zen-bear

Hello Aurelien, I like Tao Stillness's answer to your question. Every person who masters a yogic art like Flying Phoenix Chi Kung or Sunn Yee Gong is called to do something with his or her knowledge. There may be some avatar who comes along, as Tao Stillness (Steve) says, who is charged by Heaven to save the earth. But most masters of yogic arts, as far as I can "see", deal exclusively with people and are concerned primarily with healing human diseases and injuries, empowering work (kung fu), guiding people to their fullest potential, and furthering spiritual evolution of individuals. Exceedingly rare, of course, is the Christ-like avatar who can effect the spiritual evolution of the human race and thus change our species' impact on the physical earth. There's nothing wrong in dreaming of a perfect world. And yes, everything is energy, but believing that is not the same as naturally knowing that by means of direct yogic experience of the earth's energies. And even if one experientially knows that the earth is all-energy along with everything else in the Universe, one person with that understanding won't have much impact on saving the planet if one doesn't have the personal power to positively effect and rebalance the earth's energy. So to repeat what Tao Stillness noted: it would take a true avatar to feng shui the entire planet. (But, as an eternal optimist, I happen to operate on the experiential knowledge--not belief--that anything is possible through prayer except if one lies.) In terms of how we ordinary mortals might understand how to go about slowing down or reversing mankind's cyclical drive towards destroying itself and the earth's ecosystem --by first understanding what the fundamental problem is-- one might start with reading Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds In Collision" and/or "Mankind in Amnesia": http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Collision-Immanuel-Velikovsky/dp/1906833117/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391744898&sr=1-1&keywords=worlds+in+collision+velikovsky http://www.amazon.com/Mankind-Amnesia-Immanuel-Velikovsky/dp/1906833168 Sifu Terry www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Hi Sploosh, Welcome to the thread and sorry for the slow response...it's been a long and hectic week full of obstacles old and new to surmount. Thank you for your positive feedback and compliment on my support of the FPCK thread. Answer to your question about the seated MSW meditations: my teacher, GM Doo Wai, along with all his senior students who taught me at various times, did them all in half-lotus. I have done all of them in full lotus as well. My answer is that it's totally up to you. If full lotus feels more stable and comfortable, by all means, use full lotus. I don't think that full lotus is more beneficial or superior to half-lotus. If it were, I'm certain that GM Doo Wai would have made that known to me and my fellow students. Keep us informed of your progress with FP,. Best, Sifu Terry www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

23 min. to do the long form standing med of Vol.4. Nice, Charlie. Let me know when you're in LA again. Come train anytime. Best, Sifu Terry

Hi Aeron, Good to get verification from different practitioners that heartbeats are being heard! btw, I've been doing Monk Holding Peach since 1991, and to this day, that exercise still causes involuntary bending in the hips, and rapid rocking-bobbing of the torso forward and back. As I described of my students' practicing MHP back in the 90's, everyone who experiences this rocking forward and back looks as if they're praying before the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I offer the same advice to you as I did above to Pitisukha: Keep on practicing and note the time of day on those occasions that you hear the heartbeat when you practice. Then you might want to look up an acupuncture manual, such as Felix Mann's book and look at the circulation of the energy bolex through the meridians. Even though I've stated throughout this thread that FP Qigong is not functionally based in anyway on acupuncture or meridian theory, understanding meridian theory might explain the timing of when you hear your heartbeat and/or feel the function of other organs. Best, Sifu Terry

Hi Pitisuhka, Continue to practice Bending the Bows going through as deep a horse stance as you can manage. Your flexibility will increase and over time, you will become comfortable and frictionless in this movement pattern, which will also carry over to any martial art that you practice. Your hearing and feeling your heartbeat is normal phenomenon in FP training. FP Chi Kung as a matter of course sensitizes your entire body and makes normally involuntary, un-felt organ functions tangible, experienc-able. Feeling and hearing your heartbeat can also be a function of what time of day your practice. Look up an acupuncture timetable for when the bolex of energy travels through each orb of the body. Note the hours of the heart meridian and see if you are more sensitive to your heartbeat when you practice during those hours. Health hint: ancient Taoists and many masters have their students practice and do their heaviest work-out during the hours of the lung meridian. Besides one's heartbeat, do not fear the sound of thunder in your eardrums when you practice Qigong. Sifu Terry

