Earl Grey

True story: my didn’t mind me reading dirty magazines, the occult, or other taboo things parents typically forbid their kids from reading, but when he saw me with a copy of Ayn Rand, he went on a rant and told me to never bring that woman’s books into our home ever again. He was extremely disappointed in me for even having “any time devoted to that miserable asshole” as he said.

Remember: rudeforever is a firm believer that doing any qigong must demonstrate that it works in the LDT in order to become enlightened. You should see his certainty the other day where he posted how Taiji and Liuhebafa work... Forever rude, forever rube.

Yes, and when you have them in softcover too I will keep copies of them. Otherwise, anyone can use lulu.com to custom print.

Except the clinging to science without realizing so many things called “science” don’t necessarily mean rationality or fact. Soviet scientists like Lysenko were considered official science and influenced the Great Leap Forward in China as actual conventional understanding was dismissed to fit political criteria, then by unknowing masses, considered actual science. Too many people say they have scientific evidence proving their points, especially climate change deniers. Referring to science as a means of proving your beliefs without understanding why you hold empirical evidence to be your gold standard ignores the Platonic view of undesirable why we believe in what we believe and what makes it rational. In your case, you actually ignore the scientific method of researching because you’re focused on proving your hypothesis rather than going based off of actual observed data, and are not only with bad data collected, but throwing out a lot of actual data because you don’t accept it under your ridiculous oxygen and breathing mitochondria criteria. You follow perceived scientific consensus, but not scientific methodology or principle. Completely bogus and horrendous, and typical.

This might make you laugh by the time you finish the last sentence of this post. So I have run across bilingual idiots who make fun of other people’s English too, and they have been like naturalized Americans from China in China like here: and then Indians who are higher on the social and economical ladder and have been educated abroad (often in UK) before coming back to their fellow countrymen. This is a post colonial holdover that’s really hard to shake. Yes, I am imagining you smile reading that.

Ha! There ARE smells when practicing! When in a group, we have experienced smells for those in the group and outsiders passing by. I loved the style when I did it years ago and hear consistently of the things that make no sense, and it isn’t placebo. Someone doesn’t know or do qigong at all and calls himself a practitioner. ChiDrag-On! Rah rah sis boom bah!

Three of us (me, Starjumper, qofq) asked what the OP practices not out of any personal claim but simple curiosity and relevance to understanding where he is coming from and why he asks what he does so that we can answer appropriately, and the OP kills the conversation with his extremely demanding entitlement and rudeness. Not much room for exchange here with him... but a good topic for the rest of us at least! A reminder: not all systems are the same, and not all bodies function the same--basic principles of health and TCM especially. A person can learn the same thing as three others and yield both similar and dissimilar results, so how it works is relative to a variety of factors from the system itself to the individual practicing and how deep their practice is.

USU!!!!

This is why the movie Iron Man 2 was atrocious and why I don't get people's obsession with him for those who like superhero movies. Iron Man 2 was basically John Galt if he had wit and a suit of armor to fly around in and punch people with, and people worshipped him. Blech, just saying the name in reference to the book makes me nauseated. *ptu*!

OH GREAT SIFU SCHOLAR! WHAT IF THE TODDLERS FIGHT US BY WHIPPING US WITH DIAPERS? AND WHAT IF THEY ARE DIRTY DIAPERS? WILL SLEEPING QIGONG MAKE US MASTERS OF THE NURSERY AND KINDERGARTEN DURING NAPTIME?! DO YOU ENCOURAGE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN? HOW ABOUT VIOLENCE BETWEEN WOMEN?! DOES RHONDA ROUSEY COUNT?!

Llllliiiiiiiaaaaarrrrr.

The ego is a butler that serves the Self, but the ego likes to whisper in your ear and make you believe that you are Batman, out to avenge past wrongdoings again and again no matter how silly you are for being a grown adult dressed up as an animal beating up other people who act equally silly.

Except Fragrant Qigong is not a fraudulent practice and it's already been proven the article that you cited about Tian Ruisheng being a fraud are actually disinformation manufactured by the CCP! Another fail for ChiDummy! And you still fail with a straw man argument because the argument you put forth was about qi and breathing, but my challenge was that there are many styles that don't involve breathing and run counter to your silly oxygen argument, old boy.

