Taoist Yoga week 1

[Cameron]

Let's keep it simple and start a new thread for each week of practice. My official day 1 will be monday but those that already started or want to start sooner by all means write about any insight, tips, questions so we can share our practice and learn together.

 

Obviously you should already have an understanding of the basics as Eric says in the introduction(If you don't know the basics they are in the book).

 

Eric told me years ago you should practice the microcosmic orbit for 15 minutes a day. Obviously if you want to practice longer you can but with all the other practices invovled(lots of them) 15 minutes is a good time.

 

When it gets really open you probably don't even need to practice it as much just be aware of it all day.

 

Inner smile, sounds, testicle or ovarian breathing should be practiced at your liesure and as needed . I never heard Eric give specific instructions for this.

 

I also invited Eric to come here and add anything he wants so maybe we will get lucky and here from the man himself . If not I think the book covers it all pretty well.

[Yoda]

You've contacted him recently? Awesome!!

[spyrelx]

Glad you guys are doing this. Not sure if I'll join, but will be lurking . . .

[90_1494798740]

Hair Breathing feels really similar to a good and really relaxed round of the Microcosmic Orbit - you only add some chi through the hairs. The Standing Exercises (How to Stand: The Three Pumps) against a wall have shown how stiff my neck is. That's why I do most of the exercises standing against a wall. My emphasis also for the next weeks - to open and relax the 3rd pump.

I still have some problems to imagine the aura around the body (Shen Exercise). I'm even thinking of including the toes (to connect the upper and lower part of the body better), but it's probably only a question of practice. The Sexual Kung Fu part of WEEK ONE seems to be quite promising ...

In my edition of the book (German translation) one is supposed to walk around for at least 15 minutes after the Hair Breathing Exercise. I think that's a translation error? Fifteen seconds sound more reasonable to me. The idea with the self-made tape/mp3 proved to be successful.

[Cameron]

I am just messing with reverse breathing and the microcosmic orbit until Monday.

[Cameron]

Ok I have the plan..now time to implement the second rule of management..organization. So many practices in this book and not much time to do them. I will dedicate atleast 30 min a day in the morning to practice. If I have time at night I'll do some then also but just make sure to commit to morning cultivation.

 

Right away from week one Eric is teaching one of my faovirte practices-standing meditation-in the system. The first week is mostly just going over the posture. I'll just start back with zhan zhuang since I have been doing it so much already. But try to refine the finer points of posture Eric goes over. I'll do hair breathing for a few minutes or longer and then do the Fire Element meditation.

 

I'll complete this and all subsequent weeks with the microcosmic orbit meditation for 15 minutes.

 

Smile, sounds, testicle breathing as needed.

[spyrelx]

Did standing this morning, and have done the "penis tip sqeeze" a few times today. Hope to do hair breathing/heart stuff later.

[sean]

Hair Breathing Part 1

Hair breathing is ok. I don't get a lot out of it though. And I've never been able to get much out of saliva charging / swallowing exercises. I'm probably doing them wrong.

 

Standing Chi Kung

I knew that the term Chi Kung was relatively recent but didn't know these exercises used to be caled "Yang Sheng Shu", which means "The art of nourishing life". Cool little bit of history.

 

Stilling the Mind

I really dug imagining the Sun smiling into my third eye, then down to my Heart, then down to my LTT. From so much Sun and Moon gazing, practices that involve these energies feel very real to me.

 

Activating the Three Pumps and Aligning the Shoulders

I didn't really get this. Is standing with your back straight against the wall really proper posture for Zhan Zuang? It didn't feel natural to me.

 

Standing with Your Arms at Your Sides

This was fun. And also humbling since I haven't done standing meditation in awhile. I set a timer for just five minutes and spent most of it subtly correcting all the intricacies of my posture. I found that paying attention to the background sounds in my environment really deepened this practice for me. Such a simple thing too. By the end of the five minutes my hands were tingling but not from Chi, I think from poor circulation probably from bad posture in my shoulder/neck area.

 

Sealing the First Gate

Closing the tip of the penis doesn't make any sense to me at all. Is this really anatomically possible? I thought there were no muscles in the penis. It's just an organ. Can someone help me with this? I did a google search and found this interesting article, but I still have no idea how to close the tip of my penis off at will. Any pointers?

 

Tommorow I'll go deeper into these practices and also start on The Fire Element practice.

 

 

G'night,

Sean.

[90_1494798740]

Activating the Three Pumps and Aligning the Shoulders

I didn't really get this. Is standing with your back straight against the wall really proper posture for Zhan Zuang? It didn't feel natural to me.

 

You are right. It doesn't feel very natural at the beginning (it feels better with time - even though not really natural yet; my Tai Chi Chuan teacher showed me the same exercise), but is a good means to open the pumps and to relax the back. It really improves your standing posture (when doing it without a wall)!

 

Sealing the First Gate

Closing the tip of the penis doesn't make any sense to me at all. Is this really anatomically possible? I thought there were no muscles in the penis. It's just an organ. Can someone help me with this? I did a google search and found this interesting article, but I  still have no idea how to close the tip of my penis off at will. Any pointers?

 

Well, anatomically it's rubbish (Yudelove's intention might have been to make us guys to think of their penis as a muscle for motivation ).

I think the point of this exercise is awareness and the ability to seal / move chi (you don't need muscles for that). The solution can be found in the Sexual Kung Fu section of WEEK FIVE. There is a connection between pineal gland and tip of the penis / clitoris. By sealing the first gate you're beginning the first step of learning the inner sight by transforming the treasures jing and chi into shen (with the help of smiling energy).

