Rocky Lionmouth

But if i’m even on the right track then DT rotation is oddly simple and very counterintuitive at first. I couldn’t explain it in any way better than ”most people move their body and so their dan tien shifts, some learn o add power to their movement with the dan tien but when you move from the dan tien it actually moves you, literally”. I’m probably going to hear all sorts of flack for this but thats how i describe it, i havent found a way to fully incorporate it in everything but i stumbled over it in one exercise and it was a very weak little voice at first, mostly because it’s being drowned in the mess of signal from all other places. Being able to move from DT comes from yi in the beginning but it is nei gong, as in internal work that is very difficult to visually distinguish from someone skillfully using their body moving ad boosting from their DT. You’ll feel the difference though.

Bodhi was a lovable grump but he went soft on the poor sods, i think Huike had the longest path left to travel but did so willingly, the others must have been dissappointed since their path only led so far and revealed rather insipid understanding. This is a koan isn’t it? I think it’s not a qi-practice per se but an explanation of how stuck you can be unless you develop from the marrow in a wider sense. This has nothing to do with the body for me, but i’m just a blowhard so don’t listen.

Stop trying to hold on too hard to energy as if having more means your bank accout is stocked and you’re financially independent forever. Any level of finance must be managed and maintained and this takes work. Winter aint your season, take care of yourself accordingly, thats all. You’ll know what you can do 5-element wise from observing your patterns in winter, so observe and act genty, evaluate. Don’t overdo stuff. Also: proper horse stance is not different from horse stance and the time you should be able to keep it ought to be longer than any forced position. Please do be mindful of spinal alignment, direction of feet and not bending the knees to a full 90 degrees with horse stance. Hipbone needs to be like level, imagine it as if it were a bowl full of water: dont tilt either way or you’ll spill. Spine is erect, feet are parallel and your knees mustnt be over the line your toes draw, as in if you put your toes to the wall you should be able to do a correct horse stance without having your knees push hard against the wall. Horse stance is great but done wrong means you’ll hurt yourself which is the exact opposite of the purpose of the exercise. Done right you’ll feel supported by your bones and tendons aligning correctly and just standing there isn’t going to be painful or horrible. The trick is to actually relax into it. Wether or not it gives you MORE qi of all things depends o where you’re at healthwise on most levels. There are MANY types of horse stances. The one commonly refferred to as ”proper” can be called ”parallell horses riding stance” because you can immagine it as if you’re riding two horses that run parallell by having a foot on their backs. There’s Small Horse stance (sometimes known as cat stance), Horse stance (you look like someone teleported your horse away and you fall to the ground landing on your feet), Horse Hoof Stance (step over your foot and in landing you flick the previously load bearing foot to a kick and let the front end of your ”hoof” rest on the ground) which isn’t to be confused with Chinese Unicorn Stance and step (tooootally different so take care) and lots more. Horse Style in my book is stepping, certain types of kicks, some bodywork, some types of jumping (with or without kicks), spitting (yes, as in spit) as well as standing. Parallell Horses Riding Stance needs you to be flexible and being able to adapt to the horses bobbing independently while staying on them. Any stiffness anywhere is going to end in a pretty bad fall. If you experience stiffness or tension during this stance you’re either still trying to learn it or doing it wrong by mistake or purpose. If you feel like one minute is a marathon you need to work on structure and breathing, you’ll find and develop ”sung” soon. Standardized Wu-Shu stances are not good for your health, don’t learn those. If it’s not obvious yet: i’m sort of passionate about stances and footwork overall since its basic skills that return any investment tenfold. Good energy economics is to take care of St Francis Horses, i.e. your feet/legs. Steady, supple and properly paced wins the race... So either do good or no bou fa for you! //StanceNazi

It’d be my pleasure but dont wait up, it might take quite some time

I offer a humble shift of perspective: It’s a road, they have bumps, expect them to show up and they won’t be that rough. Lucky you, you’ve got a road to travel. Some of us out there need to reinvent the wheel on the daily! If the bumps make you scrape and jump you need a car with adjustable riding height such as variable height hydraulic or pneumatic suspension systems. I recommend older production year models, colloquially referred to as ”bombs” and ”lead sleds”, but basically any full size two door classic will do. Lincolns and Mercurys make for classy lowriders, chevys are the go to while cadillacs are usually a bit fussy. It’s either a lo-lo or a raised 4wd rockslider depending on if you prefer to cruise or go mudding. If you choose a pneumatic suspension do get one with 4 gates, you’ll go much smoother. Either way get a 6-switch rig for minimum, preferrably and 8 with pancake, face, ass and corners setup so you have more control. Take care though: no matter what vehicle you decide the bumps in the road are not going away, you’re simply adapting your options on how to approach them.

