ChiDragon

Recently, I went to Hong Kong, China and bought couple books. One is the Tao Te Ching and the other is Zhunag Tze. The Tao Te Ching was translated into modern Chinese line-by-line. Therefore, I have to revise this line. 6. 強行者有志。 6. The one who forced upon oneself to do something has inspiration.

You got it.........

DAO rain TAO.... You do not and cannot jump to the extreme ZZ position with a cold joint in your knees. You must follow the ZZ sequence as I have described above. The purpose of the progressive sequence was to get rid of the pain, in the muscles and knees, slowly at each degree interval. Thus you will have no pain when you have reached the highest ZZ position.

Aha... You had jumped the gun. 1 min and 45 sec at 90 degree which mean you have not reached the highest attainment of Zuan Zhuang. At 45 degree, you should do it until there is no pain for longer than 20 minutes. Then increase to 50 degrees until no pain for longer than 20 minutes' and then 55, 60, 65.....90 degrees. This is the progressive sequence of Zhan Zhuang practice. If you follow this procedure, then you should be able to stand at 90 degrees for a long time.

I have this DVD...

Yes, sweet....!!! How long can you hold in that position....???

sinfest... I know your are crazy about horse stance. The highest ZZ attainment, for each leg, is to have the ankle perpendicular to the foot and the knee bent 90 degrees too.

FH.... The master was using his student for the demo because the student had falling trainings. Any master is an expert in controlling the amount of strength to assure not to hurt anybody. He is not picking the weak to be beaten. He was not using full power when he Fa Jin. If he did go full blast, then the student would be in more danger of being hurt. Self control is the higher degree of accomplishment of a superb master. If they want to hurt someone, then it would be very severe. BTW The purpose of the demo was only to show his partial strength of Fa Jin by the distance of his hand had moved. If he took one step forward, then it would be much stronger. The student would had been flew away a lot farther.

The lion dance on the posts is one application of ZZ(站桩)

Here is what real ZZ(站桩) means by standing on posts with the knees bended to keep the body in balance.

Josama... Since you didn't mention that you had bended you knees, I will have to assume that you didn't. I think I know why and it is not your fault. Here is why, it is because the translation for ZZ was "standing mediation" which threw you off. It is a westerner cultural thing; they tend to do exactly what it says rather than what it is to do. So, when you do ZZ, you stand and meditate without knowing the purpose of ZZ. You didn't know the importance of bending the knees in ZZ. Indeed, you have not accomplish what you were tried to do in your six months of ZZ practice. Am I correct...??? I would like to start a new thread on ZZ to explain why the translation of "standing mediation" is very misleading. BTW I had seen a video clip with a Chinese demonstrator of ZZ; and I do regret that he called it "standing mediation". He might the culprit.

You just hold your horses..........

Yes, one should able to gauge it if one had Fa Jin experience before.

To see the strength of Fa Jin practitioner is by observing how far back of the opponent had been moved and by his reaction. If they are at equal level, the opponent wouldn't have been moved or just fell half way back instead of flying away with no resistance as shown in the video.

Good point, Friend.....

Yes, it is quite normal because there are lots of changes taken place inside you which is effecting your nervous system and your thoughts in the brain too. BTW It happened to my wife too when she started her practice in Chi Kung. She saw horrible faces that she had never seen before. These faces were flying all around her in couple of her nightmares. She was horrified but then it has not occurred again. It was just a coincidence or coincidental. Please remove that from your thoughts.

Did you bend your knees....???

It is important for me to find out why ZZ did not help you to strengthen your leg muscles and your knees. Please answer the following questions: 1. Can you describe how did you do the ZZ stance in the six months of practice..??? 2. What did you do different in maoshan five elements than in ZZ...??? People often misunderstood what kidney qi is. In TCM, the kidney qi is the functional activity of the kidney. It doesn't mean the kidney energy. The Chinese people are so confused with the character qi or chi(氣). It was misinterpreted in many cases. Hence, this term was only known as 'energy' around the world. All people stand on the ground all the time, do you think all the qi in the human organs will be leaked to the ground...??? If that is the case, we have no energy left inside our bodies and ended up dead. Note: Energy inside your body will be generated as soon you inhale and diminished in few seconds if it was not used by you. Energy will not and cannot leak from your body. Period.

The fur/mat are for your own comfort only.

Confucian's Morality is absolute which is very impractical and difficult to enforce it.

Back to our sparring.... I am no novice. After year of practice with ZZ, the soreness and the pains in any part of the legs should be gone and able to withstand the body weights in any position. BTW even with the knees bent at any angle. To strengthen the legs muscles and knees was the whole purpose of practicing ZZ. Otherwise, don't do it at all. Why do it for nothing if it doesn't accomplish its purpose...???

The original philosophy of Wu Wei was that one take no abusive action against nature. Let Nature take its course. Another words, let the water flow, the trees grown, let the fire burn, let the mud slight and let the animals live. What are the abusive actions are to be considered had taken by human: 1. Build a dam on a river to change to course of the river which effecting the lives in the water. 2. Chopping down a tree. 3. Setting a fire rather than a natural fire by lightning. 4. Blowing up a mountain to build a road causing mud or rock slight. 5. Killing wild animals. How is the concept of Wu Wei applied by human...?? The philosophy of Wu Wei was more concern about the initiation of an abusive action. For instance, it's not natural to initiate a fight to begin with. If someone has challenged you to fight, then you did not initiate the action. Thus you may defend yourself. In the contrary, if you had initiated the fight to begin with, then you have violated the philosophical concept of Wu Wei because you had taken the abusive action instead of no action. Weren't the people who do what you describe what you call as a religion also inspired by the Tao Teh Ching etc? To answer your question, the intention of the Tao Te Ching did not inspire the Taoist religion. It was a group of people who want to interpreted it in such beliefs to inspire themselves to create a religion. As a matter of fact, the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching is atheism. It has no suggestion to have people believe or initiate a religion. The TTC talks about the two Chi elements of Yin-Yang. People were mistakenly thought that Chi was all about Chi Kung by adding more to the idea of what it was. What I am saying is that the TTC was interpreted by scholars is pure philosophy. How others want to interpret it is a different story.

Yes, bending the knees too much will cause the pain. What I am trying for you to say was did you bend your knees before when you do ZZ...??? Why you have the pains now but not then....???

Exactly. Why give him the answer before understanding the question...

Bubbles... I like to ask dumb questions, so I might get the right words from the horse' mouth. The thing is why he didn't get the pains in the knees before but now....??? Thanks for answering for him.....