Maddie

I added holding the ball at the middle dan tien to my practice today, will let you know how that is working for me in the days to come. ;-)

Thanks for the reply. You know its weird cause now that I am here I feel all sorts of gunk in my heart as in the "over excietment" of the heart which of course lies in the middle dan tien area. Not sure why exactely, but I'm sure it has to do with the change going on in some way. And this is not the proper "joy" of the heart, but its negative variant of being too excitied.

I find this advice interesting as I was thinking doing something with the middle dan tien now would be really good, is that why you recommend holding the ball there?

definately plausable, if feel rather "weird" lately lol

Yea it is nice. I went to a great Spurs game on saturday

thanks, now phase two begins, dealing with all the emotional issues

I suppose that is why I am interested in both Qigong and Martial arts. I have had a hard time explaining (even to myself) my draw to martial arts, but I know that its NOT because I want to be some bad ass tough guy (a lot of people I've known in martial arts do fit this category, and I find them extremely annoying). I instinctively feel in my gut that through martial arts there is some high virtue to be obtained. I had this same feeling about Qigong before I began it as well, and this has most definately turned out to be the case. You know I will say this about the previous posts. I wanted to join the Marine Corps, but my father said I should join the army instead. He had been in the Marine reserves during the Vietnam era and hated it, and so thus decided that I would too. Yet me and my father are nothing alike (fortunately). So I ended up going into the Army, and the whole time I was in the army I regretted not going into the Marines like I has wanted to (felt that one in my gut also lol). The army was alright, but they did not have the same discipline and "warrior spirit" that I saw in the marines. I had gone to the Marine Military Academey in high school so this is how I knew somewhat of the marines. Now I realize that a lot of people can see military guys, and especially marines as a bunch of jar heads, and there is some justification in this. But one thing people may not realize is that when you face death in the face, and when you contemplate what it means to possibly kill another human being, this can have quite an effect upon one's spiritual development. Granted there are those who do not learn the lesson, or miss it completely, but how is that different than anyone eles in soceity who misses the lessons that life tries to teach them? As far as concerns about the morality of the government sending one into battle. Tell me when has any government that sent troops into battle had pure and noble motives? But not to sound like a re-run of "Black Hawk Down" when your on the battlefield and people are trying to kill you, you don't care about politics, and such, you just care about staying alive and your buddies to your left and right. I'm not really sure why I got on this tangent, cause I think war sucks, and goverments are corrupt, but the point was on the individual warrior's own path. I've also learned through marital arts that one of the best ways to learn about another person and yourself is to fight them (not to sound like a Matrix re-run lol).

Michael Winn and Mantak Chia have both said that external finger locking is not good for you, and I agree. If you are going to self stimulate and stop ejaculation its better to do internal locking where you contract the perineum muscles internally. If your goal is simply to have more "dry" ejaculations this is the safer method to do so. As far as when to stop.... stop when you want/have to lol.

I was a history major, and we learned in school that before the advent of modern artificial lighting that people had what was called "first" and "second" sleep. Before artificial lighting people had the general tendancy to go to bed earlier, then to wake up either around of after midnight, then be up an hour or so, and then go back to bed for what was called second sleep. Then once modern lighting was invented this trend faded away.

