[Cameron]

You should continue but build up the time graudually. In other words don't start standing for 1 hour the first week start with 5 or 10 minutes for a couple weeks then 15 minutes etc. If you build up the time gradually it is easier. you may experience some trembling after 15 or 20 minutes that is pretty normal and part of the test of discomfort. The way Cohen describes this in his book is your body is adapting to a greater charge of internal energy. Sort of like a pot of water boiling and the lid is jumping up and down.

[allan-in-china]

IanB, on Feb 3 2006, 05:01 AM, said:

Standing a Defence

I have been doing ZZ for years and have found it to be an extremely sound practice. I have a background in combative martial arts and yiquan like tai chi if you understand it, it allows the practitioner to develop power and skill quickly.

M y ability improved quickly when I began training using some of the yiquan system.

I agree standing is quite a good practice for martial arts, health and grounding.

Going off on a tangent here, in China they say "Xing Yi Quan - 2 years and you can kill people; Tai chi chuan - 10 years and you haven't even started"

Basically Yiquan, comes from Xing Yi Quan so I can assume it would roughly be the same. And the pace with tai chi chuan is also related to training methods, and focus...

IanB, on Feb 3 2006, 05:01 AM, said:

To get this you have to really work at it and standing is only a small part of the training. It will not give you super powers, only wearing your pants on the outside can do that, but it will help you develop connected and integrated movement.

Ian

Nice.

Allan

[Pietro]

But standing is not the same as embracing the tree. Embracing the tree is just one of the standing postures. As we were tought the whole system included 200 postures, and they are generally not teached to people who are not disciples. This because some of those postures include postures to open the psychic channels in the brain. Not everybodies brain can take that, and learning that includes learning the preparatory practices, what can go wrong, how to spot if something is going wrong and how to fix it. So it should come no surprise that finding a person who knows the whole system is verh hard. And one that is willing to teach you the whole system is, at the moment, nearly impossible.

Still taking away the most dangerous postures there are still many other postures thar should be known, studied and practiced. Each having a different effect in the body. Depending if you want to raise the energy or ground it. If you want to concentrate the energy (and where, TT, internal organ, bones, ...), or disperse it. Develop stability or develop Fa Jin. Open the MC. Send the energy to a particular organ and so on.

According to Bruce (and I have no reason to doubt him), when people started to connect the postures Tai Ji was born. Most (all?) of the standing postures are just Tai Ji positions, used as postures. So Single Whip is the most yang position and is used to raise the energy (or was it expand it?). The opening with the hands raising raises the energy. If I were in a Tai Ji school and they were not teaching ZZ I probably would change school. There is also a way to practice Tai Ji where you stay in each definite posture between 5 and 15 minutes, and in each passage posture between 1 and 5. The details are in the book: "the secret of internal martial arts". A must have.

Play Guitar is the most yin position, and when I asked Bruce what posture should I use to develop my deep yin he said Play the Lute (Yang Style)/Play Guitar (Wu style). For this reason I asked Yoda what posture was he using during his chastity period. Saying, "I have been doing standing" is like saying "I took a pill". Which?

For a period I tried to use play guitar to see if it was enough to balance my rising sexuality. It wasn't. But it might be enough if I start working with that many months before I start building up. Then the deep yin would be firmly estabilished. It's in my totest list.

BTW, Yi Quan teaches 6 of those 200 postures, and that alone is more balanced than doing only one.

It wouldn't be a bad thing to start to write down a list of standing postures (the safe ones at least), and their relative effect.

[thaddeus]

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 06:17 AM, said:

But standing is not the same as embracing the tree. Embracing the tree is just one of the standing postures. As we were tought the whole system included 200 postures, and they are generally not teached to people who are not disciples. This because some of those postures include postures to open the psychic channels in the brain. Not everybodies brain can take that, and learning that includes learning the preparatory practices, what can go wrong, how to spot if something is going wrong and how to fix it. So it should come no surprise that finding a person who knows the whole system is verh hard. And one that is willing to teach you the whole system is, at the moment, nearly impossible.

Hi Pietro, I'm going to challenge some of this, don't take it personally, it's for clarification(this an important topic).. what 'system' is this? Most of what we see today comes from Wang Xianghai (e.g. Lam Kam Chuen, etc.). Did Bruce say this? I don't recall Master Wang writing about opening psychic channels in the brain and what not. I also have experience with BP Chan (Ken Cohen's teacher, and he definately never spoke like that, in fact, he would scold you harshly if you talked about 'chi' and mingmen,etc.)

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 06:17 AM, said:

Still taking away the most dangerous postures there are still many other postures thar should be known, studied and practiced. Each having a different effect in the body. Depending if you want to raise the energy or ground it. If you want to concentrate the energy (and where, TT, internal organ, bones, ...), or disperse it. Develop stability or develop Fa Jin. Open the MC. Send the energy to a particular organ and so on.

