Taomeow

You are welcome. So, now I have a question for you. How would you apply stick-adhere-follow to learning a language? I started learning Chinese a while back, but I can't seem to stick with it, what I learn does not seem to adhere properly, I don't follow up and it all falls into emptiness. Who's the enemy fighting against me? How do I overcome her?

Yup, exactly. Anybody can be tao, but as the sage said, "in the human world, tao has been destroyed." Of course in the long run it is indestructible. But "human race is run" at its own pace -- force, interfere, thwart. If it doesn't return to the tao ways, tao will restore itself minus the human race, is all. "Tao in motion is taiji" -- not taiji as the shorthand for "taijiquan" but taiji proper, the yin-yang polarity of the world of manifestations. Tao-in-stillness is wuji, tao-in-motion is taiji. That's the whole premise of taoism. It is missed by Indo-European modalities, whether Western or Eastern, that insist on an absolute -- emptiness, stillness, nothingness, nirvana, cessation of manifestations, etc.. In taoism, wuji and taiji go both ways. As the sage said, being and nonbeing engender each other. The simple way to say the same thing is "tao in stillness gives rise to tao in motion, and tao in motion reverts to tao in stillness." Not "once and for all" though but "always and forever there and back." To and fro goes the Way...

You are too delicate for this rough, numbed-out world. So I guess I'll spare you the details of all the illegal (but popular) "enhancement" surgeries they perform on men in Thailand... I have a hard time myself here in SoCal having to see women with bags of goo sewn right into their live breasts -- every freakin' day. And, once the money is invested, the bags of goo are never covered up, ever, they are on permanent prominent display so you have to see them whether you like it or not. And I am very tactile-impressionable. But I can't go around cradling mine in public, though the impulse is there.

No, that's not what happens -- see the originally referenced article and the pictures. The mosquito hugs the rain drop sticking to it in a taiji fashion (minimal force but not "not enough"), adhering to it and following its motion without losing contact and without exerting force as the drop "falls into emptiness" (in the case of a free fall one doesn't need to "lure it into emptiness first" because it's already there, whereas in the push-hands encounter, you create/facilitate the situation of free fall for your opponent as you stick-adhere-follow.) At this small level, water is not amorphous, it is a ball of perfect roundness and surface tension acts as its "skin." That's what the mosquito makes contact with -- the "skin" of the water ball. Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize physicist and one of the greatest of the 20th century, was the master whose books taught me the importance of observation that trumps theoretical constructs. He would carry a magnifying glass in his pocket so as not to waste his time when he was stuck doing "nothing" -- e.g. waiting for a bus -- and observe something closely. That's how he discovered that at the micro level water behaves in ways which you normally don't see at the macro level, an observation that later turned into classic works in hydrodynamics. He saw an ant crawling on a leaf and whipped out his magnifying glass. The ant approached a puddle of water formed in the dent in the leaf after a recent rain. With his front "paws" the ant broke off a piece of water (sic!) so gently as not to break the forces of the surface tension, and the water formed a tiny, shiny, perfect ball. The ant was holding it in front of him and walked away carrying it. Then the next one. Feynman watched transfixed. I read and learned. The mosquito uses such precise stick-adhere-follow technique when grabbing a ball of water (I'll tell you another story about how I know first hand, from observation, that water at this scale forms objects of comparative "solidity" due to uniform surface tension), such measured skill, that the ball's "skin" does not break and its motion is not disrupted. That's how he finds safety in the rain. If he just let the drop hit him, it wouldn't stick or adhere -- it would break, throwing the mosquito into chaotic motion, with all the other countless drops in his way finally mangling him and hammering him into the ground. But due to his innate taiji skill (as Mythmaker said, mosquitoes are tao -- and tao in motion, as you may know, is taiji, so they don't have to learn from a teacher, they ARE teacher), the mosquito uses a very specific pattern of motion known to those who have practiced it as stick-adhere-follow. This is, I repeat, a specific proprietary technique of taiji. Yin-yang is used in any type of motion, bar brawl, figure skating, fishing, chess. But stick-adhere-follow is a taiji skill and a taiji principle -- one used in the example given. There's others that are not used. You don't use all of them in any one situation. You choose precisely.

Manitou, thanks for the cop's perspective! There was also a guy who introduced taiji to NYPD. I remember talking online to one of his students. As for cops using minimal force, I think nothing beats the devastating techinque of the French gendarmes who, back in the day, inserted a fish hook on a fish line into the apprehended suspect's tender anatomy parts, and walked with him trotting at their side, docile and compliant to the max despite no handcuffs, wherever they needed to take him. Shockingly brilliant no-exertion cruelty.

