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September 8, 2014 at 1:55 pm #42952pkyoungsonParticipant
Certain q kung movements involve visualizing Chi coming into the body. I wonder about visualizing it in a particular color, especially, gold. Seems like it would be good to do.
September 10, 2014 at 8:22 am #42953frechtlingParticipantI think it depends on what “type” of chi you are bringing in, but I’ve seen it all over the map as well. I usually think of blue for earth energy, and I’ve read gold and/or white for universal and/or particle/human plane energy. I still don’t quite grasp the particle/human plane chi and how it is different from universal. Chia always talks about all three, but Winn only really works with earth and heaven (universal). But then again, I don’t really work with the stars or planets or anything “cosmic” yet.
September 11, 2014 at 4:22 am #42955Fool TurtleParticipantDoing some research of my own, this article (concerning colors and cultivation) written by Livia Kohn reminded me of your post above:
September 16, 2014 at 5:21 pm #42957pkyoungsonParticipantOn visualizing gold for chi, in Minke De Voss’ CD “Tao Basics” she uses gold for chi. So as far as I am concerned, my question is answered. Thanks to fechtling and Food Turtle for their comments.
October 13, 2014 at 1:52 am #42959c_howdyParticipantIn the process of the Inner Smile, practitioners take their smiling attitude to each
organ in turn, feeling it physically and in its energetic vibration, visualizing it in its respective color, and sending positive thoughts and intentions toward it. They then allow its psychological dimension to activate, become conscious of any emotional feelings associated with it, let those go, and replace them with the presence of its particular virtue.
-LIVIA KOHN, The Inner Smile in History and ScienceIn the Healing Tao system, orange is not associated with any particular organ.
Instead, orange is associated to the lymphatic system, and the qi behind toxic elimination: urination, defecation, and menstruation.
In short, orange is the color of “body detox”.
Anytime your body is doing work to remove poisons, orange qi is at play.
-http://forum.healingdao.com/general/message/24070/also, there seems to be no question that deep mud brown is equally useful as a chi type, as are any of the varied soil types around the earth which are just like the tribal skin tones.. imho, everyone should charge the deep sexual growth energy of orange and muddy soil browns just as much as the five organ qi’s..
-http://forum.healingdao.com/general/message/24072/I personally wouldn’t try to combine moving practices with visualizations too seriously before movement of the body and movement of the qi is in the right way synchronized.
So for example that Tai Chi Chi Kung sequence which at least M. Chia is teaching has so many aspects to check that for quite long time colors are not very important, in my opinion.
HOWDY
Ösel (Wylie: ‘hod-gsal, ‘od gsal, Sanskrit prabashvara) “Clarity, Luminosity” (often translated “Radiant Light”), referring to the intrinsic purity (Wylie: ka dag) of the substratum of the mindstream (Wylie: sems-rgyud), is a sâdhanâ found in Vajrayana and Bon centered on the state of luminous clarity. Many versions, derivatives and accretions of this sâdhanâ are extant.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_(yoga)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydfGuagKcYM (mortalkombatlegacy2episode1)
October 13, 2014 at 7:28 pm #42961c_howdyParticipantShe is a healing practitioner of Medical Qigong Therapy. Minke is passionate about dance and movement modalities, and has trained 8 years in modern dance and 4 years in Eurythmy, Visable Speech and Song in Germany, as well as being the founder of EnChant Dancers, a multi-dimensional art form, which brings into vivid expression the poetry and song that lives within all beings.
-http://www.rightlivelihoodquest.com/minke-de-vos/Most butoh exercises use image work to varying degrees: from the razorblades and insects of Ankoku Butoh, to Dairakudakan’s threads and water jets, to Seiryukai’s rod in the body. There is a general trend toward the body as “being moved,” from an internal or external source, rather than consciously moving a body part. A certain element of “control vs. uncontrol” is present through many of the exercises.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ButohThe reason I say Butoh is in danger of becoming a utopia, is because even this dancer who many agree is making very interesting work, has been described by critics and Butoh observers as no longer making Butoh! Its true that Kasais work is heavily influenced by Rudolf Steiners Eurhythmy, which Akira spent seven years studying in Germany. And he is very concerned with the link between language and movement and what he presents doesnt quite fit into what might have long been associated with Butoh. I believe that Hijikata opened a question with Butoh and did not give the answer. It is up to dancers and artists who want to explore this question to discover their own responses. Kasai is an artist whose work is constantly developing; his artistic trajectory has been a journey of discovery of methods for interrogating the body. Akira Kasai through his ideas and propositions brings Butoh into contemporaneity in an insightful, refreshing and comical way.
