Sloppy Zhang

I don't know what you read that made you construe what I'm trying to say as "high level martial arts will look the same." If I said something to that effect, it was my mistake and I apologize. Just because someone is using similar principles (similar, not the same) doesn't mean they will look the same. Form is a principle, yes, a principle, one principle. And, again, just because two people are using the same principle, doesn't mean they will use it in the same way, or in the same shape Your martial development is obviously on a level that is not within my ability to comprehend. But I have found that many practitioners of certain arts, not to mention the masters of certain arts, have a closed mindedness about them, and are unwilling to recognize valuble things within other systems. This inability to recognize comonalities in other systems is something that will, if you don't mind me saying, hinder the martial development of everyone.

1. Ask her out 2. Bet on red 3. Move about a foot to the left, then jump

But that's the thing: it's NOT. Look at the video on the boxing punch I posted earlier. Yes, boxing movements and the handling of the body is a bit different. But at the highest levels, you'd be amazed how similar it is to the "more sophisticated" internal martial arts. I suggest you take some boxing classes, or find some vids on youtube from some top boxing instructors (there are some good ones here and there). There are some really impressive teachers who teach many of the same concepts. Also, look at some top MMA fighters, like Anderson Silva, for example, analyze their fighting style. They are just as relaxed and yielding as any taiji fighter would be. It's about efficiency of movement, conserving energy (tensed muscles take up too much energy). A seasoned fighter will know how to last in the ring, how to use their energy the most efficiently, and that's something shared by taiji. I used to be one of those people that saw some difference between "internal" and "external", that external arts like boxing didn't have the subtleties that the internal arts had. Then I met some high level boxers (yes, high level boxers), and I realized that their skills were just as subtle. I totally agree.... but across the board, it's the taiji people that don't live up to that when compared to say, boxing and wrestling. In books by Yang Jwing Ming, he uses the saying that, "external arts flow from external to internal, internal arts flow from internal to external." Being that, at the highest levels, they encorporate the same techniques. It doesn't always mean they train in the exact same techniques (so I taiji person might not start doing karate makiwara training ) but some principles would overlap. I'm no longer one of those people that like to draw some distinction between "internal" and "external". Again, if you look at some expert boxers, wrestlers, they use the same principles that taiji uses. As for using non-force and stuff like that, just watch some fights from some of the top names in MMA. They do some pretty crazy stuff from time to time, and they've pulled off some really effortless throws. They amaze the announcers, they're like, "it's like they didn't even touch them!" it's just that a lot of MMA guys don't go around SAYING "oh well I can throw them with effortless force" and things like that, which of course everyone just wants to see proven. They also don't say things like "I used superior qi to win" which is another controversial topic in the MA community. Anyway, no matter what you decide to do, the highest levels will lead you to similar techniques.

Well that's a..... bummer How can we get rid of the pseudo ego, without just replacing it with another pseudo ego?

And I..... disagree Now some people choose to do one thing one way, another may choose another way to do it. Some people may choose to learn both ways of doing it. I think people can do whatever they decide to do, and I don't think that there's a limit, should you choose to delve into every skill (and please don't say "jack of all trades master of none", it's used way too often as a response in these types of discussion)

good one Why can't I eat oreos stuffed with cocaine while stealing from old ladies? One of my favorite quotes. Overall, nice list

Sheesh it's not a court, calm down Here's one: look at the taiji fa jin punch. The idea is that power is generated from the ground, goes up through the legs, through the body, through the arms, and into the other guy. You stay relaxed and coordinate moving with your full body to generate maximum power. Some tai chi guys around the world make a big deal about how tai chi is one of the few styles to use relaxed coordinated power. A lot of IMA-ists also knock external styles that aren't as "sophisticated" in terms of body mechanics.... Now watch . Same principles. Slightly different application (different stances, different movement), but same overall principle. So you have an "external" style, boxing, but at the highest level, highly similar application of techniques and mechanics to the "sophisticated" internal styles.

http://www.wutangcenter.com/wt/bajipigua.htm That's a website I found on it a little while back, some good info. Bajiquan is definitely an interesting style. Bajiquan vs. karate here Bajiquan on tv

Well there's his problem, there's always a limit to what science can prove right now. Isn't it Clarke's third law that says "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?" I was watching a documentary about world war II military aviation. The military put temporary bases on various islands in the south pacific. There were native inhabitants who weren't very advanced, still living in primitive tribal societies. These planes would come and drop supplies for the soldiers, who would usually share with the natives. These people thought these airplanes were gods, or spirits of the ancestors, who were coming and giving them gifts for good behavior. After the war these planes left, but some people still prayed to these "spirits" that they would return. Their understanding of technology, of "science" wasn't sufficiently advanced for them to understand the aircraft right now (from their perspective of "right now" anyway), so spirituality created an answer. Furthermore, there are limits to our scientific knowledge even WITHOUT resorting to some kind of spiritual answer. Astronomers see things in the universe all the time that make us go, "huh....." People with so much "faith" in science that they feel the compulsive need to show that everyone who doesn't agree with them is wrong, more often than not, are just afraid of the unknown, and are unwilling to accept many new ideas. So even though they SAY that science is willing to change to support new theories proven to be true..... well in practice that isn't always the case Oh well, to each his own

What's your book called, so I can be on the lookout for it. Or are you going to post it when it's finished and published?

