Yoda

a bum in training, yes.

Basically in most traditions, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, you name it, menstration is disrespected as being unclean to keep girl power damped down. Had they kept their sperm, they wouldn't have felt threatened and wouldn't have dissed the sistas. Osho is the Bagwan! If you've had prostate problems, stay away from the 3 finger technique. -Yoda

You can use a tampon and wipe everything down for clean oral sex during menstration. Iron is good for you! It's interesting that very passionate athletes often stop ejaculating or having menses. They instinctively know that they need to save their energy. I'm sure there are super athletes who ejaculate and have their periods too. I'm thinking of Dragan and Steve Maxwell who have superhuman energy levels in their 50s and they say they have very normal, natural sex lives. Steve's says his secrets are: lots of exercise, lots of Warrior Wellness type drills (he got from Pavel, Sonnon, and Furey) and tons of supplements. Dragan says his secret is 30-45 minutes a day of vigorous daily dumbell work (google the dragan challenge for details). Neither mentioned retention as a key. So don't make too much of this debate. Having said that, retention is vital to enhance any taoist practice. Sure it's superior to make love in the spirit of 100% passion and spontaneity as long as you don't blow your load! Ron's three pillars: alternate, circulate, and hit the brakes practice is the key to safe sex. So be passionate but if you get into any sort of trouble with the practice go right back to the physical basics to find the answer. The three finger technique is not very sexy. If you can use other techniques like breathing, slowing, and simply relaxing definitely do them. But if you find yourself having miscalculated on the old PONR then reach for the hand brakes. That way you'll be right back on that horndogger trail without deficit spending or a 24hour+ refractory period. Bless their hearts, but most women have no idea what's up with this situation and you should splash holy water on them if they want you to blow your brains out in the name of love. As master Ron has said, ejaculation for the purpose other than having kids is an unnatural perversion of the human energy system. As Osho says, ejaculation isn't satisfying it's just a release of pressure that the man believed to be uncomfortable in the first place. That pressure, that horniness, is actually your best friend. That lust will be your light long after you and your lady have parted ways in this life or the next. If the pressure feels shitty that means that you have have neglected your circulation practice and need to exercise more. On retreat, Osho threw his students into the mosh pit 3 hours a day! He says that men rely on orgasm to move through the stagnation they feel due to lack of exercise, but it's a bum steer in the long run. -Yoda

Premature ejaculation is normally caused by inadequate exercise. Too much pressure gets built up at the bottom of the spine. So if you wish to avoid the three finger technique, exercise lots. According to an article I read, there seems to be a linear relationship between the amount of exercise one gets and the quality of one's sex life. Plato has recommended Sonnon's Freedom by Degree material to this end in the past. The main problem with the three finger technique is that there is still a certain amount of energy loss associated with it. I'm not sure how much, though. If done correctly, sperm will not enter the bladder, so there's no loss of fluid essence. Lozen--interesting re: sexual activity and creativity. It would be interesting to experiment with being sexually active while refraining from orgasm to see what happens. Mbanu--I thought slaying the red dragon was as easy as daily nipple stimulation. That the effect was very easy to acheive, but perhaps not worth doing in terms of the health and energy benefits. -Yoda

In Buddhism, karma means impulse or intent and the intent is what it's all about. Obviously, if you just think about killing somebody and you don't even raise your voice with them, then the intent to kill isn't very strong. If you find yourself standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in your hand, then your intent was stronger. So it's more of a shades of grey thing. The first step is to throw away the gun and stop killing people, then to stop beating them, then to stop yelling at them, and finally to stop thinking ill will towards them. Buddhism is more philosophical and psychological than taoism, so I doubt that you'll find this sort of thinking as spelled out. Cool to ponder, but if it's bothersome toss it. Hang on to a philosophy that makes you feel bad will make you feel like killing someone! -Yoda

