Leaderboard

The Flash Meditations on Vol. 5 work better if one has done all the FP Standing Meds. in Volumes 1, 3, and 4 first...and has the Volume 4 Long Form memorized and feeling its fine benefits. I like to do them in the evenings very slowly--the first 4 meditations on Vol.7. Then I do one or two of seated MSW Mediations on Volume 2 or 7 before going to sleep (--except of course, you NEVER want to do the last med. on Vol.2 (90 80 50 20) at night--if you any intention to sleep!) I remember that around Year 2 of this thread, someone posted that the Volume 5 meditations were like "bon bons". They may seem like that to the uninitiated trying them for the first time without having mastered the preceding standing FP Meditations. But if one has steadily worked through Volumes 1, 3, 4 and established all of the Meditations, when you get to Volume 5 meditations, you will FEEL their effects like nuclear longevity pills (tan). GM Doo Wai taught the " Fei Feng San Gung" ("Flying Phoenix Spiritual Power/Cultivation" ) system to me and my L.A. cohort (from 1991 to 1998) in exactly the order as they are presented in the DVD series. In fact, the last meditation on Vol.5 with (80 70 50 40 30) is NOT an FP Qigong exercise--but a primer meditation for Bat Din Gum (8 Sections of Energy Combined, a legendary martial Qigong system that GM Doo Wai said repeatedly was "more rare than the Do Do Bird"), Out of respect and in reverence to his teachings, I placed that BDG meditation at the end of Vol.5 because that's when he taught it to me and to only two others in the learning circle. All that is to say that the none of the five meditations on Vol. 5 are "bon bons"! LOL. Enjoy your practice and stick with it. Sifu Terry ttps://www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html terencedunn.substack.com

After solidly learning a taiji form at a comfortable, non-distracting speed it should be gradually slowed down as much as possible, imo. Once you get the feel for how slow it can be done, it’s best done very slow periodically. The important thing is to not violate any principles of posture, attention, and continuity. Speeding up has some value to develop rooting with movement and balance but not nearly as much as slowing down, at least for me. Partner drills are much more important when working on speed. In varying the speed, it’s good to attend to the breath which will change and can be very instructive. Holding postures has enormous value and I think is one of the core characteristics of internal martial arts. I was also taught to try and stand after practicing the complete form or a series of forms for at least 10 minutes. My teacher prescribed the Yang 108 form for a minimum of 30 minutes to treat asthma and other pulmonary illness. At first you can do the form multiple times with the ultimate intention of taking the full 30, or more, for one cycle. It works well for my lungs. It is equally beneficial to slow down qigong, perhaps more although I don’t find much value in holding qigong postures or speeding up as in the martial arts.

Hello! I’m a five element ‘style’ acupuncturist that I use within intuitive healing. I recently have been very drawn to using the I Ching and found discussions from this forum on some searches. So here I am. Nice to see so many Daoist lovers here. 💞

Speaking of medical Latin. I remember looking for a job, very many moons ago, and sending a resume to a place that was looking for someone with my background -- technical writing -- to create names for new pharma drugs. They specified that they needed "a genius." I was a bit upset that they didn't invite me for an interview. How did they know I didn't qualify?.. Well, today I finally understood. Remember Astra Zeneca, a one product wonder company? Try to go to Google Translate and translate from Latin to any language this spelling -- a stra ze neca. Genius!

That’s very interesting. It reminds me of the year 2006, where I was obsessed with demonology and also obsessed with the christian concept of “trial”. I remember that, the more I thought that the bad things which were happening to me were inevitable “spiritual trials” or actual demons, the more the situation would get worse — meaning: the harder the “trials” would get and the toughest the demons would turn out to be. After some years of reflecting upon what really happened, I came to the conclusion that I fell prey not to demons or spiritual trials, but to my own habits of thinking. As the mirror principle states: as it is within so is without, and outer events are just a reflection of one’s inner conversation. So, I suppose my life turned into nothing but fighting demons and enduring spiritual trials exactly because my mystical beliefs were almost entirely based on fighting demons and enduring spiritual trials (how ironic!). And that seems to be somewhat related to what you said regarding accountability (as in “it just feels so much easier to say everything is a Demon and try my best. That may not be a good thing”). However, despite my harsh criticism towards demonology (which is notable in my last comments), I don’t claim to be right. I was just expressing my point of view, but I might be wrong about everything I said and everything I say in general. In general, I do think we overestimate our problems to the point of wrongly thinking they are due to purely external factors (like “god send spiritual trials” or demons, for no reason) — when they would be, actually, partially just effects of our own choices. But there might be exceptions… I definitely don’t know all there is out there.

