Maddie

Yea I like Cung Lee, but he does not really satify my desire for a Traditional practicioner of Kung Fu to fight in the cage because the Sanda which he uses (although cool) as a more modern invention of the PRC, and it more resembles kick boxing than traditional Kung Fu. I like Machida a lot, he brought some respect back for Karate since he uses Shotokan in the cage. But yea I agree with the papper tiger assesment, as when I was at the University most of the Kung Fu people I knew there were not impressive at all. They were more of the Dungeons and Drangons type, and reminded me of Kip, Napoleons Dynamite's brother "Napoleon we both know I'm training to be a cage fighter". Which is why I chose to train with an a** hole MMA guy, rather than with the "RexQwonDo" guys.

I certainly hope it works this way. I notice my cats love to hang out with me when I do Qigong. Now this is just my opinion, but since modern pets have to eat the same manufactured sort of crap food that we eat, I'm sure it makes their chi less healthy than animals in the wild, so perhaps thats why the cats like it. As far as my wife goes I have noticed that I tend to pick up on her emotions and then they become my problem internally as well, BUT when I use Qigong to deal with the problem then often it seems that not only I feel better but she does too. So yea I hope that my Qigong practice can benefit her as well just by proxy.

I like this guy... Master Wong, he teaches amongst other things combat Tai Chi, very cool and he gives his take on MMA vs CMA , its good answers but kind of funny too :-P

ha ha ha ha ha snort ha ha ha ha :-D

Isn't saying that physical motions have not affect on your chi, like saying the physical motion of a generator has no effect on electromagnetic fields? lol

I just moved to Washington state from Fairbanks Alaska. Now of course everyone in Washington is impatient, grumpy, ect.. cause the greater Seattle area is a huge metropolitan area. But what suprised me was right before I left Fairbanks I noticed the EXACT SAME THING you just mentioned and was like wtf??? Previously Fairbanks had been much more laid back, and small town-sih. But the last several months I was there people seemed so angry, and impatient just like in a big city, except it wasn't one, and I have no idea why.

Here is the article. ______________________________________________________ "Yoga Yes, Yoga No" -- Physical Asanas Are Not Enough Because You Need to Accomplish Chi Stage Kung-Fu and Higher After trying to get them interested for years, my friends are all of a sudden "Hot on Yoga." Great! Fantastic! Is yoga good for you? Yes, absolutely. Should you practice it? Yes, of course -- simple stretching, and particularly yogic stretching is great for keeping in shape, exercising, and eliminating back pain. In fact it's been proven to help eliminate back pain! Can it help you get the Tao? Well, now we have a problem. I have never seen or heard of anyone getting the Tao because of yoga. From yoga with breath practices and meditation, or from meditation and yoga, but not just from yoga alone. Not just from physical stretching. You see, the physical part of yoga has to do just with the physical body. It is a type of spiritual practice only when you combine it with meditation but without that meditative component, it's just stretching, like Pilates. In fact, I even think it's better than Tai chi, often called yoga in motion, because if you have restrictions in your muscles or movements, you're always going to do the forms of Tai chi or other martial arts incorrectly, yet with yoga done properly you'll open up those restrictions and get rid of them. With martial arts, if the muscles are too tight you can just keep repeating the same mistake over and over again.To me, yoga is superior than many martial arts unless your limbs are already open and limber. I've seen many yoga and yogic breathing instructors over the years and you know what -- no chi! That's right, I've seen 20-year olds from India and people who have practiced yoga extensively for 30 or even 40 years and if they didn't meditate then they had no cultivation chi whatsoever, no matter how much yoga they practiced. In fact, I met one man who spent nearly two celibate years in a special Indian monastery where they only teach advanced yogic pranayama breathing practices and at the end of that period he could do all sorts of breathing practices, and move his chest muscles in all sorts of amazing ways, but he had some of the dirtiest chi we had ever seen. Same with Indian yoga instructors who don't meditate! Yoga is not going to clear you of dirty chi. You see, there's nothing wrong with yoga, but don't think it's enough if you want to spiritually cultivate. And don't read my message here incorrectly. If you want spiritual progress, then no matter how you look at it it comes down to meditation practice. The requirement for spiritual progress is, first and foremost, meditation. The same goes for pranayama breathing exercises and even qi-gong. They're useless without the practice of freeing yourself of thoughts, which is meditation. That's the only way you learn to let go of the artificial things that stand in the way of the Godhead, and that's the only way you make spiritual progress. Sure yoga makes you softer and more limber and maybe even calmer, but without cultivating samadhi so what? Don't call it spiritual progress. Now don't take this the wrong way, mind you. Yoga is great, it's wonderful, but it isn't enough. That's the message. Even in China the martial arts teachers found out that their moving practice wasn't enough for reaching the Tao. They next had to go to breathing practices, then internal energy practices (chi cultivation), and then finally to mind practices. They always ended up spending all their time in meditation, but after they had laid their foundation with yogic practice. Yet don't use THAT as an excuse to practice for 5, 10 or even 30 years without ever getting started at meditation. Frankly, it all comes down to the mind. Well, what about bodywork? Bodywork is a way to get yoga stretching results in warp speed time. For instance, years ago one body worker friend of mine was visited by a famous Indian yoga master who practiced for several hours a day. He came to be Rolf ed (there are much better alternatives now) and when my friend said there was no reason to come because she felt there was nothing to do for him, he replied, "You don't understand, every session with deep bodywork is like doing a year of yoga practice, that's how effective it is." So yes you can get lots of the benefits of yoga through bodywork sessions, but even then, body workers tell me that the results of their efforts will disappear after 6-9 months if you don't keep the released areas open and stretched ... or unless you meditate. As one body worker said when he worked on my teacher, "Gosh, his tissues are as soft as cotton" and yet because of his martial arts training, he could also make his muscles as strong as steel at will. So we're back to yoga once again. Folks, take up yoga. It's wonderful. It's good for you, BUT IT'S NOT ENOUGH. As I said, every single yoga teacher and master I've ever seen had absolutely no chi -- just a flexible body. If you really want to tread the pathway to Tao and spiritual progress, do the yoga practice for your body, for your health, for your sanity but there's no way you can make progress without your everyday hourly meditation practice. Get to work! ______________________________________________________________________________________ The above article was the one from meditation expert that I referenced. He is not saying that yoga is not good for you, but he does seem to imply that its only for the physical body, and does nothing for chi (which only meditation works on). But I don't think I agree with his conclusion.

