Leif

OK similar to what Flolfolil says, it's a kind of flashy website designed in 1990's-2000s look and heavy media (sound on the background, video, flash) I usually close within 5-10 seconds after a short skim if that's something that's only of a casual interest to me or if there's many websites on same topic. But if I was after some specific info, in this case if I'd be researching white crane kungfu or local kungfu teacher, because I'd be interested in learning, it's much less of an issue and content is the king. Don't know whether I'm typical user in that respect, though. Some details: Once I enter the main page http://www.whitecranegongfu.info/welcome.html, first screen is full of fluff. One has to scroll one screen down to find actual content. That might get you loose some less serious visitors (but one or two more serious ones too - in this age people are just used to quickly skimming and acting on intuition first, before starting actual reading). Similar the entrance page - just one more click one has to make. Design is also not completely mobile friendly - problem might be worse with mobile phone users like iPhone, I only tested with iPad and content is still there though it's not particularly iPad friendly - full of messages about not being able to display the Adobe Flash content. Some text is a bit too intense for me but then it might be in spirit of the art and tradition, that's personal thing and I can take it on personal site like this (ie. site that represents certain sifu or lineage).

If it's not a virus, could be a browser toolbar - check that you don't have some new toolbars in your browser installed.

Austrians are way ahead though, you can have a pasta strainer on driving license there: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523 Which brings me to an important thought, once I'm bald can I have that strainer with spaghetti LOL

While the underlying topics remain valid for the discussion, this particular ID case is completely misinterpreted by those who published it, it doesn't comply with the law and there was no "small win" involved, He was issued a temporary ID, not full ID, based on a benevolency in legal terms interpretation of a single ID issuing officer. At the same time the officer asked the Ministry to issue an explanation how to handle cases like this. But the case is relatively clear, so it's almost sure Lukas Novy will not get a real full ID, unless strainer is down. Simply because Pastafarians are not legally recognized as a church in Czech republic. (It shouldn't be extremely hard to get Pastafarians recognized though, but I doubt anybody will bother with it, it's just a show-off of people around the Pirate party.)

You are posting on a teacher that nobody likely mentioned here yet. There are hundreds of teachers like this. If you post, even against him, it will go against your intention - you drive traffic to him and maybe students too. You boost his website and youtube video rankings by linking to them from an authority on-topic website like this, which again increases their traffic and number of students eventually. Just my humble opinion, but if you hold grudge against someone like this, it's best to react only when someone asks about them. In most cases like this, whatever you do, will work against what you actually intended to do. (At least that's what my little bit of business and online marketing experience tells me.)

Sounds like a good idea!

My friend says there are many muscles all over the body and if you pump them with iron enough and often you get like 10 years younger just after few months. And once tired to the limit, he uses his mind too, to push himself to do the extra few benchpress repetitions. There are many levels of understanding to how human body works, and there are many models of that (Cyndi Dale has book on energy system that lists number of those). Your friend is right, my friend is right (and Kuan Sai Hung I even fear to type his name LOL.) If Sifu Terry says to not to refer to the traditional taoist system like MCO, and if you consider him your teacher, .... well. He says it for a reason. I have much less experience with FP than you do (hats down to your dedication and long hours you put in), this might be entirely fabrication of my untrained mind and lack of words: FP energy seems to be all -permeating, covering, don't know how to say - it's not like other meridian or organ or element or dantien or whatever based systems. Will this all-permeating energy still work on the organ and meridian and dantien, well yes, but not as directly as eg. purely meridian based system. And perhaps more importantly. You are someone who is after higher goals (ie. not just health or exercise) that's clear. This system is taught this way so that you can UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN BODY and reach those higher levels. In other systems you do "oh now I work on my lung meridian, oh now I fill the dantien, now let's do some MCO". Here you listen to your body and through your direct experience you learn what's actually going on (oversimplified, but what isn't when you put it into words). Well I'm not at that level with FP to understand what's going on. But followed some other fairly different teaching, where the sifu has similar approach. Finally I got part of it yesterday (albeit just a relatively small thing that it was) - undisputable internal understanding what actually goes on. Only then was I thankful he didn't lay the roadmap for me. There is a big difference getting it on your own, and following roadmap thinking that's it. If you were told steps by steps what goes on you become qigong robot, whereas if you find on your own you become a master of your own existence. Understanding of that cannot be fully transferred in words nor models. (And just a sidenote, what would happen if Sifu would lay out exact model of what was going on, suddenly we would have hundreds of FP qigong masters all over the internet all with intellectual grasp but no experience nor ability ready to discuss and teach others.) A lot of misunderstandings here come from a] saying what others wrote in our own words, instead of actually quoting the relevant post b] taking words too literally, without studying them in context and particularly in context of other posts (eg. there are tens of posts on combining with other systems, or on how FP differs from the more mainstream, each has somewhat different flare and meaning as usually in reply to an individual post, studying all these gives much better picture then picking words from individual posts to prove our points) and there are just some levels of discussion where doing so over internet is a dead end (I'd have to spend hours here if I wanted to be completely correct in potential replies to some of the posts, ie. quoting exact words, including perspectives needed, connecting to other posts on topic that shed more light or fill in part of puzzle,...). As for the respect, no comments that's too finegrained topic for me to take part in, only on related note I don't think it's helpful to push opinions of your friend how to do pranayama with qigong then saying he actually has no or watered down qigong or from books (not exact quote but something along that line). Or pushing informations (and OK I think the query about whether FP actually really contains 500 exercises was legitimate, I mean pushing the info that FP should be done in different way than how Sifu teaches) from the other person who trained with GMDW when we all know who it was and that sifu earlier contradicted some of what that student said. You are still spiritual shopping and you over intellectualize and you know that well :-). That's meant in good way, as again I'm sure you know that well, and I and others on this board do that too (just we are not as intensive I'd say). Enlightenment was achieved by people doing the simplest of things, like meditating on sound or breath or even it just happened to some out of the blue. Sifu of another, much simpler system, said same things 1) their simple system is all you need 2) there is no transmission, and guess what - there are people who don't believe what they said. Spiritual evolution is not about intellectualization of the path but opposite of it, living it. Many answers are found on the road as a result of practice, and often that's the only right time for them to emerge not before. The thing is, does FP work for you? Worst post ever. I think I'll delete it soon :-)

