VCraigP

Are You a Tobacco Addict ? You post like one.

I give you a minus for particularly pointless, troll-ish, self-absorbed, hijacking, de-railing comments out of resonance with the spirit of TTB and that add nothing to the discussion or the community

That is definitely one school of thought.

 

Well, developing qi can be defined or quatified in many different ways. Even if we take the universal view of it, you could still say you are developing the strength of its flow, or the strength of its integration and connection to the mind and awareness, if not say increase the actual amount of Qi.

increasing your capacity to conduct, transmit and store Qi.

I think this is a better way to express the concept of "developing Qi".

Of course this goes hand in hand with discernment of different types of Qi. External Qi, Protective Qi. Internal Organ systems Qi. etc etc ad infinitum.

I have found Siberian Ginseng (Eleuthero) to be highly effective at increasing my vitality.

Good Idea!

Which brand do you use?

I advise just getting powdered Eleuthero root.

avoid the extract, it is cheap(read as BAD) and processes out much of the beneficial aspects of the herb.

Walking, was the first simple thing that came to my mind as well.

Re learning Taiji and or Qigong.

There is bad, good, better and best.

Bad is to do nothing at all.

Good is to try something, anything you can get for free off of the net.

Better is to get actual books, DVDs to get solid instruction, especially if not MA background.

Best is to find a teacher, support them, ie with actual funds, and having placed that high value upon the instruction to practice diligently what you learn.

Both Taiji and Qigong require gongfu. Diligent and steady work over a long period of time.

Craig

However, if you go to Shiji, the historic record by Sima Qian written around 100 B.C. but containing much earlier material (the second most read Chinese book in history, after the I Ching), you will find a series of predictions or "omens" that deal with the rising of the planets, their conjunctions and paths through the stars that are strikingly similar to the Enuma Anu Enlil -- so much so that communication between Chinese and Mesopotamian astrologers before 100 B.C. can only be disputed by someone not familiar with either source.

 

Multiple caravan routes intersecting in Persia connected the Greeks and the Chinese and that's where and that's how the (much) older civilization was being vigorously absorbed by the budding one. The origin of "The Greek Miracle" -- the sudden (sic) cultural and scholastic boom it experienced, which seeded the rest of Western civilization, is fully traceable to these contacts. A Eurocentric view of culture has been circumventing this plain fact of history for centuries. The premise that China was "isolated" originates in the same ideology, not in the historic fact.

 

Once again TM pulls from her bag of Un-Orthodox history, my favorite kind.

Craig

Hi

What form/source are you taking the Reishi in?

What form did you take the cordyceps in?

Just curious.

Craig

Sifu Terry -

 

Nice picture on your website on your qigong catalog page of the temples and the god with four faces facing four directions. I am curious about the god.

so, just curious, can you tell us a little about the god in your pic?

Link to pic

 

Thanks....

Fu Dog

Not really my place to answer this question, but...

Ehmeishan is a sacred place to both Taoists and Buddhists.

Flying Phoenix was developed by a Taoist.

Ehmeishan was sacred and occupied by Taoists first before Buddhists took it over.

That pic on Sifu's website is modern Ehmeishan with a Buddhist icon of quite recent vintage I would guess if Ehmeishan follows similar historical pattern as other sacred mountains of China in the last few decades.

Therefore I conclude from this that unless Sifu Dunn is also a buddhist scholar he might not know what that statue is which now sits there.

Then again, I don't know what he knows...

FWIW

Craig

 

Hope this gives you a good perspective on training, Craig.

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

Sifu Dunn

Sorry I missed your reply til now.

You've surely defined what true Kung Fu looks like in practice.

Hard work, steady training, perseverance = achievement.

thanks for the detailed reply.

Craig

The only one in this thread who knows what he is talking about!

If he is the only one then that means that you don't know what you are talking about either. Self cancelling statement.

brilliant.

That's like in kindergarten!

Why not report me to Sean...or your mother?

I am happy I provided you with some amusement.

Care to provide further constructive contribution to civil discourse here?

Craig

Ha! This "Sifu" Jenny talks like a politician: Saying much without saying anything.

Now after reading this, I don't know more about the practice or the goals of Kunlun than before!

It's a joke!

