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I have this issue, though not as bad as what you describe. Being physically active helps me the most, but I'll agree that my hands have not been nearly as cold as they used to be since I started really focusing on relaxing my shoulders & proper posture, as well as all the internal martial arts and qigong I've been doing over the past few years. I actually didn't really realize how much better it's become since I started doing all that, till I read this thread, and thought "hey, I used to have that problem!". My Mom has the same issue, except all over her body But then many women do. She's always cold. So I'll say that yeah, it's genetic, in the sense that what causes the issue in other people in your family is likely to cause it for you. If you have a predisposition for blockages or being tense/anxious. I have found out just recently that a few of my immediate family members are or were on anti-anxiety medications. I guess we don't talk enough...I have had some anxiety issues, but either mine or much more mellow than theirs, or I've learned how to overcome mine better, because I definitely don't have anything I'd take medication for. But I think that learning to relax has loosened up my shoulders quite a bit, and increased blood flow in my arms and hands. If you're going to start drinking only distilled water, take the same precautions as with reverse osmosis water: add a drop of trace minerals, otherwise you may cause as many problems as you cure.

Oh I agree with that. For me, hunting is exciting. Everything up to when I come up to the animal after I've shot it. Sometimes it still has a little life in it, other times not. Every time, I'm a little sad that I took a life. A 100-500 pound land mammal is a very different thing to take the life of, for most of us, than a fish. Or even a bird, really. It probably shouldn't be, but it is. For me, anyways. Too much like my dog. It's not the labor that would turn most people off (most people I know bring their deer and elk to a butcher/wild game processor anyways), though it does stop quite a few, it's the actually act of killing, and the immediate aftermath of understanding what you've done. That is the part that I have to continually decide whether I'm ok with. That is part I refuse to contract out to someone else if I ever lose the stomach to do it. If that happens, I stop eating meat. Agreed, there's something very special about sitting down to a dinner of meat and veggies that you killed, processed, grew and plucked out of the ground. It takes a lot of the work out of actually making an effort to think of where your food came from, and have a connection to it. It makes me think that way about everything I eat now. I can't even think of most things that I'm fed at meetings and conferences as "food". It's edible, but has no value other than caloric.

I agree. That was another part of the deal I made with myself, and it made me hesitant to hunt...if I shot something, and was all torn up about it for months, weeks, or even days...well, maybe I'm not a meat eater after all. If I can't do it, do I feel good about someone else doing it for me? This is a standard I hold no one but myself up to, but I think if more people were this way, we'd have way less meat consumption, which would unarguably be a good thing. It's insane how much water alone it takes to raise cattle, not to mention all that it takes to feed them, and the waste entering the water supply from the feedlots full of them. A lot of people are in an area where they can't hunt, and I get that. But I think if we all really understood what it takes, and what toll it takes, to put that meat on our table, we'd at least cut down quite a bit on how much we eat.

Agreed. I do still say...we as humans, we alone have the choice. I wouldn't say you should feel bad about eating meat, but I think it's an important point. Every other living being is just doing what it does naturally. Even though as I'm writing this I'm smiling to myself because that's exactly what the Tao says us humans should do, too...but I can understand why a lot of people would be vegetarian. We have the choice, to not kill another animal for food. We have to kill plants, but most of us would agree that's a lesser "evil". We can choose to kill an animal for meat, or not. As much as we're just another part of the natural system, I can't help but think we're somehow different, if only in the sense that we can choose what our diet will consist of. But if we're trying to be "natural"...well, I just don't know. I like my meat, feel healthy when I eat it, and for now, have come to terms with the killing part.

