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**WUDANG/TMP PART 2 THE CARTOON** I was honored to work with a celebrity cartoon artist Aaron for a short clip. He does the cartoons for Vladtv and other celebrity skits. Sounds and Graphics was by me and Aaron did the art and animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L0erPD-P10

Hola This is my first required post Thank you for providing this forum The info on it is priceless I have been studying tai chi chuan for sometime and teaching for a bit I am also a Vipassana meditator Looking forward to being a member

About strength training in Taijiquan: "David Gaffney (co-author of the excellent Chen Style Taijiquan) has an article on chen tai chi strength training (PDF) that mentions methods such as stone lifting, pole shaking, the taiji bang (short stick), taiji ball (akin to a medicine ball), and training with intentionally heavy weapons: "While it may come as a surprise to many, strength training is not a new phenomenon in Taijiquan. In the past, it represented one aspect of an all-encompassing training process. In Chenjiagou, within the garden where 14th Generation Chen clan member Chen Changxin is said to have taught Yang Luchan, founder of Yang style Taijiquan, can still be found an eighty kilogram stone weight that they are said to have regularly trained with. Traditional strength training methods such as pole shaking and practicing with heavy weapons continue to be used up until today. ... Lifting heavy stones is done as a means to training the waist and lower body. Chen Ziquiang explains "the strength training method is highly specialized. You are not training to develop 'stupid strength' (brute or localised strength). This is training strength in the waist. Your hand strength is like the hook you use when you are towing a car. You have to remember that your hand is the hook. Your strength is coming from the waist and how you push into the ground, combining the strength of the car and the rope. The hook is only the implement that connects the two. So when you lift the big rock, it is the strength of the legs and waist...".

Hello, friends. I suppose I'm here because I feel like self-improvement is to be found in TCM, Qi Gong, and/or Tai Chi. The only problem is that I'm a complete virgin on all three subjects, with virtually no knowledge of even their basics. I'd appreicate any sort of advice and pointers you guys might have for me, and am totally open to answering any questions. Thanks!

I've been practicing Taijiquan for several weeks now. Just stretches and dantian breathing. During class on monday up to right now, I've had a cold feeling in my chest and a fast pulse. My teacher says not to worry about it, but he didn't seem to know what it is. Any ideas?

I found this document interesting, I thought it could be helpfull. This man has been one of the few disciples of Yang Chengfu. He talks about the best way to do the form, jing, and plenty of anecdotes about its master.

Hi, I was interested in having some notion about what you think is a good daily practice duration. And what's your average daily pratice ? For those who pratice a lot, what's your main routine ? Have a good day. Clément

Any good teachers in LA? They all seem like scams or cults. Thank you.

Hello all, This book is a very good one and could be a good starting point for beginners, as well as excellent supplemental material for the seasoned practitioner. http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Your-Life-Energy-Well-Being/dp/1590309960 Enjoy. It would be interesting to find out from any Bum who has practiced these what their experiences have been. Dwai

Hello fellow wayfairers, I find myself with very low energy now and for the past, maybe, 6 months. Before that time and especially a few years back I was typically a high energy person and fairly well centered/grounded. I think Qigong/neigong is the way to fix that for me. I have 2 books which came highly recommended, The Way of Energy by Master Lam Kam Chuen and Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body by Bruce Frantzis. Ive begun practicing Zhang Zhuang along with some of the internal techniques and body alignments Frantzis talks about and I have felt a increasingly strong chi sensation as I practice as if I'm improving and tapping into my chi. I also feel more energetic after a practice session. The closest things to chi instruction I have near me is a shoddy Aikido dojo and a young american Tai Chi Chuan instructor that claims to have spent time studying it in China. Now my question is, is it possible to learn Qigong exclusively from books, videos, and mindful practice? Anyone here have success with self/book taught Qigong for healing themselves? Should I try out the Tai Chi guy? I appreciate your help friends

Hello! I just joined the forum and is very intrigued by all the past and previous post about the different types of training. I have also notice that there isn't much detailed information on Grandmaster Tu. I am one of Grandmaster Tu's student. I have been training with him for many years and have seen improvements in my life from training Iron Crotch. There has been much rumors about this practice being dangerous or students in the past have been hospitalized. These claims are indeed false. The only way to get injured from practicing Iron Crotch is if you practice on your own without the right guidance. Having the correct knowledge of hanging is crucial to practicing and in order to see results you must learn it the correct way. Grandmaster Tu has been teaching for more than 30 years! I would love to share and spread his teaching here on the forums. If you have any questions about Iron Crotch I can personally answer them for you. Thank you and I look forward to meeting some new friends on the forum! PS. Here is Grandmaster Tu's Website, since I did not see it anywhere on the forum. www.Mastertu.com Thank You 99 Iron Crotch Practiioner

