Sloppy Zhang

I've gotten into lucid dreaming, and one of the things that I wanted to do in a lucid dream was to contact my spirit guide. The first dream I successfully became lucid in, I said, "where's my spirit guide, i want to meet my spirit guide." Suddenly I met this figure in my dream, I was "sucked" across the room and was standing toe to toe with him, looking right into his eyes. My heart started to beat really fast and I could feel it thumping in my chest, it was quite intense.... then I had a false awakening (you are still dreaming but don't realize it) in which I was trying to investigate the dream. So basically, I got the feeling I should back off, which I did. I started to meditate more seriously, and then did some studying up on western magick, stuff like protection circles, how to defend yourself against psychic attacks. It basically comes down to willpower. If you will for something to not bother you, it won't. But when you are facing spirits or things from the depths of your own mind, that willpower can be hard to pull together. I asked around about this not too long ago on some other forums, and I got a variety of responses. The general consensus is that when meeting someone or something from another realm, or another composition.... well it's not like meeting another human on the sidewalk, it's new, there's a huge element of the unknown. If you walk into a crowded room and everyone turns around to look at you with an awkward silence, your body might start to react (heart pumping). If you meet someone from another plane, your body might start to react! That doesn't necessarily mean it's DANGEROUS, it's just new and unknown. So that advice, coupled with a lot more personal development on my part, led me to try again with lucid dreaming and spirit guides. The results weren't what I expected, but I haven't had (too much) trouble in things freaking me out or anything like that. So I'd say read up on the subject, gather as much info as you can, then mentally fortify yourself, and try again later.

no wai guyz u dunno wut u r talkin about the yellow bamboo guyz didnt want 2 kill sum1 on kamera tey did nut wan 2 kill n e 1 period them bjj n00bz shood be happi they r alive in a reel fite the bjj gai wood die (that was a joke guyz)

Wow, that's a nice sifu and a great deal.... where I am, I'd be forking over $50-$100 a month for one class per week to learn someone's tai chi wushu form, or to hear them tell me to connect with the universe and by a box of their herbal tea on the way out the door..... which I'm not going to do....... so books for me I guess.... ***sigh*** OR You can go to meditation-mantra.org or visit the youtube page at youtube.com/yogameditation, watch all the videos, stand in gi ma sae for 30 minutes, have qi equal to the force of a nuclear explosion, master the qi fireball, chuck it at people, and at MOST pay $10-$15 dollars for mantras to play in your sleep to earn fame, success, wealth, love, anything you want. But the mantras and meds are all optional, if you just learn gi ma sae for 30 mins you'll be awesome anyway, and if you ever want to learn other systems, just create a qi ghost to learn it all for you.

Thanks for that very clear explanation!

I agree, it'd have to be someone with true internal skill. Just like when you make statements about an MMAist being in shape and being able to react, you're talking about someone with real MMA skill, not some fat loser who trains at an MMA gym every other Saturday and thinks he's an MMAist but has an incredible losing record. I've been making comparisons and statements under the assumption that the person is, for lack of a better term, a master in their chosen category. Sure, there are internal people that train incorrectly and don't have any internal power, just like there are MMA guys who train MMA but who suck. Those people aside, however, tai chi DID make a name for itself. I'm sure you know how lei tai fights worked back in the day (if you don't, wikipedia gives a good summary), if you thought you were good you stood on top of the platform in the middle of the town and said, "I'm a badass if you think you can beat me get up here and knock me out or throw me off." After a couple hundred opponents, if you were still up there, you were pretty much the shit after that. The Yangs proved themselves on the lei tai, so did the Chens. Heck, even Sun Lutang, who pretty much said internal arts should be used pretty much exclusively for health, had his own bouts with other MA masters. But you have to understand that there's a different strategy between fighting on lei tai, where you can push someone off, and the cage, where you can't push someone off. Many tai chi masters were able to use their skills to just toss opponents off the edge one after another (not all, like Yang Banhou did lots of fa jin strikes), and that's the background in which tai chi developed. Look at MMA fighters, sometimes when someone tries a takedown, they back up and get pressed up against the cage. They wrestle around, and then maybe get out. Even on the ground, fighters use the cage to prevent the other person from being able to roll over and get in a dominant position. Imagine if those same MMA fighters were up on a lei tai, those strategies wouldn't work. It'd be a whole different dynamic. Same thing that happened when fighters went from a square ring to the octagon, different dynamic. So when people make statements like "this isn't effective", they really need to think about the background in which the art developed. Sure, tai chi couldn't throw people off of the platform in a cage match.... but tai chi masters did that to humanely show their superiority. I guess if they had to they could have punched people in the throat like Yang Banhou, but whatever.

Well there's a little bit of difference there with tai chi in the cage.... You see back in the days in China (and I guess nowadays too), they had the lei tai, the raised platform. You won by beating you opponent to a pulp.... but you could also win by throwing your opponent off of the platform. Tai chi certainly has powerful fa jin, and you have multiple accounts of people like Yang Banhou seriously crippling opponents with fa jin strikes to sensitive places of the body, chops to the throat, and all that good stuff, and then Yang Shaohou, who did similar types of things and practiced with his students full force. But you also have the yielding aspect to it, sort of like grappling in its own way, that you see people pushing or throwing someone a great distance while doing push hands. All a tai chi master had to do back then was yield with an opponent and then throw them so that they'd fall off the platform. Sure, they COULD do a fa jin strike and do damage, but people like Chen Fake, who was known for being respectful to all of his opponents, and many other masters, whose philosophies were about winning WITHOUT injuring the other person, wouldn't resort to such a thing. But with modern MMA you have a different dynamic: the cage. There is no out of bounds (unless you can throw someone OUT of the cage.... but that's against the rules anyway). So you HAVE to knock them out or tap them out. There is no "humane" way of ending the fight. If one were to use tai chi in MMA, you'd HAVE to do what people like Yang Banhou and Yang Shaohou did: break some bones.

Do we need to bring up Candide by Voltaire?

So I know quite a bit about Tai Chi, and a little bit less about xingyiquan, but baguazhang is the one internal art that I haven't really been able to devote a lot of time into finding out about it. I'm a big fan of learning things from as close to the source as possible, and while all systems of bagua have a lot to offer, the Yin style piqued my interest. Unfortunately Yin style is pretty rare, but from what I can understand has TONS to offer, both martially AND in terms of chinese medicine and healing. I'm aware that He Jinbao is the current lineage holder (received from Xie Peiqi), and I've also heard that he has some DVD's out on some of the systems within Yin style bagua. The only things I could turn up on youtube (to see what some of the stuff looks like) is two guys practicing some stuff they learned from the DVD's. I was wondering if anyone here has seen the DVD's, or attempted learning from them, or if anyone does any Yin style as He Jinbao teaches. And if so, could you share what it's like or anything like that?

