whistle blowing on breathing in the genitals

[Pietro]

A few clarifications

 

1. Bruce is teaching now material that he never taught before. So do not assume that because someone knew his material before he still knows his material now

 

2. The water path and the fire path are not part of a 5 systems, it does not mean there is a wood path a metal path and an earth path,

 

3. Bruce never uses visualization in his teachings. At best visualization is a useless distraction. Like keeping the radio on while you are driving,

 

4. Certificates (toilet paper) are necessary to make sure you learn from someone who has correctly learned the material. They were used in China before. If you look at the back of Bruce book on the internal martial arts you will find his papers given to him by Liu. Liu himself was registered as a master. If you have it it should be easy for you to get a certificate (if your hubris didn't stop you). If you don't have it it should be hard. A certificate always has the name of who issues it. So if someone gives away certificate to peopke that don't have it, ultimately it is his face that goes down. But i do not defent the american system as i don't know it. I am just saying 'some' form of certificates are useful.

[寒月 Hanyue]

That's odd. For a moment you sounded as if he's the only one doing it. It's common qigong knowledge... in spite of... what people may believe others do. All of the good teachers know this, and teach this.

Whether or not the practitioner actually understands and does it properly, it's entirely a different matter. As with everything else, depends on how much you put in it.

 

Cheers

 

Glad you said "for a moment" : )

 

I am in no way saying Bruce is the one and only, nor that others do not teach similar things in similar ways. There are always differences as well as similarities, and these just vary by degree.

 

But yes all the 'good' teachers do. Some seem to want you to figure out the how after they give the what.

[寒月 Hanyue]

Thanks for the contribution. Actually I am fairly familiar with Bruce's (I knew him as Kumar) approaches. He has done a lot to promote qigong, neigong, and MA in the USA. We should all be grateful for all the folks who have spent so much time to bring these arts to the west.

 

On a side note, are you familiar with Michael Winn's thoughts on "water & fire" methods? He wrote on this some time ago.

 

Hi Michael

 

I thought you might be, but never know, others have surprised me when I thought they did. Yes I am familiar with the article. I have at times considered writing a reply and posting it. But to be honest, what's the point and i'd rather spend the time in practice.

 

I have discussed Winn's points with my teacher as well. I haven't the time to go into all the nitty gritty, so let me sum it up.

 

I strongly felt that Winn did not know what he was really talking about regarding Bruce/Kumar's system and methodology. I appreciate their relationship, and Winn helping out with Bruce's editing in his first book etc. But there are far too many comments within that article that show Winn's understanding of the Water method is way off, and that is just basing it on the older publicly released material from Bruce. Which Winn claims to have read, let alone having had Bruce teach him some of his neigong and discussed it with him.

 

The impression I was left with was that Winn's world-view is strongly coming from his alchemical practice and he continues to view everything through that lense. What makes the Water method different is NOT the 'techniques'/'methods', it is the WAY they are done and approached, and this also varies with the individual teachers personality too.

 

The article quickly devolves into Winn seemingly doing his best to discredit Bruce's comments (which are obvisously felt as undermining his own position), and yet these are cleary based on falicious understanding, for anyone familiar with Bruce's teaching. So Winn shoots himself in the foot, creating a straw man and trying to beat it to death. He should have re-read Bruce's books before writing it.

 

For one the 'water' in the 'Water method', Pietro has said has nothing to do with the wuxing, nor Kan and Li. It is more akin to the orientation or world-view of the practice, the overarching strategy of how to approach life and the practice. The system is balanced in using the wuxing, and does of course work with the orbits and the upwards 'firey' energy, it just views the importance of, and the need to do so, and when to do so differently. And it also invloves alchemy in the latter stages which involves working with kan and li.

 

The danger of a 'yin' path is always stagnation, the danger of a 'yang' path is "burning up". Most systems seek to create balance between the two.

 

Take care,

 

SM

[宁]

2. The water path and the fire path are not part of a 5 systems, it does not mean there is a wood path a metal path and an earth path,

 

Of course they exist, not with that particular name though

- which sounds a bit silly imo.

It's the sense that dominates our individual perception. It's alot closer to us as individuals, and more natural than any other theoretic classification, albeit daoist or not. Kinestethic sense cannot rule out any other sense, be it in Qigong or wherever. This is common sense.

[宁]

Glad you said "for a moment" : )

 

I am in no way saying Bruce is the one and only, nor that others do not teach similar things in similar ways. There are always differences as well as similarities, and these just vary by degree.

 

But yes all the 'good' teachers do. Some seem to want you to figure out the how after they give the what.

 

Quite

Can you speak a bit about this teaching that you speak about affected you?

[寒月 Hanyue]

Quite

Can you speak a bit about this teaching that you speak about affected you?

 

: ) Sure. What would you like to know? The wording of your question isn't fully clear to me, and I'd rather give an answer in line with your query.

[宁]

Sure. I sometimes experiment with English, as it's not my mother tongue. I'd like your review on how this Water Path type training was to you, that is, if you're into it - or I just misread your posts? Thanx!

 

And Pietro, if you feel like it, you can comment on it too. I hope you would. Your comment regarding what BKF teaches today sure caught my attention! What's the idea?

Edited July 30, 2010 by Little1

[寒月 Hanyue]

[寒月 Hanyue]

Sure. I sometimes experiment with English, as it's not my mother tongue. I'd like your review on how this Water Path type training was to you, that is, if you're into it - or I just misread your posts? Thanx!

 

And Pietro, if you feel like it, you can comment on it too. I hope you would. Your comment regarding what BKF teaches today sure caught my attention! What's the idea?

 

I could be quite grand and say, the Water method has kept me out of Hospital and from having extensive surgery and I can now stand and walk again. Which is true, but also slightly misleading

 

How I found the Water method, well thats too long and weird a story for today so let me just say, I did not become involved because of Bruce. I had read some of his books previously and liked the content but knew you'd need a teacher and so left it alone.

 

I found my teacher, and it is because of them that I stayed and studied. It didn't matter where the stuff came from to me. After years in chronic pain, and playing ping pong with the various healthcare professionals I had been seeing I finally found something that actually helped me. I want to point out here that it was not just because of the practices or methods, again similar are found in other places. I had gotten to a very yang state, and I needed a very yin way in to the practices and to enable my body, my energy and nervous system to start healing and clearing things out, and letting go. I also needed close attention as my mentality was very stuck in a competitive sport and combat sport training frame of mind (hence all the accumulated injuries), being able to see my teacher several times a week was a blessing. I had to learn to accept that sometimes feeling like going backwards is actually going forwards.

 

I continue to try to understand all this on deeper levels, and it took a long time before I could really appreciate the why that lay underneath it all. So while the practices themselves can be quite common (zhan zhuang, cloud hands, breathing etc), though, in my experience so far, not often taught with as much depth or clarity, it was the learning to shift how I viewed the practice and how i approached things that was most beneficial, and also really really hard.

 

Hope that makes sense ha ha

[寒月 Hanyue]

Not really sure of relevance but some good info on Water path by Kunlun Max.

 

Thank you for posting this. Is it written by Max, or written down from what Max has said?

[宁]

Hope that makes sense ha ha

 

Thanks for sharing! Interesting how 'little' wonders are sometimes worth more than 'significant' wonders, eh?

[Ya Mu]

Hi Michael

...

The impression I was left with was that Winn's world-view is strongly coming from his alchemical practice and he continues to view everything through that lense. What makes the Water method different ...

Agree that Winn's world view strongly comes from his practices. But anyone would be extremely naive to think that Bruce's doesn't as well.

How would it be possible for any REAL teacher NOT to be influenced in such a way?

 

Of course they exist, not with that particular name though

- which sounds a bit silly imo.

It's the sense that dominates our individual perception. It's alot closer to us as individuals, and more natural than any other theoretic classification, albeit daoist or not. Kinestethic sense cannot rule out any other sense, be it in Qigong or wherever. This is common sense.

+++

 

A few clarifications

 

1. Bruce is teaching now material that he never taught before. So do not assume that because someone knew his material before he still knows his material now

 

2. The water path and the fire path are not part of a 5 systems, it does not mean there is a wood path a metal path and an earth path,

 

3. Bruce never uses visualization in his teachings. At best visualization is a useless distraction. Like keeping the radio on while you are driving,

 

4. Certificates (toilet paper) are necessary to make sure you learn from someone who has correctly learned the material. They were used in China before. If you look at the back of Bruce book on the internal martial arts you will find his papers given to him by Liu. Liu himself was registered as a master. If you have it it should be easy for you to get a certificate (if your hubris didn't stop you). If you don't have it it should be hard. A certificate always has the name of who issues it. So if someone gives away certificate to peopke that don't have it, ultimately it is his face that goes down. But i do not defent the american system as i don't know it. I am just saying 'some' form of certificates are useful.

 

All teachers evolve and offer new things every so often. It is a sign that they actually practice these things that are talked about.

Agree on the certificate thing. I was on the NQA standards committee to help develop their standards. Does their certificate have any measure whatsoever of a person's abilities? No. Does their certificate help the person wishing training or healing help reassure the person that said teacher or healer actually went through the training? Yes. IMO this is valuable.

[Creation]

Not really sure of relevance but some good info on Water path by Kunlun Max.

The cool thing about Kunlun is that it simultaneously stirs up and dissolves, whereas these are separated more clearly separated in Frantzis' lineage (as I understand it, which is not much).

 

Oh, and the channel from the head to the heart is the katika channel, according to the spelling Max used on his blog.

 

Snowmonki,

 

I think the Max quote is a transcription of a part of an interview, I'm not sure where it occurs in the interview but here is part 1:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onIbdDHwdJA

Edited July 30, 2010 by Creation

[寒月 Hanyue]

Agree that Winn's world view strongly comes from his practices. But anyone would be extremely naive to think that Bruce's doesn't as well.

How would it be possible for any REAL teacher NOT to be influenced in such a way?

 

Of course. World-view ALWAYS strongly influences the reality the individual interacts with, regardless of the origin of what comes to make up someones world-view. Anyone would be naive to think it doesn't.

 

You asked me about Winn's article, not about Bruce, hence my reply being about Winn and his views. But everyones human Most well known qigong teachers have strong personalities, it is why they are out there and well known. This will always be reflected within what they teach.

 

Bruce's strong stance and perspective is well documented in his older writings (which also involves some straw man arguments), his more recent books are more chilled out.

 

Many try to explain what they do by explaining what they DO NOT do, some do this more gracefully than others but most just end up throwing mud whether intentionally or not.

[寒月 Hanyue]

The cool thing about Kunlun is that it simultaneously stirs up and dissolves, whereas these are separated more clearly separated in Frantzis' lineage (as I understand it, which is not much).

 

Oh, and the channel from the head to the heart is the katika channel, according to the spelling Max used on his blog.

 

Snowmonki,

 

I think the Max quote is a transcription of a part of an interview, I'm not sure where it occurs in the interview but here is part 1:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onIbdDHwdJA

 

Thank you, that is very helpful I will check it out : )

[Guest allan]

[Starjumper]

3. Bruce never uses visualization in his teachings. At best visualization is a useless distraction. Like keeping the radio on while you are driving,

Good!

 

4. Certificates (toilet paper) are necessary to make sure you learn from someone who has correctly learned the material. They were used in China before. If you look at the back of Bruce book on the internal martial arts you will find his papers given to him by Liu. Liu himself was registered as a master. If you have it it should be easy for you to get a certificate (if your hubris didn't stop you). If you don't have it it should be hard. A certificate always has the name of who issues it. So if someone gives away certificate to peopke that don't have it, ultimately it is his face that goes down. But i do not defent the american system as i don't know it. I am just saying 'some' form of certificates are useful.

Some forms of certificate are useful sometimes no doubt, but what of when popular teachers of BS are certified? For medical chi kung or healing chi kung learned at a Chinese hospital then it makes sense that a person should have a certificate. When you get to the other end of the spectrum, the nei kung for power generation and spiritual alchemy, if someone parades around a certificate then you would in most cases be smelling a skunk.

 

Then it begins to be like church religion, where losers graduate from college to be spiritual leaders of blah blah of people, even if they graduate with a D.

[Trunk]

I feel this was relevant to the turtle breathing set of techniques that I recently put on my site, thought I'd comment.

 

But doing techniques of breathing in the genitals, not in the legs, while not having regular sex can be dangerous in the long run. He mentioned people having problems over the age of 60 in China after having done those techniques in their twenties... Problems being finding that their legs stopped working, ..

I think we'd all agree that it's good to work on whole body breathing plus more specific part-by-part breathing methods that support integration towards whole body breathing. I mean, maybe the most basic principle is integration, right?, we're into that.

 

Seems to me that, around sexuality, the main difficulties for men's practices are around stagnant heat, residual from excitation of dense energetics~substance. I've found that working with cool early morning air helps clear heat and gently circulates.

 

'nuff said.