wudangquan

I don't think that following the tao and comfort exclude each other. I think that the thing which causes discomfort is attachment. If you don't care much about money - it's not a big deal to go to sleep every night on a bed made out of 100 dollar bills. Same with food, or clothes or cars or heat or electricity or your human body. That's not to say that it's a cakewalk or something. My (limited) experience has been one of stupid bumbling around, consciously trying to bear as much retribution as I am owed in this lifetime as I can, etc. We've all got some serious debts to pay. . . While the end goal is liberation and non-attached, non duality and non-resistance . . . The reality in the here and now is you can choose to pay down the principle or the interest on your own karma, but you're gonna pay either way.

Here the video I said I would put up a week or so ago for anyone who hasn't seen it. This is just one video of my main neigong teacher. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtIqkXS40BM Although I don't study with any of them, I respect all of the 15th generation San Feng Pai here . . . It's just not what I'm personally involved in but I think we can all appreciate each other and our efforts towards consumation. This is the diagram on my wall of the system. If you notice the three columns at the bottom right - each line in those is a specific set of movements in the neigong system. Right now I am working on translating all of the material and notes I have into English, as well as the 10+ hours of video I have but will probably make a lot of it available around new years.

here's another new video I spliced together . . . It's like 1/108th of the system. hehe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-pe-vaGPFY

Hi Baguakid, Im at Wudang/Shiyan city. Rendering a new video now that I will put up whenever it's ready. Now I just stay somewhere for free and am fed. I have some responsibilties that I have to do, but not a job per se. Previously I was teaching. Probably I will be again sometime. I have basically done that only for the past 10 years in China, S. Korea, Thailand, and did some other type of business years ago in India. Will check out your videos as well. Best, j

It's not a terrible idea . . . If for no other reason than if you come over here you want to know the difference between you're ro's. Whether you're getting Duck or Dog. haha My Chinese is not great. I live here so I'm functional, but my brain is kind of mixed up between Chinese/Thai/Korean/Hindi/English. It sounds racist but sometimes I see someone and I assume because they look a certain way they should be able to understand Korean or something even though they're not Korean at all. What I did was learned the basics that I always learn in any country I've lived in: "Where is ___" "How Much (price AND amount) is ____" "I want/I need _____" After you've got that down you can fill in the specific nouns you might need. Then I started studying the words for cultivation terminology and also chinese medical terminology. That, and asking something like "right?" or "is it?" have kept me afloat pretty well as far as studying the Taoism. My grammar with spoken Chinese is pretty bad probably, and I know for sure that I don't get the tonality, because it's difficult for me to even hear it, let alone mimic it without some serious thought. But . . . A lot of of communication is contextual so you can get it. With the cultivation stuff . . . Alot of it can be learned experientially more than verbally (like I could basically tell someone how to "do it" but they wouldn't get it anyway - even in English) so that isn't so much of a bar. The other good reason to learn Chinese I think is . . . The teachers who you would probably get the most from probably don't speak English - at all. And the ones that do - or that have translation available for you . . . You can guess what they're probably interested in . . . (not to say everyone is that way, but . . .) Grandpa Jones is 83 years old and doesn't speak a lick of English, but I value what I can learn from him above anyone else I've met personally in the area. Doesn't mean anyone else isn't good - just . . . Some things resonate with me and some things don't.

It's exactly the seperateness of yin and yang or at least the distinction of the two that allows this universe to exist. Co-existing doesn't necessarily mean spatially co-locating I think. At least it doesn't have to. As far as ghosts . . . It's not my business.

China does have compulsory military service, I believe . . . Any freshman entering a university or college has to do military training. Maybe wrong, but it didn't seem like any of my students were doing that willingly.

Yeah just because I don't understand what someone else is doing doesn't mean it's not their destiny to do it. I don't mean to be to critical. Sorry about that. Sometimes I want to prove my point like anyone else. And then I remember that there isn't any point.