I give you a minus for particularly pointless, troll-ish, self-absorbed, hijacking, de-railing comments out of resonance with the spirit of TTB and that add nothing to the discussion or the community

Anyway, are the emotions really that one-dimensional?

Emotions arent

Polls about emotions are.

I stayed home

Craig

I signed up for Bruce Frantzis' "Bagua Mastery Program" and received my first module last week.

 

Pretty high quality production. I have absolutely zero experience with bagua or TCMA in general so I can't compare it to anything intelligently, but I'm liking the presentation and more importantly I think I may be getting hooked on bagua in general.

 

I've found some really nice videos on Youtube that have blown me away:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqiQozw27a0

 

Currently I am starting with baby steps, almost literally, Bruce is having me practice just straight line "mud walking", very slowly. I'm having fun playing with the weight distribution while walking like this. Learning how to walk, I love it.

 

And since I have incredible ADHD and like to overdo everything I get into, so I also signed up for GaoBagua home study program. Very timely, the 5th group literally just began on Sunday. If you didn't have the cash to shell out for big BKF's program, but wanted to get into Bagua and don't have a good teacher nearby, check it out. You might still be able to slip into the 5th group. It's only $15 a month, appears very structured, and you get to upload videos of yourself every week or so and get feedback from the teacher.

 

If you're interested, join EmptyFlower.net forums and pm yusen about the "5th cohort bagua training".

 

Any other members into Bagua here?

 

Best,

Sean

Love Bagua. Used to have a teacher in the Bay Area who taught me basic IMA principles and Basic Bagua and Hsing I.

Circle walking is fantastic and a really great qigong in and of itself. Bagua taught me to move and hold structure under pressure. I am really just a beginner, but the basics sunk in pretty deep. I adopted a lot of what my upper body learned into other more external martial arts I was doing at the time (TKD) and made me more effective at that.

now that I have done "big dipper walking" with my Taoist teacher I think I "know" that Bagua, especially circle walking came from Taoist practices. Like Winn says, Qi likes to move in spirals. Bagua is all about that.

have fund and lets us know more about the BKF Bagua mastery program.

Craig

was wondering what it is that ginseng does for you or gives to you, cause it seems to be the only thing that helps me wiht fatigue?

TaoMeow has said a lot about ginseng.

Despite my inclination to advise against just throwing one herb at a complex situation (there is no other kind, nothing is simple) I advise to use Eleutherococcus Senticossus, aka Eleuthero, aka Siberian Ginseng. Get it in a tincture form ideally. Dont buy standardized extract. If pill form just get pure powder with nothing else.

eleuthero is a great mild tonic which was one of the primary Adaptogens the Russians were doing research on since mid last century or so.

It does not carry the same overheat issues as Panax Ginseng. It has been scientifically proven effective for so many things.

Should be easy to find in any health food shop.

good luck.

Craig

but this isn't some top secret "we stole it from Asia" cover up--- It is what is necessary to win at that level of play. Boxers, bouncers, and police officers all know this.

 

OH, now I get it. This isn't about whether IMA is ever effective, its just about Western and/or American exceptionalism. we don't need nothing from Asia, we have all the answers.

 

IMA sucks for fighting because the students never learn how to use it in a combat-like situation. 99.999% of IMA players wouldn't be able to fight their way out of a paper bag!

 

Oh, wait, I guess it is about IMA after all. BTW you win the prize for the most sweeping silly generalization of the day.

 

I think BT is a real IMA player, and he has strong internal skills. He has a video where he says that he can't share certain internal aspects that he learned... Go fight him OP!!!

Just kidding, or am I? This thread continues to make me chuckle.

Craig

 

PS. And yes this is a statement. I know the concept of leylines has been high jacked by New Age people based on the beliefs of a couple of dowsers, and now people talk of them as energetic. But the original concept which is really less than a hundred years old has NOTHING to do with energy lines of anything, let alone Teutonic anything. Why you are using this term in your Teutonic shamanic practice as way to describe Chinese Meridian theory is beyond me.

Hmmm

I think you covered a lot in this little PS paragraph. I think, based upon what little I have read about ley lines that they are WAY more than hinted at in lore more than 100 years old, and not just created out of whole cloth by "a couple of dowsers".

also, despite your attempts at discourse, your approach does seem subtly challenging and denigrating of the mans work.

