Pranaman

Have you ever read a book with incredible teachings but left it without keeping within and expressing what you learned? I was wondering if you have any study methods for applying what you learn in writing. Thank you. P.S. I will try "mind mapping", which seems really cool.

thank you again for the help. I look forward to start.

It is a way of copying information onto paper that mimicks the natural way of associative thinking that our brain undergoes. It uses techinques to use the left and right brain. It helps with remembrance. Thank you, I will try this. Section at a time.

If you broke into my home in the middle of the night and stabbed me in a fashion that allowed me to watch blood spew from my gut till I died, there would be nothing wrong or special about that at all, just the way it is.

via Zhan Zhuang i've started becoming more sensitive to my energy. The symptoms i'm about to unfold have shown to gradually decrease in very small increments over the span of my yichuan practice. I've noticed stagnant energy mostly in my heart, less intensity of stagnation in my third chakra, and a blockage in my throat chakra that has started loosening up. The symptoms of my heart center blockaging is difficulty in transmitting love and acceptance to others. This in combination with my throat chakra blockage shows itself as my unenergetic voice. My unenergetic voice coupled with my third chakra stagnation manifests itself in my social atmosphere as being unconfident. My goal is to resonate a confident compassion and playfulness. I want take advantage of every situation being an opportunity for me to make others smile. Do you have any suggestions that could help me reach my goal? Thank you.

I recently started training my ear to open up, and be capable of perfect pitch. The home course is just a lecture given by David Burge, with minimal instruction. To attain perfect pitch, you must expand your awareness in the sense of hearing. This way, you start to hear the overall color of the tone. You will shortly recognize each note, regardless of octave, retains it's color. This is like seeing in black and white your whole life then finally seeing the whole spectrum of visual color. The key is expanding your awareness in the sense of hearing, opening yourself up. To attain relative pitch, you must focus your attention. To hear the relationship between notes requires a quality of focus. This might sound like a subset of samadhi to you. David Burge has a home course for each of these skills. It is an interesting way to practice a different type of meditation. www.perfectpitch.com

in some forms of tantra, doesn't the man drink the woman's "yin liqueor" to balance out him giving her his yang energy?

any martial art being used against a good fighter with the intention to actually fight, not demonstrate.

Lam Kam Chuen the Yichuan teacher who has written many a books on zhan zhuang, has also written a book about the spiritual practice of drinking tea.

I like chinese boxing styles. I really like Yichuan. I admit i'm biased towards non-chinese oriental martial arts. I've never heard anyone trained in karate or taekwondo speak about combat science and teach me something new. It seems like most schools in the US of these martial arts, teach what isn't an art anymore, just techniques and practice. Correct me please. Silat seems good.

I'm 18, not obese, and don't have any problems besides sciatica. This is what I do: my max pullups(done first because of the location of the bar) Stretch isometric pushup for 2mins, 3/4 of the way up.(usually drop thirty secs short and pop 'n lock my elbows for the rest of the time) I rest for 20secs 1min 30secs plank I get in medium high horse stance and workout my forearms, fingers, and wrist(still in position). I drop my horse stance to low-med height and try and stay there for 4 mins, (use to do 10mins till I lowered my stance and leaned back) when my intent shys off and my mind wanders I will sometimes rise for a second then push myself back into low stance. 4 minutes of yiquan's dragon stance (2min each leg) Then I'm done cause my whole body feels worked. I want to push my horse stance time to an hour within the next few months. Any suggestions?

thank you for your replies. goldisheavy - I enjoyed your experiment with intent. I must explain what my intention in is while I am practicing. The pushup hold, for example.... my intention is for the shaking to shake loose stagnant energy. While this is happening I am observing what my body is doing, and how it is recruiting more and more muscles for the job at task = this helps my body unify, and an improved energetic wiring.... starting from the physical level. At the same time I know that this is strengthening my neuromuscular connection to the muscles used for throwing a punch, if that is ever needed. More is going on that I'm not aware of yet, but I also have heard that extremely long isometric holds cause more mitochondria to be produced as an adaptation to the intense contraction period. I can see from what i've interpreted as being a quality of your character, that you can appreciate the holistic approach. I do this for lower and upper body, for obvious reasons. the only subtle difference between my zhan zhuang and isometrics is that I am intending into the 6 directions, the rest is the same. As far as my set goals... Someone much older and wiser than I, that has obviously spent a great deal of time learning all that he could, gave me these times to reach for. He gave me further instruction to insure that I wasn't wasting an ounce of energy on something I would not reap benefits from. I hope to be as grounded as him soon.

of course I don't need weapons, no one needs anything. It is not the weapon that is important, but the byproducts of its assembly. Once you can manifest a martial art, not a martial technique, you know you didn't miss anything along the way. Where is the harm done?

in our culture, drugs tend to get people walking a path of their own instead of one given to them. I don't believe herb does this for most people though. Just judging from personal experience..

the drills I mentioned might be plyometrics..... All I know is that the sifu I learned to do these things from is very fast and has very very explosive punches.

to help arm myself to the T. to enjoy the benefits of the process.

my long-term goal is: 45 min isometric push-up(five 30sec long dynamic pushups followed by 56 regular pushups) 3 hour horse stance 45min per leg in yiquan's dragon stance 5-10min plank 100 pull-ups 100 dips yee ol' sciatica is most of the time not showing itself. will start sprinting once it doesn't further my injury. sweet. I forgot the dips, I do dips before the pushup. I will additionally climb into the wall starting today and into the future. Than do some drills. Would you say it's a good grounded idea to polish off the whole session and end it in health stance(standing like a post)?

