flowing hands

This is the usual stuff quoted by many who practice so called 'internal arts'. That's why the Great Tai Ji Master lasted ten seconds with the MMA guy. There is no such thing as internal and external. Think about it, it doesn't make any sense. But a whole lot of stuff has been grown up around making a difference and almost snob value put upon so called 'internal arts' being able to develop so called 'internal power' and better sensitivity, that somehow so called 'external arts 'can't and are somewhat inferior? Complete rubbish. There are literally thousands of styles of Chinese Martial art and all have elements of varying practices that could be labelled internal or external. Wing Quan for instance, 'sticking hands'; is this not sensitivity training? Developing speed, power, jin and sensitivity is the aim. Iron palm gives the practitioner the edge that can be devastating. A mere touch from the trained hands can be deadly. People who train iron palm, and their internal power, have to be very careful in every day life; a mere poke in fun to your friend could lead to extensive internal damage. The internal power comes from where? They are so called external arts so where does this power come from?

Ah... this is a better form with more martial content, although there are some techniques that have lost it. One rule is never give your opponent all your arm, you will never get it back! Cannon fist should have a bend in the arm. Good to see some stamping, which should be in as basic martial practice. Good stances also and sweeps, this is more like what Tai Ji should be. Add iron palm/fist, iron arm and leg, plus tit da medicine and you have something near what is needed to be a good martial art. When I was in Malaysia, I met an old Sifu who had practiced the iron techniques all his life using the medicine. His Sifu had done the same and when he died he was cremated and the bones of his hands and forearms could not be destroyed by the fire. Combined with his 'jin' and steel fingers and arms a mere touch could be deadly and even a glancing block could easily do severe damage to his opponent. Whoever tells you that just doing slow forms, deep relaxation etc will develop internal power and lightening speed has never experienced what real internal power is. It does not come from doing slow and wooden types of practice. It merely helps the circulation etc and perhaps after some years the 'blood Qi'.

Yes I tried to get an old Dvd to run and then I was going to upload it of myself doing the Monkey Gods Tai Ji form about 25 years ago, but it won't work any more. I no longer know the form, I have forgotten it. All I would say is that if one has understanding of the Dao, of the forces and movements of animals, one can see that it is not just about deep relaxation, not about slow movement, not just about yin, because this would be out of balance. It is about knowing the body, about force and energy which can be yin or yang, and the five elements, about breath, of tension and speed and slowness and relaxation. If you have ever had a real fight, it takes a lot of stamina, strength, and technique, combined with speed of reflexes and good conditioning of parts of the body. Tai Ji is just another style of martial art and requires all these skills to be learnt and practiced. The trouble is that it has lost its roots and even the most authentic teachers practice it like a style of yin qigong, which has lost its potency. For some people Tai Ji is actually bad for them, for they require more yang training, if they are practicing for Tai Ji for their health only.

I'm sorry morning dew, this is awful! The very reason why Tai Ji has been relegated to the waving of the arms around brigade in the martial art world. At the very beginning Tai Ji, 'Grand Ultimate', starts off with the move that is called 'imitating the beginnings of Heaven and Earth'. (It was based on the natural forces and movements of animals; these are its roots). It is a means of powering up the body through breath and movement that is connected to the lower Dan Tien and its corresponding area in the lower back. The movement of 'opening up the gates of Heaven and Earth' are then important. Here we see no such understanding and the legs and arms do not move in accordance with how they should. The rest is so wooden and artificial that the natural flow of force and energy which Tai Ji is all about, is totally lost to forced woodenness. Still this is not alone, perhaps I should try and bring back Tai Ji to its roots and install the Dao once more into what is actually a very powerful art, full of varying speed, proper head posture and leg gate aligned with the technique etc etc. When an art is taught in its original form one can see that it is totally martial. When it has been dragged down to this and broken up and lost its roots, it is a pitiful sight. Trouble is no one is really doing any different, so all one thinks is this is how it should be.

The Hsi-yu Chi by Anthony C Yu is probably the best translation into English. It comes in four volumes and is published by the Chicago Press.

This really is a pile of ...., please go and come back when you understand a little bit more of yourself; all you are doing is deliberately winding people up for no reason other than to satisfy your own ego. Sure there are always frauds, but not everyone is. The disease you suffer from Is called ego/conscience.

