thaddeus

This is a topic very dear to me. I like everyone else have lost loved ones. I can tell you that there are often undeniable signs from these loved ones. I won't go into detail since it doesn't seem appropriate, but I can say, ask them for a sign that they are there and see what happens. Don't freak out. On that buddha story, the version i read was about a woman whose son died and she asked the buddha to bring him back to life. Buddha said to go find a home in the village that did not taste death. When she found this home, she was to bring back a single mustard seed to him. So she went from house to house and each house had a story to tell of a loved one that was lost. She kept searching and searching and finally realized there was no such house. So she returned to the buddha to thank him for that lesson and she was able to go on with her life. I thought that was a beautiful story... T

I also feel twisting is the best way to stimulate all the meridians. With a flat movement, you can't really activate the whole meridian. For example, in the cloud hands you did, the heart meridian runs along the arm to the pinky (i think), with twisting, you can feel it activate. Do cloud hands keeping the arm still, like alot of people do it, and you feel nothing. In the form, you should be feeling your toes activate in a rolling fashion too, stimulating all those organs as well. BP Chan called it a 'Do Re Mi' movement.. T

The tape does say 'demonstration'. In the description it says he describes what it is, but there really isn't alot to say about it. Very crudely, silk reeling is twisting..hold a towel at both ends, twist one and the other end twists..that is Silk reeling power. The twisting and untwisting is the 'secret' behind neutralizing and attacking, in other words, storing and releasing. The twisting combined with an expansive body connected to the ground is what gives the opponent the feeling they are falling off you. Some will say Silk Reeling is the defining energy of chen style taichichuan, however, on closer examination, there is no other way to move if your body is not holding any joints steady with tension. For example, many know cloud hands. One popular version is where your palm is facing you at the beginning of the movement and is still facing you at the end. Some will say this is 'yang style', others more correctly will say the person held the hand still and didn't allow it to twist naturally. If you don't hold any joints steady, the palm will change directions (i.e. coil = silk reel). If the palm doesn't change direction, or twist, then it is a flat movement. You can not neutralize a force properly with a flat movement. The secret is in the twisting, spiraling movement. The hard part is using the whole body against the ground, so that the twist is felt from the big toe to the middle finger. Take any piece of the form and turn it into a circle and you have silk reeling exercise. I wasted alot of money on silk reeling tapes. Since silk reeling is basically taichi (as per chen xin according to the tape's description) you can't learn it from a tape. Hope this helps..questions? T

I saw a video the other day on TV where some nut stole a tank and started driving around crushing cars and sideswiping buildings...finally he stopped against some kind of barrier and the cops chasing him jumped up on top of the tank and pulled their guns out. The guy apparantly wouldn't listen to him so they had to fire and kill him. To take any philosophy, like non-violence, too literally and beyond common sense is being rigid and ultimately non-taoist. I guess anything taken to it's extreme will become it's opposite. I also think that when someone says 'Hey, I'm gonna kick yo ass motherfucka' they are really saying 'I hate myself, and I'm suffering, I've lost my way' They are lost in their maya, because essentially a mindful person will not do something like that. So, like we would with an insane person or a sleep walking person, we should try to protect them against themselves. I know I know..that's all fine and dandy in a completely theoretical sense. But at least it's great fodder for conversation..and that's all this is..i'm not pretending to be wise or spiritual..i'm not.. T

First, Lozen, my condolences on the loss of your friend.. This situation is rich with all kinds of ideas. For one thing, how ironic is it to be a pacifist and ultimately end that way? I just read in the paper today about a boy who performed the heimlich maneuver on a stranger in a restaurant, saving her life..it turned out it was the same woman who saved his life a few years earlier. The world seems just too contrived sometimes... Anyway, I don't know much about pacifisim, but I have been working with the ideas of taoist non-doing and how it applies to fighting. Using a pure taoist art for fighting means you aren't really fighting, you are simply helping your opponent. There is no anger or fight, in fact one can argue there is only love. If you study one of these arts with taoist philosophy in mind, you can experience the 'spirit of love and protection for all things' whichs includes yourself and your 'opponent'..which to get really stupidly philosophical is part of you anyway. T

I'm not exactly sure how we got into the 1 vs 200 postures. But it seems to me unlikely there are just 200 postures. How many different forms can water take? only 200? Since it is unlimited, it makes sense that you can practice only 1 posture. Within 1 posture should be the unlimited...it's like the whole 'see the world in a grain of sand idea'. T

Meditation as Medicine by Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD. I bought this book a couple years ago and it basically sat on my shelf. Now I see it's got a wealth of information in it. Remember the lower triangle exercise by Frost we were talking about. It's in this book..it's from the Kundalini Yoga tradition of Yogi Bhajan. I could never buy the Frost book so I'm not sure if he mentions that. So there is tons of related information on glands, chakras, vibrations, bandhas, postures, etc. Anyone know anything more about this type of yoga? I think it's very cool.. T

