DustWalker

Great Stuff Peter!!! Thanks for taking your time to share this with us. Telling it like it is and not glamorizing. This is not a glamorous path after all, even though the glamour might be the thing that gets us on the hook in the first place, well that's partly what got me into this in the beginning anyway. Cheers!

In eXistenZ where the Jude Law and the incredibly sassy but mysterious game-creator girl decides to "jack-in". ie. plug in to a game inside the game. They stuff this little minitature of a game-pod into their game-ports and then things get strange. Its a very surreal and sexy scene imho. Love it!

Usually you will succeed after you have given up on it.

Also arent you driving your chi deep into your body from this practice.. thereby sealing and locking it for some time... No way.. people aren't dying from this habit. Taking cold dips in the sea at wintertime is an old tradition here in scandinavia and is supposed to be very healthy.. Never heard anyone saying the opposite. As Ron says, you gotta go gradual.

Check out this academic work on Wudang Mountain and its culture. Includes interviews with wudang monks about the current situation and some background on this mythic place. http://web.reed.edu/luce/wudang/wudang_3.html

DustWalker top 10 Cosmic Techhouse Style (no particular order) Run Jeremy's Band - Windowlicker (X-rated Lick)

you gotta tell us this one!

The 24 rules for Chi Kung Practice by Yang, Jwing-Ming Worth reading and then taking with a pinch of salt. or? The Empty Flower Forum A good forum for discussions of the chinese internal martial arts. Have a great section for posting of different internal martial arts clips!

No Probs GT! I'm pretty much in the same position as you. Looking for a possible second degree/education or a job. In the middle of a smaller life crisis myself I'd say. What the f**k to do with my life? I've done a B.A. in Business Admin & Economics in the Uk. Then worked in a Retail Bank for 1,5 years upon my return to Sweden. For different reasons, personal circumstances, and circumstances at work i ended up having a smaller burn-out, and also feeling this was not a milieu that fit my character I finally quit my job as agreed in order to continue studying. Did a term of Business-Law. I was motivated at first , but eventually it bored the shit out of me. Now I'm Unemployed, studying Entrepreneurship part-time 2 hours a week, looking for a proper job and in my spare time co-managing a small electronic dance-music recordlabel that my friend and I have kicked up. It's doing fairly well but it is not the best business to make money from in these times of mp3-downloading. But as a hobby, eventually, who knows what might come out of it? I'm thinking of getting a degree in graphic design, as I have some talent, however I still haven't made up my mind if I should focus on something that I like, and maybe kill off whatever fun I get from doing it, or focus on a job that can make me some money (usually means no sparetime = no life!) The key is probably to find something in between. Oh well. Those are my *big* problems. There are people without shelter, food and water in other parts of the world. People that are facing conditions of War, famine and disease and here I am, worrying about whether I will ever get an inspiring work-employment or not. Anyway. Whatever it will be, Personal development is priority numero uno for me now. "Gotta look out for number one" as they say!

BTW. Grand Trinity I loved your brainstorming list! almost poetry

Okay Peter. What method do you use! I'm 26 now and I'm not gonna age one day more if there is a possibility to stop it!

Perhaps? Or maybe that dude just had too much acid, who knows..

What is qigong bathing btw? This is a really really interesting topic! How many of you people are doing any sort of sealing after qigong practice? I can definitely recognise the feeling of feeling great after qigong practice but feeling off balance after a couple of hours some days.. Will definitely start trying out the sealing thing. The thing with taking a cold shower makes sense to draw the chi inside your core.. but I've heard that you shouldn't take a shower within half an hour / hour (Cant remember which) after or before doing qigong.. the same thing with eating prior and afterwards.. What are your opinions on this? I can see that having your stomach full of food may leave little energy for you to circulate/manipulate and that you may mess up your digestive system if it is clogged with food while doing qigong.. but it can be enormously annoying and timeconsuming esp. in the morning when you are in a hurry and have to wait with eating and showering? What are your opinons on this?

Well I'm nowhere near an expert on the subject but here's what first comes to mind when thinking of the differenences of these arts. Xingyi is supposed to be the "hardest" of the internal arts. Mostly based on "yang" energy (whatever that means ). Linear techniques moving quickly forward and a lot of hand - foot coordinaton in order to generate hole body power. Developed originally by a famous chinese warlord for use in battlefields. based on 5 elements theory in most styles. Bagua basically generates its power mostly from the waist. And might be be somewhere in between taiji and xingyi in when it comes to "hardness" although depending on style and so forth it all depends. E.g. Yin Style Bagua as taught by the late Dr. Xie Peiqi contains 8 complete animal systems, (one for each trigram) within the system as a whole, all ranging from hard to soft. Then bagua has the famous circlewalking that the supposed founder of the art, Dong Haichuan according to legend learned from daoist monks of the complete reality school somewhere in the mountains. This circlewalking meditation was adapted, and the I Ching principles was brought in to form the "philosophical shell" that was Dong Haichuan's Bagua. This shell was furthermore "wrapped" around his students previous martial skills in order to give them a harmonic and holistic approach to fighting. Thus the reason why a lot of bagua looks different, beacuse Dong Haichuan originally taught bagua different to different students according to their personal needs and background skills. Not as a fixed system but as a set of principles. Although I don't agree 100% on everything he says, here's an article by Zhang Yun called Sorting out Taiji, Bagua & Xingyi that might give a slight idea about the differences between these arts. It's getting late and I'm sure someone else can fill in something more about the differences here especially what characterizes taichi in the light of these other arts.. Hope this helps..

