Japhy Ryder

I've always, always felt this. Living as a human, regardless of one's scruples about type(s) of food consumed, means taking life and giving it--sustenance implies both. Keeping faith with this means allowing oneself, when one's done with one's body, to become food; we are, after all, already food for countless "friendly" and potentially "unfriendly" micro-organisms while we live. After I die, I don't want my remains sealed in an outrageously heavy and expensive box and sunk in a concrete vault. It would be arrogant and hypocritical of me to try to disengage myself from the cycle of life in that way.

Your friend's advice is excellent, Ian. When I started working with first-year college students, I thought I had to repress my anger to create a safe environment for them. After awhile, I learned to do what they do: express what I feel in the moment, then let it go. It was tremendously liberating for me to see that anger can have a short half-life.

Spectrum: That sounds like a blast! My wife and I will be going out to Lake Michigan for a couple days later this week, but the big lake's still a teeeny bit too nippy for Chi Wizzing. I imagine that playing Upstream Mantis-style while chest-deep in a lake and facing into light waves would be a lot of fun. Might attract fish. Thanks for recommending several more ways to educate my imagination, movement-wise. Gotta learn more scales, more fuel for Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra -style kung fu sorties.

I completely agree. It's tempting to think in terms of beginning, intermediate, and advanced practices. But especially when one lacks a flesh-and-blood teacher to work with regularly, I think it's more productive (and safer) to focus on the basics. In some qigongs, beginning, intermediate, and advanced practitioners do the same stuff, the difference being HOW they do it. This was stunningly clear to me last summer as I watched one of Wan Su Jian's students do a version of the Eight Brocades. Her practice was beautiful to watch. She'd obviously been a beginner for longer than I have!

Spectrum, your initial post in this thread resonates deeply with me these days, and the line above most of all. In all the travelling I do (in a general sense) from place to place, intention to intention, and idea to idea, rarely have I travelled--moved myself--to experience someone else's way of physical movement. Heck, I practiced qigong solo for over four years before I finally attended some workshops and experienced group practice. By the way, I'm having a wonderful time working with Rob Moses' Nine Psalms kung fu DVD, and he just sent me a prototype of his Chi Wiz, a smaller cousin to the Sphere Knot. Rob says the Chi Wiz is especially good for core work, and after messing around with it yesterday, I see why; making sonorous spirals and circles begins and ends with the dan tian, and the Chi Wiz literally shows me how to do it. A deep bow and mad props to you.

In Master Lam Kam Chuen's book The Way of Energy, he tells the story of a student who wanted to learn from a master martial artist. Instead of launching the neophyte into punching and kicking, the master simply told the student to stand like a tree. The student was puzzled by this but did as the master told him, every day, simply standing while the other students practiced their fighting skills nearby. Several months passed. Then one day, the master asked the student to spar with a much more experienced opponent. Even though he'd "only" stood and hadn't practiced any fighting skills, the student had no trouble controlling his opponent. He later became a master himself. I wonder whether this story is an example of what neuroscientists call mirror neuron facilitation. Maybe the act of standing made the student's system receptive to learning the skills being practiced all around him--so receptive that he could learn and even demonstrate them unconsciously.

What a beautiful prayer! Thanks for offering it. Your observations about the utility of scientific methodologies reminds me of an incredibly cool introductory biology course I took in college. Several times during the semester, students asked well-formed questions during lectures and the professor answered "We don't know." I found it incredibly exciting that undergrads with rudimentary knowledge could frame questions "the experts" hadn't answered yet. Isn't over ninety percent of matter composed of stuff science hasn't been able to identify yet?

Thanks, Sean. I've always intuited that movement and stillness imply one another, but I only began to experience it recently, through practicing Cohen-style spontaneous qigong (pardon the oxymoron). Reading the link (from your original post) concerning formless standing meditation (http://www.yiquan.org.uk/art-zz.html) helped me see that stillness has more to do with absence of intention than with whether my body's moving or not. It's wonderful to just turn off my mind, relax, and float downstream with the qi. Hmm. First the Stones, now the Beatles. Guess I'm dating myself.