-http://dominiquebaronb.wordpress.com/writings/butoh-utopias/Imagine a thread attached to the very top of your head and the rest of your body as a limp doll.The thread pulls you up onto your very tiptoes, then settles you down so your legs are bowed. Because the thread is the point of suspension, your upper body is straight:head up and back over the spine, gaze forward, hips under the spine, arms limp,and legs bowed.
-https://www.scribd.com/doc/171435003/A-Compilation-of-Butoh-Exercises-2Sorry for my broken English.
For somebody who is familiar with Anthroposophy it might be a question which goes well together with something else.
Quit surprising is this Butoh Rudolf Steiner link because Tatsumi Hijikata clearly was also very much influenced by Yokio Mishima, Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet and even Sada Abe.
Also the use of nudity is not very Anthroposophical.
HOWDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9GtoKGLA6o (ankukobutohdocumentary)
October 16, 2014 at 9:28 pm #42963c_howdyParticipantWe find in particular one symbol that played a great part for this little company of men. You get the symbol when you draw apart this Solomon’s Key, so that the one triangle comes down and the other is raised up. The symbol thus obtained played, as I said, a significant part even as late as the nineteenth century, within this little community or school.
The Master then made the members of his little circle of pupils take up a certain attitude with their bodies. They had to assume such a position that the body itself as it were inscribed this symbol. He made them stand with their legs far apart, and their arms stretched out above. Then by lengthening the lines of the arms downwards, and the lines of the legs upwards, these four lines came to view in the human organism itself. A line was then drawn to unite the feet, and another line to unite the hands above. These two joining lines were felt as lines of force; the pupil became conscious that they do really exist. It became clear to him that currents pass, like electro-magnetic currents, from the left fingertips to the right fingertips, and again from the left foot to the right foot. So that in actual fact the human organism itself writes into space these two intersecting triangles.
The next step was for the pupil to learn to feel what lies in the words: Light streams upwards, Weight bears downwards. The pupil had to experience this in deep meditation, standing in the attitude I have described. Thereby he gradually came to the point where the teacher was able to say to him: Now you are about to experience something that was practised over and over again in the ancient Mysteries. And the pupil attained then in very truth to this further experience, namely that he experienced and felt the very marrow within his bones.
You will be able to obtain some feeling for these things if you will bring what I am saying into connection with something I said to you only yesterday. I told you then, in another connection, that if men continue only to think so abstractly as has become the custom in the course of time, then this living in abstract thoughts remains something external; man as it were externalises himself. It is the exact opposite that occurs when, in this way, a consciousness of the bones from inside is attained.
-RUDOLF STEINER, Rosicrucianism and Modern InitiationSorry for this short extra comment about Antroposophy, but it was interesting that this Minke de Vos had studied Eurythmy for four years which means that she would have been for years very much under the influence of Antroposophy also.
This Antroposophy should be seen as being almost the total opposite of Taoism in my opinion.
I mean immediately.
Still strangely some of these Rosicrucian practices are quite muck like some of the Taoist practices.
On the other hand many of those “meditations” which Steiner is describing in his ‘Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?’, his meditation book, are in my opinion very ineffective because that kind of observations should be approached in more dynamical way, at least immediately, like for example Tom Brown, Jr. is doing.
Sorry again for my broken English.
HOWDY
RUDOLF STEINER An Outline of Occult Science
It is the same with the members of the etheric body, the
sentient body, and the sentient soul. Man is the outcome of the
entire world surrounding him, and every part of his constitution
corresponds to some event, to some being in the external world.