Use zhan (sticking up), nian (adhering to), lian (linking to), and sui (following with), which is what I said when I said Stick-Adhere-Follow is the taiji principle mosquitoes use. Which you said was a Western idea. Q: how many times can a mosquito bite a taoist who uses taiji principles?

I do like your moments of self-reflection and a sense of "meaning well" emanating from you. That's on the plus side. On the minus side, you come to a taoist forum created by some hands-on taoists with years of studies, practice, and contemplation, both past and ongoing, under lineage Taoist teachers (and in my case, some of it under a teacher who still lives in China, has only made his first short trips abroad in his 60s, and, hooray, speaks no English ) and approach everyone as an absolute beginner who will gobble up anything if someone who speaks Chinese tells them it's THE real taoist principles. You read up on some websites, watch some videos, and proceed to teach. It's likely this can be pulled off elsewhere. I have a close friend who's Chinese, who used to make a living teaching taiji somewhere deep in the Midwest, while never having learned it himself. He had a book. He would study one lesson ahead of his next class and then teach. He could pull it off simply because he's Chinese and charismatic, he admits it freely. Knowing full well that he was bullshitting people for a living, as some have to sometimes. He's a natural born adventurer, full of schemes, taiji was just one of these for him. He moved on to exporting shrimp. The shrimp don't care if he speaks Chinese but they better believe in him anyway, because his fishermen catch them aplenty. He doesn't have to fake it because he really does it. As shrimp are his witness. Whereas any one of his former taiji students would probably lose a push-hands sparring to a shrimp, because everything they ever learned was fake taiji. Bottom line: you do things, or you fake things. In English, Chinese, or Swahili. It's really simple. State your reasons for asserting what you assert. As in, "I personally think so," or "I read it in such and such book," or "this and that teacher told me," etc.. Don't come presenting everything you say as a lesson in superior wisdom and knowledge. Just present it for what it is. You will have respect instead of "fights" even if you make a mistake, if it's a honest mistake. The opposite scenario is to keep opening yourself to ridicule. Think what you like more, respect or ridicule, and choose your line accordingly. Good luck.

You remind me of a girl I knew in kindergarten. She used to sneak up on me, pinch my arm real hard or bite me, clenching her jaws like a pit bull, and then when I pushed her away immediately run bawling to the teacher screaming "She hit me! She's beating on me!"

Nope, I didn't ask about credentials, I asked about your level of education in biophysics. The correct answer in this case would have been "level zero." I asked because you used the words "bio-energy" and "science." The science in this particular combo is known as "biophysics." Not biology, not chemistry, not physics, not quantum mechanics, not mathematics, not linguistics, not electrical engineering. I wanted to know what exactly your proficiency with this particular science is, besides the ability to use one word from its operational vocabulary, ATP. OK, so now we're talking. You saw a video. This answers my question. Your level of education in biophysics is zero + a youtube video. I submit it's not enough to understand jin. Not even close. What piece of valuable information? The abbreviation "ATP?" I am familiar with ATP and its role in live organisms' energy dynamics from the (exceedingly complex and superlatively enlightening) works of Dr. Gilbert Ning Ling, Ph.D.. Are you? No wait... Dr. Ning Ling is Chinese but he writes his scientific works in biophysics in English. This surely disqualifies him in ChiDragon's eyes. He's doing "international" science, not "traditional," because he knows English!! GET HIM!!!!

Thanks for the cool link, Mythmaker. ChiDragon, the principle used is Stick-Adhere-Follow. (Please don't offer the Chinese characters for stick-adhere-follow by way of your usual refutation. I'm talking taiji, not comparative linguistics.)

What's your level of education in biophysics?

