Rocky Lionmouth

Hmm, sounds like you had a overload or too of a ”fire” there. The thing is that it should stop and pass by itself, you felt it subside and pass already so you know it’s ok. Perhaps don’t rest your awareness there so much, all day err day is definetly too much. There’s this saying that you should gently warm the dan tien, not scald it, so that you don’t overfocus or are too directly mindful and definetly not all day. Some work, some rest. When you’re heating, focus on that without being singlepointedly on the dan tien, let it be a noticable place, let yourself feel your heartbeats there, relax. Check your PM. @Mudfoot, wanna chime in on this?

The practice with alignment andall of that is to make sure people understand HOW to do it. The rest is practice, it is cumulative and should not be forced either way. Forcing, mentally controlling and mentalizing the practice is going to lead nowhere with the nitpicking and the whathaveyou. Ride, i see your point but i think you might be looking at the high detail practice and explanations as if the idea is to be in mental control, it is not. Once you’ve learned how and what to align to have sung then it has already stopped being a brainy purification exercise or else you would not have found what it’s supposed to feel and be. Practice correctly one minute is worth 1 hour of sloppy theoretical and/or forceful exercise. I don’t know about supernatural things or heaven and earth energy, but i do sometimes sit on the grass and soak in some sun or take a nice walk in the rain. I think that with just getting in there and doing an exercise like Rain suggests is valuable because you grasp that purely empty moment when you’re just doing and not trying to do. The whole rigamarole of unlearning and purifying or taking things to repetition and refinement is also good because no such thing as a minute wasted on learning how to use and keep ourselves in use. Learn woodworking, measure and cut, good. What about assembling, sanding for a surface, oiling or finishing somehow. If wood was just measuring and cutting and then we’re done furniture would look hella weird i think.

If anyone wants to know what exercises are good to do everyday and just study the crap out of then take ones from the song gong video and similar with such detailed description and give them five years at least before you evaluate. Boy will you see results! I have a set of different exercises that do the exact same principles and so on and i am not allowed to post them online because i have vowed to teach people directly and IRL but believe you me, song gong is THE thing to do, wether you’re just doing qigong or taiji or martial arts or just looking to have a body that is more functional. Hours lut in the gym should at least be at a 0.5 ratio with hours spent dling these sorts of exercises. That right there is the kind of stuff i’ve been nagging my students about for years to impress on them how much you need to build the basics to even get anywhere in the benefits or usage of our art. Do they listen?! No! Wait, well yes they do and they work hard at it but i have yet to be able to transmit the sheer importance of them and the passion i have for our song seut. I’m thinking of marketing them as ”the ultimate secret, it’s actually a fifteenth dan level practice but i’ll teach it to you just because you’re good students.” Fucking brilliant that you found them and put them up @freeform

Agreeing with the above and would like to add the following general tip: Train all the muscles from your toes and upwards a lot with not too mich intensity, develop both strenght and control. Stand on your toes with feet together and try to slowly lower yourself to a minimum amount of air between your heel ans the floor, push yourself up with vigor and then descend slowly, very slowly again. Train your calfs similarly, your thighs, stand on one leg until it becomes second nature without wobbles or effort, do kick exercises on one leg etc. Do balance exercises, do knee lifts and kicks without dipping your shoulders or stiffening your supporting leg. Do all of these excersises and try to not break a sweat, stay as close to a naturally relaxed and vigorous posture, keep your movements as loose as possible without them being sloppy, use grace. All that stuff will aid tremendously with standing, it will build the appropriate muscles and control and as long as you build slowly and develop your exercises with care you’ll se other benefits as well.

General tip: besides whats been already said about stretching i also recommend you practice the ”squat” style of sitting. Your goal is to be able to sit like that comfortably, both solesof feet fully on the ground and keep your balance. No lifted heels or putting your weight more to one side. Thats your goal, if you don’t already know how to do this it’s time to just try it out and see how far off the mark you are. It requires you to have good mobility in hip joints, lumbar region of spine, perineum, lower abdomen and so on. It’s a great corrector for spinal alignment once you’ve learned it, it’ll set your back straight within seconds if you’ve been doing some bad sort of tension or imbalanced knot over there. Also, consider standing short periods. Sometimes it’s not the quantity of the standing but the quality of work you do standing. Five good minutes is far better than 45 struggling painful minutes imo. Ymmv of course.