John DuCane talks about the Maori tarzan drill which is similar to Ken Cohen's Wake Up drill in Way of Qigong. Low, wide horsestance and beat your chest like Tarzan yelling "aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhaaaaaaaahhhhh" just like the jungle master. The Maori have lots of slapping and stomping and yelling and grunting too. Ken's version is to stand low for awhile and then slap yourself all over with your hands before running or swimming or going to war or whatever. It's my impression that the primitive hunting traditions have a lot of that Maori stomping, yelling, jumping going on around the campfire. Doing it in a circle keeps the group energy more focused than everyone running along a path. I suck at war, but I like the associated warrior practices. I just ran 30 minutes and wrapped it up with warrior wellness today. Nice combo. Shower, some green tea, groovy healing sounds, etc. -Yoda

not 100% serious, but it sounds like a nice tradition that really ought to be in place especially as us western taoboys learn the way of the emporer dudes. -Smeagol Also, any taogirls have any feedback on my friend's claim that refraining from genital based orgasms works the same way for women--conserving and building energy, I'd love to know what you think. My friend says that his wife is living proof that it works for women and I'd like to think that he's right. Maybe it's the same dynamic but a female orgasm has only a slight energy loss compared to men's. If there were no energy loss, then women would have dozens of orgasms in a row. Endless really, if you think about it. My friend says that b/c his wife refrains from orgasm, they can have sex all day long without her getting tired. Interestingly, he doesn't want to have kids for this reason! Harsh his buzz they will! I'm not thinking that menstration would drain that much energy to necessitate 'slaying the red dragon' practice as the collorary practice for women. -Yoda

Once you start retention practice, it's customary to give your member a name. I chose Smeagol. -Yoda

knees can be bent or naturally straight, weight can be over balls of feet, heels, or anywhere in between, eyes can be open or closed. Try them all and see what you like. I'm told you send out more energy into the earth if your weight is over the balls of the feet and you keep more if you balance midway between BOF and the heels. -Y

You'll dig it. Sperm master Plato has said great things re: Sonnon's work to boost sperm retention. -Y

I bolded my favorite parts. I disagree with: One should not get obsessed with "stopping" ejaculation, but focus rather on opening up the chi channels and recycling sexual energy to one's partner until you finally ejaculate. I don't believe that jing retention is necessary for men to live an amazing life... rock stars come to mind. But in Winn's words: Skill in semen retention is essential to the successful male practice of One Cloud's internal alchemy. -Y The jing is governed in humans by the kidney water spirit, called the zhi, literally the "will" to be in bodily form, to survive, to seek pleasure, and to fulfil a specific destiny while in a body. It is the jing that in the human animal is radiating polarized waves of male or female sexed energy we label charisma or magnetic power. In short, jing is the source of sexual desire and the feeling substance of earthiness. Without jing, spirit (shen) would not be able to embody its virtues or have direct sensory experience of physicality. If one is feeling "spiritual bliss", the bliss part is vibrating jing. Jing is also the main source of vexation for spiritual seekers who ignore it or run from their sexual impulses in order to chase after the other end of the spectrum of consciousness, the shen or spirit body, which spreads out as an infinite sea of pure awareness. This also defines the key difference between centering a meditation in the Fire-head-shen or Water-belly-jing cauldrons within the body. One of the main ways Chia rebuilt his kidney jing was a method of semen retention and recirculation of sexual energy (jingqi) in the Microcosmic Orbit (xiao zhoutian). Recent scholarship suggests the Orbit began as a sexual practice to rejuvenate the brain (huanjing bunaeo) two thousand years ago and evolved to become a spiritual practice as the qi was observed to spiral inside the body. (Pregadio, 2000, 427). Skill in semen retention is essential to the successful male practice of One Cloud's internal alchemy. Other systems of neidangong may require celibacy in the hope that it will result in the indirect or spontaneous redirection of sexual energy to the subtle bodies. But this is a hit or miss proposition, and can result instead in sexual repression. Non-celibacy requires a deliberate method of guaranteeing the sexual energy is recycled in the Orbit, which is later refined and taken up the central subtle body channel. How does it work? At a moment prior to ejaculation (whether in coitus with a woman or self-pleasuring), the orgasmically vibrating seminal qi is introjected by the man up his spinal yang fire channel (dumai, Governor Vessel) to refresh the brain and its master glands, the pituitary and pineal. If in coitus, the male draws up his partner's female sexual essence (jingqi) as well, and offers his to her. When the brain is full of the rejuvenating sexual essence, it overflows down the yin front water channel (renmo, Conception Vessel) which clears and purifies qi flowing into yin meridians, heart, navel and sexual organs. The physical method can be done with a partner (dual cultivation) or without a partner (single cultivation), and is practiced using varying levels of non-aroused (cool) or aroused (hot) sexual energy. One goal of the medical sexual practice is to shift from a limited "genital orgasm" to a pleasurable and healing "whole body orgasm". Slowing or stopping "ejaculation" doesn't prevent a man from having "orgasm" or being "multi-orgasmic". Ejaculation is physical, orgasm is chi pulsating. One should not get obsessed with "stopping" ejaculation, but focus rather on opening up the chi channels and recycling sexual energy to one's partner until you finally ejaculate. Then this physical ejaculation does not cause major loss of jing, as the essence is already extracted. Semen retention also slows down the man's fiery nature to stay in closer harmony with the woman's slower cycle of arousal. Another key in sexual kung-fu is understanding the relation between the fire element in the heart and the water element in the kidneys. These fire and water essences stimulate each other and keep the other in check. By keeping proper exchange between them, one enters a steady state that opens the door to subtle body love-making. By simply keeping an open heart you protect against blind lust, which ultimately injures the kidneys because it can never be satisfied by physical sex alone. All aloneness at core is the heart spirit (shen) seeking the love, sensual touch and sexual stimulation of the kidney shen, and the kidney spirit seeking the heart's virtue of unconditional acceptance and love. This kind of internal biological psycho-dynamics opened for Western students the field of Daoist depth psychology that is just beginning to be explored.

