zenyogi

Sifu Terry, Thanks for the answers, they really help a lot. Unfortunately I have to stop most of the exercises for some time because and old back problem has come to the surface due to too much strain on my back. I'm quite sad about that but don't have another choice than taking proper rest. I hope to pick up FP as soon as possible again and keep going. Thanks again for all the insightful answers and your time spend here on the forums. Enjoy your day, Ben

Thanks for the reply Sifu Terry. I have noticed that doing dvd 1 & 2 daily for a week might have been a little too much on my knees so I decided to do one day dvd 1 and the other day dvd 2 for some time till it goes a little better. In this way my knees get a little more rest in between. Once I go down I tend to push my knees a little outwards so I can go lower and there is less pressure on the knees and more muscles in my inner thighs are being used. Is that correct? Thanks again, Ben

Hi Sifu Terry and everybody else reading this, I have been practicing dvd 1& 2 every morning for a week and just started with learning the third dvd. FPQG is at the moment my highlight of the day and i'm continuously looking forward to practicing it. It has generated a significant amount of bliss in my life that carries over in all my actions. There is extreme happiness throughout my day Sometimes I only feel the energizing effects coming in later, some time after the practice. Maybe that's just my mind becoming aware of the energies a little later... I find that interesting. I have felt major Qi in my hands and finger tips. After doing dvd one I usually notice my whole body lightly vibrating especially my face and palms. I honestly can't get enough of it and it feel like this was a missing ingredient in my life. I feel all my other practices are being enriched by doing FPQG, everything goes deeper and brings more bliss, what is really great! At the moment I do 2.5 hours a day of FP but I'm planning working that up to 6+ hours over the next months! Something that helped me is while watching the videos I made notes of the breathing percentages, key positions and important details and have it as a cheat sheet near me to glance over before doing the practices. This has helped me tremendously and recommend that to anyone who is struggling with memorizing the sequences etc. I have to say that some of the practices are quite a workout for the back, legs & arms! But I like that I just wanted to share my experiences so far and I have been very pleased with the dvd's. I plan to eventually get all of them and learn the whole system. It's a true gem! Sifu Terry, during my practice some questions came up in my mind, many of them I found the answer to here in this thread but a few are still unanswered and if they were answered before and I missed them then I'm sorry for you having to repeat yourself. 1) Earlier in this thread it was briefly mentioned by you Sifu Terry to hold the breath after each percentage to keep the breath cycle nicely balanced. You said that this bit of retention really added to the effect of each exercises. I didn't see any mention of it hereafter and was wondering if you could touch a little more on this. At the moment I breath in a again after the percentage count but can easily add the retention part to it of the remaining count. I just wanted to check with you to make sure that's really what you meant. I'd like to get maximum benefit out of the practices. 2) When for example doing "Monk holding peach" the legs are two shoulder widths apart and you say to stand straight, I believe there is some slight bending of the knees. Is this correct or are the knees locked and legs totally straight? 3) When you go down low in the horse stance is it ok if the knees come over the feet? 4) MSW meditations: when the hands go up at a 45 degree angle above head and down again is it ok for some of the fingertips to touch? it makes it easier if one or two fingers touch so they stay in sync with each other. 5) My wife started practicing FPQG with me and is loving it too! She was wondering if there are any guidelines for when a woman is on her period? I could not find any mention here on the forum or on your site or anywhere else. 6) Would it be a wise thing to use a gentle alarm on a phone or something that is not too disturbing to mark a certain amount of minutes so you know when the selected timeframe for certain practices are over? Or do you ahem any other tips for keeping time? Thank you Sifu Terry for sharing this system and being here on Taobums. It's Huge to have you here! Humbly grateful, Ben --- One more thing I wanted to share with everyone reading this thread. There is so much information about FPQG in this thread that by reading and studying the whole thing most of your questions will be answered plus you will get so many new insights from Sifu Terry and from others that will enrich your practice. It helped me a lot and many questions that were arising got answered by reading all this. Took a while to get through all of it tho

I received the first 3 DVDs and they look really great. Have memorized the first DVD and I'm doing the 5 standing meditations twice a day. Feels great so far and soon enough I'll report back in with my experience and maybe a few questions but for now I have just one. About the horse stance, it seems you really gotta do it right if you plan to hold it for longer periods and I'm wondering if anyone can reccomend any good books or YouTube videos that go in to great detail about it to really perfect the horse stance. Would really love to get some reccomendations if anyone has some. I'm really happy to be here Thanks and happy practising. Ben