I am not a believer in the "law of attraction" so much or anything like that, but I do believe that what you focus on you energize. I was off on some macho BS violence trip from the time I was 15 until I got on a plane with a one way ticket to India and less than $50 to my name because I was about to have a serious break with reality. But I brought all that upon myself. I could always rationalize it somehow, but the truth was I was constantly thinking about violence and I had a nasty ego and wierd fears so I brought it all down upon myself. My father on the other hand - is nearly 60 and I know for a fact he's never been in a fight in his life. There's that old Aikido parable . . . Something about almost fighting a guy and then the old man starts talking to him and brings him to tears talking about the problems in his life. . . The reason I even jumped into this thread is that I think the chest thumping of MMA is ridiculous. To see it in IMA is worse - it's kind of pathetic. It's funny how things play out in retrospect. Up until my early-mid twenties I seriously thought I was a tough guy. One night while I was drinking with the hardest person I've ever met he said one sentence, and it started a chain reaction in my life that totally turned everything around. . . "Tough guys end up in dumpsters". There are many things that I don't agree with on this forum, but I civilly try to talk about it or just forget about it. I seriously don't understand why anyone would be aspiring towards violence, though. The martial arts adage of steel wrapped in cotton is appropriate I think. But it has a significance beyond the physical world. When cultivating our minds and spirits should also be like steel wrapped in cotton. Totally firm and determined internally, but soft and giving way on the outside.

Going into a bar of 1%'er bikers and shoving them and cleaning up against them, their guns, their superior numbers and likely superior size, likely experience with violence in the prison system, combat experience in 'nam if they're American, etc. ad nauseum . . . It makes for good post-modern Wuxia, anyway. That's not to say that it's certainly not possible, or that it didn't happen . . . But what kind of mentally subnormal person would do that? A. You're harrassing innocent people who've not harmed you, and invading THEIR space B. Your putting your students in mortal danger for the sake of your own ego C. They're opening themselves up for retribution. For every action there's an equal or greater reaction, karmic consequence, or whatever. I don't want to talk about style vs. style anymore because it's a sort of purposeless argument. However . . . The difference between a person who trains to fight and a fighter is execution. The difference between someone who "does" martial arts and someone who "is" a martial artist is that they don't need to do this kind of nonsense. They don't even need to fight if someone hits them twice in the face - as long as they're able to walk away without getting injured or seriously injuring another person - because they KNOW they can. Anybody who behaves like that - provoking fights with people, going out and looking for trouble, etc. is a jackass and they're motivated by their own fears and fealings of inadequacy. One thing I can say for certain is that it's not indicative of high level IMA development.

About his birth certificate . . . If it was really sealed - it's probably just for some silly reason. Like his mom was white, his grandparents at the hospital were white, it was 50 years ago and they checked "white" under the race box, and don't want to deal with the nonsense that it would incur.

http://taoisttraining.com/taoism/Taoist-Vi...-minute-qi.html

Hi, I'm hoping someone here can help me. I'm trying to edit some video files (I want to take bits and pieces out of a larger recording) which are quicktime .mov files . . . Windows movie maker can't handle them, and all I really want to do is extract a few seconds here and there. Can anyone suggest some free software for me that would do the trick and doesn't have a huge learning curve? Thanks j

That's not a fact, and if you think it is you don't know what a fact is. It might be a statistical propensity that they are more specialized in a certain thing or environment, and in that environment they have better results. What happens if you take them out of that environment of specialization, though? There is not enough statistical data to warrant claiming any "facts" about such a situation. Actually though . . . It's a silly argument and I shouldn't have gotten involved in it. haha There's a good side to everything. BJJ, Kung Fu, Boxing, Pacifism - whatever, and the key is how and why you are training, not what so much. I had some free time so I let myself get sucked into this one. Bad me. haha

Yeah I think we agree sloppy. I think that the sport stuff is definitely valuable. One thing I mentioned in my original reply was that bjj (or boxing or any art where you train at least near full power and speed against a resisting opponent - for me in recent years it's been Shuai Jiao) probably helps develop your "fighting will". Really though, it comes down like you and a few other people have said to having REAL experience in mammalian politics and understanding how those play out When we were kids we always talked about "selling wolf tickets", or just pressure stacking people so hard and so fast that any training, forethought or preparation is rendered more or less useless. The worst is when you're with your girl or any other loved one. . . I started boxing when I was in middle school and that for sure was beneficial to me. I learned how to keep it together when getting hit hard. But that's just one level of it . . . You can just watch other mammals in conflict and see how deep the politics go. Training is it's own reward for me, I think. I'm more interested in the process and the notion of using my body as a vehicle to more clearly understand my (real) self than with potential results. The tough guy bravado is lame and indicative of someone who doesn't really understand violence, though IMHO and I always feel a bit annoyed by all of those sausage necked tough guys and their big mouths.

