UNIQUE Training Methods, self discovery?!?! ;)

[Swordless]

Personally, I never found moping to be a very good exercise. It doesn't seem to take much energy at all, or get me any pity.
Sorry agreenknight, cheap joke.

[doc]

Running through the woods hitting trees with a bow staff.

I just love the imagery in that, lol.

You guys are sick. Truly warped. Genuine social miscreants. Time for you to come out to Vegas to complete your development.

[daodejing]

So I went to this somewhat unorthadox brazilian jiu jitsu class last night, and I'm sore from the soles of feet up to my lower jaw. The class merely consisted of a rediculous warmup followed by free grappling. At one point in the matwork, the "teacher" saw something one his students did as a counter to shooting the leg, and he made sure we all learned that one technique. After that, we had an informal conversation, led by the instructor, a formal world champion, in which he proposed the theory that one way some of the asian martials arts masters could do some of the more rediculous feats of death and destruction of bricks with their qi was "daemonic". It was his opinion after seeing one particular fellow scurry up a sheer wall with bare hands that some of these guys were willingly subjecting themselves to daemonic posession to increase their martial power (which is actually not hard to do after years of meditation and qigong training, I've had other spirits try to crawl into my body during meditation, and had to flush them out into the earth. This is why many old masters will tell you not to meditate between 10 pm and 4 am, tis the witching hour).

And as crazy as that sounds, it makes perfect sense to me, but then again I go to a school where teachers occasionally perform excorcisms or drive ghosts out of people and banish them. I've never heard that theory before last night, but I'm sure its happened before.

Anyways though, the sick part about this class was the warmups. We started by running sideways laps around the mat, then broke into doing frog jumps on all fours across the mat and back, and then backwards across the mat and back. Then it got worse. We went from every available pushup position one at a time, jumping on all fours across the mat and back, and then repeating it backwards. Probably 20 or so different positions, twice across the room forwards and twice backwards. I thought I had strong wrists until last night.

The thing that surprised the hell out of me was that after asking myself and the one other new student about our grappling experience, we went right into free grappling without any instruction. Now mind you, this is the third occasion I've done serious grappling in the past seven years. I was a bit out of shape. So I got put in quite a few armbars. But I also managed to get three pins locked in, two on one guy, and one on another. Pins they could not break, because I had learned how to lock them in for thirty seconds in order to win judo matches. So I had to instruct my partner in both cases how to get out of my pin, and then let him do it. But it was a great time all and all, I rediscovered a really nice armbar that I've never been taught, and one of my opponents accused me of redirecting his energy and "not being there" when he attacked. That made me smile, because I didn't even know I was redirecting his energy.

It was a fun time, and in my opinion, fairly unorthadox training, which therefore warranted its placement in this thread.

Incidentally, anyone who tokes, or is a disrobed monk, can feel free to extrapolate tangent about daemonic possession in qigong.

[agreenknight]

This is why many old masters will tell you not to meditate between 10 pm and 4 am, tis the witching hour).

Are you serious? If so I can understand my dad's concern at me mediating in class. Hmm, I beleive a demon, can't possess a christian, since I've already invited Jesus to live there. It's recorded in the bible he cast out a few of them.

Interesting enough I was working with a pitch fork, today, and I couldn't help but think of it as a tiger fork. Perhaps your not doing it correctly. There's a saying, before enlightenment, carry food gather water, after enlightment, carry food, gather water. This is, if you work an eight hour day, then do several hours of martial arts practice. Seeing what I'm saying? What I do is kind of whip the mop around, quickly. I try and get the mop as dry as possible. I mean even if you it just helps a little bit.

[agreenknight]

I don't think it's deomonic climbing up a wall. For example, someone who has has really strong hands that are built up could do it.

Another thing is looking at animals like how they use their techniques, can make things more harder. It can help you focues more.

What really get me is gurpies or army craws.

[zachsan]

after catching up on the messages i didn't read from this thread, all i can say is, i feel very strange right now, and i blame you all.

[daodejing]

beware zach, the christians are coming.

Seriously though, I've done the whole running through the woods with a staff beating trees thing before.
It's even more fun than you'd think.

Except i wasn't running. It was a grove of pine trees where all the limbs from about 15' high till the ground were dead, but the higher up growth was all alive. This meant one could practice breaking all the limbs you could possibly hit. Sometimes me and my roommate would go out there with staffs, escrima, three section staves... my personal favorite was trying to break a 4 inches in diameter with a jab from your staff. Its possible with deadwood. The best part is, you're helping the forest grow by clearing the dead growth to the ground.

