Strength and Vitality: A West vs. East view

[thelerner]

In your opinion, what do the cultures do right?   What do they get wrong? 

 

As usual what gives the best bang for the buck? 

What is the recipe?   A secret ingredient, or simple clean living? 

 

 

 

errata 

What makes a China town so fascinating to me is all the herb shops.   Walking past the bins of herbs, common and rare.  Within 5 feet, jujubes for $5 a pound, near $800 ginseng, close to sea horses, separated out male and female.    

 

Is the east masters of prevention and west obsessed with cutting and pills for extreme conditions?

[gendao]

West - Treat the symptoms synthetically and quickly

East - Treat the root naturally, as long as it takes

[Stosh]

West , treat symptoms ,and feed off the public like cash cows. 

East , pretend to effect cures or use western treatments.

[dawei]

There is a deeper issue going on... likely DNA level.

 

East: Weak constitution; needs herbs; needs rest; needs social stimulation. needs constant vocal from others of "mei shi" (doesnt' matter).

West: Strong constitution; likes to drink and eat freely; can co-exist in social and individual space.  Has their own opinion for what matters.

[dwai]

There is a deeper issue going on... likely DNA level.

 

East: Weak constitution; needs herbs; needs rest; needs social stimulation. needs constant vocal from others of "mei shi" (doesnt' matter).

West: Strong constitution; likes to drink and eat freely; can co-exist in social and individual space.  Has their own opinion for what matters.

I think that is a bit of a stretch

[dwai]

In your opinion, what do the cultures do right?   What do they get wrong? 

 

As usual what gives the best bang for the buck? 

What is the recipe?   A secret ingredient, or simple clean living? 

 

 

 

errata 

What makes a China town so fascinating to me is all the herb shops.   Walking past the bins of herbs, common and rare.  Within 5 feet, jujubes for $5 a pound, near $800 ginseng, close to sea horses, separated out male and female.    

 

Is the east masters of prevention and west obsessed with cutting and pills for extreme conditions?

The problem with this question is that in practical life, there is no "Pure East" anymore. It's mainly East + West in the East. 

So what is it that you want to know about? Eastern medicine vs Western medicine? 

[dawei]

I think that is a bit of a stretch

 

Have you lived in China to experience Chinese constitution?

 

maybe my 'east' should be reprimanded as a stretch but I was thinking chinese.

[Aetherous]

In your opinion, what do the cultures do right?

 

Westerners seem stronger because they have excessive diets of meat, dairy, and wheat. Those things are very strengthening...but too much causes weird chronic health issues of all sorts. So it's good to eat a variety including those things, but not good to stuff our faces till we're full.

 

Westerners do straightforward exercise for the most part...break a sweat, get the heart rate up, work the muscles, etc. These things "invigorate blood" as Chinese Medicine calls it, which is considered a major key for youthfulness. These types of exercises tax the qi somewhat, but compared to something like the typical qigong we see, the blood invigorating aspect is much greater, and therefore youth and health are more apparent in people who do them. Just compare pictures of a dedicated weightlifter or runner, compared to a dedicated qigong practitioner, and you'll see.

 

What do they get wrong?

 

The indiscriminate taking of herbs as Chinese culture tends to do, isn't healthy...herbs are strong and can hurt as well as heal. Western fad diets, such as for weight loss, aren't healthy. Extremely intense exercise isn't healthy, especially something like Crossfit, where people are injuring themselves due to moving really fast with poor form...I suspect HIIT is also really bad for well being. Only doing qigong and meditation alone isn't healthy (if that's an Eastern thing; I suppose sometimes it is), we need more movement...a moderate amount of typical Western exercise is good...there are the sedentary studies from Western Medicine, and the recommendation these days is to move every half hour and not sit or lie too long. We all need more vegetables in our diets, and Westerners need to have much smaller amounts of meat, dairy, and wheat, without eliminating them. It would be good if we spent more time with our meals, rather than being so busy in life.

 

As usual what gives the best bang for the buck?

 

Western medicine has good information on healthy preventative living, in their peer reviewed studies. For instance, we know that exercise is important for us to be healthy. We can get a general idea of what's required for instance from the American Heart Association.

 

Chinese Medicine works really well when done right. Seeing a good practitioner of that like once a month or more, and following the known prevention activities of Western Medicine, that is the best bang for the buck. Seeing a bad practitioner of CM...well, you'd almost be better off simply trying to improve your lifestyle.