Mucho respect goes to pro fighters, and what they've done for martial arts in general over the past years. But it's clear that you haven't met a real martial arts master, and it's clear that you don't know the difference between a REAL traditional martial art that trains for COMBAT and the combat SPORT that is mixed martial arts. Both are good, both have their place. Just don't confuse them. Oh, yes, there used to be a video on youtube called "the most technical street fight ever", I guess it's been taken down, but h.uriahr touched on the subject. It was basically a clip from the ultimate fighter, or whatever that UFC reality show was. Two of the contestants got into a fight on the back patio of the house. One of the guys gets tackled, they start wrestling around. One of the guys tries to use an arm bar. Well then the guy who's having the arm bar put on him lifts up his opponent, then slams him on the ground three or four times. The other guys break up the fight. The dude who tried to use the arm bar had blood streaming down his entire back, his head was gushing with blood. That's what happens when you try and throw an arm bar on concrete. Have fun rolling around on the mats. There was another video, it's been removed by user since I saw it, but basically these marines were hanging out in the barracks when three guys decide to hand cuff this fourth guy to his bed. Well the fourth guy gets kind of pissed off, and he pushes two of them away, but the third guy starts to wrestle with him. They are in the fourth guy's quarters. Well the third guy tries to tackle the fourth guy. It's obvious he's going for a classic BJJ takedown.... what happens? The corner of the room happens. He's trying to take this guy down, but the fourth guy is tucked right into the corner, and isn't going anywhere. The fourth guy puts the third guy in a headlock, but the third guy escapes..... then gets a knee to the face and gets knocked out cold. Guess he should have protected his face better, and kept his BJJ to the mats where there's plenty of space to roll around.... Like I said, I have respect for all the martial arts and what they try to do.... but please, know your limitations. There are plenty of TMA guys and IMA guys who don't train effectively. That's true. But the guys who DO train effectively and realistically are scary. I have a friend who was lucky enough to have met an Okinawan karate master when the master moved to his state, a real old school karate guy, no nonsense, serious emphasis on conditioning and changing the applications to deal with baseball bats, nails on the ground, etc. He's one of the toughest and scariest guys I know, and I hope that no one ever tries to mess with him.... for their sake. The combat sports are good as well. Just make sure you know where everything goes.

Oh yeah, I probably should have put this in the OP: It pretty much goes without saying that the universal stance on the issue of you won't get very far in training without a teacher, so learning from DVD's and books is mostly useless. No offense to anyone, but if you're just going to post and say that, please don't, we've heard it all before Let's just stick to the quality of the stuff out there, thanks. Okay, now moving on: Well glad this has good timing It's also really cool that you're going to be learning bagua and taoism in such an intense way! I hope you have a good trip and you make lots of progress. Well from what I've seen there are four sets of DVD's out, one for lion, one for phoenix (I think), and two others, and a little advertisement says he plans to release the rest over the next ten years. (here's the link: http://www.traditionalstudies.org/website/...20Animals.html) Don't know chronologically how those DVD's fit in with what you're talking about, their level of instruction/detail. Something that I've found, at least with stuff like tai chi and xingyiquan, is there are a LOT of books out there by a LOT of different teachers (both good and bad), so even if one book says something in one way, another book may word something a little different, or explain different things with different emphasis. So even though you may learn from a lot of sources, it's all coming together and forming the big picture. With Yin style of baguazhang being relatively small compared to other styles (as He Jinbao says on the website, there aren't a lot of people who practice it, and fewer who teach), you won't necessarily get that same dynamic, which is another reason why I'm asking if anyone has any experience And again why it might be harder to pick up from just one DVD set, as with some other style you'd have a number of DVD's and books from all kinds of people to draw information from. But these DVD sets come in sets of 10 DVDs!!!! So I gotta wonder what all is in there. Some instructional DVD's not only teach techniques, but teach a lot of common mistakes beginners make and things to avoid, then again, maybe each technique is covered that there's so many DVD's. Supposedly each system is its own complete martial art system in its own right (so even though He Jinbao teaches people starting with Lion, the other animals can stand fine on their own). But thanks for your input DaoChild, greatly appreciated

Yes you caught my typo. I'll fix it. My comment still applies.