I'd say that generally speaking, they become the same. Meaning that things like efficiency of movement, conserving energy, striking at the most vulnerable points, etc, are all what masters focus on. I think it was Bruce Lee who said something to the effect of, "put a bunch of masters in a room together, and they will all agree. Put a bunch of students in a room together, and they will argue." Even if the style or the method differs, let's say that a karate master would rather strike hard and fast and a tai chi master would rather strike an overexposed target, they both would understand that each one of them would exploit the weakness of the other person (one exploiting the inability to defend properly, the other exploiting the overreaching of his opponent). But if the karate master was facing someone who threw wild punches and would always leave exposed areas, the karate master would naturally use the strategy of the tai chi master, and if te tai chi master fought someone who would never commit, the tai chi master would adopt the strategy of the karate master to get the opponent to commit and create and opening, or something like that. So.... yes and no?

There's a movie out there called "Who Killed the Electirc Car". A documentary type, quite interesting, really. We had an electric car before but it was "killed" by.... various people and institutions.

Well he really wanted to market Journik, and he said he wanted to make Journik the next facebook (but I think Twitter beat him to that ) I mean, he had a LOT of followers. Seriously. It was funny that so many people kept flocking to him even after he quit making the videos. So if he could funnel that mass of people into journik.... well it'd be great, right? I mean you gotta admit, it was a pretty good idea. I got into journik in the first couple of days that it was opened and.... it wasn't that great. In the older alchemy forums, he'd present a topic, say, "time travel", and everyone would discuss. And there were some ok discussions. But on journik it was like, "okay, discuss what you want." And people are like, "okay.... um.... I want to get good grades!" "I want a girlfriend!" and because of the overwhelming presence of teenagers who watch naruto it kind of.... never really took off The alchemy forum at present is really slow too. There's just no material that he's putting out, and all the people that he attracts are attracted to him specifically and the stuff he teaches. Individually there doesn't seem to be much there in terms of practice and experience. And, again, a lot of people I think could get sucked in and hurt. Yeah, I got a message from him saying to come back to journik (it was one of those mass messages), and I was like, "no way." He actually made a couple of journik posts on WHY he does things the way he does. Something like, "Art of War: Secrets to Having Respect and Keeping It." Where he was like, "you must make an example of stupid people, their stupidness will reveal to everyone else how stupid they are and how much better you are than them, take this loser on youtube, for example...." Very small minded thinking. Aaaaaaaanyway I'm feeling pretty small minded talking about him so much myself

If there IS a conspiracy, it's one of those "open secrets". You know, hiding in plain sight. Not to mention the folk hero thing, which is a good point. The problem is that when you grow up and if you actually learn about Edison (I did it for a research paper in high school, along with some other advances of the time), you realize what a mean person he was. But you know, kids grow up being told, "Edison was so great." After years of that, you hear of Tesla, and you're like, "*shrug* okay. that's nice."

Yeah this is pretty old but I'd say that last part applies to me as well, really got me into some stuff, got me questioning. Of course, that led me to questioning HIM.... which he didn't like I was a big time poster on a lot of his vids, got into some discussion, got some nods from him a few times (and at the time I was like, "praise from the master!!!") then he went away for a long time. Locked his old forums. Then he came back, started uploading some new vids. But the new vids didn't have the same flavor. They seemed really contrived, and even less informative than his old stuff. I asked him a question on one of his vids. He talked about how he saw a hobo and how pathetic it was and he said hobos were losers. And I was like, "that's awfully judgmental, I thought we were supposed to not judge?" And he was like, "you were so caught up in judging my video you failed to see the point. blocked." Obviously he didn't recognize who I was, or how long I'd been following his stuff. Anyway, felt really bad because there are a lot of good people on his forum sites, like the meditation-mantra.org/alchemy forums, and on journik. But they are all really young, and impressionable. And I feel like this guy is using them, seriously I've read the old bushido thread and about all the sketchy stuff he's done. if you ask me, the only reason he came back was because he realized he had a whole mass of followers, that actually kept INCREASING even though he stopped making vids. How can you turn down something like that? I dunno, sad story all around, I just hope he doesn't screw over some of these people too bad. For some it'll be a hard lesson. Really hard. It's painful to watch, but there's nothing anyone can do. I just hope everyone can get over it, if they get hurt.

