Sloppy Zhang

Yeah, I do recall that, but I didn't want you to think you were screwed Many times problems are often caused, or exacerbated, by the surrounding areas. For instance, if you've got blockages in your neck or face, it could affect how your head is feeling. Eye strain can also cause headaches. I've heard some people say that some practices over stimulate the third eye- which could feed into the center of the head. That's why I also suggested that you ease off the practice for a little while, just do some physical exercises. "Get out of your head." Because if you try to do another practice, it would do the same thing. Dissolve down, dissolve around the area. I wouldn't risk going into the brain unless you've spent a long time (6 months?) trying to resolve it in other manners.

Sounds a bit like semantics, because if you are following Wu Wei, well, you are doing to go somewhere. Chi follows Yi. Or I guess if you don't believe in chi, action follows intent But it'd be rather... what's the word... "anthropomorphic"? To say that a force of nature, like, say, a hurricane, has an "intent". A hurricane follows the "wu wei" of nature. And sometimes that nature has a fixin' to wreck your house. I dunno. To me it seems like you'd still have intent. But your intent would be aligned with the universe, so to speak. Would that result in a net intent of zero? But I'm being rather broad with my concept of "intent" here.

Well see the thing about police forces, military groups, and things like that, is that if they care for their lives (and most of them do) and their jobs (which most do), they tend to train their arts in a more "traditional" manner: They get out on the floor, and try to beat the crap out of each other, choke each other out, or get them in a lock that it's incredibly easy to "accidentally" break something if the other guy struggles too hard (and since most guys are going at this 110%, it's pretty easy to do). Which means that not only can they do the technique, but they can do it well, repeatedly, and on someone who is not only trained, but wants to hurt them. If more martial arts trained like they had during the days in which they became popular, we wouldn't have so many watered down arts. The problem is that lots of people train for health and wellness, and many teachers teach to that. Which is GREAT. Physical fitness is awesome. But if you teach TKD for aerobics, don't go around saying you can use it for self defense. You can teach Karate and say "historically it was used to fight samurai", and everyone will ooh and aah, but don't start spilling all this crap about gun and knife defense that, for the most part, is a great way to get your students killed! All I'm asking, all I've ever asked out of anyone, is that they do what they say they can do. And not a lot of martial artists out there can do that. What's worse, many of them LIE about what they can do. Quite blatantly, despite a constant stream of evidence to the contrary! And yeah, there are guys in China on the Lei Tai and in Sanshou doing some pretty good stuff with some traditional styles of Kung Fu. Which brings me to an interesting theory of mine...... (history to follow, stop reading if you dare) In China, challenge matches were often held on Lei Tai. Yang Luchan (Yang style Tai Chi) got up on a Lei Tai and threw people off. Other Tai Chi masters did the same. In some instances, not ever hurting their opponent (so it developed a gentle, yet effective reputation). But that's in contrast to the western "ring". You can't throw people out of it. In fact, in the UFC, it's actually ILLEGAL to throw your opponent out of the ring. The thing is that Tai Chi developed some very good neutralization and repelling techniques. They don't always harm, but they can throw. It was suited to their environment. But a modern Tai Chi master on their lever couldn't enter the UFC and do that. They'd have to stick with Lei Tai. Now Yang Banhou, he'd be fine in the UFC, as he had a reputation of just kicking the crap out of people anyway But both of those guys trained rather rigorously. I was actually surprised, because they were the first two I ever read about who trained Tai Chi, and I remember thinking "how did the work up a sweat training Tai Chi?" I think most people these days would think the same, but they aren't as willing as I am to look at the evidence and learn the history