It's a good question. I haven't studied the classics like I should, so I don't know. It makes sense to me that Buddhists, believing all beings are sentient and should not be harmed, might choose no meat. It makes sense to me from a moral standpoint to be vegetarian. I can see both sides. But when it became understood that eating meat doesn't jive with spirituality (if that did in fact ever really happen), I don't know. But then when did Jesus say "thou shalt not allow women or blacks into thy church or clergy, thou shalt damn to hell anyone who does not receive Jesus Christ as their personal savior", etc... So probably it became indoctrinated when someone with a high position and persuasive powers decided they didn't think eat meat was kosher : )

I usually get my fish from our natural food store, and I get the stuff that says "wild caught". I'll admit that fish isn't necessarily a better meat to get from the store, but I think in most non-farmed situations, it's much cleaner (other than mercury...) than any land-animal meat. Either way, that's been my choice. No farm animals, red meat, or anything like that in my house from the grocery store. But I'll allow fresh, fished salmon and some other fishes. Too expensive to do very often. It's a pretty "loose" rule, I don't say that I must not eat that stuff, but I've been surprised at how well I've followed those guidelines. The Taoist monks I met were vegetarian. Most of the "regular" taoists I met were omnivores.

If I get a deer (and hopefully someday an elk!), I don't bring any store bought meat into my house, except some fish here and there. I'll still eat meat now and then if I eat out, but I don't buy it from the grocery store. At least until I run out of deer...but this year I ran out in July, and so far I have yet to bring anything but fish home from the grocery store. It's a little deal I made with myself when I started hunting, and it's been a really good thing for me. I'm very lucky to live in an area of the world, and country, where it's very convenient to go out and get your own meat. I butcher it, too. It's very cool to know what's happened, in person, to my meat from the time that it was walking in the mountains, to when it makes it onto my plate. Can also test whether you're really as much of a carnivore as you think! I usually need to wait at least a week after butchering my deer before I can bring myself to eat it.

As, in some sense, it should be.

I think the whole "we were meant to eat this or that" argument is a moot point, at this point. Eat the way you feel is in stride with the life you want to live. Yeah we were "meant" to eat meat. But we can survive without it. So if you want to be a vegetarian, or even a *gasp* vegan, go ahead! You will live. You have the option of not killing anything with a face, and you will survive. It's ok. That's the beauty, and burden, of being a human. You have the choice.you can live by certain ideals, whether or not your body, in a strictly physiological way (and this is not without debate), was "meant" to eat meat. I do well with meat. I feel good when i get a reasonable amount of quality meat. I hunt. I don't enjoy killing, but for now, I've decided I'm a meat eater, and will do my best to eat quality, clean, well treated meat. Not something abused, living in its own excrement, slaughtered in conditions so unclean they feel the need to irradiate the meat. And I eat a LOT of veggies and fruit, and very little processed food. Whether its quinoa bread or white wheat flour bread, I feel that when you take a grain and grind it into flour and make something out of that, you're getting into "processed food" territory. So i eat very little of that. And my body feels good. Not sure what the future will bring...I know my body does better when I get some meat, but who knows? Maybe someday ill decide its not worth it, and feel worse, but kill no animals. I think some body types do much better without meat than others. But whatever the body does better on, it's your choice. Even if that choice is starving yourself, cause in the end, in order for you to live, something must die.

I REALLY like this movie. The DVD can be rented from Netflix. I almost turned it off thirty minutes in the first time...but stuck it out and ended up watching it a second time before returning it. It's in my queue again and I'm looking forward to seeing it again soon.

I hold my arms somewhere just below my nipples, and actually almost in line with them. Not up any higher than that, except when I do a different kind of standing which seems to be unique to my teachers lineage... It actually has the palms facing down, elbows dropped, hands about level with the chin.

So I think it's just a matter of one being more meditative than the other, but I notice that in that link anyways, the arms are very low. I was shown the way of holding my arms much higher, and to look at the tips of my middle fingers, or close my eyes. Are there different benefits to holding the arms lower vs higher? For some reason the standing drained me this morning...got really shaky and the muscles around my knees were spent for about 45 minutes. But I was trying some of the suggestions in this thread, so I was probably doing something my body wasn't used to.

