IMA vs. MMA

[Trunk]

Personally, I find the violence and edginess of the Jack Chang style of Taoism to be unappealing. But it does have tremendous potential to open up even the most dismissive naysayers if brought more into the open.

Agreed on both points.

 

to segue to another cultural entry, one that's non-violent...

People really get the most profound development in the body-changing practices when they start prior to puberty. If kids took up something as simple as Sonnon's intu-flow (even as little as 5-10 min/day) as they were entering puberty, they'd become titans in comparison to their peers. And it could be fun: just do the major joints, and look at this groovy stuff I can do with my neck!

[Spectrum]

I strongly disagree.

 

If spirituality is alive and well, then what brought out Sakyamuni and Jesus, did they not try and bring testimony to the truth. What about Guan Yin? Yes, realization is personal, but there are many aids to realize one's true nature.

 

Spirituality brought them about. God/The Universe/The Tao/Gaia/ & on & on has been alive and well for a long time, without any help from humans. Humans have been trying to get up/down the rainbow ladder of realization for a long time. It's nothing knew.

 

I think IMA broadcast is a most effective way towards rasing the vibration of people's consciousness.

 

I don't think TV is a good way to raise peoples consciousness vibration.

 

Btw, Buddha didn't create Buddhism, Jesus didn't create Christianity, these teachings became perverted overtime, but that does not mean that they are pioneers speaking for themselves.

 

That depends on your perspective. The mystical traditions of every major religious system has always had it's esoteric inner schools, and it's exoteric, outer schools. Those concerned with the inner processes have always been pioneers in the sense of breaking away from the external symbols to find their inner meaning. In this way Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, they are all pioneers in the world of consciousness & spirituality. Pioneers generally gung it up. Doesn't matter the time or place.

 

Bruce Lee had to name his own style Jeet Kune Do, even though he meant to make it a concept, a philosophy, not another branch.

 

Bruce Lee named something that doesn't have a name. Human expression.

Edited October 14, 2006 by Spectrum

[Jin]

Spirituality brought them about. God/The Universe/The Tao/Gaia/ & on & on has been alive and well for a long time, without any help from humans. Humans have been trying to get up/down the rainbow ladder of realization for a long time. It's nothing knew.

 

Bodhisattvas help others to return to their true nature. IMA on TV can POTENTIALLY lead one towards this living a spiritual path towards realization.

 

I don't think TV is a good way to raise peoples consciousness vibration.

 

Thank you for sharing your opinion, mine's different.

 

Jin

[Yoda]

prior to puberty...

 

I have a friend who naturally learned how to masturbate w/o ejaculation as a youngster and in later years, was a very gifted runner and was mega, mega smart. He did have some emotional issues... too bad he didn't teach himself meditation too!

 

Rather than holding a masturbation clinic for my kids, they'll have access to my library and can avail themselves of it at the right time possibly.

 

I'm not really into pushing my pet projects on my kids, but they'll certainly be aware of juicing, meditation, yoga, Esther, etc. I think just being aware of this kind of thing is nice, regardless of whether they get into it or not.

 

On a similar subject, there's a very interesting article in this month's Discover on genetics. Apparently, Lamarck (sp?) was right... the giraffe who cranes his neck to reach the higher branches has kids who will have longer necks. I've always intuited that this was the situation, but science has scoffed that notion until now. So practicing before procreating may well have some effect on the offspring's genetics. So too, would the cozy vibe (hopefully) that a practitioner could offer for the child's environment which influences genes expressed, etc.

[Trunk]

prior to puberty...

 

I have a friend who naturally learned how to masturbate w/o ejaculation as a youngster and in later years, was a very gifted runner and was mega, mega smart. He did have some emotional issues... too bad he didn't teach himself meditation too!

I didn't mention retention because it is so problematic, complicated, and can back-fire pretty badly. Very dicey.

