sean

Were there tears, GrandTrinity? I sense tears there for me.

LOL!

Well, looks like we all made it! So Happy spring, everyone! In the "Winter Shifts" thread. I just got back from acupuncture. My acupuncturist did some amazing work to transition me into spring (I am sensitive to and often have difficulty with transitions). Between the spring coming, the warmer weather and taking tribulus the past few days, I've noticed a lot of warm energy in my upper body and head, but not so much in my LTT, legs and feet ... leading to a sense of ungroundedness and some pent up frustration. She used a needle pattern to balance my Kidney and Lungs, which just profoundly opened up my whole conception vessel, down to my perineum, into my legs and feet. I feel like a new man! It's like she accelerated what would have taken me another month to come into. Damn, acupuncture is so amazing and so complementary to cultivation I really highly recommend it. Sean

Great to have you here Buddy. Welcome. Sean

It's GV 11 on the Governing Vessel

Neimad, I'm sorry if I'm coming off sarcastic or harsh. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just being blunt and also trying to be a little funny but it's probably coming off wrong. I have to admit, I do think it's a little annoying when it looks like you are basically reading ad copy for CST products and then regurgitating it here before you've even had real experience with it. But I think you're cool man, and I care more about you than trying to prove a point, so if I'm hurting your feelings I apologize. Also ... am not trying to bag on CST really, I just don't agree with it to 155% cult-watch level ... which is apparently a prerequisite for being part of that club. But I do have a pass to go to one of these CST cert seminars and so I will be going to one within the next year or so and training with Scott ... I have learned a lot from his work, he seems like a unique dude. So, if live, fully resistant sparring were present as the last hour of every Akido training, then you would try this move out and after it didn't work at all 150 times, you would go to your teacher and ask him to show you what you are doing wrong. Then you try it out again in live, fully resistant sparring and it still doesn't work so you either trust your teacher if he tells you that you need to practice it for 5 years before it will work (and you could watch if this was true in his live sparring. does he ever pull off this move?) ... or you just scrap it. Bad technique. Doesn't really work live. It's simple. There are bad techniques, there are good techniques and there are everything in between. It's not, resistant "flow" sparring = good, all techniques = bad because I had bad experiences with Akido techniques being lame and I read an ad for a Sonnon DVD. There is an art and a science to everything IMO. You are contradicting yourself strangely by explaining this detailed scientific methodology for exploring the mechanics of the body, joint rotations, chains of tension, etc. ... but then somehow labelling and teaching a commonly successful mechanical sequence a technique oppresses all the creativity out of this purely improvisational art you are exploring. EVERYBODY knows that the lame reaction based techniques Scott is dissing where it's like "here comes a punch coming straight for me, what's step 2?" are lame. The BJJ community has been making fun of this shit online for 10 years. But this doesn't justify calling all techniques oppressive to flow. Unless you are trying to position yourself in a market uniquely that is. To run with your lingistic analogy, I think these detailed mechanics you are describing are more akin to grammar, whereas techniques are like words and sentences. The irony is that children don't learn a language by studying grammar and alphabets and then trying to improvise words and sentences. Children learn a language by being exposed to full, complete, functional sentences from which an internal grammar is derived in practice. Then later, after they have been practicing successfully for 10 years, they learn a grammar which then informs and further evolves their use of language. Sean

You can't just "get out of your own way" and spontaneously design a new type of nuclear-powered jet engine. You were not "conditioned out of" any inherent knowledge of how jet engines work that is preventing you from doing this if only you could just "unbind your fear" you'd be bangin' out blueprints without reading any of those annoying books full of restrictive formulas or listening to stuffy old teachers with all their oppressive rules. You have to study *gasp* OMG techniques from, get this, lineaged sifus of mathematics and jet propulsion theory before you can even hope to unleash your intrinsic genius within the structure of this form. This is so obvious I don't know why anyone thinks there are magically different rules with martial arts, or meditation or painting. Sean

There is an old saying "Learn the rules before you break them". I basically agree with everything you are saying. But there is a really common sense sequence. Something like ... you 1) learn a structure, typically one that has been passed down by people older and smarter then you, and then you 2) try it out, drill it, practice it (often the hard boring part that everyone yawns about and wants to figure out how to skip) and then you 3) use it, apply it, tweak it, integrate it, make it personal ... then, if you are really good, you 4) completely break the rule in an innovate way, effectively transcending it. It doesn't have to be quite this linear, but it's a decent, practical map. IMO way way way way way too many people try to skip 1-3 and break all the rules right away. Especially hippies. We have to work within form, especially at first. Imagine if you someone tried to learn math by just "jamming out with numbers dude", it's a ridiculous idea. Unless we are a natural Einstein, most of us have to memorize boring rules before we can improvise and not just make asses of ourselves. The technique vs. flow distinction just isn't valid. Both should be a part of any training and both can be judged in terms of their effectiveness for what is trying to be accomplished. Sean

