ChiDragon

Gemstone: First of all, Zhan Zhuang is not Static Chi Kung. It is because you are putting stress on your leg muscles by supporting your own body weight of 73kg(160lb). Especially, when you tighten up your muscles, you are making your muscles to work harder and dissipating lots of body heat. Your body has to be cooled down by given off water. Thus this is why you were sweating. Zazen is static Chi Kung because it requires the practitioner to sit in anyone form of lotus positions. Even though the legs were bent, but they do not have as much stress as doing the stance in Zhan Zhuang. PS.... If you can do Zhan Zhuang in 45-60 mins, then your legs are very strong. It is fine to contract your muscles at that level. However, since you have a good amount of body weight, it is equivalent to that your legs were doing some weight lifting. It is better off for you to just do the Zhan Zhuang stance without the additional muscle contraction but just let your body weight doing the work. Indeed, this can prevent you from sweating and you must breathe deeply and slowly to compensate for the heavy consumption of oxygen. Keeping in mind that, when you inhale that your are inhaling. When you exhale that you are exhaling. Another words, your concentration is straightly on your breathing and your mind is not anywhere else. For what is worth, you are actually cultivating the body, breathing and mind.

It is not the blame but what he had actually done. You don't know how much that can be damaged to a person physically and mentally.

It makes no difference as long as you breathe and stay alive. The main purpose is to breathe as slow as possible. The gap allows the oxygen to stay in the lungs. Thus it gives more time for the collection of oxygen by the red blood cells. As a result, there will be more oxygen in the blood to be distributed throughout the body for the cells. Another words, breathing with a gap or slow has accomplished the purpose of reducing the breathing frequency. I don't see any contradictions between the two methods as described.

Jin is internal power already. No further development required.

Good, that's what I thought the case might be. Let me ask you some more questions before I answer you. You said long sessions of Zhan Zhuang. 1. How long is one session....??? 2. Did you get tire after one long session......??? 3. Did you tight up your muscles....??? 4. How much do you weight....???

I have a lot to tell you. It'll take sometime for me to prepare it.

I do not find any significant meaning in the term "stablizing muscles". However, I go along with using the muscles to stabilize the body. From the former paragraph, I do detect a little misunderstand on the purpose of ZZ which creates the confusion as mentioned in the latter. Anyways, the purpose of ZZ was not the stabilize the muscles rather to strengthen the leg muscles. However, strengthening the leg muscles will help to stabilize the body. After a long practice of ZZ, the muscle tone builds up in the legs which made the legs are much stronger than before. Indeed, it allows to use less effort to stabilize the body. Please keep in mind, through small tweaks in posture does not relax the muscles used for motion. At anytime, small tweaks will put the muscles under slightly contraction. Thus the muscles are not in a relax position. In the second paragraph, you are definitely have the right to be confused. The reason you were tired is because the body cells had used up all the oxygen in the muscles. A good indication of that was your body gets hotter and your hands and forearms became numb. Again, all these was due to the lack of oxygen. Hence, you breathe faster and the heart pumps faster for more oxygen until all the oxygen debts were paid back to the muscles. As you said, it settles down again.

Yes, these are not correct information. It is because energy cannot be blocked. Chi blockage was an misinterpretation. In TCM, Chi blockage means the function of a organ was out of order; it can be completely or partially. If more thoughts added to that will be very misleading. When people interpret as "energy blockage", there goes the endless confusion. "focus on strengthening all 3 dan tiens, central channel, 8 extraordinary channels, nourish heaven (stars, sun, moon), earth (soil, water, wind), man (jing, qi, shen), fire-water" Channels are nothing but place holders; only the physical body can be strengthened. "nourish heaven (stars, sun, moon), earth (soil, water, wind), man (jing, qi, shen), fire-water" Unless they were interpreted esoterically, otherwise, they make no sense to an ordinary person.

Please give more details about your floor gets wet.

32 道 常 無 名 。 Tao is always nameless. 樸 雖 小 天 下 莫 能 臣 也 。 It's simple, even though small, no one in the world can subdues it. 侯 王 若 能 守 之 ， If nobles could guard it, 萬 物 將 自 賓 。 Then, all things would be naturally follow it. 天 地 相 合 以 降 甘 露 ， Heaven and earth are mutually united to rain sweet dew. 民 莫 之 令 而 自 均 。 People do not need governing laws because they are in a natural state of balance already.

FYI. Neither one will do the trick for you.

It would be a mental block instead of a Chi blockage on my part.....

Zazen or static Chi Kung is not a strenuous exercise which is good for midnight practice. It is equivalent to a good night rest or few hours anyways.

Can you do one without the other....??? Both are significant in breathing. There should be no questions asked. BTW, it is not the inhalation nor exhalation that moves energy. However, breathing moves the air in and out of the body. It is the body cells that create the energy. Energy do not move inside the body. It was only an old conceptual idea of the ancient Taoists.