Sometimes we'd do running-through-woods-with-machete-clearing-path-shadow-fencing-gong. We then finished that excercise with lay-in-backyard-drink-maltliquor-pass-blunt-gong

This last technique is slightly more advanced than wesley snipes' patented lay-in-hammock-with-beer-in-left-hand meditation.

All of the above make for excellent training though.

[agreenknight]

I went swimming today, did my forms in water, yeah it was hard to stay rooted. There was also gentle resistance. Did some laps, the floated in the water, it was all very relaxing.

[MenteReligieuse]

u guys made me think of something, I'm a die hard atheist and proud of it, does that mean I cannot learn gung fu?!
*wail*!

[zachsan]

don't worry buddy, you're in distinguished company.

you can learn gongfu, you just will never be able to truly understand the essence of qi energy exorcisms.

then again, depending on what you mean by "atheist", buddhism can be considered an "atheist" religion...

[xing_jian108]

re·li·gion- Pronunciation Key (ri-li-jen)
n.

1. a) Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
1. b) A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

a·the·ism- Pronunciation Key (a-the-iz-m)
n.

1. a) Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
1. b) The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
2. Godlessness; immorality.

If religion is looked at as the 3rd definition here, Atheism can go along with it. The 3rd definition gives no indication of a supreme being, just as Buddhism also doesn't. So in that, an Atheist can be a Buddhist and a Buddhist can be an Atheist.

"Atheism is a ferocious system, that leaves nothing above us to excite awe,nor around us to awaken tenderness."--R. Hall.

Other than the "ferocious system" part, (which all depends on who is looking at it) it sounds quite like Buddhism in the fact that a Buddhist doesn't look up or down or around to find what they are looking for, they start nowhere other than within themselves. But sometimes they need to be awakened to themselves and follow the teachings of a spiritual leader, the Buddha. So you can be a Buddhist and still be an Atheist. And you can be an Atheist and still be a Buddhist. And all the while you can practice martial arts. Use your forms or any of your workout to compare to a prayer in a way. That all makes sense. Worth learning about anyway. Before I was a Buddhist I was just an Atheist practicing martial arts. After I became Buddhist, by definition I am still an Atheist practicing martial arts, just that now it is more meaningful. It is an expression of myself and my Buddhist path. Just like a prayer. That's why I and many others who have learned this say A mi tuo Fo (Amitabha) before and after a form.

A mi tuo Fo
-Xing Jian

[Maestro]

****ing hippies your ruining my thread!

post something about a special training method xing, damnit

hate it when threads get hi jacked and ****

heheheh

amitabha

[MenteReligieuse]

Ah, I always wanted to know more about Buddhism, not necessarily to convert myself but more for enlightenment on different things. Know any books (Buddhism for dummies? *lol*) that can initiate a neophyte like me?

And about the qi stuff, I am sure it exists, but I just don't think it is a universal force or something...more like a conditioning of your brain over ur body (blocking or bypassing nervous messages of pain, that sort of stuff), which can be achieved by different meditation techniques. But again I know very little about qi, if there is something on this website/forum related to the "definition" and the "applications" of it, feel free to give me the link.

[xing_jian108]

www.buddhanet.net is a great site for Buddhism. It has all about any type of Buddhism. Including Chan/Zen Buddhism which is from Shao Lin. But that site also gives you a very good introduction if you have no idea about what it is. There is a FAQ section on there. Just look it up. I'm sure any Atheist would be interested in learning about it. I did.

To make Maestro happy, wasn't that a unique method of training? Most people take martial arts for health and self defense but not very often do they see it as a method for spiritual training as well. Which is can be of course.

That's my training method. If I think of some weirdo thing like running through a forrest smacking trees, I'll let you know. But when I picture that I get the thought of little kids running off into the forrest to make a circle and worship Satan together. (symbolical Satan of course, since Satanist don't believe in God, also don't believe in Satan) That's not quite my method anyhoo.

A mi tuo Fo
-Xing Jian

[agreenknight]

Well, I'm a christian does that mean I can't be a martial artist? Hmm...

Anyway, BACK ON TOPIC, I was thinking about these metal rings I saw. I think they are to practice your forms with. I was wondering, would it be possible to make one's own?

I think it's interesting some wing chun dummies, also there is this wavemaster with bendable arms.