 

I was suggesting joint rotations specifically. During puberty the bones are going through some intense development, and there's often (obviously) a lot of emotional~physical stresses that can get bound up in the fascia etc. Just adding a few simple joint rotations to the exercise repetoire that youngsters generally get can make the whole jing integration of puberty go a lot smoother, avoid stress-warps in the myofascial web that often form during that time, and produce stronger bones. Exposure to a few simple joint rotation exercises is pretty mundane, very safe, and good payoffs - especially during that time.

 

I'm not suggesting that kids be made to do some program, but if they're gonna be taught push-ups etc., they might as well learn to rotate wrists, ankles, hips, shoulders, neck. Then at least they know those, know what they feel like, and can do them if they want to. Just my 2 cents.

[Lozen]

When I was growing up, we had a yoga instructor come to my elementary school class and teach us some basic asanas. I remember she taught us this relaxation thing to do when we were having trouble sleeping, where you tightened and relaxed all your muscles... and she taught us how to sit REALLY straight. We all ended up pretty messed up anyway, but imagine how much worse we would've been without the instruction. I still use the techniques after all these years.

 

I also have a friend who's a science teacher, and she took her entire class to a yoga class about a month ago. There was one kid in her class who had been practicing since he was like five. One woman in the beginning of class was worried that the students would be loud and she wouldn't be able to relax and made all kinds of snippy comments to the fact, and my friend said her student just came up to her after class and said, "She judged us." She was pretty impressed at his discernment, but kids usually pick up on the "hard" stuff pretty easily.

[forestofsouls]

Just for fun; and this has nothing to do with anything other than just amusement. John Chang met Mike Tyson once. He let Tyson hit him as hard as he could for about 10 minutes; nothing. Then he tapped Tyson on the wrist with about 1.5% of his qi; Tyson was out for about two minutes and he had no idea what hit him.

 

These types of contests are meaningless to anyone beyond a certain level.

 

Mr. Denty, with all due respect, and keep in mind I don't know you but through these messages, but you don't seem to have the faintest clue about human psychology. You have been appealing to people's baser desires for superpowers for some time now, holding out an alleged teaching as though it is the secret key people need to unlock their cultivation practices. But to toss in something like this shows that you are aiming for the truly gullible, because any one with a bit of sense knows that even if this was true, no one would believe it. And those who would believe it are quite foolish.

 

If I were a chi master, I don't think these are the people I would want to attract. I would want to attract some one with a solid foundation of moral intergrity and common sense, some one reasonable and sober with the stick-to-it-iveness to receive and practice a teaching. People like this will simply not respond to your messages.

 

There is a secret key to unlocking one's cultivation practice, and its not in a book, a teacher, or a technique. The secret key is effort, repeated and sincere effort to develop oneself. Modern American culture especially is keen on the quick fix, but anyone worth his or her salt as a cultivator should know that there is no quick fix. It is work, hard work. One needs to be diligent and attentive, as often as possible. Buddha laid this out in his Eightfold Path, which can be summarized as sila (moral discipline), samadhi (mental discipline) and panna (wisdom). In the West, it is called the Magnum Opus, the Great Work. The key word here is "work".

 

There have been hardly any words about your teacher teaching anything of real value, such as the nature of emptines, or compassion to living beings, or overcoming one's ingrained habits. It is not, as displayed in these messages, a path with heart. It seems to be about appealing to desire and becoming godlike. This is NOT the goal of any true cultivation path. Most of what you have written are easily faked tricks. For example, in many societies shamans often extract foreign objects that are considered the cause of an illness. A close observer will see shamans insert these objects into their mouths or hands before magically pulling them from a patient's body. But the true value of cultivation doesn't lie in these things, but in making us fuller human beings.

 

The reason this bothers me is because many people here started to become open to the possibility that there is more to our human potential than commonly considered, and such an opening is a great thing on this path. To then undermine one's credibility with statements like this will only impede the flowering of this curiousity.

[Yoda]

Trunk,

 

Interesting about prepuberty training. My kids are 3 and 6 and your post inspires me to give them massages/reiki/etc more often. I've already started as a bedtime ritual. It'd be great for them if I can keep this up as a long term thing.