Hi Leif, I'm glad you found the inspiration from practice to write a MSW-naming haiku. That's evidence of truly knowing the effects of a MSW meditation. Glad you appreciated my disclosures of my practice sessions over the last 2 weeks. As I said, I was compelled to do the full set of basic FP Meditations because I had just caught a cold from a friend a couple of Mondays ago and wanted to use my practice as an example to others for self-healing. Because I absolutely could not (and still cannot) afford to get sick and lose productivity, I instinctively felt most confident about knocking down the cold with the full set of FP Meds.--as opposed to just the Long Form Standing Meditation of Vol.4. All colds are toxemia, and if one catches their start early enough and counters it with the proper fluids, mega-doses of Vit.C, and the elimination of the intake of toxins, practice of the FP Meditations will definitely kick the toxic imbalance back towards allostasis. If one is very well-practiced in meditation in general and then does the FP Qigong, one can tangibly feel the FP Healing Energy restoring the balance to your blood chemistry (similar to how one tangibly feels energy activation of the scalp and one's hair becoming rejuvenated and returned to its natural color when one first does advanced seated Monk Serves Wine Meditations 80 70 50 30 and 70 50 20 10 [on Volume 7]). Yes, let's hope some English majors out there will come up with a nice haiku or two to celebrate some aspect of their physical rejuvenation. Best, Sifu Terry

Practicing Taoism leads one to understand that the principles of physics hold true on every level of the perceivable Universe. Thus studying the natural astrophysical phenomenon of a pulsar wind nebulla is relevant to the application of any authentic style of Chinese Qigong or internal martial art. Therefore, Taoist boxers and physicians, study this article as a basic lesson in Taoist metaphysics--to improve and perfect your ch'uan fa and energy healing: "We don't know if the hand shape is an optical illusion," Hongjun An, of McGill University in Montreal, said in a statement. "With NuSTAR, the hand looks more like a fist, which is giving us some clues." Hint: the new, first-of-its-kind image of a pulsar wind nebula is more appropriately called "God's 'fa-jing'": http://www.nbcnews.com/science/hand-god-spotted-nasa-space-telescope-2D11889092 Hint No. 2: --and the source of 'jing' is what event in the article--which corresponds to where in your human process?" Hint No. 3: --which means your palm or fist can be where? --in order for your own pulsar wind nebula to permeate the target subject? Hint No. 4: the answer to No.3 is learned in very advanced kung fu--for example, through training in Sifu Garry Hearfield's Tibetan Burning Palm system, a subsystem of GM Doo Wai's Bok Fu Pai Kung Fu. Good studying, Sifu Terry Dunn

Hello FP Practitioiners, Because I had to resort to doing all of the basic level FP Meditations to knock down a cold that was starting a week ago Monday, I continued to practice all of the basic level FP in addition to everything that I normally practice. I again confirmed for myself that the distinctive fluorescent sky-blue FP Healing Energy is produced only through the Basic Level of the FP Chi Kung, which is the material taught in my DVD series. This cultivation alone is sufficient to empower one's healing art to a super-normal level. In fact, and I verified this by checking my notes and a 1991 video tape of GM Doo Wai saying so: JUST ONE OF THE STANDING BASIC STANDING FP MEDITATIONS IS ENOUGH TO EMPOWER/IMBUE ONE WITH PROFOUND HEALING ABILITY--THAT MOST PEOPLE WOULD DESCRIBE AS "MIRACULOUS." And when coupled with practice of the rest of the system, GM Doo Wai said, "You will be able to do even more amazing things." (I shared this videotape footage with Sifu Hearfield very recently.) I forgot to post this on Jan.4-- it was my morning "wake-up" routine: 1. Tao Tan Pai 5 Dragons 2. Monk Serves Wine 70 50 20 10 (Vol.7) - 20 min. 3. Monk Serves Wine 60 70 40 10 (Vol.7) - 16 min. 4. Monk Holding Peach. 5. Wind through Treetops 6. Wind Above the Clouds 7. Standing Long Form Med. (Vol.4) two times. 8. Monk Gazing At Moon. 9-11. Moonbeam Splashing on Water (3x at various speeds) [steps 2 to 11 total time = 2 hrs. 10 minutes] 12-15. Four Advanced Flying Phoenix Standing Meditations. (30 min.) Keep the MSW-naming Haiku's coming! Happy New Year, Sifu Terry Dunn www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Nice name and nice haiku, Leif! "Child Entering the Shrine" -- very apropos for the first Monk Serves Wine meditation, too. -- and I like the "und" for he "and" in the first haiku line. btw, are you German? And it came right when I thought no one was going to start naming the MSW meds. Wonderful! Sifu Terry

Yesterday's FP Qigong training from 12:30 to 2:30 pm following TaoTan Pai neigung: 1. Tao Tan Pai Neigung 2. Moonbeam Splashes on Water (Vol.3) as slowly as possible 3. Long Form Standing Meditation (Vol.4) as slowly as possible 4. Moonbeam two more times (at different speeds that I will put on Youtube in future.) 5-12. Advanced FP Standing Meditation #1 through #9 6. Section No.3 of 8 Sections of Energy Combined or "BDG" (not published). 7. Section No.4 of BDG 8. Section No.8 of BDG 9. The 8-movement BDG Meditation at the end of Vol.5. 10. 60-part Yang Tai Chi Form by GM William C.C. Chen For the rest of the day and into the evening, i felt the FP Energy precede me everywhere I went by as much as 15 feet...causing many doors to be opened before me. Make a New Year's resolution: Practice as much of the entire basic level of the Flying Phoenix Chi Kung as you can on a daily basis. It will be worth it. Sifu Terry Dunn

LOL. But it's entirely possible to compose an entirely left-brain haiku...because anything's possible!

