Peak performance and chi cultivation

[dogson]

Hi all,

 

We all know about the principle of relaxation in meditative and chi-cultivating disciplines. We've all felt the profound benefits of relaxation. However, although many of us are learning from masters who are advanced in age, a lot of us are young and full of energy, vigor, and speed.

 

So I want to get some opinions on this: how do you resolve the contradictory disciplines of relaxed power and peak performance (demanding as much as you can from yourself, getting high performance in your life overall, not just physically but mentally, working long hours, pushing yourself to achieve goals, etc) ?

 

For example, I love the "ideal" of going to bed early and waking up several hours before dawn to practice my chi kung, forms, and meditation. It seems extremely sensible to sync my sleep schedule with the sun. But often when I wake early and have a great day, I've gotten so much momentum that I'm still amped come sundown, and I realize I could work (or play) for 12 more hours. But this goes against the precepts of just taking it easy, and this is tough for me, because we live in a world where the 70% rule doesn't really cut it. For most of us we have to rolling out the 110% power.

 

Any suggestions? I'd love to hear how other peak performance people synthesize these seemingly opposite ideas.

 

 

[joeblast]

Sounds like you're conflating yin and yang! So with all that extra momentum you have, let that fuel your meditation in the evening. Logically speaking, yang-ey cultivation will increase the bandwidth of the spigot for output, yin-ey cultivation (like deep meditation) increases the reserve from which the spigot draws. Not a perfect analogy, but applicable in its own particular...idiom?

 

That's why many teachers recommend the more yangey stuff in the am or afternoon and then in the evening, sit down and absorb the potentials which you cultivated earlier. Again not perfect analogies since it is a little too dualistic, but I hope you get the jist.

[dogson]

Yeah that's helpful! It's very useful to think of them complimenting and amplifying each other, rather than a "should I do this vs. that mode" kind of thing. Thanks

[ChiForce]

Heheeh...too much energy? Take up endurance sport like cycling. I try to ride 80 mile on the weekend for 6 hours. And usually 2 days with 40 miles each just to prepare for that long weekend ride. Other than through meditation, cycling is my other way to cultivate my chi. Not exactly easy to survive 6 hours on the bike with only energy bars and drinks and constantly putting out or burning up about 500 calories per hour. 3000 calories per ride.

[dogson]

It's not too much, it's just that I'm able to just take on any energy or state I want at will, but I feel like 12 people sometimes. I'd love to just sit in total peace, but there's a part of me that wants to actually accomplish things and achieve a high level of skill, which takes a much more fire / fierce energy and focus. So it feels a bit bizarre at times.

 

Bruce Frantzis gave me a really good answer to this question when I said it felt like "the opposite of tai chi" to have a fierce ambition. What he said was, it's not the opposite of tai chi to do a lot - it only becomes the opposite of tai chi if it's causing me STRAIN. So he suggested to just go to where my natural limit is - not of my psychological ideas, but the limit of my nervous system and how much input it can take, and from there, give myself a separator state. Go take a walk, switch to a different mode, and then come back to training.

 

Which is great. It's just a bit "through the looking glass" at times, when I feel like I can become anything, and there are so many options - that gets confusing.

[yondaime109]

 

 

 

Thought chi would save his ass.

[voidisyinyang]

Hi all,

 

We all know about the principle of relaxation in meditative and chi-cultivating disciplines. We've all felt the profound benefits of relaxation. However, although many of us are learning from masters who are advanced in age, a lot of us are young and full of energy, vigor, and speed.

 

So I want to get some opinions on this: how do you resolve the contradictory disciplines of relaxed power and peak performance (demanding as much as you can from yourself, getting high performance in your life overall, not just physically but mentally, working long hours, pushing yourself to achieve goals, etc) ?

 

For example, I love the "ideal" of going to bed early and waking up several hours before dawn to practice my chi kung, forms, and meditation. It seems extremely sensible to sync my sleep schedule with the sun. But often when I wake early and have a great day, I've gotten so much momentum that I'm still amped come sundown, and I realize I could work (or play) for 12 more hours. But this goes against the precepts of just taking it easy, and this is tough for me, because we live in a world where the 70% rule doesn't really cut it. For most of us we have to rolling out the 110% power.

 

Any suggestions? I'd love to hear how other peak performance people synthesize these seemingly opposite ideas.

 

 

Do horse stance with your thighs horizontal to the ground and your arms outstretched - don't move at all. If you can go 2 hours like that then do it everyday for three months. At the end of the training your third eye will be fully open and you can do long distance shen spirit healing - holographic reality.

[yondaime109]

Do horse stance with your thighs horizontal to the ground and your arms outstretched - don't move at all. If you can go 2 hours like that then do it everyday for three months. At the end of the training your third eye will be fully open and you can do long distance shen spirit healing - holographic reality.

