RedFox

Hopefully Lozen or another herbalist will weigh in on this. The simplistic way I look at it now (and I believe I got this perspective from the Tracker school), I think the difference is, am I taking this (whatever) as a food, or am I trying to medicate some imbalance that I'm not addressing with my food? The spectrum of intake would look something like Food ------------> Medicine ------------> Poison Food items are relatively balanced nutritionally, and wont significantly skew my body chemistry except if overdone over long periods of time. If I'm imbalanced, and if what I'm eating/taking is on the medicinal end of the spectrum, under ideal conditions, it will swinging me back into balance more quickly than a more balanced "food" would. But, if I overdo it, I can swing out of balance the other way, and the body may give me signs that this is happening and cause me to lose interest or physically reject the medicine. (unless I have the correct medicine to counteract the imbalances of the first? I'm not the best person to talk about that.) This post reminds me of another you wrote (i think it was you?) around new years, about avoiding the extremes of qigong practice and looking for more balance. Perhaps your body is telling you the same nutritionally? I know mine has been lately.

Jesus... that describes me pretty well. As does the whole of your post, actually. If you get her book, I'd be interested in a brief review. I struggle with this daily. I've come to see it as a liability most of the time. Especially as I continue to train in RMAX right now. The deeper I get into it, the more I realize I have plucked all the low hanging cherries, and to take it deeper, its going to require a lot more focus and work. Sometimes I wonder if my tendencies to scan reflect some deeper fear of success/mastery (self esteem/self worth issues, as you mentioned) or aversion to the self-discipline that such mastery would take,or just being not willing to cope with what I might perceive as boredom if I stuck with one thing. If I want tears or other extreme emotions, all I gotta do is keep practicing. Every few days something wells up. But, at the same time, I also have to consider that my scanning may not be random or purposeless. many times, one "way out there" interest helps develop a quality or attribute (rather than a specific skill) that I need to begin or appreciate something else. And, that in the last year or two, the scanning seems to be more focused to a narrower band of things. And I consider occasionally that this trait could create opportunities to synthesize all these things that appear unrelated. Sometimes I see those connections, but not often. I don't know... maybe my life purpose won't become apparent until until I'm a little closer to the end of my life? Thanks for posting this. I will take a look at those links. Sounds like relevant reading.

Its not so much a technique as a release of fascial congestion, or removal of what Sonnon would call sensory motor amnesia. most people don't know that the foot can move like that until they see somebody doing it. I've only reviewed beg & int intuflow so far, and I haven't seen that movement in there either (it would be the rough equivalent of the intermediate routine for the fingers, from the okay to the ice cream cone hold, but applied to the foot, but obviously the ball of the foot would allow an exact movement like that in most people) You also might not get the same kind of obvious release I did. Mattes brought me to a point in 2 minutes what takes a person an hour or two of practice to get on their own. What you might notice is that your bare feet start molding to whatever you're walking on more. Not silly at all. I spent part of an afternoon lying down pretending to paint with my toes and foot, then (trying to do) circumduction with my big toe, etc. I haven't taken it further than that yet. That would be most cool. PM me if you're going, I'll be travelling again soon, might miss a post or three. RIght now I'm leaning northwest or southeast. I'm not sure if I could handle the Governator! But I will be in the LA area in May, i'm going on Winn's china trip, so I might be able to catch up with you then, maybe help me see what i'm missing about CA.

In my own case, this is pretty much a yes. Most of the time, I don't see an increase in "phenomena", although that sometimes happens. What usually happens when I meditate too much is that my imbalances start showing up in more obvious ways. Areas of personal resistance (deep, buried emotions, for instance, or personality patterns I normally keep under "control") seem to become empowered, and I'll act them out more regularly, or more forcefully with less control. It's like these little shadows in the background get intensified by doing practices regularly. I used to deal with this by freaking out and stopping practices altogether for months or years, until the "charge" bled away and I was ready to deal with the part of my shadow that became apparent. I try to see it more as feedback now. When that stuff comes up, I have to take a look at what might need more balance. Am I ignoring the physical stuff (and in what way?) Do I need to drift back into fusion work to resolve a new layer of the emotional onion? How can I shift practice to heal this? When I consider what appears to have happened with Yudelove and RJ (in the cybertaoist appreciation thread) sometimes I'm glad I didn't have the raw will & discipline to continue with a particular practice until it.. well, becomes an apparent liability.