Correct, Steve. One of the many remarkable aspects of FP Chi Kung is that the breathing formulas at the start of each meditation followed by normal relaxed breathing will over a relatively short time dramatically deepen one's breathing--and physically expand one's lung capacity--in the measurable terms of what physicians and respiratory therapists call "tidal volume." Carry on. And Happy New Year! Sifu Terry

Hi Charlie, Happy New Year! Sorry to take so long to chime in with an answer to your request. There are no names that I know of for the advanced seated "Monk Serves Wine" Meditations on either Vol. 2 or Vol.7 of the Chi Kung For Health DVD series. When GM Doo Wai taught the MSW Meditations to me, he just went through more than 20 of them one after another without the breathing and then told me the breathing formulas on a separate day (expecting me to have practiced just the movements, which I did). I agree that this name-less situation is sub-optimal, as calling each MSW meditation by its breathing sequence is cumbersome. So, to resolve this pain-in-the-butt situation, I think that we should have a contest this year, where FP Practitioners suggest names for each of their favorite MSW meditations. Better yet, we can make it truly challenging and start a haiku chain, where any one of the 3 lines of the poem (5 , 7, and 5 syllables each line) can contain the suggested name of the particular MSW Meditation. I think this will certainly squeeze, knead, whip or pound the poetic and yogic genius out of all participants. And make y'all more alert to the specific effects of each of the MSW meditations. Hmm, the more I think about this remedy, the more I like it. If a poetry contest is good enough to bring a Hui Neng out of the kitchen and into the seat of the Chan patriarch, maybe a MSW poetry contest might bring forward the next avatar, Master of FP, or at least the next Richard Bach. For this endeavor, I will nominate myself and and a couple of my more advanced students--including Fu-doggy in Orlando--to judge the best names for the individual "Monk Serves Wine" exercises. What do you think? I think it's how I'm gonna roll this new year as a teacher. Let's get started: Fast means don't supper. Then you'll find Monk Serves Wine Three the "Waker Upper." OK. Bring it on, FP'ers. **Thanks for the post, Charlie. Now look what you've started!** Happy New Year to all, Sifu Terry

Hello FP Practitioners, This morning I confirmed that my sequence of FP Meditations described in my preceding post did thoroughly knock out the cold bug that I had picked up earlier in the day yesterday. This morning, after doing my daily wake-up ritual of the Tao Tan Pai neigung known as the 5 Dragons, I practiced this sequence of FP Meditations over the course of 1 hour 50 minutes: 1) 24-movement seated FP meditation (not on DVD series) 2) Advanced Monk Serves Wine Meditation 80 70 50 30 (vol.7) 3) Monk Holding Peach 4) Wind Above the Clouds 5) Wind Through Treetops 6) Adv. Monk Serves Wine Med 70 50 20 10 [**At this point of my practice, with the 3rd round of #6, I no longer felt any part of my body but only the Flying Phoenix energy coursing through a channel located where the spinal cord normally is. And it was only my willful moving of the FP energy that kept my energy body inside my physical body: with each over-rotation of each forearms at the end of the fourth movement of the exercise, i felt the usual sublime and blissful activation of certain lobes of the brain--that I won't describe here but let y'all discover for yourselves. If one experiences enough of this brain activation, one will be able to "see", feel and instantly know the yogic effects of any other Qigong or system of Yoga.] 7) Monk Gazing At Moon 8) Moon Beam Splashes on Water (Vol.3) 9) Advanced Standing FP Meditation No.1 (not published) 10) FP Long Form Standing Med. (Vol.4) 11) Advanced Standing FP Meditation No.2 (not published) I then went on to prepare for this New Year's Eve celebration feeling strong in my cells (and with a supreme confidence in my super-tuned immune system)...and blissfully confident and gratified that my Chi Kung was entirely supramundane from Step 6 onward. Happy New Year to all! Sifu Terry Dunn www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