 

What is the recipe?

 

2/3 cups organic basmati white rice, 1/3 cup sweet (mochi) rice, to 7 cups of water...cook on low in the crockpot over night. Cook a little bit of chicken meat in ghee, adding some spinach leaves at the end until they brighten. Combine that with some of the rice porridge in a bowl, pour a little bit of nama shoyu on it, and enjoy.

 

I don't know if that's the recipe, but it's something I've found really helpful in self healing.

 

A secret ingredient, or simple clean living?

 

Simple clean living is very important. A secret ingredient is also very important, sometimes.

 

Is the east masters of prevention and west obsessed with cutting and pills for extreme conditions?

 

Chinese Medicine has a ton to do with treating only the symptoms of extreme conditions. For instance, using the seahorse as an herb. Chinese Medicine has "root" and "branch" treatments...a good practitioner treats the branch (symptoms) while considering the root, but it's not always about prevention or root treatments.

 

I think both CM and WM treat diseases that are present, and also consider lifestyle modifications, as well as the patient's constitution and the prevention of illness. I think they should be practiced as distinct things (something that is not always the case in China), but in conjunction with one another...see your MD as well as your OMD, and they work together and collaborate. Chinese Medicine has never been one thing...there are different schools of thought, and as a whole it has evolved (or sometimes devolved) as time has passed...it's still evolving, and with evidence based knowledge from Western Medicine, it can evolve further.

[thelerner]

The problem with this question is that in practical life, there is no "Pure East" anymore. It's mainly East + West in the East. 

So what is it that you want to know about? Eastern medicine vs Western medicine? 

I probably shouldn't have created such a side tracking 'versus' for the thread. 

Really I'm interested in ways to gain Strength and Vitality.  What works for people.

[gendao]

There is a deeper issue going on... likely DNA level.

 

East: Weak constitution; needs herbs; needs rest; needs social stimulation. needs constant vocal from others of "mei shi" (doesnt' matter).

West: Strong constitution; likes to drink and eat freely; can co-exist in social and individual space. Has their own opinion for what matters.

If that's true, then why are Americans with strong constitutions also probably the most drug-dependent population on the planet? Where most of them don't "need rest," just an HERB called coffee religiously every morning because they naturally lack the energy? And then a few nights a week or on weekends, they indeed drink booze freely to numb their emotions/inhibitions in order to "peacefully" co-exist in social and individual space, despite having their own opinions. In addition to anti-depressants, Viagra, and numerous other chronic pharmaceutical meds...

 

If your constitution is so strong, then why do you need all this JUST TO FUNCTION on a daily basis?

Edited April 2, 2016 by gendao

[Stosh]

The just to function thing is bogus exaggeration, same as pretending eastern people dont use viagra if they have access to it. Because they have the tiger balls, rhino horn, dragon whatever, bear eyelids, bird saliva soup and any other thing that someone ever hoped would turn the trick. How about the constant tea drinking, I dont suppose theres any thing in common with coffee about that beverage!

Edited April 2, 2016 by Stosh

[Jetsun]

Everything is mixed up these days, many Eastern countries are becoming Americanised and at least in Europe it's increasingly multi-cultural. In London now native English people are a minority.

 

But if you are talking about China there is a massive difference between the cities and countryside. The cities are completely screwed with pollution and toxic atmosphere both socially and environmentally, but go to old traditional villages and you can find villages where the people live happily to an old age in harmony with the environment.

 

If you compare medicine, Eastern medicine promotes and maintains wellness whereas western medicine works with the consequences when the damage is done. But if I needed something functional done for health like heart surgery or organ transplant I would thank God for the existence of Western medicine.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Jetsun

[Orion]

It's hard to dichotomize things strictly along eastern and western lines.

 

The east has a deep well of continuous knowledge that has been unbroken from ancient times, which means we have various streams of human consciousness able to poke through to the modern era. So we're gifted with knowledge about energetic practices and the subtle nuances of the human condition. My main critique of the east is that it's obsessed with tradition to the point that it's difficult to inject new ideas, and this creates a lot of cultural stagnation. Things must be done "this way" or they're not correct, and that has its pros and cons. The result is that divergences from the model are still forced to fit the model, through some weird stretch of the philosophy. Everything is made to fit the cosmology, somehow, instead of just acknowledging something doesn't work or doesn't make sense. I've seen so many far fetched explanations of people's illnesses using TCM theory when it's patently obvious that the practitioner just doesn't know.