I won't say they're independent, I'm just saying that a lot of the old temples in Wudang were not destroyed when so much of the rest of Chinese history was. Lucky for them. The old buildings live on...the authentic traditions...? Maybe not so much. The culture seems to have been hurt just like the rest of China. I only meant to say that the temples there are very old, definitely not destroyed only 20 or 30 years ago.

Wudang survived the cultural revolution fairly intact. Most of the monks and martial arts masters left, but the buildings/temples were spared. For the past 20 or years, they've been getting masters to come back. It's not what it was, but there are absolutely very old temples all over Wudang.

Amen. I mean...yes.

A guy I met said his teacher (a taoist and internal martial arts master) told him that they keep their hair long because it shows respect to your parents. They gave you the hair, so you show them respect by not cutting it. The bun on top of their heads I think was a way of connecting with heaven energies, and also it protected that spot from getting hit in a battle. But I heard a lot of conflicting stuff from Taoists on these sorts of things, so I take it all with a grain of salt.

I was in China for a month this spring, and spent 2 weeks on Wudang Mountain. The schools...are not great. Most of the teachers it seems have resigned themselves to the fact that they'll be getting a lot of Western students who don't have the drive to really master any of the arts, and so that's how they teach. It's very watered down, from what I can tell. I was lucky enough to get introduced to a former teacher at one of the academies, who quit because he didn't feel they were teaching the authentic arts anymore. He would teach if you were introduced to him through someone he knew. It wouldn't be a bad experience to go, but don't go expecting an authentic experience. The teachers, from what I could tell, are mostly just going to go through the motions and give you some form or other to learn. The taoist temples are very much tourist traps. Worth seeing, but kind of sad...the monks are all taking care of the tourists, and don't seem to get solitude or practice time, and the Chinese tourists come by the busload. Most of them treat the temple like an amusement park, climbing on sculptures, throwing trash on the floor, taking photos and generally showing no respect. They'll also gawk, stare, take photos, copy what you're doing and practically make fun of you while you're trying to train. This was my experience on Wudang, anyways...but I probably wouldn't do it differently, if I had it to do over again. Aside from the tourists and the sad state of the monks lives, it was a good experience. At least they are now able and encouraged to practice, even if only for the government to create another tourism industry out of them. Whatever you do, have fun! Taoism (in temples) and martial arts (open to westerners) is in a pretty sad state, but at least it's there. It's cool stuff to see, even though it's past its prime.

Interesting stuff. Not enough time to get through it all...but it looks like it starts falling apart a bit after page 6 anyways. ChiDragon, I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say there. Could you try again?

I hate to do it, but this is actually a pretty good description... http://en.wikipedia....t_(martial_arts) I've actually seen pretty lively debate on this even on a Qigong, Internal Martial Arts forum, so I don't think there's much point in really getting in a deep debate about the difference between the two. I'm not qualified to answer that question. I can just offer my small understanding.

I just noticed the Bagua thread. Good stuff. It is important to remember that it came into popularity for body guards, and for fighting multiple opponents at one time. The form is of course not a fight, it's just a set of movements to train the different applications, but I trained under this guy for a very short time while I was in China. I would NOT try to western box him. Not sure how you'd get in there... He or whoever posts videos of him seems to like the dramatic music... What looks "flashy" or "fancy" is smooth stuff that either gets you inside, right up against someone, or is a throw or grab. It looks beautiful, but believe me, it's not flash, it's some very effective stuff. There's a lot of twisting, and the motions are both because of the multiple opponent applications, and a way of sneaking out of joint locks and holds, something with very real life application. Bagua people have a knack of slipping out of wrestling and joint lock tricks that a lot of other people have trained.