Certain styles teach certain behaviors that are more conducive to success that others. That is just a fact. It's like this- there are certainly rich and success people from the U.S. And there are certainly rich and success people from third world countries. Now how many people, if they had a choice between America and Uganda, or America and Mexico, would go to Uganda or Mexico over the United States if they wanted to become rich? All else being equal, I'd strongly bet that they would choose America. Similarly with martial arts. Sure, an athletic, intelligent person with good instincts can make something work, and be better than only moderately good practitioners from other styles. Does it mean that their style is just the same as others? I think not. I haven't been around for that long a while, but for the time that I have been here, a lot of it has been spent doing martial arts, and I've even had a few fights in my time (on and off "the streets"). And here is my opinion: this whole "all arts are equal, it's about how hard you train" is just some bullshit that a bunch of martial arts teachers started saying to avoid 1) getting into an argument about which style was better, because inevitably someone would ask for proof, and 2) none of those people ever wanted to actually prove their style was better. And fyi, your average Tae Kwon Do is worse than your average Wing Chun. At least the Wing Chun guy can go right in which a TKD guy is doing some ridiculous unnecessary crap. TKD is a style that relies far more on what the individual can do than it relies on actually teaching its students how to fight. And when YOU have to make up that difference, that, to me, is a bad style. Sorry mates. You can't comment about fights that don't happen. You CAN comment about fights that HAVE happened. A fair amount of the Gracie Family Challenges are on youtube. Type in "gracie challeng" and you get some good hits. You see guys trying to hit them in the back, try to control the head. And in a matter of seconds, most of the wind up pretty vulnerable. Everyone likes to say "will if you take someone down, their friends will attack you". Well, what if your opponent and his friends know how to take YOU down and keep you there? I'd like to know how to fight down there and get up while still maintaining control, thank you very much. Futhermore, you can look up "BJJ vs *insert word of the day*" and you'll see BJJ come out on top. Now admittedly, some of them must be screened out- for instance, a guy who's done BJJ for four years vs a guy who's done Wing Chun for four months. But, interestingly, if you reverse the scenario, and have a guy who's done BJJ for four years, they beat not only most Wing Chun people, but most TMAists who've done it for far longer. Why? Superior techniques, and superior METHOD. How's that? Full contact, 100% uncooperative training to make sure you can actually pull the technique off against someone who wants to choke you out or (for something like a mixed style) wants to punch your face in. UFC isn't a yard stick. Steve said "in the ring" and I asked him what ring that is. I then thought of a notable ring example that showed a pretty poor example. I didn't say, nor do I think, that the UFC is the only measure for success. 1) I can recognize the gaps in what I was doing, as well as what the senior students were doing 2) I've been into martial arts for quite some time (since I was about 8 with my TKD- I'm 21 now), so have a fair amount of first hand experience as to what generally works, and what can be made to work (yes, some things can be made to work, and while you can make Wing Chun work, most of what you will need to use to make Wing Chun will involve not doing Wing Chun- so why even bother in the first place? 3) I do a lot of research in my free time (it's a hobby, what can I say?) and I haven't turned up much evidence, even anecdotal stories about stuff that happened in "the streets", that lend much credibility to Wing Chun or even Aikido outside of some very specific circumstances. Nope. Just some that can actually win fights reliably. The thing about famous fighters is that they tend to do just that. Not only win, but do so repeatedly and consistently. And not against schmucks- but against fit, angry, trained people who want to smash all of their teeth into their skull. Tell me there's an Aikidoka who can float gently and neutralize a guy like Brock Lesnar enough times to reliably rule out the possibility of a fluke, and I'll say that that Aikidoka is pretty good. Find me 5 aikidoka who can do that, and I'll say that they have all trained really well. Find me 10, and I'll wonder if they're from the same school. Find me 20, and I'll start to consider that Aikido has some good training. Find me 50, and damn son, we're going to take that Aikido over to the MMA gym and start training up for some amateur fights. You know how many successes BJJ needed to become hugely popular, AND trained by the U.S. military? UFC 1. Everyone was like "how the hell can a scrawny guy choke out these behemoths? Gracie JJ? Sign me the fuck up." Emin Bosztepe? You mean this guy (ignore the commentator, he's stupid). One of the two "masters" flailing helplessly about on the ground? After showing such a stellar lack of adequate ground game against on off guard opponent, Emin should be glad they decided to save HIS reputation by not fighting him. He would have gotten destroyed. And for all the skill Emin had, his opponent didn't seem like he actually got hurt at all, sooooooooo...... I call Bullshido on him. You know the best way to get the internet to hate you? Go on to Bullshido and say Wing Chun is effective. Scratch that, they won't hate you, just laugh at you. There is just not much evidence to show it working. And if you start hating on Bullshido, consider this: they like Tai Chi. Whaaaaaaat? That's right, because there are plenty of Sanshou tournaments that show people clearly using Tai Chi techniques effectively. It ain't too hard to win over the guys on Bullshido. It ain't hard to win over fans of MMA. It ain't hard to win over the military (okay, it's probably a little hard to win them over). And it ain't hard to win over skeptics like me. How do you do it? Do what you say you can do. Not only do most people (including in the martial arts biz) NOT do that, but they routinely demonstrate the OPPOSITE- they are helpless and start flailing about as soon as someone is determined to hurt them.