So this ended in a book-shopping spree, thanks and curse you for that. Its not like i have a few hundred kgs of books already but these were hard to pass. Edit: Taoism and the Rites of Cosmic Renewal is available in 2nd hand paperback, but for a whopping 625$(!?) i’m going to look for a pdf copy. Sheesh! Loved the video of the ritual, the chair bouncing was a real treat besides Xuan Wu showing up to resolve the matter. Wish there was audio or narration.

2 cents on this: I asked Sifu, who’s been studying taoist litterature for decades and holds keys to various texts, about precisely this view this last june and he answered me a definite ”No, dont read it like that, thats just confusion. If it says King it means the King, the Big Man wrote clearly. But its a book written for High Men, so they would understand it.”

I like what WMJ wrote! Void, you lost me a few paragraphs ahead of quantum relativity and then it just became a large mishmash of info. Sorry, i really wanted to stay with it but i cant now.

Thanks, i was just about to mention that last time a match like this was arranged the Immortal got placed in cooldown for an odd number of centuries and Buddha had to wash his Venerable So-Gone hands a lot to get rid of the reek of urine...

Hmmm. I never knew flow was supposed to be exhausting, but then again i have ADD so i fall into hyperfocus quite naturally and shed most of the unnecessary crap and be at one with the task. Thats what i call flow. Work for six hours straight, break for food and some air, then put four more hours in, without experiencing a comedown or mood saings or whatever. Effortless. What has been discussed as flow previously is what i call ”doubling down to haul ass” and i avoid doing it because its only needed when you REALLY need to get a job done within a certain time frame or to a certain point without following intuition, energy or body. Eight hours non-stop is doable but it requires active cognitive focus to stay with it and its hard work. That will leave me spent for two days after. Sure i do get grumpy if interrupted while in my effortless flow, it takes a lot of energy to stop, reassemble a social persona that is functional and verbal to say ”sure, i’ll have a cup if you’re making coffee, thanks”. Hearing the input is effortless, but interacting by any socially acceptable standards is a major reroute because the offer of coffee is so trivial and subjective that it just sucks. Most of us with ADHD/ADD can do the effortless flow thing like its nothing, some of us can haul ass but it requires training. Now you’re telling me what others call flow is substantially different on energetic levels? I’ve been wu-weiing for as long as i can remember in that case... who would have thunk? I should be in the write-books-and-give-talks business, i could do honest stuff even. Too bad you’d have to be neurologically dysfunctional to truly appreciate and use the stuff but that could be my ”esoteric” stuff. ”How do you reach such a state Guru Rocky?” ”Well you need to actually be born and live in the right conditions to develop a mental disorder that pisses off you parents, teachers, bosses, partners and it would help if your parents turn out to have the same neurocognitive dysfunction too. Just make sure you dont try to fit in and play the game everyone else is trying to win, you’ll probably kill yourself if you get caught in that.” ”What?” ”Be reborn one last time as a fairly resilient ADHD child and then you can reach liberation or maybe your kids can, whatever. Lets go look at cats without trying to make sense of it now, you’re too cognitively coherent already.” I’m gonna be SO rich!

Hey speak for yourself, maybe others need badgers? What beef do you have with badgers anyway?

That Jade pecker just reminded me of reading an interview somewhere featuring this lady who was a teacher and master of a Qi Gong and Nei Gong style exclusively for bearers of vaginas. One of their main practices consisted of using a ball or egg of jade for vaginal and pelvic floor exercise and as integral part of breath and energy work, both for internal and external use in meditation. I remember that she explained that the jade needed for these exercises was Dragon Jade, the highly prized ans sought after kind that is considered to be coagulated and crystallized dragon semen, which had all sorts of benefits for those practicing this style. Iirc correctly the jade was used both internally and externally to aid meditation, physical exercises and so forth. I wanna say it was a pretty big feature with lots of info in a printed media work. Unfortunately my collection of kung fu / tai chi magazines has been lost for years. All i can remember is that she was a former highly esteemed yoga instructor that had been introduced to the style by the then current lineage holder. She used a lot of yoga terminology but it was a daoist method, one of the few times i’ve read so much in detail about an exclusively female art sourced from an experienced practicioner. Idk but the subject isn’t very usual. She just stood out in her indefinable 30-60s among all the folks in traditional suits and beautiful weapons, just regular sweats and a t-shirt. Wish i could be more exact about, maybe someone read that same piece and still has it? Wishful thinking perhaps.