I mostly agree with what your saying. Except I think we're all using slightly different definitions of internal. The internal arts are complete in themselves. They have punches, kicks etc. Thats why I was using the distinction of hard/soft. The soft arts train the internal much more than the hard arts, but they are still deadly martial arts. They aren't yoga (as I know you know). They just focus more on energy and softness than the external arts. They are MARTIAL arts. They aren't just qigong. Read bk frantzis "the power of internal martial arts" if you want to hear his accounts of how bad a**, and downright vicious and brutal a lot of the internal arts are. Some of it gets a little mystical, but most of it is pretty down to earth. Still, I think we're about 90% in agreement : ) I go back & forth as to whether I'm interested in sparring. I do like just some free form wrestling, and every now and then my teacher will let me practice throws on him. It's just that if he lets me, I have to let him...: ) It's true that internal arts were often used to build up a weak body. But the traing I've done is not for the weak! I think to just say that's what they're for is inaccurate. They ARE an art unto themselves, not a stepping stone into hard arts. You could say its the other way around...but I think we're all more or less on the same page.

I may be out of line stepping in here, but I think a lot of what causes people to "not buy" the internal arts stuff is that for some reason they think of it as some mystical thing. Maybe better to use hard and soft? The hard (external) arts are about muscular force. Someone who first learns a hard style will, after a short time training, destroy someone who has spent the same amount of time in a soft (internal) style. It takes a long time to learn soft styles. The hard styles focus more directly on quickly developing a hard punch or kick, and basic self defense. Your soft style teacher may make you stand in place meditating for 45 minutes every day for a month to develop root, before they even teach you a punch. Hard styles are not sustainable into old age. They break you down. Soft styles are about reading your opponents intentions through feeling where their body is going, and helping them to go that way, right down onto the ground. Help them defeat themselves. Soft styles train with more throws, which, for the person doing the throwing, are no impact. They train to use chi (not some mystical fireball thing. ENERGY, the kind you can plainly feel in your body) to increase power. You use your punch like a whip. Relaxed, until the last second. You can have someone up off the ground, feet over head, in a second with a completely smooth, relaxed motion (think snake creeps down). Spooky effective. No fireballs necessary. Soft styles read the opponent, use sticking techniques, some integrate pressure points. They all revolve around using a more muscularly relaxed force. You're always going to find someone stronger than you. To beat them, it takes a deeper technique. The soft arts don't rely on pitting strength against strength. Most people who study hard styles will eventually integrate soft techniques into them as they go deeper into their art. Just like anything. At first you learn the most effective, fast-result stuff. The you Go Deeper. The deeper part is when it becomes Internal. Not when you can affect someone's energy field just by using your chi from afar. I mean really. Maybe someone who studied for a lifetime, maybe could make you drop just by laying a hand on you, but this is just one small, unproven, almost silly part of the internal arts. If you really learn what the internal/soft arts are, and talk in depth with any old, deep, intelligent master of a hard/external art, you'll find that they've taken their art to an internal place. Same with any master of anything. They aren't talking physical technique so much anymore. They're talking about what feeling they have, what's " going on" inside them, rather than what they're externally doing. The sooner people stop thinking of chi as some otherworldly, mystical thing, and more as the basic energy it is, the sooner they'll understand more of this. All external arts have internal aspects to them, and all internal arts have external aspects. Xing yi is an especially external internal art. A lot of the issue is that because of the time commitment, you just don't see a lot of really accomplished internal arts people. And a lot of them aren't getting into street brawls : ) most of what I've seen of the internal arts, you can't just go around doing to people. A boxer can punch somebody a bunch of times and hurt them. But the things my teacher has shown me, when I learn the application of a movement I've been working on...I mean it's just brutal. There are just a lot of things you can't "spar" with, they aren't meant for sport. Having said all that, if you just want to kick butt, take some real self defense, hard/external style classes. The amount of time and effort to get there with an internal art isn't probably worth it in today's world. I do bagua and taiji because I love the deep, meditative, energy work side of it. I'll leave the butt kicking to others.

Hi. I'm a new member, and figured I'd say hello. Plus, to quote a very wise person "We'd love to hear from you and you must post here before you can post in the other forums "