Rocky Lionmouth

My advice is to find a book or video to describe a practice that is also easy to find other resources for, like 8 Section Brocade as was mentioned. Yang style 6-form is great also, compact and easy to remember, LOTS to work on if you're curious and scientific in your approach I'd recommend staying out of the theoretical beginners litterature and focus on the exercises. One day you'll meet a teacher whom you'd like to study with and let her/him explain the necessary theory in their words in a way that suits your shared communication. Dont "fill your cup" with the popular stuff that floats around the market. Ken Cohens book "Way of Qigong: art and science of chinese energy healing" was my first book, shed some light on some basic stuff but i still struggle today with eliminating "stuff i believed i understood" from first reading it. So easy to think one has a overview from books and applying that to the experiences. In my opinion simply learning exercises and staying open to the feedback they give you about your body is worth reading a thousand books who skim through obscure alchemy references or tcm-tech-talk. Get a friend to watch the video and give you feedback on posture and stuff like that.

Isnt one of the Taiwan wulungs packed in bags with a landscape and a red locomotive on it? That one is seriously tasty anyways.

Doing something wrong is the best way to do it better later on. Plus, sometimes one cannot help doing wrong, because boundaries are meantt o be discovered and crossed. If one hits a boundary one might feel like one did something wrong, when all you did, figuratively speaking, was hit a place where a different strategy is needed. I get really caught up in saying the right thing, doing right by this and that, often so much that just doing something the wrong way would have been tons better than to get stuck doing something just right. Right and wrong have no absolute or intrinsic practical value without their relationship to goals, methods, strategies, just like "worse" and "better", thats my opinion at least. And their implied judgemental value, that one is better just because its right is terrible. Makes everyone mess themselves up along with each other. I'm wrong all the time, even when im right, thats just the truth of it.

I suspected as much. But it does fall into quite a linear result so it's expected, even if it is an injustice! Since i sense no one wants to talk about hats i felt this might fit in here: The issue of the meanig of Tao, to me today and in this certain period of exploring understanding, arises when strict principle is applied to a generalized concept or process. So we say meaning of Tao is unspeakable (sorry for misapropriation of the term) and while these unmentionables are in fact discussable it'd require perfect knowledge to have any large relevance, which i believe is impossible to achieve. It's impossible to know everything because its an infinite and ever developing and changing set of data, all that is possible is to take a budding natural philosophers stance and let oneself be sucked into the spiral of specifics and everlasting discovery of whatever is there. So in my ignorance it sort of boils down to probability and usefulness of said (un/re)learnings and discoveries, and who is to say any piece of learning is discardable in favour of another? There is a point of trying to apply meta-structure to knowledge, but i'm convinced the topmost abstraction appliable to specifics is going to be "there is a whole, and within it an constant dynamic interplay of complementary forces" as represented by the tai chi symbol. Even if this whole isn't The Whole, or a hole in the boat, but only the isolated situation of a person observing something. I'm afraid i make no sense, shouldn't have had that last beer tonight... XP

Plot twist: If a tree falls in the woods, does anyone help it up?

Generally speaking: Wouldnt it be advisable to generally accustom oneself to do relaxing and contracting as evenly as possible in the beginning and when one is fairly proficient in truly relaxing the tension start to experiment with directions? I noticed after a while that trying to achieve a "directional tension" i kept tensing other stuff that was difficult to relax in between. Nowadays i do basic basic basic and just try to expand the awarness of the area from tailbone to front and the pelvic floor, see what stuff i can move and how these tensions propagate, ming men area tends to become stiff. Anyone else notice a shift in the center of balance when contracting and expanding? Still trying to figure out exactly how it fits together. Might be im just fat enough that my potbelly moving sways the whole body

My grandmothers whole family had a iodine obession, they usuall stated that being near or even better in the sea when waves were crashing was the best way to breathe it in from nature, but generally just hanging out on the beach was fine, not as good as crashing waves method mind you. Growing up with these elders who'd shuffle out on any pier they could get their hands on was quite funny. It was only later that i realized so many people around me and even more frighteningly, family members. I can count three close relatives who have had their thyroids removed and the long term issues were noticeable. Now you too say iodine has these wondrous properties and i could do with a boost, would you say iodinized kitchen salt is a good secondary source Source? Would just dripping a drop of iodine solution (that sepia tone black liquid sold for disinfection and such) directly on the skin be more direct?

Thanks, thats basically all i wanted to know

This is interesting, would you please elaborate my friend?

Sorry about your friend Shanlung.

Edit: silly post, never mind.

I agree, focusing on one discipline in honest is the way for success, but not only. Success is just as ashy and empty as the rest. But if you're lucky you find your passion(s) and thats a whole different pair of pants my friends. Homestly i think there is room for expanding out dedication in things that complement and synergize with ones discipline of choice. Just stick with one thing per area and i believe its possible to juggle more than one passion, one of them will lead the way in the others and then they switch for a while and the other takes point and leads the group into new dimensions and adventures. Making more out of the little one has, and realizing even just one small and tiny art cannot be mastered within a lifespan is probably crucial. Its physically impossible, im quite sure. Im trying to stay aware im just along for the ride no matter how deep and true my dedication is. So i hope to have the opportunity to learn and pass on as much as possible to likeminded individuals who ride along a bit further. Until then, plenty of time to be a student. A top quality student can learn anything even if she has no teacher, so thats what im trying to be.