Antares this post from 2011 is worth reading http://thetaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/?p=297619 (covers a lot about in which ways exactly FP doesn't fit traditional roadmap, mixing systems, and more)

I have only posted the JAJ reference, as an argument against generalizations, and that every case is specific. (Generalizations of the type, it must take x hours at most, there are xxxxx people in every bigger city who can handle this,.....). It wasn't meant to compare JAJ case with Crunchy's case.

puretruth01 http://thetaobums.com/user/88349-puretruth01/

That's very important. How do you know that this is her tactic. Woudn't it be more likely that's this is what she really perceives for the situation? It's incredibly dishonest if anyone is employing such tactics. Does she really employ such tactics, or is it how she honestly thinks the situation is? Yes that also got me thinking quite a bit. Not that I came to any conclusion....(not that I'm even near a position to be able to)...as you say it can be framed from many different perspectives, great you pointed it out. Pedestal, that's what many of us do when we turn to her, I don't feel it's her intention. If she said it exactly as it is written, that would raise some concern. If that's how they understood what she said, that would be another case. Her words come out quite intense. I too felt being quite lost and that she is the only option, when I read some of her posts, but I was not in the good state and that was my interpretation not her words (still I have no clue what she actually really said to SethAnanda's partner and others and not commenting on that, only on what I read from her posts). As for "it doesn't take 120 hours for sure" - Jerry Alan Johnsons' book contains an account of case that took 6 weeks (albeit I don't know how that would translate to hours, just pointing out that it doesn't look like all cases can be handled in a single hour session by a local exorcism hobbyist).

Each entity case is different. It could as well make the entity stronger.

What Jenny Lamb charges I believe might be on individual basis and maybe not even her decision alone, if that was true I'd try to meditate on the reason behind such amount. Anyway, on the other possibilities, not something I can recommend just avenues I'd try to explore if I was in similar position, apart from what has been mentioned in the thread already: - http://www.sstt-institute.org/aboutus.html (Maoshan lineage of spirit fighting) - Jerry Alan Johnson or someone from his circle - for self-help, I'd check with Santiago Dobles who teaches psychic self defense classes, about his opinion on taking PSD class for this

It wasn't that bad for him, after 400 ! retreat days he actually came to some realizations, LOL : Though he seems like an intelligent guy by western education standards. Personal crisis, or just slow learner? As for the mental health of the participants, unless there is some real statistics, there's no point in discussing.

I would finally feel connected directly to the source and spend less time procrastinating sitting behind the computer. Though I would prefer belt over necklace, putting the RJ45 right on the dantien.

Frantzis and his students teach in UK (and elsewhere in Europe). Shaolin Wahnam courses are I believe available in UK and Spain. Wild Goose qigong master is in UK. There must be many more,

