Spectrum

Feng Shui should probably be used for earth healing at this point. Pendulum divination seems a bit of a downgrade from the probabilities presented by the I Ching; although all of these answers are actually inside and the tool is just an amplifier. Sei Gung taught me to use the pendulum as a feedback took for alignment in wuji. It has saved a lot of time issuing "corrections"; letting the practitioner see their alignment for themselves. Folks underestimate the healing power of proper wuji. Using the pendulum to answer the question of wuji has proved endlessly beneficial. Spectrum

My whole body is a dowsing rod.

Never doubt your internal promptings of intuition, spirit guides, G-d... trust your feelings and intuitions on the Path.

I've found that 1/2 a beer seems to act as a tonic if combined w/ the right food. More then a half and I've climbed a mountain that day.

All experiences are valuable; never underestimate the power of face to face experience. Talk is cheap. Spectrum

A style popularized by Bruce Lee's mentorship by Yip Man. Charactarized by a short compact form w/ simultaneous deflective and offensive hand techniques. No kicks above the hip. A lot of kicks at 45deg. Made use of the Mook Yam Jong popular in the west probably. Spectrum

This is the stark naked truth before me. What are the Tong Long Chi Gungs like? Its interesting you mention yoga here because I've recently been having some conversations w/ someone close about the nature of the yoga floor routines being preps for the standing sequences in the main styles. When considering the likeness of the central transition of Snake Creeps Down to the Triangle; the body wisdom inherent in each is obviously principly connected. Thats it. Your teacher understands the proportional relationships of stance to upper body movement. I've seen it often mentioned on some Yi Quan forums that sinking the stance actually suspends the arms through synergetically related long chain muscle groups. The physiological changes that occur with how the rubber bands of the body transition load and weight is at it's most potential in Wu Ji. Wu Ji has really produced an interest in stances for me; the idea that a stance is just a bookmark of power release in a transitional plane means that a form isn't a series of stops, the form is a series of smooth transitions of power gathering and release. The stances allow that smooth plane to be travelled across so the whip can snap so beautifully. If you systematically divide your stances starting from a center plum line, a number of natural stances will arrise, at positions that might resemble natural boundary lines around a common center. As soon as the feet are positioned outside the shoulders the kua or lower bow opens. These natural proportions are also adopted while performing the form so the stances say in the yang style have a full look but are nicely grounded thru the all the transitions by their stance. All good alignment starts in the feet. I like the way your teachers style sounds. It does sound like a long time to an external martial artist but widening your stance does change the whole thing. Arn't there three traditional heigths to the stances? The proportions for each being found w/ 1-2-3 measurments of 45 deg foot pivots. Stance work is very long term and takes a while to get a good balance between strength and flexibility. All stance work will aid health into old age. The Chinese consider the legs the second heart. This is a great thread.

alchemical transformation : i.e. circulation? One thing that is certain, by spending more time within four walls or a mediated environment in general, the attunment to the natural cycles gets slightly phazed. Drinking from the stream everyonce in a while is a must.

Precisely. Breathing however simple it sounds is the start of cultivation. However, TaiJi is in reality a fighting system, but a rather curious one (it's Chinese afterall) in so far as the principles can be applied macro or micro scopically... externally & internally. I heard this about the Dong (Tung) style as well. There are some sublte diffs in Dong and Yang that a quick glance will miss. <note on Yang / Chen / Sun variation on realization of spherical relationships.> I would also note here that there is the integration of the structural aspect, (using the core instead of the edges) and also timing. The integration can be a long road that can be suddenly turned around with personal revelations.... and at other times people seem to carry bad habits around with them for years! I've pushed w/ people who have poor structure but great timing and you can't push them over, also met people w/ great structure and poor timing and pushing was just a struggle... my favorite people to push w/ are those that have a sound structure and enough sensitivity that if you feel "pressure" and you release it they don't fall over, just smooth fluid transitions. A good demonstration of this solid/fluid ability is to have your friend press against your forearm... HARD... you resist w/ peng, w/ your internal frame; when they suddenly release, your arm should not move... no overcompensation, no over reaction....you'r arm stays put, relaxed, it doesn't fly out in front of you.... this type of sensitivity is wonderful to practice push hands w/ !!! Preach it. I feel the same way. Should not be underestimated.... and w/ your comments about the proper perspective of push hands NOT being fighting... shouldn't be overestimated either... My first mentor in Quan. He recieved from his teacher the same. The key is placing your mind on the hook and constantly seeking zero point center w/ the breath. (wuji) Spectrum (will edit later today: tai chi style refs)

Can you point your finger on a map for us? Sounds like your looking for something very specific, do share!