This theory resonates with me. The computer metaphor recalls the apocalyptic hand-wringing that happened before Y2K. The world won't end (and didn't end) just because an accepted method of binary coding would no longer work and had to be changed. Change isn't death. Death precludes conscious creation of change. As taomeow's story of the rock musician affirms, when consulting the I Ching (or any other oracle, including Mick Jagger): You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try some time, you'll find you get what you need.

Thanks, Eric23. That was the first title I saw on Amazon authored by him. I'm glad you found my comments helpful. What a blessing that we can all exchange information about this stuff so conveniently through this forum!

An old thread concerning zhan zhuang (standing meditation) prompted me to join this forum awhile back, and this new thread is likewise interesting and stimulating. Thanks for renewing this discussion, Sean. For most of the four years or so that I've practice qigong, I've practiced zhan zhuang, guided mostly by Master Lam's book The Way of Energy. I've had trouble moving through his recommended progressions, however; it seemed that the longer I stood, the more my body wanted to move. I ignored, and later, repressed, this instinct, which I think caused me some problems last winter. I experienced several weeks of nosebleeds (in connection with some weird cold-like symptoms my chiropractor said weren't virus related) and felt quite unstable emotionally. Since August I've been doing Wuji qigong, which incorporates a set of 18 moving forms one's encouraged to combine spontaneously. In fact, the folks I learned it from (Francesco and Daisy Lee Garripoli), say you don't even need to do the entire sequence to benefit. I found this immensely liberating, and since then I've usually played this qigong for about thirty minutes daily, doing whichever forms I felt like doing. But now that I've had this break from zhan zhuang, I've begun doing it again, when "it" chooses to invoke "itself" (thanks for this construct, taomeow). Sometimes now, I warm up with several wuji moves and then do spontaneous qigong as described by Ken Cohen in The Way of Qigong. I'll stand still for a few minutes, projecting my energy through my upper dan tian and out into the universe, then inviting energy back in. Then, if and when my body wants to move, I move. Slowly. Sometimes I trace letters and punctuation marks in the air with my hands. Other times I just gently pull and push the qi around, as if it's taffy. And still others I find myself doing wuji forms. I let the qi move me. It's easy to lose track of time, so I follow Cohen's advice and set my watch to beep after twenty minutes or so (although I continue beyond that when it feels right). I find this practice fun and deeply satisfying. It's reinforcing for me that movement always implies stillness, and that stillness always implies movement. Eric23, which Yudelove book do you mean?

Thanks, Taomeow. Better career death than homicide. The classes I taught on Tuesday went well enough, but today I heard that the furnace is broken in the building I teach in, and that it won't be repaired until the weekend. With temperatures stuck in the single digits here (I feel ya, thelerner), Tuesday might as well have been "Get Ready To Watch Your Breath Steam Up The Classroom On Thursday Day."

Why are they called Master Killing Days? In ancient China, were the rich and wealthy more likely to get offed by their (formerly docile and obsequious) servants on such days?

Cool stuff, Spectrum. Thanks. That banana looks right at home with those Sphere Knots, Phi Fights, and other toys. Which qigong form do you practice? The Wuji qigong I do is all about spirals and circles, especially those crossing the body's center line. Swinging Plum Blossoms sounds like one of the warmups I do sometimes (Roger Jahnke calls it Beating The Heavenly Drum). I just ordered Sifu Rob's kung fu DVD; I figure I'll work with that for awhile, then get myself a Sphere Knot this spring when the snow and windchill are gone. The wind is definitely alive, and competing definitely wastes energy if it's divorced from learning.

Sifu Rob very kindly emailed me to confirm the link's working again, so I'll order the DVD soon. I look forward to reading about your experiments with the wing. We've got 30 and 40 mph wind gusts here today, but with temps in the single digits it's a bit too nippy for wing-play. I've never worked with clubbells, but I remember how popular they were when Scott Sonnon introduced them. At the time, I was still very into Pavel's kettlebells; I owned five of them and could clean and strict-press a pair of 72 pounders (which outweighed me by ten pounds). Lingering aches and pains prompted me to give up kettlebells in favor of John McSweeney's (equipment-less) Tiger Moves and John Peterson's Transformetrics, supplemented by qigong. My joints thank me daily!

