Damo Mitchell's Dragon Daoyin DVDs

[GreytoWhite]

Damo Mitchell has arrived on the Daoist meditation scene in the last few years and has had a bit of controversy in the past with claiming a lineage he was instructed in but not initiated. How wonderfully dull and dramatic considering the quality of what is on the discs. In the past I read his Daoist Neigong book and while it wasn't anything new to me I found his presentation of it to be easy to read and without much pretense.

I have only watched the first disc's contents so far and it's a clear introduction to some good exercises. This isn't the alpha and omega of sets but a great body conditioning routine when taken in entirety. The mechanics are applicable to both energetic and martial movement. The first disc starts with Damo demonstrating all four sets of exercises and they are named Awakening Dragon, Swimming Dragon, Soaring Dragon, and Drunken Dragon respectively. Then a very cute blonde instructor goes over each set individual set. Each set is also clarified further in a respective breakdown of exercises within the sets.

 

 

 

I have yet to watch the second and third discs but plan on it soon. I spent some of my afternoon ripping the first DVD into mp4 format to watch on my phone whilst riding public transportation this week to analyze it a little more. The movements are very reminiscent of Wudang bagua especially with the cosplay aspect of Damo's getup. So far I think the Dragon Daoyin sets would be a great base to learn before doing palm changes around a circle and for those of us with previous martial training it should be simple enough to "translate" into applications.

[thelerner]

I've enjoyed his book. I didn't realize how young he is, or maybe I should say looks. I imagined him as much older.

 

The forms look nice and flowing. Unless you have quite a solid background I'd imagine they'd be hard to learn from a DVD, I could be wrong about that.

 

GreytoWhite, how much prior practice do you think a person needs to learn competently from the DVDs?

[GreytoWhite]

Damo Mitchell is young and that is one of the major criticisms thrown his way. That stated I don't think it should count against him as DVDs can only teach so much without someone there to feel what you are doing and let you feel what you should produce. I think Damo is only about four years older than myself and I've pushed hands with people that have been "doing taiji" for decades that can't do much and I've seen videos from older "instructors" that have made me cringe. Damo's stuff at least jibes with what I've been taught in the past, is well presented and looks fun.

Some of the lower postures could be difficult for beginners and without some basic kung fu/qigong/neigong body mechanics it may be stressful on the knees. The breakdowns in the first disc are an easy way to start approaching the Dragon Daoyin movements within each set individually and then link them together later as you get better. The second and third discs are a little more in-depth and from the description they were recorded from seminars.

 

As to how much prior practice, it's entirely dependent on what one has studied and HOW. If one has at least a year's in-person instruction (500 hours) of legitimate neigong, Shaolin jibengong, Pilates, and/or some good martial bagua/taiji/xingyi then these shouldn't be too hard to start practicing.

 

When I say good martial bagua/taiji/xingyi I mean the stuff with standing explained, spiraling drills, low stances, fajin and volume striking drills, KICKS (not just "dark" or implied leg skill), posture checks with hands-on correction, breathing exercises, the stuff where the teacher has forgotten the difference between internal/external and it all just flows, with footwork that you zig zag repeatedly across ball fields and do it until your legs are noodles, the stuff where your teacher weighs 80lbs less is 8" shorter and still blasts you across the room, the stuff you can't help but practice whilst in queue at the store. You got a year of that stuff, you should be able to learn from most kung fu instructional DVDs without too much issue.

[cheya]

The movement on these DVDs is just BEAUTIFUL!

That "cute blond instructor" is Damo's partner Roni Edlund, who has her own branch of the school, Lotus Moon Spiritual Arts, for female Daoists. Watching her move is pure joy. (Okay, so Damo's pretty good too :-)

 

Damo's doing a Dragon Dao Yin workshop in Texas in Oct, $200

 

Dragon Dao Yin (US) with Damo Mitchell
San Antonio, Texas, USA
October 17 - 19

[GreytoWhite]

There is a seminar here on the West Coast coming up in San Jose taught by one of Lotus Neigong's senior instructors Steve Galloway.

 

http://damomitchell.com/san-jose-nov-8-9/

Second DVD Thoughts

The warm ups and seated preparatory exercises on the second DVD are reminiscent of the floor work I've done over the years exploring Feldenkrais, Aikido, Systema's material, as well as various kung fu and general fitness stretches. If one is coming to this material in ill health I recommend spending a good amount of time on these warm ups, stretches, preparatory self massage and breathing before each practice session so as to condition your body. Doing the warm ups and self massage without practicing the set later in the day would also be a good idea just to get the body used to a stretched state. Damo's students in the videos have varying levels of skill and flexibility and are good examples of what you may be doing as you practice.

 

Then the second disc's course gets into individual exercises with student examples and Damo providing corrections and common pitfalls of trying to emulate the movements. Damo gets into very important details about shoulder usage (this ain't Zheng Manqing's taiji y'all), intention, and energy flow in the classroom videos for the exercises. The Dragon Daoyin sets are great for rib and shoulder articulation which are extremely important for free breathing and allowing the organs to rest freely in the thorax.

 

He is truly trying to impart daoyin - guiding and leading energy instead of just qigong hand waving. This is the good stuff that changes your body's connective tissues. His students don't quite have the subtle articulation I associate with good instruction but it may just be they haven't developed some of the same things that I have been instructed in or they may not focus on that stuff at Lotus Neigong.

 

Some of basics like dantian usage to drive movement is pretty difficult to gain and truly learn without an instructor to demonstrate for you in person. I appreciate that Damo does address some movements mentioning hips and dantian usage as different and as different movement goals for beginners and more experienced people. He does not try to instruct the basics of dantian usage in this course and there are some things that just won't be as beneficial until one has at least some dantian instruction.

 

I feel he had some prime opportunities to address spiral mechanics and relationships of the chest and kua in some of the more torqued movements. Another thing I think Damo's instruction is missing is a focus on the legs and hips, what the intentions should be for differing parts of the leg in each stance. I got really spoiled from Xie Peiqi's instructional videos performed by He Jinbao for the different animals. In the first couple of "classroom" recordings there is a high pitched sawing noise in the background that is distracting and made my dog take notice but then went away. I had one audio issue toward one of the last classroom videos where Damo's voice seemed to echo it may just be my DVD player.

 

Overall I'd say the second disc has more information than the first and is probably a better practice guide. I feel as if the breakdown sections on the first disc were subpar in comparison to the classrooms sections on the second and could have been released as free online material instead. I'm glad he includes both in this package and hopefully the third disc will explain a bit more deeply and may address some things I hope he can clarify about this system he has devised.

[Rintrah]

Hmm, this looks really interesting but unfortunately their site isn't selling the DVDs anymore...

[idquest]

Mitchell is preparing several sets of DVD's with different movement forms he teaches, Dragons being one of them. The DVD's were initially scheduled for the beginning of 2017 but then re-scheduled for late 2017. Let's hope he will eventually release them.

[Bruce Qi]

I think I still have the dvd for sale if anyone is interested ?

 

[BluePhoenix133]

oooh whats this, i have the book but i didnt really use it a dvd would be much more useful.

[Bruce Qi]

On 09/07/2017 at 6:04 PM, idquest said:

Mitchell is preparing several sets of DVD's with different movement forms he teaches, Dragons being one of them. The DVD's were initially scheduled for the beginning of 2017 but then re-scheduled for late 2017. Let's hope he will eventually release them.

Where did you find out about the re scheduling ?

 

Ah just saw on his site

Edited July 20, 2017 by Bruce Qi