 

The west is technologically advanced and has taken its knowledge of material reductionism to the nth degree, with amazing results. We can see the micro and the macro with the naked eye as never before. We can build machines that grant us unique opportunities, and these gifts have spanned the world. I have a great deal of respect for surgery, acute care, and emergency care. They can take smashed up bodies and put them back together. The west also has a lot more individual liberty, less group conformity, so there is more free thinking.

 

The problem with the west is that it still has a fairly infantile view of the universe. There's no holism and no appreciation for other epistemologies. In China TCM and western medicine exist side by side, but not in the west. In the west, western medicine is king and everything else is garbage. It's changing, but not that fast, and there are major politics. Western culture also has a REALLY unfortunate tendency to toss the old in favour of the new. For instance, in medicine we had the Hippocratic method, then the 4 humors, then alchemy, then modern medicine. With each era they completely ditched the previous. Alchemy got completely replaced by modern chemistry, when western alchemy had a LOT of useful material in it. So the west is arrogant in that way. If you believe in anything old then you're a primitive. The east has so much venerence for tradition that it's practically the opposite. I've noticed that it's reflected in how we treat our old people. In the east the elders are respected, in the west nobody wants to think about getting old and we put our old people in homes.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Orion

[gendao]

How about the constant tea drinking, I dont suppose theres any thing in common with coffee about that beverage!

Well sure, of course there's caffeine in common. Most cultures all have some popular herbal stimulant.

 

The difference though is in DOSAGE - where tea ranges from 15-60 mg and coffee from 65-175 mg of caffeine per 8 oz.

And while Americans typically urgently down a few mugs or Venti just to make it through the morning, Chinese typically leisurely sip on a few shots of tea later in the day to wash down heavy meals, not wake up.

So, who really needs more caffeine (artificial energy) here, and thus has the weaker constitution?

 

Anyways, the whole point is that dawei's presupposition could arguably be backwards, or perhaps somewhat wrong and somewhat right... A lot of cultural bias is unconscious - like not realizing that coffee is an HERB - because it is just so common and prevalent in American society and not marketed as one. Nope, in the mind of Americans - herbs are dried earth in witch's brews - not the commercialized drink you pay $7 for at Starbucks!

 

But, I digress. There's actually a fundamental quantum cultural difference between Eastern & Western minds that is reflected in the medicine, which Orion touched on. Essentially, the East is symbolized by the wave - seeing all the connections from our underlying holographic Unity. Whereas the West focuses on the particle - and analyzing each manifestation discretely down to the nth degree (via technology).  And therein lies the key for when to use each one appropriately...

Edited April 3, 2016 by gendao

[dawei]

Anyways, the whole point is that dawei's presupposition could arguably be backwards, or perhaps somewhat wrong and somewhat right... 

 

Your just talking from theory and thought... it would be much better to just experience it directly yourself.  As that might not be possible, you can try to understand what is stated or not.

 

I've known this for a long time based purely on observation but my [chinese] wife bemoans the fact of this difference in the two cultures.   I'm not going to try and justify either side as better or the causes, etc. 

 

We could do hundreds/thousands of examples... Let's take a very simple and universal example of child-birth:

 

How long does a chinese lady need (or think they need) to recover from child-birth compared to a western woman?  

[Stosh]

Well, gendao, youre making some good points there, at the strength coffee might be brewed theres more caffeine. Ill back up to say the east west arguments usually rub me the wrong way ,though, the stronger coffee is, the better I like it. but its still an exaggeration to say that coffee gets americans through the day, or that Chinese need rhino horn to get an erection. Its just insulting!

[Stosh]

Your just talking from theory and thought... it would be much better to just experience it directly yourself.  As that might not be possible, you can try to understand what is stated or not.

 

I've known this for a long time based purely on observation but my [chinese] wife bemoans the fact of this difference in the two cultures.   I'm not going to try and justify either side as better or the causes, etc. 

 

We could do hundreds/thousands of examples... Let's take a very simple and universal example of child-birth:

 

How long does a chinese lady need (or think they need) to recover from child-birth compared to a western woman?  