Indeed it does! Many an actions has been committed by a group that any individual member of the group would never have considered! It's actually rather scary to think of things like groupthink. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it!" - Agent K

Well on the one hand, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." But then again, "it's the thought that counts." Though it's a case by case basis, I tend to go with the latter. And I would make a distinction about the intent of the Nazis or other extremists groups. Their "good intent" only goes so far as their own social circle, and is usually at the expense of others. So I would say their "good intentions" are rather limited. Just because someone SAYS they have good intentions, doesn't always mean they really do.

Ah, well if dissolving right off the bat is too hard, start out with just some dantien meditation. It's basically the same as most zen type meditations, where you breathe down to your belly. As you do so, try to relax everything, top to bottom, as much as you can, but don't try to dissolve anything, per se.

Knowing GIH, I'd say it's a critique of extremism. As to the overarching theme, I took an INCREDIBLY interesting class on the development of astronomy from the middle ages to the present. It was taught by a physics professor who found the subject interesting, and wanted to reach out to non-astronomy majors. The class was very much steeped in history and a critique not only of the scientific process, but on the development of that very method. Development of scientific theories have always been subject to the culture, passions, and prejudices of the times. Even today, some research is given more leeway to progress than others. Certain institutions are given funding for the types of research that their sponsors think are going to be worthwhile. Statistics are presented or ignored based on what argument they are supporting. Popular research gets more funding, even if it's not showing anything new, and new theories have to work harder even if they are showing interesting statistics. For instance, some may remember that records taken of cooling temperatures of the polar regions were suppressed because they contradicted the supposed "global warming". Another story, it was Kepler who come up with the theory that the planets orbited the sun in an elliptical orbit. Prior to that, it was always assumed that the planets orbited in circles, because, duh, circles are perfect! Kepler had years worth of data charts taken by the most advanced telescopes that had been built at the time. There were only a handful of planetary orbits which did not match the model created by the circular orbits. Rather than disregard that data, he created a model that explained ALL of the data, come up with the elliptical model, and lo and behold, that not only accounted for ALL the data, it also accurately predicted the positions of the planets in the future, and would go on to be confirmed by direct observation. So the lessons to be taken away are that while the scientific method may be highly refined and precise, people are not. In ALL periods of time, "fierce debate" is, more often than not, held within the bounds of commonly accepted social bounds. True challenges are rigorous, unforgiving, and uncomfortable. People don't LIKE to have their base assumptions questioned. In that sense, it's very like cultivation. We like to think we are self critical, until a question gets asked that is too close to an issue- then we back off. So we might like to think that we are open to new ideas in the scientific realm. But how many universities and top research institutions are doing research into energy healing? How many research institutions are actually comparing the rates of energetic healing success to the rates of drugs on the market? And how many of those researchers think they "already know what the answer is" so don't even bother to do any research? How many of them had a professor in med school who told them a funny anecdote about acupuncture or reiki working, but would never seriously consider it as a viable alternative to modern medicine, and so hey, prof says so, so why bother?

Nope. And even then, he departed from the style of Wing Chun. In fact, he didn't even complete the training all the way! You could claim he took away the philosophy of "efficiency", but in his heyday, did he even really do Wing Chun? In his later days, he was studying grappling and ground fighting, he was willing to move in a direction even many martial artists today will not. And even then, what fights was it verified that he participated in and won? Mean triad controlled streets of Hong Kong that sped his arrival to the states? A fight in China town against a master that no one is really clear on what happened? Bruce Lee is as much an argument for why NOT to study Wing Chun as he is to study it.

From what I've read, all of those are a little bit right. So what are you going to do about it?

