grady

Indeed, the lower case is just fine. Many thanks!

I'm afraid I disagree with Kevin quite a bit more strongly than you, Ya Mu. I just deleted a point by point response to his essay, deciding that we're better off just agreeing to disagree. I'm not "anti-western medicine" either, far from it, but I can't quite jump on the "world medicine" bandwagon either … as much as there are incredibly difficult challenges to a "unified field theory" in physics, there are equally difficult challenges in unifying the conceptual frameworks of Western biomedicine and classical Chinese medicine without throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water, much less the conceptual frameworks of other medical traditions. Institutionalized TCM does an injustice to itself and everyone else in downplaying that simple fact.

That everything popular is wrong. No, wait, Oscar Wilde taught me that …

Glad to see more people are talking about *classical* Chinese medicine, and waking up to the fact that "traditional" Chinese medicine (TCM) is a contradiction in terms. A short write-up I did on the subject for the hospital website: http://apricotforesthospital.com/classical-chinese-medicine/ I provide the link to Professor Heiner Freuhauf's excellent 2009 academic article on the subject below, which *everyone* interested in this topic should read. I think the article itself deserves cutting and pasting here, but it's too long and the formatting is challenging. http://www.classicalchinesemedicine.org/2009/04/chinese-medicine-in-crisis-tcm/ Do you yourself a favor and click.

I'd conservatively estimate that we grow somewhere around 80-90% of the food we consume here at the hospital ourselves. We compost the dregs from our herbal decoctions to use as fertilizer; it's like steroids for vegetables. We keep chickens, ducks, and geese for eggs and meat, as well as a peacock that a well-intentioned local government official thought we might want to eat (he continues to insist that it tastes like ostrich but better). The geese double as an exceedingly efficient burglar alarm. The waterfowl like to play in a small lake fed by an underground stream that supplements us with freshwater fish (mostly grass carp and something which resembles a Chinese crappie) and the occasional soft-shelled turtle. We get regular supplies of 石鸡 "rock chicken" (a variety of frog which inhabits mountain streams considered to be a delicacy) from a local grower whose gout we cured. We make our own tofu here, a dried and sauce-marinated variety (豆腐干) particular to Shifu's hometown, in a small outbuilding that also serves as storage for dried/cured/smoked meats & fishes. Shifu goes to the local Chinese version of a farmer's market almost every single morning for fruits and anything else we need for the menu he's chosen that day, never buying for more than a day or two at a time. More often than not the freshness of your diet is more important than the composition of your diet.

Thanks to Vortex for pointing this thread out to me. As it happens I'm stuck in Yellow Mountain city on my way back to our hospital from a ginseng-buying trip in Korea due to the heavy snowfall here, so for once I actually had the time to read all the way through this thread and I just have a couple of comments, as it appears that despite my best efforts on this forum and elsewhere there are still a number of misconceptions surrounding Shifu, what he does, and why. Contrary to popular belief Shifu is not in the "business" of convincing skeptics. Nor is he in the "business" of teaching. His calling, his path, is and has always been to heal the sick, and he is incredibly busy doing so (we saw over 1000 foreign patients at the hospital last year, and a far larger number of mainland Chinese patients). Do understand the "sickness" I refer to here includes both the frailties of body and ignorance/delusion (in the Buddhist sense) of the mind. This is how his compassion is made manifest in the world. The bodhisattva ideal "meme" still exerts a strong influence on all Chinese Mahayana buddhist sects, including Chan. The "powers", as you guys like to call them, are used to that end. However he knows we Westerners are fascinated by this stuff, and there is just so much nonsense and outright fraud out there that he feels a certain obligation to those who travel so far to seek him out, so when he has the time and the energy and he's in the right mood, he might demonstrate some aspect of qi manipulation simply to show what is possible, in spite of how exhausting it can be. If you collected every scrap of video ever made public, it would represent less than a tenth of what I have personally witnessed he and my brother students do in my almost six years living full-time here in China. All that being said, skeptics are welcome (I was quite the skeptic myself when we first met) provided they are open-minded, polite, and most importantly *sincere* in their desire for the truth. Trust me when I say that Shifu can tell in a heartbeat if you are not, and he has very little time for those who are not. Many websites, forums, youtube channels, facebook pages, linkedin accounts, books, DVD's, you name it, in multiple languages, have been opened in Shifu's name over the years. Some are well-intentioned efforts by Shifu's patients or students to publicize him, like Aurelian's website & book (which Shifu has not read, but he did have me read it and summarize the content for him), while others have had more nefarious purposes. It is important to understand that *NONE* of them represent official publications by Shifu himself. In the past Asian interpreters would often open email accounts using his name and respond to emails in English as if they were Shifu himself, which caused great confusion; Shifu has a command of all of about 3 polite greetings in English, and he understands even less than that. The man barely knows how turn on a computer, and when he wants to find something on the internet (a rare occurrence) he usually asks me to do it for him. His *only* official, personally approved English language web presence is his hospital website here (apricotforesthospital.com) his youtube channel here (www.youtube.com/user/doctorjiangfeng) his facebook page here (https://www.facebook.com/doctorjiangfeng) and his private students forum, access to which I'm happy to provide via PM. Much more information about our sect has been published there than ever was or I suspect ever will be published publicly. I'd love to update all three of the public pages with more media (I have amassed quite the library, which those who have come to visit us here have seen and can attest to), but Shifu often thinks it is “unnecessary” and I don't post anything unless he approves it first. As for all these speculative questions for Shifu, I think it's best that I let him answer them for himself when you're here, with two exceptions: (1) Yes, he does know of John Chang, and was even willing to meet him once at the request of one of his students when Shifu happened to be in Indonesia, but unfortunately the proposed meeting never took place. (2) The correct character for “Geng” in “Gengmenpai” is 耿, as in 耿门派. It was the surname of Grandmaster’s primary lay teacher, Geng Jingfeng 耿景峰. PS: FYI, as I was proof-reading this post I got a call from one of my Chinese brothers informing me of the good news that Shifu has finally emerged from his retreat. I'm told he's comfortable and in excellent spirits, and they will be bringing him home from the mountains tomorrow. As an aside, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone in the US; it happens to also be YuanYe 元夜 here tonight, the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar and the official end of the New Year festivities, so now I've got to go outside in the cold and find somewhere to get the sweet sesame-filled glutinous rice flour dumplings that I'm obliged by tradition to gorge on tonight.