It could be there's larger choice off the market . Ie. one on one from a teacher. Just much harder to find and more complicated for most folks. Out of what's on the public market, if there was no FP nor SYG, I'd choose Yi Gong though the chance to receive authentic teaching for level 2 and 3 is small. I place teacher as a criterion same as or even higher than the system. With those very spiritual or esoteric systems, I got a feeling that they are of course a bit hidden and they don't necessarily teach all levels anyway, sometimes not even to top picked-up personal students. Take Tao Tan Pai for example. Or the Wild Goose system I believe. Maybe even Bruce Frantzis, do I recollect correcly that he received transmission from his sifu? But that doesn't matter for a standard student, what he shares publically (I have no clue about what he shares with top personal students) is just part of what he received and I doubt it includes any kind of what's called transmission. Btw. YaMu on this forum gives transmission with his system. And Tai Shang Men is a publically accessible taoist sect which has some energetic system and they also give some kind of transmission, https://www.facebook.com/events/345257788909902/ Of course just a noob opinion from me: a] so that it's faster and more motivating etc. to spend all time on just one system at the time b] even more importantly, so that you have a better feeling for cause and effect. Let's say you do both SYG and FP and you notice some energetic changes after a couple of days or weeks, how can you be sure as for whether it was due to SYG or FP or FP+SYG, whereas if you practice just one it's then easier to understand the subtler effects of each of the meditations. And that's the goal, meditations are a vehicle for your listening skills (at least from my little SYG point of view understanding).

I had a chance for a brief look at Johnson's daoist magic texts and while it's "Wow", as far as I'm concerned BFP meds - SYG and FP - are higher magic in my world so yes I think that's accepted and was posted couple of times in this thread in past, that BFP arts are compatible and can be mixed. Where Sifu recently said not to mix, I felt it was more from the point of view that it's better to master one system first, then move over to learning others. (I'm mixing a little bit too and it's due to health benefits my body is hungry for a certain SYG sitting med and I can't see myself waiting for becoming proficient with FP first... but I don't do them in same session) Yes that's what confused my initially with SYG - 72 levels. Now it being 72 meds it sounds a bit more doable. As for FP levels, the website that sells level 2 meds has just 4 of them (and levels 3-5 offered but "sold out"), the other website has 5 sections just for level 2, in total 41 meditations for level 2. Even for level 1 yet another offers level 1 with 6 seated and 6 standing.

IMHO that's about Daoist magic lineages, not Daoist lineages. I might be wrong with what I perceive as your criteria for selecting what to study, but I'm quite surprised that you consider Kunlun. Kunlun at least regarding how it´s taught now (ie. not Yigong) was assembled in 21st century, albeit from traditional teachings from close lineages. Nothing bad about that, I just felt you are looking for something completely pure from traditional point of view? Interesting (in regards to what's also been discussed here about whether FP is enough) about Kunlun is that the Yigong sifu claimed that Kunlun level 1 is all you need. And level 1 is a "simple" spontaneous qigong. And that she even doesn't know how old the Yigong lineage is she just didn't care about it when she learned. She even didn't ask her qigong teacher anything about system she wanted to learn from him, she just felt he was the right person so jumped for the opportunity. And also that even despite that's all that one needs, she also studies buddhism etc. Sticking with FP you are not closing any doors, if you didn't so already maybe you'll sooner or later find something that'll suit your criteria more, or maybe you'll fall for FP completely. If you'll switch or diminish FP, what you got from FP will likely also contribute to your new efforts it's not time wasted. Not speaking about it contributing to your current situation (at least I hope so, FP bringing results in real time). It might be even FP what will bring you to new destiny one never knows? The person who told you about 18 levels of FP, they also claimed they have many other systems from GMDW, so perhaps it's not out of human's reach (for sure it seems to me out of reach, but myself I don't care much, I'll be happy with the capstone moving meditation) and one doesn't have to recite breathing percentages for all the couple hundreds out of memory I'm sure. Maybe Sifu Terry will clarify more about FP levels etc. once he's back to the thread (but for me I can't be bothered as much only striving for personal results (health etc.) not system results (ranks nor levels) and what I got works so I'm happy, but we all have different personal goals that's sure).

I didn't express myself clearly enough I'm sorry, I wanted to say that Sifu says back in the thread, ie. that this question has been answered by him already. Eg. here: http://thetaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/page-51#entry248237 so I wasn't that off with the "around half of the system". but there are more posts from him describing the details of what wasn't published yet, and what will never be published.

Back in the thread, I believe it was posted that so far around half of the system is published, and that something more might be released in the near future too. But don't quote me on that, I might be wrong.

Amusingly enough, Frantzis writes in his energy gates book, that one shouldn't let what you consider a negative personality trait to stop you from learning from someone with authentic knowledge, did he have himself on mind LOL. I'm grateful for his books actually. Apart from all the rumors, I stopped considering Chia's material after all the horror stories with his sexual qigong techniques, and after the legal case he lost about plagiarizing content from someone else's book.

As for FP, I have experienced some movements or more exactly vibrations/rocking. Here's something by Sifu Terry on spontaneous movements in Flying Phoenix: http://thetaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/page-74#entry336388

I have never heard about these numbers 50 and 20 in connection with FP, and from the little research I didn in the past I believe VHS I could locate information about seemed almost same as DVDs in terms of content. Best to ask directly in FP thread.

Were the VHS by Sifu Terry or different author?