ChiDragon

Question to all Taiji practitioners.... What is the purpose for standing softly all day long.....??? If softness is wuji, then what is taiji....???

Very important point; and the temperature of the testis must be kept about 3 degree F below the body temperature.

When you Fa Jin, it was considered to be the extreme hard part....

Perfect harmony was not what you were after but the perfection of the wood pieces. Remember: A lessen lesson learnt was a lesson taught. Harmony will be on your way but don't expect it to be perfect....

Sorry... The Bagua was not shown here......

The final pithy was: 剛中帶柔: There is softness hidden in the hardness; and 柔中帶剛: There is hardness hidden in the softness.

Yes, that is. 剛中有柔: There is softness within hardness. 柔中有剛: There is hardness within softness. Thus: The softness and the hardness are interacting to keep the body in balance.

Dear Osalina... Through our discussions here, I am getting to flow your thoughts and the terminologies that you are using. As long we are in consistence, we can keep track of each other. When the term 'element' was used in TCM, I think we can agree that they are not the chemical elements as in the periodic table. The descriptions given here are definitely the characteristics of the Five Elements which made them the Five attributes. Thus I have no problem with that.... It is very wise of you to study the TCM and explain it in relation with modern science. I was attempted to do the same for my explanation of Chi Kung. I have discovered it was not very favorable here in a western atmosphere. Fortunately, I was not the only one that was doing so. As far as I know, you are another pioneer on this in the western world. BTW my first admirer was Daniel Reid, a British Doctor who studied TCM and practiced Chi Kung.

Did you mean thyroid keeps us warm? Indirectly yes. Thyroid hormone is governing your basal metabolic rate, orchestrating the idling speed at which all cells make energy and thus heat. It has great influence in regulating our body temperature.

Osalina.... I am glad we have come to this forum and discuss the notion about the five elements. It strike on me when you said wood is not an element. Since metal, wood, water, fire, and soil are not really elements but they do have individual characteristics. The Chinese did not call them the five elements but called the Five Attributes, 五行(wu xing), by their respective names. I think somebody was at fault to call them the Five Elements. What the Chinese did was categorize matters with characteristic similar to these five attributes and assigned them to each category accordingly. The metal, wood, water, fire, and soil are really Five Categories instead of Five Elements in Chinese thinking.

I was going to ask this practitioner to take some cold or flu pills.....

Westerners are crazy to go to China to learn the Taoist stuff and spoil the Chinese. The Chinese developers saw that is coming and why not build hotels to accommodate them...

Dear Osalina... Regarding to the "Ayurvedic Medicine is called Ether for Wood and Metal for Air to explain these relationships." The first thing that come across my mind about "Metal for Air" was a little mixed up in the cross link from the Hindus. The five elements in their system is different from the Chinese. The Five Elements of the Hindu are earth, water, fire, air and sky. The Chinese system are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth(soil). The Hindu treats the 'air' as the "air and space which is the wind". My Ref link: The Hindu Five Elements

From what I gathered here in the forum, it seems to me some people are not very clear about the pains in the knees while doing Zhan Zhuang. I would like to hear some of the questions about that. Would you please raise questions about the knees being in pain during Zhan Zhuang or describe your experience of the knees hurting while doing the horse stance. Let's be open-minded about this and save the insults at the end. Thank you very much for your cooperation....

(1) More weight toward the front is for a novice. (2) That is for an intermediate. It is harder to balance oneself if one was to shift more weights to the rear or the lower legs are perpendicular to the ankles. In other words, the farther the knees move toward the ankle, the more force has to be exerted by the lower legs and the feet to anchor the body to the ground. The force exerted by the lower legs and feet was known as Fa Jin. Thus it is the Jin that was holding the whole body in place. Indeed, the purpose of ZZ was to build up the muscle tone mostly for the lower legs and feet to Fa Jin. The Fa Jin is equivalent to adding more weight to the lower legs and feet to counteract the weight of the upper body.

Just for my curiosity, if the feet are not touching the wall, why bother to stand one inch away from the wall...??? It sounds to me one can stand anywhere to accomplish what you were describing. If you say the toes has to touch the wall, then I can understand the wall has to be there.....

Are you talking about a novice....??? Please read carefully....