What would be a dangerous posture and what was the result of practicing this posture. Also I am familiar with some Chen Style Xiaojia practice for Fajin development using Single Whip, but it doesn't have to be single whip, can you elaborate on what you were taught regarding learing fajin from a specific posture?

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 06:17 AM, said:

According to Bruce (and I have no reason to doubt him), when people started to connect the postures Tai Ji was born. Most (all?) of the standing postures are just Tai Ji positions, used as postures. So Single Whip is the most yang position and is used to raise the energy (or was it expand it?). The opening with the hands raising raises the energy. If I were in a Tai Ji school and they were not teaching ZZ I probably would change school. There is also a way to practice Tai Ji where you stay in each definite posture between 5 and 15 minutes, and in each passage posture between 1 and 5. The details are in the book: "the secret of internal martial arts". A must have.

Play Guitar is the most yin position, and when I asked Bruce what posture should I use to develop my deep yin he said Play the Lute (Yang Style)/Play Guitar (Wu style). For this reason I asked Yoda what posture was he using during his chastity period. Saying, "I have been doing standing" is like saying "I took a pill". Which?

For a period I tried to use play guitar to see if it was enough to balance my rising sexuality. It wasn't. But it might be enough if I start working with that many months before I start building up. Then the deep yin would be firmly estabilished. It's in my totest list.

BTW, Yi Quan teaches 6 of those 200 postures, and that alone is more balanced than doing only one.

It wouldn't be a bad thing to start to write down a list of standing postures (the safe ones at least), and their relative effect.

I think it's extremely difficult to show any effect from a standing posture. If it were possible to document a rise or fall of blood pressure, for example, as a result of a specific posture vs. another, it would put this practice into mainstream. But realistically, the health benefits are anecdotal and any research is dubious at best. Also, why do we continue to listen to non medical experts about health benefits....Our society and europe are extremely open regarding alternative therapy and so far no one is taking this seriously. Discussions about psychic channels and such are interesting but extremely subjective. But I think it would be very cool if it were possible to document some effects of standing as it is being done with acupuncture. For example, can we show that liver enzymes were affected somehow by using a posture that is purported to affect the liver meridian. Acupuncture studies are showing changes in hormones and other biological effects.
Anyway, enough ranting for now..
T

[Pietro]

thaddeus, on Feb 3 2006, 03:06 PM, said:

Hi Pietro, I'm going to challenge some of this, don't take it personally, it's for clarification(this an important topic).. what 'system' is this? Most of what we see today comes from Wang Xianghai (e.g. Lam Kam Chuen, etc.). Did Bruce say this? I don't recall Master Wang writing about opening psychic channels in the brain and what not. I also have experience with BP Chan (Ken Cohen's teacher, and he definately never spoke like that, in fact, he would scold you harshly if you talked about 'chi' and mingmen,etc.)

Fair enough, challenge accepted. I learned this from Bruce Kumar Frantzis. He is a taoist master and lineage holder. He learned (actually relearned) what he teaches from Liu Huang Ching, who was a well known figure in Bei Jing, Master, Lineage Holder and head of a Taoist Sect. He also was both a Confucianist and a Buddhist, but this is irrelevant to our present discussion. When Bruce got to know Liu, Bruce was already at an advanced level and Liu only accepted to teach him because of a dream he had that night. When they went to speak about standing Liu asked Bruce what he already knew. As Bruce described the various element he has gathered from teachers around China, Liu finally conceeded:
Ok you have all the pieces, but you do realise that this is an extreemly uneducated way to learn?
Yes, but did I had any choise
No, but would you like to relearn everything in the correct sequence and the correct way?

So Liu reteached to Bruce all the elements that compose the standing practice.

Accoding to Bruce there is no one outside of China, in this moment that teaches the whole set of the 200 postures. Bruce knows them but he does not teches them either. To us the psychic channels elements were given as an en-passant information, just telling us how far did the rabbit hole go, and why asking to know the full set was not an option. the fact that your teacher did not say nothing about them does not necessarily mean that they ignore it: also Bruce did not spoke about "standing postures to open the psychic channels" for more than a decade. But he often spoke about how in Taoist meditation it is possible to connect various points in the brain, how that is extreemly dangerous as (he said) some combinations would give you 'powers' but all the others would make you mad in a way that no one could recover you. I am just repeating what's in his books. There are 30 points. This makes for about 2^(15*30) combinations. Of those maybe 10 or a 100 are ok. This makes 1 on 3*(10^133) circa. If you want to try you do it FULLY on your responsability. And no, I don't think that Bruce himself knows what combinations are feasible.

thaddeus, on Feb 3 2006, 03:06 PM, said:

What would be a dangerous posture and what was the result of practicing this posture. Also I am familiar with some Chen Style Xiaojia practice for Fajin development using Single Whip, but it doesn't have to be single whip, can you elaborate on what you were taught regarding learing fajin from a specific posture?