Back in China now, after a wonderful week in San Francisco with some great people. Many thanks to all those whose attendance made our first ever workshop on US soil such a success! Shifu has been speaking to me for some time about his desire to enter into a period of biguan 闭关 (literally to “close one’s door to visitors”, in other words to enter into a period of retreat) for the purposes of engaging in our sect's method of mianbi 面壁 (“face to wall sitting”, the practice made famous by Bodhidharma/Damo), something he has not done since Shigong passed in 2011. I am still not certain exactly when he will leave, and frankly I don't know how long he will be away from the hospital. As a result I suspect that we will not be holding neigong training in China next spring. So I am delighted that Shifu has permitted be to organize a final workshop this fall before he goes into the caves for the winter. Dates are confirmed, November 3rd – 10th, 2013. Location will be at our Apricot Forest Hospital in the Yellow Mountain District of Anhui Province, China. I have once again scheduled this from Sunday to Sunday to try and help those with corporate schedules to get the time off from work. Please try to arrive on Saturday the 2nd, and we will get started promptly on the 3rd. This seminar will run on a similar format to previous seminars in China, with a complete evaluation of your meridian system and formal empowerment by Shifu, medical treatments if necessary, and 8 full days of instruction in our neigong methods either by my or by one of the older Chinese brothers with me translating, depending on what Shifu wants to do. Tuition is once again $3500, with a $1000 deposit needed to reserve your place. As always those who are interested in coming for diagnosis and potentially for treatment only are invited completely free of charge. Once again I am strictly limiting this seminar to 10 people, and a few spots are already spoke for. This particular seminar is for students who have not traveled to China to begin our neigong before, those senior students who are interested in coming to China this fall to train will be making separate arrangements. There is a “discount” available for those students who attended the waigong summer training in the USA and would like to come to China in November - please PM me for details. If you are interested in attending this workshop, please PM me here on Taobums and I will point you in the direction of our private forum where everything is being arranged. More info as it becomes available! -Grady http://www.apricotforesthospital.com Prior taobums discussions of Dr. Jiang's Shaolin Yijinjing Gengmenpai and our previous neigong & waigong workshops: http://thetaobums.com/topic/27501-shaolin-yijinjing-gengmenpai-12-postures-seminar-in-the-usa-summer-2013/ http://thetaobums.com/topic/25410-shaolin-yijinjing-gengmenpai-qigong-seminar-with-dr-jiang-feng-in-china-spring-2013/ http://thetaobums.com/topic/24662-shaolin-yijinjing-gengmenpai-qigong-seminar-with-dr-jiang-feng-in-china-november-2012/ http://thetaobums.com/topic/20075-demonstration-of-emitting-qi/

