soaring crane

Oh, that's a good idea, thank you. I've never posted anything on youtube yet. The video is pretty long. Right now it's one long mpeg that somebody made from teh original vhs tape. Unfortunately he loat the audio track when he made it but there wasn't really anything special on it in that regard anyway. I have to first edit it into segments. Fanhuangong has 8 main figures plus he does a self-massage and some spleen-walking at the end. Actually, first I have to get it back the guy I loaned it to... Sometime this week.

Yup, he has a website, too I attended a weekend seminar with him. For me, the most valuable info came during the lunch breaks. He's very open to discussing things and helping with problems.

man, the stuff that pops up on this website is amazing. I never knew this was a recognized meditation style but it developed itself in me spontaineously once while I was running. My vision turned inward and I really saw my hip joints, my whole pelvis and then my leg bones running down the road. I looked at my rib cage, my arms, neck and skull. It was just fun, really, but it's something I turn on once in a while when running because it relaxes me and fixes flaws in my form. It never occured to me to include it my Qigong practice but, well, there ya go. Got some more stuff to experiment with now. Thank you Neijia for digging this out of the Taobums closet

If you want to come to Germany once in a while, I know a good teacher. Xu Mingtang has signed on to the training program of the German Qigong Society and holds bi-monthly courses in his system called Zhong Yuan Qigong. I think he goes to the deepest levels you're looking for. And has vast knowledge of the levels he doesn't actually teach. He lives in Washington state (because of the herbs, not the climate or the Starbucks!) and speaks very good english.

Ok... yep that's the standard old gym ball. Gotta get a new one. I had no idea they were SO useful! wow...

my god this has to be the coolsst website I've come accross yet, thanks to all of you. I've tried renmai stimulation with slapping and rolling "tacky" balls up and down but haven't done it for a while now. Thanks for the inspiration! The bouncing sounds pretty dangerous for someone who isn't already very tough and I don't think I'm going to try that for a while. But I want to to find some similar balls and experiment. I was wondering - are "Swiss" balls the same as basic gymnastic balls? That's what we call them in Gemany, anyway, if it's the same thing. Do they have a certain texture to them? Maybe I can give you all a cool little trick. For an effective huiyin massage, find a pair of socks that you can roll to just the right size and just sit on it all the time. It has to be the right to fit you and socks can be very flexible in that regard. But maybe your Mikasa balls would work as well. I sit on a pair of socks and gyrate my huiyin cavity on it all the time, in connection with small huiyin/weilu/migmen/dantain inner rotation. The bulge has to be in just the right spot, obviously. I saw the link to the prostatemassager in Plato's blog and thought, huh, why didn't I think of that sooner? A pair of socks might be even better than that thing, though.

what a wonderful thread, thank you all for such wise insights! Taomeow's words ring true to me and are similar to what my own teacher has expressed in his more candid moments. The gas in the car image comes up often but I see it as inaccurate, regarding Jing or Qi. A car drives with the same power whether the tank is full or empty. This doesn't fit the lifeforce model where the power slowly recedes and then peters out. What's the difference between a car and a human? Shen. I was taught to recognize Jing and Qi by their functions and to avoid trying to define them as entities unto themselves. So, the function of Jing is vey similar to the function of what western scientists call hormones and also dna. Ho hum. Are all the memories of the universe stored in our dna? Well, maybe. I think so, yes. And the dna spiral looks suspiciously like the spirals of qi that formed it...

When everyone thinks positively, there'll be nothing left to attract.

Hi again no... I hadn't read all the McKenna links. But I've gone through them a little now and, well, I really can't say I find it convincing. Your story is interesting for sure. Will you take it? A lot have people a sense of pending doom, but a lot of people always have. I know one guy that's getting his things in order. He's amassing debt and looking for property. His theory, I don't know where he got it from, is that the earth's polarity is going to reverse. Apparently, the African continent is supposed to be one of the few safe areas left to live after 2012. I'm really not into this at all, though, and probably shouldn't have butted into your thread.

