DJ CEIBA

I appreciate you guys taking a minute to share your thoughts sorry about my initial, quick/incoherent reading, NUNGALI! I went back & read it again & got a totally different meaning - woops!! Loved that video! Certainly blessed to be w/my senseis, MICHAEL. Yessir - Sensei Mike used to make trips to Fujian to study white crane. On a personal note, having cultured, older males around to pour into me has been a HUGE positive influence. I'm in karate for the unity & safety it'll provide in my family. Most of the time, I'm w/my little girl in the evenings & at least 2 of those nights she's in class - alongside me. On nights where my wife (a former pro dancer) isn't working late, we're ALL in there grunting. It's not the old New York City from the 80s movies, AND in a place like this - anything can happen. I need to KNOW they feel confident in any situation & that they can handle themselves if they have to. (Me too!) As a 44 year old, I'm primarily looking at how can I be strong and healthy through real old age when it comes. Strong/flexible muscles, lubricated joints w/full range of motion, all my organs at full capacity, all the systems working in harmony. I think the combination of kata & chi Kung (that's built into the kata?!) is designed for that. It's a theory I'm working with. In 2 years, I've certainly gotten stronger, thinner & more flexible. we'll see if I live a long time w/that & good diet/clean living.

@steve i appreciate how understated you were. could you lavish me with some of your insights into the finer points and insights you got from 10 years of this kata? i'm really just mastering all the mechanical stuff right now. Every now and again I forget myself & relax into it, AND I'd love it if you'd drop some jewels

@Nungali ok so I mentioned I have 2 teachers. It's sensei john's (SJ)school - he's a USA goju stylist from Harlem. HIS kata teacher his sensei Michael (SJ who I mentioned previously). SJ teaches USA goju katas so I know: gaedon (taikyoku 1) empi go, Jin choi, gesakucho, saifa SM teaches traditional Okinawa katas so I know: Sanchin breathing kata, gekisai 1/2/3, traditional Saifa, tensho i'm a 44 year old green belt - barely not a beginner, but I train HARD! i can actually perform all those katas reasonably well. Not just some shit I did one time. this week 2 years ago (2016) My wife, daughter & I committed to going 3x a week. wifey is and advanced orange, daughter is an advanced yellow. Very proud of them!!

@Nungali sensei mike does test us to see how our stances are. They check to see if we'reI using our muscles for armor, but also to get us to release tension in places we shouldn't. Sanchin is designed in part to build armor out of muscle. At first, it was a confusing isometric muscle tenision exercise. Then it was a way to practice & feel comfortable moving accurately w/sanchin stance. then I could add the breathing, but everything was too tense. The black belts & teachers would crack on me now i take it super slow - going through the motions at first. I add the more complex stuff (deepen my breath, pulling up on my perineum, tongue to the roof of the mouth, squeezing my fists only at the end of the movement, & much more) after the first 2 or 3 times through. I shoot for a set of 5 in the morning. To the extent that it's the 3 battles or 3 conflicts, I find it "challenging" on an exceptional day to stack my bones correctly, breathe and direct chi flow correctly, & remember what I'm doing/relax what needs to relax/clench what needs to clench. It's a standing chi Kung meditation & as such - has been tricky to learn to chunk so many subtle pieces of info together effectively and perform it correctly!! (Very respectfully) The guy that was teaching your Sanchin may not have known it that well or didn't get introduced to it in a good way. That said - it's the source of the style & an introduction to the hard AND soft aspects of the Goju (hard/soft) style. My kata Sensei trained at a monastery in Okinawa for 7 years. He said his first THREE years w/his teacher (the Roshi) was ONLY sanchin breathing kata & hojo undo (& the usual cooking/cleaning/eating/meditation of monastic life). I believe when he told me this is the foundation & I could see how it paralleled the information I'd read in mantak chias books in the 90s about the microcosmic orbit & iron shirt. I was so thrilled to find somebody that could actually teach it (& that it wasn't bullshit!!).

I'm blessed to have 2 dedicated & knowledgable karate teachers. one (SJ) primarily teaches us fighting. the other (SM) teaches us katas, tai chi & chi Kung (mostly katas, tho) as a traditional Goju-ryu stylist, he's asked us to get deep in "Sanchin breathing kata"(SBK). its a walking hard chi Kung form. SBK uses sanchin stance/slow movement/posture/abdominal breathing/opening the microcosmic orbit. i ask SM a lot of questions, study sanchin info online & study Taoist meditation books/sites/vids (mantak chia/dr yang). SM also instructs us in sitting and standing eight pieces of brocade chi Kung. i believe this is is to build our chi to move in daily life, during SBK & god forbid, if we have to defend ourselves. i'm wondering if any one on here has any experience w/Sanchin & it's benefits.

LOVE juicing and shake blending!! i shoot for a full month of liquids at least once a year. for the last few years, I use cronometer.com to make sure my nutrition stays normal. breakfast w/garlic/beets/citrus. my shakes tend toward fruits/nut milk/raw nuts & spoonfuls of coconut/flax/olive oil. my juices tend to be hard roots/tubers/leaves/herbs/a sweet water fruit. i use a vitamix mixer & a breville juicer. I've heard lots of complaints I don't have ANY. During and after, the benefits are for me are in overall differences in energy, my skin, eye clarity & it always forces me to sharpen up my lifestyle in places where it's become raggedy because I have to remove myself from so much activity (nightlife/big dinners/etc). HUGE FOR DISCIPLINE.

Hi everybody!!! Longtime lay-omni spiritualist here! I'm a working percussionist, drum maker, music producer and DJ in NYC. My family consists of the 3 of us - my common-law wife & an 8 year-old 3rd grader called "Love". We live comfortably in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium. All 3 of us do a damn good traditional Okinawa Goju-Ryu class in Harlem 3x/week. Our teacher turned us on to the standing and sitting 8 pieces of brocade forms. It's reignited my personal quest for this old school knowledge from Asia I started when I was a kid - 1st from my father ranting about Taoism & physics then stumbling onto Mantak Chia's books in the early 90s. We're 2 years into this Goju discipline next week & as I turn 44, my thoughts turn to my end game: I want to live long & need ALL my systems functioning strongly into old age to achieve my goals. IMO the Taoists and Buddhists figured all that out 1000s of years ago & I thought this'd be a great forum to discuss. Looking forward to listening to/sharing with all of you. 1 perfect love, Ceiba aka Brotha Sean