Relax and flow with the go of the seasons. Longevity arts have a progressively subtle curve. Conserve in the dead of winter, Stretch and Grow in the spring, bloom in the summer, realize in the fall. It's not that Chi Gung attunes the cycles of days months and years in between a few practices of opening and closing patterns, but that routinely opening circulating and closing through the cycles of days months and years naturally attunes your cycles to be supportive of your activities. A gradual load over a length of time is more influential then a heavy load for a short time. Relax and enjoy the ride of a lifetime. Spectrum

I'm all for originality. Spectrum

Ujai is still a fire breath, no? If you do it in combination with your asana or chi gung you'll create a buzz in one way, but also you'll be smoothing out the vibratory state, so this is not the same kind of buzz that is negative though like a stimulant, nor is it created by bursts of breath pumping more oxygen into your system. I suppose Ujai is similar to the regulatory and vacuum pumping effects the basic taijiquan breath of heng / ha. Taoists chi gung breaths I was taught started w/ elongation of the in/out cycle and moved to balancing the in/out cycle; a common breath that I have also seen in a Taoist book is the Fire Breath in Da Liu's "Tai Chi Chuan & Meditation"; ihe describes a form of Fire Breath that is combined with some type of Scrying technique. Regardless of the scrying; His descriptions of the fire breath are short fast abdominal breathing using the Heng / Ha sounds; his own practice he claims for upwards of 6 minutes... he perscriptively notes in the book to practice this breath "until the practitioner forgets him or her self"... A breath that works for slowing things down would be to lengthen the in/out cycle to upwards of 30 seconds in 30 seconds out. An interesting note in my own practice using any muscles other then the throat to regulate breath will result in unneeded tension elsewhere in the trunk.

I met a old hippi mama from the 70's that was a rebirther a couple years back. That all sounds familiar TaoMeow.

Word pass that Cup this way brah. We'll drink of the living waters in a pagoda on Dragon Tiger Mountain. ... Most practices have opening and closing sequences. A pupil dilates to let in the perfect amount of light. Perhaps the brief moments that a novice or initiate spends opening, looking through, these windows and doorways into different states of mind, into different dimensions of being, only to be drawn away by "being concerned", about anything at all seems to be the practical part of the learning curve. Thinking is the boombox that drowns out the pulsating gurgling babbling gushing roaring streams of consciousness. Thoughts are the clouds floating through your internal terrain. Breakthroughs result in continued progress through peak and trough. Knowing the path enables one to summit, some travelers will meet their demise, you can only bring yourself on your journey. When you return you are different then before. By passing the space between two points you are changed. The death of ego along the way is assumed for the most part, but its also often forgotten that this gateway experience of ego death turns many travelers away. So the internal dialog must be quieted so what is actually going on can be observed, this is often a type hypnogogic state w/ a lot of potential for visualization, and which full day dreams can sometimes occur simply by "thinking" about something... these mental states seem easier to observe steadily upon waking in the morning, closely related to the wake/dream transition I suppose. If one finds themselves in this state without understanding the ramification of thought under the circumstance of egolessness; the experience may be unfortunately misinterpreted. In this example the monkey mind taking on different characteristics due to your perspective, (wake to sleep) thoughts in dreamtime turn monkeys into gorillas. Does the response to gorillas mirror your earlier responses to the little monkey while awake? Ultimately truths translate mediums. Embodiment Artforms take on deepened significance as a medium which the meditator functions within the psycho-physiological terrain of form and formlessness. Breaking for a commercial...

Learn it so well that you don't need the machine; then rent it out while you give away body work.

Beautiful is as beautiful does. When the water flows the banks are fresh. seek and you lose it forget and you find it beauty is the most ordinary way passing gracefully by fading away into a background I am Spectrum

breath in ...it's those spontaneous moments of aha rising up in the beautiful moment to the surface... breath out ..fresh..