At a certain stage of his development the occult student comes
to a realization of this relation of his own being to the great
cosmos, and this stage of development may in the occult sense be
termed a becoming aware of the relationship of the little world,
the microcosmthat is, man himselfto the great world, the
macrocosm. And when the occult student has struggled through
to such cognition, he may then go through a new experience;
he begins to feel himself united, as it were, with the entire
cosmic structure, although he remains fully conscious of his
own independence. This sensation is a merging into the whole
world, a becoming at one with it, yet without losing one’s
own individual identity. Occult science describes this stage as
the becoming one with the macrocosm. It is important that
this union should not be imagined as one in which separate
consciousness ceases and in which the human being flowers
forth into the universe, for such a thought would only be the
expression of an opinion resulting from untutored reasoning.
Following this stage of development something takes place
that in occult science is described as beatitude. It is neither
possible nor necessary that this stage be more closely described,
for no human words have the power to picture this experience
and it may rightly be said that any conception of this state could
be acquired only by means of such thought-power as would no
longer be dependent upon the instrument of the human brain. The
separate stages of higher knowledge, according to the methods
of initiation that have been here described, may be enumerated
as follows:
1. The study of occult science, in the course of which we first
of all make use of the reasoning powers we have acquired in the
world of the physical senses.
2. Attainment of imaginative cognition.
3. Reading the secret script (which corresponds to inspiration).
4. Working with the philosopher’s stone (corresponding to
intuition).
5. Cognition of the relationship between the microcosm and
the macrocosm.
6. Being one with the macrocosm.
7. Beatitude.
These stages however need not necessarily be thought of
as following one another consecutively, for in the course of
training, the occult student, according to his individuality, may
have attained a preceding stage only to a certain degree when
he has already begun to practice exercises, corresponding to the
next higher stage. For instance, it may be that when he has gained
only a few reliable imaginative pictures, he will already be doing
exercises which lead him on to draw inspiration, intuition, or
cognition of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm
into the sphere of his own experiences.October 24, 2014 at 2:43 pm #42965c_howdyParticipantNew Chen Style’s curriculum includes silk-reeling exercise (chan si gong), which are simply repetitive drills taken from individual movements in the solo form.
-MARK CHEN, Old Frame Chen Family TaijiquanSpiral movement is the essence of Tai Chi Chuan , and the resultant force is known as ‘cocoon-spinning force’ or chan si jing in Chinese. To attain cocoon-spinning force, one must relax the whole body, involve every part in continuous movement and focus the mind and energy.
-GU LIU XIANG & SHEN JIA ZHEN, Chen-style TaijiquanIn my lineage, we call ourselves the Inner-Alchemy-Just-Practice Taoists.’ People in this lineage usually learn from many systemssuch as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and the science of today’s world. Highly refined states of inner experience and consciousness are the birthright of all humans and are accessible by all! Inner-Alchemy-Just-Practice Taoists combine all the things that are effective. They take out what is not necessary, including all rituals and ceremonies. They go to the mountains, practice and come down to teach and help people.
-http://www.universal-tao.com/9-secrets-of-taoist.htmlSorry for my broken English.
Of course there are very different type of qi kung practices but even if this is repetition I would still claim that first of all when one is doing movement exercises it’s better to concentrate to movement and it’s coordination with qi and leave visualization to one’s meditation sessions.
But question is also about some of the choices M. Chia has made.
I personally prefer to practice Tai Chi Chuan more in the Chen style which means low stances, jumps and also integrate to that Bujinkan type of rolls, falls, handsprings etc.
If one looks at that sequence what is taught in ‘The Inner Structure of Tai Chi’ book exactly that, in my opinion, is just not the right way to get to the ‘inner structure of Tai Chi’ because even such a short sequence is actually too long and instead of that one should learn to tap the internal structure with much shorter repetative drills taken from the long form. Attention is still too easily drawn intensively to external movements. Also one should again avoid turning these drills into a ritual which means that one should often enough throw away mastered drill and take again new piece from the long form to be drilled.
So even this alternating Grasping Birds Tail/Single Whip sequence should be deconstructed.
HOWDY
Ps. My angle is here of course to have all possible developmental aspects of Tai Chi Chuan touched: health, energetic, martial art…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amXyAASUDHA (huamnweapon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pf9ox0S_RU (mortalkombatdcjoker) -
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