Flying Phoenix Chi Kung

[Earl Grey]

5 hours ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

Would preserving flying phoenix give one good karma, maybe i am mad but synchronicity has me thinking flying phoenix is what i should pursue and yes the pandemic is really irritating i wanted to start practicing it with other people.... and join the gym, funnily enough the guy at the gym showing me around mentioned how calm i was almost like he enjoyed my presence so perhaps i should take this chi to that gym?

I think i already asked this but if i teach this chi gong i must be qualified in some way? If i just practice it with people can i still ask for donations?....

 

YES. YOU MUST BE QUALIFIED. 

 

We just had a post on the new main Flying Phoenix thread over at Alchemical Garden where Sifu Terry has moderation privilege too on someone teaching without qualification, something he has been meaning to discuss here but has been unable to do so because of his busy schedule.

 

Here is a video of a DVD "master" teaching Flying Phoenix in Slovenia online and not mentioning where it came from. You may see how bad his form is.

 

 

Quoting from the post at Alchemical Garden:

 

Quote

Petar Smiljana is not currently authorized or recognized as a qualified teacher of Flying Phoenix qigong, to make it clear.

This is an example of why Sifu Terry giving you some guidance for your practice won't hurt you at all, and getting certified and authorized to teach is a must, lest you appear to be someone copying the DVD and having none of the proper intent, form, or qualifications to be teaching Flying Phoenix, let alone any system in general.

Notice how Smiljana doesn't cite the links to Sifu Terry Dunn's website or Doo Wai, but he is quick to point out links to his own site and to purchase his books and services.

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Earl Grey

[senseless virtue]

Traditional Flying Phoenix Instructor Certification Requirements are available in this thread on Alchemical Garden:

https://forum.alchemical.garden/threads/18/post-420

 

Another particular post contains my "best of" collection of the various advanced insights Sifu Terry has publicly shared about Flying Phoenix practice throughout the years:

https://forum.alchemical.garden/threads/18/post-37

Edited February 16, 2021 by virtue

[tao stillness]

Quite a nice piece of valuable editing and a beautifully designed webpage!

You have the Sleeper on there but I keep forgetting which med is the Energizer that you should never do close to bedtime because the energy might keep you awake instead of sleeping which I found out by mistake some years ago is very true. 

[BluePhoenix133]

" You may see how bad his form is. " I was actually suprised at how bad it was, i was thinking nah it cant be that bad its pretty easy to follow... when he was doing monk gazing at moon i actually thought he must be doing a posture i hadnt seen before.

I am sure mine isnt perfect though, when doing monk begging for rice my arms are not exactly 90 degree angle at the elbow.

Anyway how does one become a qualified teacher is it doable online, Earl i thought you were training to become one?

Also i take it people are needed to carry on the art form and even spread it, is it in danger of disapearing?

[BluePhoenix133]

I was still thinking of practicing it for free, to show people but i would tell them how i learnt it from Terrys DVDs and that i am not qualified. By this i mean in person when this lockdown is over, not online, it has been said the chi is amplified and it might help everyone participating.

Edited February 14, 2021 by BluePhoenix133

[Earl Grey]

1 minute ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

Anyway how does one become a qualified teacher is it doable online, Earl i thought you were training to become one?

 

Sifu Terry has one student here who is a silent watcher on the thread who was doing all the training online and was almost done, but a lot of the other related trainings are for the herbal formulas from the Doo Wai family and some in-person tweaking for some meditations and kung fu forms from TTP or BFP. 

 

Ideally you will meet in person, but I believe Sifu Terry is adjusting for sincere aspirants due to covid19. 

 

2 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

" You may see how bad his form is. " I was actually suprised at how bad it was, i was thinking nah it cant be that bad its pretty easy to follow... when he was doing monk gazing at moon i actually thought he must be doing a posture i hadnt seen before.

 

And this Slovenian guy is charging money for this too, sadly. 

 

3 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

I am sure mine isnt perfect though, when doing monk begging for rice my arms are not exactly 90 degree angle at the elbow.

 

I'm sure you do it well enough given your own development and personality.

 

3 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

Also i take it people are needed to carry on the art form and even spread it, is it in danger of disapearing?

 

This is why Sifu Terry is happy to hear when people are serious about teaching.  

[Earl Grey]

1 minute ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

I was still thinking of practicing it for free, to show people but i would tell them how i learnt it from Terrys DVDs and that i am not qualified. By this i mean in person when this lockdown is over, not online, it has been said the chi is amplified and it might help everyone participating.

