dogson

UPDATE: I have prematurely awarded the prize to the1gza. I am leaving the country to do intensive training in Taiwan, and as I may be M.I.A for a while, it's important that I keep my word. Thank you to the few people who participated in this challenge. Overall, I was disappointed that this practice-oriented thread generated so little interest, but this is the internet, after all, and in a way the lack of love helped to kick me off the internet entirely and into real practice, which is pretty much the ideal outcome. ---------- Okay! Ladies and Gentlemen! I hereby declare a new 100-day challenge/contest of practice. I really enjoyed the last one started by BKA, but alas, I was very late to the party, and I did not win. So this time, I'll be offering two grand prizes for two special winners. THE CONTEST: SATURDAY, MARCH 7th -> SUNDAY, JUNE 14 POST YO' PRACTICE (IDEALLY 100 DAYS STRAIGHT) THE RULES This contest is limited to the following practices: -chigong / nei gong -energy work of any kind (like shen gong, reiki, whatever your energy practice is) -yoga -trampolines count Post as much as you want: what you did and for how long. Keep a record of how much you're doing. This is on the honor system. GREAT PRIZES FROM DOGSON At the conclusion of the practice period, I will be offering the following prizes: GRAND PRIZE - MOST CONSECUTIVE DAYS OF TRAINING Whoever has the longest streak of training, measured in days, will win the Bruce Frantzis Tai Chi Mastery DVDs. This is quite a lot of material. About 12 DVDs I think, including fighting applications. It is specifically the Wu Style short form. FIRST PRIZE - MOST INSPIRING POSTS I am going to offer another prize for whoever posts the most "inspiring" stuff about their practice during the 100 days. This is totally vague and subject to my whimsy. This is because I'm a libra and also left handed. Seriously though: I feel that inspiration is really valuable, and I think that a great reason to train is in order to enjoy a long beautiful, healthy, creative life. THE PRIZE FOR MOST INSPIRING POSTS WILL BE THE BRUCE FRANTZIS XING YI DVDs - I believe an 8-DVD set, including a separate I-Chuan standing program. PLEASE NOTE: "INSPIRING" DOES NOT INVITE SPAM AND CLICKBAIT. You are not going to win by constant posting clips from the matrix or crouching tiger! Post real stuff about your real practice/life experiences. Yoga note: I'm including yoga because yoga is dope. EDIT: NEW TRAMPOLINE CLAUSE Trampolines are now considered as chi training after my awesome experience with my new rebounder. Admittedly, after I do a 20 minute bounce, I always do some tai chi... but it really opens stuff up. Feel free to post with your trampoline nei gong experiences, trampoline nei gong is totally welcome in this contest, and furthermore, everyone should get a trampoline. *drops mic* LET THE GAMES BEGIN

Now this shit is getting real. Yes, life and death. Very well said. Genetically, different men have different amounts of jing - the guys who can afford to blow it out every day usually end up being rock stars, and then die young. But for a cultivator of any stripe, I truly believe that if a man doesn't at least attempt a 30 day period of abstinence, why even bother cultivating chi at all? So much of the self-help industry and the health industry feels broken due to missing this. Imagine a mechanic who tells you to keep trying different things, replacing parts - meanwhile, you're driving the car with no fuel and no oil. That's the problem in 99% of the cases in this world, and every "hater" is basically just starving from energy suicide, which is also emotional suicide. as per the Demonic side, Leonard Orr writes about this in his books on physical immortality - he calls it the unconscious death urge. Most of western society doesn't believe in god, or any kind of divine force. Straight up, it's just all inert dead matter, so it follows that those people, too, would strive to become dead matter. It's a function of the materialist worldview. The good news is, people are very impressionable, especially at the psychic level. I've posted at length here about Ho'oponopono, forgiveness, as well as just aggressively clearing the energy with raw intent. It's not for the faint of heart. I just feel energy so intensely that I have to do it, much as you have to flush the toilet if it's full of sewage. i used to post my testosterone stack jutsu - various herbs and supplements combined with sunbathing etc - but I think the mentality of being celibate is more powerful, because you begin feeling blessed all the time. Which is better than feeling like an aggressive, sex-starved alpha male, for sure. I'm in Bali right now, and they make offerings at least 3 times a day to the various spiritual forces, and every single day is a holiday of one kind or another. It's so beautiful. I've seen people get into traffic collisions here and both people are just smiling through it. That's the consciousness we're going for. Within that consciousness, everything else is just details. Much love sir. Thanks for your input.

Yeah man, I regularly drop into /r/nofap and I love seeing the similarities between people undertaking it in that community and this one. I mention this to both groups but very few people are interested. It's frustrating that by and large, people are really unwilling to explore outside of their chosen mileu. It's so amazing to be hanging out on reddit, taobums, chilling with yoga people, DJs, producers, finance people, chefs, and to enjoy the creativity and the benefits of all these different people. I think that's real taoism. Look at the world you live in and look at who you are and just explore and develop. Constantly. Look at what habits are sapping the most energy and just evade them, do something else, drink coffee and go to an art gallery. Commit to doing something wildly different instead of getting on the internet when you come home at night.

Cool. That's awesome about the retaining by the way, I go through cycles where it stops being an issue. Further to the point, if you have a specific amount of days in mind (as I do - 100) STAY STRONG if your urges reappear, there's nothing worse than beating yourself up for a slip when you could have that psychological strength. I think at a certain point you do, truly, become "Full" and you can handle a release, but the benefit of psychologically knowing you're at day 65, or day 80 - the benefit of that is huge. So if you have already decided on an amount of time just crush it, if your body actually needs the release that's why nocturnal emissions exists, the will power aspect of knowing you got the victory is important. Creating cycles of confidence and victories, from small ones to huge ones, is the real game of life no matter what you want to accomplish...

I was going to ask about this - I've been concerned about biking and the intense pressure on the perenium/prostate/balls blocking qi flow. Have you noticed this at all? Regarding my lack of involvement with TTB lately, GZA got me thinking about how little discussion of actual practice takes place here, and I realized my time is better served reading books than forum-rolling. My job producing music is spent behind a screen already, so I've been limiting my time on the internet with apps like SelfControl, AntiSocial and Freedom. I'm headed to Taiwan soon for a xing yi immersion. I can literally feel the cell phone side of my head twitching whenever I touch my iPhone 6 (and I don't even put it to my head for phone calls!), which is a pretty strong reason to start shunning electronics for a season. I'm going to award the prize to the1gza, as almost no one else participated in this challenge, and I want to own up to my promise before I leave the country. If I find a good master I may stay indefinitely. GZA, PM me your details and I'll FedEX you a prize. Let me know if you want the xing yi course, the tai chi mastery course, or both. I trust you'll only take what you're committed to using; your discipline in this challenge is truly inspiring and you definitely deserve this material man. Thanks for being an accountability buddy too, and for introducing me to The Book of Internal Exercises.

Self-expression is a human need very often overlooked when taking a completely practical viewpoint. The ones who don't have that need, or who have transcended it, those are the hermits practicing deep in the mountains, the ones I'm going to china to find this summer. I do appreciate your focusing on practice though, that's something I wish TTB focused on more. But forums in general serve as meeting places to share any kind of thoughts or experience. That's the upside and downside of the internet... you can just write whatever nonsense without much fear of what people think. 1 hour xing yi 1 hour meditation

Trained xing yi about an hour today, doubling up on yoga and xingyi class this coming week. Super psyched. April feels good.

Trained 2 hours xing yi today, and about 15 minutes of the ZMQ37 form. Also been studying Bruce Frantzis "tai chi fighting applications" videos which are quite good.

Yep, I reset today too actually. Don't beat yourself up about it too much, it happens. I've never had it happen in my sleep, only once in my life when I was 13. I will say that young coconut meat is said to replenish in one day what normally takes 35 days to totally come back. Other foods that nourish jing/semen: pine nuts (really a seed), pine pollen, pumpkin seeds (one of the best sources of zinc), sunflower seeds, brazil nuts, walnuts, goji berries, schizandra berries, maca, chaga (rich in zinc); oysters; saturated fats of all kinds are good for building hormones. Cholesterol gets a bad rap but you actually need cholesterol to build hormones. Eggs, red meat (especially lamb) are great for building jing for this reason. On the herbal side: ho shu wu, schizandra, deer antler, ant (rich in zinc), eucommia, ashwagandha, astragalus, nettle root And let's not forget Sunlight, especially in the lower quadrants, very important and useful, at least 20 minutes direct exposure.

I'm pretty disappointed in the turnout for this challenge, too. But it does help to remind me that the internet can't take the place of anything - maybe, in the best case, TTB people recognize that and just practice, and probably people think it's redundant to post here as well as in their personal practice threads. Still, I think having discourse about actual practice and experience across time is the best way we can all grow, so thanks for contributing here I will PM you and see what's up.

Interesting, definitely interested in hearing more about this. When did this contact originate? What form does it take? I got the Stephen Chang book today, it's excellent. I'm going to start in on them tomorrow in addition to my xing yi and tai chi practice. And still trampolining. It really helps in the mornings especially.

Your consistency is awesome dude. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Stephen Chang's book, I really want to see what these exercises are all about. Also, welcome to a new reality... at least for me, when I get up around 14-15 days of retaining, energy starts to majorly click on in a cool way. How's your need for sleep, food etc been? I find that these things decrease dramatically after a couple weeks of retianing, especially in conjunction with herbs like ho shu wu, shilajit, shizandra etc.

Hey all, has anyone traveled to Taiwan and trained with anyone there? I'm finally escaping los angeles and, after a yoga intensive in Bali, I plan to travel around Asia looking for a great teacher. I'm familiar with all the racism, language barriers, cultural barriers, preponderance to secrecy and hording of true teachings even with long-term students, so please spare me all of this. I feel like it's my karma to go do this so I'm doing it. What I'd love to hear about is practical information about HK, Taiwan, or India. Where to go as a starting point, and where to avoid. Any information would be greatly appreciated!

I'm really willing to learn any internal art, xingyi feels most practical for me right now but I just really want to be around a realized person. Part of it is a deep desire to learn these arts to preserve them - I have a lot of time to go deep and learn the whole system, Bali, China, wherever...

Your consistency is beast. I actually ordered the Stephen Chang book out of curiosity about your training. Any general thoughts/commentary on how consistent training is effecting your day to day stuff overall? A lot of what I'm doing with my music project is thinking about how to convey how reality is totally different when you start doing some kind of energy work consistently. Like that stuff about interacting with big cities like LA.

1 hour of yoga and some sunset tai chi

Two yoga classes today, and some trampolining

Dope. Remember to do back raises/extensions if your ab strengthening stuff is like crunches/situps etc. If you make the front of your abs strong but not your back you get into postural issues down the road, I only mention this because you seem very consistent with your training I didn't do shit today, but resting can be training, too.

That video clip is a total case in point...wow... "let's get ready to rumble" in our culture is synonymous with "let's do it!" but it's actually saying, "let's get ready to FIGHT." This is why I'm skeptical about this idea... the idea of doing anything has become synonymous with fighting in our psyche.

Just as an aside, reading a lot about Huna right now and Ho'o'ponono (radical forgiveness), I practice this technique of just saying "I love you" continuously, feeling it, and taking 100% responsibility for everything that comes into my experience. It's amazing, and it also has a leveling effect, in the sense that when I'm absorbed in that consciousness and that intent, I really don't have any desire to put my opinion forth anymore. I've been thinking about that a lot - about how "I love you" neutralizes all these thoughts and opinions about things, and how perhaps the nature of ideas and developing and gathering information is by its own nature contentious. It also reminds me of the story of Miyamoto Musashi meeting Munenori while traveling. They both sensed each other's profound warrior spirit, and instead of dueling decided to simply have tea. What are we really looking for when we get on the internet?