 

-Yoda

[thelerner]

My kids like being bounced. They lie head on there stomachs under the blankets on the bed. I put my hands on their shoulders and bounce them gently up and down. I'll move the bouncing down there backs to there legs and back up. Its seems to be an ideal massage to loosen them up for bed.

 

Michael

[Yoda]

Michael,

 

That's a great idea! I'll do it.

 

-Yoda

[Lozen]

I used to like getting spun around before I got tucked in every night. It was so much fun! I still like doing wheelies sometimes, maybe that's where I got it from.

[Guest sykkelpump]

The meaning I see in these contests is that if people on TV see that IMA can topple MMA, then they can go outside and practice Taiji in parks much like they do in China. These contests, if won by IMA, can lead to a raise in planetary consciousness.

 

Jin

 

You must be a very very stupid man if you belive that bullshit about tyson.

[Trunk]

I used to like getting spun around before I got tucked in every night. It was so much fun! I still like doing wheelies sometimes, maybe that's where I got it from.

There's a woman at Tao Garden (I keep forgetting her name) who'd do a special kind of spinning of babies. Holding them by their arms, or arm & leg, and do a fancy sort of "airplane" ride (you know, where you get spun around by one arm and one leg by an adult). The women of the local village would bring their babies to her for her to spin. It was wild to watch, but the babies loved it. To connect it to principle: think of the the joings re: the connective tissue continuum. She said that her husband did it to her children until they were too heavy for him to do it any more.

[Jin]

You must be a very very stupid man if you belive that bullshit about tyson.

 

On the contrary, you must be a very stupid man for assuming that I believe the BS about Tyson. Well, I don't. Tyson's crosses have 500kg of pressure. He would use the average man's head as a speedbag.

 

While it is true that martial artists in the past have gotten to the level of being unaffected by swords and spears in combat, one cannot acheive this without atleast several decades of golden bell training. One needs to dedicate his whole day to this training making a societal life impossible, which is why only monks achieved this level. You don't get this through "yin-yang gong". Specific gong yields specific skills.

 

So I'm not saying this, or any kind of feat is impossible, just that John Chang did not do this. And that thing about his body becoming a blur was completely rediculous.

 

Did you know Kostas's book says that Zhang, San Feng achieved level 72 of the Mo Pai tradition? I am on Wudangshan right now and I practice his alchemy, lots of what they say is BS. Their claims have not been proven, it's all just heresay. To develop such superpowers, one cannot live a married life, he would have to live his life in a cave for several hundred years.

 

Hope that clears that,

Jin

[Spectrum]

"he would have to live his life in a cave for several hundred years."

 

Jin, what kinda caves are you checking out up on Wudangshan? I heard the whole side of that mountain is nothing but cannibis!?!? You musta been hitting it ehh? (j/k) Fill us in on some details about that area and who else is training up there!

 

Spectrum

 

"The secret key is effort, repeated and sincere effort to develop oneself."

 

Oh Gung.

[Yoda]

Burn a worm for the rest of us!

[cloud recluse]

I didn't mention retention because it is so problematic, complicated, and can back-fire pretty badly. Very dicey.

 

I was suggesting joint rotations specifically. During puberty the bones are going through some intense development, and there's often (obviously) a lot of emotional~physical stresses that can get bound up in the fascia etc. Just adding a few simple joint rotations to the exercise repetoire that youngsters generally get can make the whole jing integration of puberty go a lot smoother, avoid stress-warps in the myofascial web that often form during that time, and produce stronger bones. Exposure to a few simple joint rotation exercises is pretty mundane, very safe, and good payoffs - especially during that time.

 

I'm not suggesting that kids be made to do some program, but if they're gonna be taught push-ups etc., they might as well learn to rotate wrists, ankles, hips, shoulders, neck. Then at least they know those, know what they feel like, and can do them if they want to. Just my 2 cents.

 

Actually,a kids prcatices thread would be really interesting.A VERY talented freind of mine has produced a VERY talented & open-minded 10 year old,& is always asking me for yoga/chi gung practices appropriate for kids.