Greetings members. New to this forum, and to any forums that may discuss tai chi. I am relatively new at the practice and look forward to learning more about this martial art form. Any guidance anyone can give to great sources within the forum would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all! Gazzer

You have just 2 days left to get yourself a used (but immaculate condition) copy of Gary Clymans Nei Kung Bible on ebay. Don't miss out!

Hi all. I watched this last night and thought it was very good. I've been practicing for three and a half years and over the curse, have identified how Taoist the martial art's philosophy is. This documentary explains it all... I see that there are a lot of Bagua and Tai Chi practitioners on here but not many talk about Wing Chun. I'm quite interested in learning more from the Bagua and Tai Chi philosophies too to draw on similarities more than anything. So anyone with anything to say on any Taoist martial arts, please go ahead

Hi all, We all know about the principle of relaxation in meditative and chi-cultivating disciplines. We've all felt the profound benefits of relaxation. However, although many of us are learning from masters who are advanced in age, a lot of us are young and full of energy, vigor, and speed. So I want to get some opinions on this: how do you resolve the contradictory disciplines of relaxed power and peak performance (demanding as much as you can from yourself, getting high performance in your life overall, not just physically but mentally, working long hours, pushing yourself to achieve goals, etc) ? For example, I love the "ideal" of going to bed early and waking up several hours before dawn to practice my chi kung, forms, and meditation. It seems extremely sensible to sync my sleep schedule with the sun. But often when I wake early and have a great day, I've gotten so much momentum that I'm still amped come sundown, and I realize I could work (or play) for 12 more hours. But this goes against the precepts of just taking it easy, and this is tough for me, because we live in a world where the 70% rule doesn't really cut it. For most of us we have to rolling out the 110% power. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear how other peak performance people synthesize these seemingly opposite ideas.

Hi all, I just had a private lesson with the son of a very famous tai chi master in NYC. He seemed completely bored as he did the movements; the whole thing was conducted like he was teaching me how to wash windows. This seems to be a recurring theme - I understand the taoist ideal of humility, simplicity, and a total lack of ostentatious or excessive movement. Still, this is throwing me. Chi training to me is the most amazing thing in the world. It's literally cultivating energy from the cosmos - I can feel it deeply, and it changes my consciousness in an immense way to practice for even a few minutes. So what's the deal? Watching videos of Cheng Man Ching, it's the same thing. I know that great tai chi masters don't need to "do the form" because they already have immense chi, but it just seems so dull, like they don't have any passion or interest at all in what they're doing at all. I want to keep taking lessons, and practicing, but the vibe I keep encountering with so many of these people really throws me off. I'd love to hear some comments and perspective on this.

The process of Taoist Alchemy as described by Waysun Liao's student and front man of the spiritual "new school way" of Temple Style Taichi, Master Gregory James. He posted this essay in his forum publically in 2011 and I think it's precious knowledge that everybody should have! Enjoy!

I have realized that IMA (internal martial arts) folks are reifying Jin (power) in the same way as many Taoist folks reify Tao. By this I mean that they are trying make it a concrete "thing". You hear terms like ... emitting Jin ... or shooting Jin ... sending out Jin. It is the same error when people think that Tao is a "thing" that can be the "object" of worship. It is also synonymous that, just as Tao is not a "thing", Jin is also not a "thing", and just as Tao is more of a "way" or pattern of things, Jin is more of a "power". Also synonymous is that folks try and make both Tao and Jin something "special", meaning that it is something above or beyond mundane reality. Read more... http://www.tai-chi-wizard.com/the-tao-of-jin-in-tai-chi-chuan.html

Hey i'm Xandre im new here just introducing myself. I am a student of Wing Chun, Krav maga and tai chi. I am currentely in the search for a perfect (or what i perceive to be perfect) internal martial art as well as a good master in the these arts Mo Pai, Ba Gua, Tai Chi, Chi Kung

Anyone read this book? http://www.amazon.com/Five-Levels-Taijiquan-Chen-Xiaowang/dp/184819093X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=3ATB9C53AOSU1&coliid=I1ERBRT6L5GX9Y It's a little pricey which is why I've been hesitant to pick it up. Not only that but there's only two reviews for it on Amazon.

