morning dew

Aha! Very interesting. I had no idea there were two different 'Wu's and so many different schools. I had a little look around and found this quite interesting and helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wu-style_t%27ai_chi_ch%27uan_lineage_tree BKF's lineage is: http://www.energyarts.com/bruces-frantzis I'm assuming 'Wu Jien Chuan' is Wade-Giles and 'Wu Jianquan' is Pinyin for the same person?

Yeah, I agree, BKF's version does look choppy and off-balance compared to your one. I don't know what's going on internally, though. Yeah, that's clear. This whole thread has been very interesting and helpful. I think I'm in the right place right now, but I'm certainly open to exploring other schools and styles in the future once I become more physically able. I'm definitely not locked into a system. If the worst comes to the worst, in a year or two I will have a short five-minute form I can just add to the rest of my routine in the morning, and then I'll move onto something else.

I don't know what anyone else should do, but I'm pretty much along the lines of dust and Gerard: I take what I find useful and just ditch the rest.

I was curious to read up about (Taoist) Sexual Qigong, but there didn't seem to be a huge amount of stuff on Amazon. There was mainly Mantak Chia, which seems to get warnings on here, or a load of 'new-agey' books that seemed to be mixing up Taoist (again, mainly Mantak Chia) and Tantric techniques with sexology, etc. This year I started Cloud Hands and Wu Tai Chi in a class taught by an Energy Arts teacher, so I thought I would check out BKF's book. I'm aware that he tends to get quite a polarised response (people seem to love or hate him), but I thought it was interesting. I'm an amateur bumbler, however, so I have no way to gauge how effective it would be. I was wondering if anybody had actually got any mileage out of the book and, if not, if anybody had any other books to recommend that they had found of practical use.

I don't find that particularly weird, personally. I'm not really a big fan of random energy work, especially in a sexual context. Also, from what I can remember from his book, he said there were a lot of people turning up to his seminars just for the sex lol. I can imagine that happens all the time in 'Tantric' workshops as well. Ah, interesting to see it had a different quality to it with your partner. HA! I'm aiming to be working online, so maybe I'll end up over there at some point and join one.

Thanks for sharing this I found it fascinating to watch. I was wondering how different styles of Wu were, and I was surprised how different this was to BKF's. Is this the right speed or is the old reel making it go faster? Either way, the whole thing seems a lot more flowing and martial and even dancing than BKF's. I can see some low crescent kicks (I seem to remember one appearing in Yang short form), and also dropping right down and stretching the leg out, which are all absent from BKF's version. The most interesting thing is this diagonal lean I keep seeing. I wonder if this was what GreytoWhite was talking about when he said diagonal flying? My body couldn't take it right now, but I think it's something I'd like to check out at some point in the future. It looks a lot of fun.

That's interesting. I've not heard of the term 'Atha yoganushasanam' or read the Yoga Sutras, but, having looked it up a little, I can see how there might be a link there. Also, yes, I would agree that you can find links between cultures, for whatever reasons. I don't think 'Eastern' and 'Western' thought are two completely discrete, contrasting blocks, personally. If you dig around enough, you can always find old philosophers who agree (at least in part) with people in other cultures across the world (or at least I did in my brief explorations a little while back).

Okay, good discussion for this bit. I think I've run out of things to say for the time being apart from a last comment about people's names. I've noticed Mair seems to be giving translations for them whereas Watson doesn't. I find this can be helpful sometimes, although sometimes I'm not quite sure why people are called the names they are.

Yeah, that's my experience, personally. I did Qigong a few months before I switched to Tai Chi. One of the exercises, which I still do every morning, was Hua Gong. He taught us to begin it by drawing up Earth energy through the soles of the feet (although at a point near the front near the toes), up the legs and up to the abdomen, and then drawing down celestial energy through the crown of the head and down the body to meet the Earth energy. After a few weeks, I began to notice 'energy' buzzing around my feet and ankles, and wanting to come up my legs, when I would sit on the beach.