To make judgement is not Daoist, to make fun of others does not show compassion, to not know how to conduct oneself in accordance with the way shows great ignorance.

Love is a many splendid thing they say, but here is a person calling themselves a Daoist, who by his own words thinks that others are running scams and are frauds, who are apparently trying to boost their egos. But he does not realise that he has purported to furnish himself with a very large ego, without any real validation to others that he has any real understanding or comes from any great lineage that we can get a handle on. We wait for his return, devoid of his own ego. We all disagree and agree with each other and that's what its all about; sharing and learning. Some of us like myself learn from Immortals, some have no teacher at all, but we all have something to give and to learn. That's what is important. So we wait for your return K, devoid of your pre conceived ideas.

To help you out here I think 'radiate' is a better word than 'flow'.

Tai Shun Lo Jun or Lao Tzu or proper name Li Erh Xian Shi, is a widely known figure who lived approximately 600 years BC. He is well known for his teachings he left, which were later given the title as the Dao De Jhing. He wrote some 150 or so verses, but only 81 were ever used and compiled together. He was a great Immortal before this time and he reincarnated and took on the name Li Erh. He lived in a very deeply rooted shamanistic culture, where spiritual cultivators were looked upon as the highest state humans could achieve. He found a teacher and was influenced by many others. He became enlightened, but lived an ordinary life. He wrote his understandings down at a time when he knew he would be coming to an end of his mortal life. When he died his spirit became once more a great Immortal. Holy people and shamans have been taught by him over these many years although alone it is extremely rare, for he is normally associated with other Immortals who do the teaching of Shamans. If one was extremely lucky and was only taught by him, in such practices, they would be totally uninfluenced by any Indian religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. There would be no incense, no offerings of fruit or food. The way the shaman would pray and beg Li Erh to come to them would be very different to what we would associate with such practices. As a system, Li Erh is extremely hard to learn from, but if one does achieve this it is very different from the sects we have seen that claim to be taught by him. These are extensively heavily influenced by Indian religions. The lineage of Li Erh is totally Daoist; his teaching is complete and he does not need the influence of other Immortals or religions. This is the bench mark.

83 "A great tree stretches its limbs towards the Heavens Men should practice being like trees. A great tree draws its goodness from the Earth and from Heaven, Men should practice being like trees. For the goodness in all things comes from the Earth and from the Heavens. Be at one with Heaven and Earth. If you are at one with Heaven and Earth you can become Divine. Being Devine you can be at one forever." There are no incense, no hands together, no fruit or offerings as such.....just a sincere open heart.

Yes its gone from bad to worse, from worse to beyond those 'places that men detest'......even the Dao might not like to go there

This whole thread is just a wind up and not worth the effort

Although one might say that other living things practice Dao without knowing it, so do humans. As other life learns to live and to be at one with the processes of nature, which it needs to survive, people live, practice Tai Ji and the like to help them have a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. Dao cannot be defined just as this and not that. Tai Ji reflects the soft and yielding principles of nature, same as the shaman copies the movements of animals to understand those animals better. Tai ji is not the Dao and the Dao is not Tai Ji, but just a process within the way.

Not the best example I've seen, the practitioner is moving too slowly and with too much focused tension to this be a viable martial practice. Complete relaxation of the muscles and joints are needed to generate power and the energy focused right at the end of the strike and then relaxed fully again and quickly returned ready for the next movement. This really is no more than glorified Qi Gong.

This is somewhat a misnomer. No such thing as 'internal' or 'external' really exists. Once the whole has been broken up then there will be imbalance. If one looks at the arts that I have learnt they are both internal and external. Therefore the practice is both very martial and is good for ones health, we practice the breaking of bones and the smashing of blood vessels as well as cultivating internal power and energy. This is what Chinese MA are about. Somewhere along the line some person decided to separate the two, but forgot to teach them as a whole. The Dao is balanced, practicing one thing in preference to another can never bring benefit in the long term. Tai Chi Master gets beaten up real easy, Bagua master also. Both arts if taught properly in their original form would be excellent martial practice, but they are not, because the martial element has been down played.

As you can see my transmission is almost the same as Feng's. I copied this with minor alterations as Lei Erh said to me this was exactly how the verse should read in English. So there's no point in changing that which is translated right and has been given the right meaning! The last line is aimed at all of us. We are to some extent 'selfish' and self interested, so in caring for the world and other living things we should treat them as we would like to be cared for and treated ourselves.

