Michael Sternbach

Yes, I have that dvd of hers she did with Bob Klein. She is graceful! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTrbbzGGnVI

Nungali, I only have time for a short post right now. This is one of the teachers I had in Japan: Kazuo Nomura. You surely didn't have to roll for him... it was in your own best interest! I found my copy of "Shotokan's Secret" meanwhile (it is the expanded edition ) and started reading it thoroughly (only read it diagonally when I first got it). Interesting! Comments to your post later (I need to do some searches myself).

Don't worry. People of your mind have seen to it that most practitioners are hardly aware of the "martial" in the internal martial arts any longer. And instructors able to teach this side are rare and far between. As a result, folks who are interested in self-defence are more or less forced to turn to harder styles. The way I see it, cultivating "the warrior within" can indeed be an important aspect of in-depth self-development. Pardon my superficiality.

I would say it's intuition expressed via the body. But how does my body know what my conscious mind definitely doesn't? I'm really not sure where you would draw the line to "psychic".

It's for a reason that I didn't write "one hit" but "three". If one technique (or none, for that matter) resolves the issue, all the better... Just be ready and know how to keep going if one is not enough. A few more things... It's true that you often see full contact fighters who keep knocking the crap out of each other for quite a while. But even in the most ferocious types of tournament there are still rules prohibiting certain techniques (well, except in the fights JKA seniors Gigo Funakoshi and Shigeru Egami were conducting when training special units for going on WWII missions - that is, the ones who survived the education!). The ability to finish an altercation quickly is not only a matter of power, but also of knowing where (your "precise targeting") and how to hit - most kyusho are reactive when struck in certain directions, but less so in others. This is not generally part of the sport training. What it boils down to is something Roosevelt said: Avoid hitting at all if you can, but if you have to hit - never hit soft! Sounds pretty much like your standard Shotokan training. Most of these moves (besides some exaggerated ones) do have their practical application. It's too bad that it is usually just not what the instructor thinks it is. It's as if they got a bike and keep thinking that they would have to push off from the ground by their feet all the time. I heard of an Okinawan Uechi ryu practitioner who punched a hole into a big steel milk can by his big toe. Um, yes, I remember your moccasins. I would ask you to take them off if you were going to spar with me. I once asked my Aikido teacher in Japan about this, and he said, we practice with resistance from about 3rd dan on! I hope a real-life assailant attacking prematurely would kindly be mindful of this. When once practising with a senior, I told him that I could hit him if he was doing a certain move the way he did. His answer was: "You're doing Aikido, so you don't want to hit me!" I informed him that I'm also doing Karate... Next I thought I should simply have demonstrated to him what I meant. Ueshiba actually once said that 90% or so of Aikido is striking. Btw, he was also active in that special units programme, prior to the JKA. But the people in charge thought Aikido was too time consuming to learn. Sounds like the Taiji lotus kick. Needless to say, this kata move has a couple of applications. Blocking a kick to the genitals (as I have heard stated) is not one of them (you would actually help the assailant deliver the kick where you definitely don't want it to go. ) Still haven't located my copy yet. Anyway, your mention of White Crane is interesting. It's a very influential "mother style" which has a lot of good stuff in it, including kyusho and tuite. I mostly got to know it by the books and videos of Jwing Ming Yang and George Alexander - the latter showing the Okinawan version, Matsumura seito shorin ryu, which Hohan Soken introduced and which you are referring to. I would enjoy to read it. Yeah, this would be the right website for showing this kind of stuff.

What I meant is that Zazen works along similar principles like MCO and therefore has comparable effects (but you may be having a hard time to find a devout practitioner who would admit this). I thought of combining them explicitly but never really tried it, until now. Yes, it would shift the mental focus from pure awareness to visualization (or however you look at MCO). But it might be worth trying for somebody like me whose mind rarely comes to rest anyway. Yeah, what Alan Watts referred to as "the aching legs kind of Buddhism". Could handle it best when I was sitting right next to the priest in the Sosenji for two hours. I like to think that it was the priest's aura that helped me through it - even with a sense of power. Alas, I wasn't sitting next to him every time... I really should have got that book when I saw a German edition in a book store many years ago. Well, it's never too late... I will read it soon and then let's talk about it some more.

Never mind... stay tuned.

For fundamental personality and partnership analysis, medical information and general themes of a given time: Astrology. For getting a better view on what's going on and what can be done about it: I-ching and Tarot (sometimes other cards as well). When uncertain which of several options (e.g. vibrational remedies) to choose: Dowsing by using a pendulum.

Agreed again. I addressed this topic in my post of 02 September 2014 - 09:13 PM.

Nice, your view of Daoism. Believe it or not, I was quite a reductionist thinker in my childhood. But I came to understand that there are things beyond my understanding early on. Nevertheless, I'm ever on the outlook for the line where the scientifically tangible and the still elusive meet each other.