Yeah, I like this too – being in line with the Dao, I'm guessing? It reminds me of section 1 (I think) with the wind blowing through all the empty holes in objects, such as trees, and people.

Ha! The hidden meaning I had in mind was what cheya mentioned further down.

Ah, yes, good point; I forgot about divination. Yeah, I'm still trying to get my head round what it means. Do you think there's a kind of energetic Jing > Qi > Shen process implied here?

Fair enough. I should say my goal (apart from having a fun, interesting discussion) with the ZZ is to find information that is practical and useful to me. I'm very results orientated. I'm not a historian. I don't really have an axe to grind as to what ZZ was actually thinking when he (or other people) wrote this, or if he even existed, etc. It's why I'm always happy to hear other people's perspectives.

It's fascinating to read all that. I'm still looking up some of these styles. Glad you made some progress with the stroke. I actually enjoyed bagua when I did it for a few weeks, many years ago. I only really did circle walking (solo and with a partner), but I remember it being a lot of fun. If I make more progress physically, I might have to check it out at a later point. It's very interesting to read your session with William. What's Diagonal Flying? ----- That video is quite interesting as well. I was actually having a look on yt and discovered all sorts of partnered Wu videos. I always thought the most physical interaction you had with someone else in Tai Chi was push hands. I had no idea it could get so martial. This is BKF's Wu version. I must have a search for other versions. I'd be quite interested to see how they all vary.

Like I said before, I think this has been a great project, and I've enjoyed dipping in and out of it over the years. I'm happy to come along for the ride however you all want to organise it. Why does the true man not breathe from the abdomen? Is this breathing from the heels just a poetic way of saying the true man is grounded in the Dao (or doing wu wei) and isn't buffeted by desires that waste energy? Or is there a hidden meaning here?

Doesn't bother me, personally. I don't really have an opinion on (the) ZZ, so I'm happy to entertain all perspectives even if they contradict each other. I seem to remember you're not a fan of internal alchemy interpretations from earlier sections?

Thanks for the input. It's quite interesting looking at that site and reading up on them all. I didn't realise Wu style was so recent. What did you find/feel the difference was between Energy Arts and Stephen Hwa? What was William Cranstoun's take like that caught your eye?

That's absolutely fascinating to read all of that and the links. Yeah, I guess it would have been a bit strange if internal alchemy and the daoist religions just suddenly sprang out of nothing. Ah, okay. An actual human person would have no idea what their count was, so they would still carry on trying to preserve/extend life as long as possible? They wouldn't assume just because they got ill that it was their time to die and not do anything about it? Do we have any opinions on this? Is this some kind of philosophical proposition about having a big picture view of reality? Or is there some kind of practice or internal alchemical meaning encoded into this? Or both?

That's very interesting. To be fair, my one isn't hugely focusing on health either apart from relaxation. He seems to have a different approach to doing it. Each week we do one section (four movements/steps), first the feet, then adding the arms/hands. I've never learnt a form this way before. He's basically aiming to get the main shape of the whole form first, and then go back over again in fine detail and learn the subtle movements. I know he's aware of the fighting applications, but I'll have to ask about that. Does Wu have any two-person interactions? Do you do push hands or actually try out certain moves on each other or even do any sparring?

Thanks, that's interesting. Do you think he's talking about recycling bits of the 'soul' as well as bits of the body? Or do you have a different interpretation to Marblehead, and think he's actually talking about reincarnation? It was several hundred years after ZZ when internal alchemy made an appearance, if I'm remembering correctly, with the whole goal of creating an immortal 'soul', or perhaps strengthening the 'soul' so it didn't shatter on death? If the The Great Clod/Great Transforming Creator knows best, do you think that's kind of a fatalist view of life? Or do you think ZZ was still in favour of aiming to live as long as possible but just not being attached to the outcome?