"It is better to give than to receive" and I think you would agree you would not want to receive gifts for the soil?

Except there are many styles that don't emphasize breathing at all like Fragrant qigong, so there goes that hypothesis!

With all your talk about vaginas and such, I can't help it given that you were undressing me with your eye. "Talk sense to a fool and he will call you foolish." - Euripides Looks like you did a good job being a fool according to the great playwright. If that were the case, then it's truly mental masturbation, but I'd rather be the guy in a La-Z-Boy instead of the gimp in leather that you are acting like right now, just absent a whip with all your bossiness and ordering people around about how to respond and where to post. Nor am I, but you're displaying some rather dedicated effort to waving your fists up and down as though you were gripping a cylinder-like object. You so far haven't shown you ever had any in the first place. So says the guy whining about everyone being deluded as though he isn't joining in on all the fun with how certain he is. And it also shows that I know which buttons to press to stimulate you like the pair of vibrating panties you're wearing.... Except it's a lot more fun since it's annoying the hell out of you. And it shows you're certainly not getting any, hence the obsession with it, but alas: while you're quite dickish here for calling me things of vaginal nature, I take that as no offense because after all: you are what you eat! And apparently you are quite deprived of that phallic delight and thus act appropriately by opening your mouth wide in the hopes of someone filling that emptiness in your gaping maw and all the way down your throat. I'm only riding the high horse because it keeps sickos like you from fulfilling your obsessions, Alan Strang. Horses and mules make asses, but I am proud of being a jackass while enjoying the process of letting you be a dumbass. Or a direct example of your poor comprehension skills. I am bullshitting, my beloved Europa, because it is your own perverse fantasy, after all. 'Tis not necessary because it is the manner by which you are most comfortable with communicating yourself as a sanctimonious turd of the elephant shit variety. I carried no such agenda because I am not even thinking of you between threads--you asked how qigong works and I respond directly the same way to everyone whom I don't know as each qigong system works differently and I make no assumptions before giving opinions. A doctor does not diagnose someone who does not disclose their symptoms fully, and you appear to need a proctologist to satisfy your desire with how you have conducted yourself in this thread. Spare us, oh Grand Inquisitor, we know nothing, no matter how much you threaten us. I answered as appropriately relevant to the topic and respond appropriately to how I am addressed by following the rule of reciprocity, my dear recalcitrant child.

See what you will and distort it as you do, I’m posting totally nonchalantly and without any particular attachment to what you think of me and what I say or whatever you say about me to me. I just participated because I can and I do, whether or not I am a [word removed by system]—though I suspect your first thread we interacted in calling everyone on the forum deluded is a prime example of “it takes one to know one”, and your characterization of me with “BS post-factum rationalizations” does indeed indicate your skill level (or perhaps more appropriately, lack thereof). Carry on, carry on, my dear ape.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about Akashic readings for yourself too and your own work, I'll say this: consider the antagonism and everything that we said and the distrust that arose, the hostility, the venom, and bias. Do you really think I would still read for you? The answer: you bet your ass I am ready and available any time you're ready to set up a schedule if you want it.

The following is an archive of what was the peak of conflict between gendao and Earl Grey. It has now been resolved amicably and is remaining here for historical purposes. It has at least led to some good, which can be seen in this link. I certainly don’t think so when he won’t stop invading every thread and forcing his alien Christian colonialism conspiracies and pseudoscience in every thread regardless of whether it has anything to do with a topic or if anyone wants to hear what he says, like he is on the volcano thread and won’t shut up about it. One can say “use the ignore option” but when he’s doing obnoxious things like linking Feminism and the Pill to genetics that cause homosexuality and insists he is not homophobic, or talking about colonialism in a thread about a volcanic eruption and the disaster it has created where I am, or comparing his lack of a pillow as part of the fight against colonialism forcing pillows on people to sleep unnaturally as making him a modern day Rosa Parks—it’s too much and suffocates any helpful exchange on this forum. Yes, I know I did something similar to this before with the Everything thread, but enough is enough and this idiot brings no value whatsoever to this forum. I’m not calling for an outright ban, but I am sick of him invading and polluting every thread he meddles in and want to see who is willing to chime in an opinion on him or demonstrate exactly what value, if any, he brings here, because I sure as hell don’t see anything positive.

