genmaicha

Enjoy: (edit: Link instead of embedded vid, which didn't work somehow)

I've just gone through this thread again. Somewhere in the middle the topic diverted to David Verdesi and among others Sifu Jiang is mentioned and the story that a Taiwanese (?) student felt he had been cheated. I now found the blog. I don't think it had been linked: http://blog.udn.com/giveman/1091998 Now my Chinese is rather rusty but a few points which I also saw mentioned before in Pinyin in some posts. Sifu Jiang's Chinese name seems to be: 大陸師公 翟江峰 Zhai Jiang Feng- So his family name is Zhai. I don't know why he's referred to as Sifu Jiang and not Sifu Zhai. I don't know why Da Lu mainland is stated. 頭銜：庚門氣功第五代掌門 fifth lineage holder of the Shaolin Geng Men (Heavenly Gate) Qigong The content of the blog has been discussed before, I think. I just wanted to post the URL for those interested. (Edit: Somehow my two posts always are made into one ;-))

A good friend of mine has been diagnosed with diabetes about a year ago. He's 37 and has to inject about four times a day. He said that by doing more sports and watching his diet (no refined carbohydrates, i.e. sugar and white flour) he would probably be able to get down to one injection per day. I was wondering if any of you can recommend some kind of practice, whether it's specific yoga asana or breathing exercises or some internal discipline? Thanks

Interesting topic indeed. I managed to crash many computers. And I also found out that when I spoke to it like "come on now" it would work ;-) I have also had normal light bulbs and neon lights break when I turned them on, even though they were quite new.

Great leads and information already. Thanks a lot. I'll let my friend know. He pretends to be a tough guy who's not into these soft things, but I guess that's just his mask and he'll try it.

The guy wh's selling the David Verdesi website alsonruns the seros. de website. On it he'ss selling a myriad of products on how to pick up women using NLP. A Germany copy cat of the Mystery, Style (Neil Strauss The Game) and the like. His DVD marketing page looks like text book internet marketing. I wonder how long it will take him to offer Kun Lun DVDs and books? :-)

I'd just like to add my 2 cents here as I guess a typical newbie who has come here to look for information on internal arts. Perhaps after having seen the John Chang bit out of Ring of Fire. Regarding the hype about David Shen (what is this for?) Verdesi. I agree with the poster who'd like to see more facts. After all we can see that using the Dr title (which all over the world and also in Germany is recognized as either a MD or a PhD) and refering in a vague way to authorities without further details leaves an impression on people as you can see in this thread: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showto...st=0#entry47055 where the poster mwight writes:"...Also there is Dr. David Shen Verdesi who is leading western researcher on the Lei Shan Dao system of qigong." So, I felt that using these titles for someone who hasn't got a PhD or MD seems misleading to me. But that seems to have been corrected. But reacting angrily to requests for details I cannot understand. If you allege to something, please back it up if requested. The position "We don't have to offer any information." doesn't make sense to me either, since vague information is offered. Still, apparently a number of people found the trip with David Verdesi worthwhile, so I wouldn't discount the value of the offering. Just to me more transparency would create a better impression. The same with the Kun Lun, which I've only heard about here. That's some crazy stuff. The guy pretending to have died to test his students. Showing pictures of himself with a halo above his head but then again answering to a request for a video on the claimed levitation skill "Why would I need to do that?" is all very weird. But then many people gave accounts of good experiences (they can't be all sockpuppets or in on the scam, can they?). But there are enough threads on that topic, I guess.

Hello guys, a nice, informative and apparently quite active forum you have here. The past years I've been mostly practicing yoga. However, as a teenager I was practicing various martial arts (mostly TKD and Aikido), and have been interested ever since. For a time I was particularly interested in koryu. Having been to a practitioner of traditional chinese medicine for some stomach problem I a few years ago I got interested in the internal arts again. That's how I found this forum. I've been lurking here on and off for about a year.

I found the reference to the Tibetan lifestyle book interesting, so I checked out Amazon and in one review a caveat was given. The claims by Christopher Hansard should be checked. See here: http://christopherhansard.blogspot.com/200...rd-summary.html Having read this I'm not going to buy his book. Getting back to Yoga. With me it's the opposite. I've been practicing Asthanga Vinyasa Yoga for four years now. I can only agree with what Emily says in that it is a very fine practice. However, some practitioners are to eager to get into poses, so they injure themselves. Also some teachers are very nitpicking about doing the series exactly as it is done in Mysore, where the guru Pattabhi Jois lives. A big business has developed out of it and people try to protect their turf by getting authorized or even certified. Aside from these points I like it the best. Some questions: In Ashtanga Yoga, whcih is a form of Hatha yoga, there are three locks, bandhas. Mulah Bandha- There different descriptions, but it's basically the tensing of the pelvic floor muscles, perineum, genital and anus. Uddiyana Bandha- This lock seems to corrspond to the Dan Tien or Hara location, i.e. three fingers below the navel. In Ashtanga Mulah Bandha and Uddiyana Bandha are ideally to be held the whole time. So it's not abdominal breathing, but breathing into the chest with a flat stomach at all times. Others advise not to hold Uddiyana Bandha as it creates to much heat. The Bandhas do create heat to make the body warm, energetically they prevent the prana (of course, like Qi) from leaking and physiologically they support the lower back. Then there's Jalandhara Bandha- this is lowering the chin to the chest. This is mostly used in pranayama and then when practicing breath retention (kumbhaka; mostly on a full breath). Then there's the ujjai breathing. One narrows the glottis and breathes in the back of the throat so to speak as if sucking through a straw. This breathing method is also used throughout the whole practice and it creates a lot of heat in conjunction with the bandhas, hence the sweating (without heating like in Bikram yoga). Now my question is if there is similar breathing and also something comparable to the bandhas in the Daoistic arts?