Ok I promise I tried to search Tao Bums for a thread like this first, before starting yet again another topic. I have mentioned this here and there in other threads, but this is really starting to bother me. For the past two weeks I have been unbelieveably tired. This occurs with me every so often a few times a year, where I will suddenly get so tired that I can not really do anything. Now I realize that the reasons be becoming tired are vast and varied so this is not an easy thing to peg down so I will list what I have been doing lately. I am also curious to see if anyone else deal with seemingly random bouts of sever fatigue. I have actually not done a lot of Qigong practice the last week or two due to being so tired, but prior to that I had a daily practice of 8 Brocades, Inner Smile/Healing sounds, and MCO/Cold Draw. I had been making some real progress with the Cold Draw not too long before I got tired, and I had also been putting a lot of emphasis on the Heart and Lung inner smile and healing sound. I also began taking some homeopathic and flower essence remedies as well. My relationship with my wife is bad, but that is nothing new. Otherwise my sleep, work, and practice schedule and routine remained mostly constant. So here are some of my questions. Could it be the increaseed amount of inner smile/ healing sounds I had been doing? Perhaps the excess energy requirements of my body to detox and cleanse these organs was high. Is it somehow related to my new practice of doing daily Cold Draw, (I can't really see what the connection would be, but being tired started soon after). Could it be the homeopathic and flower essences? I have not been made tired from these before, but these also have the effect of helping your body heal itself. So maybe in a similar manner as the inner smile and healing sounds, perhaps they directed a great deal of my energy for healing and cleansing purposes? Other than this I am confused because not too much else in my life is different than before. Does anyone else experience sudden bouts of fatigue and tiredness such as this? As in coming on rather quickly and seemingly random. I have been so tired that the neighbors got annoyed cause my lawn began to get rather shaggy lol ( I did finally cut it). P.S. I should also add I have been taking ginger lately in order to strengthen my spleen due to the fact that the spleen is responsible for turning food into chi, and due to the fact that I have been pondering a lot about what to do about my bad marriage. Since the spleen is also responsible for thinking/worry. I should also add that my hunch/intuition tells me that what I am experiencing my be a result of the Cold Draw in an indirect way. I suspect that due to my longer retention time due to cold draw as opposed to big draw, that my energy level may have actually increased to the point that the healing process in my body kicked in and thus it may feel like I have less energy, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I now seem to be slowly coming out of this bout of fatigue that I have been experiencing lately. Now in retrospect, I realize that there were probably several factors involved (most of which I listed in previous posts on this thread), but I feel that one practice in particular had a lot to do with my fatigue. Not too long before I began feeling very tired, I had begun the Cold Draw. This helped me a lot with controling my passion, but I became extremely fatigued not long after making it a regular practice. Here is my theory as to what happened. I have for a long time (like most my life) I have tended to be "top heavy" energetically (my upper chakras being very developed, while my lower chakras were underdeveloped). http://www.kheper.net/topics/Taoism/microcosmic_orbit.html This link above lists many of the points on the Microcosmic Orbit, (which I believe are mini chakra's connected to their associated larger chakras). The first few lower chakras on this list, the perenium, tail bone, sacrum, are absolutely issues that have been problematic for me. Also my cold draw usually does not make it past these points mainly because it feels that these areas seem to suck up so much of the energy that I draw up. They feel like black holes in my MCO. It's my theory that my fatigue I had been experiencing was the result of two related issues occuring simultaneously. One was that doing the cold draw removed a large amount of energy from an area that was previously used to having lots of energy in it (i.e. the genitle area). Second is that these lower chakras that I mentioned on my MCO were so severly energy deficient that once my excess sexual energy was moved into them, that they totally consumed it in an effort to balance themselves, thus removing this energy from my system. Since the various layers of our energy bodies are multidimensional, I guess that what ever level that this energy was being drawn to was non accessable to my physical body any longer, thus resulting in my great fatigue. On the other hand the emotional/psychological issues associated with these points on the MCO have seen improvement during this time period as well. So I think I was experiencing the personal equivilant to a "brown out", as in when the power grid of a city is being drawn upon to an extent which exceeds its capasity, and thus the entire grid is power deficient.

Yea its so important to learn this stuff the right way from someone who knows what they are doing. Due to not having an instructor near me when I began I sort of had to be my own lab rat, and that was rough. :-/

Yes

Hey Singh Let me first of all say that you are going to get a LOT of advice that is going to be all over the place. Since all of us are unique individuals sort through the suggestions and decide what is the best fit for your particular needs and goals. Ok with that disclaimer, now my two cents lol... Basically doing almost any form of qigong is going to increase your chi to some degree, some more than others. But simply increasing chi is not always the first step, and may not be what is needed most. It is important to really get your channels nice and clear first, because if not, you will have all this chi, and it still won't be able to flow through your body like it needs to. As far as meditation goes, again there are a lot of different meditations. In my personal experience I could not really meditate when I began qigong. I did the physical movements for a good while first, and those got me to the point where I then could meditate. My personal goals are mainly emotional balance. My personal routine is the 8 brocades, inner smile/healing sounds, MCO/Cold Draw. These for now are proving to be effective for my goals. They say that a good way to build up chi is to do standing meditation. Hope that helps