I don't think I can help you much with this. You know how Chia has the ethical position of keeping nothing for himself, and teach everything? Well Bruce has the ethical position of teach pubblicly only material that is safe. Since I only took public courses I was not exposed to that info (only to the fact that it does exist). If I were exposed to that kind of info, I probably would not tell you pubblicly too, as this might have prevented me from learning more from Bruce.

But, when I started standing every day I soon was standing with the hands above my heart in the classical tree position. I developed a blockage in the heart, and Frank Allen, told me to go back and stand with the hands by the side. After 6 months the blockage was totally gone, and measurement taken with that computer that measures your aura (or so it claims) gave a fully white energy for my heart.

While we were learning standing we were briefly told about how by twisting the tendons around the arms it is possible to open (or was it, it helps open) the skull plates. Skulls of practitioner with skull plates not perfectly sealed have been found. Chia has one in his meditation center, too. To show all this Bruce sometimes moves his skull plates. Before he always asks for the doctors in the room to come near and then tell if they skulls are effectively moving. I have seen this 2 times, and both times the doctors said, "yes it is happening, it shouldn't but it is". I suppose this is the kind of technique you don't want to teach around.

Now let's go to Xing Yi. I have a book (not here, you have to trust me on this) about one of the main master from Xing Yi. At the beginning of the century he changed the hand position in San-Ti, from extended out, to fingers pointing up. This because he said the first is better for fighting, but it disperse too much energy. Since people were now practicing San ti for health, the change made sense.

Speaking about how to develop Fa Jin. Yes he showed us that position. It was at the end of the fifth day and I was cooked, and not particularly interested in that. It was a sort of tree position (oh my god, now you will assume that everything is a modification of the tree position ), but the hands were twisted. I am not going to describe the way the hands were twisted, but if we meet or you IM me I shall be happy to tell you were you can find a picture of it. The info was given as an answer to a question from an advanced student: Ralph Herber, who was hosting the event. If you contact him you could probably ask more details, as he was suggested from Bruce to actually try this out. For me it was all way above my hair.

When Bruce teaches spiralling he usually takes the students one by one and assigns to each a personal position that is supposed to balance his personal imbalances or just bring the person easier to the next level of the practice. I haven't done the course (is considered not a basic one) yet, although by now I am eager to do it. But I have seen people practicing in their personal postures, and believe me, you do have a wide variety over there.

thaddeus, on Feb 3 2006, 03:06 PM, said:

I think it's extremely difficult to show any effect from a standing posture. If it were possible to document a rise or fall of blood pressure, for example, as a result of a specific posture vs. another, it would put this practice into mainstream. But realistically, the health benefits are anecdotal and any research is dubious at best. Also, why do we continue to listen to non medical experts about health benefits....Our society and europe are extremely open regarding alternative therapy and so far no one is taking this seriously. Discussions about psychic channels and such are interesting but extremely subjective. But I think it would be very cool if it were possible to document some effects of standing as it is being done with acupuncture. For example, can we show that liver enzymes were affected somehow by using a posture that is purported to affect the liver meridian. Acupuncture studies are showing changes in hormones and other biological effects.

I hope you realise, sir, that science is based on reproducibility and measurability. In standing this would mean having a statistical significant set of people willing to stand for about an hour a day, for many days, if not months. All this while you need personal corrections OR you need to take a group of people who already practice taoist arts and know how to stand. Those people would make the whole test fairly inconsistent as any 'unaverage' result might be attributed to their strangeness. Also when you make a double blind you need to have an equivalent body of people who are not doing the practice, but believe they are. This is not easy too, as if you take practitioners, they know how to stand. And if you take non-practitioners, and place them in a wrong standing position for 1 hour a day they would probably develop a structure too. So you would only test for the specific effect of a posture and not for the general effects of standing.

Of course you could measure Bruce or other masters before and after a session of standing, and this has been done. I remember the measurement taken on Chia before and after doing the sounds. But what does this tells us? Just that this particular person had those measurements. Considering the level of control that those people have on their body even I wouldn't sign that the reason is in technique alone, unless I personally trusted that they would not alter the state of their bodies in other ways (also physical, like squeezing an organ). So we would have to stand on trust. A fairly unstable base for a scientific test, you would agree. And not significantly different from where we started.

Does all this say that standing has no scientific base? Yes, indeed, for now it does.
Does it say that standing will never have a scientific base? No, maybe one day we might find a way to test for all those things. And then we will know. In the meantime we have to use anedocte and instructions from people who supposedly are more knowledgeable than us in it. And to conclude, and I am speaking here as a scientist, Science does not cover the whole of reality, and never will. And I have no problem with that. Do you?

thaddeus, on Feb 3 2006, 03:06 PM, said:

Anyway, enough ranting for now..

Thanks,
Pietro

Edited to add calculation.