I’d like to offer a differet approach which i think is applicable to most of the brocades that i found gave me good support and coordination when i did them. It will seem quite opposite to what @Astral Monk suggested but try both, see what you think differs and how both methods influence your movement and feeling. Exhale on outgoing, expressive movements such as a punch or letting an arrow fly, taking a step forward etc. Inhale when you gather up your body, retract, pull in or close. Both styles of abdominal breathing work pretty well with this pattern. At some points it’s not wrong to accentuate the ovement with your breath for about a tenth of a second. As in when you ”draw the bow” you breathe in and maybe just let that last little moment before you let the arrow fly be one where you just breath in a little quicker and hold until you let the arrow go. Same with that punching exercise: when you punch supposedly ”lands” let your exhale be just a tiny bit more powerful and come to a ful hold within a tenth of a second, then release the punch and exhale whatever is left before you rechamber your fist. Summarizing: breathe out when you express or have an outgoing movement, breath in when you gather your body such as stepping back, retracting your hand etc. Accent (almost imperceptibly) any culmination of a movement (landing a punch, reaching the maximum tension of your bow and arrow, when you finish transferring your body weight in a certain direction etc) and then continue where you were in your exhale/inhale cycle. This more of a martial approach to any exercise, expressing and transmitting power, using breath mechanics to stabilize the whole body so your shoulders and hips work together. Dont make anything more forceful, just breathe out when you go out from your body and in when you gather again, accentuate where appropriate, you probably know where and when. Test it out, find a comfortable pattern with this and compare to the other method. PS. Decide which of the two is your ”main” method of breath and let the other be your ”variation”, maybe switch positions between them after a few months and see how that feels!

Thats not a matter of taste, thats just an abomination! Ew! Btw, i did a few weeks of living in a log cabin two autumns ago, no electricity or water except what i brought, fireplace for heating, candles and oil lamps for light and a small oil stove for soup and tea. At the time it was precisely right, forced me to focus on hydrating, oxygenating and taking regular meals. But more permanently? Nope, too much work.

It’s good to see someone else state this. Perhaps the semen outbreak will be avoided.

Is semen about to start flying now? *worried*

We’ve had our spats and sometimes i can’t help but roll my eyes at what you write but then you go writing something like this and i’m all like ”Rides got a fundamentally sound mindset when it comes to the core matters.” Darn you and your complexity I’m inclined to agree, the way of harmonizing doesn’t lead to ascent but it do prepare one for all sorts of things in ways that are necessary if any good is to come of any method. I’d offer to say that Realization is close when the balancing becomes spontaneous and shure of shot, but ascension is a hindrance to realization. I capitalize randomly because we speak of seeecret matters wooooo Btw, no offense.

In the scope of alchemical matters it’s not really important which one of those two is lead, this isn’t really something you can piece together from different sources as such. LYMs method is the most complete and detailed description i’ve come across so thats why i keep telling you to go and have your own looksee. Now my replies aren’t worthy of thanks but i’ll take it as a compliment. I’m by no means an expert nor skilled at this, one day it just started making sense after reading a few selected works, but you know what they say about book smarts right? Hehe... Honestly i dont remember what all the different names for the two base components are but if you go look up Liu Yimings book on this matter you’ll find his explanations on lots of the symbolic nomenclature. Pretty sure it’s not available as pdf but you can buy a paperback copy from amazon or Golden Elixir Press and you’ll have it as a decent starting point to study the theory and development of Nei Dan from a very clear source, written from direct experience. I know the internet i supposed to be of free info but the paper copies arent as ephemeral as digital ones, definetly a good investment that will last perhaps longer than your current interest in the topic. Ag least a proper book (you know what i mean) is there and you can hold it, come back to it and unless you’re a chronic nightowl all you need is sunlight and a bench, no batteries.