Wow I had never heard of him before, but very impressive. I'd like to see him in the Octogon :-). I think perhaps the reason I want a Kung Fu guy to step up is because before I left Alaska I took Karate from this jerk Karate/BJJ/MMA guy, who was also a Fundamentalist Christian, he didn't do anything with chi at all, even sort of thought it was satanic (ah fundimentalists :-), and he thought my suggestions that Taijichuan was a very practical martial art were ridiculous. It got worse when he won a couple cage fights, then his head got really big. But never the less I kept studying Qigong on my own on the side (trying to incoorperate it into karate), even though he would make fun of me for doing so. So needless to say that in our last sparing match together when I knocked him flat on his back with a thrust punch / side kick combo it was quite satisfying. Of course he got so pissed that he said I was banned from sparring for a month. So I took the liberty at that point to just train on my own and not return there.

Yes yes true, good point, but from what I have observed they seem to be more of an exception than a rule, especially when it comes to those who train in the United States.

Thats probably one of the best analysis of this topic I have ever read. I was hoping to get a more intelligent answer on this forum, and I do not seem to be disapointed. But it does make you wonder why CMA do not seem to train to the same intensity as MMA?

Sometimes when I do qigong my saliva gets more watery and abundant.

That sounds like the kind of stuff Hitler and his pals would make up

Here is my opinion of the conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine.

I can definately see how yoga would help full lotus, because I have been doing full lotus for almost two weeks now and its quite painful. Interestingly enough its easiest for me to do full lotus after karate, which of course involves a lot of stretching and movement of the hip and knee joints. Btw there is more to qigong than only standing meditation, lots of moving and streching as well ;-). But yea uniting body and spirit is definately what I am after, esepcially after so long coming from a tradition that separated them.

Interesting reply. Actually one of the things that I first found facinating about Qigong was that it was possible to acess the energetic through the physical, which was totally a new concept for me as in the past I was in a fundamentalist christian group that totally denied the body, and put all emphasis on mind/spirit ect..