This post has been edited by Pietro: 03 February 2006 - 09:37 AM

[Yoda]

Great thread!

Extremely cool on the skull plate thing too.

I've always suspected that there's a huge ocean of information about standing that isn't in circulation yet and the above post supports that suspicion.

Standing is so powerful that it can be harmful and I don't think any one approach or sequence is a one-size-fits-all would work for everyone.

[thaddeus]

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 12:31 PM, said:

While we were learning standing we were briefly told about how by twisting the tendons around the arms it is possible to open (or was it, it helps open) the skull plates. Skulls of practitioner with skull plates not perfectly sealed have been found. Chia has one in his meditation center, too. To show all this Bruce sometimes moves his skull plates. Before he always asks for the doctors in the room to come near and then tell if they skulls are effectively moving. I have seen this 2 times, and both times the doctors said, "yes it is happening, it shouldn't but it is". I suppose this is the kind of technique you don't want to teach around.

Funny to be talking about this now...last night I had the distinct feeling my skull was going to burst open..i was thinking about the skull plate thing...

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 12:31 PM, said:

Now let's go to Xing Yi. I have a book (not here, you have to trust me on this) about one of the main master from Xing Yi. At the beginning of the century he changed the hand position in San-Ti, from extended out, to fingers pointing up. This because he said the first is better for fighting, but it disperse too much energy. Since people were now practicing San ti for health, the change made sense.

That was none other than Sun Lu Tang.

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 12:31 PM, said:

Speaking about how to develop Fa Jin. Yes he showed us that position. It was at the end of the fifth day and I was cooked, and not particularly interested in that. It was a sort of tree position (oh my god, now you will assume that everything is a modification of the tree position ), but the hands were twisted. I am not going to describe the way the hands were twisted, but if we meet or you IM me I shall be happy to tell you were you can find a picture of it. The info was given as an answer to a question from an advanced student: Ralph Herber, who was hosting the event. If you contact him you could probably ask more details, as he was suggested from Bruce to actually try this out. For me it was all way above my hair.

Fair enough. The training I was exposed to was more about using the standing posture to connect the fingers to the toes. Fajin is a store/release mechanism using the ground connection, so was curious to see how a specific posture fit into that training.

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 12:31 PM, said:

When Bruce teaches spiralling he usually takes the students one by one and assigns to each a personal position that is supposed to balance his personal imbalances or just bring the person easier to the next level of the practice. I haven't done the course (is considered not a basic one) yet, although by now I am eager to do it. But I have seen people practicing in their personal postures, and believe me, you do have a wide variety over there.

I hope you realise, sir, that science is based on reproducibility and measurability. In standing this would mean having a statistical significant set of people willing to stand for about an hour a day, for many days, if not months. All this while you need personal corrections OR you need to take a group of people who already practice taoist arts and know how to stand. Those people would make the whole test fairly inconsistent as any 'unaverage' result might be attributed to their strangeness. Also when you make a double blind you need to have an equivalent body of people who are not doing the practice, but believe they are. This is not easy too, as if you take practitioners, they know how to stand. And if you take non-practitioners, and place them in a wrong standing position for 1 hour a day they would probably develop a structure too. So you would only test for the specific effect of a posture and not for the general effects of standing.

Of course you could measure Bruce or other masters before and after a session of standing, and this has been done. I remember the measurement taken on Chia before and after doing the sounds. But what does this tells us? Just that this particular person had those measurements. Considering the level of control that those people have on their body even I wouldn't sign that the reason is in technique alone, unless I personally trusted that they would not alter the state of their bodies in other ways (also physical, like squeezing an organ). So we would have to stand on trust. A fairly unstable base for a scientific test, you would agree. And not significantly different from where we started.

Does all this say that standing has no scientific base? Yes, indeed, for now it does.
Does it say that standing will never have a scientific base? No, maybe one day we might find a way to test for all those things. And then we will know. In the meantime we have to use anedocte and instructions from people who supposedly are more knowledgeable than us in it. And to conclude, and I am speaking here as a scientist, Science does not cover the whole of reality, and never will. And I have no problem with that. Do you?
Thanks,
Pietro

Edited to add calculation.

There can be alot of excuses not to backup claims. I never said it was easy. The point wasn't to make every claim stand up to a double blind perfect scientific study, but to just weed out some of the obvious nonsense. Some things would be simple to test without alot of rigor.
I don't need a scientific study to tell me if i touch something hot I can get burned. But if someone claims certain postures are going to connect psychic channels and give me miraculous powers or make me certifiably insane, well, i'd like to see something to back it up. Even a story about a crazy brother in law who did embrace a twig instead of tree and lost his eyesight. Otherwise state it's a belief and take it from there. And sure, one can counter with arguments about faith and parent/child/teacher/disciple trust, etc. I'm not talking about that so much.
I agree though..cool thread..
T

[Cameron]

After a little thinking I think it is inappropriate for me to recount what some teachers told me privately or have people doubt there teachers or just presume to know myself to begin with. Practice and follow what you think is right and true and let others do the same is better IMO.