I have to be a dissident again . . . There's this sort of nauseating, sycophantic ego stroking that goes on inside the martial arts world . . . (IMHO) if you take the top 10% of martial artists, martial arts masters, etc. - from any style or orientation - only 1% of them can actually REALLY handle or even prevent a huge adrenalin dump. So that's what? .01% of martial artists? haha The way the stuff really happens is that you don't have time to prepare or prevent the dump. A good stick up kid doesn't offer you a frontal challenge or something. They catch you in an elevator while you're holding to arms full of grocery bags and and they take you out in one movement that you don't see coming. It's almost impossible to really defend yourself against people with violent intentions and the will to carry it out. If they want to get you they're going to get you. There are two real exceptions I think . . . #1. The person that is environmentally aware enough to avoid the problem or to be expecting it. The guy who's holding steel under the grocery bag and is ready to move FAST if he has to. #2. The person who is so benevolent and who has cultivated well enough that they would REALLY turn the other cheek and don't care about their own physical interests much. The are purely benevolent and when they get attacked - without any internal dialogue whatsoever - they just feel sorry for this person who's so lost and they understand that utimately this person is trading virtue for karma with them. I've met a few internal martial artists and cultivators who were in the second category, and if they were put into a sticky situation with a 19 old Mike Tyson on a flight of stairs - They could probably at least do OK. But when I say a few - I mean maybe 2. Most martial artists - even the great ones are just delusional though (IMHO). I'm a good martial artist. I know my own level of ability in relationship to most of the ma community, and it's not bad for sure. But I don't test the streets. No matter how good I am I know that any 16 year old street kid who's lost enough of his original nature and has bad enough intentions is going to get me, more than likely. I try to avoid it, and if it happens I would try my best to understand my own culapility in creating the causality of it, but anyone who thinks that their training can prevent them from getting got is a fool.

Ok, I put up 4 out of the 5 videos already. You can see them at http://www.taoisttraining.com . . . A couple of things: 1. The video of the master of this system who lives in a cave turned out to be to dark, so I invited his son over to film these. 2. It's in Chinese. I don't have time or the desire to translate it, sorry. If you're really serious about Taoist cultivation you should at least start trying to learn to read Chinese, IMHO. When reading texts the depth of language is much more significant, especially in older pre-50's Chinese. 3. This guy and is father are NOT my main teacher. I just saw this thread about the 7 stars/neckbones or whatever and I knew that this old man lives in the cave here at Wudang and does 7 star Qigong so I thought I would try and give something that might be useful to one or two people here.

Hey y'all . . . I just wanted to show you some of the movements. I know the form and some details, but I am not the close student of the father so it's kind of inappropriate for me to say to much. The way that things kind of work is that all of the guys teaching publically are basically 15th generation of san feng pai, and probably most are more oriented towards wushu. Although I respect all of those 15g's I am not studying with them, and kind of learn some other things. A few of the oldsters know who I am, and I can get them to discuss or show me some things when the issue arises (and share it here), but I don't want to jeopardize my connections outside the commercial realm by speaking out of turn about things that I don't have much right to speak about. Hope that makes sense and people understand. I could definitely translate that one, but just don't have time. Right now I'm working on the translation and editing of my own teachers neigong system. In a few hours I will put some video up here of him showing about his sitting meditation (Rain has seen it already). Just now I don't have time to translate other peoples stuff and it's not really my place to speculate or talk about things that they didn't share in the video. I really don't mean to bait and switch though . . . I just have to be respectful of other peoples lines. Will post another video from my teacher about the sitting meditation later though.

Hey y'all . . . I just wanted to show you some of the movements. I know the form and some details, but I am not the close student of the father so it's kind of inappropriate for me to say to much. The way that things kind of work is that all of the guys teaching publically are basically 15th generation of san feng pai, and probably most are more oriented towards wushu. Although I respect all of those 15g's I am not studying with them, and kind of learn some other things. A few of the oldsters know who I am, and I can get them to discuss or show me some things when the issue arises (and share it here), but I don't want to jeopardize my connections outside the commercial realm by speaking out of turn about things that I don't have much right to speak about. Hope that makes sense and people understand. I could definitely translate that one, but just don't have time. Right now I'm working on the translation and editing of my own teachers neigong system. In a few hours I will put some video up here of him showing about his sitting meditation (Rain has seen it already). Just now I don't have time to translate other peoples stuff and it's not really my place to speculate or talk about things that they didn't share in the video. I really don't mean to bait and switch though . . . I just have to be respectful of other peoples lines. Will post another video from my teacher about the sitting meditation later though.