Edit: Pinch of salt before reading perhaps, im not offering an answer to the question, merely posing new ones. If OP want to do qigong then do, i've just been ruminating and the following keeps coming up: Stretching and massages might help you get started at least? It's easy to see all that is missing when one gets back into a thing and be frustrated over it, but clearing the path anew might give you deeper insights and new knowledge, if you see the path of return as a hurdle you might get stuck on the idealized image of the past experience? Start out slow with what you aim to do and let your body take its course through it, if you start mixing in yet another discipline to get back to something you know already you might get stuck in that as well right? I'd recommend a kung fu approach to it: work on and analyze body structure and how it works for you (not the other way around), focus a lot on footwork drills and aim for relaxed explosive power and deep breathing. Idk if this helps.

Well i am slightly insane so it figures. Grounding food, would that be stuff that strengthens earth and metal or plain and basic stuff with no extravagance?

This full moon business is a dilemma. I usually cant sleep while its up (mentioned it in another thread) and my energy is amped up and restless. There is an increase in both stagnation (stiff and heavy extremities, skin feels tight, i feel the cold a lot more, thinking is more muddled) and any qi-related exercises i do give louder response and have have longer lasting effects, so it goes both ways. This goes for meditation, qigong and gong fu. All in all it feels as though theres a stronger interplay between yang and yin, maybe a lot of yin is moving during full moon and internal yang moves to answer? But the whole thing is rather unsettling since full moon time is always a period of disturbances, i have sleep disorder most of the time anyway but full moon time is qualitatively different. I dont eat very healthy and i'm in a low place lately so that factors in of course.

I think what differentiates us from animals is our outlook that we are somehow different from them and i believe that our continuos and cruel disrespect towards animals and their feelings will change from matter of opinion to hard truth, but i am vegetarian because of the food industry, because they treat animals like bags of sand. But i'm also an urbanized comfort junkie so i havent gone all "self sufficient farmer hippie" for the sake of principle so yeah, errr, you get the picture, Also i entertain the idea that my cats are two of my closest friends ever that consciously not only look to me for help and shelter but also offer support and trust, so i'm very biased towards a solidary stance on treating all life with respect and compassion. I believe almost any living creature has personality, but it's really not so important wether they do or not, it how we treat those we come into contact with that matters the most in my not so humble opinion. All Hollywood scenarios set aside there's a lot to be said and done about humans, flora and fauna and how they all interact. Also, im convinced that since we claim to know better than "them", we should act accordingly and not use the difficulty of discerning sentience and the like as a shield for behaving like sociopathic children on a sugar high. Also, since im just making a statement i also sense that im done and you're tired of my blabeitblabla so i shall now retire for a spell

Well, since hollywoodesque situations are the big thing now i propose another immaginary extreme: if someone human were to try to kick a cat and you had the possibility to stop this by punching them in the face, would you hurt another human and possibly hurt them seriously (might fall to the ground, fracture their skull etc etc) for the sake of a cat?

Personality is not unique to humans in my experience, some of those i have met have no personality whatsoever.

Now birds yell "MORNING!" A voice coughs politely, "Hi..." says Insomnia

The chance came and went Sandman threw dust on mirror Now birds yell "MORNING!"

Stay a while, dont go One of dew and newspapers The chance came and went

Had this for a long time, however with adjustments of aligning and finding and releasing deeper tensions it balanced out better.

Thanks, so we're still in it together, good! Tings story follows me around like a ghost so he popped out pretty fluidly, but then again that part has relevance on so much its coming out the woodworks. Now i have to go back and eye this thing about heaven for the few. My questions will rest for now, thanks for the help! Happy weekend!

Humble question of uneducated meddler: Am i following this correctly? If a tool is to be used for sustenance it needs to be well taken care of. Wether its a fishing rod or a language, if not cared for then its useless and does not do the job correctly. If the material is of poor quality theres little short of magic to prevent a poor result. Wood needs to be oiled and stored properly, language needs to be honed and used like that old butchers knife. But a fishing rod has no point unless you catch fish with it. Language has no point unless people speak it with each other. But the the tool is not the craftsman nor the client, right? Sorry to interrupt but i felt lost in here. PS, both my language and mind are more of hammers and baseball bats, sorty if im over simplifying this.

Yup, agreeing with previous posts: a lasting practice has them both, external frames internal and internal supports and develops external. In martial arts it seems to me they are used to distinguish two initially different approaches that point to later work where the two are unified. Of course they're also used to describe different things across different styles and to different level practicioners so the confusion and discussion also arises in semiotics.