OK here is part of the list of the DVDs I can currently access: Qi Gong for Beginners and Qi Gong for Stress Relief By: Garripoli Tai Chi for Fitness By: David Chang AM Chi, Lower Body Chi, PM Chi, Tai Chi Beginning Practice, Tai Chi Daily Practice By: David-Dorian Ross Energy Exercises for Emotional Vitality, Energy Exercises for The Beginner, Energy Exercieses for The Intermediate By: Discovering Chi (series) Tai Chi for Beginners By: Samual Barnes Tai Chi Inner-Wave By: Joey Bond Tai Chi Fundamentals By Tricia Wu Which of these, if any, should I use? If any of these are not something you would recommend, why exactly? For example, in another thread I started on another subject. Matthew Cohen's Fire and Water Qi Gong came up. The person that said the exercises were bad gave a couple of reasons, among them things like Mr. Cohen is flexing his muscles when they are supposed to be relaxed. What I am looking for are energy gathering/purifying exercises, preferably in Qi Gong (AKA Chi Kung). I like the side effects of good muscle flexibility among other things. I always liked Cohen's workout because I could use that after a really hard day of work where I was stiff and sore and I always felt better. I could also use it after a draining day and feel energized. Furthermore I can "see" the flame at my center, even meditating on this now, and I know when it is blinding bright and full of energy or when it is dim with little energy. The amount of energy I see there is directly releated to what I experience in my body. So I am looking to, in essence, recharge myself. I should also mention that it appears I am linked in some way to the earth or earth energy. I now see vines that come up and either connect to roots I put down from my feet or the vines just enter my body. This is all in my minds eye of course. Be kinda freaky to have vines come out of the ground into your physical body Anyhow this is symbolic, to me, of energy from the earth, while a sort of system or web or whatever of light rays or shoots - whatever you want to call them, connect to the energy of the sun/sky. Anyhow there is shamanic, magician and other energtic stuff going on here, and this should be considered in any DVD you recommend. Yeah I know I'm weird OK, as for length 10 minutes is awesome, 20 is OK, 30 is bearable, 40+ is "YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!" So somewhere between 10-40 minutes is best for me. Also the exercises/moves should be very well narrated, as in Cohen's DVD, so I can easily see and feel how my body should be placed, and know I have it in the right position. Whatever else you can say about Cohen, you can certainly easily follow the audio of his DVD most of the time. Any DVD that depends on the video to explain everything is not as useful to me. Because I can carry around and use an audio file with me. But I can't work that way with a video file. Free is awesome, if any such creature exists. You give me the names of good teachers I'll gladly hunt around YouTube. Otherwise I will see what I can dig up at the library. Have a bunch of material there, something in it has to be of good quality. As always your help is appreciated. I would really like to get it right this time, hope I don't have to unlearn anything Cohen taught wrongly. - DreamBliss P.S. PLEASE NOTE! DO NOT RECOMMEND A CLASS OR ANYTHING THAT COSTS MONEY TO ME! I have no money to buy anything, so I have YouTube and the library. Of course I also have a birthday coming up on the 11th... Hint... Hint... Right now on my birthday/Christmas list are Josephine McCarthy's "The Excorsit's Handbook" and Magical Knowledge books II and III, Shalia Catherine's "Focused and Fearless" and "Wisdom Wide and Deep." Prentice Mulford's "Thought AreThings," Franz Bardon's "Initiation Into Hermetics" and, last but not least, the "Kybalion" by the Three Initiates.

I hope this is the right place to post this... I'm new here (a Taoist/Christian wandering along), and need a little help. I have trained Tai Chi (Wu style) for around 20 years. I had a great teacher, who poured as much as he could into me with the time we had. After training under him for around 8 years, I had to move away. By that time I was teaching my own classes for beginners. But since that time I have been on my own. Now I find myself in a small town with no resources for me. The local tai chi classes are taught by a Hard Stylist (which is going to be zero help for internal energy work), and he doesn't even do Qigong. I am looking for some help on working with my Chi, as well as some question as to Mindfulness Meditation. There are so many people in the Personal Practice area, I am guessing someone could be of help, but how do you know? So I guess this is me casting my net to see what swims in. Any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated!!!