Taomeow

Al Obama.

Mmister (or Mmiss or Mmadam), you mmay have mmissed two points -- mmy mmindful mmemo on Mmississippi and the fact that it's the Unpopular Opinions thread.

Mississippi should be spelled Mmississippi. It's the third most misspelled state in the US (after Hawaii and Pennsylvania), but Mmississippi would be so easy to memorize if everyone was told in kindergarten, double all consonants and quadruple just one vowel. Voila.

I marked the first five, the rest is not applicable because "individual over collective" and "collective over individual" are phrases from my past that spelled brainwashing -- in reality, it would depend on who the "collective" are and what they're up to. I have a friend, e.g., who is an exemplary host -- if she throws a party, she cooks up a delicious storm and arranges everything as perfectly as possible, but she won't let anyone help with anything -- and her explanation is as blunt as can be: "I hate people meddling in my kitchen!" If she invites a bunch of friends over and someone suggests a potluck she acts positively insulted -- "I'm not stingy enough to allow a potluck in my house!" Is her behavior individualistic or collectivist?? Go figure. "Tough love" was addressed by @liminal_luke to my satisfaction. I can only add that in most cases it's a parental problem, but once the kids have grown up, I feel grateful for not having to deal with any disciplining of anyone. Of course when an extraordinarily inquisitive and entrepreneurial 3-year-old stuck a bobby pin in an outlet (the European 220v at that), getting away with only a minor electrical burn on his fingers plus short-circuiting the apartment, I had to find some "tough love" in me to make sure he understands and remembers the cause-effect crime-punishment dynamics lest he does it again (he was already planning to, due to his sister's encouragement -- "I really liked those pretty blue stars you made fly out of the wall, could you make them again?" "Sure!") "Order and rules" have their place in life where/when their absence would result in potentially hurting self or others. Wouldn't count them as my personal values though, anymore than wearing seasonal clothes or observing rules of engagement in CMA -- it's more about common sense. "Go with the flow" is in the same category. And yes, common sense is a personal value of mine.

Finally a video exists that shows the correct way to make cezve coffee. There's so many contrived, unnecessarily complicated ones on youtube, missing the most crucial points while making unforgivable mistakes that it took me, what, 12 years to come across the correct one?.. A bit too correct even, since most of us aren't likely to replicate the hot quartz sand bed at home, alas... But barring that, you can still replicate the key points and, especially, the exact moment when your coffee is ready which is clearly shown at 7:15. You don't remove your cezve from heat until that moment, which should arrive suddenly (if it doesn't arrive suddenly it means your proportions are off -- too much water!). So be alert, coffee is not ready until that moment so wait for it -- and you must not miss it either. For one thing, you have no sand bed so all the runaway spills will have to be cleaned up (happened to me on more than one thousand occasions since I started making my coffee this way in my teens), but to never let it happen is a lifelong quest. I'm down to maybe once every few month with that mishap... unwavering focus and awareness are key! Also, you will get grossly inferior coffee if you let it boil -- yes, even for 30 seconds -- or, alternatively, remove the cezve from heat before your coffee has reached the boiling point. Also, if you do use sugar (unlike the video version), put it in your cezve alongside the ground coffee to brew them together rather than adding it after the fact, this tastes better and is also part of the classical way. And don't forget to start with cold water (that's a must!) And if you don't like any solid matter in your coffee, no harm in using a fine mesh strainer to pour it from the cezve into your cup. Alternatively, let it sit for a couple of minutes before pouring, all the solids will reliably sink to the bottom and all you'll have to do is pour it carefully to avoid disturbing the grinds on the bottom and just leave them there. Also, the way you grind your coffee is up to you -- it doesn't necessarily have to be powder fine, just make sure it's not unreasonably coarse. Voila! You can start watching at 4:15 since that's where the actual process of making coffee begins, the earlier part is about setting the outdoor coffee place for the customers so unless you plan on opening one (by the way I would if I could, one of those parallel life things with me I think...), you can skip that part. And, again, pay attention to the timing at 7:15, timing is everything in taoism and superior coffee making alike.

Do it, or do not do it — you will regret both. — Soren Kierkegaard

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A 10-year-old will learn the language by osmosis, out of thin air. Maybe a few months later than some parental expectations or school guidelines would have her learn... so what? It will happen -- and then her being in class will start making some academic sense too, for her and the teachers alike. Until then, just be patient and supportive, and don't complicate a difficult enough period for her with pressure and anxiety. At this age, moving to another country is extremely traumatic for a child though she may not show it and may not even be able to formulate or express her feelings. The less additional stress at this time, the better for her current and (especially) future well-being. As for the taoist approach, there's a saying. Don't try to force a tree to grow faster by pulling it upward by the branches.