Hi Yen, Hmmm... I don't really see where your phrasing of the question changes the spirit of the query. Your question is still based on the catastrophic predictions of the Mayan calendar. Would you have asked the same thing regarding, say, 2009? 2525? No. You picked 2012 very specifically for a reason. My thing about the world exploding wasn't meant literally, it more like hyperbole, I guess. Seemed good at the time but now it looks pretty silly. #5 can simply be interpreted as a the begining of a new phase for you. Losing the axe means having trouble making decisions and coming to conclusions. The axe splits the stump into two easily identifiable pieces. Going into the cave means taking time out to consider things from a solitary perspective, without a lot of distractions. Natural order doesn't imply a return to the stone age. Yeah... it sounds to me like the Yijing may have ben having fun with you. But you have to judge the judgement, of course. And I'm very, very much a layperson. There's lot's of "danger" in the Yijing but it's not always referring to, well, danger. It's like the death card in Tarot, people see the scary picture and get worried something terrible will happen but it's all about ending and starting new phases. I admit to using the "Complete Idiot's Guide to the I Ching" and, although the title is horrible, the content is pretty good. Also R.L. Wing's I Ching Workbook which is alright but a little too subjective at times. I also have Wilhelm in German, W/B, Cleary and my best scholarly translation is from Richard John Lynn. The last one is always the first one I consult and return to after reading the others. I don't find anything in any of them to suport the notion that your life as you know it will indeed end in 2012, physically or metaphorically.

Good morning I can't really think of a way to describe it in text in more detail. The most common representative shape (great term, thank you) is the big water basin. But I never really understood it until my teacher said very simply, "lengthen the lower back", and then a lot of what he'd already tried to describe made sense. That kind of thing happens a lot. We just need to hear it phrased in a way that resonates with our condition at the moment and then... click, we got it. The thing is, all you really have to do is find those hip joints, really loosen them, do some slow, intentful circling around them, do some figure eight movement around them, imagine them being "well oiled"... and then sink into the center of the circle or the eight. The "leisten" (hip flexors?) should remain soft, the thigh bone and pelvic bone should feel kind of "separated" or independant of one another. This is very important and one of the major first steps in opening the Qi flow (as I've learned it and in my own experience, but there ae plenty of other techniques out there). The tip of the sacrum, Weilu, can be used as a pointer. Point it to your toes, or rather to the area bewtween your toes. Your weight will tend to sink into your heels when you do this, that's good. Some Taiji practioners will call it sloppy because you'll tend to lean ever so slightly forward as a way of balancing. But I sometimes concentrate on exactly that - the balancing. In some other thread I mentioned that I discovered "dynamic" standing. This whole settling into the pelvis and heels happens on the exhale. On the inhale, the attention can shift upward and the body will raise up. The curve returns to the lumbar and the whole spine becomes a Qi pump. The knees straighten out slightly. Mingmen is very important here... Realax, it's so important.

Because the boy was no longer living an imitation. He couldn't.

