BaguaKicksAss

Leaving a school where I ended up with a couple too many injuries was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I was very vocal about things and explained that it was too much for me, and there were improvements, but still I eventually had to decide to leave. I had asked all my martial arts friends (mostly teachers) and a couple of complete strangers their opinion on things. Half of them said that yes it is standard to go that hard and get injured in martial arts; the other half said no, that is not right. I eventually had to realize that it doesn't matter, it is what I feel is right for ME in particular. So congrats on that. Like you, I also found a super awesome teacher after that is the perfect fit! I think he might overemphasize some things a bit (some folks really are OK with the hard approach), interesting article: http://apittman.com/blog/teaching/martial-arts-abuse-by-teachers

Yang Yusen, and the folks over at Emptyflower.net are starting the 6th cohort for the Gao Bagua training. http://www.emptyflower.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=9534 Basically a new vid is put up every two weeks, then students practice and discuss the vid throughout the week. Then you send vids of you practicing in for corrections (the corrections part is what makes it awesome). If you live near one of the senior students you can also get some in person training. Or if you live in Victoria you can just show up there too. They also tend to have workshops where folks fly out, once per year (the fee is enough to cover the teacher's travel expenses and space rental and that is it). The Bagua is fighting based, qigong isn't discussed/trained. Don't sign up if you want spiritual Bagua. Also "in person corrections at the yearly gatherings or in Victoria, BC is highly encouraged" "98 lessons total.. everything in COMPLETE Gao syllabus except the Di Zi and Ba Chan Tang Zhang" It is $15 per month. I have worked with and trained with one of the folks who trains in this program, and I would say it is definitely top notch. Here's a vid of Yusen talking about structure and so forth. Here's an image of him doing SPC

Btw, how long have you been practicing martial arts all together, and how long with this particular teacher? (sorry if you already mentioned and I missed it). This is actually quite relevant. The longer you are at it, the more your body builds up and so forth. Also making sure you are past the first few months mark with the teacher, as many teachers just expect the student to quit anyways in that time period and don't start paying much attention to folks under after a few months. Silly approach yes, but it does happen a lot.

I'd say try explaining yourself to your teacher first. There is a chance he had no idea that you had any health problems. Also if you don't ask folks to hit lighter, they figure all is well and good. If however they don't listen to you in this regard, run quickly, to the other local schools .

Bagua! Well OK, mountain climbing too.

If you have pre-existing conditions, hell no! Or at least not hard hitting. Have you discussed your health stuff with your instructor? If you do decide to go for it still, I'd recommend asking folks to go LIGHTER! I know it's fun to hit hard and all, but not necessary.

As long as you are taught the proper way to breathe and tense (well half tense sorta), on impact, all should be fine. If your instructor hasn't gone over this aspect extensively enough for your comfort level, you can ask him to elaborate more on it. Instead of asking "is it safe" and worrying about being booted from the extra class, you could word it more like "so what is the proper tension and breathing to do upon impact to make sure my internal organs stay healthy?" On a side note, you will *know* when the impact is too much for your system, it will be pretty obvious. I know this from personal experience (a bunch of kicks to the abdominal region). However if you have already been through a few classes of this and are still fine, then you should be good. I'm also guessing from your description that this isn't the newbie first month of martial arts class your teacher offers this in . As you have likely noticed the various qigong and martial arts exercises sort of solidify us so that we can take more of this sort of thing. In the above post you said something about no internal or qi training, but you said you do Bagua and Xinyi; it is nearly impossible to do Bagua without the internal stuff, if you are aware of it or not. Circle walking alone builds what you need to take punches. Actually doing horse stance does as well, especially for as long as you do it for. Not many qi exercises better than those two actually. (30 mins of hose stance, I would die! lol) On a side note, from the little bit of teaching I have done myself, I know that the teacher is aware of far more in class and on more levels, then one might think. This is especially true if he is a TCM Dr. Btw, I have only been practicing martial arts a few years; this is my take/experience on things, and what I have been told by much more experience folks. (in other words I could be dead wrong lol) Hopefully some more experienced martial artists will chime in...