 

I practiced in groups before when arranging meet-ups with friends or holding workshops and using a few static meditations to liven the practice, and always encourage people to buy the DVDs. I inform Sifu Terry about this, and he doesn't mind--it keeps the art alive!

[BluePhoenix133]

Thank you, well i feel called to do it or maybe i am being crazy like that guy who built Temple OS because he thought god wanted him to do it haha.

I still need to get my act together as a human being tbh

[Earl Grey]

3 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

I still need to get my act together as a human being tbh

 

[Earl Grey]

14 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

Thank you, well i feel called to do it or maybe i am being crazy like that guy who built Temple OS because he thought god wanted him to do it haha.

I still need to get my act together as a human being tbh

 

The image above is to remember you aren't Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or whatever man. You're a human being and nobody's cracking the whip or pointing a gun at you to be perfect. 

 

Looking forward to teaching alongside you in the future long after we have our teaching certification. 

[BluePhoenix133]

Well we shall see.

[Vajra Fist]

On 14/02/2021 at 3:08 PM, tao stillness said:

You have the Sleeper on there but I keep forgetting which med is the Energizer that you should never do close to bedtime because the energy might keep you awake instead of sleeping which I found out by mistake some years ago is very true. 

 

It's the third monk serves wine meditation on vol 2. A really nice one, I do every morning as part of my regular practice of three msw in a row. Sometimes with or without a sliver of ginger, depending if I'm fasting or not that day. 

 

It's actually my favourite of the three from vol 2. While msw2 has a mental cleansing quality (particularly where the hands move toward the third eye acupoint and up toward the sky), ms3 is very body-centric. The qi feels very thick around the hands, and when they come to rest on the knees, there's a quiet kind of electricity in the body. 

 

I don't get much from Msw1 and at the moment it feels like a bit of a warm up for the other two. I think I'm going to set my alarm for a bit earlier in the morning so I can get at least one of the seated warm up meds in before, and see if that helps activates the meditation. If not, ill try swapping it out for one of the msw exercises in vol 7, which I haven't explored too much yet (other than the sleeper).

 

Edit: curious to know which msw meditations everyone else enjoys most, and if they have any from vol 7 they'd strongly recommend.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Vajra Fist

[BluePhoenix133]

The first 3 meditations on dvd 2 are warm ups... i always feel like i should do them or at least a couple of them before i move onto the 4th 5th & 6 th meditation.

[Vajra Fist]

9 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

The first 3 meditations on dvd 2 are warm ups... i always feel like i should do them or at least a couple of them before i move onto the 4th 5th & 6 th meditation.

 

Which of the warm up meds do you enjoy most? I used to do the first warm up (with the monk gazing at moon hand position), but often got so sucked into moving slowly through it, it took over my entire practice time! That meant I wasn't able to do the full three msw meditations.

 

I was thinking of adding the third one, with the static hand posture. Wondering if five minutes is enough time to dedicate to it, or if it should be practiced for longer?

 

 

[BluePhoenix133]

I think they say at least five minutes, so 7 minutes including the breath percentage at the beginning, i like to do at least 13 minutes and yeah probably my favourite as its the easiest i find.

I have have love and hate for the first one... well too strong a wording but  what i mean is the first breath of 5% kind of seems difficult, perhaps it isnt. The movement of rotating your forearms feels akward and tiresom somehow yet can for me produce some of the strongest chi sensations, i felt chi about an inch from my hand appear almost like a flame once which was interesting. Also the feeling of the chi radiating from your palms onto your upper torso neck and side of face above shoulder area feels lovely.

[Vajra Fist]

4 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

I think they say at least five minutes, so 7 minutes including the breath percentage at the beginning, i like to do at least 13 minutes and yeah probably my favourite as its the easiest i find.

I have have love and hate for the first one... well too strong a wording but  what i mean is the first breath of 5% kind of seems difficult, perhaps it isnt. The movement of rotating your forearms feels akward and tiresom somehow yet can for me produce some of the strongest chi sensations, i felt chi about an inch from my hand appear almost like a flame once which was interesting. Also the feeling of the chi radiating from your palms onto your upper torso neck and side of face above shoulder area feels lovely.

Agree with this completely. Its definitely one of the most uncomfortable ones, in that the breath percentage is easy to mess up, and the arm movement is relatively tiring. But also, I found it quite excellent at breaking down tension in the neck and shoulders. But yes, definitely feels more like a practice session in itself, than a quick and easy warm up.

[tao stillness]

Vajra, thanks for the info on where to find the Waker Up med. 

When I used to also do the Sleeper med right before bed I often ended up dozing off and then waking realizing my arms were moving on their own while I was napping. Best of both worlds!