If you want the gravy drink as much as you want... gravy makes things good.

Before I met my first Taoist mentor I cross paths in highschool with an ex-gympsy joker turned job couseler who trained chinese gung fu in the 70's in the bruce lee craze. His teacher was a real internalist and they were all focusing on breathing together while warming up, never loosing breath while doing everything through warmup, forms, sparring and cooldown, with an even flow, like a song he said. He would always tell me stories and then be like hey if you make nun chucks in class you gotta hook them together with the rope like this... prob to maike sure we didn't seriously hurt ourselves... heh... but anyways he taught me this and it works. I remember two things he said vividly. He claimed he would always miss his offramps because he would "zone out" or kind of "tunnel vision" as in meditation; also he said it was like a daydream without dreaming, everything was still there, but the minds eye changes. I'm sitting there listening going man I wish he'd break out the magic gourd and we trek off over to the freeway overpass for some taoist tale bumfights... telling me these biker stories. He said the key was focusing on a single point without thinking. He said put a thumbtac in the wall, look at its center and don't move your eyes, observe what is happening when you move your eyes. You can even count at first but don't move your eyes; do this until the wall dissapears; simple enough. I try it a few times, it seems everything I think about moves my eyes. Ok, don't think. Ok... that didn't work. Ok... relax... breath ... o ... that tunnel. o O o O o O o <insert random this one time story> oooOOOooooOOOooKay... so there's something to this mind body stuff afterall. Where did the time go? What was that? Can I do that again? How did I do that? .. .. Phil retired by selling his houseboat, buying a sail boat and sailed around the world at 54. I continued on in my studies to cross paths only a couple years later with another Taoist practitioner who would introduce me to being punched in the face, and the emotional attachments that come with that. <cough> Phil would have used a garratt though. Spectrum

Probably the coolest thing about studying tai chi is how it really empowers the individual by helping them understand their natural processes. It gives an individual MORE choices, does not remove them. The only things that are removed from this practice is the inhibition of human contact in relationship to natural boundaries. When someone tries to force something on you in tai chi the result is an exchange of balance. This exchange is usually reflective of something. For instance a wrist grab results in the balanced exchange of hips and the wrist is twisted, convergence of events baby: snap : balance : thought : unbalanced action of mind->body: resolution to balance by body->mind : balance : The person who attacks must decide to do so; they reveal their weakness before they move; the one who must decide looses, the action on the just path wins everytime. Shiva Dances. For the most part any tribe or group of people who exchange information outside of the normal boundaries of media or orthodox information could be considered cult or occult; the underbelly of othodoxy is lined with the scales of wars winners, it's your job to discern your spiritual life. Life is precious. There are only so many Arts that cultivate it. Soon technology will replace the psycho-spiritual arts of the past. The fire of the modern tribe lights the eyes with lies. W/ the vision impared many won't unplug in time to not be plugged in permanently. Spectrum

