Taiji Bum

Cool, how long have you done kung fu? Which kind? Who's your teacher? Chocolate or vanilla?

Mantak Chia's earlier works are amazing. I dont have much of his new stuff so I cant speak on it but his old stuff is usually right on in my experience too. Welcome to the Bums.

What sort of assorted taoist arts? Oh, WELCOME!

This is exactly why they are in the form of Sacred Geometric patterns. Buy a book on Sacred Geometry and you will learn how to draw the patterns with string, a tack and a pencil. Its not so much a question of how they draw the sacred geometric shapes but that they cant draw anything else with the tools they are using. Yeah, I am not big on the extraterrestrial origin theory of crop circles. For a time I wondered about it being caused by piezoelectric explosions caused by earth tremors or something like that.

I started to do them to stop the out of body experiences I was having. It took awhile but the taijiquan and qigong did stop them. I still practice for health and spiritual reasons.

Yeah, but posting is funner.

"Hey" from Detroit!

Thanks for posting this. I am interested. I picked up some Chinese when I worked in Taiwan fairly quickly but how much do you need to know before you start teaching English?

Herbal enhancements fascinate me so I hope this thread gets some action. I have never used any (not even marijuana) but I have studied the South American Shamanic stuff and might try that someday. I researched Peyote and decided not to try that but the South American stuff looks different and it seems to have very consistent effects.

I have only seen some of his short ones but I am not for the religious figures. I would like to see him in traditional Chinese garb, in a traditional Taoist Temple setting and in China. I know he doesn't live there and isn't Chinese (Is he?) so maybe put in some traditional Taoist priests doing Qigong.

I just picked up some MU tea. Dont know much about it except it is supposed to help make the body more alkaline. Anybody have more info on this or other Chinese/Taoist herbs or teas that are super healthy. Plus please enter your favorite supplements if you have any and their effects, how long you've taken them and any relevent info you have on them.

What is enlightenment? I dont mean to get all "Zen" on anybody but most religions talk about enlightenment. If you read "The Imitation of Christ" which is almost as popular as the Bible among Catholics you will see "enlightenment" mentioned many times in relation to spiritual illumination. I see enlightenment as being ascended and nothing else in my book counts. I know others say enlightenment is just being satisfied with what you have in your life. Still others say enlightenment is knowing Jesus as your personal saviour and others say there are many different levels of enlightenment. To close up my meaningless post I dont know anyone who is enlightened outside of historical figures who might as well be mythalogical, but I know I want to be if that makes any sense.

I got diagnosed with a liver condition by a western doctor ten years back, it isn't too serious and I was born with it. It only acts up once or twice a year. Usually when I over eat after eating light or not at all for a day. Beef will also set it off as will too much coffee or alcohol. I went to the VA once and they wanted to operate. I turned that down and went vegan and did some liver qi gong one of my teachers taught me for a while and that seemed to clear up the jaundice and pain. Since then it hasn't been real bad. I just watch what I eat and do taiji and things seem ok. Liver cleanses deplete qi? I'll remember that QiDr, thanks.

Welcome and hello! So where are you from? Whats your interest in Taoism?

Wow, I cant believe what I've missed not coming into the lobby for so long. Welcome! I'm going to have to print out your last post to read it slowly and digest it. Very nice getting explanations from someone who is obviously experienced with the Mantak Chia path and not a dabbler.

Hey Gabe welcome to one of the better Taoist forums. All those buttons and he is just remote controlled?

Post away and welcome.

Touche.

Am I allowed to ridicule things I find ridiculous? Did I spell ridiculous right? Does my post have aliveness?

Different folks learned very different ways to express the elements and energies in taiji. Heres how I learned them in regards to push hands. But first heres a joke. How many taiji teachers does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but nine other taiji teachers have to stand around and say we do it differently in our school. The five elements are in regards to footwork. We always put our right foot forward and left back and we try to not to move the left because the eight energies or eight arm techniques are designed to deflect/return attacks from the eight directions. Ward Off and Roll Back are best practiced against take-downs. Press and Push Down are best practiced as hip throws and shoulder throws. Split and Take are best practiced against punching attacks. Elbow and Shoulder are best practiced against kicks. These are just the archtypical practice moves since we believe that all taiji can be boiled down to ward off alone. Each moves the contact point closer to your body starting with your hand in Split and in to your shoulder in Shoulder. Advance, retreat, yield, follow and hold are the foot movements and I am drawing a blank on how to describe them without standing up and showing you. But since you cant see me... Advance-step straight forward Retreat-step straight back Yield- is stepping back to the left and behind your left foot and it makes you spin clockwise a bit. Follow is stepping right with a sweeping arc and again spinning clock wise. I will attach a handout I made.Push_Hands.doc Oh I forgot that its important that you dont have your weight on both balls or both heels the way I learned it. We always shift ball to heel and if the weight is on the ball of one foot then you pivot on the heel of the other and vis. versa. That makes it very specific on weight shift to pivot to arm movement. Here is a video of me doing the eight energies I uploaded. Eventually I want to make a video for my students but I think I will get someone more photogenic to do it. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=69...p;q=darin+hamel Anybody else?

I always thought that traditional Taoism thought that at death the person divides and eventually decays which is why alchemy is needed. I have heard and read in many book and websites that most believe that Taoism teaches reincarnation. The guy who taught me alchemy said that most peoples are like the drops from an ocean and at death return to it but there is another part that lives on like a ghost with all the memories and can still think and feel. Alchemy unites these two parts of us and makes us spiritually immortal and we can go one stage further and unite these two to the physical body and become physically immortal too. He taught me that reincarnation as a mass occurence didn't happen but did happen to spiritual immortals until they became physical immortals. So what do you guys think? Is there any historical evidence of reincarnation being a late-comer to Taoism? Any opinions on reincarnation as it relates to Taoism?

49 day fasts? Thats hardcore! Does he have books or a site? EDIT: Found a site. http://www.qigongmaster.com/

Two nights ago a student spins me around like I am a beginner in my dream. Last night I am a Tai Chi superman fighting off hundreds of people. Any dream interpreters here?

I taught in the brand new Oncology building. No ghosts. But the politics, oy! I do drug research for the government now and its not as fulfilling as teaching taijiquan but its less of a hassle. More hours is a good trade because the politics of all those "evolved" people was intense.

When I did taijiquan for the hospital I made near that for ten classes. But 40% went to the hospital and then I was advertising at $650 a month. Before expenses I was bringing in about $45,000/year for about 10 hours a week but after expenses it was more like $18,000. The hot yoga teachers were making more. There was a strange thing in that the more beautiful they were the more money they made. And their students were women too. Odd.