Posted in this thread recently http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/forum/v...russian+climber

I don't know if there's a lot online on the techniques themselves, but this is Mattes' website for AIS (active isolated stretching, and strengthening is implied in that). He has a book for health professionals, a book for the layman, and a video for each. He also teaches seminars. which are MORE than worth the price of admission. The stretching you can pick up mostly from video if you wanted, but he treats people off the street whenever he's not lecturing. I dunno what the personal trainers taking that class to learn stretching saw, but as a therapist, watching him work will break down any preconceived notions you might have about how fast you can recover from an injury or chronic condition, or what you can recover from, or how much good an old man without lumbar vertebral discs can do (he invented the work first in his quest to tell his doctors to piss off that he be on disability). No matter whatever else I learn, I will always be grateful to him for helping me make the largest leap from relying on other people to take care of me, to me taking care of me, and reaping the benefits of developing a daily discipline to do so. His work also completely freed me from needing an office to treat chronic pain, or doing any tissue manipulations with my hands, and can work with individuals who will or cannot be handled. I can be anywhere with nothing but the ground and my hands, and anything else i have is icing on a cake. And, the study and application of AIS made me realize very quickly that Sonnon and RMAX are giving away pure gold on their website, and what is not free, is worth the price of admission. However, since you also study RMAX, I will tell you that I ran into limits with AIS, at least from what i've learned from Aaron that he teaches out publicly (i nearly, and may yet, pursued interning with him, given that he has hinted there are many ways to apply the principles of the method for helping some rather unlikely candidates for 'stretching', like tipped uterus, paraplegia and other stuff). My current take on how they fit together is that AIS method is a series of elementary motor components. You need diagnostic skills and an understanding of what the body is supposed to be able to do to, to be able to apply them quickly in the case of chronic injury or pain. If you don't have the diagnostic skill to take shortcuts, you develop it by using a large range (or all) of the stretches until you find the few that target the condition. It is also primarily a linear based system, versus the RMAX circular. You 'sort of' arrive at multiplanar mobility due to the dearth of stretches to isolate muscles across a given joint, but your focus is on the plasticity/elasticity of muscle and tendon, not the articular cartilage. The latter comes, but it takes longer and its only in the planes your EMCs take you. And, I actually did injure myself (I believe) by getting my hamstrings more flexible than the hip joint could support at that time. I had noticed before RMAX that mobility and flexibility gained thru AIS tends to stay longer without maintainence in the upper bod than the lower. My suspicion is that because the warmups and EMCs are more circular in nature up top, and cover more planes of motion. Also, being linear, it takes a long time to work the whole body. When I was timing myself for a while, I could never do the whole system with the recommended repetitions faster than 1hr10 mins. My clients almost never were willing to dedicate that kind of time unless they were injured and had nothing else to do. You are also on your own to reintegrate all this new-found movement. Where RMAX gives you the path from joint mobility to EMC to BMC to kinetic chain, you have to rely on your intuition, sport or interests to do that for you, its not taught out. Hence my comment on the board a while back about my kata still feeling like I was a brick with limbs. They were highly mobile, but only in the isolated planes that I had trained them. One thing that does prod me occasionally as a weakness of RMAX is the time they allow for recovery. You might be weeks or months applying WW to an injury to see any change, where with AIS, some conditions you can take to pain-free in an hour or less. But I temper that with the understanding that pain-free is very different from healthy, smoothly articulating, strong, and supple. Pain free is good enough for somebody who has to get back to work. It is NOT good enough if you want to learn parkour, gymnastics or any of the other really awesome stuff that's available to us to explore our potential, and after the age of 25 or so, survive it. Hope that's not too much info. some of this has been scurrying around in my head the last couple days, felt good to try to summarize it. I used tot say that about myself. Now, I have no concerns about swinging a pickaxe full-bore, barefoot. Has less to do with luck than developing awareness of where your feet are. You can also regain that particular movement and still wear shoes. It just takes more conscious attention. Would you believe i packed up my practice, gave away 90% of my crap and became a Tao bum? Well, at least temporarily. I needed a sabbatical. Right now I'm doing something similar to uh, Niemad I think, doing a work trade on a farm on the kohala side of the big island. Before that i was doing the hostel thing, and will again after January. HI is a fun place to visit, but living here has its problems too. I like it and all, especially going barefoot and shirtless most of the time, but I'm actually jonesing to get back to the mainland and pick up my life. Had planned to be roaming arond here until almost May, now it's probably gonna be more like february. Once I found RMAX I realized it was gonna be the next major focus of my life, I knew I needed to be in one place for a while again, with a place to store all the stuff I was studying (and acquiring, like books, dvds... clubbells ) . Only thing I have left to figure out is, where to land.

What solved my cold feet problem actually wasn't qigong. It was learning that my foot wasn't able to explore its full range of motion. Likely from too much shoe wearing. Anyway, what solved it for me was learning how to pronate and supinate the foot. This is where you rotate the foot at the ball, instead of the heel (which is inversion/eversion) It's easier to show than to explain, but the basic idea is to keep your ankle as still as possible, and practice raising and lowering the ball of the foot under the big toe. Then do the same thing with the pinky toe side of the ball. The first time somebody showed me that, I was at Aaron Mattes' active isolated stretching seminar, and he was demonstrating on me. I didn't have a clue what he meant, but when he prompted my foot with his hands, after about 30 seconds, I felt this warm rush into my feet, as if a cork had been pulled out of my blood vessels. It was pretty wild. It took a while to get it down on my own, and it kept freezing back up, until I figured out that if I just left my shoes off when I didnt need them, I wouldn't lose that motion. No problems since then. I'm in HI now, but next winter I'm going to test it out through the fall and see how much I can build up to staying comfortable with bare feet on cold ground. WHich is kinda funny because I'm still not too keen about trying RJ's treatment of ice water on the 'nads though. But if it's working for Yoda, I may yet try it someday. Getting that motion back is also hugely helpful in removing painful conditions like plantar fascitis (especially if you're also working on your calf flexibility) Ken Bob Saxton (from barefootrunning.com) doesn't even recommend any specific stretching for those kind of conditions. Just going barefoot on uneven ground helps the foot keep that range of motion.

I believe he's 36.

and they like to sneak up on those friends, too!

Era - Misere Mani Misere Mani

From what I remember, Winn's brief commentary from this summer on the joints is that they are the spark plugs of the body. At the time, I guess the car mechanics metaphor just didn't do anything for me. but when I think about it now, that really doesn't seem like a throwaway comment anymore. (when I teach someday, i really hope not to have to dump years of practice material in a weekend or 5 days. it's so tough to sort out from so much what is important!) I wonder if in my case, the realization was so profound because I was significantly biased against the body and its freedom/restriction being part of the whole package. As a matter of fact, I have rapidly turned into an RMAX geek for all the reasons you mentioned. I ordered intu-flow yesterday before the promotion ended, and a pair of 15# clubs (i have been using 10#) I also signed up for the Iota training class in WA several weeks ago. Funny thing was, i did that within hours of watching "Be Breathed" that I signed up. Just watching him talk effortlessly during and after the fast floor routine at the end got em thinking "whatever he's got, I don't care, I want it." So expect a review of that class on the board in early April.