... lets make the distinction here that Tai Chi does have a martial aspect, and chigung is more commonly known for it's health. Since chi gung focuses on breath right away I don't see how tai chi could be chi gung unless basic rhythmic breathing principles are taught right away; but wait, inhale when you draw in, exhale when you push; this wisdom from two person push hands practice. Not when you consistantly engage in push hands practice. How does that lie? How can you be misinformed by someone getting out of the way of your push? What about when you realize if you relax your breath to harmonize with the movement and something naturally profound happens? This does not take away from the physicallity of the practice. Tai Chi is part of the rich physical culture of china, including paired exercises. It should be engaged in as eagerly as any other form of cultivation. If you are moving solo braething naturally in harmony with your movements; viola chi gung; a physiological transformation process in a pretty little package. At the root of most classical martial arts is a personal healing that transfers into your enviroment through your actions. Most external styles are only able to approach this once their actions, even within their "belief" system of style or world view, have broken themselves somehow, so they quest for healing. Chinese internal martial arts begin at healing. 6000 years of medical chinese history exists as a common stem for all the arts it flourished. Tai Chi reflects the breathing of Chi Gung once a player learns the basic form, that's like part of the natural reward system... i suppose you can just learn gasp birds tail and breath and find your zone, but you lose the classical elements of mental-physical education if you remove the diveristy of moves AND the meditative aspect (duration); ref Da Liu "Tai Chi Chuan & Meditation" or "Fundamentals of Tai Chi Chuan" by Huang (HK) I don't think the full physiological potential or the meditative benifits of Tai Chi can be reached without Chi Gung breathing of some type; it's most basic being an elongation of the breath cycle common to all forms of tai chi chuan. Chi Gung on a cultual level certainly has more variations of breath fire times and cycles then Tai Chi, however, Tai Chi, as do most martial arts, reserves combative breathing techniques for adepts who prove themselves cabable, these are not practices that do any good being talked about, they're meaning is do be experienced in the wordsless field of human movement experience. Now what if the person is still in the process of learning that basic form of Tai Chi... of attuning their movements to the essential elements of the "form" then it could be said they are in the process of learning and have yet to get the "desired results" of the form if it's for health; for example there are so many different forms of tai chi does each produce different results at the point the practitioner realizes the physiological transformations he experiences as chi gung? Is that point of mind-breath-body singularity considered the crossover from TaiChi to ChiGung? The harmony of the elements? For a moment they felt it, then it was gone, searching they do not find it, looking it vanishes... this is the way the Tao works on people. The great Mind (Yi) at work. Another example of this blurry transition might be the pracitioner who is still in the process of learning the full extension of the stances in tai chi and so their ligaments and tendons have not reached their full biological potential, maybe they are working through an injury, maybe they stumble into their own ability to relax and breath through those areas resulting in an invigorated healing process....does that mean that the exercise at that point in their practice is not a chi gung? Certainly it is... Certainly it's a process of enlightment, physiologically; the body is learning something new, something that might not be in hereditary memory, but healing is a frequency all beings respond to in someway. Body and Mind are already one. There is no seperation really. Certainly it's a process of pychological enlightment. As we learn what we've been taught to believe about the seperation of mind and body; who knows where the practitioner will make a breakthrough. In another example the practitioner stuggles in the rhythm and timing of their breath w/ the form, surely their breakthrough here could be classified as making the jump to chi gung, due to both the physiological as well as kinesthetic experience of that groove of breath coordination which accompanies wuji. stillness in motion. Yes I agree Tai Chi is already a chi gung from the get go, in our most natural state we have more of the basic elements already in alignment, and for most people it's just a matter of finding the 2 or 3 parts that are out of alignment that are individual to the person; the form and personal interaction takes care of the rest... at that point, their practice becomes chi gung because of the psyco-physiological changes that take place when they practice, because again it's a process of allowing the mind to attune to a physicalogical process that occurs spontaneously and simultaneously w/ the psychological; in the case of tai chi, a natural unfolding of wu ji, yin yang, tai chi and the 8 directions of movement, an opening, transforming, and closing. This is basic to all forms of wuji chigung it should be of no surprize to find chinese evolutionary principles enveloped within the classical styles of china. These are arts with depth and meaning. One of the reasons I chose this classical art as a mdeium to devote time to. A practice of letting go, not hanging onto a set of rules, but letting go of what you percieve as you to become more natural in ordinary movement. Of wu ji, psychophysiological center zero point awareness. A focal point of proportional undercurrents. The combination of all the elements of proper practice can't be accomplished like a laundary list. No matter how simple or complex the list. You have to let go of the list. Yet you seemingly have to put them together somehow, inside yourself, all the natural attributes of being human, what is human most naturally, let go and be yourself, a friend or mentor helps, a teacher helps, emulates and reflects; The sum of the whole is greater then that of the individual parts. A teacher helps a person remember their most basic attributes, helps to shed what is not essential. Sometimes you have to take yourself entirely out of the equation of practice in order to do it right; to let go of judgement of yourself. Then your free to see the natural beauty in all forms. The proportional boundaries of harmonies sings. This struggle between the orthodoxy of form and the praxis of formlessness seems to be characteristic of using form and example to demonstrate something as subtle as the psycho-physiological state the practitioner experiences during tai chi or chi gung practice (or fighting / ie tao of jeet kune do ala bruce lee). Yet directly as a result of his/her attunement w/ these most basic elements of movement practice, the pracitioner experiences... something more then what is observed. This is all probably the reason why Oral Transmission is still regarded as the only really effect Way, for healers and martial artists alike. I digress. A long time ago. Chi Gung in comparison to tai chi focuses immediately on the psycho physiological shifts that result from alignment w/ the most natural principles of the human state of being. (wuji) The resulting forms being a continuosly wonderful kailadascpe window of rainbows expressed by the human physiology associated with altered states of consciousness. Now the funny thing about chi gung seems that if your primary wuji alignments are not maintained; it becomes a physical practice; you know, struggling w/ a shake there or an ache here, but in order to engage the chi in the alignment of wuji is regulated through the breath, and finally the mind alone. "Song". Synergetic balanced integrity of tension and relaxation. The first exercise I engaged in which produced this sensation of work w/o work, tension & relaxation, sung, was holding a 2.5lb bar bell weight 45 deg looking thru the hole to the corner of the ceiling w/ the instr. to place my mind into the corner by hanging the weight on a hook in the corner; dan tien breath/relax in response to load stress. Duration: personal limit After approx 3 days practicing various lengths of time not exceeding 3 min I structurally maintained wuji at which time I engaged in dan tien breathing at precisely the same time as the previous walls shut me down. Here I will EMPHASIZE my internal process wasn't a laundary list, it was an inquiry process taking many internal angles and dialogs.... resulting in Stillness... had I not the stillness reference by my mentor I'm not sure if my intent would have created the same effects... so I call what I've been taught Taoist because that was it's source from the beggining.... I digress again... the mental-physical circuit created by the doingness of the small weight exercise must be a form of biofeedback, the psychological workthroughs that are present while performing "gung" are worthy of note; i say biofeedback because of the mental mirroring of physiological breakthroughs; and the resulting 'unifying' experiences which accompany. But back at that first real wall with that small little weight there was a combination of those internal elements resulting in a kind of internal physical bubbling that seemed to break something loose resulting in a psycho-physiological change I would most closely assribe to the 'coming up' portion of any hallucinogenic experience i had read about, but without hallucinations, instead resulting in increased kinesthetic perceptions. That weight got lighter. Was this the second wind of the runners, the zone of the extreme sportsters, the mountain high of the hermits? After I learned more about Taoist breathing I realized these experiences are really body and mind alignment and attunment process, the two becoming one. It's not just in your mind, or just your body. Body and Mind are not seperate, we are taught to 'believe' that. Perhaps the Heros Journey starts at that point of realization. The "desired results" here being the resultant cultivation effect for the practitioner? iE Preparation For, and Conduction Of Chi Circulation? Internal Transformational exercises of the Taoists? <nod> <nodnod> Or perhaps... undesired results... like some of the HT threads reflect... I'm curious here about Karmic connections of practitioners, has anyone experienced phenomenon they believe is related to the "doings" of practitioners they have trained with... strange tagent topic sorry.