Posting to post on the flying phoenix thread.

Hi. Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the board! I'm sure you'll find what you are looking for here.

There's the taiji way to go very low and the not taiji way. The not taiji way is gaining flexibility chiefly via overstretching the ligaments -- which eventually wreaks chaos with the joints, but starts out looking impressive. The taiji way is via gradually creating space inside the joints and lengthening the spine, separating each joint into the lower (yin) part and the upper (yang) part and moving in a way that maintains that space and safeguards against the cartilage grinding, synovial fluid leaking, alignments compromised, the whole structure suffering damage. That part of the taiji skill that is referred to as sung, relaxed dynamic softness, largely depends on this kind of joint use. (Every time the teacher reminds the students, "drop the shoulder," "drop the elbow," "suspend the head," etc., it's about that space you are learning to create.) The knees are a bit different from other joints because we walk on two legs and something somewhere has to make sure we don't turn into this toy from my childhood (don't know if anyone growing up later, or elsewhere, has ever seen those -- you press the bottom where all the threads are connected and it collapses. You can get it to dance this way and that way like one of those for-show wushu practitioners... fun when you're four years old! But eventually the threads holding it together overstretch and it can't do shit anymore!)

By simply being aware, liberation dawns. - Gospel of Garab Dorje

The masochist in me subscribed to the medicine subreddit -- populated by MDs and other professionals -- and aside from sheer horror from reading their conversations with each other (well, some people like watching horror movies, I don't, but this is sort of my equivalent, I read it when I feel like getting my hair to stand on end), I learn some valuable behind-the-scenes stuff... So today they discussed allergies mentioned on patients' charts. They are, generally, livid about it. How dare a patient claim an allergy when it's merely a side effect! So half of them said that they just remove the "allergic to" entries from the charts because they find most of them ridiculous. And they were mocking the patients incessantly for mislabeling their symptoms from drugs "allergies." Some of them don't believe anyone can have allergies to any painkillers or to penicillin (well I do, incidentally) and unless there's proven anaphylaxis in the history, they mostly don't believe anyone is allergic to anything. Fun read.

When I was in hospital and told the doctor I could not take their only supposedly available pain relief drugs as I was allergic to them ... and he tried to talk me into it ( what ??? NOT being allergic ) , he eventually tried ' Well, just try a half a tablet then ." " Halvies " ???? - sounded like a drug dealer trying to get a school kid hooked : " I don't know if I should take these drugs , they seems little strong and dangerous to me ." Dealer ; " Well, just take a halvie then ." .

Tai Chi knee is no joke, I got a lot of knee pain trying to mimic the Chen form from video classes. not a good idea, imo you can learn the form with you knees real gently and deepen your stance later. That’s just my experience. Western training to bulletproof your knees is a good idea if you are prone to problems.