@#$*&@# excellent question, thaddeus, esp. as I begin to crawl back into orbit practice after a 4-5 month hiatus. Thank you for bringing that up, Sean, and I'm not sure what I can truly add except "I agree on both counts." The former I had experienced in my massage/bodyworking practice. THe only thing I'd add to that is that I observed something I didn't understand then. As I learned and applied techniques for releasing fascial restrictions in increasingly short periods of time, I saw that sometimes, the client's body could also reject those changes in a timeframe that could be noticed and reported, sometimes re-stiffening with significant accompanying pain, before the day was out. The latter is something I had *just* started to become aware of very recently, so to see you writing about it is quite reassuring. I've taken a lot of classes with Winn, and heard his take on qigong forms being generally better for westerners in the beginning than seated meditation practices that keep them locked in their heads. I did the forms but they just didn't seem to have the kick that seated or even standing work did, so my focus never really changed. But I got to a point this summer where I couldn't sit still anymore, it was driving me nuts to sit and meditate. I took some time off to work furey's combat conditioning, but that didn't seem to help much in that regard (in fact, I had a hard time keeping up stretching out the increasing tightness in my body from that training) So I got the warrior wellness material (with resounding Taobums approval as I recall!) With that as my primary practice, and having the opportunity to work through the things it brought up, I found a couple days ago that I can again actually sit for a while again and not be going nuts. But what's even more interesting is that the qigong forms now seem to make more sense from a kinesthetic point of view. I still don't feel energy running thru channels or anything like that. But I can start to see how certain movements would work to reduce/remove fascial restrictions to allow bio/piezoelectricity (to thaddeus' point) cerebro-spinal fluid, synovial fluid, cellular nutrition, you name it, to flow with less resistance and create a situation for improved or optimal health. I've also noticed to someone else's point that I can rest my awareness in the lower tantien and not be nearly as uncomfortable as I once was. Its as if warrior wellness, or perhaps more generally, a balanced physical practice, has cleared out many things that I was unable to do with meditation alone. I realize I still haven't added much to the discussion of the original question, but I'm not currently sure what I can add to it yet. Going to let it summer some more.

Yoda, as I understand it, the mini clubs that come with intu-flow are easier to use than a 5lb clubbell would be. The weight is more evenly distributed in the minis, rather than balanced two feet or so from your hand. I've been working with 10# clubs for about two weeks. It seemed heavy as hell when I started, but i seem to be getting used to them quickly, which is pretty much what they told me before I started.

Never mind. Within two minutes of posting, I got an email from RMAX. I was looking on the forum. Per your requests (because of the Thanksgiving Holiday) the Special Introductory Offer has been extended till Tuesday, November 29th, 2005!

Sean, where did you see that? The post i saw where he mentions 4 days left in the promo was dates 11/21.

An oldie but a goodie on getting out of debt (not so much good for investing) Cured me forever. Your Money Or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki (uhhh. forget her last name)

I've heard a few contradictory variations on what kind of poo means what so i'm not sure how much stock i put in diagnosing with it... yet. When I had intense gallstones, what I passed was not the same color as it is now, and it floated, but i forget at the moment what the color difference was. However, I will also vouch for the squatting method. If I'm constipated, it's much easier to go using that position. Not everyone will have access to this, but coconut water (and fresh meat) is mildly laxative. I have also noticed that improving the tone of my core and ab muscles (via Scott Sonnon's 'be breathed') has changed me me from a once a day (max) to almost always twice a day.

I tried out the knee switches from watching Plato, and was surprised that I could do them I got tired and sloppy after maybe 6-7 on each side, so I stopped. I am now even more curious to get Sonnon's book & videos (should be in the next day or two) and learn more about it. Interesting about the neck/shouder rolling. I've played with that in the yard lately watching one of Sonnon's web clips, and approximating from what I saw him do, I found I could do it, and even trusted my body enough to roll backwards, which I hadn't done before. We used to have a wrestling move that relied on a fwd roll like that. In high school I could barely do it out of fear (but then, we usually started from a standing position.) Now there's no palpable fear of the move, I trust my body to do it, but after four or five rolls going around in the circle, i'm stopped by nausea & dizziness. Recurring pattern for me, apparently. I'm continuing to work with it, though. The first tibetan seems to be getting just slightly easier, so i'm hoping that will translate to ground work soon.