As of the day before yesterday, Jiang Shifu is officially off to a special location deep in the Nine Glories Mountain range to begin an eighty one day "double yang" retreat (9 is the number of yang, and 9 x 9 = 81) for the purposes of engaging in the face-to-wall sitting practice peculiar to our tradition, that made famous by the progenitor Bodhidharma/Damo, who is said to have pursued this same practice unswervingly for 9 full years of retreat before emerging to assist and instruct the monks at Shaolin. I will be traveling to the States for a short period to spend Christmas with my family, and then returning immediately to China to help my Chinese brothers fulfill our responsibilities as tudi and take care of Shifu's extended family during the Chinese New Year holiday in his absence. Following Shifu's return, in the spring of 2014 we will be holding the first ever workshop for *advanced* neigong students, which will take place from March 16th - March 22nd here at the hospital in Yellow Mountain. All those who have already attended a basic neigong training workshop in China are eligible to attend. At this time there are no plans for another basic neigong workshop in China in the spring, but there will tentatively be another waigong workshop held in San Francisco, California in the summer. Just a few days ago on the 15th day of the 10th lunisolar month, with the moon at its fullest, I traveled with Shifu and his family to the Yongqing Temple, a Chan buddhist nunnery deep in the countryside a few hours from our hospital. Shifu holds the Abbess there in high esteem, and went to pray for success in his retreat and also to discuss with her their insights into the year to come, something he does every year. I'm pleased to share that the omens were all quite auspicious, and as such our Gengmenpai has a lot to look forward to in the coming "Year of the Wood Horse" ... Also, just before he left for his retreat Shifu gave me permission to upload another clip of him demonstrating the qi field phenomenon to a room full of foreign guests at the hospital: The quality of this one is a great deal clearer than the other. As always, anyone who is interested in learning more about who we are and what we do is welcome to contact me via PM and I will point you in the direction of our private forum. If you write and don't receive a reply immediately please be patient, as we are extraordinarily busy here and the hospital and I do not check the taobums every day.

The problem is magnified by the fact that the majority of taijiquan is taught with these things "mixed in" already. Ditto for almost any asian martial art taught in the West, although taijiquan & aikido's widespread association with mysticism makes them particularly susceptible.

http://rumsoakedfist.com

Unfortunately that has not been my experience. An inordinate amount of people practice incorrectly for years, at best achieving nothing, and at worst actually injuring themselves, ironically in the explicit pursuit of being healthier.

In my experience Westerners have a tendency to underestimate the complexity of the process of transmission, and the obscurity that it throws over who actually got what from whom. Just because someone didn't teach something publicly, or even privately, doesn't mean they didn't have it. And, perhaps more importantly, just because the teacher is willing to transmit something doesn't mean that the student is capable of receiving it. I believe that the issues relating to the problem of understanding how to practice taijiquan correctly are fundamentally the same as learning how to practice any other aspect of Chinese physical culture correctly, they are simply magnified/further distorted by both the popularity of taijiquan and it's widespread association and thus conflation with all things "daoist". Primary issues of misunderstanding involve the distinction between appropriate & inappropriate muscular tension, the distinction between the muscular system and the tendon-ligament-connective tissue system, and the proper understanding of foreign technical terminology and the associated concepts such as li 力, jin 劲, qi 气, song 松, etc. Another overarching "meta" problem is the fact that these concepts take on very different meanings in different contexts: what they mean in a martial arts context and what they mean in a cultivation concept are not necessarily the same thing, or even anywhere close to the same thing. A major portion of the workshops I do on Shifu's behalf in China and the United States is devoted to the linguistic and anthropological issues involved in genuinely understanding these concepts and effectively putting them into practice, without which it's simply not possible to get results.