[sean]

[Cameron]

To his credit he says you should do the basics for like 3 weeks or something before starting week 1. My guess is most of us have been playing with the basics in one form or another for over a year if not many years. I have to admit my orbit qi flow is nowhere near as clear as I think it should be but I really have not been practicing the orbit at all. Just saying I will do the orbit atleast 15 minutes a day(and always as the finisher after any excercise to balance and collect the energy in the navel) is important and has always been stressed in the HT system and in Eric's system.

 

Don't leave energy in your head and heart!

[90_1494798740]

[Cameron]

Had a nice convo with " The Sean" and clarified a couple things for myself. First and most important, my major goal for this 100 days is to really get the Fusion practice down . When I learned Fusion from Winn he sort of threw dozens of practices at you over a couple of weekends. It's an interesting experience but I don't beleive a weekend workshop works well for learning stuff like Internal Alchemy. I also am not a fan of the tapes and don't bother with them.

 

Like I told Sean if I get deeper into Taoist Alchemy it would be live with Winn at Dao Mt not on tapes.

 

However, I think Eric has done a fantastic job with this book to not only teach Fusion in stages(along with tons of other stuff) but really give a practitioner time to experience each step of each element and how it conencts to different parts of the body, hair, sexuality etc.

 

Fusion, as one teacher told me, is the practice no one gives enough attention to and no one has mastered. Everyone wants Immortality or Enlightentment no one wants to deal with balancing and harmonizing the emotions. There is a reason fusion comes before Kan and Li. Winn sort of glosses over it but I think Fusion is clearly the work 99% of so called Tao people need to check out. And Eric's book is the best written work on the subject I have seen.

 

The truth is all these so called high level people are kidding themselves. None of them have even a basic mastery of there emotions and Fusion. I could go pull a total stranger from the street they probably have better mastery of there emotions than these so called Tao people.

 

The thing that suprised me is these fusion formulas do seem to work so people displaying there unbalanced emotions and attacking others with disrespect and arrogance on these boards must only mean none of these people actually practice Fusion.

 

Eric has also done a great thing by teaching Fusion along side zhan zhuang and Sexual Alchemy. Without learning Fusion along with zhan zhuang and sexual practice, or rather not learning Fusion, there is a serious danger of fucking yourself up. You build up alot of Qi in zhan zhuang and sexual alchemy and other teachers basically just say use this Qi. Just have fun with it in your life. But anyone with any bit of experience knows when you start bulding up alot of Qi if your emotions are fucked up(anger, depression, worry, fear etc) you just magnify those emotions 100x...not a good thing.

 

By learning Fusion in stages along with these other practices your really doing it the right way .This is how Qigong should be taught IMO. Probably most other qigong teachers don't know Alchemy so instead of teaching it they say go see a therapist if your emotions get out of control.

In fact, this is exactly what Ken Cohen says in his book..if the qi becomes out of control and you can't handle your emotions go see a therapist to work them out.

 

Now, I respect Ken but his book teaches Standing Meditation and the Big Draw and unless your already a saint chances are these practices will culminate in some sort of emotional overcharge. Unless your an athlete or heavy into martial arts then you have a clear channel or outlet for all this Qi.

 

Eric says in "Taoist Yoga" that " Suppressed emotions control our everyday life. When we are angry, we dump our angry emotions on someone else. This makes us feel better for a little while, but the anger doesn't go away. This is how it usually works. In one way or another, we dump our negative emotions on someone else. In Western pscychology we dump our emotions on our analyst in hopes of making ourselves feel better. I understand that pscychiatrists and psychologists have some of the highest suicide rates in the world. Sometimes they just have no place to dump all the accumulated negative emotions that have been dumped on them.

 

In Fusion of the Five Elements, rather than dumping our negative emotions, we seek to transform them into positive emotions.The process begins by collecting and harmonizing them. This leads back to our Orignal Nature. Negative emotions obscure it from us. As long as you are ruled by negative emotions, you will never see your Original Nature. You want to restore your Original Nature . Don't you want to know who you really are?"

[Cameron]

In addition, does anyone else see a direct mental correlation between the Fusion practice and sexual practice?

 

In Taoist Sex theory, your trying to slow down the outward movement of sexual energy, then gain control of it and return it to the center. Whether you raise it up to the brain or directly to the cauldron it's essentially about returning your sexual energy to your own center instead of "losing it".

 

In Fusion, your trying to return emotional energy to the center also instead of losing it .Getting angry or whatever. Your slowing down and recycling the energy to your own cauldron so it can be refined.

 

Things change in Kan and Li or Emptiness meditation etc but is seems that these two foundation practices..sex and emotions..have very similar principles, no?

[sean]

Week one winding to a close and I was too damn busy to immerse myself in it enough to feel right about moving to week 2 so I'm just going to hang out in this thread for another week.

 

Cam, really cool post re: Fusion, etc. I've been stalling at the CKF4 level for several months now and as much as I hate learning from tapes I think I might slap down the cash for Winn's Fusion material. Honestly the concepts behind Fusion and of balancing emotion was one of the larger appeals this system had for me so it's curious I've been dragging my feet for so long to get into it.

 

Sean.

[mike andre]

It's cool to see people talking about fusion. I've had a good experience with the winn fusion 1 material. I think his emphasis in really getting into the feeling, is what made it work for me. Before, when I did fusion meditations, I was able to create a strong sense of compressed chi in the lower tan tien, but I wasn't able to transform the negative emotions, in fact it seemed like sometimes I was making my self feel worse. In retrospect, I think my failure stemmed from the fact that I wasn't really feeling much emotionally, just bossing chi around but not listening to it. When I began to let myself be emotionally receptive, the process went a lot deeper.

[freeform]

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Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform