Week 2 done

Finished off week 2 yesterday.

Not too much to report other than sitting and stilling the mind is becoming easier (it’s still far from easy though!!) and I can blaze through the 6 Healing Sounds without getting sleepy/distracted.

The more I do them, the more it feels that they should be called the 6 Healing Breaths as the sound is more a forming of the exhalation of the breath to give the effect of coming from the organ you’re working on.

In the meditation, Mr. Yudelove is using the backward flowing method. This is the same technique as in the ‘Secret of The Golden Flower’.

With that in mind I’ve been reading the Cleary translation to try to pick up some pointers…. That is a tricky book an no doubt!! I get the feeling that it was written with full disclosure in mind, but the language used obscures the precise steps needed. Either that, or it actually is as simple as crossing your eyes and following your thoughts back to their origin.

Which brings me to my next observation; where the fuck is the origin of a thought?! It was puzzling over this which prompted me to have a look at JJ Semple’s effort on explaining the Golden Flower technique.
I haven’t had much chance to look through his 2 books, but fingers crossed, there’ll be a nugget or two in them.

I was also fortunate enough to get my hands on the QiGong course that Dr. Morris recommended. And they use backward flowing method as well !!

So far it seems the Yudelove’s explanation in the 100 days is the most detailed and sensible though; which is reassuring.

Week 1 Done

Just finished the first week. Not much to report.
Quite a lot of saliva the last few days, and the eye strain has pretty much gone away when focusing on the nose.
I’ve been doing all 6 of the Healing Sounds instead of just the Lung sound as prescribed, just because I already know them really.
I’m thinking of doing Evan Pantazi’s version of the 8 Section Brocade as it seems a bit more hardcore.
Next week I’ll start on the modified 5 Tibetans together with the 100 days.

New Start – Day 4

So yet again, I’m back at the beginning.

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
-Sir Winston Churchill

The best way to get something done is to begin.
-Source Unknown

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call Failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.
-Mary Pickford

To him who is determined it remains only to act.
-Italian Proverb

Back to Week 1 of the 100 Days. Back to the basics!
It’s not all bad though, I’m feeling pretty galvanised by memories of past success at the moment.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog and as I’ve now (re,re,re,re-)started practice, I thought I’d revive it. A lot of things have changed in the years since my last post here and somewhere along the way I’ve found my will and seen a few projects through from beginning to end. Honestly, the situation on this end of the keyboard has been pretty dire, but somehow I’ve got through to the other side unbowed.

So bring on the 100 Days and I’ll add it to my tally of victories soon enough.

Pressure Point Locations – The art of Kyusho Jitsu’ by Justin Partridge

Got some very good news in the comments today!
Apparently the The Art Of Kyusho Jitsu is back in print, this from the man himself:

If anyone is looking to obtain a copy of The Art Of Kyusho Jitsu, you can contact me via email at admin@e-volve.com.au

In Budo
Justin Partridge

This is fantastic, it’s probably my ‘go to’ book for points when I’m reading or watching DVDs and need to clarify a points location/energetics.

My advice: get this book while there are still copies going!

Training

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obdd31Q9PqA

Sorry that I haven’t updated this blog for a while… well, more like forever! But don’t worry, I’ve been training balls out as usual and thanks to a new full time MMA/BJJ/No-Gi gym opening up near me I’ve been getting my ass to beatings on a regular!

Ong Bak 2 !

Ong Bak is possibly the finest example (after a few fight scenes in the Bourne films [ie. the park bench scene with the two Police men]) of realistic applied martial arts put to film. Most of the time Jaa is fighting as if his only goal is to disable the attacker and finish the attack in as short order as possible. This is the ultimate aim of a person in a fight when the outcome has to be in their favour.

A mantra at a gym I used to train at was, ‘don’t turn it into a fight.’ This didn’t just mean the pithy ‘walk away from fights, just back down’ etc. It means simply don’t draw the situation out. Don’t get fancy and fire off 5 moves when 1 will do, don’t let the situation escalate. Always keep the mindset of finishing the attacker with your strikes etc. If this fool is punching me, I’m not thinking about defence, instead I’m thinking of what can be done to stop him from punching again / staying standing / breathing / etc.