Trick question, that depends on how undernourished the baby is.

[dawei]

Trick question, that depends on how undernourished the baby is.

 

If someone knows chinese culture, the answer is simple and the same.

 

Their tradition wants 30 days of bed rest... some areas may want to serve black chicken (you can buy that at local asian markets too)... but that is getting into the lack of nutrition ideas.  

 

A US woman is likely back on her feet in 3 days and doing some small chores...

 

Now do you see the point?

[Stosh]

Actually no, To give a woman a month is really nice and considerate, probably good for the baby as well as the whole family. Could an asian woman do small chores in three days , I suppose yes actually.

But this here is tradition ,not a measure of vitality. I probably prefer to just agree with the wife, its still a trick question which depends on the baby as much as the mother.

[HoldorFold]

I probably shouldn't have created such a side tracking 'versus' for the thread. 

Really I'm interested in ways to gain Strength and Vitality.  What works for people.

 

Progressive heavy weight-lifting targeting the largest muscle groups (e.g. squats and benchpress) does the trick for strength. Not just physical strength, but it increases your testosterone hence the internal characteristics associated with strength and vitality. 

 

The supplement ZMA also gives me the feeling of more power.

 

Doing Robert Bruce's N.E.W. energy work on my feet, legs and hips has great effects on my vitality.

 

Gary Clyman's condensing breathing was hands down the most powerful technique for me to build internal power, but nowadays I don't do it because I feel it can possibly condense blockages and I had some bad experiences with it after awhile. 

[dwai]

Have you lived in China to experience Chinese constitution?

 

maybe my 'east' should be reprimanded as a stretch but I was thinking chinese.

See I'm from India and I consider that the east too.

 

So I have to beg to differ. The reason for lower physical strength etc is nutritional differences. Most westerners eat lot of meat, processed with growth hormones and anti-biopics. GMO plant products loaded with fertilizers. So before that entire organic food movement started, westerners were growing bigger (abnormally so IMHO). Girls grow breasts and reach puberty at ages of 9-12 whereas in Asia it used to be much later - 15-16.

 

So would I consider the health standards of the west superior? Definitely not. But Many poor people in Asia suffer from lack of nutrition. So a balance needs to be reached between the two extremes.

 

As far as health care practices in the traditional systems is concerned, I know Ayurveda far better than TCM so I can speak for that. Ayurveda emphasizes harmonious lifestyle over specific aspects of anything.

 

Vitality is a result of balancing the doshas or humors. Different people are combination of three humors - vata - wind, kapha - phlegm or water and pitta - fire. When humors are in balance there is abundance of the sattva guna in the body. To balance the doshas one has to eat appropriate food, appropriate exercise, sleep, etc.

 

What is appropriate varies from person to person.

[Orion]

Excess protein is definitely a problem but I think that America especially is actually undernourished. They eat calorie dense, low nturient food, in large quantities. And many foods are so synthetic that it's not even real food. A lot of the obesity types we're seeing, and the early puberty thing (plus other hormone problems) are from the artificial, hormone-mimicking ingredients in food.

 

If you look at other northern countries that eat a lot of meat, like Russia, the nordic countries, even western Europe, the malnutrition and obesity rates are not as high.

 

Anyway, this is totally off topic, but my interest was piqued by what you said.

 

OK so back to the OP. For strength, I do weight training, ba gua, swimming, and some kind of stretching like yoga or just regular stretching. I don't follow a set regimen, it all depends on what I feel my body needs on any given day. Food wise, I eat whole foods, mostly home cooked, mainly organic. In the past couple of years I've eliminated wheat, gluten, a lot of dairy, and a lot of grains. I've noticed I've had way fewer health problems with a modified bigu diet. Now if I eat white rice I really notice the body lag.

 

I've really wanted to gradually transition to a low calorie, high nutrient diet. It seems to be the key to long life. I just have to figure out how to do it (if anyone has any literary suggestions I'd love that). It would also mean sacrificing my more anaerobic exercise, like weight lifting, because it demands so much more calorie intake.

 

So I have to beg to differ. The reason for lower physical strength etc is nutritional differences. Most westerners eat lot of meat, processed with growth hormones and anti-biopics. GMO plant products loaded with fertilizers. So before that entire organic food movement started, westerners were growing bigger (abnormally so IMHO). Girls grow breasts and reach puberty at ages of 9-12 whereas in Asia it used to be much later - 15-16.