I'm sorry, but I must ask: in what rings are you referring to? Wing Chun doesn't have a very good track record in "the ring". The vid has been removed due to copyrights from youtube, but there was a rather brutal video showing an early UFC fight between a guy who practiced Wing Chun and some other guy. The guy came in for a takedown, and you could actually see the Wing Chun guy chain punching to the other guy's back (legal in those days). It didn't do him much good, as he got the snot beat out of him rather brutally. While the average Wing Chun school is admirable in terms of upping the heart rate, building stamina, and some strength in the arms, for training in practical combat usage it comes up short in more than just Chin Na, unless when you said "and the like", you meant multiple ranges, grappling, and ground fighting. There is this rhetoric floating around that since "going to the ground" in a "street fight" is a "death sentence" (because your attacker has a gang of friends, there is broken glass on the ground, and an HIV infected syringe pointed right at you), many schools just say "we train in avoiding going to the ground." But they seem to ignore the fact that for years, the best fighters who can successfully avoid going to the ground are also the best ground fighters! Because a fighter used to fighting on the ground understands the different dynamics, they are better at either getting up, or avoiding it altogether. As for aikido, while some branches have tried to up the intensity with regards to combat training (like the Tomiki Aikido branch), it's fallen into the same trap that many karate styles have fallen- in attempting to work within certain rules, they've created gaps and strategies that only work within those rules, and come up with techniques that are further away from practical combat effectiveness than what people accuse MMA of being. People like to say that all arts are equal, just train. And I'm sorry, but I just can't find myself agreeing with that. Some arts have a better method, they have a better training process, and they have better systems of checking your progress in as close to a real manner as they can realistically, safely, and legally do. I don't want to derail this thread too much. But if you are hoping to train in any martial art for anything more than strictly health and physical discipline (as in, practical combat effectiveness), look elsewhere. A high level judoka knows more about aikido than someone who's practiced aikido exclusively for their entire life. Why? Because the judoka has tested their technique in very adverse conditions, and, if they are really high level, have experientially learned to enter into the space that an aikidoka hopes to enter, the space where techniques flow without resistance. Look at Anderson "the spider" Silva fight. He is very graceful, relaxed, flowing, and powerful. He's spent years fighting. You can't take him down. If you do, it's because he wants to be there. He doesn't use any extraneous movements. It's just... he probably knows more about Aikido than most Aikidoka. Aikido was discovered and created by a very experienced martial artist. You can't get to that level unless you actually fight. And most martial artists in most of these styles don't actually fight. Anyway, end rant. I'm sorry, I just don't want to to get it into your head that you're learning mega awesome martial techniques, and then, in the best case scenario, get your butt handed to you in a friendly sparring session with someone from another style, or, at worse, get your ass hospitalized in a fight that you thought you could handle because of your training. If you're just training for health and recreation, do whatever tickles your fancy. Just... don't think it is what it isn't. Because most aren't.

Well aside from a couple of near legendary practitioners (whose tall tales of martial success are hard to believe), neither of those arts have a very good track record for producing good fighters, or realistic self defense training. But that's just me being a martial arts snob In terms of just physical exercise, the Wing Chun I trained in (just a couple of months before I had to move) was pretty intense in terms of workouts and high intensity movement. A fair amount of physical conditioning, bag work, strike training, and things like that. A friend of mine trains aikido, and while I haven't seen any of his practices, from what he's told me it sounds like it's a lot more about flexibility. Smooth movement, rolling, and stuff like that. Could be intense, could be less intense. I've seen more fat aikido practitioners than Wing Chun practitioners. But if course it all comes down to how each school trains, the branch of it, and things like that. Some things in theory don't transfer to the mat, which don't transfer to real altercations. If you're looking for exercise, I guess it would depend on what you want.

I always recommend the book "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" by B.K. Frantzis. It's really great at teaching dissolving, and basically how to avoid situations like this. A real quick point (which is VERY expanded in the book)- try dissolving DOWNWARD, letting things go in your head, then your neck, then chest, abdomen, groin, legs, and stuff like that, rather than building up. Another suggestion (not from the book), is to put aside your practice, do some exercise, get out, move your body. Drink plenty of water. Breathe deep. The good stuff.