Hey Jim, you actually agree with me, overall? You just made my day! If you allow me to be a little fussy, the space between the galaxies (actually, the whole Universe) is expanding at a velocity beyond Einstein's cosmic tempo limit, plus the expansion is accelerating! Yes, there is a theory that it's the "vacuum" itself which has this effect. An older term (not too popular with modern physicists, mostly for historical reasons) is "ether". You are right, the particles I referred to are as real as can be - physicists call them virtual because they pop out of the vacuum into our level of reality and back into the vacuum at such a mind-boggling rate as not having to care about breaking another fundamental law, namely of energy conservation (hint: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Relation gets involved here).

I base this on Dawei's subtle translation or interpretation. If you prefer, we could as well say that thoughtful scientific minds of modern times are reaching essentially the same conclusions like the natural philosophers of yore.

Dawei, I would also like to mention that according to quantum physics particles are popping out of and back into the "vacuum" all the time, so quickly that they can't be observed - thus they're called "virtual". It looks like the ancient daoists and kabbalists already had an understanding of the underlying principle. I find this quite amazing! Moreover, quantum physicist David Bohm coined the terms "implicate" and "explicate order", which could be seen as correlates of "Dao" and "De". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order#A_common_grounding_for_consciousness_and_matter Quoting from this Wikipedia article: What is particularly interesting is that consciousness is indeed included in this concept.

Glad you like my interpretation. Yours is an interesting consideration.

What comes to mind is the Kabbalah in which there is En soph (the Infinite) which makes its first appearance (albeit "high above" the physical world) in the sephira Kether, which is somehow non-manifest/manifest at once. Thanks. I'm afraid my Chinese is a little rusty.

When I started studying the Tarot, RW was recommended to me, too. However, I preferred the Thoth deck, and studied other decks later. I think it's important to go with what you resonate with most. In what regard does RW contain errors in your opinion, Nungali? Waite considered his deck to be the "rectified" Tarot; Crowley thought of his version as the only valid one in the New Age, too. The way I see it, the Tarot is an archetypal system, and archetypes as such, as Jung said, have no particular form, albeit they can take on many forms. So all the different Tarot decks are so many possible manifestations - each valid in their own right, despite differences in the way Hebrew letters or star signs are ascribed to the Major Arcana etc. There are always various ways to look at such matters.

I was practising Zazen first with a Zen monk in Switzerland, then I attended a group in the Sosenji in Kyoto/Japan in the late 80s. I'm not continuing this particular practice any longer but I never lost my interest in Zen. The Shobogenzo has been on my "books to read" list for quite a while. Thanks for reminding me of it! Also, the Zen spirit ties in rather nicely with my practice of martial arts. I think that Zazen is a form of practising the Microcosmic orbit.

So your translation would run something like: "The Dao that is manifest is not the absolute Dao." Or am I missing out some subtlety? Could you provide a link to that blog? Thanks.

Daoism is concerned with liberating the individual from social conventions imposed upon it and lead it back to its true inherent nature. Moreover, Lao-tzu would like to see a self-governed society based on its principles. So to find instructions for Machiavellian demagogues in the TTC would be like finding recipes for meat dishes in a vegetarian cookbook. Therefore, I interpret this chapter as in fact providing antitheses to the cynical "philosophy" that seeks to control people by keeping them in a constant state of unrest and dumbness (never allowing them to stop to think). Antithesis to: "Set other-directed high standards and idealize suitable persons to serve as examples for them, so the people will busy themselves trying to follow after them, making themselves submissive and self-sacrificing while constantly feeling inadequate and being in competition with each other." Antithesis to: "Make sure that people desire things they basically wouldn't need so they will materially benefit the leading elite while exploiting each other, nature etc - thus "act like thieves." Antithesis to: "Convince people to fancy all kinds of things, so they will get confused as to what would really be of value to them (i.e. go into debt, requiring them to stay committed to the self-perpetuating system)." The way the non-egotistical wise would "rule" the world (rather: let it rule itself). He frees them from other-directed goals by enlightening them to their innate nature. He makes sure that what they need gets provided in ways consistent with the Dao. Counteracts artificial ambitions. Helps them to attain health and longevity by avoiding those detrimental ambitions. (Just think of the countless stress-related diseases nowadays.) Of the aforesaid kind. Those with harmful knowledge (regarding mass manipulation, etc) are not supposed to act on it. Everything will then find its natural order.

That sounds interesting... Could you elaborate (especially for the sake of non-Chinese/non-sinologist readers of this thread)?