Good question. In my experience this idea - that the practitioner must always pursue minimal tension, and that any muscular tension blocks "qi flow" - is a common misconception in the taijiquan, particularly taijiquan as it exists and is popularly practiced in the West. The misconception is rooted in a number of factors: in the different ways these arts were taught to "in door" disciples and to regular students, in the different ways these arts were taught prior to the cultural revolution and afterwards, and in various misunderstandings during the transmission to Western students caused by linguistic and cultural barriers (especially in regards to technical terminology), etc. Taijiquan as it is taught in the orthodox traditional transmissions that I have had contact with does *not* emphasize "maximum relaxation of muscles in executing the movements, i.e. no muscle tension beyond the bare minimum needed to form and hold the various postures in the form practice". What it does emphasize, is maximum relaxation to the extent possible while other parameters including specific kinds of active muscular tension are in place. A simple example is that a proper horse stance is not achieved by simply placing the body in a given posture and then holding that posture with the minimum possible tension. Proper horse stance practice additionally involves certain active applications of muscular tension in very specific ways to generate the desired effect. If you were to lift someone standing in a proper horse stance off the ground, their legs would snap together as a direct result of the active tension being applied through the lower body down into the ground. If the stance is simply held with the minimum tension necessary to hold the posture, this constitutes "dead" standing and will not generate the desired result. Some of the muscular tension you perceive is necessary to generate a process, and some of the muscular tension you perceive is an ancillary result (a "side effect", so to speak) of the result of a process. The simplest answer is that muscular exertion is involved in both the activation of certain phenomena and in the result of their activation. What is most important to understand is that deep muscular relaxation is also involved, and that these two things are not contradictory, but complimentary. The biceps can only fully contract when the triceps is fully relaxed. It all depends on specifically when, where, why, and to what degree the tension is applied, and specifically when, where, why, and to what degree the relaxation is applied. As an aside, it is important to understand that the vast, vast majority of methods incorporated in any given transmission of "taijiquan" do not have as their end goal the development of the ability to 发气 "emit qi" - they have as their goal the ability to 发劲 "emit jin" or 发力 "emit li", which is something very different and depending on the context of the terms used is not even necessarily directly related. My pleasure.

As stated above in a previous post, and elsewhere in other threads on this forum, we are a Chan tradition, and as such our ultimate goal is full enlightenment (and concomitant liberation from suffering, in addition to all the other "goodies") in *this* lifetime. The development of jing, qi, and shen - which can be used for other corollary purposes (medical, martial, etc.) - are ultimately all in service to the goal of full enlightenment & liberation in *this* lifetime.

In that case, what you wrote about what Ellis Amdur wrote about 洪懿祥 Hong Yixiang rings true, based on the things I've heard of the man from those who studied with him.

Fixed it for you. Everyone who continues to conflate "enlightenment" and "moral conduct" should go read Crowley's "8 Lectures on Yoga". As an aside, what you wrote about 洪懿祥 Hong Yixiang rings true, based on the things I've heard of the man from those who studied with him.

It is only the middle of September, and half the spots for the November workshop in China are already spoken for. I continue to receive a lot of inquiries from folks here and elsewhere, and I encourage anyone who is on the fence to contact me with your questions or concerns while there are still a few openings remaining.

Our definition of enlightenment is the same as any other orthodox buddhist transmission: direct insight/knowledge into the fundamental nature of phenomena which liberates one from suffering, karma and the cycle of rebirth, amongst all the other ancillary "benefits". We are a Chan tradition, and as such we rely on Chan practice ("meditation", for lack of a better word; and the experiential, mind-to-mind transmission outside the scriptures) to achieve this insight/knowledge. Shifu appears to take an agnostic stance on physical immortality. Immortality of the "shen" or "immortal fetus" sort is considered one potential outcome of the shen training which comes after the qi training, but is not the ultimate goal of our practice. Well, given that Shifu has not officially chosen an heir/successor, and given that I don't believe anyone (even his most senior Chinese students) has 100% of what he has, I'd consider this an open question. My pleasure.

My sincerest condolences, truly. As recently as a couple months ago Jim had been in touch with me in regards to a planned trip to China this fall with some of his students to do some research at locations associated with Mopai's history (Mount Longhu, etc.). At that time he was feeling very confident in the treatment of his illness. It's a shame he was unable to fulfill his ambition, and I hope you his students will continue to pursue his work.

Yes, the monk Xuan Kong, who was Shifu's teacher. http://apricotforesthospital.com/grandmaster-xuan-kong/ There are a lot of assumptions here which seem to be based on Mo Pai rumors. Suffice it to say that in the beginning we primarily work with the lower dantian, and that the end goal with all of this qi work for us is enlightenment in this lifetime. Nope, Ish got it right, there was a small pile of little bits of paper on top of the big sheet. When Shifu pushes the qi field they leap up and sort of "dance" between the paper and either the 十宣 ShiXuan points of his first two fingers or the 劳宫 LaoGong point of the palm. I really do wish the quality was better, but if you watch on a desktop with decent resolution and full screen mode you should be able to see what's happening fairly clearly. Shifu hasn't been exerting himself much, in preparation for his retreat, so it kind of took me by surprise when he demonstrated this and unfortunately I simply wasn't able to set up to get a good quality video of the whole thing.

I'm excited to be able to share with you guys a new video of Shifu demonstrating one form of the qi field phenomenon, which I've just uploaded to his official youtube page here: This video was shot at our hospital during a recent clinic for a group of European patients, and Shifu didn't give me a lot of warning before doing what he did, so the video quality is not the greatest - honestly the video barely does the demonstration justice. Definitely watch in full screen mode for best detail. Regardless, I have never before seen him modulate the qi field in such a subtle way, it was really a pretty amazing thing to witness. Enjoy!