Sometimes, though "just think about it" is a shortcut of expansion that misses out on a lot of its substance, and is not my favorite method by far... too human and too mundane, while Wood as the phase of qi and its observable manifestations only use this on occasion (quite a lot if the "occasion" is a human, but not as much if it's something else.) The organ that does the thinking, the neocortex, borders on the next wuxing phase, Fire, both geometrically (up there on top of a human) and functionally (most of its production, thoughts, is insubstantial with no form and no heng -- duration, longevity -- and any fuel you throw at it gets consumed if you let it catch on Fire. Thinking is smack at the Wood-Fire border, much like the bulk of biological functions are on the Water-Wood border, with the basic ones also "borderline" -- respiration, on the Metal-Water border, and digestion, on the Earth-Metal. But I digress.) The way Wood qi expands is very versatile. Grasses will expand by covering all fertile soil and trees will expand deep under it while branches and leaves go out in all directions and the trunk grows in thickness. Fish will expand by spawning millions of eggs even though not all of them will prove fruitful -- this phase's expansiveness is excessive, with a lot of slack. Flowers will expand by opening, eggs and seeds will expand by cracking, senses will expand by using everything -- the eyesight of an eagle, the olfactory ability of a dog or a house moth (the champion, with the range of smelling one molecule of the opposite sex's phermones at the distance of 11 miles), the ultrasonic hearing of a whale (across the ocean into the next one), the indestructible propagation of dandelions and yeasts and lichen, it's done every which way. Very little of it has anything to do with thinking.

What we refer to as our "unconscious" mind is 95% of all the "mind" we have, or at least 95% of all our brain activity (cultivation and deep work of the "know thyself" kind changes this ratio, to an extent ranging from quite modest to total), so no wonder it's smart. I'm talking about qi though, and the "proprietary" type of it (a Chinese astrology notion) participating in (or taking total control of, as the case may be) the type of dreams we experience. Wuxing is the Five Phases (translated by some as "elements" in the Western tradition) or Five Types of qi interacting to create a human "bodymindspirit" -- Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal. A "proprietary" phase is the type, the phase, that is your "type" much like "brunette or blonde," "blue eyes or brown," "black skin or pink," are your physical type, but of course it, being your "qi type," encompasses more than your physicality -- your mentality, your emotionality, and your destiny. So, this is one thing it does: it manifests what it is in your dreams. (People trained in assorted ways to "read" wuxing phases see them in all kinds of human manifestations -- appearance, behavior, illnesses and accidents, lucky breaks and good fortune, and also dreams, among other things.) A "fire mudra" is what you described as the "praying position" with hands brought together and pointing up. (People are told to pray and shown hands put together like that but they are not told that this is the way you pray to Fire manifestations -- the sun up in the sky or, its later interpretation by the church, Father in Heaven, or any and all upward-mobility-based, ascension-driven ideas.) Qi phases of wuxing are directional in their motion: Fire ascends, Water descends, Wood expands, Earth rotates, Metal contracts. Hands together pointing up symbolize Fire qi -- pyramid, triangular, up-pointing shapes are all Fire symbols. Your dream-mind knows that, so you guide your dream flight by using this mudra as the propelling, steering and navigation mechanism. If you didn't have Fire for either your proprietary or your dominant (they don't always coincide) phase, you wouldn't have these dreams, much like if you didn't have female organs, you wouldn't be a woman, and if you had more melanin in your skin, you wouldn't be "white," and so on. It's just a version of the human geno-, pheno-, phreno-, etc., -type. Yup. And I, Wood with Fire, never have flying dreams -- the only way Wood can fly (with few exceptions for a different conversation) is catch on Fire and go up in smoke... my dream body avoids this scenario to the same extent a 2-year-old who has burned her hand on the stove learns to avoid sticking her hand into the fire -- for the rest of her life. However, I can be "anywhere" and even "everywhere" in my dreams without flying there -- I just do what Wood does to be everywhere (Wood qi does not just manifest plants, it manifests all biological entities): expand.

This may have something to do with one's proprietary wuxing phase. Fire people fly in their dreams. Water people can fly if there's enough Fire in their chart to turn their Water to steam. Sandpaper in your nephew's dream may stand for Metal controlling his Fire, plus Wood feeding it; and colored cellophane in your mom's flights may signify Water in charge of her Fire, and/or the petroleum fuel it runs on -- that's what cellophane is made of. You, on the other hand, only need to assume the Fire mudra in your flying dreams and up you go, and to change direction you point the Fire vector in that direction.

All right, next time I see Chen Zhenglei, Chen Xiaowang, Chen Zhonghua or Chen Bing, I'll tell them that ChiDragon says their taiji is not traditional. They will in all likelihood immediately correct their wayward ways.

