morning dew

It's quite interesting to see the second video. It reminds me of the practice of chanting various sounds to 'clean out'/'activate' chakras by vibrating them in each of their particular body areas, which I tried out many years ago. I had no idea there was a corresponding system for the trigrams.

Great review. You're a good writer, IMO.

Very interesting. Yeah, I was reading Michael's thread and Haindl doesn't really structure the I Ching as Crowley does, or in any meaningful way aside from its own peculiar system. I heard one of her interviews a while ago on YouTube. I thought she was very good. It was about her The Tao of Craft. That book actually looked quite interesting. I'll have to add it to the ever-increasing list lol

Haha! My magic powers are working. I managed to summon you. Yeah, I've read some of the Eight Lectures of Yoga and also some of Magick Without Tears. I'm trying to remember what else … The Book of the Law. Very interesting on the DDJ. It's good to get other people's opinions. I find Damo a fascinating person to listen to, but he comes across as very traditional and I tend to spend my time hanging out in Chaos Magick groups in Facebook lol Ah, I never got round to reading the Book of Thoth because I never got the cards. That's a fascinating diagram. I must share this with some friends I know. Yes, that looks a very interesting thread. I'm slowly working through it. Thanks for the input on him. I find him quite an interesting writer and also quite funny in places, although I'm wasn't planning on becoming a Thelemite. I'll probably shelve him for a while to read more recent stuff, but may well return to him in more depth at a later point.

Some more outstanding posts. Many thanks I'll get back to these in more detail later on.

I may well have to move in October. Hopefully, I will begin working online next year, so I'm not locked into any particular location. If I do move, I would like to continue training in Tai Chi somewhere decent. My question: if you had an opportunity to train with a Tai Chi teacher in the south of England, who would it be and why? Thanks

Many thanks, Steve This looks very interesting. http://www.icma.kuoshu.co.uk/Chen Pan Ling.html I'm guessing your video below is the kind of thing he teaches?

This is an excellent answer. Many thanks for taking the time to write that.

I got sucked into watching the first hour until I got to his Crowley analysis: LOL! He's certainly not a fan. This is the first time I've actually seen him or heard anything he's got to say, and I have to say I was very impressed, especially given his age. He is a very good speaker, very clear, and quite humble and obviously well read and practised.

Yeah, it's a very popular deck. I'm just a dabbler with tarot, so I've never really got round to working with it. Would you like to expand a little bit on this? I know Michael (Sternbach) is a big fan as well; I'd be quite interested to see his input on this thread, but I don't know how to tag him?

Yeah, many thanks to everyone who took the time to contribute something constructive from me as well. I've learnt loads from this thread and found it quite fascinating.

I'm not sure what that is either. But yeah, Wilson is probably just as dated as Crowley nowadays. (It's been ages since I've flicked through The Occult.)

That's interesting. Do you think Crowley has anything of interest to say in general about Taoist philosophy (or even yogic/tantric practices) any more?

LOL! I can imagine he slated it. I'll have to dig it out for examination. Thanks, I still haven't got round to reading either of those.

Thanks, very interesting to watch. I'm still quite amazed as to how 'martial' Chen style looks. So, if Silk Reeling is the Chen equivalent of Cloud Hands, what is the purpose of both that they have in common? To get you connecting up the whole body so it moves as a unit? Do they have any purpose beyond that? Do they open up channels? On a physical level, I can feel my body (muscles/fascia?) loosening out. I don't experience as much pain in my arms doing Cloud Hands as I did when I first started a few months ago. I'm in the UK, unfortunately; I would've quite enjoyed checking something like that out. Later on, when I get round to travelling a bit, I'm definitely going to have to check out some people.

Ah, very interesting.

Okay, after spending about 10 min looking at both videos on 0.25 speed … yes, she seems to be just leaning forward and doing a kind of jab. He, on the other hand, seems to be driving from the foot/calf and also seems to be getting his back/torso into it as well. This reminds me a bit of what I'm trying to do with Cloud Hands. Every time I turn and start raising a hand, I drive all this by pushing from my foot and calf which helps to twist my waist round as well (not sure if I've described this very well lol).

Well, in my limited experience, I tend to view him as a stand-up comedian. I find some of his tales quite funny and fantastic, with lots of colourful characters. I also find he can be quite sarcastic in a funny way (especially against Confucians). Also, I don't tend to find him that preachy; I get the impression he liked to entertain but didn't particularly care if people disagreed with him. That said, there are serious bits in it as well, and some bits which can be mind-numbing such as (some of) chapter 2 lol

Yeah, the more the merrier. Also, I doubt you'll find a much better commentary, especially since (a) you have the opportunity to ask people questions, (b) you have people such as Taoist Texts who can actually provide decent translations of the Chinese and (c) you have very experienced practitioners as well who aren't just academics (myself not included ).

Ah, yes, I keep forgetting Temple style is more than tai chi ☺ Joe Lok looks very interesting as well. I'll have to check him out properly tomorrow.

Very interesting. I didn't realise you had full-on transmission in Tai Chi. Is this just for Temple style or does it occur in other styles for different things?

This is absolutely fascinating, especially that last bit about vitals not going up when you use qi instead of li.

Thanks, very interesting. Can you give me a couple of times in the video where you think she's not getting her body and waist into it enough? I'm afraid these things are still a bit subtle for me unless they're pointed out.

Thanks, this is all fascinating stuff. That second video is amazing the way Feng moves around and folds himself out of various difficult positions. I think I'm beginning to see and understand the idea of meeting something with its opposite in Tai Chi after looking at that video.