It's that time of year again: cold and flu season. So today I visited my Tao Tan Pai school brother and friend of 35 years Hugh Morison at his home in central L.A. After hanging out for couple of hours of holiday chi chat--covering kung fu and qigong of course, I left realizing that I had just picked up the cold bug that Hugh had been complaining about that he had just caught from his wife Kathy. (Sniffles turning into slightly runny nose on right side. Energy shifted to a soggy slight-heaviness.) Well, after grumbling to myself for a minute, I hit the gas pedal and took myself to the supermarket in Santa Monica where I bought a carton of grapefruit juice and a new bottle of chewable Vitamin C. 1/3 of a carton of grapefruit juice and 2,499% of my daily requirement of Vit.C later, I was still having the sniffles. More grumbing to myself. So then I took myself to the park and practiced almost the entire Basic Level Flying Phoenix Qigong, i.e., everything on vols. 1 thru 4, for about 95 minutes. I felt the cold bug pretty much eradicated at the end of the Long Form STanding Med. (Step 6 below). No more sniffles. Head clear. Energy light and uniform throughout the body. But I decided to do Bending the Bows to make sure no residual parts of the cold bug were floating around in my personal ether. So I did BTB slowly. 18 times. Good thing I decided to be thorough. For the BTB meditation told me that my upper back, shoulders and neck were unusually tight because that tension was causing my entire torso to bounce up and down in a shaking pattern that I had never experienced before as I was lowering my palms down the front side of torso (and straightening my legs) during "Part A" of each two-part repetition. It was an interesting symptom of the cold I had caught. All the other FP Meds. that I did felt normal. But Bending the Bows imparted a unique experience by pinpointing the residual tension in the body that was symptomatic of the early stages of the cold. So I decided to let BTB take care of the tension that it had identified for me. So I round, after round, slower and slower, each repetition felt lighter and lighter, and I did a total of 18 at medium to very slow speed. By the 10th round, my sinuses were completely clear and dry and I was no longer doing the unique "shake." So this is my cold-remedying sequence for this year--NOT to say that this would work for anybody else...but it did work for me today. And I did 8 of the FP Standing meds because I'm in a phase of my life where I absolutely cannot afford to be sick: 1. Moonbeam Splashes on Water (Vol.3) 2. Monk Gazing At Moon (Vol.1) 3. Monk Holding Peach (Vol.1) 4. Wind Above the Clouds (Vol.1) 5. Wind Through Treetops (Vol.3) 6. Long Form Standing Med. (Vol.4) "Flying Phoenix Heavenly Healing Chi Meditation" 7. Bending the Bows (18 rounds!) 8. Monk Holding Pearl (standing). Any other TaoBums out there curing your colds with FPCK? Happy Holidays to all and Happy New Year minus one. **And a very public and hearty THANKS to Fu-dog, Lloyd McClelland, in Orlando Florida, who took it upon himself to start this thread way back in Nov. 2009. We are now officially into Year FIVE of the Flying Phoenix Chi Kung Thread. Best, Sifu Terry Dunn www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Hi Aurelien, You are demonstrating very, very good practice speed and good form for a beginner. Keep practicing at this speed and in this manner and you attain greater relaxation and frictionless movement. Without ever having to think about this dynamic, imagine it, or will it, if you just do the breathing formula properly and then do the movements at the speed that your using, everyone and anyone will surely and steadily attain the facility of: "the mind moves the Chi, and the Chi moves the body." Good practicing, Sifu Terry Dunn www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Hi Sihing Garry, Great Thread. And congrats on the release of your SYG DVD's, which I've known about when you announced their release. But believe it or not, I've been so pre-occupied with my business and legal battles that I just now today discovered this here SYG Thread. I'd like to chime in here to affirm and emphasize what most folks know already: that SYG is entirely compatible with FP Qigong as they are both subsystems under the Bok Fu Pai Family system of GM Doo Wai. And that both systems are vast, and that it's purely up to the individual in terms of how much time and energy and learning capacity he/she has and wants to devote to one or both of these great and profound systems. As for the post that I saw a few pages back that intended to offer an alternative DVD source for learning the SYG, and I guess to perhaps start a controversy over what DVD series to use as reference to learn SYG, it should be an absolute no-brainer for anyone with common sense as to what product to use: (1) the DVD set authored by the instructor who GM Doo Wai has publicly recommended people to seek out and follow (on his myspace video) and to whom GM Doo Wai SPECIFICALLY CHOSE to preserve this system--in the same manner that he chose me to preserve the Flying Phoenix Heavenly Healing Chi Meditation system. (2) the one made by the instructor who has practiced the SYG the most consistently as well as the longest, but with the richest background in the Bok Fu Pai system and major BFP subsystems before even starting it. (3) the one made by the instructor who makes himself available and constructively engages every person who asks about the nuts and bolts of SYG training--whether student, instructor in another system, or curiosity seeker. (4) and the most practical reason yet: the DVD product that's the most professionally produced and best organized in terms of delivering the most effective, systematized teaching of the SYG system. (5) And finally, the DVD product that obviously comes from the heart-mind of the named inheritor of most of the Bok Fu Pai tradition (and btw, much more so than myself, although I have 3 big subsystems of BFP that I preserve) and the heart of a generous instructor with sterling character who provides a clean channel for learning the complete art. Also addressed to the SYG readership: Sifu Garry and I have talked at great length and exchanged notes over a long time about how best to teach the advanced and even intermediate levels of the respective systems that we preserve (--FP, BDG, and 10,000 Buddhas Meditation System for me; SYG, Burning Palm, Omei BM, and more for Sifu Garry). And we are on the exact same page with the same font in that our intent in putting out our respective DVD series is to bring to the world a powerful and elegant healing and spiritual regimen, and teach the basic levels of the art to attract and develop serious students who then, as a matter of course, will complete their training with us in the traditional manner of Chinese martial culture--through private apprenticeship and one-on-one instruction--and eventually become instructors themselves. That is the most effective means that these cultural treasures can be preserved. Similar to how Sifu Garry has produced his DVD set and release dates, I am planning to release a version of the Advanced FP Qigong. But the new DVD will not teach the breathing methods because the Advanced FP Meditations cross a threshold into the realm of "spiritual martial art" (san da). Thus serious students of FP will have to complete their training in the system in person. The same is so true in SYG, as seen in Sifu Garry's nice demonstration of the Level 1 Stage 4 Meditation on page 3. One cannot learn the internal principles of this form and understand what's going on internally (mentally and energetically)--just from a video (unless one is, of course a highly cultivated genius in Chinese martial and yogic art) But as I've posted on the FP Chi Kung thread, there is only so much that one can publish in a book or a DVD series to teach a profound art like SYG or FP. Corrections have to be continually made--especially with beginners with little or no Chinese martial arts background. There may be that one prodigy that comes along who can see SYG on video, study it, and eventually grok the system. It would be the same likelihood as a Li Dong Feng finding Chen Tuan's manuals on Liu He Ba Fa on Huashan 300 years after Chen Tuan's passing, and being able to re-activate that art without a teacher. But the chances of that happening with SYG or FP--even with the advantages of modern video-- are infinitessimal. So Sifu Garry, like me, is putting out the instructional DVD's to get students started on learning the basics of the system and to get them on the path to ultimately becoming teachers. And if they have the "ren" for it, they will get the knowledge that completes their training years down the road in person through oral teachings, the explanation of symbols, and other modes that align their SYG practice with the Tao. So I would refrain from being the least bit critical of how Sifu Hearfield has designed his instruction of the SYG system on DVD. You are all most fortunate just to have the information available as provided by him. Glad I finally discovered this thread, Sihing! Happy New Year to you and all your students. Sifu Terry Dunn www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Hi Rene, Thank you very much for your kind words and your endorsement of my teaching to the FP thread's subscribers. It was great to meet you finally after conversing off and on for several years on this thread. I compliment you on having diligently practiced just a few of the FP Meditations on the DVD series--but practiced them well enough so that just a few corrections of posture, movement, and eye/mind focus was all it took to anchor in the essential principles to do Bending the Bows near perfectly. So that those corrections will cascade through your FP Chi Kung training all the more effective, self-correcting and profound. Many thanks for stopping by in LA and Happy New Year. Sifu Terry