This post has been edited by Cameron: 03 February 2006 - 05:09 PM

[thaddeus]

Cameron, on Feb 3 2006, 03:31 PM, said:

The real problem here is not that the practices themselves don't have tremenndous health benefits(I have not had to see a doctor in over 5 years since doing qigong standing, except for knee surgery, I was a sickly child and was in the Dr's office many times a year when I was younger) but that most advanced qigong teachers don't seem to be able to get together and do these scientific studies.
Although they don't say anything outright, I get the feeling there is a level of arrogance and mistrust between the top or atleast most well know qigong people. For example, and Pietro I heard this from another qigong teacher who told me Bruce got almost all his Baguazhang and qigong from the late Master Kenny Gong and wrote in his book that he was training in China with Liu that same summer he was in NYC training with Kenny Gong.
You here these things and go " Hmm, ok, well either Bruce is lying or Kenny Gong's top student is lying"

hmmm, i didn't really want to mention this, but I heard from many diverse sources about BK's 'history'. Even that video where he pushes the student is doctored up (frames are deleted to make it look more spectacular), it might still be on his website. This is related to my point, even though what you say is 90% true, it's the 10% exaggerations that taint your whole message and ruin your credibility.

Cameron, on Feb 3 2006, 03:31 PM, said:

Then you here comments like bruce saying there are 200 postures or whatever and each one has special powers or whatever and this doesn't vibe at all with what Ken Cohen's teacher, BP chan, was talking about. He just taught embracing the tree mostly and said the reason most people don't get to 'higher levels' of kung accomplishment is lack of patience. Not because they don't have the secret posture that opens your channels to your brain but lack of patience to practice for years and years.
<snip>That is exactly what Cohen teaches using 4 postures(embrace the tree being 1 of them)

I learned 4 from Mr. Chan. The first was 'hold the camera' as if holding a camera infront of the third eye, then the embracing tree, laogong pointing to opposite nipple, then lower near the navel and finally at the sides..
Is this what Ken is teaching?
I have detailed notes from when I was training there...
T

[Cameron]

Yes, Thaddeus those are exactly the 4 Ken teaches. But instead of 'hold the camera' he will say imagine your arms are resting on top of a beach ball. Or imagine your holding a beach ball at your chest height, etc.

[Cameron]

If your interested in wang zhang zhai translated works Li Jiong has some at Yiquando.com

This post has been edited by Cameron: 03 February 2006 - 05:10 PM

[allan-in-china]

Cameron, on Feb 3 2006, 03:31 PM, said:

Then you here comments like bruce saying there are 200 postures or whatever and each one has special powers or whatever and this doesn't vibe at all with what Ken Cohen's teacher, BP chan, was talking about. He just taught embracing the tree mostly and said the reason most people don't get to 'higher levels' of kung accomplishment is lack of patience. Not because they don't have the secret posture that opens your channels to your brain but lack of patience to practice for years and years.
<snip>That is exactly what Cohen teaches using 4 postures(embrace the tree being 1 of them)

I agree, the only secret I have learned is there are no secrets, only patience.

What I have read about Wang Xiangzhai is he started standing practice from when he was about 8, and practiced for many hours a day for decades. Then he reached what has been translated as his enlightenment through martial arts. I've read, what he described for standing practice was basically put you arms in any position in front of your chest and stick with it, he didn't really seem to have any specific postures.

I've been taught briefly by an Yiquan practitioner over here to put my arms in front of my chest and stay there, he didn't say anything about more than one posture, he showed me one and one only.

I believe the big secret is taking one practice and running with it.

There may be postures that open channels in your brain or whatever, but who cares? Just pick 1 (or 4?) and stick with it. Chances are the two people's comments don't vibe because (I'm guessing, I've had no contact with either) BP Chan was aiming for enlightenment and Bruce's teacher was interested in special powers. I personally prefer enlightenment, the rest are just toys to play with...

Although I could be completely wrong...

Allan

[Cameron]

More interesting stuff. In any case, yes I basically agree Allan and will stick with my 1 posture for now. If it was good enough for BP Chan it is good enough for me.

Not that I don't value Pietro's views but calling a system incomplete that a master like BP Chan taught others is a little of guru worship IMO(in this case beleiving your teacher and his 200 postures are the 'real deal' and others are incomplete).

This post has been edited by Cameron: 03 February 2006 - 09:02 PM

[Pietro]

allan-in-china, on Feb 4 2006, 05:14 AM, said:

BP Chan was aiming for enlightenment and Bruce's teacher was interested in special powers.