I don't think there's something special about that matter, just the fall of the dice... but who knows, Einstein believed "god doesn't play dice" (then again, Einstein didn't believe in black holes.) The theoretical anatomy of a black hole as envisioned today includes an event horizon, its spherical outer surface/boundary which, once something crosses that, won't let anything out. But outside that, farther out and away from the boundary there's what they call the accretion disk, which does its own thing with compressed and spun up magnetic forces, and that's where over 90% of particles are going to end up while under 10% will indeed cross the event horizon -- or so the theory goes today. The accretion disk is much bigger than the event horizon, so chances to wind up there look 90% better for stuff approaching the black hole than their chances to make it to the event horizon. But even for those that do it may not be the end of the story because there's stuff going on that causes particle-antiparticle pairs to appear, and theoretically it's possible that for some particles, one member of the pair might appear inside the event horizon while the other one will simultaneously be born outside of it. Which means a doppelganger of sorts will show up outside the event horizon and go about its merry ways even though its double has been enslaved by the black hole. Beams (jets) don’t come from inside the black hole. They come from the accretion disk around it.

I meant it's the holy grail of health. Only a flexible spine efficiently performs its tasks that affect all functions of the body. It is in charge of balance, stability, and posture, allowing us to sit, stand, walk, run, and lie down "like a human" (my favorite taoist definition of what it means to be human.) A flexible spine is an efficient shock absorber which allows other parts of the body not to have to go out of whack trying to compensate. It is also a prerequisite for cardiovascular health -- there's a direct link between spinal flexibility and arterial flexibility. To name a few.

It wasn't qiogng that was "concocted in the commi china," just the name. “What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.” Hua Tuo (141-208 AD) called it animal movements -- tiger, deer, bear, monkey, crane. Li Shizhen (1518-1593 AD), "movements that establish the relationship with inner channels (or meridians) so that they can be perceived." But neither of them was a pioneer of what we call qigong. What's in a name? This chart that looks a helluva lot like qigong is from the 2nd century BC.

The joke was funny when heard for the first time, a long time ago, but by now it's an old joke, probably not even counting as a joke anymore. Gravity sucks. Black holes suck. It's an unpopular opinion today -- the latest view is that, contrary to the earlier picture of what happens in the vicinity of a black hole, over 90% of infalling matter will never make it inside at all. Instead it will get spewed out into the outer regions of the galaxy and return to the interstellar medium. Matter is charged. If a particle misses the event horizon and simply approaches a black hole, it's going to experience humongous acceleration, create a magnetic field, and magnetic fields change the direction of every other charged particle around them. They will heat up, gain speed, emit light, and produce bipolar jets perpendicular to the plane of the black hole's rotation. So, a black hole has no special sucking power, it's just mega gravity, and apparently it doesn't suck. Good to know, right?

A riddle. In a certain city there were knights who had armor-bearers. All knights always told the truth and were loyal. All armor-bearers always lied and were traitors. A certain person said: "I will lie to you. I will betray you." Was he a knight or an armor-bearer?

I wish I hadn't misplaced an early online exchange where I got gently chastised by Marvin Minsky, no less (one of the fathers of artificial neural networks and the founder of the MIT AI laboratory). The forum was about cognitive neuroscience, another one of his interests (as well as mine), and I made a joke which he found funny but off topic. (The joke contained an unpopular opinion about gravity and black holes.)

This happened to me on a reddit sub. I lurked for a year or so, then I felt like setting something straight. To wit, the location of a city that was being discussed as holding the keys to some ancient mystery in its architecture. I'm all for ancient mysteries and love to look at old architectural landmarks as puzzles full of symbology to decipher, but that discussion placed the city under scrutiny hundreds of miles to the east of where it's actually located, and landlocked it in order to support this or that point even though it was built as a seaport to begin with and remains one to this day. I pointed it out and was immediately banned. Turned out the geography genius who came up with that theory was a mod.

For many years I've been friends with a lurker who contacted me privately at some point and has been keeping in touch ever since. A Sinologist, by the way. I don't know if he does much (if any) lurking anymore or not, we found other things to talk about, not TDB related. So, you never know.

A British colonel came up with this name for a lamaist monastic routine he learned while exploring Tibet in the early 20th century. He was a member of the exclusive Travellers Club in London, described as "the quintessential English gentleman's club."

Yi Jin Jing is good. Other routines to choose depend on your goals -- for general maintenance, I think versatile activities, ideally with whole-body involvement, are very useful. Brisk walking (which I favor over running -- better yet, walking qigong), swimming, hiking with some climbing (choosing the difficulty level based on your current physical shape but aiming to challenge yourself a bit), a good yoga routine, a good stretching routine (I like the Five Tibetans and the TKD warm-up I learned a long time ago), and you know I always push taiji so, consider that. As for pull-ups -- I'm in favor, in moderation, and as for push-ups -- on the fence... Light dumbbells maybe, and a really good set of instructions (otherwise, more harm than good.) Tennis. I think regularity is important, it isn't so much what you do as whether you do it every day that matters. Thorough housecleaning. If you want to turn it into a muscle-challenging routine, try it the Japanese way or the Buddhist monks way -- wash the floors by hand on your hands and knees. (That's what I sometimes do when it's too hot or too cold outside or I'm otherwise not in the mood to exercise but feel I should. )