No. That’s the opposite of what i wrote earlier. My previous post meant to say that from what i’ve gathered is: within water there is a Pure Yang, within fire there is a Pure Yin. These two Pures are not the two trigrams, the Pure is extracted from the trigrams. If you reverse the inner characteristic of the two Fire becomes Qian annd Water subsequently becomes Kun, by the switching of places. Look at the trigrams, compare the four of them, i think you’ll see what i’m talking about. In alchemy they’re called Water and Fire because of the trigrams is what Liu Yiming wrote. Words are just imagry, they dont matter, they’re just there to illustrate. ”Once you understand the symbols, forget them.” is what his final comment on that topic, maybe not verbatim but yeah. Theres a lot of names for what is within them, Dragon and Tiger are two of them, and Liu Yiming advised to focus on extracting the Silver from Water. You do that by being still at first, then you find the Silver and extract it. That in itself helps tame Fire and reveal it’s core. Then you take the cores, the refined materials and put them where they belong to create the original, unadulterated substances, later you work to unify them. All this is with the balancing and controlling help of Center, aka Earth. You dont stop either of them afaik, what you do is that you extract the True Silver from Water, the active within the still. When you have enough of it you work to reverse the inner quality of both base components and then they become Qian and Kun. Thats the theory at that stage, exactly what it entails i cant say.

Stop me if y’all heard this. True Fire and True Water, ”hidden” within Kan ans Li have rising and sinking properties. They also equate with True Lead and True Mercury because of their similarity to these metals. One is solid and heavy and easily stays at rest while the other is hard to grasp and when excited it quickly turns to gas, even disturbing it a little is likely to separate a pool of mercury into smaller droplets and those little fuckers go all over the place. There is a certain stage after the extraction of these two True Components where they switch place or are ”returned” to their original placein the early heaven bagua order, meaning that Heaven and Earth are again whole and not mixed. I’m not sure if this is a permanent switch or just another deepening of the alchemical process. I think for as much as i’ve gathered, that some of these ”stages” will manifest quite by themselves in peoples daily life but that being aware of it and in some form of command of this is the big difference. Knowing and using it to ones and others benefit is the goal of alchemy at this point, maybe. Alchemy seems to however be a method to study in preparation of studying other things. If you’ve identified what the two trigrams represent in the early stage then you’ll have to spend some time realizing when their inner and outer perspectives are applicable, what is going on there and how you get into contact with it. This is a major step in realizing the reality of the human condition and yourself it is said, who knows. Go read Liu Yiming, that helped me along a little, even though as soon as i discuss this stuff i feel like i’m saying it all wrong anyway. Thats why a lot of this stuff seems vague, it’s a realization within and words often fail to describe it well, especially to whomever instead of directed at a certain individual from someone who knows and understands the wholeness of it. Thats what i heard at least. Water and Fire in alchemical practice are not strange and uncommon things, they are subtle and within us in a way we’re unused to notice. The language is muddled both because it’s hard to describe and because doing this shit wrong is likely to lead those of strong will to delusions and those of weak mind to psychosis or a system of denial and self-deception that is very harmful if you want to lead a good and open life. It certainly isn’t a way to pack up and become some form of SuperSaian blasting lightning and thunder from their nose, no magics, just true nature. Beware magics, it’s like that song by Tom Waits where there are magic bullets and everything goes to shit.

These ought to be happening all the time for folks, i think they might be not as uncommon as some would have us think. I think Flowing Hands hit the bulls eye. An awakening is personal and speaks to the connection of that individual to everything. Sustaining it or not isn’t an achievement or loss, i do believe awakenings should keep happening and ebbing, mirroring the fluidity and ever changing you-know-what. Such an experience is vital and pivotal, but i have a hard time connecting with it when it’s described in written words. Like the OP says, people recognize eachother if they’ve seen it. People who even dislike eachother will be able to connect and realize together to some extent when they recognize that thing in eachother.