It's not necessarily all about style, but about the practitioner of that style. Gracie jujutsu led Royce Gracie to become known as one of the best fighters in the world, so then everybody started learning BJJ... but then you have black belts in BJJ losing in MMA matches. Heck, even members of the Gracie family have lost fights (I forgot exactly who it was, it was in K1 or Pride or something, but it was one of the Gracie family who was fighting this black fighter who wore some golden gladiator type trunks or something, I forgot his name though). So to say that BJJ or some other art is more superior than others is just kind of silly, because there are clear examples of any given style winning or losing. Everyone thought karate was pretty lame and ineffective, but now you've got Lyoto Machida who has a perfect professional fight record and uses Shotokan karate as his base style. Does karate suck now? Is karate the best style if you want to get a perfect fight record? No, it's about the fighter being able to use his or her style effectively in combat. Watch the first minute and 15 seconds of this video, then pause it, think about who is going to win the fight, then continue: (DISCLAIMER: there's some bad language in the video, it's a street fight) So it's not always about style.... more like, how effectively is the style taught, how effectively is the style learned by the practitioner, how effectively is it put into use in fights, etc. There are plenty of traditional martial arts that have really effective take down defenses and defenses against grappling. Here's a video of a tai chi guy against grappling The thing that the Gracies had going for them is that before them they had a bunch of people who got to be a first degree black belt in karate or something, they opened their own school, taught an incomplete system to people who then got a black belt, had even less knowledge, but opened up their own school. If you ever have the chance to find a genuine TMA master, their techniques are just as real, just as brutal, and just as effective as stuff you'd see in the popular MMA arts today (it's surprising, even, to see techniques in an art like tai chi or bagua or karate, and see that exact same technique being used by someone in MMA, the problem is that not a lot of TMA people learn the systems fully before calling themselves masters). So yeah.

Are there any hardcore xingyiquan people around here? People say that xingyiquan is one of the quickest of the internal styles to put into effect, with the saying that "tai chi stays in the practice hall for 10 years, while xingyi kills in one" and a lot of xingyi people really try to distance themselves from the image of "internal arts", that it's not all flowers and sunshine like all the tai chi hippies say internal arts are Not to say we should be going around killing people but is there anyone here who trains with it seriously with a serious teacher and has seen its effectiveness first hand? As someone who doesn't practice it, but has seen it and read a bit about it, it seems really cool how you can use internal power in a direct sort of "no nonsense" way, but then I look at my friend who has studied karate with a master from Okinawa for 6 years, he's got about 70 lbs on me, and his arms are three times the width of mine and I go "uh...... I think that evasion and running away would be better than trying to hit him with a bengquan...."

So is this pre-heavenly jing the jing that people say one loses through such acts as ejaculation? Is that the only way, or are there other ways? Are there ways to build it up later on, or is it a "use it and lose it" type of thing?

Okay so I've been doing a lot of reading and research on the topic, but I've still got some questions.... So apparently when you are born you have jing. As you grow you lose that jing doing various activities, one of which (for men) is ejaculating. But some people say that it's not the physical act of ejaculating that loses the jing, but the mental things going on that's associated with it. So.... what's the deal with this? Also, a lot of sources say that once you lose jing then it's gone for good and stuff, and one of the central practices to reserving jing is not expending it (the celibacy that a lot of systems prescribe). But then in a lot of alchemical processes you have the transformation of qi to jing, back to qi then finally to shen. So there is the sense that you can get the jing back.... then there arises the topic of pre-heaven jing and post heaven jing. The pre-heaven jing that you start out with is lost, and the jing you get from the qi-> jing step is post heaven jing. Then the (second) question becomes: can post-heaven jing make up for lost pre-heaven jing? Will it be the same quality? Or is someone who has lost a lot of pre-heaven jing basically out of luck?

Hey thanks for all the responses guys! I think there was a thread about circulation and stuff being a waste of time, and I think that the article it was in reference too pretty much said that most things happen on their own naturally through certain practices, but a lot of people try to directly recreate the stuff that happens naturally. It's an interesting thought, and something I've been thinking about for a little while. I appreciate the insights! I know what you mean about something being still a research. There are lots of topics that are just fun to read about and learn about and think about. Actual practice and cultivation is good too, but I enjoy getting the brain involved from time to time Don't be hesitant to share stuff about what you've learned, even if it's a lot of information or seems dull or boring, I'll be open to it Thanks for the link. Also interesting view about stopping the projection of thoughts and energy onto others... I see what you mean! Thanks for sharing some cultivation techniques! What type of kung fu do you practice, or at least, what type of kung fu was implied when you were taught to practice kung fu in conjunction with qi gung and stuff?