Me also, not only way of it’s alignment with the water phase in WuXing theory but i’ve also noticed that the connection has been observed in other cultures as well, for instance the type of jade that consists of the mineral Nephrite confirms this through etymology since nephros is the classical greek word for kidney. Jade is pretty common in certain diverse areas globally, i read from wikipedia that it is apparently very common in New Zealand among other places. It seems to me that humans have sought/collected and meaningfully interacted with jade for a pretty long time. I’m fascinated by gemstones in general but jade and lapiz lazuli have always been special to me for some reason, my mom had a necklace of each stone and i used to look and touch them often. She noticed after a while and said that it was good that i was playing with them because both jade and lapis lazuli need to be touched or they become sad and lonely, by which she meant that both benefit aestetically from being in contact with skin. Lapis lazuli especially, i remember seeing that necklace in my late teens and it was had become dull and grayish because of neglect. So remember to pet your gems folks!

If i’m not mentally fretting i’ll fall asleep on anything except moving vehicles. ”Teenager style”is the best one, even better when being the bigger spoon sleeping with someone, but not always. I like the daoist style sleep too, if i’m on a hard surface thats the one i end up in. Sleeping while travelling is impossible, i dont get it! Edit update: Regarding how much sleep is healthy i can only say that it depends on the individual, their routine and lifestyle, age, geographic location, season, diet, physical and mental health status, environmental factors and overall salutogenic approach. Some folks shouldnt sleep for more than 6 hours because it ruins their day with tiredness and malfunction and some cant deal with sleeping less than 8 hours. It seems that cicadian rythms average between 80 to 110 minutes in adults but again, gross statistic estimate. A handful of cycles is usually enough to reset a ”normal” days work but some studies (dont ask for citation because this is 3rd hand info) mean that backlogged sleeping is resolved by a single full nights sleep. Might not clear all effects of physical fatigue but the brain functions return to regular levels at least. I think it’s important to study ones own diurnal cycles and circadian rythm to gather data, observe and estimate approaches and find out how much sleep is healthy. The 8hrs a night thing is a recent invention afaik, it came about with the 9 to 5 workday and general homemaking working family ideals it seems. In agrarian sweden up to the late 19th century for example folks used to sleep in two shifts: where they got up around sunrise (in the bright seasons at least), did what heavy work that was needed to be done in daylight, went to bed early for some 3-4 hours of sleep. Then they woke up in the wee hours to do less demanding work and crafts for a few hours, socialized a little and then got a few more hours (second sleep) to be rested enough for daytime work. I cant swear by the accuracy of this since i only have one source from a documentary on public service radio but it was claimed that this was fairly standard in scandinavian countries well into the 19th century. Used to be i had MASSIVE sleeping disorders, for years it was angstfest and no shuteye before six in the morning if going to bed at around 11 pm. ”Tossing and turning, emotions were strong” like the song says. I still have waking nights, usually when i’m very excited about something or while picking up my physical exercise routine after slacking off for a month or so. Much of my insomnia and related stress was a vicious cycle so when i finally realized that sleep was both a necessity and a commodity i could relax into having erratic patterns and subsequently they stabilized the more i was able to say ”well, i’ll have to make do on three hours today”. Sure those days are no fun but i get to catch up on sleep in the evening so it’s not that bad. Plenty water and upped food intake helps a lot.

Make it my friend like dancelord said, it was a really good minute there! Pain is relevant information and i try to listen close, its a peculiar language full of nuance. LOTS of small talk, whining and status reports. Its importante to breathe deep and let it speak its piece imo. Sometimes theres a new word which makes me very attentive, sometimes its some form of discomforted hypothesizing, other times its a very exact description of a certain movement gon wrong or specific damage that is delivered at incredibly high speed. I’ve come to notice my threshold is higher than most people i know, but thats pretty subjective i think. A few times i’ve felt sustained amounts of screaming pain, the kind that makes me wanna quit being conscious, like when i broke my foot. But getting tattoed all day long was exhausting and stinging but not so much ”OW OW” as i thought it would be. Emotional pain is the most stubborn kind, but in the end its really easy to deal with it one a direct level: come apart and cry my eyes out until i’m ready to get back to business. Sure, some stuff comes back and haunts and makes seven kinds of fuss to be heard but a good old crying marathon is the best medicine. Living in the moment can help and it can sabotage when it comes to pain imo. If you live in the moment with accumulated knowledge of your body and understand the information pain delivers then dealing with it is easy as pie, even when you’re caught unawares. But if pain surprises AND scares you instead of delivering the info properly it’ll easily become something demoralizing or interrupting, a proper demon even. The one thing that keeps bugging me is compression pain, like you get your finger caught in a drawer or something, that can go on throbbing in a dull way for days, hate that. I even like a little pain depending on the kind, i dont mind a little rough handling without malice or truly cruel intentions, that doesnt hurt as much as gets me excited... aherm. But when someone inflicts pain through injury its a fully different story, i seem to register the intent with it, dont know if anybody else does. If someone bites or pinches me in an intimate situation or say a punch lands particularly bad during practice or somebody inadvertently inflicts pain i can let it go very quickly. But the few times i’ve been hit by unfriendly people it felt a lot different even if it didnt hurt at all, idk if that makes sense to anyone else but thats what it feels like.