1 I think this saying is a misguided use of words. One can obtain Dao in lots of things but it doesn't mean one has become an Immortal. What this section means is that they are fully 'realised', enlightened and have passed from the mortal world to pure energy. 2 Zhuang Shi was mystical in what he knew and believed and showed a lot of paradox in the world and how we perceive the world. How he explained this was straight forward. Lei Erh in his writings tries to get to the very bottom of spiritual Daoism and uses phrases and words that are not easily accessible to many and so this is widely misunderstood and interpreted in all different ways, so the meaning is lost. Although some would say that this was the point, but it is not the original intention. 3 Many verses, this is where deep knowledge comes in of Daoist self cultivation practices. If one hasn't practiced them, then it will be wasted words. 4 Holymen/women often lived alone in the mountains and were cultivators and could be shamans as well, having a spirit teacher. Shamans also did this, but most often lived within a village or just outside. Therefore they could use their practices to help the people of that village. 5 Star cultivation is a secret Daoist cultivation technique.

If one looks at the various styles of Karate, one can see the evidence of white crane and many have this as part of their symbol. Black Crane from the northern Shaolin has more kicking and this can be seen in some styles. Basically Japanese martial arts were heavily influenced by Chinese MA. In my own lineage, Daoist arts started many, many years before Shaolin and have nothing to do with India and Shaolin, but were the result of original invention.

This may be more unusual than the norm. Most WC, which is primarily a Southern art, concentrate on the arm techniques and lower kicks to below the waist. Northern arts are more 'aerial' and tend to have high kicking and do not attack only from the straight line, unlike WC. Northern arts have turned into many varieties as they have been taught to different peoples, for example Karate, which was originally called 'China hand' or ' the hand of Han'. Originally Northern Black Crane.

Yes good with the hands, Wing Chun usually are, their weakness is the straight line and they can't kick above the waist as aptly shown on the vid; the sifu was well off balance and recovered badly. All arts have a weakness in them where each art specialises in one particular area of skills, which leaves some skills under practiced. In proper martial training, iron palm/fist/arm is practiced as a matter of the norm. One can't hit bone and expect ones own bones not to be damaged if they are not properly conditioned. This involves the gradual use of aids and trad. medicines to repair the damage. In our original vid, if the TC man had trained the arms and hands he would inflict quite heavy punishment to the arms of the MMA and he may have stop his attack after the first few punches. But TC do not train like this and rely on the softer way which is ok if you practice the softer way fully martially.

Come on now, one's got to be joking! Tai chi vs MMA. 99% of Tai Chi is not taught properly as a combat art. Our TC man should have stood his ground and attacked the legs of the MMA instead of running away. He should have engaged the MMA fighter straight away and not allowed him to start the punches, distracted his upper body with kicks to his lower part until he found a weakness. Instead he let the MMA man just run right over him. Very poor and not a good example of traditional Chinese Martial Arts.

Virtually all of them!

'Wu' actually really refers to a female witch, but the term is widely used to describe any persons who practice the arts associated with mediumship and the like. But also a designation is used afterwards to describe the type of witch for instance 'Wu nan'. Although in recent times there has been the emergence of the 'Tand Ki' in temples. But I like the reference of the word 'Fang Shi', which best described a 'dancing spirit possessed shaman', who pronounced the oracle. I will endeavour to answer your questions when I have a little more time to give you a full consideration.

I like the rendition of Feng and English of this part of Zhuang Shi. Some of it I would change to make it more logical and realistic, but this part is principally about realising the Dao and the various entities that have obtained this realisation. It is somewhat a more descriptive verse than Lei Erh's very strong references to the obtainment of Immortality. One has to remember with Zhuang Shi, he was not mystical in his teachings and would not leave his reader comparatively to be misled by his writings, unlike Lei Erh, as we have seen, from the many emanations of what folks think he is saying in his verses. Shamans and Holymen are very much a part of ZS's writings, although he appears to think that the purer cultivator in his estimation came from those that studied true internal cultivation. But all these things are linked; many shamans were Holymen and many Holymen were shamans and many cultivators were shamans etc. Daoists of course believe that many stars have a spirit attached to them and so have great significance to their practice. I have practiced for many years what is called 'star cultivation' and a whole lot of shamanistic and cultivator arts are linked to the stars depending on what sect you are.