Interesting to compare sexual cultivation solo vs. dual. I've just had three weeks away from the family, so I have a pretty good feel for both experiences. On the subject of horniness/insatiability it's actually easier to be alone. When I was alone, I ended up doing 1.5-2.5 hours a day of solo cultivation. Everytime, it was the right amount. After awhile, it just gets boring and you get on with the day or to sleep. The challenge is that there is more energy built up in dual cultivation so the more you do it, the more you want to do it. So Mrs Yoda's typical 3 orgasms is just fine for her, but feels like a warmup for me. Whatever the final score, Yoda here is wide awake and ready for more. The important point is to guard against lackful thinking and how it's bad not to get enough sleep. Instead think of it as having more energy and time to practice. One thing that I've been doing recently is to sleep by myself. Being by myself in the dark de-sexes my brain and helps me transform insatiability into meditative grooviness. I think Chia somewhere suggests trying sleeping separately as a technique. Been very helpful. Based on Ron's thoughts, this sort of heighthened energy is just part of the practice and just gets more intense with time so it's important to get good at transmuting all aspects of thought, energy, and essence to make this worthy practice a sustainable one. -Yoda

It's okay to loose the erection for a few minutes, just cycle in some meditative cunnilingus and you'll be back in the game. -Y

Sean, So what's the difference between warrior wellness and freedom by degree? -Kyle

I finally watched and tried Warrior Wellness!! After rave reviews from Plato, Sean, and now Michael I finally broke down and watched the damn thing. I have had exposure to Pavel's joint mobility material so I figured it was redundant, but it was great. I watched the beginner one once and then watched it again while doing it and it feels very nice. Sometimes those Russians can take asian concepts and make them very accessible, and this is a prime example. This "feels" nicer to do than stretching and it doesn't tax the ego if you aren't super flexible. Best of all, it delivers a fantastic buzz when you are done. I'm all about the buzz. -Yoda

Hagar-- You could make money off a psychic orgasm service. Have them send $100 and a photo... Ron-- 10-15... great work bro! -Yoda

try it for yourself. If you blow your load right after standing it feels seriously awesome but you are blowing your brains out and losing the benefit of the practice. Most teachers don't spell this out, but an extremely important point.

Don't release your sperm within four hours of standing practice. Took me a year to figure that one out. -Yoda

Definitely feed your partner her vitamins, give her fresh air and sunshine so she can keep up with your lil soldier of fortune. Mrs Yoda hits the wall at about 5 orgasms but I'm confident that we can work her up to double digit territory with practice. Also, it might be very wise to back off before a female orgasm and let the moment pass (after the first, of course, to avoid any hard feelings) I have a friend who has sold his wife on this concept--she backs off before any orgasms on the theory that women do loose some energy on orgasms, so she stays in the game for all-day sessions. He got her to go to a live-sex class with Margo Anand who encouraged her to try this approach. BTW, Margo's mate was struggling to keep his sperm in front of the live audience. Let's hope he made it! -Yoda

