Aksijaha

Very very cool BKA. I will definitely be hitting this conference up next year. Props!

So recently my teacher taught I and my gungfu brothers a tasty bit from our bagua style. It pretty much was the final piece of our xiantien bagua I had yet to learn (w00t!!). This "bit" was some neigung which is practiced while lying down. Very similar to ashtanga/hatha yoga's savasthana/shavasthana. I'm familiar with the practice of savasthana or the corpse posture from exposure to Chaos Magick/occultism (Liber Null/Peter Carroll) and from a semi-serious Mysore style Ashtanga Yoga practice (ongoing for maybe a year now). Also have done a fair bit of lucid dreaming type stuff. All these old interests suddenly seem very relevant to my PRIMARY LIFETIME OBSESSION (which is baguazhang.. of course.. just ask NAJA). Recumbent neigung (or any sort of spiritual cultivation) is not really my teachers specialty (he likes the fighty bits, just like I do). So it's time to explore what else may be relevant or connected in the Daoist corpus. Can the Bums with experience/reading in this area please recommend some good source texts and research directions For instance, next month I'm "doing baguazhang... while in a flotation tank" (I know.. mostly it's an excuse to go float LOL).

That is precisely the sort of thing I was looking for. Thanks for the tip and the clew! As long as I'm in the Wo/Lying posture breathing a certain way.. it IS Baguazhang. At least in the style I am part of. Those sorts of dreams are extremely awesome. I need more of those in my life.

Gerard, I am sorry I wasn't very clear. I'm a 15 year bagua guy. So information on circle walking.. while always welcome and of interest, is not something I would likely post asking for. My question was on reclining/horizontal neigung practices.. basically things done while stretched out on the ground. That article is very interesting.. the up down hand position you refer to is (in Gao/Guanghua Baguazhang) the signature posture of the 2nd Big Palm Change, 龙形穿手掌 lóng xíng chuān shǒu zhǎng dragon form piercing hands palm. Adding to this (since my primary interest/expertise is the martial/fighty side).. the posture you showed in the Tarot is also remarkably similar to the iconic image of the Archangel Michael, and is the chamber/ready posture for the #1 strike in most/many escrima/arnis/kali systems.. the strong-side shoulder to opposite hip cut.. or "Tatang de San Migeul" or "the strike of St. Michael".

Excellent excellent. Kudos to BKA and thank you to Dr. Johnson for sharing his time and knowledge.

Hello everyone, Usually I just reply to the odd thread (mostly when BKA points me at something). Generally I don't interject too much.. doesn't seem right most times. But tonight I decided I'd toss out something from the depths of the Gao that may be helpful.. maybe not.. I leave it to you to decide. You know how the "trinity" or "trio" principle is all throughout the Daoist studies, throughout Neijiaquan.. *especially* through Baguazhang (which is my thing incidentally). My first teacher said "good things come in threes".. he talked about three lines in a trigram and the trinity of Earth-Sun-Moon, or Earth-Human-Heaven. As years went by I always found the advice good.. but then I got ahold of some more detailed info courtesy of the Gao. Trinity principle is well and good.. but you can do more with it.. Enter Three Section Theory: 明三节 Ming San Jie. Ming San Jie means "make clear (understand and delineate clearly) the Three Sections". Specifically the root section, the middle section and the end section. Any time something is looked at carefully in the natural world.. this pattern tends to emerge. The root section creates the power/strength. The middle section controls/transforms/steers the power/strength. The end section expresses the power/strength. In the arms when doing Baguazhang for example.. the shoulder and back is the root section, the elbow is the middle section, and the hand is the end section. If this sort of thing is interesting or useful let me know and we can talk about it or other tidbits some more.

Marcus Brinkman is an excellent example of fine Gao bagua. The relevance of these fine clips of his too the Three Section theory is not super-obvious though. The last clip had some throwing applications. Let's talk about those.. One of the things about Three Section theory is... if you want to defeat something's ability.. attack and control their middle section. For instance.. my arm crosses my opponent's arm.. The middle section of my arm power is the elbow. The end section is too fast.. you have to attack something you can catch. The root section is very strong as a rule. The middle section is slow enough to catch, That's usually the elbow (though Marcus also used the knee to great effect). Note how when Marcus comes out in the throwing clip time and again he connects at the hand but immediately gets elbow angulation and control. This is pretty friggin superb tbh. The knee is another one.. control it.. the whole leg goes. Leg and body form handles to disrupt the other guy and step under and up into the place where he used to be. He flies away and goes boom. Marcus makes it look quite easy doesn't he.... LOL.

It's not a guarantee one will have passable baguazhang... but having sick crazy good single leg skills sure helps alot. I liked your karate clip. The person performing did things that looked more Chinese than Japanese at times.. which of course I really like.. since I love Chinese martial arts and dislike karate LOL. Personally I beleive in single-leg strength and balance enough that my present immediate fitness goal is the pistol.. or one-legged squat. Hoping to nail that before end of Fall. So much of internal power comes off that back leg (Ming San Jie.. Three Section Theory) so if it's hella strong and can turn and twist in the hip joint all by itself (while the other leg is doing something else).. it makes for alot of unexpected power.