I have noticed what I guess I'll call "stages" or "levels" of sexual energy, and its effects on me. This is only from my personal experience so far, but I have tried to categorize it. Level 0: This is when just about every ounce of sexual energy has been removed from the sexaul organs with the cold draw. At this level there is absolutely no interest in anything remotely sexual what so ever. Level 1: This is I have removed most sexual energy, but maybe it has been several hours since my cold draw and just a little bit has regenerated. At this point attraction is limited to astetic appreciation. I see a pretty lady and recognize that she indeed looks nice, but nothing much more is felt. Level 2: More time has passed since the cold draw. Now the astetic appreciation has increased to a little bit more. The astetic appreciation still remains, but there is a little more energy behind it. You dwell on it more, you become more curious, it get stuck in your mind more. Level 3: Now it may have been a day or two since the last cold draw. Now its no longer astetic appreciation, you think about who is hot or not. You really notice the details, and wonder what you can't see looks like as well. Level 4: Now you are no longer just wondering what you can't see looks like, but you'd really like to know first hand. Level 5: Now knowing first hand is about all you can think about. Level 6: Now you want it so bad that this is the primary issue occupying the forfront of your mind. Level 7: Now you are like an over stimulated lap dog that wants to dry hump every strangers leg. Level 8: Level 8 is classified, cause it gets really werid at this point, but I'll just say this is where, props and stuff get involved. So what is the point? The point is , is that I find it interesting as to how simply the amount of a certain type of energy can vastly affect one's thinking.

http://ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/qigong_DVD/8_simple_qigong_DVD

I have a question for Dawg and anyone else who has been at cultivation a while. Have you all experienced side effects during your cultivation progress? If so what have these side effects been like?

One of his main goals is to preserve Chinese arts and culture, so it makes sense that he would write about things he may have more of an academic understanding of, so that stuff gets translated, preserved, and shared. He encourages those who study his books to keep in mind that martials arts are indeed an art form and thus are evolving and not static. I really believe that a lot of what he may publish but not be too experienced in is so that someone else will be able to pick it up and run with it. He has shown a great concern for the loss of traditional elements of chinese culture in the last century, and that is one reason he is doing his retreat center project now.

Well he does have a Ph.D in engineering / science lol, but I think the reason I do like reading his stuff is because he is that way, I'm sort of that way too lol.

The Hun is also called the ethereal Soul Hun is related to ability to be resolute, to plan and have creative drive and assertiveness. When the Liver is out of balance in excess for instance, this becomes anger. I found this at http://www.sacredlotus.com/theory/zangfu/liver.cfm I guess I need to work more on my liver.

I agree, I have a difficult time separating the two sometimes...

Hey Dawg I had a question about something you had mentioned, and something I have been pondering. You said you don't get angry anymore, but isn't anger sometimes necesarry? I mean if someone is trying to do you wrong, then sometimes you sort of need to get angry. I have been pondering boundries, and dealing with difficult people the last few days, and have also been pondering what the best and not so best responses and reactions are. In TMC the organ that is said to generate anger is the liver. I would thank that if that is an emotion that we and most animals have, then there is a reason for it. We have fear as a self preservation thing. Would not anger thus serve a purpose. I ask because I feel that I have not, and probably do not really get as angry as I should a lot of the time, and due to this I feel that people take advantage of me. I sometimes wish that I could get more pissed off when people do me wrong and just go off on them so they would back off. So I'm not even sure if never getting angry is such a good thing. I know that staying angry, and/or getting angry inappropriately is not good, but never??

Yes I do. I consider him one of my main "teachers" lol. I do his version of the 8 Brocades almost every day. I also learned the MCO from his books too. I do have his White Crane Qigong book and DVD as well, and have done it many times, though I have not made it a regular routine of mine as of yet. I initially got it because I do Karate and it is a good practice to do for that. I always feel very good afterwards, and would definately recommend it. ;-)