I am sorry, but what do you know about what was Liu interested in? A lineage holder, by definition is a person who has the responsability to pass the whole information of a particular taoist sect to the next generation, this to avoid it being watered down as time goes by. This requires those people to know to know all aspects of the art, even those they might themselves not be interested in, or might not be releavant for this historical time.

Also why do everybody keep on speaking about the 'special powers'. WTF! By my understanding maybe 50 of the 200 postures were adressing that. You would still have 150 postures for the rest.

[Pietro]

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 05:59 AM, said:

More interesting stuff. In any case, yes I basically agree Allan and will stick with my 1 posture for now. If it was good enough for BP Chan it is good enough for me.

Not that I don't value Pietro's views but calling a system incomplete that a master like BP Chan taught others is a little of guru worship IMO(in this case beleiving your teacher and his 200 postures are the 'real deal' and others are incomplete).

Hello Cameron,
I ignore what BP Chan teaches, but let's try not to confuse things, especially what each of us has said, since we are so lucky to have a record. What I said is :

Pietro, on Feb 3 2006, 12:17 PM, said:

...If I were in a Tai Ji school and they were not teaching ZZ I probably would change school. There is also a way to practice Tai Ji where you stay in each definite posture between 5 and 15 minutes, and in each passage posture between 1 and 5. The details are in ...

This sais nothing of the 200 postures, which is a system in itself. If BP Chan teaches Tai Ji starting from standing good for him and for his students. If he only teaches 4 postures, that's good, better than teaching only 1. I DID not say that only if you learn the whole 200 postures can you learn Tai Ji. That is simply false. But it is true that most of the position (all?) in Tai Ji, and most of the postures are one and the same thing.
Thus,
if your teacher only teaches 4 postures, but then teaches you to stand in various Tai Ji postures to develop the position, here you go, you are having the postures (some, not all 200, as you don't need them all to learn Tai Ji), just with another name.

If the teacher does not teach standing in the various postures, AND does not teach any but 4 postures, I do have doubts on the system. This regardless of how famous the system is. And not beacuse my teacher said so and so, but because of what I felt, and I am feeling growing in me, daily, from when in November I started to integrate those extra information.

If this makes you feel better, good. If it doesn't, amen. After all we are following different teachers for a reason and it is an old truth that every martial art student honestly believes his school to be the best. If we didn't we would change school. And thus still be in the school we believe is the best.

[allan-in-china]

Pietro, on Feb 4 2006, 08:13 PM, said:

I am sorry, but what do you know about what was Liu interested in? A lineage holder, by definition is a person who has the responsability to pass the whole information of a particular taoist sect to the next generation, this to avoid it being watered down as time goes by. This requires those people to know to know all aspects of the art, even those they might themselves not be interested in, or might not be releavant for this historical time.

Also why do everybody keep on speaking about the 'special powers'. WTF! By my understanding maybe 50 of the 200 postures were adressing that. You would still have 150 postures for the rest.

Pietro, no offense intended, I put the notes "I'm guessing, I've had no contact with either" in front to indicate exactly that. I have no idea what Liu was interested in. I can only guess by what he taught...

And I only have a very basic knowledge of what he taught, I am only guessing from what has been presented in this thread.

This is only based on my belief that clear qi channels doesn't equal enlightenment. Which as I was saying could be wrong.

And your point that he has the responsibility to pass the whole information of a sect to the next person is very correct.

I have read Bruce's book on the internal arts and was impressed, it was one of the reasons I started studying them. I also read his opening the energy gates in the body and it doesn't really appeal to me. I'm not saying it is incorrect, I'm just saying it isn't my cup of tea...

The standing is good, but I don't believe in focusing on individual acupuncture points, I'm more of a believer in one focus, and the rest cleans itself up, and that is what I've been taught and what has worked for me...

Let me say one more time for the record that, it is what works for me, and that doesn't mean it is true for everyone.

The thing that most appeals to me about the one focus rather than 200 postures is it's simple. And complex things confuse me.

I can imagine the 200 postures would only be usable once you had actually got your mind out of the way. I think anything that brings the mind too into the picture is dangerous, because how can you know which posture you need to do next??

My belief is just relax into the one posture and let the rest happen naturally, anything more complex and my brain can't handle it...

But I can imagine Bruce and his teacher are much closer to enlightenment than me, so what do I know?

I'm sorry if I upset you.

Anyways, Cameron, I found that Wang Xiangzhai book I was looking talking about it's called "the tao of yiquan" by jan diepersloot.

He started xingyiquan when he was 8, when he got up in the morning he would start standing, his uncle (and teacher) Guo Yunshen would get up later, and if the floor was not sufficiently wet from perspiration Wang would have to stand until Guo was satisfied the floor was wet enough.

I'm not sure how or when he became "self-realised as a martial artist" but it was at or before he was 28. So about 20 years... Although he kept getting better after that, but by that stage he had at least had some sort of breakthrough.