The world changes all the time and so do we, imho. Add a little here, temper a little there, detract a little over yonder and soften almost everything. Change is permanent, i think it follows that nothing is permanent. Softening gives you the chance to follow with less friction, giving you far better openings for percieving and using serendipitous circumstances to allow things to keep moving without affecting their nature and energy too much. So, how can you not change yourself? Is it perhaps that you see yourself as having certain characteristics and wish to have other, maybe ”better” ones instead? That could be seen as going from one percieved solid state to another, neither of which are necessarily honest or forgiving to who you really are. Idk if this is helpful though. I recommend reading up on Al Khidr, especially the tale of when Moses tried to be his disciple and failed miserably. Moses wanted to be a better servant of Allah, understand his wish and creation better. Al Khidr was at his idealized level but it turned out Moses had it all backwards, he was too focused on what his senses cluld percieve as correct and reasonable based on what he knew to be correct and reasonable in the eyes of God. His ability to change the world and better himself was limited by his self-imposed narrow scope of vision. TLDR: domt worry so much and go easy on yourself. Google Al Khidr, the moral of the story is along the lines of what Aetherous was mentioning, worth a read.

Hmm. Imho and afaik, fire and water as mentioned in the OP are not the nei dan initial ingredients. Fire is not meant as forceful heat nor is water meant as supple cold to my understanding, do object if im talking nonsense. The method described seems more like a jing exercise where you use qi and shen as fuel. Kan and Li are the trigrams that illustrate two specific states. Inner emptiness opens the way for cultivating outer stillness, where the inner yang manifests clearly in due time. When those two states are established the process of inversion is set in motion where transformation to Heaven and Earth are possible. This is a physical and energetic exercise at first that paves the way for becoming spiritual when heaven and earth are established. Again, the trigrams are whats important to describe the idea, not the referred things. When you get the idea forget the trigrams, it’ll become self evident whats what. Later on you can see the symbolisms of fire and water around you in many interactions and relationships, but the nei dan aspect is specific. Liu Yiming describes it well in his writings, i’m still dealing with eastablishing the prerequisites of the main ingredients, namely the fire and water to extract their inner qualities. Ime strenous exercises like OP describes need to express the power and force that is generated with the core, such as gong fu striking methods. If you take force and power from somewhere it must go somewhere else or it will stay and affect you instead of being applied for a purpose. I’m personally not pro sexual arts because i think its far too easy to imprint disruptive patterns and potentially pull a muscle in the lower abdominal area, causing a hernia or something like that. If you leave all that buildup inside of you with the pumping and locking perineum then that force will act on your internal structure instead of massaging it into sustainable health and strength. Thats my personal theory on the matter in relation to what i read in your description. But gently following the motions of perineum with awareness and yi first and then gently adding power isnt bad, it helps in developing the LDT and use it as the origin of movement. Key word: Gently. Idk, i might be totally off on this though.

Tidbits about jade: sculptors of jade apparently never sign their work, even though its a highly specialized art and skill that pays well. Iirc its unsigned to respect the material and so its not claimed. Jade stands alone.

Watched the video, had some reponse around my ming men but cant tell what it was. I was very unnerved by the man, especially in the poorly photoshopped mountain background, its like he smells balmy and like medicines or has sandpaper eyes. If this man came knocking on my door i’d ask him to leave immediately and later Tell him to Leave when i suddenly spot him in my backyard just intensly walking around looking all blissful, ”enjoying nature” or something. Like a man who doesnt do boundaries because its ego so he will not respect others either... but he leaves saying he respects my divine wish even though it is to remain ignorant. Sheesh! No intention to disrespect, just referring my experience.

But what?

@Rara or maybe the connection is direct as always but the response needed 8 days gestation? Great to have you back btw, it raises my spirits! Oooo i’m going boxhunting tomorrow mate, brilliant idea!

@shubin you sir, are a hero.

October Marbs, its still only october. I want spring too, double time is for walking and working.

Yours too huh? I have lost all of my DDJ copies to date and the only ZZ i have left is an italian translation, seems like my books develop legs too. One time i had a party and ended up losing five basically unique vinyl records done by friends who were inspired by taoism, one copy of the gateless gate and one transcription of Oshos talks on the DDJ (which was partially crap but not bad as introduction to some aspects)... bastards. But hopefully they end up doing somebody good. Over the years after my last DDJ dissappeared i’ve collected quite a few nice reads that i keep in my tablet, but recently i’ve started buying paper books again, real books just feel different and a lot of good stuff hasn’t been digitalized yet and most likely never will.

Right.