Yup, that what he said too. It was pretty close to being more black than red. It’s no wonder really if one has their foot in a cast with zero mobility and strict orders not to place any weight on it. Iirc the reflow of blood from the feet back towards the heart relies hesvily on muscular movement, plus the athrophizing muscles and generally poor oxygenation cant really help either right? I had no idea! Here i was blaming his magic hands and perhaps it was the drainage of blood that did it. I didn’t know bloodletting was still a thing, when Ho explained about taking out the trash and let new blood get there eventually it did make sense though. Up until then i only knew of bloodletting as a panacea from medeival times

5 is Earth, solid center. The odd numbers form a cross of the five primary directions, compass points and even the elements as well if you like (see the gods of the four directions for correspondence). The even corners are the counterbalance of yin to the yang of the odd ones (five is still center so leave that one be) and i think they can represent turning points, like an end-of-the-line idea. The overlaps are there, i think you might find Michael Sasos chapters on the Rites of Cosmic Renewal and the Steps of Yu (spelling might differ) instersting, also refer to european magic traditions where the magic squares are connected to the planets, that should give you some glue to fill a few gaps illustration-wise but dont take it too far. You can theoretically overlap the Lo Shu square on a classic Bagua symbol with taijitu in the middle, see where that leads. I use the Lo Shu square for a few exercises but i’m not at liberty to speak on those at the moment.

Ok my final words for tonight: A wood or rattan staff will weigh just enough, keep them oiled: they’ll behave better and live longer. My reference for any beginners staff is to find or buy a piece of solid round construction wood, the kind used for handrails and drapery-hangers. Spruce or similar inexpensive wood is fine, even has a little flex. About 30 to 35 millimeters thick (1.3 inches roundabout) and get it cut to 100-200 mm taller than yourself (4 to 8” more or less). Sand it lightly with mid and then fine grit paper so you dont get any splinters, round the ends off so they dont fray as easily. Extea fancy version: soak it in boiled linseed oil for a couple of days and hang (HANG) it to dry and sweat for a few more. Maybe give it another ever so feathery light pass with your fine grit paper and let it dry some more. Dont varnish or paint it, you’ll catch blisters from friction with sweaty palms. Try it out!

PPS. If you break up this snippet of form into its idividual techniques this sample of WLE (quite excellent) Monkey King Staff form you have a doggone awesome set of basic step-body-staff techniques. I cant currently find a good view of partner drills, especially individual ones, but here’s an example of how that Monkey King Staff form contains a whole method and approach to staff combat, it’s a style in itself almost. If you were to break individual techs up from the first video, then observe which ones they correspond with in the sparring form video, the find a friend to do each tech of attack and defense you’ll have a boatload of fun, someone will probably break a knuckle or finger (please DONT or Lightning strike you!) and you’ll start to feel like there is a determined approach to this. It’s not a complete system but it’s a set of tactics, failsafes and strategies at least. Enough from me now, sorry for getting so excited about this but i friggin love staffwork so yeah.