Took some digging to get down to the basics of "Aston Movement", which is where Linda Krier got her start (and she's the originator of the "Diamond Body Practice"). Turns out "Aston Movement" is a program of movement that was developed in conjunction with Ida Rolf: https://www.abmp.com/updates/blog-posts/sitting-her-doorstep-how-movement-pioneer-judith-aston-partnered-dr-ida-rolf Rolf was famous for using painful force to cause the fascial attachments of the body to rearrange--you can correct me if I'm misstating that. I'm thinking you might find something of mine informative, with regard to the fascial support of the spine. Here's an excerpt, and the link to the post: Gautama recommended a cross-legged seated posture for “arousing” mindfulness. I believe, based on my own experience, that the cross-legged posture exacerbates the shearing stress on vertebrae of the lower spine in the movement of breath. In my experience, consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress. A frailty in the structure of the lower spine emerged in the 1940’s, when research demonstrated that the discs of the spine cannot, on their own, withstand the pressure of lifting significant weight. In the 1950’s, D. L. Bartelink concluded that pressure in the “fluid ball” of the abdominal cavity takes load off the structure of the spine when weight is lifted (“The Role of Abdominal Pressure in Relieving the Pressure on the Lumbar Intervertebral Discs”; J Bone Joint Surg Br. 1957 Nov; 39-B[4]:718-25). The pressure in the “fluid ball” is induced by activity in the abdominal muscles. Bartelink theorized that animals (as well as humans) make use of pressure in the abdominal cavity to protect the spine, and he noted that breathing can continue even when the abdomen is tensed: Animals undoubtedly make an extensive use of the protection of their spines by the tensed somatic cavity, and probably also use it as a support upon which muscles of posture find a hold… Breathing can go on even when the abdomen is used as a support and cannot be relaxed. (ibid) In the 1980’s, Gracovetsky, Farfan and Lamay suggested that in weight lifting, the abdominals work against the extensor muscles of the spine to allow the displacement of the fascial sheet behind the sacrum and spine: If this interpretation is correct, it would partly explain why the abdominal muscles work hard during weight-lifting. They apparently work against the extensor muscles. Furthermore their lever arm gives them considerable effect. In fact, we propose that the effect of the abdominal muscles is two-fold: to balance the moment created by the abdominal pressure (hence, the abdominal muscles do not work against the weight lifter) and to generate abdominal pressure up to 1 psi, which would help the extensors to push away the fascia. It is essential that the supraspinous ligament and the lumbodorsal fascia be brought into action to permit weight lifting without disk or vertebral failure. … It must be kept in mind that in some circumstances ligament tension may reach 1800 lb., whereas no muscle can pull as hard. (Gracovetsky, S., Farfan HF, Lamay C, 1997. A mathematical model of the lumbar spine using an optimal system to control muscles and ligaments. Orthopedic Clinics of North America 8: 135-153) Dr. Rene Cailliet summarized these findings: In the Lamy-Farfan model the abdominal pressure is considered to be exerted posteriorly against the lumbodorsal fascia, causing the fascia to become taut…. thus relieving the tension upon the erector spinae muscles. (“Low Back Pain Syndrome”, ed. 3, F. A. Davis Co., pp 140-141) Farfan, Lamay and Cailliet referred to the “lumbodorsal fascia”. That fascia is now more commonly referred to as the “thoracolumbar fascia”. The Lamay-Farfan model presupposed a flattening of the lumbar curve, like that of a person bent over to lift weight from the floor, but acknowledged that the control of the ligament system afforded by activity between the abdominals and extensors could not be directly accounted for in the model. My assumption is that in the cross-legged posture, activity engendered by the location of consciousness can bring about at least a partial engagement of fascial support behind the spine. There may be another factor at work in the engagement of fascial support. Behind the sacrum, the fascia can be stretched rearward by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. As Farfan noted: There is another peculiarity of the erector muscles of the spine. Below the level of the fifth lumbar vertebra, the muscle contracts in a compartment enclosed by bone anteriorly, laterally, and medially. Posteriorly, the compartment is closed by the lumbodorsal fascia. When contracted, the diameter of the muscle mass tends to increase. This change in shape of the muscle may exert a wedging effect between the sacrum and the lumbodorsal fascia, thereby increasing the tension in the fascia. This may be one of the few instances where a muscle can exert force by pushing. (“Mechanical Disorders of the Low Back”, H. F. Farfan; 1973 Lea & Febiger; p 183) Farfan mentions a “wedging effect” on the “lumbodorsal fascia” caused by the mass of the extensor muscles as they contract. The extensor muscles run in two sets behind the spine, one on either side of the vertebral column, and the wedging effect of the extensors on the thoracolumbar fascial sheet can therefore alternate from side to side. That alternation may be the source of a comment made by Ch’an teacher Yuanwu: … Hsiang Lin said, “Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome.” If you understand this way, you are “turning to the left, turning to the right, following up behind.” (“The Blue Cliff Record”, Yuanwu, Case 17; tr. Cleary & Cleary, ed. Shambala, p 114) I believe “turning to the left, turning to the right” is a description of the feeling imparted by the wedging of the extensors, first on one side, then on the other. “Following up behind”, meanwhile, is a description of the feeling sustained by the wedging, behind the sacrum. The fascial sheet behind the neck and the base of the skull, the nuchal fascia, is in part a continuation of the thoracolumbar fascia. Through the nuchal fascia, the alignment of the skull and the placement of the jaw can enter into the tension on the thoracolumbar fascial sheet. (The Diamond Trap, the Thicket of Thorns) A lot of kinesiology there. The post on my blog is about how all that plays into "consciousness can take place in a specific location in response to that stress, and the location of consciousness can lead the balance of the body to engage activity in order to relieve that stress". Anyway, thanks for the interesting link, hope you and your wife continue to benefit from your new practice!