Well first of all- you need professional help. You are deep down a very dark hole, and as long as you are on the internet, where you can skim and skip posts that don's support your warped view, you will never truly get another perspective. You need to be in a room with another person with no other outs to confront your thoughts and look at them seriously. Because you've made it clear that you are unwilling (unWILLING, NOT unABLE) to do it on your own. And more specifically in response to the quoted segment, I seem to recall someone (most likely vortex, but if not, sorry for forgetting you) posting a study done in which they've found what what women were attracted changed depending on a variety of factors, while for men, they were attracted more universally to a certain "type". So you may be using your male wired brain (and you say you're more yin!) to project on what you think women are thinking assuming they, like men, have a universal standard for attractiveness, which has already been shown to you to be untrue. Furthermore, and this is a grim realization that 90% of the male population is just going to have to come to terms with: we (and this includes myself) will most likely NEVER be able to physically satisfy a woman in sex to the fullest extent that she is physically able to go. Not big enough, not enough stamina, too long a refractory period when compared to the average female. But there is more to sex (healthy sex, anyway) than just getting to the physical orgasm. Sexual satisfaction is also very much tied to the emotions behind the sex, and the relationship (I read this in Men's Health ). I've read articles where women, when they were single, would use various toys to get over the edge, but when they tried to bring in toys to the bedroom, the men would freak out, because they started to get all of these inadequacy issues. But for the woman, it was just about an orgasm. It didn't mean she thought the man was unworthy, it didn't mean she wanted another man, she loved her man, but the toys were just there for fun. So, yeah, there are lots of issues on both sides. But in a healthy relationship that includes sex, and Non, you've made it clear that you aren't looking just to fuck someone (which again makes me wonder why all of your arguments seem devoid of the human emotion and connection), it's more than just physical attractiveness or physical ability. You may have approached some babe in high school who was just looking to fuck, and she might have colored all of your perceptions, and since you quit after that one failure, and never tried again, you haven't known any different since her. But really, not every woman is like that, just like not every man is looking for the dumb blond with the huge tits.

Well it's interesting, the notion that we "give power" to someone, so that they may wield it over the populace. I know that as for as our ideologically perfect democratic system goes, sure, we grant people the power to make decisions. But, again as far as the perfect ideology goes, those people do not have "power", per se, they are SERVANTS of the people who elected them. Perhaps we should begin using the word "public servant" more often. But not just politicians- cops and soldiers can fall under the category of public servants. I'm not sure if the perfect ideologies ever existed, even in the founding of, say, the United States. But I think that people should remember that politicians should be loyal to the PEOPLE. Not a political party. Cops and soldiers are there to protect the PEOPLE. The President directs the nation in service to the PEOPLE. Of course, somewhere along the line, "people" became defined as people with ridiculously large amounts of money. Anyway, sorry for that pseudo rant. But I thought that your comment was interesting. Why do we have to give power away? Sure, we give up certain things (like our freedom to rape raid, pillage, and plunder our weasley black guts out) in order to live in society. But that is OUR choice. We our exercising our power to live peacefully. Since when do we have to give it away for someone else to make our decisions? No, we elect people so THEY can enact OUR designs.

Hmm, great question! I've been thinking about this a lot recently as well. Recently I've been reflecting on what I think to be "good" or "bad", and I find that I check a lot of my behavior based on how other people will react, social conventions, and things like that. I'm not thinking about things like murder or theft (like a pirate, yaaarg). But things like you know, flipping someone off if they piss you off. Dumping chicks you really just don't care about. Tell people you don't like that you really don't want to hang out with them because you really just don't like them. Telling jokes and not giving a flying fuck about whether or not someone gets offended. Many times I'm afraid of what people will think of me. Or of them trying to get revenge on me (the law doesn't look favorably on offing people because you don't want them to get back at you later on down the line ). Or telling everybody they meet that I'm a jerk, even though it's really just THEM that I act coldly towards. Or people getting offended and harassing me over something or another joke that I said. The thing that gets me is that I'm powerless. I'm at the mercy of other people. I have to live with society. I have to check what I say, or else everyone will put poor old sloppy zhang on the "do not date list". Or they'll throw animal blood on me in the morning as I walk out the door because I told my baby seal joke ("So a baby seal walks into a club.") People will get their friends together and jump me if I flip them off (even if they did something to me first, like, say, cutting in line at the grocery store!). So I wonder what I would do if I were king of the world. No rules but my own. Are there any inherently meritorious actions? Or is virtue dictated by convenience of society. I don't really know. I'd imagine it would be very un-fun to live amongst pirates, always wondering who is going to try and cut your throat in your sleep. As much as you can do what you want, so can others. Unless you had the power to absolutely guarantee that people keep their hands off of you, it won't be a cakewalk.