[gendao]

If someone knows chinese culture, the answer is simple and the same.

 

Their tradition wants 30 days of bed rest... some areas may want to serve black chicken (you can buy that at local asian markets too)... but that is getting into the lack of nutrition ideas.

 

A US woman is likely back on her feet in 3 days and doing some small chores...

 

Now do you see the point?

Lol, so you mad that your Chinese wifey didn't want to do chores for a month due to Chinese culture?

 

Well, this is actually a great example of the culture gap.

 

- Chinese medicine views childbirth as very taxing on a woman's body, and so prescribes 30 days of rest (坐月子/zuo yuezi) with herbs and no bathing (or just no cold bathing?), etc...

 

- Whereas many American women pride themselves on how fast they can get back in shape after childbirth, often posting selfies of bikini bods ASAP.

 

The difference here is that Chinese medicine is more conservatively considering the internal functioning/health of the body - while Americans basically only focus on outer appearances of fitness as their measure of "health." Generally speaking, the West is more concerned with aesthetic form, and the East with actual function.

 

OK, but so who's right?

 

Well, it may be hard to believe the Chinese POV, until you've actually had an authentic experience of it. For example (true story), one Chinese mother who had actually followed the Chinese 坐月子 protocol with several kids saw a qigong healer about 20 years after her last one. This healer told her that she still had bad blood in her uterus from those kids, but it would pass in 3 days after her treatment. And in fact - it did, exactly as predicted!

 

There's a number of lessons that can be taken away from just this one anecdote:

- First, if a layperson's 坐月子 protocol may not even be enough for a full recovery, how much more detritus do you think an American woman who does nothing might actually retain? Regardless of how much baby weight she's lost?

- Secondly, while Westerners stopped bloodletting in the Middle Ages and couldn't comprehend of "bad blood" now, the Chinese still purge it effectively through more skillful means (qigong, wet cupping, etc).

- Thirdly, a lot of the damage people do to their bodies (like bad blood stagnation) simply remains inside into old age, unbeknownst to them. Their health then slowly deteriorates, without them even knowing why? How many Americans get knee/hip replacements by their 60s? This is where a lot of Western medicine is shortsighted - as they may never connect or see the eventual effects of various behaviors/conditions. Like Bruce Lee was a physically superfit guy, yet I can only imagine what a Chinese medicine doctor would have told him instead?

In a medical examination just two months before his passing, doctors declared that Lee’s body was like that of an 18-year-old

So, just because an American mom gets back to chores and Zumba within days of delivery...doesn't necessarily mean that she didn't actually need more rest & recovery...

- Lastly, there is a hierarchy in most cultures with authentic masters at the top and their watered-down wisdom at the bottom in the form of generic cultural traditions. Results will obviously correlate then to where on that hierarchy you are accessing. So even if 坐月子 may be helpful, it still won't compare to the more powerful qi mastery from which it derived, etc... But, something is better than nothing!

 

However, feel free to believe whatever you want to believe until you experience differently!

Edited April 3, 2016 by gendao

[Stosh]

Is the bigu diet supposed to be a rejection of societal staples, or have some metaphysical ramifications, or it supposed to promote health as thats usually defined,,?

What grains are the original five, should others be considered likewise and are to be avoided as well, and just when did this diet become traditional to anyone since obviously ,lots of people still eat the grains quite readily.,,?

Wikipedia strikes me as rather confused about this , making it sound more like the grains were to be promoted as healthy fare. Whats the view of followers of this regime?

[gendao]

^ Good questions...

Progressive heavy weight-lifting targeting the largest muscle groups (e.g. squats and benchpress) does the trick for strength. Not just physical strength, but it increases your testosterone hence the internal characteristics associated with strength and vitality. 

The supplement ZMA also gives me the feeling of more power.

Doing Robert Bruce's N.E.W. energy work on my feet, legs and hips has great effects on my vitality.

 

Gary Clyman's condensing breathing was hands down the most powerful technique for me to build internal power, but nowadays I don't do it because I feel it can possibly condense blockages and I had some bad experiences with it after awhile. 

Could you elaborate on your bad experiences with Clyman's practices?