Before the guys thread is reduced to a highlight of various tai chi personalities within the style I'd like to point out something that might help. The universal principles your looking for in tai chi can't be isolated to one style (yang, chen, wu, etc) or one person. Of particular note is dan tien rotation, of which if you imagine a ball, the direction of rotation and spin vary w/ each style, and even w/ each person subtlies manifest w/ each person. This isn't a bad thing, these are individual and stylized representations of the evolution of the embodiment of chinese philosophy. For instance in yang style the first turn and weight transfer is simple holding the ball, while in chen the same turn and weight transfer has the ball changing polarity. The principles are the same, because of the common medium (the body), but the execution of the principles, the disisions on the path of movement are various. Wu Ji, Yin Yang, Tai Chi, I Ching; these are the constants in Chinese Taoist philosophy. In reference to movement and cultivation they act as helpful reference in finding the paths between the reference points of the forms... acting as a foundation for the patterning of all the movements.... weight shifting, body alignment (structure), breath; these are the points in which a practitioner finds themself within or without "wuji" during "tai chi" ; or stillness while in motion... motion while in stillness. In reference to the esoteric: Have any of your teachers talked about how tai chi turns into chi gung? Has your tai chi instruction included push hands and standing meditation pre or post practice? Have any of them spoke of cultivation or circulation of chi and associated any of those "feelings" with that? Of the different teachers you've trained which forms of tai chi have you studied? Good luck on your quest, Spectrum

... and those Taoist poems that start with... "... A single note from the jade pipe..." heh... heheh... hey... pass that tea-cake over here...

subject object dissolution fusion