Let's discuss some of the fine details on ZZ from a point of view with a novice. With the body standing straight up vertically, imagining that there is a vertical plane cut through the body from the head to the ankles. Now, let's the upper leg bend 15 degree with the Vertical, what will happen if the knees did not lean forward...??? In the event, the buttock tends to lower to the ground and to body weight was shifting behind the vertical plane and causing the body to be off balance and fall to the ground. It's important to know that by leaning the knees forward, in front of the plane, will counterbalance the weight behind the plane to prevent the body from falling off. Have you ever thought of the weight of the lower legs are much lighter than the total weight of the upper legs and the body....??? The weights of the lower legs are not suffice to counterbalance the weight of the upper body. It was a force exerted by the muscles of the lower leg acting through the feet into the ground to hold the whole body in place. In physics, it was known as taken the movement about a point. Please keep in mind the force exerted by the lower legs. It is the key to understand Zhan Zhuang.

A Tai Ji practitioner will let all the muscles to be 鬆(sung), loosen, for relaxation. And all the motions to become 柔(rou4) to be as soft and smooth as silk.

Dear Osalina... Your name is very feminine, BTW, a lovely name too.... A scholastic approach to a subject is to go into the root of it to find out what it is. I had found a DVD, a documented interviews with many high Taoist priests of different shrines from mountain to mountain in China. One question was asked: If the Taoists live in a healthy life without any sickness, then why are the herbal medicines...??? The answer was to help the non-Taoist people who do get sick. Hence, they learn about the human body organs and found herbs to make medicine to cure illnesses for others. The fundamental medical theory was developed based on the concept of the Five Elements from the Yi Jing. BTW to become a Chinese Taoist, one must be familiarized with the Yi Jing, the Ba Gua and especially with the Five Element Theory. As a matter of fact, almost everything in the Chinese history was evolved all around the concept of the Five Elements. Now, let's compare notes on the Five Elements. Among the five elements, they interact either aid and oppose each other. When aiding, it was said to be 生(sheng1): engender; produce; generate; give life to; help to grow; and etc. 金生水 : metal engenders water 水生木 : water engenders wood 木生火 : wood engenders fire 火生土 : fire engenders soil 土生金 : soil engenders gold 1. metal engenders water - molten metal becomes liquid. 2. water engenders wood - water helps plants to grow. 3. wood engenders fire - When a piece of stick was rubbing against a piece of wood generates fire. 4. fire engenders soil - Fire burn wood into ashes. 5. soil engenders gold - Gold was formed under the soil. When opposing: it was said to be 克(ke4): subdue; against; restrain; control; refrain; and etc. 金克木 : metal subdues wood 木克土 : wood subdues soil 土克水 : soil subdues water 水克火 : water subdues fire 火克金 : fire subdues metal 1. metal subdues wood - metal ax chops wood 2. wood subdues soil - wood sucks up the nutrients from the soil. 3. soil subdues water - soil blocks the water flow. 4. water subdues fire - water puts out fire. 5. fire subdues metal - fire melts metal. It was interesting how the TCM was developed based on the Concept of the Five Elements by assigning objects to each attribute; and set up their relationships for determining the proper medical treatments. Of course, there were lots of trial and errors to get to the final end results.

Yes, you are. However, now-a-days, some of the modern Buddhists do not live up to their original believes. The Chinese Taoist do abide by their own rules. That is why you never see a fat Taoist but a fat Buddhist monk....

Taoism is a free choice of life style to be blended in with Nature. General speaking, Buddhism is a way to run away from society to have a different life style other than a materialistic one. Normally, a person had went through a bitter situation once in life and wanted to be detached from it all. Hence, one follows into the Buddhist path.

鬆(sung, loose) 鬆(sung) is to let loose for relaxation. 柔(rou4, soft) 柔(rou4) is an adjective describing a light and smooth flow of action.

Dear Osalina..... Thank you for giving us the introduction of the Five Element Attributes. TCM was known as the Traditional Chinese Medicine which was developed by the Taoists. I guess it's OK to call it Taoist Chinese Medicine, too, since it was the Taoist who invented it.... Have you ever taught how the five elements interacted with each other...??? The relationship between the internal organs was based on the interaction of the five elements. For example, water(kidney) puts out fire(heart). Since the water puts out the fire, in relation with organs, the kidney is working against the heart. Have you ever heard something like that before once in your TCM study....??? PS... This discussion should be taken place in the General Discussion Section. I think you can copy everything to that section with a new thread.

柔(soft) Just make your motion moves like the leaves of a willow tree.