In response to a number of inquiries: no, I am not certain when the next training for neigong students in China will be (following the November 2013 workshop). Given that Shifu will be away this winter on retreat, and given that Spring 2014 will likely be devoted to advanced neigong training for returning senior students, and given that I suspect Shifu will ask me to run a waigong workshop in the USA again during Summer 2014, most likely the next neigong training for new students will be held in Fall 2014. That being said, I am of course bound by Shifu's wishes and his schedule, but since you guys asked, the above is my best estimate.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the" neigong meditation. Our "qigong" (氣功) material is roughly divided into what can be called "waigong" (外功) methods and "neigong" (内功) methods. Our waigong material can be practiced by anyone, and is what was taught for the first time at our recent US workshop in San Francisco. Our neigong material is what requires Shifu's personal empowerment to practice safely and effectively, and is what is (and has been) taught at our China workshops under Shifu's supervision. Our yijinjing (易筋經) methods are somewhat similar and yet at the same time very different from the various publicly transmitted sets commonly known as "yijinjing". In terms of comparison the results generated by our practices seem to resemble most closely those of John Chang's "Mopai", and while I personally believe there are as many similarities as their are differences in what we do and what they do, we are emphatically *not* associated with the Mopai school in any way, and we do not practice or teach Mopai methods.

It's better to be alone than to wish you were.

Ever since I began to represent Dr. Jiang publicly a number of people have written privately to me, both on this forum and elsewhere, asking about the possibility of seminars in the Americas or in Europe. The main problem is that Shifu (and myself, for that matter) is unwilling to teach the inner neigong of the system to those who have not received his approval & empowerment, primarily for reasons of safety but also due to the fact that his experience has shown that real progress in the higher levels of this art is nearly impossible without it, and I am not personally at the level to be able to empower people effectively. After a recent conversation following the opening of the hospital Shifu seems tentatively open to consider allowing me to teach the jibengong 基本功 ("basic/foundation gong") of this system to those who are for whatever reason unable to travel to China but who earnestly desire to begin training. Such a thing is unprecedented and has never before been permitted in the history of our sect. The jibengong of our system corresponds to what many people publicly refer to as the 古十二式 ("Old Twelve Postures") of the Yijinjing, although we refer to it as the XinShiErShi 新十二式 ("New Twelve Postures"), and the material that has been passed within our sect differs in substantial ways from what has been made public by others. These are the basic exercises which were required to be trained diligently for 3 years prior to RuMen 入門 ("entering the gate") in orthodox Shaolin transmissions. While it is admittedly not possible to progress to the level of emitting the electric-like ZhenQi 真氣 ("true qi") solely through this material, it can and does have a tremendous effect on one's health, and aids in preparing the ShiErJingMai 十二經脈 ("twelve organ meridians / twelve conventional meridians") for the deeper neigong of the system. In addition to teaching the "12 postures" I will be personally evaluating each person's meridians and overall health condition according to the classical Chinese medicine that I have been learning from Dr. Jiang since 2009. While I am by no means at his level, I have sufficient knowledge to evaluate and manage many issues, and I will be consulting with him by telephone throughout the seminar to deal with whatever problems may be beyond me. If you would be interested in attending such a seminar as early as the first half of this summer, please shoot me a PM on the forum here and I will provide you with more information. The location will almost certainly be the continental United States, and will probably take place in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Houston, or another major metropolitan area with a large Chinese population and thus access to the range and quality of Chinese herbs that I will need - feel free to reply to this thread with your preferred location. The seminar will last between 7-10 days, and Shifu is telling me that the tuition will be roughly half that of the seminars in China (~$2000). While Shifu wants to make this material available to as many as sincerely desire it, as before I will likely be limiting participation to 10 people in an effort to make sure I can give everyone sufficient personal attention. This is breaking news so please stay tuned to this thread for more updates and information as I am able to confirm it. It is an exciting time for our Gengmenpai and I genuinely appreciate all the support which has helped to make this possible! -Grady www.apricotforesthospital.com Previous taobums discussions of Dr. Jiang's Shaolin Yijinjing Gengmenpai: http://thetaobums.com/topic/20075-demonstration-of-emitting-qi/ http://thetaobums.com/topic/24662-shaolin-yijinjing-gengmenpai-qigong-seminar-with-dr-jiang-feng-in-china-november-2012/ http://thetaobums.com/topic/25410-shaolin-yijinjing-gengmenpai-qigong-seminar-with-dr-jiang-feng-in-china-spring-2013/