The simplicity of the qi following yi is something that makes more sense when having experience in it rather than a lot of inference that comes from the statement being told to someone with zero experience--then it becomes a platitude. As I don't know the practices of the OP and he is uninterested in sharing them publicly, I can't make any assumptions about him and his history, so I just gave a "feeler" to see how he'd respond and it gave me a few insights already based on what some have said in regards to that simple statement. It's an annoying tactic, but I learned from some of the best (and far more annoying) teachers. I'm only speaking from my area of expertise, and how qi flows for me has come from my health, cultivation, and martial, but primarily martial since it's the one I have the most experience and understanding in compared to the health or alchemical practices. The cultivation in Xin Yi leads to intrinsic movement, not willfully directed--if I am doing Eight Brocades, one of them has no movement that thinks of the spleen at all, yet it directs energy there even if you didn't know it was. Now as far as fighting applications "belonging" here... Again, I'm only speaking from how I learned to cultivate, and I have several systems of applying that, but it's the one I'm most comfortable referring to when talking mostly because it's the main practice I'm authorized to teach partially before mastery. So no, it doesn't not belong here...it just has a different framework than you're probably expecting or anticipating. Again, referring to my own system of Xin Yi and how we stand and expanding on why we differentiate the term intent and the term visualization. When we stand, there is always intent: "zero" intent doesn't mean thinking of nothing, because whether I'm standing in embracing or piercing postures, the intent is the martial application at the very least and that is still not visualizing anything. The visualization comes in only later in the practice when we learn Hindrance, which is when we imagine things like holding and balancing multiple balls on and around the body, or maintaining structure and power when resisting imaginary forces such as wind, water, or a mob pushing you from any of the eight directions. At no point do we direct the qi anywhere--this is never taught and highly discouraged in Xin Yi and goes against the emptiness that is the crucial state of cultivation, movement of energy, and martial skill. Of course we don't visualize in Xiang Gong. But we still have at the very least intention to follow the proper order of the forms because doing the sets out of order causes qi deviation. Again, no visualization, just intent, which at this point I'll probably say that intent is closer to being used in the context of willpower or will rather than visualization. Can't comment on this, but it still sounds a lot like what we do in Xin Yi. Most of the people I meet who talk about visualizing qi come from New Age yoga studios or self-taught energy healers and YouTube addicts who learned their knowledge from piecing together random videos online. There are only about several practices I do that involve visualization, and that is the Hindrance practice of Xin Yi, Relaxation qigong, and Sleeping qigong. I'm still failing to see how what you understand what I've written to be out of focus with the thread, but hopefully I have clarified enough to show that this is relevant.

Before I respond when at a computer, I’ll say that I’m distinguishing yi and intent from visualization as separate things.

let us have a longer dialogue as i am about to ask the Akashic some questions about what we can learn from our conflict and friendship.

Typically, if you’re just studying the art itself, most of your tasks are spent doing the practice, and it can fill up days and weeks. Xin Yi alone can fill many notebooks and require lots of planning to get everything I learned into my schedule to keep my skills fresh and growing. The people who are verbose tend to be martial scholars. Some, like Sifu Terry, have mentioned that the scholarly path causes his skill to be impacted as he is doing many things and can’t practice it all at once every day while still preserving the history of each system he inherited and represents. Others are scholars with no skill whatsoever because they translate the texts and release niche books on the subject. So if you really want to do well, it’s nice to know these things, but you are tested in life, not with a multiple choice quiz or essay writing. As for specific energetics, I can’t speak for all, but if you consider that in Xin Yi, we fight with no mind because the body is rewired to react faster than we think in an intelligent and martial manner. Just because someone teaches a technique in MMA on how to take down kicks doesn’t mean I’ll know how to counter that and teach that technique—there will be dozens of ways to counter, but only in the heat of the moment will I know what I will do. I’m basically a passenger as the body becomes like an AI that analyzes the situation and responds appropriately for me. As for bliss and joy, I’ve felt it and a spiritual kind of development, but I’m not a saint, I just know and experience the universe with a new set of senses as though every atom of my being perceives things with hyper awareness in the physical and metaphysical dimensions. That awareness can inspire spiritual growth, but it just makes me feel that I’m comfortable with being authentic with myself without worrying about what others think, though I do have self-awareness to consider how they feel, just like I pointed out to rudeforever that he’s got ZERO self-awareness for his juvenile behavior. I suppose you can develop similar conclusions for those in Taoist yogic practices, because the skills aren’t mutually exclusive, but the means of acquiring those skills are, and the end result leads to a variety of outcomes that require an entirely different definition of healing or enlightenment.