Oh I wasn't responding to your post in particular, but I've heard that saying so often, and since I did a research paper on it I couldn't help myself lol :-P I've heard the stories about the Illuminati, but since by definition they are a secret society and do not display public documents or agendas then how can I confirm or deny if they are real or not lol.

Just speaking from a historical perspective, the German navy was not up to the task of invading the US. I know everyone says if we didn't stop Hitler we would all be speaking German, but if the German navy was not even up to the task of crossing the English channel to invade Britain then there is no way they could have crossed the entire Atlantic in numbers to launch and invasion, or even sustain one by supply if they did one. The reaons Rommel lost in North Africa is because he could not get supplied due to the problems of shipping across the Mediteranian. I did a research paper for an entire semester on what would have happened if we had not invaded Normandy. My conclusion was that the Germans would have still not won the war because the Soviet Union was kicking their butt all by themselves. Of course if we had not done Normandy the war would have lasted longer, and the Soviets would have taken greater losses, but the Soviets were clearly beating Germany before we landed on Normandy (not taking anything away from the Normandy landing, it greatly shortend the war, and lessened pressure on the Soviet Union a lot) But Germany never was in a position where invading the US was even remotely possible.

Well yea thats what I thought too lol, but what I was reading what he said I was like "um thats contrary to everything I've read from many masters". Maybe he is of that opinion because he is a Zen guy, and they seem to really emphasize the mind to the exclusion of the body. But then again thats why Bodidharma developed MOVEMENTS for the Shaloin monks when he came there, cause they all just meditated all day and were in poor health, and they were Chan/Zen too hmmmm. I've heard it said that the reason the monks of Shaloin do kung fu (aside from it being used traditionally to defend themselvces from bandits/ or for tourists today) is because its a sort of moving meditation.

LOL I don't get off that easy. We both just moved to Washington state and just both got jobs, thought I have not officially started mine yet, and she just started this week, but until then I sure get a lot of uninterrupted practice time :-). Yea I'm working on the compassion thing lol. ;-) PS: Just wondering what a good way to deal with difficult people is?

Hmmmm I had not thought of it that way before, I just thought they were annoying lol, but perhaps thats why I do so much Qigong (which they hate lol) because I tend to feel really crappy around them, and Qigong helps me to uncrapify (is that word?) lol. I mean I had sort of realized their energy was negative, but had not considered it in the way you mentioned it, but after you mentioned that, it does feel a lot like a psychic attack almost everytime I'm around them (they don't like me cause I'm not rich lol). Too bad my wife does not do Qigong, cause if she is only around me for a while, she is much better, but just a little dose of them makes her way more like them. hmmmm

She does have a job, but its not high paying lol. What she really wants is for me to get a high paying job so she does not have to work. To be honest I'd like this too, but alas it is not the case. I plan on trying to become a Naturopath, but that will take a while yet. And yes the relatives are very shallow/materialistic/judmental, but they don't watch the TV all that often, instead they love to sit around the table and gossip and judge everyone :-). They are they kind of people that think that if you are not rich then you are a moron, because "if we could do it why can't you" (they are immigrants btw) so why can't you stupid American succeed if we did when we came here with nothing blah blah blah.

My avatar is Lyoto Machida, I'm a big fan, and I also do Karate :-)

I suppose the issue is more of second hand stress about money from my wife. She comes from a very large family, and all of her siblings are wealthy. My wife is a very stressed person, and constantly worries about money or the lack there of. We visit her relatives in their large houses, who take vacations constantly, and since this is not the case for us, my wife tends to blame me for our condition, and so does her family. So I guess I get tired of the nagging about what a looser I am because I'm not rich like them. In addition I try to get my wife to do Qigong or some other practice to deal with stress better, but since her family are all super strict fundimentalist christians, they think that is evil and from the devil ect.. To be fair they seem to think most things are evil (except making lots of money lol). The ironic part is she won't do Qigong cause she thinks its evil and shes always stressing hard. I do qigong and face these things with a much more mellow attiutde than she or her family, go figure.

I know this wasn't the origianl topic, but it is somewhat related. I keep hearing about nocturnal emissions as a pretty common occurence, but I have only had one my entire life. Otherwise if I ever do have an "exciting" dream, it wakes me up.

Well I guess the meat of the matter is that I'm sick and tired of always being poor no matter what I do