The book says: Wang Xiangzhai mentioned that there were many different types of standing stances, but his idea was to take the essence and combine them into one calling it the universal stance.

Allan

[Yoda]

One of the reasons that standing is so confusing is that WXZ taught everyone differently. (I forget if I got this from one of Jan's books or an online article)

[Cameron]

Pietro BP Chan is dead and I never studied with him. He is Ken Cohen's teacher. I don't think my teacher is better than yours and actually I wouldn't say I have one primary teacher or school as you do right now. The idea that others are incomplete and yours is the truth is what I have a problem with. I never said my teacher is the best and Bruce is not. I have never met Bruce and would not presume or guess at what he knows and what his level of kung accomplishment or enlightenment for that matter.

It is good you respect and follow your teacher and his system. Just when you say comments like ' Emrace the tree by itself is not standing meditation" (Yes, you did say this a few posts back) that shows a level of arrogance where you are projecting your teachers beleif about any practice onto some other teacher. Embrace the tree definetly is a major tool of training used by qigong teachers for many reasons and I would object to anyone saying it is not a complete or full system by itself indenependent of your ideas to create more postures out of Tai Ji.

There is nothing worng with creating more postures and being creative but I would not say that is the truth and sticking to one posture is not the truth.

[Pietro]

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

I don't think my teacher is better than yours and actually I wouldn't say I have one primary teacher or school as you do right now.

I am fine with that.

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

The idea that others are incomplete and yours is the truth is what I have a problem with. I never said my teacher is the best and Bruce is not. I have never met Bruce and would not presume or guess at what he knows and what his level of kung accomplishment or enlightenment for that matter.

It is good you respect and follow your teacher and his system. Just when you say comments like ' Emrace the tree by itself is not standing meditation" (Yes, you did say this a few posts back) that shows a level of arrogance where you are projecting your teachers beleif about any practice onto some other teacher. Embrace the tree definetly is a major tool of training used by qigong teachers for many reasons and I would object to anyone saying it is not a complete or full system by itself indenependent of your ideas to create more postures out of Tai Ji.

There is nothing worng with creating more postures and being creative but I would not say that is the truth and sticking to one posture is not the truth.

Cameron, it is important that you understand one thing: not all schools are the same. Not all teachers all the same, not all traditions are the same. Not only some are good for some people and some are good for others, but some are simply good and some are just not good. This is inevitable, as different people teach basing on their current level of progression. And on the level of progression of their teachers and so on. And up to now I haven´t said nothing about my personal judgment... this will come later. Thinking that all the schools are equivalent, all equally good, just good for different people is the new age postmodern dream vision. It is the equivalent of saying we cannot know anything, nor can we ever know anything. Go in the quote section and reread the quote I copied there. No real master believes so. Not Bruce, not Mantak, and I am 100% sure not your teacher (provided he is a 'recognized master' and I kind of understood that he is such), whoever that is. And you know why, because all those people to become masters, had to work hard. Mastery does not come cheap. And not only work hard but discern. Discernment is the ability to distinguish the good from the bad, the real from the false, the effective practice from the crap. Cameron, you don't like Eric. And Eric has been called Master by Chia. If everything is the same, you couldn't express a judgement on him. But you can say: this practice is balanced, this is not.

And all this leads to the second element: personal judgement.
As you say, this practice is balanced, this is not. And we all have done that, and we all do it, we base our judgement on our experience. Well I do the same. But we go one step further, we say, this is so basic that no serious school can exist without it. Ron would say so respect to chastity. His experience led him to believe so. How many times have you heard him say so. But you agree that chastity is important, so it does not rub you the wrong way. Well, it is now many years that I stand, and I am sure there are people in this place that have stand for longer than me. In november there were people at the workshop who were standing for 10 years. And boy were they happy to learn what B. was teaching. Was it enough for them to stand for 10 years to naturally develop it? No it wasn't. How long would they have to stand before their body learned the same things by itself? 100 years? 200? Some of this knowledge have been passed down from generation to generation. Every master maybe discovering some extra elements of the puzzle. Do you think a single generation can relearn it all, just by practicing it? Surely you do not. So you too believe that the school is extreemly important. All those stories about this person standing for 30 years and than got this and that, forget to mention the teachings that the person got, either at the beginning or during. Like let the hands rise by itself, keep the back of the knees open, etc.... Sometimes those teachings are not given at the beginning. But they are given. Or the magic does not happen. Those people standing for 10 years are the counter proof of that.

But my experience did not stop in learning that there are correct ways to stand, incorrect ways, and useless ways. I also learned that if I stand in the wrong position I get blockages. I don't progress, infact I get worse and worse. I have lived through it, I can tell. And the solution was: change position. It is not 'being creative' Cameron. It is not intuitive Qi Gung. It would be like saying, if you want to do acupuncture, just get some needles and be creative. Yes, it is an art, but it is also, and foremost, a discipline.