Man, you are just buying CST whole hog ... and before even applying the ideas you are only reading about. I see a lot of semantics but no substantial distinction. Getting a triangle choke submission from guard is a technique. It has mechanics, and it's a technique. It can be broken down into components, step by step. And most importantly it works. If you drill it 1000 times and keep trying to pull it off against a live, fully resisting partner. Perhaps you will figure out a guard to triangle choke by yourself after a million hours of rolling around on the grass doing "flow fighting", just like you might stumble upon and perfect chiaroscuro if you pick up a paintbrush and fling paint on a canvas for a zillion years and are a genius. But we have teachers and techniques for a reason. They embody the wisdom of millions of combined hours of experimentation and insights ... and we then get to apply this right off the bat ... in turn building off their wisdom with our own efforts and spontaneous discoveries. Sean

Hmmm... This is really a form vs. emptiness debate. I think except for in extremely rare instances of intrinsic talent, it's rare that technique (form) isn't needed. Rolling around spontaneously with your friends in the grass all day (emtpiness/flow), you might stumble across some things (which you hopefully remember afterward), but I think there is just no question that you are going to be a better fighter if you learn the techniques and then train with them live. IMO technique is only a dirty word when it's disconnected from live sparring ... and this is pretty common sense to most professional fighters from what I see. Like, there is a lot of technique to boxing ... people do not learn boxing by just getting in a ring every day and just "getting in the flow" and wildly punching at each other. They learn an applicable technique, they drill it, then they try it out in the battlefield. A similar thing with any art really. Some of the worst worst art I ever see is from people who think there are no techniques in art, that no teacher or rules are needed and all you need is a canvas, some paint and to get out of your own way. Yeah. Sean

I voted "ouch" ... I have some issues with this point (GV 11) that I discovered by exploring repetitive soreness post BJJ training that I kept experiencing most intensely at GV 14 (C7). Through meditation and explorations like Cardio-Muscular Release I identified GV 11 as the real source of my recurring C7 pain. Intuitively I believe it can be a hiding place for sadness (at least this is what I think is happening in my case), but traditionally I think issues here are identified with anxiety, insomnia, poor memory, confusion. Sean

Heh... yes, that is the link turbo put in above. I just got his DVD's actually and am thinking of going down and taking a two day intensive with him in September. Do you have experience with Paulie's stuff?

Oh man, ok, I'm sold right there.

Hahh... well that's what I am loving best about my life at the moment. Yeah, absolutely. I can picture you running something like an integral trauma center, where you can lecture to the public, help people one on one therapeutically and also train self defense skills ... all of this would obviously include a lot of writing as well, ie: preparing training materials, even writing books, etc. You know, this is really my deepest dream I think. Like one of those, if you could snap your fingers and be whatever you want kind of things ... I think I'd be a cutting edge film director. Cam, for you, I see you getting into socially conscious business, investing and philanthropy. And by socially conscious I don't even mean necessarily in an obvious way ... like "organic produce" or something. I mean just remaining conscious of how your business ventures fit in with your highest values and what you are trying to bring into the world with your business skills. I mean, now you are bringing art into the world. That is an amazing thing. And just staying connected with principles like that. I like what Tami Simon of Sounds True says about how money can't be the object, but it can't be ignored. It's the oxygen of a company, it's how it breathes and lives so that it can fulfill it's purpose of (hopefully) bringing particular values into the world. Sean

Wow, that guy is prolific, just checked out his books on amazon. You've recommended him before and I bumped into one of his books at the store the other day. I will have to check him out. He reminds me of Scott Nearing for some reason ... Sean

Did you pay for the full results? I found it worth it. The Kolbe index is a little more esoteric and I think it costs $50 for any results. It has less to do with the content of your career interests, ie: science, art, etc. and more to do with what your job is like in those fields ... like, how you prefer working, to deadlines, or on your own ... do you like to make decisions, or be told what to do, etc. Here are my results from the first one: Health Service - 96 Writing - 95 Art - 91 Outdoors - 89 Science - 82 Where does this strange combination leave me? Fuck if I know. [edit]Oh, here were the fields it suggested: Performing Arts - 98 Art - 95 Medical and Health Care - 94 Social Services - 92 Funeral Services - 92 Renewable Resource Technology - 91 Architectural Technology, Drafting and Design - 89 Science and Engineering - 86 Communication Arts - 85 Library Science - 85 Agriculture and Animal Science - 81 Sean