Good. Single-weighted-ness will be very helpful in stabilizing the crazy and promoting good health and fitness in many aspects. Most people try to (circle) walk on two feet coordinating with absolutely no real deep empirical/body knowledge of how to stand, walk, reach, kick, and step out.. all on a single leg.

Nonsense woman. They prefer dubstep at high volumes.

Visavis mushrooms... Some harm reduction advice.. Some have suggested wild-gathering as preferable to cultivation. Identification of fungi in the wild is an art and it is possible to become easily confused.. especially if you are picking specimens from certain genera. It is FAR safer to grow one's own.. since spores purchased (for microscopy purposes only of course) are nearly certain to be the correct species. In the event that such spores should *happen* to be *somehow* be in an environment which caused them to produce fruiting bodies.. the species would then be certain. Wild-crafted mushrooms.. not nearly so certain. There is ample evidence to suggest psilocybes (true ones.. not related species which might in fact be baneful) are among the safest and least harmful of the true psychedelics one can use. If they are cultivated in a mindful cautious and generous mindstate they are an ally of great power. Experience suggests in this way they become most attuned to the aspirant, in a way many other psychedelics from a lab-dish or taken from the wild cannot. Out of consideration for the (sad sad sad) state of affairs legally I'll limit my (public) comments to this.. You can PM me for an email if you wish candor on the subject.. I don't want to trouble the board admins by pushing limits in a public post.

Well this is really a huge big can of worms. I think it all depends on the flavor and type of gungfu that is being lusted after. Which is not a very helpful answer. "How do I tell?" "It depends!".

AKSIJAHA. 4 syllables. each a consonant and a vowel. From Orion's Arm scifi setting.. Aksijaha is the Root Node of the Interstellar God-Web. I don't really have a row to how on this discussion per say.. I only met Naja *after* the TTB had done the ban. I'm a notorious troll from other fora, and I've only a handful of posts on this/your board. Basically I have no say in the matter, nor should I. I will just address the facts that BKA is talking about (concerning progress) by quoting a post I made in another thread yesterday. These are the facts "on the ground". What the board members/admins choose to do with them.. that's y'all's call. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted Yesterday, 03:43 PM Well.. we just finished BKA's SECOND visit to VancouverWA/PDX. A good time was had by all.. I would like to congratulate NAJA on perseverance, discipline and sincerity. Very well done. Everyone who knows Naja.. take a look at this.. and send some congrats out.. amazing the good that 3 months of bagua training can do. Footwork improving, mind steadied, less distractable, good understanding of the concept of hand-foot connection, the body shape is beginning to manifest, bridge structure acceptable and improving. Whipping power from the hip & stance shifting is good. Another 6 months (Heaven Willing) and if someone continues to practice daily... they are going to be a Holy Friggin Terror.

It's Novell Bell. Why get caught helping out a P.R. campaign or a media hype blitz. It's just another attempt at creating a public splash. Pass it by and let it die Training is more important than the P.R. maneuvers designed to manipulate you.

Totally normal IMO.

Well the very last sentance is correct. When you (specifically) start mixing up Native American methods with your Qi gong.. it's kinda a bummer and sends some people running and screaming the other direction. Does "world medicine" mean you get to take stuff/material from Amerind/FirstNations/Aboriginal traditions and mix it into TCM?

I still remember showing you that senior lady Cheng style video BKA. How time flies...

Gosh darn hippies!! Always trying to spread hippiness around!

BKA, Because of this.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding." "Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will: tend to overestimate their own level of skill; fail to recognize genuine skill in others; fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy; recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill." Sounds like they are 20+ year dojo vets don't it?

I give you full points for having a great screen-name Sloppy Zhang

sometimes you recommend people to a suitable source of information... but you KNOW they won't follow up, or if they do they will quit. People ALWAYS quit.... for some reason BaguaKicksAss refuses to quit walking the circle. I suspect she's going to be a very dangerous old lady when she's cranky and past her bedtime someday.

Hello all, This is an intro post, it's possibly a re-intro post. I've been onboard here since 2009 but I don't recall doing an intro post. Since I recently bumped BKA's thread on the Gao classes I figured I'd better be a good guy and intro here. I've got.. about 15 years of bagua, alot of other martial styles dabbled in. I do strictly ZheZhong Gao these days.. and have a spiritual practice which centers on circle walking and my personal heart-practice. I also run Emptyflower and was a real friggin asshole years ago. Just sayin.

That sounds like damn good advice man. My personal take is that I'm alot more likely to get a person to correct their flaws if I.. 1. Identify their flaw 2. Find a way in which I have the same flaw 3. Bring my own flaw to their attention and ask for advice on how best I can fix it. This is pretty sneaky but gets alot less grief from the party I'm critical of that just being like "Dude.. you suck.. in this way". Also.. fucked up thing is.. every time I do this.. I seem to keep realizing there is NO ONE who has a flaw I don't somehow partake of.. Try it.. it's kinda weird.

Just a quick intro post. I'm Aksijaha, and I do bagua and qigong. Also a bit of vipassana and am interested in silat.