Pietro, what else do you know about raw eggs? I seen in two different sources that is recommended for recovery after sex when mixed with red wine and something sweet. I can say it works too.. T

hmmm, i didn't really want to mention this, but I heard from many diverse sources about BK's 'history'. Even that video where he pushes the student is doctored up (frames are deleted to make it look more spectacular), it might still be on his website. This is related to my point, even though what you say is 90% true, it's the 10% exaggerations that taint your whole message and ruin your credibility. I learned 4 from Mr. Chan. The first was 'hold the camera' as if holding a camera infront of the third eye, then the embracing tree, laogong pointing to opposite nipple, then lower near the navel and finally at the sides.. Is this what Ken is teaching? I have detailed notes from when I was training there... T

Funny to be talking about this now...last night I had the distinct feeling my skull was going to burst open..i was thinking about the skull plate thing... That was none other than Sun Lu Tang. Fair enough. The training I was exposed to was more about using the standing posture to connect the fingers to the toes. Fajin is a store/release mechanism using the ground connection, so was curious to see how a specific posture fit into that training. There can be alot of excuses not to backup claims. I never said it was easy. The point wasn't to make every claim stand up to a double blind perfect scientific study, but to just weed out some of the obvious nonsense. Some things would be simple to test without alot of rigor. I don't need a scientific study to tell me if i touch something hot I can get burned. But if someone claims certain postures are going to connect psychic channels and give me miraculous powers or make me certifiably insane, well, i'd like to see something to back it up. Even a story about a crazy brother in law who did embrace a twig instead of tree and lost his eyesight. Otherwise state it's a belief and take it from there. And sure, one can counter with arguments about faith and parent/child/teacher/disciple trust, etc. I'm not talking about that so much. I agree though..cool thread.. T

I think that's quite a stretch. We'd have to discuss the particulars of that guy's statements. Was he talking about a poisoning of some sort regarding the antiobiotic? What were the specifics? Not sure what 'residual junk' would be of narcotics specifically. But it would be a boon for people who wanted to pass random drug tests in the short term until the stuff was cleared from the body. As far as I know, homeopathy deals with the symptoms of a substance, not necessarily a canceling effect of a substance. That would be really easy to prove in a test tube and probably would have been done already and generally accepted as sound and the concept would be used in lots of applications--off the top of my head, curing heavy metal poisoning or snake bites, etc. T

Hi Pietro, I'm going to challenge some of this, don't take it personally, it's for clarification(this an important topic).. what 'system' is this? Most of what we see today comes from Wang Xianghai (e.g. Lam Kam Chuen, etc.). Did Bruce say this? I don't recall Master Wang writing about opening psychic channels in the brain and what not. I also have experience with BP Chan (Ken Cohen's teacher, and he definately never spoke like that, in fact, he would scold you harshly if you talked about 'chi' and mingmen,etc.) What would be a dangerous posture and what was the result of practicing this posture. Also I am familiar with some Chen Style Xiaojia practice for Fajin development using Single Whip, but it doesn't have to be single whip, can you elaborate on what you were taught regarding learing fajin from a specific posture? I think it's extremely difficult to show any effect from a standing posture. If it were possible to document a rise or fall of blood pressure, for example, as a result of a specific posture vs. another, it would put this practice into mainstream. But realistically, the health benefits are anecdotal and any research is dubious at best. Also, why do we continue to listen to non medical experts about health benefits....Our society and europe are extremely open regarding alternative therapy and so far no one is taking this seriously. Discussions about psychic channels and such are interesting but extremely subjective. But I think it would be very cool if it were possible to document some effects of standing as it is being done with acupuncture. For example, can we show that liver enzymes were affected somehow by using a posture that is purported to affect the liver meridian. Acupuncture studies are showing changes in hormones and other biological effects. Anyway, enough ranting for now.. T

Which workshop did you learn this at? T

One approach that I liked was from Fong Ha. He stands with his hands to the sides and waits for his arms to naturally float up by themselves (which they will with the right intention). He feels if you *put* the arms in position, it's a *doing* and not a taoist approach. I kinda like that way of looking at it. I do find when I put my arms in position, I have quite a bit of tension to unravel as opposed to when the arms move up from intention. But alot of the benefits people claim from ZZ practice are better gotten in other ways. Example..you want increased leg strength...there are lots of more efficient ways to do it. You want to good posture..again, better ways. ZZ practice can do alot of harm. People who aren't astute enough to release the tension, as Sean points out above, actually become more tense, grip more, and get worse posture. Doormen who stand all day aren't the best physical specimens. I train taichi with a guy that brags he stands one hour day for something like 10 years now. He's so tense and so unaware of his tension. So ZZ, like any tool, needs to be used properly. I incorporate ZZ in my taichi training (which is how it was traditionally done--according to Wang PeiShan.) In the form I will stop and do some self checking and sinking, relaxing etc at various points. T