I've said this many a time: Thread drift does not equate to a decline in the quality of conversation that goes on in a thread. Just because you skip to page 13 and we aren't talking about exactly what was on page 1, doesn't mean there is not valuable things in between. Plus, the OP is on a bit of hiatus. Kinda hard to discuss a topic when half a topic's proponents are away. Perhaps you are one of the few, the proud, the now-in-a-point-in-life-where-posting-on-forums-is-not-the-best-use-of-your-time. I recall that one year I heard a motivational speaker, and thought he was SOOOO good. I told all my friends about him. The next year he visited again, and I went to see him. UGH. Complete and utter garbage! Nonsense! I don't know what it was. I like to chalk it up to personal experience and growth. But he just didn't do anything for me anymore. Doesn't mean he's a bad guy, or unhelpful to others. Just, not for me. I don't consider myself a TTB "old timer" by a long shot (I'm not ever that old, for starters ) but I've seen my fair share of masturbation threads, tantra threads, kunlun threads, hot-to-trot-master-sensei debunking threads. They come and go. It's cyclical. For a long time, I just didn't post at all. Then posted a bit. Then didn't post at all. Sometimes there is really, really, REALLY good stuff on here. Sometimes..... uh, where do I press to stop the jing from escaping during orgasm?

I've always found this type of comment to be rather interesting. Very often, I have seen it come from the same emotional space that many others deride- yet it is cloaked in civil niceties, and strategically places the ball on the other person's court. "I know you like to insult, you can do it if you want, but I am not, and I think you should try to match me, if you can't, that's okay, it's just something I can do and you cannot, oh but you are free to try, and if you fail, you'll just prove me right. Now the gauntlet has been thrown- if you rebel, you prove me right that you're immature. If you rise to my challenge, you are doing what I want you to do. Either way, I win, hahahaha." Maybe I'm just projecting. And not saying that you are doing that right now, Steve. It's just that I've always found it odd how people who try to clear the air can let slip things like this (consciously or not) which invariably are seen as challenges, and only serve to prod the other person further. Hmm, I dunno. Sometimes if somebody is acting like a dick, there are only so many ways that you can circuitously comment on their posts hinting at their phallic like behavior. Interestingly enough, the very elongated objects who we hope will recognize how unwelcome their protrusions into the innocence of our forum are, are very often the most oblivious to their own behavior. So maybe a little slap and a comment of "stop being a dick" not only cuts right to the point, but can be effective. But if you put enough qualifiers on something, anything can be true Similar to the first segment, perhaps? Challenges and demeaning comments cloaked in social nicety? To deny the expletives and insults is to deny our very humanity! Perchance. My own background with insults is that I was raised in a very sheltered environment. When I got into the "outside world" people would call me things and I had no idea what they were. I'd go home and look them up, and be like "why would someone even want to say that?" or "that doesn't even make any sense" or "and how would that even both me?" A bit intellectual perhaps. But then you go into the reasons for why someone would insult. Intellectualism leading into emotions a bit. Sympathy for the devil. And then back to intellectualism. So, I dunno, after that, insults were never a big deal for me. Overarching forum rules and moderation policy is a whole other can of worms, and I don't like those. I thought I'd throw in my opinions regarding the overarching themes, though. I think a Daoist Sage would take the low road "Leave me in the mud", as it were.

With this framework, I would say that the "getting rid of the ego" isn't getting rid of the "ego" as it has been defined in your OP. It would be getting rid of EVERYTHING. Get rid of the ridiculous impossible ideologies of the super ego. Get rid of the ridiculous impossible drives of the id. And get rid of the ridiculous, desperate rationalizations of the ego. I don't think any serious practitioner of any serious tradition would, using Freudian terminology, advocate the shedding of the ego to allow the super ego and the id to rip each other apart. And I highly doubt that the enlightened beings of this era, the eras past, or the eras yet to come, would be spiritually inflated, either riding their highs from an overbearing super ego, or caving into the excesses of the id. And I doubt even more that doctors would have anything to say other than "that person is the most mentally and physically sound individual I have ever seen." But I suppose that's just another impossible, middle-road pedestal that my super ego has created which I will never achieve, while my id is desperately trying to get some pussy, and my ego is drawing the line at tantra. Oh, Freud, if only you were around today to see the impact of your work. Would you pat yourself on the back? Or rofl? Hmmmmm.......

There are certainly types of Qigong which are meant to build the muscles along with the power of qi. Styles that are part internal and part external have these. I'm thinking of styles like Bajiquan and Hung Gar. Stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPUXIRpv2h0 This thread has some more links to some other stuff. I'm sure there are a lot of other types out there that also build strength and qi at the same time. As an aside, if this is about you working out without losing your flexibility, might I suggest you investigate workouts, maybe talk to some personal trainers, ask on this forum or others, about exercises that push your flexibility while building strength? Because I think that it'd give you more info and better help to do that, rather than seek out an archaic and most likely incomplete chi exercise training. That's all I wanted to say about that. If that's not what this is about, my bad.