Weird we got a bunch of Dao Loonies here but no-one mentions the daoist internal fighting arts!! Okay Taijiquan may not be the best shot since it usuallly requires around 10 years of diligent study before one is able to utilise the martial appications of the art, but Baguaquan sure seems quite useful for fighting even after a short time of practice. The chinese martial-art styles of Xingyi Quan and Bagua Quan are reputed to have produced some of the most fearful and undefeated fighters in Beijing during the last hundred years. Bagua was the fighting-art of choice when it came to the imperial guards to proctect the emperor and his people. These where the martial-arts said to be favoured on both sides during the turmoil and city-fighting during the cultural revolution. Maybe not the "best" martial arts out there, but for spiritual taoist freaks like a lot of people on this board, I'd certainly give the main big three chinese neijia arts a serious consideration!

Martrix Ebook Downloads Here you'll find a lot of material, in PDF format Why Qigong has Curative Effects? Zhan Zhuang Standing Pole Exercise Ancient Taoist Rehabilitation Methods A Taoist Path to Immortality The Paradoxical Logic Developed by the Chinese Taoist Guidelines for a Peaceful Mind Tao Te Ching The Classical Book The Art of War by Sun Tzu Wuyiquan And The Ancient Mexican Warrior Path (includes a lot of the Castaneda material) Some of these books are of more interest than others, however the only downside is that there are no references or sources in these books... The rest of the Martrix homepage is well worth browsing.. There are videoclips of traditional chinese morningexercises in the parks, baguazhang, taiji and qigong. There are interesting articles on Zhan Zhuang (pole standing exercises), and the art of YiQuan and its japanese counterpart Taikikken. Also some meditations that you can download. well have a look for yerself!

Hi. Finally a forum that seems to informed, serious and friendly enough! A few questions from a newcomer. Doing baduanjing, taichi classical yang style + sometimes some of the static postures and initial circlewalking from the yin style bagua system as my nightly repertoire before going to bed. A few times during the month I notice a slight uneasiness, nonspecific anxiety in my body that usually builds up to the sensation of some force grabbing hold of me/my feet/or my nervous-system, it can begin with an odd muscle jerk or spasm in my leg or something.. (All this is while in between awake and falling asleep or waking up from this..) sometimes it feels as if I have to call up all my strenght to control my body from not going of my conscious control and I hurry to switch on my lamp, when I switch on the light this all goes away.. but it feels as if something is trying to take over my body.. I am aware that this might be my astral (subtle body) trying to leave the body as in astral projection.. But yesterday it felt as if it was some presence/force there trying to interfere/interact with me in some way. I'm feeling scared without knowing why/without a reason (i.e. my subcoscious seems to be scared) I've had similar experiences in earlier times while doing kabbalistic and hermetic meditations. Does this sound familliar to any one of you? Ideas? Regards. /DustWalker

Callan! Thanks for your answer. This was more the thing I was hoping to hear. Its nice to know that other people also experience these things and that It's nothing to worry about.

As for Rex questions: 1) Do these experiences in the betwixt state occur only when you do some sort of energy/spiritual exercise? What part of the month do they occur in - at the end, the beginning or fairly evenly distributed? No, not only when doing energy/spiritual work although they seem amplified sometimes by this. Haven't kept any notes on this unfortunately. Fairly even but usually grouped in 1 to 2-3 nights together.. Not sure if beginnning or end of month. now I could hardly sleep during the monday because of this, and I had it a couple of nights the week before that. 2) Are you ever woken up in the night with these sensations? If so, do they occur at the same time each night? What are your dreams like just before and after these experiences? It has happened. Don't think they happen at the same time but same thing goes here.. haven't really thought about that. Nothing special with the dreams anyway. 2) Can you identify a time when they first started to occur? Can you link them to any specific practice? Have you always done your enegry/spirtual work in the same house/location? Yes rather not long after beginning meditationwork 3 years ago or so. One early theory I had was that these things started to happen because at the time I was meditating in my bed, where I was also sleeping back then. I generally think that is not a such a good idea anymore. No, I have moved around location-wise, so not only in one place. 3) Do you feel specifically threatened? Or is it more of a general anxiety of not being used to unfamilar sensations? Does the intensity of the experience increase with every occurrence? Both.. Sometimes I only get the energetic feeling in my body and I can from here go in to a meditative state instead of sleep if I wish to do so. However at other times this anxiety feeling usually precedes these feelings of being a bit threatened. Its no rational fear as I'm not afraid of anything special. However at the times when I've felt myself almost not being able to control my body I've felt a certain ego-death fear. As to If I'm not putting on the ligth in a few seconds I might loose control over myself and loose my ego. Well there ya go. What do you boys & girls make of it? Looking forward to any sound constructive input. Cheers

Hmmm.. thanks Neimad. What a comforting response. :? Could you be a bit more thorough in your reply? Can you give me some sound advice of what to do about the situation? what do you base your assumption on? Any resources for me to check out? Regards Dustwalker

Hi Yoda and thanks for the quick reply! However I think I did not really express myself clearly as these sensations are not of the dream realm, but manifest themselves while trying to fall asleep or when I'm on the verge of entering sleep. So again these are very real sensations and feelings that I experience while lying in my bed and trying to fall asleep.