With WHAT in the demoed example? High kicks in taiji are rarely applied (as opposed to your "never"), but when they are applied, it's never in the situations where the opponent can get under your leg or has any other opportunities to throw you off balance. In the Whirlwind Kick example, you qinna first (擒拿) (or redirect loosely if you prefer it this way, either way you have total control), kick later -- anywhere you like and as high as you choose, just as I said. In the demoed situation, there's no danger to the kicking party to be intercepted if he chooses to kick high, there's only danger to the kicked party from a kick in the head, which is what is being pointed out. It's not a fight, it's a sparring and a lesson at that, you are taught that you win this situation with a low kick easily, so there's no need to go high. However, if it was a real fight where one is defending his or her life, I'd kick in the head and highly (pun inadvertent) recommend you do likewise. The low kick in this scenario puts an end to this one particular attack on you; while the high kick puts an end to the opponent's ability to attack any further -- either temporarily or permanently, your choice.

You mean you didn't get the whole message? that it's best to kick low when you don't want to hurt the partner?

And yet here's my teacher showing the Whirlwind Kick of Chen Laojia administered anywhere you like -- e.g., to the back of the neck or the head:

My teacher (who is Chinese) explains it very simply: "Nothing Chinese is ever straightforward."

I would want a T-shirt with a yin-yang symbol upside down, an embroidered Western dragon inside it, and an inscription: "I survived ChiDragon Style Taiji and all I got is this lousy T-shirt."

Q: Mom, what do they call that useless thingie that grows at the end of a boy's weenie? A: A man.

Thank you for thinking that. The subject is "taoist basics" and as such has been written about more than any other at any time in any culture on Earth -- the body of written documents dealing with this surpasses in its sheer volume any other. I think it is more useful to approach these things from a particular angle, one at a time, e.g. how wuxing and bagua interact in the I Ching, in MA, in TCM, in feng shui, in astrology, etc.. This elephant can't be grasped all at once in its entirety, so examining the trunk, the front leg, the ear, the tail takes one closer to the overall image and meaning of this animal one step at a time. Well, at least that's how I've been learning about it. Take the trunk, e.g.. It has 50,000 more neural endings than the human hand, which gives it a matching scale of sensitivity. Its range of motion is between the power to topple a mighty tree and the precision to pick up a single grain of rice, with all in-betweens. It makes sounds that range from louder than a steam engine whistle to quieter than a whisper, it discerns and identifies smells from miles away, it is absolutely incomprehensible in its abilities to anyone who doesn't have one. But one can start somewhere, e.g. describe the color, the texture, the weirdness... whatever. Between this and "embodying the elephant," which is the only way to know the elephant, there's shades of understanding (or mis-) as infinite as the shades of grey an elephant can be. So, where do we want to start petting the elephant turtle and the mammoth horse of Hetu and Luoshu?

"Its time had run out," my grandfather's clock said. "Whose?" "The world's. Tic, tac, stop."

He was my taekwondo teacher, but he had (not taught, just had) all the inner goodies too, he was trained since age 2 or something and I have no idea what else he could do besides TKD because his English was barely comprehensible, so if he ever mentioned any internal work, I may have missed it. But I've seen him do things that defy "simple physics." Not just physical (which were amazing in and of themselves -- e.g. he could jump and stay put in the air for a long long time, with a mischievous glint in his eyes -- never mentioning of explaining levitation, just showing... Or he would punch the TKD dummy in passing, very slightly, nothing happened till a full minute later and then the dummy would start shaking and rocking in an ever-increasing amplitude -- and again that glint in his eyes... the master's that is, not the dummy's). I remember going to a restaurant with my husband and meeting master Ho. We had an argument shortly before going out, but "got over it" and definitely weren't showing any signs of it on the surface. I introduced the men, and master Ho fixed my husband with the gaze of a cobra about to attack. (My husband later told me that he had a feeling he was done for, and asserted that "this master of yours has the eyes of a cold-blooded murderer who kills for fun." Which was absolutely correct.) Then he smiled like a Cheshire cat and said, in his funky English, "yes, hello, you be very careful with her now, she's getting good!" So anyway, he was, in my assessment, someone who taught what he taught to the public and kept the rest to himself, but sometimes "the rest" just broke through. He was bursting with yang power, his qi was thunderous, so was his voice -- he always gave instructions in a tiger's roar that shook the ground. So, at one point he was teaching me how to punch "to the very center of the enemy" and I was trying to do what he told me to, and he goes, no, not here, to the center, no not here, not here... and then he touched me with one finger, pointing it at the solar plexus, and roared, Here! Voila... short jin. He immediately realized what happened and kept apologizing for the rest of the hour. I just glared at him. No apology accepted. I could never forgive, forget, trust again. This, like I said, lasted for an hour. I'm absolutely certain he did this accidentally, he wasn't going to hurt me, but that was his nature, he had more power than control...