I will comment on the first sentences based on James Legge's translation: "The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name." In my opinion, this one is addressed to those people who are looking for easily comprehensible teachings. And surely, there will always be "gurus" all too ready to teach them. "Seeker, rejoice as we will show you The Way! Just follow us [our Master] diligently, and you shall see The Truth - and be saved, once and for all!" - I guess this wasn't any different in Lao-tzu's time and place. Now, Lao-tzu is teaching that "no way is the way." I always found this concept very appealing. Personally, rather than following any preset path continuously for so many years, I typically come "spiralling" back to what I started to explore after acquainting myself with other aspects of this fathomless Universe - only to find my understanding to have mysteriously deepened in the meantime. Over time, I creatively develop my own version of what I'm studying. I expect to get criticised by others on this forum for my impious attitude - but I think that Lao-tzu would agree with me. The Buddha teaching only to accept what can be verified in one's personal experience, or Alice Bailey's Djwal Khul advising to, above all, listen to one's inner knowledge... They are in their own ways hinting at "the way that cannot be named." Academic science (it's a religion, too!) - unbiased as it claims to be - makes the same mistaken assumption that there is, after all, a tangible answer to the question of "Life, the Universe, and Everything" (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). And just like in that hilarious story, in which a supercomputer is constructed in order to calculate that ultimate answer, once they had it, they would have to start all over - to find out what the question really was to begin with! All this is certainly not to say that answers cannot be found - but invariably, they will open up new questions. So where does this lead us? Back to Ourselves - in the Eternal Here and Now.

Oh you poor man! Must have been an awful qi drain! I guess what you are referring to is Waite (unlike Crowley) not taking over the GD scheme but retaining the old tradition which always had: King, Queen, Knight, Page. It is not unambiguous how the two schemes relate to each other. While it's clear that Pages became Princesses in the Thoth deck, and Queens remained Queens, Crowley says that the Knight is the highest in the hierarchy, and marries the Queen (he found this romantic). Thus, with the Knights taking the positions traditionally attributed to the Kings, logically the Princes should then be equivalent to the traditional Knights. Consequently, the usual elemental assignment in RW (King = Fire, Queen = Water, Knight = Air, Page = Earth) becomes: Knight = Fire Queen = Water Prince = Air Princess = Earth If you arrange them on the Aristotelian cross of the elements accordingly, you get the Knights and the Queens on one axis, and perpendicular to it the Princes and the Princesses on the other, which makes sense to me. Your linked websites and other sources suggest plenty of schemes divergent from the one given above. Here again, we seem to be dealing with "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." I feel that whatever system is underlying a deck of cards, it's the one valid for that particular one. I don't think that the literature relating to one deck can be applied to another at face value. To this extent, various decks are Universes in their own right. And they all work, practically. Even the cat cards you have posted above, I'm sure. It's easy to think of the different arrangements as rather arbitrary, if compared to the relative rigour found i.e. in astrology. But then again, even in astrology we are dealing with a lot of ambiguity, not only as far as the actual zodiac to be used but also regarding the countless different house systems etc. Doesn't sound very scientific? Well, for that matter, both the Theory Of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have been proven time and again. But nobody can explain how they can be reconciled with each other when dealing with singularities. As I indicated before, the question of the shift of the Court Cards relative to the zodiacal signs reminds me of the Tropical vs Sidereal debate, somehow.

Here's one of the best arts as far as self-defence and self-development. Rare? In this form... yes! Combat Tai Chi

Better yet, evade, block/deflect/cover and hit all at once, or almost at once (one of the things Funakoshi suggests in his book but which I couldn't understand adequately at the time - right, it's one of those essential things you can only do once you have trained the old rising block/reverse punch thing for a couple of decades ). Yes, applying a lock/hold can be a good idea after that - usually it shouldn't be attempted before you have softened them up. Generally speaking, I would say, whenever you need more than three strikes to down an opponent, you have a problem. Don't forget to take your shoes off for this one. Whipping movements are key in my own martial arts synthesis, too. If you can catch that leg. Same holds true for arms, of course. Capturing a limb is not always easy to do in a realistic scenario with a non-cooperative opponent, especially since most schools don't train this skill much. Agreed, keep it low for realism - otherwise, you're in danger to have your leg grabbed, expose your groin to an attack, slip, or - in the case of a woman wearing a short skirt - show off more than you intend. Kicks to the bladder area are pretty effective, btw. Never heard of "Nabuti Nogata". I once tried a high roundhouse kick when sparring with a Judo guy. He moved in close really fast and put me on my buttocks in no time. That made me think. Well, what I once heard was that Funakoshi only felt confident to demonstrate Tekki/Naihanchi kata. This wouldn't be so surprising, because in Okinawa it wasn't seen as necessary to learn a multitude of katas, because you could find all you'd ever need in a single one - if you knew all its applications! It's not much of an exaggeration to say that a kata was a whole style in its own right, in those days. Independent thinking is not encouraged in totalitarian systems. I have this book. It's a good one, but I need to re-read it. Looks like you didn't succeed posting the link.

Jwing Ming Yang refers to weight training as a kind of hard qigong somewhere. I try simply visualizing the qi flowing through my limbs while lifting.I also like to imagine that I'm actually performing a strike when I'm lifting the weight (with some exercises). And supplement my power training with Taiji and/or Yoga exercises in the same session.