“Invincibility lies in the defence;
the possibility of victory in the Attack.”

Sun Tzu

“In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.”

Ulysses S. Grant

A t-Shirt I saw once, in very poor taste I should add, had the slogan, ‘don’t turn this rape into a murder‘ (without debating the t-shirt) The essence is broght to the fore in very graphic terms; don’t make a very bad situation worse by doing extraneous things. If you’re going to crash your car, you slam on the brakes and turn the wheel to avoid the accident. What you don’t do is turn down the stereo, adjust the air-con and wind up the windows! It should be the same in a fight.

I’ve gone off on a tangent here!! Check out the Ong Bak II goodness in the trailer below!

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1612560688

Why do you bother?!

Looking through the ‘tags’ section of WordPress today I came across this.

How To Manipulate Chi – A Secret To Martial Arts (martialartsecrets.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/how-to-manipulate-chi-a-secret-to-martial-arts)
Learning to manipulate Chi and have it do what you want, when you want, how you want it, is not something that happens overnight. Many people when they learn that Chi is the secret behind most martial arts and the amazing things that can be done by martial arts masters think that they can easily obtain this ability and then they too can do the amazing things done by martial arts masters.

For fuck’s sake, why do you bother. The Internet is full of enough shite already and you feel the need to add some more just to promote something only a 13 year old kid would buy, only to tell the story as a cautionary tale when they matured enough to realise that you’re a scam merchant a a few weeks later.

All the links on the page go to martialarts expert.org. advertising some McDojo propaganda, sponsored by ‘Super Affiliate Marketing Corp. of U.S.A.’ What a shower of cunts.

More from the tool

You don’t need years of the same boring training because the secret and deadly effective methods that the NO instructor wants you to know are finally revealed!

Wow! I wish I had those M4d sK1LLz!

One satisfied customer notes

My anticipation of my opponent has increased ten fold. Thank You”

Tim Stone

ahhh, the sweet anticipation of you Paypal account being a few quid/$ lighter and your body being more than a few mills of essential body fluids lighter on the way to the hospital.

So Mr. ‘Super Affiliate Marketing Corp. of U.S.A.‘ why don’t you just fuck off and leave the real training to people like us and pray that you never need the help of people with the legitimate skills that you have bastardised.

This isn’t new: (yubi – finger, waza – techniques, tricks)

 

A perspective on things

http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/BBsOeLcUARw

A film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero.

I like this. Makes me remember just how much of nothing there is within us, that we are not a solid as we are in the habit of thinking.

As above so below, or the macrocosm microcosm concept from Taoism.

The essential differences between a man and a woman

Let’s say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He
asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A
few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy
themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a
while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one
evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and,
without really thinking, she says it aloud: “Do you realize that, as of
tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?”

Look Here

Frustrations and Rewards of beginning the Martial arts

I noticed a good post today about someone just starting out in Aikido,

Firstly, there’s frustration. Aikido is very frustrating for me. I’m not particularly good at picking up even what is going on in a technique, much less how
to do it. Sure I’m just beginning. Sure this is a skill that requires
development, just like anything else. Sure I’ve gotten better at it
even in the few weeks I’ve been observing. But ego rears its ugly head:
“I should be picking this up faster!”, right?

From here: Aikido Week #3

There is no doubt that he raises a lot of points that we can all relate to.

The one about observation is one that I can especially relate to at the moment; training BJJ over here and learning from / training with Brazilians means that I don’t have the first clue what they’re saying (my Portuguese is much much worse than my Japanese, which is also pretty bad!). BJJ is completely different from what I’d done in the past, which was mostly; If you go to ground, get the fuck up as fast as you can! So I’m having to rely on my eyes, the problem here is that everything you see is interpreted and filtered by your mind according to past experiences, notions etc. This doesn’t help when you’re trying to learn.
‘Beginners mind’ is a good goal.