Depends on how you define "authentic". Does it work? Yes. Is it unique? Yes. Does it have lineage? Yes. Does it have history? Yes. If someone considers it a derivative of Taiji or other IMAs, technically speaking, the internal world is not that big, and there are both the potential for overlap and interaction with schools that influence one another. Chen Yiren and Wang Xiangzhai both influenced one another and in turn their student became the grandmaster of our lineage, bringing the principles of skill for the former and power for the latter while using Liuhebafa as the base form to express Xin Yi. Oh boy, this looks like several questions. People don't realize Taijiquan is a martial art and always has been, but there is Taiji the philosophy as well as Taiji the skill, and Taiji as the formal name for what people call the symbol "that yin and yang thing". Historically, in the most bastardized summary I've seen, what was taught in the Qing dynasty is the movements and forms, but none of the internal power, so that no foreign devils would have access to power or secrets. The delusion that it had power was a practical joke, and made worse a century later by the communist party of China promoting many "internal arts" that look closer to ballet choreography than the few masters and systems with actual internal power. What you see in the parks is derived from a bastardized version of an already watered-down practice that has almost no martial applications and uses platitudes that reveal the absence of any understanding or skill, and still gets worsened by advertising culture with things like Tai Cheng: https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/28585-tai-cheng-infomercial-2013-cheez-whiz-or-what. The people with actual skills, like Glenn Hairston, for example, get straight to the point about how and why Taijiquan works as a martial art. The Taiji taught for health isn't bad--it just isn't the Supreme Ultimate that people think it is, and that is fine, but only if they're after health as it has documented clinical benefits from helping with Parkinson's to recovering from chemotherapy, though it's closer to qigong than it is to a martial art, and one of my teachers knows both Taijiquan as a martial art and Medical Tai Chi. As people get lost in the details or misunderstanding which Taiji they are doing or even if their teacher is legitimate (i.e. knows what the hell they are talking about), a person who is learning Taiji for health but is really doing Tai Cheng is getting a Tae Bo workout, and a person who thinks they have ultimate power is probably like Jake Mace: Speaking only for the styles I know and practice, there's holistic work done. Some people do Baduanjin only, but don't sit in golden flower or stand in Zhan Zhuang, and some people who think they are doing Zhan Zhuang are just standing on a plank and balancing. For what I do, we breathe, we stand, we sit, we rest, we have forms, and we live life. Understanding is in the proper doing that leads to proper knowing. You can have proper knowing, but not have the proper doing or proper being. It's a common trick for masters to troll people who don't pass their character tests to get the right verbal explanation, but not teach them the actual correct way of applying the skill, such as someone teaching pranayama from a YouTube video they watched the morning earlier before meeting you in the afternoon and saying it's Tai Chi Breathing and an ancient indoor student technique. Depends on the lineage. I speak only for the Xin Yi Meditation school with Liuhebafa and for The Tao Applied with Taijiquan. I don't know what you mean by alchemy, but for sake of simplicity, alchemy is not the term we use in Xin Yi, we just call it the rewiring process, which starts from joints and tendons and all the way to muscles and fascia, then the organs and mind. In my Taiji lineage, the alchemy comes from several key meditations and a simple version of Taiji form based on the original form that wasn't even 13 moves. The martial spirit of what I have learned is deception through Liuhebafa and hiding intention, and from Taijiquan I've found gentle power and force through the application of the Taiji philosophy in physical movements, knowing that if I am pushing an opponent, I also have to pull in some regard, or if I strike, I must also defend simultaneously. Most of my understanding is expressed physically rather than verbally, which is why I just have people do the practices and ask questions before so I guide them progressively and slowly since the internal arts don't follow a strict linear progression as they are also tied to an individual's learning and body adapting. I have shared a few throughout the forum, but dream work is pretty common. Shuigong and Liuhebafa both share lineage with Chen Tuan in Hua Shan if that says anything...