Same difference. Google Latin ‘ ze neca ‘ kill him

it was actually two companies that joined ..... to get her . More word fun .... if you have mental disorder they send you to psycho the rapist .

biggest tip I could give you is to serve on the next course following sitting. Being in service is wonderful after sitting plus you get access to the library of books. Of course you get to know people while serving and nice groups can form. It’s certainly interesting to have conversation after all the silence. This one I think I had a look at thanks. the only other tip I have is “return to sensation” the ultimate advice though and answer to any question though isn’t it. Funny an answer as it is Serious an answer

! Indeed and sometimes not even our ' choices ' ; our unconscious drives and prejudices . From 'The Raven's Tale ' - The Raven witnesses Apollo, after hearing his lover Coronis was with another , fire an arrow into her breast and kill her . Then Apollo " ... went into a rage, an anger , a blaming , he blamed everything from the arrow , the bow , the arm that drew the string ... everything but his own jealous nature ." Which is why I see a vast amount of indications that much in demonology is internal . I have been caned here by traditionalists ( in the past ) for that view , asserting a certain external reality to much of this phenomena . However there are another two dynamics ; one is that it seems sometimes the energy can be externalized ( which is different from it originating externally ), the other is that the 'world soul' or ' anima mundi ' as the traditionalists viewed it , possibly also has an externalization of its 'unresolved forces' . This externalization of energy is postulated as a third 'reality ' ; material , 'spiritual ' ( or real and ideal ) reality with the third being termed ' daimonic reality ' https://www.essentiafoundation.org/seeing-things-the-daimonic-nature-of-reality/reading/ https://www.harpur.org/x1Daimonic.htm and an excellent companion book ; https://www.harpur.org/x1Philosophers.html " Since incarnation itself was held to be a falling away from wholeness - the Primary Imagination, out of which we are born and to which we return - the deepest forms of human knowledge and creativity could not be more than partial recoveries of this original state. Hence Plato's anamnesis, or 'recollection' - the activity of the Secondary, or human, Imagination: 'a power of working at a barrier of darkness, recovering verities which we somehow know of, but have in our egoistic fantasy life forgotten'. Harpur's powerful chronicle of this eclipsed tradition of otherworldly beings - angels, devils, gods, the Irish sidhe, the whole prolific realm once known as 'faery' - helps us remember a way of inhabiting the world that is more ambiguous and shape-shifting than the dull secularism which has come to prevail these last three centuries. His 'daimonic' reality - close to Jung's 'psychic' and Hillman's 'imaginal' - invokes a world that is inner as much as outer, where the imagination may not come from us so much as contain us"

Most humans I look carefully into, have adverse connections that disturb the natural behavior. Last night I was speaking to a woman who told me that she did not like thinking about other planets. When I looked there was a cage around her brain function - but she could not see it. Meanwhile some 55 nations have signed the Artemis Accords, agreeing the ethical standards for managing this solar system.

FWIW: If you're going to be getting in-person classes in Yang, I'd stick with that for a while before branching out into Chen. I'd focus on the basics (which are shared in all styles) -- if you learn alignments/centeredness, weight transfer, rooting/stable connection to the ground, silk reeling, yao/kua engagement, sung, yi (intent) and eventually some qi management, you'll be ready for Chen and able to compare which works better for you personally. But if you choose to give it a try from a video (which I usually don't find useful for beginners... but who am I to blow against the wind), my advice No.1 is, make sure you know exactly what you're doing with your knees before you do!

Don't see alot of people talking about flash meditations, just curious how often people do them who have got to Vol 5....

I haven’t had this experience with it before!

I didn't want to go that way, but they do seem to be pretty cheap these days thanks for pointing it out! You've conviced me. I've placed my order for the first two volumes of FP (and an external reader) I'm REAAALLY looking forward to this type of Qigong practice.

You can buy an external DVD/CD player for your laptop or computer. It's what I do for my Mac & PC laptops. I bought that works with PC and Mac off Amazon. Best Buy and alike probably have it to.

Separate heaven and earth. Then bring them together as one.