Unfortunately,as I know only a little bit about hatha Yoga,& bugger all about chi gung,I cant recommend much.But the kid is definetely up for it ( I think hes a big fan of Dragon Ball Z,& ANY martial arts film .

 

So how about it , a Kids Practice thread?

 

Regards,Cloud

[h.uriahr]

I dont think you'll ever ever ever ever see an IMA guy beat up an MMA guy. It doesnt work like that. Your average IMA isnt going to turn out with extreme capabilities like John Chang so of course, you train to fight your gonna kick way more ass than training to cultivate.

[Spectrum]

Fight to Heal - Heal Fights

[Upfromtheashes]

Fight to Heal - Heal Fights

 

Interesting post on developing abilities before puberty

I was reading about kundalini problems in Glenn Morris' book and telling my mom that maybe this has something to do with all the physical and mental problems I've been having for a long time and then she informed me that she did Kundalini yoga while pregant with me and ate a special diet of spicy foods/ took cold showers in the morning in an ashram - my father the same -

I am curious if this may also be a reason behind why my younger brother has seizures that started around puberty -

[Trunk]

.. she informed me that she did Kundalini yoga while pregant with me and ate a special diet of spicy foods/ took cold showers in the morning in an ashram - my father the same -

I am curious if this may also be a reason behind why my younger brother has seizures that started around puberty -

I was in a very progressive meditation group a couple of decades ago, aggressive practice, high level teacher. A group-member became pregnant and the teacher had to tell her to leave the group, because the aggressive sorts of changes were not safe for the developing consciousness and body of a fetus.

 

We had a "practices for kids" thread (I don't remember the actual title of it) and one of the conclusions was that Scott Sonnon's intuflow (link) would be a safe and helpful practice for adolescents. It helps to harmonize the fascia~joint~bone changes that are strong around that time.. and it's simple and safe. If kids did that through puberty, imo, they'd become very very strong and their foundations (physically, emotionally, general integration) would be considerably smoothed.

 

Trunk

Edited September 9, 2008 by Trunk

[r.w.smith]

[Spirit Ape]

True, Chinese Martial arts is really MMA its just taught wrong these days and is more focus on forms or push hands.

 

Chinese kung fu has kicking, punching, trapping, throwing , grappling, seizing skills all this should be taught before forms.

 

Spirit Ape

[Pranaman]

as far as MMA fighters being stronger and more built. They lift weights, to gain muscle weight. The mass only increases along with weight and volume.

 

In IMA, the strength training is purely for muscle tone, mass(how much matter is in an object, or density), and increasing the density of muscles. Not much of a weight change occurs.

 

the physics equation for force is Mass X Acceleration = Force. So generate speed, and mass, and you will have force. Adding weight to the equation will only decrease acceleration, and lessen the force. Another property of mass is inertia, the more mass, the more inertia. This is what causes pain when hit.

 

Besides IMA being completely focused on training the only and core type of the strength needed for fighting, it also has an extensive repertoire of techniques to neutralize MMA tactics and turn the attacker into a defender in a split second.

 

This is a good video explaining IMA applications that eliminate much MMA technique and tactic.

Kung Fu & MMA

 

not to mention the state of mind, it's just the bees knees of defense.

Edited September 10, 2008 by Pranaman

[Gerard]

I am willing to put $100 on this story being complete and utter bullshit.

 

Hey, should we split this MA stuff to a new thread?

 

 

Like most of the mystical crap surrounding IMA!

 

Agree 100%

 

If you haven't met anyone with this sort of power why would you trust someone on the Internet saying this and that?

 

And Chinese are famous for exaggerating & faking this fantasy.

 

 

Pffffff!

 

 

Just keep training and enjoy the benefits of Nei Gong.

 

 

Namo Amitabha.

 

 

Edit:

 

Please, read this insightful article about Chinese culture and MA:

 

http://www.adamhsu.com/articles/taiwanblog_ClayFigurine.html

 

Edited September 10, 2008 by durkhrod chogori