I just want to know if this idea reminds you of anything. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaudsdrPjY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaudsdrPjY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaudsdrPjY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> I really like this way of thinking, and plan on satisfying my curiosity. Reminds me of NLP. If this idea rings any bells with you, please tell me what. I'd like to see other examples of light touch and subtlety so I can enjoy a story or two.... Maybe even learn something. Seems like zhan zhuang and other meditations would open you up to this kind of potential.

You hold a good point. When I got the course I never questioned the idea of perfect pitch like I maybe should have. David Burge must be pretty thorough though, because he has also taken the time to speak about the reality of timbre and overtones. Expanded awareness of sound and the relaxed ease of ear sensitivity is the key here. He teaches sitting back and allowing yourself to hear beyond timbre. The color of the pitch being played is not faded or manipulated by overtones to this kind of ear. It's a deeper awareness as opposed to a concrete skill. You start around middle C, later you can hear through the muddy overtone of the lower piano and the quick but soft 'attack' of the higher end. Overtones and timber are where some people have trouble while learning absolute pitch. note that he also teaches relative pitch, and believes that relative and absolute pitch learned together, is having an ear that can hear the deeper and whole picture of musical sound.

The kung-fu panda thread made me wonder if anyone has some other suggestions for movies with a high potency of taoist implications in it?

This too, is clarified in the program. He talks of how the tuning of Bach's time was a really loose standard, so his A would be different than ours. Although this is the case, his ear and his perfect pitch would still be relevant today, he would just have to adjust to our labeling. This does not at all effect the ear's capabality of recognizing the pitch without a reference point. Note names are just labels for the pitch that the (perfect pitch trained) ear recognizes as being itself..... without any reference point. Your example only proves that if you were trained in perfect pitch, and you went to a different location, you'd have to say where I come from that is an A. You call it something else, but it IS somewhere around 440hz.

in the program you will be be able to name notes without reference, but that's more of a side effect. I love the harp, you heard of Brendan Power?

Karen, the way you speak of perfect pitch is alsmost like this program was made by you. It's not an intense training at all. It is the opposite of that. It is a way to relax and open your ear. A way to hear the quality of a pitch. He likens it to a child that can already see the colors, but he's just learning how to identify them, so sometimes he'll say that the color orange is red. Everyone already hears it. He talks about how you see and can name all of the colors(frequencies) on the visual spectrum, perfect pitch is the exact same only on the sound spectrum, there is no difference. Just as the farther you go up in the range of red, you get closer to orange, the farther you go up in E you get closer to F. Basic notes are ranges of pitch, just as basic colors are ranges of light frequency. It is a natural ability given to everyone at birth, but just not exercise. Mal, i must disagree. The way i've heard it is that perfect pitch is a deepened awareness of sound that catapults your appreciation for all music infinitum. It is only listening to the complete(non-superficial) sound of a note. It doesn't mean that you compute or label or analyze anything, which could make music tricky or annoying, you simply hear the sound in whole. With perfect pitch, you would only have to play each note on the harmonica once, to know what you are playing(considering memory). Or just have knowledge of the harmonica itself. Same number hole, different notes.

My heart is telling me to go in a direction that is painful. Sounds like standing... This girl with a beautiful soul and I are very close. A while back, she cheated on me, it hurt. We broke up. A few months later, I took her back. With staff infection she couldn't walk for two months, once she was able to walk, she disappeared and made plans with me that she wouldn't follow through with. I didn't see her for a month. When her month long spree ended. I broke up with her. The rest of the day was wierd, cause she physically acted like we were still together, and I was awkward about it but I didn't push her away. Anyway, we ended up staying together... a few months fly by. Things feel great other than I still can't trust her with other guys. Then yesterday, find out that month she disappeared, she slept with someone we know. So I talk to her, she admits to sleeping with someone else too. So she cheated on me 3 times already. This doesn't make me feel good. But it doesn't hurt like the first time. I break up with her. Today, i miss the girl. We are still close, and I love her, aren't in love with her, but love her, care about her, I want to see her happy. The break up is sad, and i've never seen anyone as hurt as her, considering at that present moment, things were fine. If she cheated on me again, i'd feel emotional pain, deal with it, and lose a little more trust in her. I was tired of the feeling of loss and fear when she'd leave to party with people, and it hurt to know I wasn't just a jealous idiot but a person with fears manifested. Does anyone have any good books or articles, or just words that will lead to me to realization, or insight into this experience of my young life?

wow, I think the rational conversation about PU just got knocked down a notch. Any further replies on the personal level will not be resourceful for anyone.