That's the thing though, the best martial arts are holistic, they give you that confident and commanding "vibe", which can help you prevent something before it even happens. I agree that preventing a fight before it happens is your best bet. I agree with you that most people aren't going to get into serious fights if they don't live in a dangerous area. I agree that tons of things are preventable. I just don't agree when you made the assertion that people place "too much emphasis on fighting". I'm NOT saying you should ONLY practice for fighting. The best thing you should do is train in all the areas. I don't know I don't train in ways that damage my body, you'll have to ask someone else for a more direct answer to that. I disagree with that. Maybe some extreme branches of real old school karate can get pretty damaged.... but most martial art traditions have realized that optimal fighting performance comes from a healthy body. While they may not train qi, flexibility, muscle strength, stamina, are increased to enhance fighting ability, which in turn creates a more healthy person. Again, not all arts are like that. I can see that point of view stemming from karate and perhaps some dangerous and misused shaolin practices. No, not everything is preventable. A LOT of things are preventable. I would think that as a bouncer you would know that there are sometimes just random acts of violence. Sometimes people go out LOOKING for a fight, and sometimes an otherwise innocent person is the target. When you are the innocent person, wouldn't it be nice to defend yourself? Only if you can't prove that you had a reason to defend yourself, or if you used excessive force. That's where real martial arts application training comes in handy. You first learn to 1) prevent escalation of a situation, but if that doesn't work 2) nullify a situation or, in worse case scenarios 3) defeat someone with the APPROPRIATE AMOUNT OF FORCE. What I mean by that last bit is that if he grabs you, all you need to do is do a quick turn of the wrist, maybe a light strike or a push, then run away. You don't need to flip out and go all five finger palm of death or something. Martial arts that teach THAT as a response WILL get you in jail. But a well rounded PRACTICAL martial art will not be teaching that. That's great if you're at a club with some bouncers on hand. Oh, that's also assuming he only wants to punch you one time. That's also assuming he doesn't want to do something worse to you because you were dancing too close to his girl, or something like that. Random acts of violence will happen with no warning, I'd rather be prepared. For the most part, I agree with you. Martial arts that damage the body should be avoided. There are plenty of healthy arts out there that can build up physical vitality. But one shouldn't neglect MARTIAL aspects of the martial arts simply because we have guns and lawsuits. That's just stupid. Your gun at home won't help you when you're at the club. A lawyer on your speed dial won't help you when you try to leave a restaurant and someone starts to harass you. Martial arts were created for MARTIAL applications. Internal martial arts were still MARTIAL, the qi building and body cultivation was there to supplement the martial aspects. They were first and foremost MARTIAL arts, and damn well effective before the hippies got ahold of them (okay it wasn't really the hippies fault, but if you are familiar with the history of any of the IMA's you know how/when they started to decline martially in the mainstream). You can't say "there's too much focus on fighting" they are MARTIAL arts!!!!!! Playing soccer will get you in shape, but does that mean we should neglect the game of soccer and focus on the health aspects? NO! The point of playing soccer is to play soccer, that's why it was invented, getting more in shape as a result was more of a side benefit. Same with martial arts. They were made to defend yourself, your family, village, country, etc. Becoming healthy was a RESULT of that. I'm not saying focus JUST on fighting, again, as most good martial arts out there are pretty holistic. I'm not saying focus on fighting to the extent that you hurt your body, I agree that's counter productive. But I just don't like the way that a lot of people are handling martial arts these days, simply because we got guns and lawsuits.