Ya Mu, I think it would be a great thing to do, so many people can be helped. I do feel that its best to undergo training and work experience in China for some years. My life at the moment is more about personal practise. Maybe I go that direction one day? Lets see what the future holds.. I was mainly interested in hearing opinions to get a better understanding and I did, so thank you all. Nevertheless medical qigong is really amazing and I hope many more will open up to it and let it heal one and all. Ben

Thanks everyone for the insightful replies. Its a very interesting subject with many views. May everyone on earth benefit from qigong Ben

It seems that the ultimate purpose of Tai Chi is martial art. Sure, on the way it might give you many other benefits but ultimately it leads to martial art. I'm no authority but from what I've read it points to that. Maybe I'm wrong? Anyone disagrees? Of course beyond martial art is immortality or enlightenment however you want to call it, that is most likely the highest purpose of any of these practices. I know that there are a lot of martial art movements in Tai Chi but how is it more helping in becoming a martial artist? I find it truly fascinating. Ben

OK let me put it differently: to fight / defend with as little effort as possible. Thoughts?

This thread has proven to be very interesting. Thanks everyone for the great discussions A general question: of all the fighting arts that are out there what would be the one that comes closest to actually fighting without fighting, meaning, to use as little effort to defend and strike back by for example redirecting the opponent with your energy. Understand what I mean? That is what I find very interesting, fighting with little involvement, a true art.

No worries

While I brew the tea, Jing is on the rise, While the shen awaits..

Thanks all for your contributions. Helped a lot

@Grey to white, thanks @OldChi, i think I'm more interested in the ideas behind martial art practices than practicing a martial art myself right now. Maybe that will change one day... I'm residing in India at the moment, might be here for a while Not much martial art here...

LOL

Wow everyone, thanks so much for all the great explanations. Really helps a lot. It's quite fascinating how things can change and water down over time and be misunderstood. Speaking purely about martial art, what would be the easiest and most simple path of MA to get into these days? That at the same time has a side to it as an art like Tai Chi is/was one day that it could be a practise by it self? Thanks again everyone for all the valuable contributions. Ben

Ridingtheox, Thanks for the beautiful explanation It's much appreciated. -z

Ridingtheox, Speaking about the effects of FP and the Tai Chi dvd's how do they differ? FP seems like a much bigger system. Would it makes sense to practise them both?

Thanks ridingtheox, Sounds excellent! I'm eager to get them as well but first need to get started with the FP qiqong. Thanks for the helpful comments. z

Hello all, I recently have become quite interested in taoism and am looking for a few good, no wait, great books on Tao / Qiqong. I'm starting soon with flying Phoenix Qiqong and want to read / study some books to aid my practise and get deeper understandings of the Tao systems like jing, shen etc. I have a vast background in yogic practices so the books don't have to be too basic.. I'm searched a lot in the forums but haven't found the books I'm looking for yet. Any awesome recommendations? Thanks bums, Ben

Dear all, Whoever feels inspired to answer, please feel free. I have looked at Sifu Terry's 2 Tai Chi dvd's and feel intrigued by maybe getting them one day. How would that fit next to the FP qiqong? Would it be contradictory in any way? How would the results be different compared to FP? I'm fairly new to this, please forgive me for my ignorance. BTW, I'm finally done with all 183 pages.. There was a lot of info to process. Made a ton of notes Be well, z

Awesome advice, thanks guys! That will take me some time to go all through Thx, Ben

I played a lot of chess in my life, lately a ton on chess.com, it's just such an incredible game, so profound. But I've noticed how it drains my mental power after playing or studying the game lot and feel it's not helping me on my spiritual path.. Anyone feels the same way? What are your experiences?

Magic...

Hey everyone, I just ordered the first 3 volumes of FP Qigong, super excited about it! I was planning on printing the complete thread but after I realized it would be around 1800 pages I decided to just read over everything and only copy the good parts to a file that I'll print for reference. Still a lot of work though! But definitely worth it. I'm glad I've come here -Zen

2.Knight C6! Go always seemed very interesting