yeah, of course I practiced Zhang Zhuang. I was doing it in the 70s inspired by Kenichi Sawaii's book Taikiken. I am NOT saying ZZ practice is worthless. These comments were taken from a thread that started regarding Richard Mooney. I have issue with people claiming ZZ is going to cure cancer and give you amazing healing powers. It's just a tool. I would have the same comments for people claiming zazen is going to heal your cancer. btw, just to be more controversial, taichi the way it's practiced by most people is overrated. lol T

Uh oh, what have i done...

Totally agree, he is quite special and I'm glad to see you noticed it and picked up on it. A true taoist. T

That article was quite amusing. I hope you can see through the ridiculous pseudoscience. This kind of nonsense about gamma rays and cancer is extremely disappointing. Wang Xiangzhai was a truly exceptional martial artist who is arguably single handedly responsible for the standing post craze. He was a Xingyi master who arrived at the truth of standing post training after spending his life training hard in Xingyi. Please note that his practice of standing came as the fruits of his lifetime of practicing Xingyi. There is no one of note who has gotten anywhere by just standing. I'm sure I have just pissed off all the Yiquan people, but c'mon, let's be realistic here. If standing post was such a cure all, there would be no heart disease, no strokes, no cancers among the leading proponents of the practice. Wang Xuanjie, who was supposed to be 'the successor' died young from a stroke. If standing post created superior martial artists, you would see them and hear about them. If it was such a great training, olympic athletes would be doing it for the extra edge. Lance Armstrong would be all over it. Standing post is not part of the traditional Taichchuan curriculum. It's a recent development. All the elements of a standing practice were incorporated into the form and were used to correct the form. Chen Fake for example was not teaching or practicing Zhang Zhuan as a separate training. This focus is recent by people who jump on the bandwagon and need to make a living here. I watched vidoes on the net of people who claim to fight with Yiquan. It's just a bunch of bitch slapping. All these yiquan experts would get creamed by a decent high school varsity wrestler. There is no magic power, just hard intelligent consistent training. Do a search on Richard Mooney and get all the facts you before you start following him and buying his stuff. T

No, but I completely agree. It's taken me some time to wisen up, but the general marketing tactic is to take a grain of truth (e.g. Noni can increase nitric oxide, or Fiji water has more silica than other water) and make it seem special, then extrapolate an unsupported health claim (more white blood cells means you can fight cancer) then charge ridiculous amounts of money while at the same time claiming your competitors don't know how to make it right. That's the basic marketing formula. I've fallen for it myself, spending 30 bucks for noni juice. I noticed a pound of frozen noni pulp in my local asian market selling for a buck. We need to educate people on how best to evaluate these claims. For example, a test in a petri dish doesn't mean the same for a human body, etc. Stuff that seems obvious to people who are interested in these things, but can really mislead those desparate for a cure. Good for you for posting it. T

Hey Trunk, just noticed this edit. I am very familiar with him..what do you know about him? T Hi Allan, Nice website..would love to hear more about your studies. Who is Mr. Chen? Any more background on him? Also, this was interesting from your site..can you fill in the blanks: you wrote: ------------------ His reply was quite amazing to me. He said your ***** is in the wrong position, it should be here, and the ***** should be up to your navel, then the ***** should sit above that. Basically he just looked inside my abdomen, saw the positions of things, and then told me to move them... ------------------- Thanks! T

Very timely comments for me personally. I'm going through a change where I'm dropping alot of energy wasting friends from my life. Interesting.. T

Found it in NYC's chinatown, still reading: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091495571...=books&v=glance

I can't say I'm rallying for people to buy this book. At the same time, I wouldn't go out and recommend chia's books either without tons of caveats. But it does have alot of discussion of the deer exercise and he seems to really stress pulling up the pelvic floor on all the chigongs. I have not seen a more than cursory discussion of the pelvic floor anywere except for Eric Franklin's excellent gem, Pelvic Power. (please recommend some if you heard of any). So it was good to see this being covered somewhere. Would love to discuss this book with knowledgeable people as yourself. T.

Looking for practice pointers from people with experience. I know some of you think it's a dangerous practice, so don't try to change my mind . I'm thinking of it more as another way to exercise the pelvic floor and increase awareness... T

Hi Sean, this is a great inquiry. Regarding negative effects, just a reminder that it's your intention that creates your experience. Not sure why Winn is making such statements. T