Trunk- solitary stillness = exercise? Do you think walking or running qualifies as stillness practice? That would be fun, if true. I do think that exercising regularly creates more stillness/relaxation inside the body for things to gurgle into place. -Yoda

Here's Ron's instructions: 1. For a kinder, gentler America, alternate between using your weiner and your tongue--stay away from max stimulation. 2. use the three finger/million dollar technique as an emergency backup. You find the indentation between the balls and the poopy place, but closer to the poopy place. Just experiment with it. 3. practice circulating the energy or you'll blow up "in a geyser of cum." Ron's refering to microcosmic orbit. Yoda's commentary: Ron and many others say that the million dollar point shouldn't be used as a regular practice, just as a backup. Others say that it is fine to use as often as you like with no long term problems. Once you figure out the exact location and the exact kind of pressure I feel that it is safe, but some have had bad experiences with it. At least at my intro level of mastery, regular running plus my recent green tea discovery seems to offer enough circulation so that there's no discomfort with retention. I'd say regular exercise is more important and beneficial than sperm retention and is a prerequisite anyway, so start there. (Tip: exercise first thing in the morning and you are more likely to stick with it.) If you are in a relationship, put your tongue into play more often. I also find it helpful to give Mrs Yoda at least one tongue based orgasm before going in with team weiner. It's that whole air supremacy thing. If you are not in a relationship, there's much more control going solo, so you are in a good place to gain retention mastery that will serve you well as you walk the earth. Making the heart sound subvocally on the exhale is a good practice, too. Just experiment with these variables, and you'll definitely make progress. Following Ron's three steps have made basic retention mastery very easy for me. -Yoda

Was reading Trunk's website, and it reminded me of prostrations. I just did a set and it was nice both spiritually as well as physically. Put me in touch with my past life as a Tibetan Buddhist--there is something to that sort of ritualism that acts on a very primitive level of the brain. I had seen the horror movie Constantine recently, and sleeping by myself these days, the movie sort of spooked me a bit even though I don't buy into the hell thing. Every night before going to bed, I'd think of those hell realm dudes. One night, my fire alarm went off minutes after I turned out the lights. The fire alarm has never gone off like that before, so I realized that I needed some sort of lizard brain ritual to dispel my inner spooks. I went to the store and bought a Mary candle and that did the trick. My electronic devices are back to normal. During the daytime, I thought the whole thing was funny stuff, but I really did need some sort of ritual to chill out at night. -Yoda

The multiples.com practice is basically doing the heart sound during sexual stimulation. That's a brilliant idea to try the other sounds as well. I'm surprised I didn't think of that. Great Idea! Yoda

Okay Grasshopper, you too can be a sperm stud like me and master Ron. I've been 100% since mid May with no runs, drips, or errors. I got drunk and forgetful on that occasion and couldn't find my million dollar spot in time, but no use crying over spilled milk. Ron's the pro, but he's too busy cultivating to reply in depth, so I'll do the talking: Exercise is the key to retention--it both builds and circulates sperm. I'm not doing any of the microcosmic stuff, but haven't needed to as long as I'm exercising almost daily. Without exercise, I wouldn't recommend retention as things would get too stagnant. Also, my recent green tea discovery has been helpful with regard to the circulation aspect. Horniness is the goal of the practice, grasshopper. It's not always easy, particularly when the wife needs her sleep, but we all have our cross to bear. With enough exercise and green tea, the basic energy should be able to spill over into other activities like googling incessantly, researching chemtrails, yet more exercise, and maybe even some artistic creativity or genuine love if you are into that sort of thing. Whatever you want, you want more. It's like your own fantasy island! You have more energy to play with and it just takes some practice how to channel the psychological components of it in a way that feels invigorating rather than lackful. It's a change of perspective. Osho says to view ejaculation not as "satisfying" but as numbing and dumbing of one's lifegiving desire and compassion. To view the state of horniness not as uncomfortable but as invigorating and lifegiving. Makes you feel like a Chinese Emporer. Nee-how! I'm not doing dream practices yet, but the energy for that is gathering. In the last year or so, I've had the nagging awareness that I was loosing my energy through sex, but I failed to make a consistent practice out of it. I believe that sungazing gave me surplus energy to get into running and the running gave me a platform from which I could take on retention with no stagnancy issues. Then I just followed Ron's guidelines which I took to almost without a hitch. It's been easier than I would have guessed. -Yoda