P.S. 70 --75% is about right for any kind of exertion activity (including even eating to "75% of your hunger" in the taoist tradition) but not for stretching. With stretches you are shooting for 100% of what you can do today (provided you're familiar with the correct way to do it safely -- there's body parts you never stretch in certain directions, e.g. the knees, and there's stretching techinques you never employ, the ones that overstretch ligaments instead of relying on internal power -- "dragon emerging" in Chen is a good example of that latter one, a challenging stretch which should never be done the calisthenic or yoga way and has shocked me many times in those beautiful and visually impressive wushu performances that are going to destroy the performer's ligaments and joints once the performer is past the all-permissive young age). If you've been meticulously taught the correct stretching technique, you can safely assume that what constitutes 100% for you today is maybe 10% of what you should be able to do as a future goal. (An example -- the chin-to-big-toe taiji stretch, which if you start from an "average" place might take a minimum of a year to master -- often much longer -- and will both give you healthy spinal flexibility which is the holy grail and might come as a bonus if you do everything else diligently and correctly even without specifically training this particular stretch.)

Sounds like a lazy teacher or else one generous with his (and his students') time. Horse stance is something I'd teach in detail, correct, correct again -- and again -- and then treat as homework (for those who need it. I don't know where the idea of its universal usefulness comes from.) The typical muscle building exercises and sports are indeed often in the way of qi flow and meridian opening, and I believe so is hard qigong. But there's many soft qigong forms and routines that are pretty physically challenging, and many will build up inner muscles without having much visible effect on the external ones. Those inner muscles (intercostal, psoas and iliacus, core abdominal and back, and with some qigongs even some smooth muscles of the internal organs) are the ones primarily involved in qi circulation (while the external ones are in charge of qi expenditures). Good qigong routines known for building strength and stamina do it with inner muscles involvement and without a specific focus on the external ones (which will never overgrow from those routines like bodybuilders' or specific sports practitioners', yet will also gain strength, though by a different mechanism.)

There's many kinds, the most crude division is between hard and soft qigong. Hard qigong (favored, e.g., by Shaolin monks) can be more physically demanding than most athletic activities, and will produce athletic bodies. I have no idea if it will do stuff on the level of qi, some of its methods seem to be completely opposite (e.g., multiple ways to make parts of the body or the whole body extremely hardened against striking force, insensitive to pain, and so on.) Soft qigong can be quite useful for building physical strength and flexibility too, but by different means and with more of its effects going into inner core muscles rather than external muscles (as well as into joints and ligaments.) Then there's other distinctions within each category. E.g. there's medical qigong among the soft varieties, and within that, internal and external medical qigong -- internal for self-healing, external for healing others. And so on. Duck-walk was something my taekwondo teacher made us do. No huge track, just round and round the perimeter of the dojo, but. Every. Single. Time. Oh how I hated it! The first qigong I ever encountered, many moons ago, was falun gong... There was this one static exercise there where you stand with your hands holding the falun ("law wheel") above your head. And stand. And stand. And your arms start falling off. I couldn't remember pull-ups being this hard. But tone the arms to perfection it did, if nothing else.

I don't have the context of course for how suggestive the comments were (you initially asserted they were "thirsting" for him and my imagination didn't quite cooperate painting the corresponding picture.) And of course there's all kinds of middle-aged white women in the world and it's possible (though not very typical in my experience) that the most lascivious of them prey on young celibate martial arts teachers and take classes specifically for that purpose. In my more mundane experience, older women won't think twice about admiring the good looks of younger guys because they have grown sons or sons-in-law that age or even older, sometimes grandsons, and they may make those comments specifically because they don't think twice about it. So, don't know how inappropriate it was, maybe a monk is not supposed to be good-looking, or if he is, women of particular age and race are not supposed to notice... but this demographic may not be familiar enough with Communist monasteries rules and regulations. As for hands on tuition, I don't know what kind of training you got but in mine, it's absolutely precious and a game changer... yet most teachers are reluctant to make hands-on corrections precisely because in our deviant society, human touch is supposed to be either sexualized or else nonexistent. The age of untouchable "either fuck me or don't touch me" sexual maniacs is upon us... Don't know about arts far less subtle and far less dependent on fine-tuned sensitivity, but you can't really learn taiji without hands-on instruction. You can have tai chee to be sure. But to think that students could possibly only want hands-on instructions because they are "thirsting" for the teacher... I dunno. Maybe. Then again, there's jokes. Women of all ages and races joke about "these things," not just men do. So?.. In other words, your reasons for not liking the teacher or his students could have been chosen more appropriately methinks. Also sprach Taomeow.

Something Chinese. Their record keeping (strictly enforced by the imperial bureaucratic apparatus by the way) goes back 3,500 years.

Me neither. It was you who wrote "apologies." I merely quoted. And I merely noticed that it's my favorite kind -- shifting the responsibility from words or actions one actually produced to the person who "felt" something in response. I.e. "apologies for the way things are wrong with you," effectively. Sadly it has become a rather popular way to offer "apologies" from a place of _________ but I find it despicable. Sorry if it makes you feel______.