Ryan T.

I have been on an anti-soy campaign for many years now. Having worked in retail natural food stores for most of the last ten years I have seen majoy soy abuse. You would not believe how many people feed this stuff to young children or the lion's share of their own diet consists of soy-based products. Phytates, people. Phyto-estrogen. Similar stuff in whole grains as well, brown rice especially. If you want to break down the phytates in brown rice you need to soak, slightly ferment or almost sprout the stuff. Soy should just generally be avoided unless it is in the form of fermented soy sauce, tempeh or miso. Many Taoist texts talk about the problems with grains. Taoists have always been wary of agriculture. I personally believe farming to be the root of most of the problems on the planet!

The shuttles are now equipped with devices(electronics, magnets) that produce a magnetic field that mimics that of planet Earth. I have also read that astronauts have magnets in their spacesuits as well. Apparently with out them, atoms lose energy and essential nutrients in the body become depolarized...which leads to health issues.

I recognized several T'ai-Chi postures: brush knee(the first 30 seconds), fan through back, golden rooster stands on one leg, parting wild-horses mane. It is funny to me that people choose not to see what's hidden in the postures of the internal styles. They can be very powerful and effective if taught by a proper teacher to a willing student! These guys definitely have a harder edge to them which, of course, is not the T-ai-Chi way. In some of the sequences it looks to me that they are doing some pieces of Liu Ho Pa Fa.

Who are you studying t'ai-chi under?

There really is no substitute for a good teacher. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere, I would suggest you search out a good teacher of the internal martial arts. IMO, videos should only supplemental not a persons primary way of learning.

I just stumbled across your group while looking for info. on a particular Yang-style T'ai-Chi Ch'uan posture. I am coming back to my "Taoist" practices as I have neglected them for a time. I look forward to seeing what is hidden on these forums.

Exactly. When a concept like "the soft overcomes the hard" is given proofs in your exercise/meditation/martial art(which t'ai-chi is) these ideas find their way into most every other aspect of one's existence. I find myself applying these ideas without thinking about them. Again, T'ai-Chi isn't the only practice that can provide this type of phenomena. But I do think the Taoist internal martial arts(T'ai-Chi, Pa-Kua, Hsing-Yi and Liu Ho Pa Fa) all have this in common.

Health, meditation and self-defense. It really does contain "Taoist" philosophy within it's movements, if done correctly. There are plenty of other paths available so I would never say someone "should" practice t'ai-chi. But it may open doors that other meditations may not.

I used to have these same feelings about vegetarianism. I held to them as being quite valid. Then I started working in a produce department. When you work around the produce, the vegetables especially, you start to get the feeling that there is a consciousness there. Then I read "The Secret Life of Plants". What the research has found is that not only do plants think but they also feel. We, as humans, just have limited ability to relate to them. I liken it to missionaries trying to convert "savages" in the jungle. Those "savages" had a perfectly valid religiousness, the missionaries just chose to not view the "savages" experiences on the same level. I also believe it is how slavery was allowed to be such an accepted practice for so long. If we choose not to look at different beings as having different ways of relating to their surroundings it makes it very easy to say they are lower beings. My attitude about food is that it is all a gift. Meat, vegetables, fruit, whatever. I no longer summarily draw a line in the sand and say this form of life has more consciousness than this form of life. I am just grateful to be able to assimilate these various forms and reap the various forms of energy they provide. But I do acknowledge that we all need different types of food energy at different times in our lives.