PLB

Others have said better than I could about the line between replicating conformity and encouraging something else. So I thought it might be helpful to point toward the idea of empire in Taoist literature. I am in the midst of reading a book suggested to this site here: http://thetaobums.co...-and-ping-fa/ Mr Jones makes a strong argument that the Art of War is actually about not having war. I had teachers who got me thinking about how the contours of conflict shaped the world I lived in. It would be very much in the Taoist tradition to continue that thinking.

I probably have not "walked the path" much longer than you but probably not a lot less. So I offer the following only as a fellow seeker, not as someone who knows the answer to your question. Finding all that one seeks may not come from one source. I practice Yang Cheng Fu's 108 and my teacher is good and helpful. But my desire to concentrate on the separation of jings and pulling silk has lead me to other sources and teachers as well. It would be great if I had a teacher who was totally in tune with my practice. In the meantime, I figure I better be in tune with my practice. To mangle TS Eliot, you are the system, while the system lasts.

I had not heard of Aunkai before you commented upon it. My quick survey intrigues me. I see the stepping of brush knee being done with an entirely different emphasis than what I have been practicing. Good stuff there. What you say about the linking of "finishing moves" in forms is a fair observation. I am not advanced enough to speak with any kind of authority on the matter but my experience so far suggests to me that one benefit with persisting within a form is that some things become inside out from where they start. The "transition" stops becoming the gathering before release but the space between ending and beginning; A player can never own that place, just pass through it.

MithShrike, I figured you would say that about the competition form. I linked to Aiping Cheng because she came from the same teachers you were talking about and that there is a certain vivid quality to her demonstration. In the name of being perfectly clear, I have run into a number of practicioners of the Chen 56 in NYC who certainly don't treat it as a performance routine. It appeals to a number of people practicing weopons, particularly the jian. This comment is purely anecdotal, by the way. I may be hanging around the only chen 56 players on earth who also practice the jian. I, too, am curious about the forms that preceded what is presently practiced. If I had a time machine, and it cost money to use it, this sort ot thing is what I would blow my paycheck to observe.

ChiDragon, I am well aware of the difference you point out between "108s" I practice Yang Cheng Fu's 108 as transmitted through the Dong family. Your comment about the feet and hands is interesting. I have read bits of your view of Fa Jin through out the site. There are other points of view. I need to advance further before I could say anything useful about that. The silk reeling in Aiping Cheng's form is what I didn't sense in the video MithShrike linked to.

MithShrike, The Chen 108 is interesting. It reminds me of the Chen 56 in some places. The stepping method is hard to figure out in the video. It doesn't show the clear opening and closing of Aiping Cheng, for instance. By the way, I appreciate the other comments you have made on this thread regarding your practice.

I apologize to Marblehead and et-thoughts for getting my interlocutors mixed up. GrandmasterP, it is good that kaaazuo and et-thoughts can find some common ground. It seems to me, however, that the argument they are having has been playing out for centuries.

Marblehead, your emphasis upon a commitment to an ideal rings true. I guess RBSA is asking how one starts it.

It may not be possible to have an explanation that unifies all the dimensions of your existence into a single expression. That impossibility is expressed in the saying that the Way that can be clearly articulated is not the Way that can be travelled. But your existence is a unity. The sense of being an inchoate assemblage of parts mirrors that unity in a perverse way. I don't think one can "own" that unity in the sense that it becomes an "identiy" but you are the only who can live inside the circle you circumscribe. Change requires effort but it also requires the cessation of effort. There is the work of doing new things. There is the work of not accepting invitations to do what only hurts and creates hurt. I think It depends less on an idea of personal management and more on perseverence and a commitment to learn from failure.

The teacher who has been my most helpful guide to practicing the internal dimension of Tai Chi Chuan spent time studying with Bruce. Through him I have met several life long students of Bruce who still find him a source of discovery. I haven't had an oppurtunity to practice with them, however. As for his books, I have quickly read bits from a number of them but have applied myself (and still do) to his Taoist Yoga. In terms of the practice it communicates, I am still very much a beginner but it has already benefited my playing of Tai Chi Chuan.

Your points are well taken, White Wolf Running On Air. For what its worth, I wasn't trying to glorify the condition of being a bum or say the lifestyle of bums is emblematic of something Taoist. The list I gave was offered as a set of metaphors. Or maybe it is more like a joke where two very different things are imagined to share the same attributes. For example: What do Brooklyn and pantyhose have in common?

A bum receives gifts without hope of repaying them in kind. A bum has to get used to spending time alone with him or herself or go mad. If a bum insists that he is more than a bum to people, he will prove that he is only a bum. A bum lives in a deep well of negativity where few honor or care for him. It is an emblem of pursuing the way because progress doesn't depend on how well one is received or punished for being who they are.

The idea of yin and yang being united makes me think of marriage; where two decide to only be intimate with each other, forsaking all others. I practice Yang 108 and push with some Chen guys regularly. I recently started to pay more serious attention to the Eight trigrams and the interplay of the five elements, which led me to start reading this forum. I don't know if I will be able to add much but I have already learned a great deal here. Thank you, PLB

All of these "schools" (for lack of a better word) emphasize that separting jings is why a movement or change comes about the way it does. Form is necessary. Not because it has everything within it but because it has enough to teach you how to separate jings. The multiplicity of forms should be seen as the proof of that condition rather than an argument against it.

My personal experience is that I am not sure what is personal any longer. When I learned to not react to everything that was happening because it was happening, it changed what was happening. if you are looking for a fight, it will happen. If you are looking to not fight, it may not happen. I like to spar, push, and play all sorts of games. That is not combat or training for it. The internal art certainly makes me less than zero. But it is not the same as devoting myself to stand before others in battle. In conclusion, I think it is not about measuring what is the most powerful or the most beneficial by this or that standard but becoming a unit of measure yourself.

I will read your book. I have long thought the emphasis upon Sun Tzu as providing a manual overlooked the purpose of the writing.

Thank you for the welcomes, Sinfest and Melanie. Loved the video, Melanie. Now that is what energy should look like: Dr Who crashing a wedding.