Yeah, surely. Luck plays a big part in it as well just because - even if you're technically better or stronger or faster that someone else, you never know what your head is going to bounce into or something. My ultimate technique is staying in my home and meditating and letting the animals do their animal stuff. haha If push comes to shove you have to be able to emotionally and psychologically unbalance someone and finish it fast, though. As far as normal guys go - training or no training . . . If they're walking down the streets in our "civilized" societies or in the shopping mall and you just walk up and smack them as hard as you can - all that training goes out the window for more than long enough to handle things if you have to. And I love martial arts. It's really my whole life and I sacrifice everything else to martial arts and my own cultivation towards - whatever. Absolute non-resistance. But the truth is that gym rat stuff won't stop a real predator who understands how conflict "works", and neither will kung fu. You have to be a stronger predator.

I think bjj is probably great for conditioning and building some will power that's necessary in a fight . . . But at the risk of sounding like a braggart or outing the dumbest part of my youth that I don't like people to know about, I've been in enough real fights where I was protecting my life (USP El Reno, USP Leavenworth, USP Atlanta, FCI Otisville, FCI Tallahassee, MCC Chicago or you can buy the documentary "invisible revolution" and see me when I was young and stupid) that I would never intentionally go to the ground like that. Agree with Vajrasatva about the multiple attackers scenario. The way they move in is crazy as well. You would break your own knees doing that on concrete. That's not to say it isn't good, but it is what it is, and that's a sport, and probably a pretty good one at that. It's asking to get killed doing it out in the real world though, and most of those guys are so brainwashed that they think their sport skills will protect them from real predators. The best REAL fighters don't train much at all. Real hand to hand combat boils down to 3 things: #1. Getting the drop on someone and sneak attacking them #2. Will power and knowing how to wolf someone out #3. Doing one or two things VERY well. The best fighters I have ever seen - they don't know any systemized martial arts. What they do is have 1 or at most 2 finishing moves that they will use exclusively along with #1 and #2. Martial artists think something like "If they do this then I'll do this, and if they react this way I'll react that way" Real fighters think "No matter what they do I'm going to do this to them".

I posted this in another thread but wanted to mention here that the videos are up at http://www.taoisttraining.com . . . The guy is not the one I learn from, but just like I said I knew there was a discussion about 7 star something something so I thought I'd ask about showing some of it to y'all. It's also not their complete system. The old man (the father that stays in the cave) is heavily into magic/sorcery and so on . . . As I told someone in a private message, I don't have authority to make much in the way of statements on this material because I am not the close student of this guy, but just can show what I have shown. J

Isn't systema heavily rooted in Russian Orthodox Christianity at the higher levels? Never trained it and don't know much about it, but a few of my back home buddies have and I seem to remember them telling me that . . . It seems like their striking style is very similar to IMA from what I've seen as well. Not so much that they're working with energy, but they'r throwing the strike rather than pushing it like in Western boxing. Something like the difference between thrusting a baseball bat at someones head and swinging it.

I shot about an hour of video with the creator of Wudang ultimate 7 star qigong yesterday (who happens to live in a cave). If somebody pms me so I don't forget I'll put it up on youtube. I don't practice this stuff but will show it if you want to see it. I spent all day yesterdya and today filming with my own main teacher and we got his complete neigong teachings to video (he's 84 and way awesome). Like 4 hours of video, plus his book, plus some other visual stuff. The entire neigong set takes a minum of about 2 hours to do, or more. He taught me the xin yu (heart/mind language) yesterday and I had the most balls out experience I've ever had in years of training. I have his permission to make the entire system available, but am not sure if I will or not yet. Maybe I'll just show the movements and not the entire theory or some parts because I don't think a lot of people will even understand it or accept some of the basic premises involved, but at least if you do the movements it's great for your health. I need some time to digest the experience that happened to me yesterday but will try and post about it later when I can verbalize it more clearly and I'm more "back to normal". Oh I wanted to add to Mr. YM's thing about mutually exlusive things being true - Part of that I would guess is just that different levels have different laws and things that are true at one "level" of reality are exactly the opposite in another level.

Are there any close students of Wang Liping on this forum? I don't mean seminar attendees, but people who are really close to him, and/or have been for the past ten years? I and not in a spot to get over to Jilin or Changchun at the moment, but I'm curious about the guy . . . However I have these lingering worries about a couple things from '99-nowish, how his name has been used in public, and what it's been used for, who (JZ) co-signs for him, etc. I mean zero slander or disrespect to the man, however and would love to get some more background info. Anybody that's been studying with him from before 2000? Please send me a PM.