The ultimate method of breathing which is Chi Kung.

Thank you. The final conclusion says all..... PS..... At the "lactate threshold", that is when the mitochondria start to not manufacturing ATP due to the lack of oxygen or hypoxia. Hence, the muscles are no longer have the energy for contraction and become fatigue. During Zhan Zhuang, under this condition, the leg muscles become weaken and can no longer support the body weight due to the collapse of the energy level.

In general, 五行 is the "Five Categories". All the things have to be classified in a category, in order, to do an evaluation. The TCM was based on the "Five Categories". Otherwise, the TCM will not work without it. Yes, the "Five Phases" depends on context can be used for the explanation of the "Five Categories".

五行 is the "Five Categories" rather than "Five Phases" 四大 is the "Four Greats" rather than the "Four Elements".

I have great admiration for the wisdom of our ancestors in observing Nature. They had lots of great thoughts from the observations with their naked eyes. I can only treat their thoughts as conceptual evidences without the ability to prove scientifically. My present task is to have the conceptual evidences as hypothesis and search for proofs, with the modern scientific method, as conclusion.

I'm no doctor neither. Besides, it is not only the doctors are the ones who know the common knowledge about physiology. It is all in the books and on the internet. Based on some scientific facts which leads me to disagree with items #1 and 2. The blood temperature does not increase by itself due to muscle fatigue. The blood only collects the heat energy from the body cells during cell respiration or metabolism and distributed throughout the body. Muscle fatigue is different from having a fever. High fever will have an adverse effect on the function of the brain but not when the muscles are fatigue. Muscle fatigue was due to the lack of oxygen which not allow the glucose to create energy as you have indicated in item #3. We have body cells allover the body; and the blood is constantly circulating to provide oxygen for them. Even the blood can provide more oxygen to the body cells, at a point, the rate of oxygen consumption can be faster then what has been provide. It will happen as you had indicated in item #2 in the cases of pumping iron and running. However, the rate of oxygen consumption in Zhan Zhuang is slower than pumping iron or running. Item #3 is the key to open the veil about muscle fatigue. During Zhan Zhuang, let's say, the legs were bent at 30 degree which cause muscle contraction. Indeed, muscle contraction require energy. The energy is from the glucose and oxygen as you had indicted in item #3. What that leads to is what happens if the oxygen was ran out...??? Well, the glucose will become lactic acid or lactate which cause muscle pain and fatigue. In order to keep the glucose from turning into lactate, a constant supply of oxygen is needed. The supply of oxygen was from breathing efficiently. What is the most efficient way of breathing...??? It is known as Chi Kung, the ultimate method of breathing...!!! For beginners, the muscle may not have the muscle tone which also may cause fatigue. The muscles were also very painful due the stress that was applied to the legs muscle. Eventually, the problems with muscle pain and fatigue will go away when the muscle tone was built up from the practice diligently. In conclusion, Zhan Zhuang standing with the legs bent at 30 degree which cause muscle contraction. Muscle contraction requires the energy to be created by combining the glucose with oxygen. In order to prevent the legs muscles from fatigue, a constant supply of oxygen is required. The oxygen was obtained from breathing. With a proper breathing method, a maximum amount of oxygen can be provided for the body cells to function to their peak performance.

We have started out with two systems. Without having a thorough understand of the systems, people start to equate the elements from one system to another with various assumptions. It that a wise thing to do....???

It gives you good muscle tones on the legs. The legs become very strong after one year of practice. It'll make you still firm and not letting someone to push you away that easy. You can kick a door open at one blow if you have the will. Just be careful who you kick and try not to hurt somebody with your legs. If you just stand there meditating but not doing any breathing exercise, then you are not doing it properly. Doing breathing, in zhan zhuang, will give you the most benefits. Otherwise, your leg muscles become fatigue in no time. However, there are some insights, in Zhan Zhuang, that the beginners should know. To understand the ZZ concept, one should know something about muscle contraction. Doing without knowing is less advantageous. If one knew why is doing, then it would be more appreciative and effective.

That is only the difference in the thinking of the minds. The same terms do not have the same meaning on the other parts of the territory. It the descriptive method is the same for the two maps, then why should they be treated differently due to stubbornness.

Taoists believe in "immortal". An immortal goes to heaven. Buddhists believe in "soul". A soul stays on earth as being a ghost. A ghost is a soul of a dead body which caused by an accident or murdered. However, the soul will stay with the body if it was by natural death.

Do you know how to apply pressure to your ear drums internally...??? If you do, you should be able to feel the pressure and hear some sound. This feature can be used to equalize the pressure to avoid or cancel out the external loud noise.