well... this is pretty subjective and probably not very useful but the back area is pretty important. You might be feeling sensations in Mingmen. But you describe it as "tension" which is not a very positive word and means you may just be too tense to do Qigong. Relax a little, don't take it too seriously. As soon as you learn to do that, and forget about sensations and perfection, your Qi will begin to flow, and that's what it's all about. Mirrors and photos and walls really are more of a hindrance than a help (in my experience, ymmv). They all send Qi to your head. Try directing it to your feet. If you're not relaxed, nothing will move. First learn to relax and then slowly add one aspect of the form at a time. Learn to focus on one element at a time. It can take quite a long time but it's a fun journey. But, to your specific question, find Baihui on your head. It's toward the back and if your body is totally limp and I fasten a thread on baihui and pull on it... Your neck vertebrae are going to open and your chin is going to tuck naturally inward. Your upper spine is now perfectly aligned. On the other end, find your hip joints, very important, and huiyin, even more important. You have to learn to pivot in your hip joints and let the sacrum truly sink without forming a "humpback". It'll take the curve out of your lumbar spine and aim the tip of the sacrum roughly to the toes. Now your spine is opened to it's maximal length without actually "stretching". Head, chest and lower belly are like three big balls balanced atop one another. Keep them balanced. Concentrate on one and then another and then two and then all three... I'm not a fan of a wide stance (but I come froma very soft perspective), I think it creates more tension in most of us and actually blocks the flow of Qi. But if it's your goal, try turning your big toes inward a tiny bit and your knees outward. It's the one version I ever enjoyed, lol. The horse stance provides you with stability "from outside" - physical stability. But it really should only be applied to martial arts, for the purpose of not getting knocked down, lol. I tell people in my courses that we stand with the feet relatively narrow so that we have to rely more on inner stability. But basically, it's just softer and I feel allows for a far better Qi flow. Ankles and knees relaxed, shoulders sink, elbows pushed slightly outward to open the armpits, hands relaxed and bowl-shaped, Tiger Maul (between thumb and forefinger) soft (very important), FACE relaxed, forehead smooth, a little smile on the lips... and about 50 more things we can think about when just "standing there", lol Have fun and goodnight from central Europe oh yeah... don't forget to breathe!

well, like I sort of implied, it isn't really about sex and relationships. It's about Qi, and ultimately, Shen. Sex and relationships tend to become a drag on both after a while. Because it isn't about bestowing, it's about growing, and living a very long time. This kind of technique is one of the things that led to the Daoist saying, "120 years is too young to die". It's one of the fundamental steps on the road to immortality, to put it bluntly. But then, a valid question may be, why bother living that long if you're not gonna get laid? I don't have an answer to that one and I make no claims to having perfected the system, either, lol.

"the" most important thing doesn't exist (I had that formed before reading Ian's insightful post). The most important moment is right now. And that's about it. It's important to keep old threads alive, though, lol.

I'm really enjoying this place! It's wonderful to see that there are even some Yijing scholars here. Wow. I spent a number of years discovering that I'm just too stupid for the depths of the Yijing but I think I learned enough not ask huge questions involving destroying the whole world. An example of a more concise, useful question might be, "Am I spiritually prepared to face the end of the world if it comes in 2112?" or something even narrower along those more personal lines. But just the basic premise, that the world may explode in 5 years, is the kind of thing that will get you an unserious, maybe misleading or even sarcastic answer. The answers are in your subconscious (that's my amateur conclusion) and your subconscious probably communicates with everyone else's subconscious and with the subconsciousness of the whole history of the human race on some level, but most of all, it communicates with you. That you drew a misfortunate line really doesn't confirm that the world will end in 2112, don't worry. The Yijing tends to give unreliable answers to unreasonable questions. The misfortune could also imply that you didn't get the answer you were hoping for. Btw, anyone using the Yijing for divination might want to get a biotensor to draw the lines with. I've had much better results that way than with the coins or even milfoil stalks. Also, I'm going to be collecting milfoil in the late spring as gifts for some friends. We have some very nice crops of it here. Hopefully, the lack of any winter this year won't affect it negatively. If anyone would like to have a set, let me know.

Check my reply to the penis slapping thread. Daoist "sexual techniques" aren't about having better sex. In fact, they're (sorry) not about having sex at all, or better said, about not having sex at all. Rather, they're about converting the sexual urges into pure Qi. In the western sense, as mentioned above, it's a form of hormone therapy. And, no, it really ain't easy. Face the wall for 100 days... is that more Buddhist?

I believe you are profoundly correct in your conclusion. I forgot to mention that the method I described is supposed to be more effective when performed with a loving partner, though I haven't yet had the pleasure...

