soaring crane

Gaaaa yes, 300 million!

There are a few articles on the net about the earlier English dialects being exported to the new world. I remember it as BBC (or posh, or RP?) English coming into vogue in England and eventually becoming the de facto standard, but BBC/RP/Posh was a relatively new form of English, coming from the public school system. So, whatever is considered standard British English today is simply not as old as other regional dialects, including those that ended up in *Massachusetts, New Hampshire, etc. Interestingly, there about one and half to two billion English speakers in the world, and only about three hundred thousand native speakers. So, who's right when it comes to accent? Btw, I make the bulk of my meager living helping non-native speakers communicate with other non-natives. They couldn't give a toss about accent or grammar, they just want to understand and be understood accurately. *I double-checked my spelling of that word, and was surprised to see that I'd got it right the first time, lol.

But that only covers the England/USA split. If you go back further, you find that English started life as a Germanic dialect, from the area of today's East Fresia, which is part German, part Dutch.

Everybody has an accent.

you have to click the thumbnails, then you'll see the difference in the images. I don't have an answer for the OP. I dont think it all makes much of a difference anyway.

and perhaps check the dates on posts that you're responding to

I suggest reading the first link in my signature. I think it explans pretty well the approach we try to take here.

I once overheard a healer tell a client that the ego is simply the conviction that there is something to lose, and she compared it to a trapdoor in the floor of our safe room.

for the record, that other thread got spilt to Off Topic because it had immediately turned into a political debate, and within about five posts was off on some gun rights tangent. The side-discussion then continued in Off Topic and all was well on both fronts. This thread is fine as it is. I mean, just look at the title, man. Edit: yes, as Brian says, keep the tone reasonably respectful and no worries.

With these channels, I think it's important to note that they can change depending on how you practice and how you live, and what traditions you follow. Like creating a different paint-by-numbers picture where the dots remain in place but the numbers are rearranged. Or, more elegantly, different star constellations based in the same stars.

I don't think many people achieve this level, not long-term anyway. What you "feel" isn't the "energy", it's resistance to the flow of the energy, and that resistance can take many forms and have many causes. When all resistance is truly gone, there's a different sensation and it's much less exciting than the tingling warm qi flow that many people are taught is a goal in itself. How to know the difference... I don't know. I think it might just be a case of slipping out of one phase and into another, so there's going to be a considerable time factor involved. If you've spent a long itme in one phase and then you realize that you're just not feeling those qi sensations anymore, at that point you can begin to look for the benfits of your practice in other places. They'll be there but they'll be more subtle (and other people may be pointing them out to you).

I want to jump in again and beg you all to please take this to a more appropriate forum. I suggest General Discussion Absolute: You can start a new thread there and just copy/paste your intro post to it. I can split the responses from this thread to the new one if you like.

Wiki! :-)

Iceland?

seems to me there is a mixing of traditions here.

Hello absolute, and welcome to the forums! Glad you found your way to us. The issues you bring up are certainly discussed at length in these forums. You'll have little difficulty finding other members eager to share their experiences and give you tips on your own pratice. In the meantime: Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TDB team

action/reaction :-)

Hello mindatrisk, and welcome to the forums! It's a pleasure to have you here :-) Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TDB team

For the statistics or for the typo?

It only makes sense that English- speaking countries prevail in the stats. They do speak English in Oz, right?

For example?

I think you're absolutely right in what you say. People have a difficult time locating that middle ground between comfort zone, as you call it, and overexertion. This is what I keep trying to stress in these discussions when they appear here. The comfort zone in posture is especially tricky to overcome without a competent observer to help out. Over the years and decades, bad posture habits take hold and what eventually feels "comfortable" is in fact a self-feeding defect that only grows worse over time. Correct posture will almost always feel uncomfortable and unnatural to a beginner. But I disagree that it's a waste of time to practice even when things aren't 100% optimal. I've experienced too often the healing and strengthening benefits of standing still in people who were doing many things "wrong" to make that conclusion. I see the basic act of standing and not moving as a powerful exercise in itself and believe fine-tuning it only increases the benefit. Also, feel free to share your thoughts any time pn any topic :-)

There are countries in this world where they are in fact laws: https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf And damned good laws, they are, too.

For anyone who can't discuss any topic without immediately resorting to polarising political debate, I suggest signing up at the Drudge Retort: http://www.drudge.com/ It's far more condusive to that kind of dialog and you're sure to find more kindred spirits there.

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