Spectrum: You're very welcome. I think Forencich is a freakin' genius. Considering that he's taught martial arts for decades, just imagine how fruitfully he could collaborate with Sifu Moses. Talk about birds of a feather! By the way, I tried to buy the Nine Palms DVD online, but the PayPal link appears corrupted. I emailed Sifu Rob to let him know.

I definitely feel and often think (depending on how assiduously I avoid conventional, gloomy-doomy mass media) that humans are evolving. Awhile back Edge magazine asked over a hundred world-class, Third Culture thinkers "What are you optimistic about? Why?" Their replies, indexed here (http://edge.org/q2007/q07_index.html) are incredibly diverse and endlessly stimulating to read and ponder. Thanks, Wayfarer64, for the info about tardigrades. Perhaps qigong needs a Tardigrade Frolic to complement the Five (other) Animal Frolics.

Wayfarer64, I feel you're right that enlightenment is much more common than is realized. For the majority of homo sapiens who don't practice inner-self management (through meditation, etc.), it's much easier to ascribe supernatural powers to Jesus Christ, Buddha, and other folks described in scripture than to accept responsibility for becoming fully conscious themselves. I like the idea of rounding out my karma by coming back as an otter or owl. In fact, I think that in T.H. White's Once and Future King, Merlin transforms young Arthur into those creatures, among others, to teach him how to think, act, and speak as a mindful human fully cognizant of his abilities and responsibilities. What's a tardigrade?

Spectrum, thanks very much for answering my questions so thoughtfully! I'm not interested in "bloodshed imagery" either, and the idea that the Sphere Knot suggests movements rather than prescribing them is very attractive to me. And the Nine Palms video sounds like a wonderful cookbook of recipes for varied, joyful movement. Just my thang. Now all I have to do is decide whether to get the Sphere Knot or the video first! Did you check out that Frank Forencich link? Here it is again: http://www.goanimal.com/index.html. Take care. And again, thanks.

Hey Spectrum: The videos you posted, as well as the stuff on Sifu Moses' website, is AMAZING! I keep returning to it, and now I'm wondering whether one needs a background in sword forms to be able to use a Sphere Knot. And is a kung fu background necessary to benefit from Sifu Moses' kung fu DVD? I've never done swords or kung fu, but his stuff seems to really resonate with the Wuji qigong I've been doing. Thanks!

W-o-w! Thanks for taking the time to post these stories and the video links. Sifu Moses uses that Golden Mean stick like a souped-up taichi ruler. I've spent most of my life immersed in (and, I see now, circumscribed by) various types of highly patterned movements (weight lifting and running, mostly). Now that I've practiced qigong for awhile, I'm feeling a strong desire/need to "not move the same way twice." Another proponent of unpatterened, liberated, liberating movement (as opposed to exercise) is Frank Forencich, author of several books on the subject. I just read his latest book, The Exuberant Animal, which is both entertaining and endlessly thought-provoking. Here's a link to his website: http://www.goanimal.com/index.html.

wenwu, Pero and Sean are both right on target. What do you want to learn?

I went to the office supply store this morning to make copies of my book proposal, and I left with both the copies and a wonderful teaching. Because the proposal is 57 pages long, the self-serve copiers wouldn't staple it automatically, so the clerk gave me a big honkin' industrial stapler to use. Since each staple had 57 pages to go through, I told myself I had to muscle the stapler. It was, I told myself, like trying to tilt a pinball machine. I managed to staple four copies relatively cleanly, but I botched number five. I went to the clerk for help, and he told me "You can muscle it, but it works better if you just push the lever down completely." I tried again--this time using follow-through, not muscle. It worked beautifully. I bow deeply.

QiDr, "think beyond the brick and touch the floor" reminds me of something cool I've been able to do since I began practicing qigong. I found I'm able to toss used kitchen towels down the stairs and directly into the laundry room, which is offset to the right at the bottom of the basement stairs. I pause briefly before each throw, project my energy into the laundry room, and let fly. Works almost every time.

Indeed. I lifted weights for over twenty years but quit three years ago, realizing that I'd spent two decades teaching myself to move barbells and dumbells but not my own body. Let alone my mind.