So I repeat, only physically standing, only in one position, it is just not enough. My experience first led me to understand this. If you don't like me to say so I can say it only on my blog. I will not lie, but if you cannot stand it, I am sorry.


Now let's get back and dissecting your message:

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

The idea that others are incomplete and yours is the truth is what I have a problem with.

Writing it like this seems to claim that : ALL others are incomplete and ONLY mine is complete. This is not what I said: I said there are some things which I would consider necessary to see a school as complete. If those things are absent in most or even all other schools outside of China I am sorry. And I really am sorry, for I wish it was not so. But I am sure, that this knowlege is present in China and thriving. As I am sure that if we go there we probably would not find it. After all Bruce RE-learned this stuff. Thus he met this knowledge two times. And this is one practitioner. But also, from my understanding it is not tought to everybody.

Our generation is the generation that will see this practice arrive in the west. Some years ago there was no standing at all in the west. Sexual practices were unknown, and the microcosmic was not tought. Now all this is fairly common knowledge. Not only new practices are arriving, but the same practice arrives again and again in deeper fashion.

How would a Tai Ji practitioner react, 10 years ago, if we were telling him that if there is not energy in his Tai Ji the form is empty. He would be enraged. When I went to Japan for a conference I spent some time in the mountains. I met the local tai ji champion. He was an old man, who was teaching Tai Ji to the kid of the hostel, who arranged the meeting when he saw me practice in the morning. I showed him my horrible form, he showed me his perfectly fluent form. It was beautiful, and ... totally empty. The old man did not had the slightest experience of energy. We then sat and drank some tea, and he asked me what I thought about energy, because he just founded a book where it said that with no energy the form is empty. What should I have done? I suggested him to contact the author and go study with him. He will not do it. He is an old man, and would not loose his face. Does this say something of him, yes. But it say something more about the school that teached him. That was an incomplete school. In a away that everybody in this board could recognise.

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

I never said my teacher is the best and Bruce is not. I have never met Bruce and would not presume or guess at what he knows and what his level of kung accomplishment or enlightenment for that matter.

Nor did I say that Bruce is THE best. Just that he teaches some things that, having learned them, I believe should be part of anybody learning Tai Ji. If he is the only one teaching them, too bad.

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

Just when you say comments like ' Emrace the tree by itself is not standing meditation" (Yes, you did say this a few posts back) that shows a level of arrogance where you are projecting your teachers beleif about any practice onto some other teacher.

No, just a different experience.

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

Embrace the tree definetly is a major tool of training used by qigong teachers for many reasons and I would object to anyone saying it is not a complete or full system by itself indenependent of your ideas to create more postures out of Tai Ji.

It is indeed a major tool, but as such it is just one of many tools. I had problems (blockages) while using only that tool. As such it is not complete: my experience told me so; I needed other postures.

Cameron, on Feb 4 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

There is nothing worng with creating more postures and being creative but I would not say that is the truth and sticking to one posture is not the truth.

Since you never hear mention about more than the 6 postures of Yi Quan (or similar) you now assume that the 200 postures must have been a creative work of a single modern practitioner. But the truth is that you don't know. A more honest approach from your part would have been: "I never heard about that and I wonder why? Still I can't exclude that to be true" As this attitude leaves you the door open to learn more. That is, btw, the attitude I try to keep when I am confronted with new knowledge.

[Cameron]

Pietro obviously you are a passionate student of Taoism to put so much into these posts my ONLY issue with you is your comment "embracing the tree by itself is not complete". If you had said " Embracing the tree by itself, did not open my blockages, I learned many more ways from Bruce which did open my blockages, this way was better FOR ME". My only thought at that point is great, Pietro seems to be on the right track.

I like you and think you have a tremendous amount of knowledge to share but instead of saying " Bruces practice worked great for me, check him out", or " Bill Bodri's stuff really is working great for me, check it out if you want" You have to come with " Not only what I have learned from my particular teacher in my particular school is correct, in fact these other schools are incorrect and not the truth, and you are in effect wasting time with other schools".

I don't think Master BP Chan shared your views on standing and neither do I but I am totally fine with that. I am glad you found a teacher that has helped you, however when you say 1 posture isn't enough(embrace the tree) and claim it is the truth FOR OTHERS that may be false.

From my perspective, I have gone into more deep standing meditations when I only do 1 posture. All my channels wide open? Hell no! But I practice every day and don't think I need to do the special techniques so much as be patient, do some meditation and retention(another practice your teacher doesn't really emphasize, I don't personally agree with that stance but am not going to presume he is wrong, maybe it works for him..or you).

Also, I don't think if Eric and I ever met in person we would dislike eachother. I always liked people I met from Long Island and my aunt lives there probably we would get along just fine. That was just a weird time and he was/is going through crazy times. I wish him, and you, good wishes.

This post has been edited by Cameron: 04 February 2006 - 05:57 PM