Should I breathe regularly or do some kind of special breathing technique like reverse breathing or condense breathing when I do this?

[voidisyinyang]

Should I breathe regularly or do some kind of special breathing technique like reverse breathing or condense breathing when I do this?

 

you want to do slight reverse breathing but your mind controls your breath - so when the chi energy increases then less breathing is needed.

[DragonsNectar69k]

 

 

 

Thought chi would save his ass.

 

Yea that is unfortunate. What you saw initially were students who were apart of that Master's system. An example would be a catholic walking into a Islamic temple for example, the catholic has yet to integrate the influence and energy at the Islamic temple compared to going to a Catholic Cathedral. If one was sensitive enough to feel chi it would sort of feel like a electromagnetic pulse or sphere. The lower self cannot feel this directly. MMA fighers focus all their energy on their yang aspects and their minds/energy is dark, rigid, and dense most of the time.

[yondaime109]

Yea that is unfortunate. What you saw initially were students who were apart of that Master's system. An example would be a catholic walking into a Islamic temple for example, the catholic has yet to integrate the influence and energy at the Islamic temple compared to going to a Catholic Cathedral. If one was sensitive enough to feel chi it would sort of feel like a electromagnetic pulse or sphere. The lower self cannot feel this directly. MMA fighers focus all their energy on their yang aspects and their minds/energy is dark, rigid, and dense most of the time.

Then what's point of applying it to combat in the first place?

[DragonsNectar69k]

Then what's point of applying it to combat in the first place?

 

Great question.

[joeblast]

Then what's point of applying it to combat in the first place?

its just like astral travel, if you have no juice, it ranges from mental masturbation to "too-subtle-to-affect-yang."

 

Edited June 3, 2013 by joeblast

[voidisyinyang]

Then what's point of applying it to combat in the first place?

 

Qigong master Yan Xin from Shaolin: http://fulllotusqigong.blogspot.com/2012/10/maintaining-state-of-listening-but-not.html

 

However a good internal qigong practitioner with focused consciousness, qi and force, can easily throw a punch of over a thousand pounds of force, or even several thousand pounds of force. Using his index and middle fingers, in one stroke, Master Haiden could poke into a big bundle of sand wrapped in cow hide and hemp

sacking.

[ChiForce]

Yea that is unfortunate. What you saw initially were students who were apart of that Master's system. An example would be a catholic walking into a Islamic temple for example, the catholic has yet to integrate the influence and energy at the Islamic temple compared to going to a Catholic Cathedral. If one was sensitive enough to feel chi it would sort of feel like a electromagnetic pulse or sphere. The lower self cannot feel this directly. MMA fighers focus all their energy on their yang aspects and their minds/energy is dark, rigid, and dense most of the time.

Hahahaha...at one point he was throwing the chi ball everywhere while getting his ass handed to him by a student. So, the master mind or chi is very limited, which is far from the universal quality of the chi energy.

[Mikeb85]

 

 

 

Thought chi would save his ass.

 

Haha. The 'master' is obviously a con, and I think many people in general misrepresent/understand what internal martial arts are, and what Taoism is. Sanshou (ie. Chinese kickboxing) and Judo are a better real-life demonstration of these principles than most of the TCMA that don't practice much real application (ie. sparring and fighting).

 

Also, I think the (looks like Karate) fighter in that video was a little brutal, he should have just thrown the 'master' and sat on him or something... Would still expose the fraud...

[dogson]

From what I understand of fa jin and chi power like this, you can do a "long wave" which will bounce you around or throw you and it won't do damage, or you can shorten/compress the wave which can be very dangerous. Xing Yi people for example are taught that the first thing you need to learn is how to relax your shoulders to absorb the force of a punch by "crumpling forward", because if you take a Xing Yi punch full on it can explode your lungs. That's what I was taught on the first day of Xing Yi class, and then my master punched a metal wall with very little physical force and made the entire thing vibrate like crazy.

 

It's true that if you aren't sensitive to chi, then you won't react as dramatically as a teacher's students do. You also won't "ham it up" and exaggerate at all. Go to any aikido class - even the great ones, the top people, you still cooperate when someone tries to throw you. You get used to it.

 

If somebody cultivates immense chi power, they can use it in battle. Look at BK Frantzis. I don't care how sensitive or dense to chi you are, I would never want to fight that guy.

 

 

If you have more chi you're stronger by default. Anyone who's gone a couple weeks without "leaking jing" can tell you this. Anyone who's stopped hitting the gym and just practiced chi gong standing postures for a couple weeks, then gone back to the gym can tell you - you're stronger. Having said that, if you're fighting a trained MMA guy you better know how to do an arm bar and escape a choke out.