I stayed up all night last night, and worked all day the day before, so I slept the entirety of today..... guess I missed out.... sorry

........ I leave this forum for a couple hours and suddenly someone's come, gotten swept up in some arguments, and is now bowing out.... after 12 posts?? Sheesh..... people are moving faster and faster these days

I hate to tell you this but.... the chances of finding really brilliant people with actual first hand experience and "relatable" experiences in real life...... are quite low It's kind of depressing actually. I've had similar experiences. All the groups and practice clubs and schools that I go to are uh.... sub standard.... and the standard that I have was set by this board The great thing about the internet is that location isn't a factor. So here we get a lot of really bright people with lots of good experiences to relate to. So we wind up with a pretty high density of skilled people. But out there in the "real world" you don't have that, and I've found that really brilliant people are few and far between.

Well when I'm in school, for example, I've got pieces of paper all over the place that I jot down things I take notice of. When I'm on TTB and read something I like, I write it down on a sticky note, and at the end of the day write an entry or whatever about it. For Franz Bardon's system, yeah, keeping a piece of paper with you all day that you mark stuff out would work too. Like if you were trying to keep track of, say, when you get angry and yell at people, each time you yell at someone you make a tick mark. Then each time you feel like yelling at someone you make a tick mark, and over time this helps you realize what kind of situations that you get in when you yell at people, and that helps you change. Of course, you can find a way to measure different things. But, again, it's up to the individual on what and how to measure, no way I can think of something uniform that'd work for everyone across the board.

Actually, I just started to keep a journal of my thoughts/musings/methods a couple of days ago. I write down references and stuff that I find interesting. At first I didn't think keeping a journal would be that useful, because things are always changing, but I've been reading a lot recently and I've had lots of new ideas/realizations, more often than I'd usually have over the course of a school semester (other stuff on my mind ) and I figured "hey, I better write this down!" But it's a spiral notebook, not a loose leaf binder

Spirituality is like pornography, you know it when you see it, and it can be enjoyed alone or with others On a less humorous note, I really can't tell you how to "track" it or "measure" it. You can always talk about siddhis and signs that you have become spiritual, like spontaneous levitating, reading peoples' minds, walking on water, etc etc Okay that was sort of humorous too. In Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics book, he breaks down development into spheres, Mental, Astral, and Physical, and each of those have certain "steps". Part of the Astral steps is balance. Observing your emotions, find out what side of the spectrum you are (or are not), and then transmuting those into positive aspects (though you sometimes have to tone down "too positive" aspects). But again you run into the problem of that somehow applying to everyone. Even though there is a "checklist" system with Bardon's material, each checklist is special to the individual. So we all use checklists but none of them are the same.

The original intention of Krav Maga isn't really spiritual, it's more like, to kick ass in the most effective way possible though for self defense and the protection of others, country, etc etc of course But, as has been mentioned, anything practiced to a high enough level can lead you to spiritual clarity. And, I mean, if you're not worried about getting attacked and being a victim, you're free to concern yourself with other things

The music is good. Also, why is it flagged? I've had to log into youtube for the first time in ages I don't have time to watch it now, maybe I'll find out later tonight when I watch it. [edit] Okay, watched it. Well... it certainly is an..... interesting way of looking at things. The music choices were pretty good though, and some good pieces of art were dispersed throughout the vids, so I had some good stuff to look at and listen to. The creator actually synced quite a few of the pictures and the text with the music (so take what you will from that). Some of the information was kind of hard to follow, especially once it started getting into the whole bloodlines, the fact that people borrowed other peoples' names, that they married and changed their name to something else, that one person is not REALLY that person and it was all very confusing. Then the first sentence of the last video "Don't bother trying to fit Lucifer's secrets into what you already think you know." so I quit trying to get it.

Don't mean to speak for Pietro, but I took LDD as meaning 'lower dan dien" (dan tien, tan tien, however you want to romanize it), and Bruce being Bruce Kumar Frantzis.

Well one of the things that spirituality gives is a "support system" and way of dealing with stuff like this. So, for dream testing, you stop what you are doing and ask yourself seriously if you are dreaming. Now, this is good, and does give results, though from this it's clear it can lead to problems. (though if you ask me, he had other deep seated issues, pink crocodile "coming out of the closet"? Sounds like he had some homosexuality issues..... were there any women in the stargate project? ) Now what I've found in systems of spirituality, like Buddhism and Taoism, is not just "stop what you are doing and think, then keep going with life." It's "be aware of your thoughts CONSTANTLY, moment to moment, be able to observe them." So it's not just a one or two time thing you do throughout the day, but something you do continuously. It's much harder to do, IMHO, but so far I haven't had anything coming out of any closets So I wonder if this man had learned to become constantly aware of this thoughts, whether he would have realized he was dreaming a little bit sooner.