But what about OCCAM'S RAZOR????? Sorry, people throw that around all the time to try and dismiss someone's claim or argument, and a lot of people think it's one of the most perfect tools out there, but it has obvious shortcomings. You pretty much summed up Pearl Harbor conspiracies, and all these conspiracies, rather well. Sometimes there is no simple way of explaining something away, life can be incredibly simple or incredibly complex (but simple at the same time if you already know how something went down). Also, like you said, there were people involved who were probably not that significant in the grand scheme of things, but still got their lives ruined. For 9/11 conspiracy specifically, I've seen good evidence on both sides (my dad is an engineer, has lots of engineering friends, and he knew a few people who evaluated the site, wrote up reports, got the data, performed experiments, and passed the information around). I've made my conclusion, I leave everyone to theirs.

This is a good vid that I found a while ago, for all the hardcore grappling fans out there: I disagree with the points that people make that just because guns are around, it makes training martial arts for combat useless. I think that's a very limited opinion, and honestly rather stupid. Just because there are guns out there, doesn't mean that HE (an aggressor/assaulter) has a gun, and it doesn't mean that YOU have a gun. If he has a gun, well you better just do what he says and hope he doesn't kill you. Maybe you can disarm the gun, MAYBE, but that's a whole different topic, so we're just gonna leave that scenario with "do what he says". If YOU have a gun, and especially if he doesn't, you have to have just cause to FIRE the gun. If you aren't justified, you could get into serious trouble. Now, when does a fight begin? How does a fight start? Fights in "real life" don't start like they do in a match, with two guys squaring themselves up. Sometimes a fight moves from words to shoves to fists. Sometimes it's just some guy who comes up to you swinging. Sometimes a punch is never thrown. A fight can escalate quickly, almost instantly, but it DOES escalate. It moves from a non-violent situation to violent. So let's say some guy is mouthing off on you.... do you shoot him? Uhh.... no. Let's say he pushes you. Do you shoot him? Uh.... no. Let's say he grabs your arm and say, tries to intimidate you. Do you shoot him NOW? Let's say he throws a wild swing at you. DO YOU SHOOT HIM NOW? WHEN do you shoot him? What will give you the cause? Are you willing to wait until a fight escalates to the highest phase before you can end it with your gun? No way. With some simple self defense skills, skills you acquire by training a real martial art for PHYSICAL APPLICATIONS, you can shrug off a push. Some guy pushes you, you know how to handle it, you can walk away. He's gonna probably call you a wimp or something like that, but who cares? Take the high road, don't let it escalate. Remember: FIGHTS ESCALATE. Most people aren't out looking for a fight. If they get physical, they are probably just trying to intimidate you. Heck some of them might not even want to fight, they just want to look like they do, strutting around and all that. Someone shoves you, or grabs you and tries to pull you over somewhere.... is that just cause to shoot? Don't you wish you can end the situation ASAP? There are plenty of ways to do that, just a simple twist of the wrist, proper body movement, and you can dissolves, NULLIFY a fight before it escalates. There are HUNDREDS of scenarios that occur every day in the real world that can be solved simply by having trained martial arts for their PHYSICAL application. To say you don't need martial arts for physical use anymore because we have guns now.... is stupid. Sorry, no offense. I'm not saying an individual is stupid... just that notion is stupid.

I too was raised in a Christian community, Catholic school, and here's my take on this stuff: 1) people are taught that if something has not been explicitly given the 'ok' to do, then it's NOT 'ok' to do. Furthermore, if it's not something that has been explicitly talked about from the Bible/Church, then it doesn't come from the Bible/Church, therefore it must be satanic 2) people are taught that they cannot trust their own thoughts or their own emotions. If you have your own thought/emotion, be wary of trusting it, as humans are sinful and are prone to sin, so following that thought/emotion will probably lead you to sin. Even if it "feels" right, humans are so sinful that they can do totally sinful things all the time and "feel" totally great.... even while committing mortal sins. Especially if that thought/feeling tells you to do something against the Church, or even if it tells you to do something that hasn't been talked about from the Church (back to #1), then it's definitely sinful and probably directly from Satan!!!!!!! Those two things pretty much sum up why it's not only wrong, but sinful and (more often than not) SATANIC, to do things beyond what the Church has told you to do (let alone AGAINST what the Church has told you to do). It also pretty much tells you that if you think independently, you are wrong... that's why I always look at things like this with a um..... well I don't jump to conclusions. When you have someone saying, "I am right and you are evil because I say so, or my community says so, according to how we say the world works" then um.... yeah, I'm wary of trusting that person and their judgment