I got a lot of thoughts about this, staff is the wu chi i’ve put most hours into and it’s exciting in its simplicity. I say a PVC pipe with end caps is all fine as a beginning tool but using a living material like hardwood, waxwood or rattan just makes the whole exercise come alive differently. I prefer rattan staffs of equal diameter all the way, same goes for spears, i been taught its called a Double Headed Serpent. Theres plenty of styles using this, many other use the Rat Tail Gwan (tapered thick to slimmer, thick end is where hands go most often), theres Olive Kernel Staff (thick middle and slim at both ends) and more i cant remember. Bamboo is not recommended no ,atter what anyone says if you’re going to use it for power or support, since the sections are hollow it’s very brittle and bamboo dries out quickly so it’ll loose its ability to transer energy a lot faster than more equally dense plants. I’m with a southern school and our approach to staff i pretty different from most i’ve seen actually. North shaolin styles often have a right hand forward weilding the power and use the left in the back for guiding support, like an anchor point. Where i come from the right hand is power and movement while the left is guiding support and the odd little flick but their position is reversed. Now all three of my teachers with staff have all been strict and stern in their own way. The first two learned from our grandmaster who is the third of my teachers and i’ve come to be pretty allergic and snobbish with staff and staff methods, i’ll try to keep it toned down. A couple of percepts to guide anyone who wants to learn staff are to follow, skip if you dont like it, i just gotta say this ok? Choose your staff well and treat it like its your closest friend. That means take care of it, don’t abandon it and keep it fresh and unhurt. If you break staffs on the regular you’re using your muscular force like a moron, no offense. Study the Wing Lam video of Lau Gar staff, especially his body alignment and footwork. These two are second and first priority respectively. Power comes from stepping and using principles of levers to transmit power. Your spine should be erect and your power should reach the staff tip a millisecond after your moving foot touches ground. The WLE video shows a huge amount of awesome staff method and technique, observe his body first and see how the staff moves after. His stepping and shifting weight is very much in control, his feet are light but as soon as one of them is supporting they’re like tree trunks of steadyness. The shift between fluid and firm is instantaneous, strive for that. I think if he’d do it on a wet beach he’d leave minimal amounts of messy gouges. The earth is providing his strenght and power, he lets it and therefore the fight between them is minimal. Now the Bamboo stick woman made my hackles rise, her entry position or at rest position is just senseless (WHY would you expose joints, staff and everything to stand in such a clumsy and slow to action posture?!) and her form and movenent is coarse, she falls into stances with her full weight (poor control), she tilts completely forward with head and shoulders as she kicks and then i had to stop watching. The exercises might be good but hers are, sadly, a poor rendition of them, sorry if this is harsh but thats my honest opinion. Again with the WLE video, he clicks the staff to the ground, he’s not hitting the ground. I’ll leave anyone who is interested to figure out what the difference means and how to use that. Target practice with stick or staff is good, it teaches you to use form, the correct amount of power and how to handle it. Notice i’m underlinging the correct amount of power, there is no need to smash and bash, you’ll break your stick. This relates to the above paragraph regarding clicking. Figure that out and you’re on a good way to actually making sense of staff power. Balance and control exercise should be coupled with intent of power exercises. If you hold the stick perfectly horizontal in one end with both hands and want to raise the tip it should move with equally distributed power in the whole stick. If someone were to give 2kg of opposition at the tip your staff should not tilt even a little bit when you raise it upwards but stay perfectly perpendicular. Try this by attaching a string with a water bottle (vary weight as you progress) so that moving the staff means that the weight immediately leaves the ground. Keep the line taut but with no resistance, the lift the bottle. Sounds easy but it can take quite some time to figure out. Try using the full lenght of your stick as a weight to train your forearm strenght and control, use only one hand and grip it off center. Try just holding it straight for a while, you’ll see what i mean Also consider studying how quickly you can change grip and grip position on the staff without dropping it. Study this in absurdum. Twirl and play, practice speed and flow and to stop right in the middle of a movement, just to challenge your control and the amount of power you unconsciously and needlessly add to it. Earth gives power to the body, the body moves the arms and the stick obeys. You’re the boss of the stick btw. It should do what you want it to do, like you finger or your head. Dont follow the stick, this is a sure way to ruin. Humblest regards from you friendly neighborhood staff-nazi, i hope someone finds this useful and pardon my rant. PS. Adding some links with suggestions for routines, will update if i find more good ones. Nice form, decent speed so you can see the movements nicely, observe how the steps and stances guide what the staff does. Very few weak positions, few silly exposures and not much of flourishy transitions like you can observe in most Yin Shao Gun from Shaolin Temple, and in all respect there’s immensly skilled people doing it.