That's actually the case with a lot of dating sites. I think it was one of those studies that vortex linked to, but basically- guys always have to look hard for sex, women usually always have somebody trying to get in their pants (it may not always be the somebody that she wants, but it's a someone, simple because she's a woman). Women usually have a lot of incentives to join dating sites, because there's always a shortage of them, and men gotta jump through a lot of hoops just to barely get some.

Non, it bothers me about the way you gravitate to certain words and phrases. "Allow", "given permission", "permitted", "forbidden", etc etc. You are treating it like women are guarding some sort of fortress, and you've got to say all the right passwords and get in. It's just.... I dunno, in my experience, it's just not like that. To quote many a philosophy, "be like water". Water doesn't hold a grudge against the rock in its way. It just goes around. It doesn't hold a grudge against the solid rock face- it keeps on growing until it finds a crack, then it gets in, little by little, going neither too fast nor too slow. It's an organic process. Don't assume anything one way or the other (that she'll accept or reject you). As the song goes, girls just want to have fun. So be fun. Don't be a downer. I remember when freeform made that post in which he created a scenario in which a resentful, borderline man-hating woman approached you with the same attitudes about men as you have about women, and then asked if you would want to be with that person. I don't remember your response to that, but I do remember it was a spot on post. Otis also made a great post recently: Just for your consideration. Non, I really think you need to open up to SOMEBODY about your specific past experiences. Because your posts like this are always oddly.... specific. "How can I help it if I approach a woman in a Hardee's and I've just gotten off of work so I'm still wearing my uniform and it looks like she's about to got to the club and she's lookin'n fine and maybe she was in one of my classes last semester and I just go up and say hi and her friend says that her ex looks better than I do and then the girl says 'eyes up here', and I was obviously looking down because I was standing and she's in a booth, and her friend says 'let's get away from the creepy stalker' and I'm like, sad...... I mean, hypothetically." So Non, anything you want to tell us?

So how often do you DO the practice? Because it sounds like you've done it once or twice, but then figured you "got it", and it's "just like everything else" so you kind of dropped off because you "got it". Knowing it and doing it are very different! As do special methods to relax, I suggest "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body". It actually teaches you how to relax because, well, most people really don't know. A lot of people think they know what relaxation is, until they find a method to actually relax. Then they realize they weren't so relaxed!

Well there are lots of different types of qigong out there. B.K. Frantzis has a couple of "horror stories" out there, about people who got hurt doing powerful qigong. Most of the problems, however, stem from the fact that the person practiced away from a teacher, or sometimes they did not know the origin of a practice. Frantzis tells of a method that he was told was a "secret" tai chi technique. He got powerful vibrations, and strong martial abilities, but it started driving him nuts too. Turns out it was a technique someone picked up from Shaolin, and he wasn't the first, nor the last, to experiencing these effects. If you can, talk to your teacher about whit method and where it came from. Some methods were created during times of war- they were created to get strong, fast, NOW. Health meant surviving. They weren't meant to make you "healthy" per se, they were meant to make you strong enough to fight off whoever wanted to kill you. Also tell your teacher that you WANT to practice more often, and you want something that will nurture you. By the by, who is your teacher, and what are you learning? If you can say. Finally, some personality types mesh better with certain techniques than others. Taomeow has mentioned a few times about the elemental balances of a person. For instance, if you are low on water and wood, but already good on fire, a fire practice will burn up the woord and evaporate what little water you've already got! So a person's balance must be taken into consideration. I would like to say that your teacher knew all of this and took it into account. I would also like to say that your teacher is fully initiated into what they are teaching, and can accurately trace its origin. But I know that is not always the case with teachers, and since I don't know yours, I can't say for certain. I don't mean to cast any doubt on your teacher, but, well, I don't know your teacher, and I think everyone should be skeptical until the teacher can really earn your trust. And finally, the 70% rule is also a must. Even for a practice that can be practiced for 20, 40 minutes, 1, 2, 3, or more hours, it is ALWAYS based on what your body and system can handle. People who practice that long have built up to that point. They didn't start out with that. There are a lot of really heavy duty cultivators here, so don't judge yourself based on them or their system. Do what you got to do, and do nothing more or less.

Pics or it didn't happen