Yeah, on a physical level he seems to be talking about recycling. On a 'spiritual' level I'm not so sure and getting a bit confused. Here, does the 'I' in the first sentence refer to the same thing as the 'I' in the next few sentences? Or is he just being his usual humorous and poetic self, and 'I' refers to different things? This is an interesting paragraph, IMO. I can understand the pointlessness of complaining about or fighting the inevitable – all part of wu wei, I assume. Where it starts getting confusing for me is that he seems to be implying The Great Clod/Great Transforming Creator seems to know best for humans, or even has some kind of benevolent nature towards them. Maybe I'm reading too much into this? Even more confusing, for me, is the last bit: Who or what is 'I' referring to in these sentences?

That's fascinating. Thanks for the input. Always nice to meet a fellow practitioner. Yeah, I think the teacher can make a big difference and is more important than the style, especially at my level. I quite like the guy I'm with right now, both his teaching style/personality and emphasis on health. He's an Energy Arts teacher (I can't remember BKF's teacher and lineage), and I've no idea how watered down it is. I guess if I really get into it, I can always do a bit of travelling later on to find something a bit drier. I did Yang short form years ago for a little while. Wu style is a lot more compact from what I can remember, which I quite like for some reason. Also, there seems to be a lot of folds and twists, which I have a feeling helps massage organs internally. I can't remember if that came up so much in Yang style, but it's something else I like about it.

Oh, well, if you're not an expert, I'll just have to ignore all your comments. Seriously though, yeah, I seem to remember him mentioning the 4x boost in the book. Did you try out simple things like handholding and dissolving hands in the seminar? Did you actually notice a boost yourself? I think another advantage he mentions in the book of doing it with someone else is along the lines of some blockages can be very painful to deal with, so it makes the process a lot more bearable if you're doing something pleasurable at the same time. If there are any other advantages, I guess I'll just have to plod along without them for the time being. The probability of me being inducted into a secret Taoist group, like he was, is pretty minimal at the moment.

On the one hand, the Zhuangzi seems to value some of the three treasures (compassion, conservation and humility) of the TTC. It seems in favour of conservation/wu wei (Cook Ding springs to mind). Also, it seems to use a lot of stories (from what I can remember) about 'humble' people (people with low status jobs and disabilities). I'm not sure how much compassion features in the Zhuangzi? On the other hand, even as early as section 1, there seem to be all sorts of examples of moral relativism going on: 'He [P'eng] beats the whirlwind, leaps into the air, and rises up ninety thousand li, cutting through the clouds and mist, shouldering the blue sky, and then he turns his eyes south and prepares to journey to the southern darkness. The little quail laughs at him, saying, "Where does he think he's going? I give a great leap and fly up, but I never get more than ten or twelve yards before I come down fluttering among the weeds and brambles. And that's the best kind of flying anyway! Where does he think he's going?" Such is the difference between big and little. Therefore a man who has wisdom enough to fill one office effectively, good conduct enough to impress one community, virtue enough to please one ruler, or talent enough to be called into service in one state, has the same kind of self-pride as these little creatures.' 'A man of Sung who sold ceremonial hats made a trip to Yueh, but the Yueh people cut their hair short and tattoo their bodies and had no use for such things.' Is it fair to say the Zhuangzi promotes certain values but not universal commandments of 'good' and 'evil'? Could the text have replaced Cook Ding with Assassin Ding or even Serial Killer Ding and kept its frame, assuming they were all equally skilled/efficient at carving up meat?

Yeah, that's fair enough. I think the days of there being only two positions – (biblical/literal) Christianity vs (materialist/Darwinian) atheism – are long gone, especially now the Internet has arisen and everybody is sharing their thoughts. These days I entertain all sorts of frameworks, some contradictory; my focus is on utility and results rather than discovering 'The (Ultimate) Truth' through language. Sometimes, I even entertain the notion that I'm a butterfly dreaming and talking to people on forums via a thing called the Internet.