5ET does have a history and has described a preference of limited engagement which he has kept to here quite consistently for some time. So good luck going further with this dialog.

PS of my own. Maybe you could start a thread about Chinese Geomancy and how Ley lines do or don't exist.

Craig

I don't know who MPWAY or Electric Gravity are.

But...

MPWAY has been dogging Electric Gravity since his first post back in July!!!

What's up with that?

Craig

I had no idea my thread was going to become so entertaining...

Looks really interesting. Nice to see you are going somewhere in your research. I can recall some time ago when you mentioned that which seemed to be the seed of this book.

Well done. I encourage all to check out 5ET's website supporting this book. Seems like a ton of info available for free.

PS - And we wonder why Mr Denney is so reluctant to enter the fray here

Craig

http://www.masterwu.net/wu_lineages.htm

 

Ask VCraigP about this matter he is a student of this look below his Avatar there he place this information.

 

Q

Most of the qigong material Master Wu has taught out is from the Ehmei lineage.

I don't believe he has published any videos of Wudang Longmen Pai material.

Craig

FireDragon

Good clear description of an Orthodox approach to the Healing Tao system.

Standing Qigong is an essential prerequisite to working with Sexual kung fu.

If doing sexual kung fu prior to any serious work in Healing Tao or any other system is a BAD idea. By serious work I mean months and months on basics.

One thing no one yet posted was the goal of moving BEYOND the power lock method.

These are training wheels designed to get your energy under your conscious control.

Power lock is not the goal, just a stepping stone to be mastered then discarded.

I believe with proper preparation the power lock stage can almost be bypassed entirely.

But that means ALOT of proper practice, much as described by FD above.

Craig

 

So, yeah. It'd be nice if we had a modern day version of Yang Luchan, Yang Banhou, Chen Fake, Sun Lutang, or any of the other famous internal guys that everyone likes to tell stories of. Who did these guys teach? Do any of these students have these capabilities? Are these just tall tales? Were these people just geniuses? Were they just lying completely? Was there a grain of truth?

yes you are getting close to what I think I was trying to say.

How many modern people have any inkling whatsoever about real combat arts before gunpowder. Fighting bandits, maybe wild animals. Living in nature. Living off of the land. Being trained according to your masters absolute will, no choice in the matter. Actual death matches. Two masters go into the wilderness, one comes back alive.

does the fact that one cannot find a willing and fully capable IMA to prove to all the skeptics what they want proven (whatever that really is) actually indicate that IMA are not capable of developing true superior power?

Its a mystery. But hey we all know MMA is superior to all that has preceded it and that the western scientific paradigm has already solved all of our problems.

also acupuncture doesn't work and qi isn't real either.

Craig

In the future they may become a little more in your face, a little more opinionated, and a little more controversial.

Hmmm

bring it on. right now your posts elicit a response more like reading an entry in the dictionary. Not really conversation starters which is the whole point I think.

so, yes, I dare you to start an actual conversation. But I guess you have your plan, so, we'll see.

Cheers

Craig

Could this be the oldest discussion topic on the internets??

My view is that Taiji is potentially devestating. however I don't think one student in 10000 is afforded the opportunity to really develop and be exposed to the full curriculum of Taiji training as it had existed in the past.

This means that Taiji players rarely develop to their full potential. Probably more people exist in China who have experienced that level of training, but I doubt that proportion is very much higher than 1 in 10000 also.

And there is a reason this is the oldest discussion topic on the internet. Words can never finish this argument.

Craig

Thank you Immortal for life.

Another in a series of detailed jumping off points for research.

what's next? How many are you going to do?

Craig

By the way, no one is wrongfully "throwing around" the word Kunlun, to my knowledge -- the name is not, and cannot, be copyrighted, like all other geographical names. You can register "Kunlun Wild Goose" or "Kentucky Fried Chicken" as a trade name, but you can't lay claims of ownership or "authenticity" on "Kunlun" or "Kentucky" and expect no one else to use them for their own product. Historically, the name "Kunlun" was used hundreds of times in conjunction with hundreds of practices.

Which also applies to Ermei - Ehmei, Wudang, Huashan, etc. Sometimes even practices originating in the vicinity and not connected with any temple or monastic collective would use a Mountain name.