"It is wise to remember, that but for one trifling exception, the entire universe is made up of others"- Oliver Wendall Holmes

too many great replies for me to reply to here so I want to just give my own unfettered impression. "Still" to me means, as implied in other posts, the stilling of the mind or perhaps of teh will. The body can, and will, and probably should move. The Qi will move and burst though blockages and and the body will respond acordingly. Anything can happen. I've been with someone who seems to turn into a werewolf and I've turned into a snake, my spine being elongated and pushed backward to some insane position that I could never get into without really hurting myself. I've had my breathing go beserk and my arms extend above my head for thirty minutes. All kinds of sensations... they come and go... can't, and shouldn't analyze them. I used to do this a LOT when I was learning Soaring Crane Qigong. It's the sixth "forbidden" movement of the form. At that time, my hair lost most of it's grey and I felt very good with very little sleep (which is more amazing than the grey hair trick in my case). But I couldn't maintain that level of mediation for so long. Somehow, I just kind of got out of it. But Sean wrote in his original post, "By "stillness meditation" I mean a meditation in which one consciously chooses to remain relatively still..." and this I interpret as "static" meditation. This is what I do at the end of all my Qigong sessions. I do repetitions of our "shogun" movement, scooping Qi into my Tianmu third eye and guiding it downward, through breast and stomach, pelvis, legs, feet and deeper through Yongquan into the ground. With every repetition, every exhale, I sink deeper, legs gowing heavier, but head getting lighter (on the inhale). Heavy on bottom, light on top. Roots and earth below, leaves and air above. And then I gather Qi in one wide circle at about head height, "hug the big tree" we say in German, and guide my hands down the tree trunk to the center of the action, lower Dantian. And then I concentrate a few more times on "heavy under, light above". And then I stand still, intentfully. Like a tree, no judgement, but no movement. Anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. I find that, with increased practice, I can gather the same level of Qi in a shorter time. Which is kind of cool Happy Valentine's Day all

great replies up there Regarding penis slapping, I think you'll get better results with testicle binding and pulling. If you bind them and pull the binding through your legs to the back, you'll notice how much longer your penis grows, because the deeper root is exposed. If you then stimulate it almost to the point of ejaculation but then let off the tension, stop the stimulation and concentrate on the lower Dantian until the sexual desire subsides, about three to five times per session without a single ejaculation, you'll probably be pretty satisfied with the results, very quickly. If you slap it in the engorged state, you'll understand a little better what the slapping does. I think of the result as a defense mechanism the little guy uses. He gets stronger and stronger. The problem of course is subduing the sexual urge and fantasies... And dantian breathing is probably a must-learn technique before you'll really start to accumulate Qi, which is what it's really all about, as opposed to impressing the ladies or feeding your ego. For binding, silicone saltwater-aquarium air hose is good. It's not without risk, though, so use caution. A safer, mini-version without the binding is just to pinch your testicles between your thighs. Peace and cold water

Hi, regarding abdominal breathing, after a time try to just let the lungs and the entire "breathing aparatus" relax and pose no restrictions to the smooth even in and out flow of Qi. Concentrate on the belly, the navel, as though you are still connected to the umbilical cord, because, in a sense, you are. One of the most effective techniques I've been taught is to wait for the breath to occur naturally. Be patient. Learn to "melt into" the little pauses between the cycles of breath and then gently extend the pauses. Let it occur in the Xia Dantian. I wrote up a longish description of a reverse abdominal breathing meditation but I can't find it right now. Typical. Regarding standing meditation, I've graduated from static to dynamic standing and the difference has been very remarkable (for me). Peace

Hi, I'm an expatriot American, New Yorker to be precise, living in the German countryside for 11 years now. I've practiced various forms of Qigong and other meditation for as long as I've been here. I recently finished a 3-year teacher certification course which allows me to tell people that I'm authorized by the German Qigong Society to hold courses in their name. I'm self-aware enough to know that no certification process qualifies me any more than anybody else to share the wonders of Qi with other people (but the unemployment office here offered to pay for the course so, although I'm a bit spacey at times, I ain't stupid). The certification also brings me recognition from the Health Insurance companies here but I know I'm not a real expert, so long as they think so though, it's ok with me. Anyway... I love Qigong and I've gone through various aspects of it and would just like to join in on some of the cool conversations that I've seen here. I'm not nearly as mystically-oriented as many of you, but I still enjoy your insights tremendously. As you can see, I've scoured the discussions a little already... Peace, Inner