 4weeks? 90 days? more?