Hi Steve, I'm right there with you with use or oregano along with FP Qigong to knock down colds at their start. Only, not having access to fresh oregano in the city of LA, I use a very strong concentrated Oil of Oregano that I bought in the late 90's in large batches (small vials with eye dropper dispensers in huge numbers) from an outfit on Long Island. It's so strong that it helped my father eradicate infections after too much radiation and chemotherapy for a lymphoma he had had severely compromised his immune system. I occasionally put the oil in food. Happy Holidays, Sifu Terry

Hi JustBHappy, Sorry that I missed your post a few weeks ago when it went up. You're not the only one to cheat in the Long Meditation to balance on the crane stance on the right leg. In the beginning, I think that every practitioner--including myself--had to open their eyes to recover balance. But once the root of the stance is well established by whatever means within and without this FP and the energy linkages throughout the body are perfected and real root--meaning "energy cleaving the ground" is felt, then you're be comfortable and confident doing the entire FPHHC Meditation with eyes closed. Yes, doing Kung Fu and Tai Chi forms with eyes closed is a valuable training. In one of my favorite Kung Fu styles that I practice, the ultra- rare "Eight Sections of Energy Combined" (Bot Dim Gum), all of the Eight Sections (very elaborate and sophisticated forms) and all of the preparatory and martial BDG Qigong exercises are done with the eyes closed. (After mastering forms done with the eyes closed next step after that is doing Push-hands sparring [or its equivalent] with eyes closed or blind-folded.) Yes, all the Flying Phoenix standing Meditations develop real root. For natural posture and solid "rooting" are not just cultivated by the choreographed postures and movements in the Meditations. The breath-control sequence of each meditation, as Fu_doggy described in Year One or I think even Day One of this thread, the FP breathing formulas are the "secret sauce"--that ENSURES the development of total mind-body integration, strong relaxed postures and comportment, and energetic rooting. Again, Flying Phoenix Heavenly Healing Chi Meditations was the health safety net for generations in the Bok Fu Pai Kung Fu system. Thus, it is a perfect complement to the practice of any Chinese internal martial art. Best, Sifu Terry www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

