PLB

Utility is a funny thing. The format requires a correspondence between a set of objectives and a set of means to accomplish them. The Taoist literature calls upon me to doubt the position of the Planner who would set forth a program. So, if I embrace a way of proceeding that doesn't start by judging the merits of an enterprise, how would I go about finding out if it was worthwhile or full of shit? Whether it is through the guidance of those who traveled further than I have or just me groping in my own dark, it is not like the thing to be learned is an ist or an ism. It will be there because it exists. I realize I didn't get any closer to answering my question by saying that. Oh, this forum and what it provides or not; What is the question again?

It is not easy to change. All the actual steps may not be difficult at all. The situation takes some getting used to. Will I get the ultimate joke made at my expense? Maybe, maybe not. If it is the universe, it is not personal. But it feels pretty damn personal. It is hard to understand progress but the geometry of failure litters the ground all around me. The situation pisses me off but my anger doesn't help. It frightens me but my fear just separates me from the thing. There is this narrow passage I need to navigate. I could definitely get this all wrong. It feels good to take responsibilty for what happens, especially when that starts with looking closely at all the things I have no control over. I am sure that my explanation cleared up all possible confusion in the matter. :-]

As someone who was educated by means of reading very different thinkers without a program, I will never forget the shock of reading those writings by Zhuangzi dealing with logic and what we try to build with language. After that, I wasn't reading to learn the answer to any question I had, it was more wondering if I could ever talk again.

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My take on that comment by Fu Zhongwhen is that he wasn't saying that the form should not be done slower than a certain speed but that people doing the form should not slow it down more than they are capable of keeping a continuous thread of energy spinning while it is happening. Yang Chengfu could do it that slow because he was really good at it.

NotVoid, I would make no argument against the importance and consistency of those ten points you cite. On the breathing coordination matter, I was thinking of statements like that made by Li Yaxuan: I take your point that how one gets to this place is mostly taught as something that happens naturally after enough time. I have also learned from accomplished teachers who say that such a close relationship between breathing and fa jin gives an opponent too much of a read and the two energies should not be fixed together for other reasons. The references to the dan tien are harder for me to dig up or link to from what I have read. I will try to come back this after some time when I have more time. Apart from what can be found in writing, I am struck by how much or little is made of the connection amongst the different teachers I have had. The 'pulsing' involved in point number 8, matching up inner and outer is taught and sought after through different steps taken by different people. In the classics, the destination is well described and you are told to work hard to get to that place. The language leaves room for many sorts of maps that will have to be made on the way.

It is interesting to me how much the different students of Yang Chang Fu differed on particular elements of what they had learned. Some emphasized the coordination of breath, others distanced themselves from that sort of thing. In this interview with Fu Zhongwen, I was struck by the comment about not getting hung up on focusing on the dantien when other students had emphasized the importantance of doing exactly that. Beyond the arguments amongst the Yang folk, I have met a number of Chen practioners who also disagree about how the different elements should go together. Some Chen guys are as hard as wing chun, others softer than Yang. I am in no position to make any judgement about the above observations. I will just muddle along the best I can. But I have become suspicious of the idea that there is some kind of good-to-go legacy that I only need to put my trust in to make progress.

Interesting thought. I didn't get the impression that the list of what was there was a statement about what should be considered important or not but was more a reflection about what people were interested in talking about right now because they brought those topics up. In other words, your interest in expanding the set of topics is more interesting than wondering why it has not been done already.

Maybe one way to look at it is that one school knows how much work it takes to gain knowlege and understands the uncertainty involved with passing the result on to a new generation and another school insists that the thing to be learned is present and ready to be understood right now directly without paying dues or assigning themselves to past masters. Two more or less equally true things being true at the same time while contradicting each other: What metaphysical structure could subtend such a thing?

The Hickey article makes many good arguments for the idea that the desire and work for enlightenment involves the same reality even though different traditions frame and describe the work differently. One element he didn't touch upon is the idea of a God who is a witness to what has been made. The "personal" element of the divine is not only about the personification of the creator but also tries to address the question of whether our particular form of life is only a concern for ourselves living it or has to do with all the things that happened or will happen after "we" are gone. Earnest people could decide upon different paths in that regard and their paths would be different. I don't know what is the truth but I see the importance and influence of that kind of decision.

