Plans for Youtube Lectures

Now I have another idea that I have to start working on. I want to do youtube lectures with my own mix of music, dance and martial arts. The first subject I thought would be Bagua walking; its true origins not just the unlikely stuff that we hear repeated over and over in every book, article or school.
I’d also like to do one on the real meaning of gongfu, meritorious action. And also on the real meaning of quan (fist): a routine done to commemorate any public event, but which grew out of religious processions for specific local deities between and with in villages.

Also look for more book reviews. Here is a must own reading list that I made up for the Library at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Topics include Daoism, History and Martial Arts.

Youtube Single Whoop(ed) Video

So I finally put up a cool video with my self and Greg Mooney mixing it up. Check it out at http://youtube.com/gongfuguy

Being Double Weighted

I have said that I would write about double weighting in Taijiquan push hands (tuishou). I probably need to do a whole article but I just picked up a copy of Erle Montaigue's Power Taiji (Paladin Press 1995). Here is his website, and he has a live webcam form correction service. I'm impressed.
Here is a quote from the book:

8) "If you think that your push-hands is good and you pride yourself on not being able to be pushed over, start from the beginning again because you have not learned taijiquan. You must use this exercise to help each other to understand some very important principles of taiji. If it becomes a competition, then you are only learning push-hands and not taijiquan."

Double weighting can have many meanings, but here he is referring to a kind of defensiveness that can develop from improper practice.
This defensiveness is both physical and psychological. At the physical level I sometimes call it “defending the middle.� One can actually get good at not being pushed by sinking in between ones feet, hunkering down, and then letting the upper body and the head move freely around. This is a big mistake because you can delude yourself that you are getting good, you can convince yourself that you are winning. In reality your opponent has to ‘up the ante’ if they want to win, and if they are nice they won’t.

There are four primary push-hands movements: peng, ji, lu, an.
If you stay with these movements your practice will improve. There are also four secondary push-hands movements: cai, kao, lei, zhou. When your partner makes a mistake and leaves peng, ji, lu, an, you must respond immediately with cai, kao, lei, or zhou. The problem is that if your partner responds quickly, so must you. Zhou, for instance means use the elbow to pivot, throw or strike. In slow motion, that’s fine, but moving fast you risk really hurting your partner. Nice people will just lose.
Someone who has taken this wrong path is very difficult to convince they have made a mistake. Usually they will be convinced that they are superior to you.
If my readers want, I will link to Youtube videos of people practicing “defending the middle.�
Since this a totally new blog. I await your responses.

Youtube

I started making a video response to a video on the Taijiquan movement “single whip� by Black Taoist. Now it appears that it is no longer up on Youtube. You’ve got to act fast. Maybe a lot of other people responded and he took it down. Anyway, I have to do something with this footage so look for it in the next couple of days.

Breathe in the Bad

New Agers have made the expression "Breathe in the good stuff, breath out the bad stuff," a cliche.  But there are many Daoist, Buddhist and Shamanic practices like this.  Some suggest breathing in rainbows and breathing out black smoke.  Others suggest breathing in warm happy thoughts and feelings and breathing out death and destruction.  Or breathing in ease and compassion, breathing out guilt, lust, anxiety and suffering.  How about breathing into a specific organ, thereby changing it from black to red to bright orange; Or dull dark forest green to luminous emerald slime green.

I heard the other day someone was breathing fire into their belly and growing roots out of their feet.  Or sucking qi from a tree and storing it in the spine.  The possiblilities are endless.

The other day I was reading an academic paper which had a quote from a Daoist priest writing in the Tang Dynasty (600-900 CE).  In the quote he was describing things non-Daoists do and one of them was, "Breathe in the evil and negativity of the world, breathe out the good and positive."  The author of this paper thought that this one line form the Daoist text was meant as a kind of joke, an obvious tease, or perhaps a gentle ridicule.  But I don't think so Because there are Tibetan Buddhist practices which do just that, breathe in the bad, breathe out the good.

What the hell do all these people think we are, cosmic vaccume cleaners?

If we think about the difference between:

breathing in good breathing out bad

vs.

breathing in bad and breathing out good

What they have in common is that they are both ridiculously narcissistic and egotistic, to the point of viewing oneself as a demi-god.

Or perhaps they just reveal how utterly alone and helpless we are.  That we are less powerful than a fungus on a dust mite's ear on the back of a flea!  Would that it were.  No, some how I just don't see cultivating weakness as the goal of these exercises.  Give it some thought.

Anyway, I'm going to a hippy hot springs for a couple of days and I just thought I should get that out of my chest.