Hello Silent Thunder, Hollywood doesn't 'bet' on things if there's any way to avoid it. The same way the big fish on Wall Street don't 'gamble' on stocks. They work with shoe-ins and sure things... --So very, very true. Sound observations. Hollywood these days doesn't "bet" on things if it doesn't have to--certainly not the way that they bet on the "auteur" directors of the late 70's. Thank you for your good wishes for positive empowerment to win my long battle for justice. I shall fight on. You'll be hearing some things about my case not too long from now on a certain networks' news shows. The tide has actuallty been turning this week towards just and cathartically healing resolution of this conflict--one way or another. And thank you for your last truism about things that cannot remain hidden for long. Quaint yet inspiring. All Best, Terry Dunn P.S. btw, check out the "Flying Phoenix Chi Kung" thread. Now going on its 5th year and up to 168 pages of lively discussion from FP practitioners and the Qi-curious throughout the world. In it I've sewn over the past 4 years, a few little gems of esoteric knowledge pertaining to Chinese yogic, martial and healing arts.

Hi Vortex, Thank you for your astute and accurate observation of the entertainment business and for your good wishes. And thanks for posting Kevin Kataoka's Asian Evasion. Hilariously spot-on. I split a rib while LMFAO...especially the bit that Phillip Seymour Hoffman does yellowface in film after film these days!! Precious. Yes, swiping the cultural narratives from all the former "colonies"and mangling them to fit Hollywood honkies' vapid, soul-less low-brow plots and base sensibilties is the name of the GAME. And i can now say 12 years after the theft of my I.P., that it was a racial thing too. Had I had a last name like Reiff or Voris, Abel or Bergman, i don't think I would have been in the county, state and federal courts for the past 3 years. Our discovery process determined that Dreamworks paid 19 sets of writers on the first KF Panda film. But of course, it wouldn't pay me for the original idea of a Kung Fu-fighting panda bear mentored by 5 animal friends of the forest--each one a Kung Fu master, and who saves a peaceful village from animal agressors (hyenas, rats, yellow monkeys led by a giant mutant praying mantis) whose destiny as a martial artshero and avatar is foretold by a sage tortoise. Is my voicing this fact playing the race card? Nope, just stating a simple matter of fact in Hollywood from 2001 through today. My story's 5 Animal mentors to the Kung Fu Panda were/are a tiger, leopard, dragon, snake, and crane. Sound familiar? They are the original Shaolin 5 Animals; since I have been a certified instructor in Southern Shaolin 5 Animals Kung Fu since 1983, I took the liberty of taking these animals that I mimic in Kung Fu forms practiced almost every day and making them into the animated pals of my Zen-Bear Kung Fu Panda star. But Dreamworks' high-priced lawyers tried to convince the jury that Dreamworks, employee, this Michael Lachance in the videos, independently invented Kung Fu Panda on Nov. 27, 2001--7 days after Ihad pitched Zen-Bear to Lachance's boss, an executive named Lance Young. Will we see what Kevn K. yearns to see? I'm not betting that I will see it in my lifetime. I was a founding board member of C.A.P.E. (Coalition of Asian Americans in Entertainment) in the early 90's--that's going stronger than ever today. Our watch-phrase/complaint was that there are more aliens on TV shows and feature films than Asians. Nothing has really changed in past 20 years, as Kevin K. so humorously points out. Yes, it's best to take stories and scripts about authentic eastern traditions and values to Chinese production companies (very carefully, of course.). For China, as a very experienced movie veteran just told me 2 weeks ago, is poised to become the movie production capital of the world. They have all the production facilities and technology in place. The only thing they do not have are the intellectual properties, which are over here. So the suggestion on your post that i should have taken my Zen-Bear property to a Chinese production co. is a valid one if I were pitching the it today. But I was pitching it in 2001, and China then didn't have a movie infrastructure in place yet--let alone the people-ware to run a film industry like it does today. At any rate, as a meager way to get back at "Da Man" for ripping off and misappropriating my I.P., as I have alleged in the court system, please send that first 1 min. 17 sec. video clip of Mr. Lachance around to web-savvy friends. The least we can do for the vaunted creator of Kung Fu Panda is to make him world famous after him spending so many years in the shadows-- 12 years to be exact. Why, the man was so modest and unassuming that he never got a promotion or a bonus for creating KF Panda, never got a corner office, but did receive a Special Thanks" credit on the first KF Panda film that he shared with 4 other persons where he wasn't even at the top of the list. And he was so modest about what would turn out to be a multi-billion dollar creation for Dreamworks that he didn't tell any friends that he could remember that the film idea that he had created was being turned into a movie with a huge budget (>$200 million). I guess it must have been Mr. Lachance's supreme modesty that caused him to leave the studio in 2004--the very year that the studio announced in the trades that it "had begun work"on the film. And Mr. Michael Lachance left Dreamworks not with a lateral or upward move to a better executive position in another Hollywood studio, but he left to become an independent writer and producer...until April of 2010 when he took another development job at Sony Animation Studios because he said he wanted a stable income (per his testimony). Somehow, this testimony Lachance gave just didn't seem (to me) to describe the career trajectory of the man who created the third most successful animation franchise in the word. Oh well. At any rate, thanks for your observations and good wishes. Terry Dunn