I think one important thing to note about Frantzis' old school videos is the level of.... um.... commitment/skill of the tai chi people of the time. Most of them were kinda New Age like and all into "harmonizing with the universe, send chi to your opponent in push hands" and all that. Then Frantzis comes along and he's like, "these meditation and qi gong skills can be used in fighting!" and they're all like, "groovy", then Frantzis comes and slams a palm into them and they're like, "man you're wacking out on the universe maaaaaaaan" or something like that. They aren't professional fighters, or even full contact hobbyists, so naturally they're not gonna have the structure/strength/other attributes in the demos. Now, from what I understand Frantzis' teacher, Liu Heng Chieh, traveled to the mountains to study taoism, and what he learned in the mountains was some circle walking meditation. Liu thought that those circle walking methods he learned in the mountains could very well be the same (or at least very similar to), what Dong Haichuan learned himself, which as we all know serves as the basis for the style of bagua. The other interesting thing about bagua is that Dong taught all his students differently according to their skills. He didn't really teach them techniques as much as he taught principles, and then each individual person made those principles evident according to their skills. Yin Fu, for example, made those principles evident within what he already knew (luohanquan and some other stuff I think). Cheng was already skilled at wrestling, so those same principles manifested themselves through wrestling. Of course some lineages say that their head spent more time with Dong, or that their person helped Dong create some techniques, yadda yadda.... but the fact remains that Dong really only taught people who had already proven themselves in some way shape or form, it was just a matter of how those people employed what Dong taught them which made up the styles. So yeah, maybe some thoughts on why/how Frantzis' bagua looks a bit different, or contains (or does not contain) some other things... at least from my limited perspective

I got the book just a little while ago and I'm working my way through it now. I've only just made it to the breathing through the back of the lungs part, and I'm working on the standing posture now.... when lying down on my back, or sitting in a chair, I can breathe fairly well through all parts of the belly and the lungs, but when I stand I have a hard time feeling the expanding and contracting.... I know this doesn't really answer your question, but if you're further ahead, could you share any insights? As far as working stuff out with a teacher.... I'd heed any warnings he gives. Not everyone likes Frantzis, but most people agree that he's fairly high level anyway, and he's trained with some of the top teachers (even if.... uh.... his body doesn't show the signs you'd expect of a top level teacher), so if he's telling you to be careful of a practice, you should probably do it. He has two books out on other taoist water meditation methods anyway, so I'm sure there's more out there for you to check out without worrying about messing up your brain Though in the end I'd say be honest with yourself, especially if you don't have access to a teacher. That's one of the reasons why most people say don't learn from a book, I think, because most people AREN'T honest with themselves.... and that's a pretty valid assertion. You've got to be aware that you are your own worst enemy and.... get over that. If you can appraise yourself as honestly as you can, you may realize you don't want to go on with that particular technique.... or maybe you do. So, that's really the only thing I can say.... till I get to the part that you're talking about

"Some people talk of breathing but I tell you that if you control your breathing then it will never become real ( natural ) when you eat it is the same breathing. You do not have to remember to stop breathing to drink from a cup. Breath is the life force of the body I have heard some people refer to it as the power of their technique if so I am very pleased for them ! If they ever have to fight for three hours it would be nice to see them controlling how they use the air. Too much air will blur the eyes and mind so take care." -Toshitsugu Takamatsu on breathing Just throwing some thoughts out there.

Well drew.... I'm glad that you could provide an answer giving that you were... uh.... in the middle of something....