[BluePhoenix133]

The sleeper is the first med on DVD 7 right? I find it doesnt actually help me sleep, if anything makes it harder.

[Vajra Fist]

28 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

The sleeper is the first med on DVD 7 right? I find it doesnt actually help me sleep, if anything makes it harder.

 

Yes I remember once when I practiced it right before bed it kept me up, or in a state of semi-sleep for most of the night.

 

Other times I've practiced it close to bedtime and it put me in a relaxed state for most of the evening, a bit like having a chamomile tea, that contributed toward a restful sleep. 

 

Guess it all depends on what's going on with our bodies at the time. Maybe eventually when things reach a certain state in cultivation, the effects are more consistent along the lines of what Sifu Terry described. 

[BluePhoenix133]

How do we get to  that level of cultivation... an hour practice everyday and dont do anything stupid like drink yourself silly?

[Vajra Fist]

1 minute ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

How do we get to  that level of cultivation... an hour practice everyday and dont do anything stupid like drink yourself silly?

 

From what I've gathered, the longer you practice an exercise, the more sensitive you become to what it's doing in your body. It's from there that you start noticing how each exercise does something different in your body, and how the effects are relatively similar each time you practice it.

 

I'm really only scratching the surface of this now, so other more advanced students here will probably be able to speak more from experience. 

 

Makes me wonder if at a certain point the system becomes a form of internal alchemy, where each exercise becomes a tool to use at a different stage of development. Fascinating stuff, this system. 

 

 

[Earl Grey]

Like painting, writing, dancing, or singing, Flying Phoenix improves the more you do it.

 

Doing it properly and perfectly, however, will be what improves your benefits exponentially.

 

My Xin Yi teacher said something that Sifu Terry wholeheartedly agrees with: "Practice doesn't make perfect, but perfect practice makes what is perfect even better."

 

Even for those not interested in teaching, I highly recommend taking a few one-on-one classes with Sifu Terry. Due to his busy schedule, he is not on here as much as he used to be in the past, hence my overseeing on his behalf both this thread and the one on Alchemical Garden. 

 

For reference, we have the FAQ there too so nothing is repeated that wasn't already said and answered many times on this thread and over 210 pages now, as a more public supplement due to the fact that this thread is not publicly viewable except for TDB members.

 

This is in large part because of the number of scammers and trolls who tried to disrupt the thread several years ago, but at the cost of visibility, which means the casual student can't see the gems of this thread without registering for an account, whereas our supplementary page is publicly viewable for non-members as well and doesn't require digging through all 200 pages, making it a quick reference for future questions so nothing is repeated here. 

 

Additionally, the FP forum there is being updated periodically with sample routines of what Sifu Terry has posted here, such as how to improve the long form with Bending the Bows and Moonbeam Splashes on the Water, and is done for ease of access for everyone to bookmark and not need to log in to see. 

[BluePhoenix133]

Quote

Errata

The starting posture for flash meditation (Vol. 5) number four: The immediate position bracing arms and hands in front of you is the correct posture to do the breathing control sequence.

So you dont do the breathing sequence with arms by your side like he does in the DVD?

Also how many repetitions is recommended for the sleeper meditations, the 1st med on dvd 7, the 50 20 10 ?

 

[Earl Grey]

18 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

So you dont do the breathing sequence with arms by your side like he does in the DVD?

 

Correct. This was a mistake on the DVD.

 

18 minutes ago, BluePhoenix133 said:

Also how many repetitions is recommended for the sleeper meditations, the 1st med on dvd 7, the 50 20 10 ?

 

As with all FP MSW meditations, 7 repetitions. 

 

EXCEPTION: MSW long form, which is not taught on the DVDs, but must be learned in the streaming classes or one-on-one with Sifu Terry and can be learned in one session, no more than two. 

[tao stillness]

Yesterday I decided to start doing Meditation number 6 on Volume 2 of Flying Phoenix Chi Kung series. This meditation is nicknamed the Awakener because  of the energy it produces. So I did it this morning and did not  experience the strong Qi that I used to feel from it several years ago so I figured it might take a few days to get back on track with it. So I then took a shower later and after the shower I just felt motivated to start cleaning the bathroom. A task that I always postpone as long as I can get away with it. Afterward I realized that the sudden motivation and energy to get that task done might have been due to the energy from having recently performed the Awakener meditation. Doesn't matter if I did not sense strong Qi from it, the energy apparently was still received somewhere inside of me. Flying Phoenix Chi Kung is however dangerous to my habit of being lazy. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by tao stillness
to correct a statement