@freeform wow, sounds like quite a night it turned out to be! Just love it when this sort of stuff happens, i’ve had a couple less dramatic ones and witnessed one similar thing a guy i had no idea was ”packing” sensitivity. I can feel it when something is about to happen from the shift in energy/mood/smell and i can definetly tell when someone with some juice is involved, i feel something turn in me towards it like a compass needle. Weird. I have a few of similar stories... I remeber talking a 40 something oddball straight, he crashed an afterparty at my old place where i lived with my ex and was not doing much to brighten the mood. He was stone cold sober and brooding, an acquaintance of an acquaintance, i never got his name but he was an obvious loose cannon. Something compelled me to talk to the man, i was going to throw him out when i approached him but i felt like a warm shower of a bubbly liquid, like fizzy water, running over me from head to toes, just faintly but it was there and i change my whole approach, within a minute he’s talking to me about his cocaine addiction, how he’s friends with a bunch of stick up kids half his age who run around with guns and make all sorts of messes and that he’s come to a point of considering suicide because he thinks his road is set too deep. All the while i’m listening and just ripping the guys excuses and negative outlook to pieces, not being kind either but having this fatherly warmth in my voice (where’d that come from?) and telling him he should pick up music, like just hitting keys and see what comes out. Reading this guy beforehand i’d never approach him like that, he was armed and he was definetly carrying product, i think he’d plan to sell some powders at our place but he never got the chance to even float the idea. He just looked at me dismantle every idea of helplessness he held on to and when i said ”sit down and hit some keys, improvise” he just went pale and asked how i knew he’d been trying to get back into music forever but he was terrified of what could happen, since he had nothing to loose now he was scared he’d get his hopes up. I casually told him that was bullshit, that he was clinging to his fears as if they were reality and he just went silent, nodding. We sat like that in silence while everyone else seemed to just merry on about and not even noticing us. He stood up, offered his hand and a long hug and said to me he was going home to fire up his keyboard, very seriously thanked me for letting him stay a while, waved goodbye to everyone with a big smile and just left. This happened during a period of daily inward practice and i realized only after we’d been sitting right across from my altar to Guan Gong, he’d been staring at it on and off while talking to me. I dont think it was a coincidence. Another time my ex walked in on a burglar who’d decided not to take anything except a minor amount of cash and a pocket knife (he returned both) when he entered that same room where the altar stood, he said he’d realized it would be so mean and callous to steal our computers because we used them for work (he hadn’t opened them) and he was crying while i scolded him and told him he was being reckless and an idiot, he could get hurt walking into peoples homes. He was on his knees begging for forgiveness and promised to tell all of his junkie friends to leave our courtyard alone (it was one of those summers when a lot of down and out folks were looking for stuff to pinch and sell, our yard was easily accessed and it had become a problem with these ”visitors” messing about) and i took his info from his ID (he actually handed it to me) as security. Then he left, thanking me and promising to make good on his word. Oddly enough, not a single incident happened the following years until i moved out after separating and took my altar with me. Nowadays it’s becoming a frequent spot for trespassing and disturbances again. I cant say it’s this or that but i strongly believe the altar and my routine of practice in that period directly affected these incidents. It’s not like huge deals, no fireballs or telekinetic wizard fighting, but two different unrelated occasions with uninvited criminals that were deeply affected by being there and i remember acting spontaneously, not a premeditated word or action and it all just fell into place. To me it’s odd at least, but i don’t look gifted horses in their mouth with such things