Patañjali and the old school Raja Yogis all viewed yoga as meditative absorption...period...and the best modern teachers all say that as well. I love the tidal wave yoga craze right now...I think it's amazing that practically overnight 20 million americans are doing yoga. Even as tourists and spiritual materialists, taking on the aesthetic of wearing mala and sitting in lotus posture, no matter how vapid that is, compare it to what we see turning on the TV - people mass-murdering each other and blowing stuff up. Hell on earth basically. So the yoga industry has gone to $1 Billion in the US alone, that's epic... America's culture is commercialization and mass commodification, that's our culture and our religion. Again, on a macro scale, it's awesome. Look at it from an archetypal perspective - it's about taking something, and expanding it to its apotheosis and making it amass so much energy that it changes the whole planet. It's about taking our ego and making it godlike through money. And if you really look at the richest people, as soon as they amass wealth they realize the emptiness of material stuff and become spiritual. Every single millionaire and multi-millionaire knows intrinsically that wealth and creativity is about energy and that in order to be successful you clean up your own energy and your thoughts, because being energetically impeccable is required to maintain that level of success. Wanting siddhis and superpowers is natural for sure. From the first gesture of tai chi I did, from the first page of the tao te ching I read at 13, I could feel chi and the reality that we're profound beings. Just like being a little kid and seeing all the powers adults have, it's natural to want to grow up fast. But just like entering the adult world, now we look back and think about how dope it was before we had to deal with bills, and insurance drama, and workplace politics and all the pointless nuances of keeping like, cleaning supplies stocked around the house and all this stuff... being a kid you could just explore wildly. The same is true of being a siddha in my experience... being psychic, being able to clear energy fields at will, being "grown up" in that way, there comes a tremendous responsibility that... almost no one in our society can do this, so it's up to me. I could be the only one in los angeles willing to clean the energy, for all I know. If I go to a movie theater or a concert, it's on me to clean the energy, to bring relentless positivity when I drive everywhere, to do everything in my power to create a better world. That's a high price for being a jedi It really works like that. Just like all the old texts say, if you start screwing around and trying to do selfish things with the siddhis, you lose them, because the very consciousness of being NOT a limited individual - dwelling in superconsciousness, or the field, or Krishna Consciousness, or the zero point energy, whatever you wanna call it... being nondual is what makes them work. Being selfish takes you out of that oneness, which is why these powers aren't seen anymore. It's the cult of the I ... which is the only thing people are actually suffering from. Any training I do is the same, bouncing on a rebounder or looking someone in the eye, it's just... "I love you." To the oneness.

Impressed at how consistent you're keeping with all these different exercises, even for a few minutes, I just picked up the book for a penny on amazon. Fadness, yeah, that stuff just passes through me. If a fad continues long enough I check it out like I would a famous restaurant nearby...if for no other reason, having tried it allows me to pass a style along to someone else whose life might really be changed by it. Rebounding appeals to me because it's just really fun and playful, whereas lots of other things are just dreadfully serious. And it's easy to multitask - sometimes I just bounce on it and channel a hip hop track completely in my head for an hour... I hear the hook, how I want the kick and the snares to be hitting, the reverb, the samples, the verses... it's much easier for me to just "hear" this stuff when I'm very relaxed. If I'm staring at a screen it's almost impossible. So rebounding is sacred to me insofar as it keeps me very loose and playful, which to me is the quintessence of spirituality.

I originally got the rebounder because I moved to LA last fall, and typically I feel horrible when I wake up. The city is really polluted compared to where I was living in Colorado. I needed a way to open up my entire body really fast and shake all the stagnant chi loose. So, I got the rebounder and realized that after about 20 minutes, when I stepped off, my chi vibrates like crazy. It makes sense if you think about it - chi is closely bound to blood flow, and rebounding moves everything through your body in a very low-impact way. That's why I consider it chi training.

My trampoline game is tight today. No other training.

this thread is tight