Some gifts require hardly nothing from oneself. Giving from a pot that one does not measure is a good thing because it is not a the act of a miser. Our souls are truly tested when they are asked to give up something understood and lived through as very valuble and essential to our lives. That sort of thing scares the crap out of me.

dwai, Thanks for the interesting account of how these matters were discussed in your school. The vibration element is something I would like to experience more of. There seem to be many ways of comparing the different aspects of peng, ji, liu, an. Working with liu as a void touches upon something important. There are other ways to compare them. I find Robert Tangora's pairing of peng and an as upward and downward energy with the pairing of liu and ji as a center to periphery energy to be helpful. Using words in both a universal and particular context is confusing. When Cheng Man Ch'ing or Chen Zhonghua use peng as universal, it creates a tension with the other usages. Leaving this particular debate to the side, the universal element being addressed is well put by Li Jianqiu (from a Xingyi manual on the Brennan site where I spend most of my time now): So, whatever one would prefer to call a thing, it is in the thinking about this one energy that I read your question:

I work at a physically demanding job that also comes with a lot of stressful situations. At a minimum, I do discreet excercises on the subway on the way into Manhattan and do the 108 Yang form before going on to a site. The night time is hit and miss. The maximum is on the weekends where I get a couple of hours in each day plus less focused horsing around with connections that occur to me. Like raimonio, I would like to hear from some of the hardcore.

I agree without qualification with the first sentence. Confusion does happen with internal art terminology because many terms have multiple roles. So, I don't think it is an either/or situation in regards to the second sentence. A good illustration of your comment also demonstrates my observation: from Master Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on Tai-Chi Chuan by Cheng Man-ching translated by Douglas Wile

When I hear so much emphasis put upon the categories of "classy chick" versus "slut", it suggests that you linking your sexual energy and imagination with feelings of degradation and disgust, both for yourself and your partners. Rather than seeking a passage to a place you have condemned yourself and others of not being worthy of, perhaps it would be better to focus on these feeling of degradation themselves and how you one go about keeping them alive.

To illustrate your point, consider the following remarks made in 1921 by Xu Yusheng in response to one of the passages in the Classics. As this manual and the others amongst the collection on the Brennan translation demonstrate, there was a lot of emphasis at the time on distinguishing the execution of "postures" from the "identification of energies." Chen Zhonghua's remarks are clearly a continuation of that intellectual tradition.

ChiDragon, When you say: "I don't know what the hell he is talking about." I sense that there is a point of departure for you that you are not disclosing. Most of what Chen Zhongua says has been told to me by all of my various Tai Chi Chuan instructors. What point of contention has you all lit up? PLB

I practice the Dong family version of the Yang style. There is a fajin set and a "family set" that gets very fast sometimes. The following isn't something I was told but is what I experienced in the differences between the fast forms and the slow set: The fajin happens in the slow set if your intention is focused upon opening and closing at this or that moment. It isn't obvious to an observer that a change happened (unless you see those sorts of subtle changes all the time). When one changes position quickly in the faster moves, The truth of what was felt in the slow set is put to the test: Am i going faster because of everything opening together?

We are all told to sink. That is yin. Do I own the sinking? Do I understand it as a part of some grand scheme of existence or a part of why the practice works in my experience? No. Is it there, ever present, as the element that doesn't care if I get it or not? Yes. So there you have it; There is something we need to do all the time that we do not understand. Or at least I don't.

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In the Platonic dialogue, Cratylus, there is an argument about whether words are arbitrary place holders in some scheme of expression or have their own being and rightful place in the scene of existing things. Socrates argued the former and Cratylus defended the latter. Unlike other conversations where Plato was happy to display Socrates as his champion kicking sophistical butt, this dialogue ends in a stand off where both sides agree to continue to disagree. This continuing debate about yin energy reminds me of that dialogue. When the space between two ways of perceiving things get large enough, there is nothing left to disagree with or not when people talk about it.

I think of worry as a fire that is always burning. I cannot extinguish it. I can, however, choose not to throw certain things into it. The enormous self sufficiency of the fire is helpful in one way. The compulsion doesn't need me to make it happen so I am not the compulsion. This little bit of unidentification has yielded many benefits. It gives me a little bit of time to act in a different better way. When I think of the idea of tai chi coming from wuji, it seems to me that the "undifferentiated" includes everthing, including that self igninting fire. If I exclude it, then there is a difference before I start.

I didn't intend to imply in anyway that you were lying. I wasn't trying to suggest you were talking about yourself. I regret that my comment was felt to be an attack upon yours and your friend's character.

Isimsiz Biri, This whole "my friend" thing is hard for me to get a handle on. If it was your experience that you wanted to discuss, then there could be a discussion. Bringing in a third person who is neither here or not here is odd. The oddness prompts me to mention that Santi Shi is not just standing in the pictured stance but is a plan for focusing the mind on many different elements. As Li Shengli lays it out, there is the six direction force and the twenty four key points to work on. Any one of these elements could be done in a way that leads to a bad result. Or not. Blaming an injury on using a certain standing posture invites the thought that something else might be involved.

There are different kinds of intamacy. Some connections are broken if they are asked to be proven. Faith is a skill, not a pursuasion. How can I make what I see more visible? I will have to do more to be that thing I see.