To all Flying Phoenix Chi Kung practitioners and the extended FP Chi Kung community, and all Tao Bums subscribers who might chance upon this thread: This posting is not about FP Chi Kung, Tai Chi or Kung Fu practice per se, but an exception I am making as a liberty at this time to explain a most important legal matter that has affected my life and productivity for the past 12 years, and has almost completely consumed my energies over the past 3 full years: the best creative work of my life as an author, screenwriter and artist/animation designer that I made as a vehicle to teach the best of Chinese martial arts, philosophy, culture, spirituality and Taoist and Chan Buddhist spiritualism to the West--a children's animation franchise called "The Adventures of Zen-Bear"-- that I developed starting in 1993 but was unfortunately plundered in 2001 and 2002 by Dreamworks (as I testified to at trial) and turned into the first "Kung Fu Panda" movie and basis for five announced sequel films. A timeline summarizing all my work on "Zen-Bear" since 1992 is on my site, http://kungfupandalawsuit.com/timeline-hotspots.htm I need all your help--social networking and dissemination skills--and your prayers and positive energy to help make a brand-new Youtube channel GO VIRAL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC83iB8wGWMa8fgqWS8qFD-w/videos Last Wednesday, November 20, was the 12-year anniversary of pitching my "Adventures of Zen-Bear®" story and fully developed animation characters to Lance Young of Dreamworks. Undeniably, this was the biggest mistake of my life, for it led to me filing a lawsuit against Dreamworks in June 2010 over its alleged use of my story ideas in its movie, "Kung Fu Panda"--a case that did not go well for me in 2011, and which I have had to appeal all the way to the United States Supreme Court on November 12 of this year. http://kungfupandalawsuit.com/Petition%20for%20Writ%20of%20Certiorari%2011-12-13.pdf So I thought it most fitting to celebrate Dreamworks' alleged "independent creation" of their Kung Fu Panda idea by publishing the videotaped deposition testimony of their star witness and professed creator of Kung Fu Panda, a former Dreamworks executive named Michael Lachance, via a new Youtube Channel named: "EAT YOUR PANDA". Most interesting and watchable are the 12 short (2 to 5 minute) video clips (numbered on the channel) that highlight how the Dreamworks Animation development department consisting of Lachance and his boss, Lance Young, operated from 2000 through 2004. For starters, please view this one 2-minute clip: (1) --where Lachance says "Umm, I believe so" in answer to my lawyer’s question of whether he is the creator of idea for the "Kung Fu Panda"; states he doesn’t know the date of creation; and says the creation date is "sometime in 2000 or 2001." (Notice the number and frequency of his facial and bodily gestures during the half-minute of silence following his last answer.) And if you don't shake your head in disbelief and roll your eyes in amazement at this deponent's peculiar choice of words and inability to put a date on his alleged brilliant creation of a multi-billion dollar film franchise, and if you still believe that Dreamworks originated the story of KF Panda on its own internally, please proceed to watch the complete video transcript of the Lachance deposition posted on the Youtube channel or these short highlight clips: (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b8KB195nDI •Lachance states that he had no special interest or expertise in China or Chinese culture and that his interest in martial arts was only limited to taking karate as a kid--admittedly something that he was “not very good at.” (3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nfV2Bl81h4 •Lachance states that he had no personal interest in pandas. (4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqgTUHlyTaI •Lachance describes his KF Panda idea but again cannot give the creation date. (5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e3mJnyIHAY • Lachance explains that the inspiration for creating his Kung Fu Panda idea originated most likely in one of many "lists" used in the Dreamworks development dept. that contained various locations and animals. (6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_OtT2NoP_A •Lachance testifies that Dreamworks had an idea to do a film set in China using indigenous animals prior to his alleged creation of his Kung Fu Panda idea and within 4 minutes contradicts that statement. (7) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvQ1suUahAk • Lachance testifies that his boss Lance Young (Sr.V.P. Business Development & Creative Affairs at Dreamworks) frequently took credit for his work. (Young was the person who took my Zen-Bear pitch, per my trial testimony.) This Youtube channel launch is in sync with and in support of my U.S. Supreme Court filing. For if the most questionable, brow-raising, and controversial--if not amusing--of these video clips go viral, the news of the Supreme Court filing and the story of my litigation might get coverage from network and cable TV news shows, and get print coverage by WSJ, NY Times, Huff Post, BBC, etc. --as well as get treated by TV tabloid shows like TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, etc. Viral Youtube circulation and widespread news media coverage could ultimately increase my chances of the Supreme Court deciding to look at my case. For the chief justices of the Supreme Court--and certainly their clerks, as a seasoned advisor and friend reminded me last Saturday--are not immune to Fox News and other popular forms of news media. Thus, you can strike a blow for justice and champion this extreme underdog, yours truly, by visiting my EAT YOUR PANDA Channel on Youtube, viewing the short 2-4 minute clips, clicking Like or Dislike for each, commenting on them as you see fit, and then sharing them with all your friends--and especially with web-savvy young folks and movie fans who you think might be outraged over the kind of testimony seen on these videos--and find it laughable. Yes, Dreamworks and Dreamworks Animation have long maintained the facade of doing good business (Dreamworks (theatrical films) and DW Animation were one and the same company in 2001 and 2002 when Young and Lachance stole my well-documented Kung Fu Panda story (as I alleged in my and at trial), and I've enjoyed many Dreamworks films as much as most people. But now it's time for what I contend is the TRUTH about their theft of my Kung Fu Panda story to finally be put into the public light--that in my opinion is revealed by Lachance's choice of words, evasive answers, contradictory answers, body language, and rapidly changing countenances before and after giving so many of his answers to my lawyer's questions on these videos. So please step up and spread some light and truth--lux and veritas--and help make this first clip go viral for starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHzsc1IadL4 Thank you all very much, everyone, for your help and support through my long and arduous battle. Sincerely, Sifu Terry Dunn