Its been in my morning routine for the last two days. I can't even get to ten full sets yet. Four or five sets does me in. For me, the bulk of the congestion seems to be high in the chest, rather than low, but feels like both could use work. I'm intrigued by the banashing the beer belly thing. This doesn't "seem" like a calorie burner, definitely less so than 5 tibetans. I've read one line of thought about big guts that it isnt always stored fat so much as congestion & buildup of waste in the intestines. Not 100% on board wit that, but... from that point of view, all the diaphragm movement could be giving the internal organs a nice massage and move things through. I'll give it a month and see how it goes.

I took a leap a while back, based on discussion here, and decided to get Furey's Combat Conditioning book. I admit I have been extraordinarily impressed with the results, to the point that I'll probably never see the inside of a weightroom again. I've gained a lot of flexibility back using active isolated stretching, eliminated nearly all areas of my own pain, However, when I went into the training hall the other night, and did a little shadow fighting and kata, I realized for all the strength I'd gained, and all the flexibility I'd recovered, I still basically move like a big ol' brick. So, after catching up on the WW discussions here, and reading Cam's last post on Furey, I decided to throw down some coin and order Sonnon's book, Warrior Wellness, and the Be Breathed programs. Definitely going to be more than I can absorb in the short term, but after watching his demo videos on rmax.com, I gotta think there's something to it, and worth investing in. I also ordered Pavel's Stretching book. I was't originally going to, but I saw something specific in the exerpt on Amazon that made me realize he had something to offer that AIS might not. Of course, after ordering this stuff, and Furey's CC book previously, I have to wonder why fitness guru paperbacks are all $25-$30 each, and every other paperback on that market $6-$12?

i will know more when i get into pavel's stretching book, but i remember from naked warrior (borrowed briefly)that pavel goes way more into the 'how do i use my bod effectively' than furey does with CC. CC is mostly about cranking out reps or holding a bridge longer. I did not actually make many gains with CC the first month, because i was sore all the time and had to take days off to recover. also, with hindu squats especially, i noticed my quad tendons at the knee getting painfully tight and had to spend several weeks stretching them daily while my body tried to adjust to the new workload. now they are fine, but it was an adjustment period for sure. i haven't noticed size (as nin growing muscle) being a big change in my body, but i was a weightlifter prior to CC anyway, so i just feel smaller. however, i will say that CC, while it stiffens me up less than weightlifting, still seems want to tighten me up i fi'm not paying rapt attention. hence the move toward Sonnon & Pavel for me. Thanks again to all you taobums for sharing your opinions and experiences! i definitely feel like i'm growing in great new directions!

if i remember right, furey talks about messing up his shoulder doing hindu pushups, and now sells some sort of chest expander device to help that. my take on this is that the hindu pushups revealed, or caused if he went nuts with them, an imbalance in the strength/flexibility of either his rhomboids or one or more of the rotator cuff muscles. the chest expander likely accomplished what a good therapist wuld do, inceasing the flexibility of the tightest msucles, and strengthening the weak, ignored ones. he stated rest & time off didn't resolve it for him, and so far in my experience, it rarely does unless the person avoids the offending activity indefinitely. you get a little atrophy that takes some of the pressure off the aggravated tendon, but the muscle imbalance needs to be addressed. there are some good exercises in there beyond royal court, but you can spend months just building yourself up with those. if you know 5 tibetans, youre pretty close if not dead-on on more of the exercises, and if you're an ex-wrestler like me, you know plenty more of them if you dip back into your memory from high school or whatever. i would not be shocked at all if the 6th tibetan (listed in the book by Christopher Kilham) was in Furey's combat abs.

That is true. I took his healing love class this summer, he called it the 'lose a million dollars point.' my summary of it from that class it was better to ejaculate in that situation, than create potentially damaging congestion that you had to deal with later. i quit because it didn't feel right. at least with my physiology as it stands now, it seemed to create a really uncomfortable sensation/pressure in the perineum that didn't dissipate quickly at all. But if somebody can get it to work for them, that'd be awesome. would love to hear how it's working for them.