I have found with meditation that oftentimes you don't notice things unless you are looking for them. I had no "qi" experiences in my first 20 years of meditation.... that I recall. I had many other experiences, but no MCO, well not knowingly anyways. On the otherhand I personally find it very hard to believe that folks can meditate and not see/hear spirits quite clearly?! That is just one example. Also, from what folks have told me, that is why martial arts was taught to the monastery folks back in day... they were in poor health from a lot of sitting and not much physical activity. One quick question though, how old were they? I have mistakenly thought folks were in poor health before, right up until I find out they are twice as old as I am .

Until you have produced a 300 page book of equal or greater quality, for free, I don't think you have any room to state that the author is charging too much. Personally I'd rather spend $200 than learn chinese, travel to china many times, live there for a bit, that the author has. In this particular case I'm happy to have him do the legwork for me. Well or I can wait until it hits my local public library, then borrow it for free. On a side note I have written books, and it takes months, if not years, and mine most definitely are not free .

We were discussing Dr. Johnson's new Neigong book, and FlowingHands wanted to save us all some money ($200 to be exact). He suggested having some good info, and said the Dao was free. So Cat asked about thunder magic.... Well since thunder magic isn't usually covered in a Neigong book/course.... probably best to discuss it in its very own thread.

Talking about metaphors for internal alchemy, I would say this Thunder Hole is full of them! What an awesome place to live near (the whole mountain I mean).

Thank you for the very informative addition to the thread . Btw, is the http://www.wudangdao.com/WUDANG/WUDANG_shan.htm site, where you got the above quote, yours? Nice layout and photos!! Thunder God Hole is definitely a place I would love to visit when I eventually make it out that way.

Even better is bio-K, that stuff is amazing! I'd like to make some of that. I find it pretty awesome that kefir now comes in litre sized containers in various flavors and actually taste good .

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Well 9 or 81 trees sounds appropriate . When you plant the trees, do you offer one of the immortals a home within the tree? Thank you for sharing your methods. I'm wondering if you mean these folks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lei_Gong (him and the others mentioned there) or this crew: http://en.daoinfo.org/wiki/The_Thunder_Patriarch

From Amazon, whom is selling the 30 page book in digital format: Think I'll stick with the AC/DC . Edit: PS we were discussing free info

Can you please list the thunder Deities and their seals? Or a link to a free source listing them? I think they are in one of JAJ's books, but I'm hoping for an internet, or right in this thread source.

What do you suggest as the alternative? Sending *you* $200 to plant trees won't get folks any closer to knowing the practices of neigong; how do you suggest folks go about it for free, or less than $200? Personally I'd say find a local teacher, but from all I have heard there aren't any decent ones in many areas (see my thread of asking why people use books and vids to learn).

Bet he was grateful for it 10 years after the fact though! Sometimes we don't get off our own butts to do what needs doing, so we get help lol.

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Seriously, you get people with questions, but then you get one person who always replies with their own, or their teacher's website and/or videos as the reply. This is often without any words besides a quick spammy sentence to go along with the link. Recent example, many many vids of some guy named Gary posted as "must learn from him" in 2 different topics within 2 days . That's just the most recent and really obvious example. I'm just used to forums where that is very much against the rules, but taglines are ok at the bottom if they are small. Are there any rules in place here about excessively promoting the same person over and over again by the same member? K, I'm done griping .

From the amount of posts like this, I actually wasn't sure if the board is against this sort of sales speak and over promotion or not... well or to what degree. It's obvious some of the good posters on here are self promoting, which makes sense and is a fair trade... but then it gets out of hand when it's really repetitive and without something added to the thread to back it up. In other words, what constitutes as *too* spammy? (on a side note, you (a mod) posted in one of the threads that was like this so I figured it was within guidelines). I'm just griping about my personal preferences, which may not be the board at large's personal preferences. However... I have noticed that some folks just go into insult mode to try to stop the the repeated over promotion. Thank you for hearing my rants .

At an educated guess, either an entity, or how your own self is processing things. Basically with anything like this, you see if you feel better or worse over the next week. If worse, do some work to clear anything out, if better, then all is good . Or you could just light some incense and do some prayers regardless. Things like this don't often repeat in the same way.

This is not true at all; sometimes the reverse is actually true.

oops, double post; I must have really meant it .