I don't know shit about martial arts really except for having taken BJJ the last several months, and I think the thing about BJJ is that every class we do full resistance sparring where me and a partner are really truly trying to do whatever we can to submit the other person while avoiding submission and without resorting to strikes and a few common sense illegal moves (although we do MMA training with strikes some days). I think it was out of this practice that most of the techniques of BJJ were discovered and refined, and so the techniques portion of the class ends up being intimately relevant to the full resistance sparring from day one ... because I am always thinking to myself, "how will I apply this technique in an hour when I am trying to choke out Joe". I quickly see how moves apply, what works and doesn't work, and how to refine my own game in as close to a real situation as is capable of being simulated without significantly greater risk of injury. My understanding is that in many other martial arts, it's rare to have such a consistent, live, full-resistance testing ground to refine what does and doesn't work. Then in BJJ, even this is only the foundation ... if you want to get more serious you would start competing, where your opponent doesn't know you and there are 500 people watching, and you both get adrenaline dumps and both of you are a lot more willing to hurt each other more to win because you're not buddies and you aren't going to eat lunch together after class. And then of course from there, you add the other layer of complexity with going MMA and allowing strikes, etc. Did that answer your questions somehow? Sean

I got some useful info from http://www.livecareer.com/ and also http://www.kolbe.com Sean

"My parents fucked here" is actually a Bill Hicks quote in which he is making fun of patriotism. Pretty hilarious comedian, but yeah, crass. I never said the economy was going to collapse. Honestly I don't really talk or even think politics much anymore. History is one of my poorest subjects, and so I end up only being able to take philosophical positions on discussion topics. Nowadays I skim the news here and there, read a political philosopher on occassion, the idea of second tier libertarianism appeals to me, but my opinions about America are mostly aesthetic, as strange as that may sound. The visual and even emotional texture of this country just disturbs me and always has since I was a kid. Much of American architecture, the way towns and suburbs are laid out, the cookie cutter mindset behind almost everything that completely devalues art and feeling and the environment, even down to our color pallette ... gaudy saturated primary colors, even our freakin' flag is ugly, I'm sorry. God, it makes me shudder when I see Americans walking around in their flip flops, gut hanging out of a "World's Best Dad" shirt and an American flag hat. This probably sounds shallow, but I'm just trying to explain that, while I am often embarrassed of American politics, I do think it's a democratically evolved country with economic opportunities for people, hence so many people coming here. I just don't feel at home here. And yeah, maybe it's a bit of a copout to want to leave, but not really ... I respect people that like it here and think it's great if you want to stay and do your work here. There is work to be done everywhere. The passions of delusion are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them all at once. I read somewhere about Papaji, a modern Indian sage, saying that Americans who take up a spiritual search are often more spiritually ready than people in countries like India, because people in these countries haven't witnessed the "man behind the curtain" of the images of celebrity, glamour, fortune and flatland capitalism they are exposed to ... seekers in America are close enough to the realities behind these images to see that they are illusions and that there is no happiness in them ... but from afar it looks like a paradise on Earth has been born. This is how I see much of the "coming to America" ... they don't realize that it's mostly false advertisement. Sean

Web Design. I like it. It's the lazy man's way to showcasing your artwork.

Hahah... Awesome! That is so true.

Bay Area is mostly Green (as in "Green Meme" on Spiral Dynamics) ... which is about as good as you are going to get in terms of the basic values of a whole community anywhere in the world really ... outside of maybe a few really progressive spiritual communities hanging out in yellow I imagine. But Green has it's own annoying quirks too, it's not paradise. Via Green: A Transvaluation of Values I disagree, Green. Sean

My parents fucked here. That's about how much sentimentality I have for this country outside of the people that I know and love that live here. On the whole I find America gaudy, crass, fundamentalist, narcissistic ... psychopathic even. Outside of the Bay Area 9 out 10 people I meet are either blue or orange, which is fine, it's just not where I'm at and it gets old. I've spent time in almost every state in the US and prefer almost anywhere in Europe ... once I get enough passive income going I'll probably leave unless Yoda and I's David Koresh-style compound happens before then.

Funny coincidence, I just had a conversation with Lozen about how much I hate Walmart yesterday.

According to the test I'm badly ungrounded as well. I'm taking it as a sign to do standing chi kung every day. I think I might get into a form while I'm at it ... maybe 4D Meridian Chi Kung, or Shamanic Tiger Qigong that GrandTrinity keeps raving about.