Hello Blue Phoenix, Welcome to the FP Thread. Answers to your questions are below in blue: 1.When doing wind above the clouds in the dvd you go to your right leg first then left then back to right, i have been doing this but the second time i do the whole sequence i go to my left first then right then left... is this wrong? Just felt like i should balance both sides. My advice is to do Wind Above the Clouds exactly as shown, which is exactly how I was taught by GM Doo Wai, the 6th generation grand master of the Bok Fu Pai system, which is the only kung-fu tradition preserving the FP Qigong system. This art was created by a yogic genius, Feng Tao Teh, in 1644 so to be assured of deriving maximum benefits at the least risk of any sort of mishap, I would do the exercise according to the tradition. When one has mastered the FP system sufficiently, you will intuitively know whether or not you can or should reverse the order of the sideways bending-stretching movements. But for now, my advice is to play it safe and practice the meditation the tried and proven way over 400 years. 2.When im doing a sequence for example bending the bows i will stop in certain places like monk gazing at the moon, or when im doing wind above the clouds i find it sometimes feels good when my left arm is over my left leg and when i bring my arms back up and they are parallel one above another... i call these sticking point, feels good man. Should this be avoided? No, there is no problem with holding certain postures within each FP moving meditation--so long as you do most of the repetitions (e.g., in Bending the Bows) in continuous flow/without any stopping or do more rounds of Wind Above the Clouds in slow continuous flow than not. (In advanced FP Meditations and in the advanced levels of other Bok Fu Pai sub-systems, supplementing continuously slow-flowing repetitions of an exercise with rounds of holding various static positions with each moving meditation's sequence is a means of augmenting the yogic effects of "normal" training.) Keep us abreast of your progress,BFP. Best, Sifu Terry

Hello ShivaShakti, Thank you for sharing your experience in detail of the uniquely tangible energizing effects of the FP Qigong system. I believe you are the first FP practitioner on the thread (other than myself early on) to write about the intense type of vibratory state (bodily shaking ranging from mild to intensely vigorous) induced by the FP Meditations (especially the standing ones) that suddenly turns off just when you think it's going to be "overwhelming" or "too much." Also as you've certainly experienced, by your nice account of empathic feelings, keen alertness and energy sensitivity, etc.-- Have you not noticed mental clarity? mental sharpness? more focus? automatically connecting to others feelings? becoming energy sensitive? becoming emphat? insights? (aside from vitality and health) --the deep calm and stillness the follows after the intense shaking suddenly stops is truly sublime--and will become even deeper and more sublime the longer one practices with each and every successive vibratory state over the longer term. (I'm speaking in terms of years.) The calm/stillness that follows the shaking can evolve into profound meditative states that the high Indian yogic traditions refer to as jhanas, which I like to define as ecstatic absorption, expanded consciousness, access to insight, a state of At-One-ment always marked by supreme alertness and lucidity and many types of extra-sensory perception. Speaking of jhanas, a couple of years back on the thread, I recommended Daniel Goleman's article, "The Buddha and Meditative States of Consciousness" as one of the clearest English maps detailing the levels of jhana. I still highly recommend this excellent roadmap--so that FP Practitoners know exactly where they are on the path towards the Ever-Conscious. http://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/Goleman1972.pdf (part 1) His 2-part article was republished in a book called "The Meditative Mind: the Varieties of Meditative Experience". http://buddhistbooksblog.wordpress.com/tag/daniel-goleman/ Good practicing, ShivaShakti, and to all-- Sifu Terry