Anecdote support: I had a local 5 Ancestors master who goes by the surname Ho, i don’t know his first name but he’s known in town for his mediine skills. He help me out with a broken fibula some ten years back, i went to see him after getting screws put in to re-set the bone and he did three sessions of acupuncture as soon as the cast came off and the stitches were taken out. He treated me in his martial arts supplies store, i was on a chair and he sat on a kung fu bench. He drew dark blood out by hypodermic puncture and suction cup after, set needles in points that i had no idea what they were at the time nor can recall, more suction cups here and there, he did some healing through his hands (it unnerved me seriously since his hands were radiating intense heat during, it wasn’t just warm, his hands were like being in the proximity of a scolding hot kettle an then my leg responded with warmth) and wanted me to use a shaolin medicine paste that i couldnt afford so he sold me some excellent Dit Da Jiao that i massaged twice daily with for a week or so. On the bus home from the first sessioni started crying, i was in a lot of inner turmoil but it passed in an hour. God knows what he actually did but it worked. He demonstrated some projecting by making my beard tingle, said hair was like antennae for qi, cracked a few jokes about it. We talked a lot for the next two sessions, he did his thing and said if i still had a problem after the third time he’d treat me for free for as many sessions as needed because it should have worked already. When i went to rehabilitation training limping along with just ome crutch for support the physiotherapist was skeptical as fuck, asked twice for my name and looked at me funny. I asked whats wrong and she said that i was either joking or there must be some error in the dates written down in the file for when the fracture happened and when my cast had been opened. I told her i’d seen Ho sifu for acupuncture and she gave a knowing ”ahaa...” To her it seemed as though i’d been doing physiotherapy for at least a month already. She was very secretive about telling me she knew for a fact that even randomized acupuncture was giving off very fascinating results but since it’s still unaccepted officially she’d loose her job if her boss heard her talk positively about acupuncture. It took about a year to get back to decent mobility but i was doing basic kung fu again within six months of the cast coming off. Due to deaths in the family i had to quit physio so full recovery took me a few years total, i still can’t run without massive pain after but i’ve understood that without Ho Sifus help and my own careful qigong and kung fu approach to healing it would have been far more busted. Cheers!

Valid points definetly. Being up to par to recieve the core is one thing, in my experience a system becomes a vast body of knowledge in its incarnation, as in quite litterally in the flesh of a living person. What is transmitted to the next generation, if conditions and personal chemistry is ideal, is the nucleus of principles and illustrations on the methods used to extrapolate the use of them. It is rare that those principles reach all in the next generation, but some recieve them more or less fully. The toughest thing to teach and learn are those methods, because of their intricacy, imhe. Also a 100% complete transmission might not be a very good thing to strive for, i’ve heard more than once that the next lineage keeper often recieves about 70% and occasionally more because that is part of what keeps the system alive, it needs to be nurtured, embodied and experienced by its keeper. Smooth seas do not make good sailors or whatever the phrasing of that old adage might be. An inheritor will know that their knowledge isn’t complete and their continued study will reveal certain secrets down the road, secrets their master might not have realized even. I think, at least when it comes to systems with a solid daoist root, that the operator and practice must influence eachother and that a master must trust their students judgement because it will all be out of their hands one day. Those i’ve met who hold a lineage have all given me a similar impression: the system is them. You judge their devotion to the system by observing their students but the actuall system lives in their body and spirit. They’ve studied and know the humble realization that ”this is mine to give, i must give me to it and take it for my own to honor it properly”. I try to remember this when i approach the idea that the arts are dead nowadays because the old stuff might have died with previous keepers. Maybe it was always like this, someone out there has inherited something and merged so completely with it that it is something utterly different and yet is the lineage because the core, the seeds of life in it were transmitted and allowed to grow. Who knows? I’m waxing poetic on a sunday of hard work...

Interesting, i’d gladly hear more of your thoughts along this line!

I cant say i know how the ancients did it, i doubt anyone can answer that exactly but the instructions are said to have survived and been developed on since, correct me if i’m wrong. I dont have formal Taoist training but i suspect the question entails a few oversimplifications. I think storing energy in the LDT goes hand in hand with two other practices: gathering energy and using energy. Just storing it sounds potentially harmful, compare it to ”loading” a punch with your arm and not releasing it or to fill your lungs to max without ever expelling or replacing more than 25% of it. Strenous and impractical. And to gather and store energy in the body for a certain purpose (yet another important step: what is it for?) it still means you have to have a practice to follow and worked significantly to establish the infrastructure for it. This, iirc, means to have studied the physical requirements and trained your actual body to a certain level before you incorporate the next steps of developing your ”energy body” for lack of a more precise term.

”This has led many to believe that there are no dwarf women...” ”Its the beards.”