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"THINK YOURTHELF THIN" (TYT) METHOD

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Ok where were we we? Yes, we were talking about Non-Duality, exemplified yesterday by the new-ish book Conversations on Non-Duality: Twenty-Six Awakeners. Well, as I've already said, I have no beef with these people. More power to them. But, you gotta wonder one thing, while we're involved in all this naval-gazing, the Chinese are over there re-commissionning Soviet aircraft carriers, ramming their kindergardeners with advanced trigonometry, hacking into the Pentagon's payroll software, or whatever - is it any wonder they're probably going to kick our ass sometime in the next twenty years??

But don't get me wrong, I've nothing against Non-Duality per se. It's just that... well, all this talk about one's individual identity being nothing more than a flimsy Kabuki facade, a mere character like a puppet, just a bag of quirky pesonality ticks... that stings. Why I bet that if pushed to it, those Non-Dual "awakeners" would claim that even Tabby Cat himself, the world's first, best and only Astral Advice Animal, is nothing more than a construct, just a character, one more goofy example of 'All That Is'  playing with itself  yet again... ouch! Imagine how hurtful that is to the legions of this blog's readers who devoutly follow Tabby's every scatalogical prognostication as the only light in the darkness of their personal drama. Those who view TCGS as their own personal North Korea, with Tabby as its Dear Parent.

 

 

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Been reading up again on WND (Western Non-Duality theory, neo-advaita). Latest book to cross the transom is: Conversations on Non-Duality: Twenty-Six Awakenings Eleanora Gilbert (ed.).

Here we have text transcripts of live interviews (most available as youtube video) conducted within the past couple years or so with twenty six "awakeners". That means people who (say they) have realized the final truth that there is not agent, no person, no individual actor or decider, nobody home, nobody to take delivery of all the petty concerns, schemes, fears, plans, ambitions, regrets, etc. that still plague those among you who erroneously believe you are in the driver's seat of your own life.

You don't exist and neither do these twenty six interviewees. Of course, your character may be said to exist, but just as a bundle of arbitrary and somewhat comical surperficial personality quirks and random meaningless preferences. But there need be no more drama attached to any of that personal trivia.

Most of these Awakeners are middle-class, middle-aged, reasonably well educated Anglo/Caucasian people. They have mostly done years (most often decades in fact) of more conventional (if that's the word) spiritual searching. Things like TM and Tibetan Buddhism and various forms of Western psycho0-therapy come up often in their backgrounds. Now as they age it seems they basically got tired of running around to expensive seminars and India retreats and have decided simply to declare victory and go home.

That is sometimes an event but more often a two-step process. Step 1 is awakening, Step 2 is liberation. Awakening is when your personal sense of agentive self first disappears. At that preliminary stage, the world felt kind of empty, sterile, cold, and flat to many of these people. They had personally disappeared and there was nothing else out there to replace themselves with, if you can follow that. A number of the interviewees refer to this awakening phase as despair. But even in the mre awakening phase there was an appealing feeling of unity, cold though that comfort may have been.

In the liberation phase, usually a few weeks to a few months subsequent to awakening, they got a liberation, which is the more joyful sense of that same featureless unity because while there were still no longer any individual objects or people, there was then a sense of incipient fullness that just somehow felt better than the awakening phase. Not every interviewee breaks it down this 2-step way but many do, either explicity or implicitly.

Note they would jump all over me for writing things like "They got a liberation", not only cause the grammer's questionable but because there was no longer any they (he or she) person to get anything. There's just a character, a kind of puppet-like cardboard cutout figure of who they once imagined themselves to be. Basically it's another Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake for a new century...

But I don't mean to sound hard on them, as clearly they are onto to something with this. The descriptions of the (non)experience are so consistent and emphatic that I figure where there's smoke there's fire. So I'm fully convinced they see beyond me on this, and I plan to get me some of that. 

So I have no beef with these people at all. But I still feel that the whole picture, as presented in books like this, is a tad ... unagressive if you will. I mean, it's fine for your sense of yourself as an agentive individual to fizzle out like this and be replaced with a tepid sort of unitary bathwater, but it still allows the flow of events and other (pseudo) agents around you to control you.

Now these WND awakeners would say that's all there is anyway - whether you're awakened or not,  there's no way around the endless meaningless flow of uncontrollable pseudo-events. But I figure why not set my sights higher. Just to take one example, if there's any way to avoid (having the feeling that you have been) reincarnated, as postulated in classical Buddhism, that's gotta be something worth aiming for.

I mean, where would we be today if Columbus had just accepted that the Earth is flat and there's nowhere to go? (if you are a First Nations person don't answer that!)

Ahh.... just some post-holiday misc to list here today:

Let's see this is supposed to be a martial arts blog so let's lead off with Tai Chi. One pseudo-problem some people might feel they have is lack of good or skilled training partners to work their push-hands/kuzushi.

Let me digress for a moment. Push-hands/kuzushi (推手/崩し) is an attribute drill whereby you work a bit like the initial stages of sumo or judo randori but with your goal being the first stage of randori, of unbalancing your partner only, not the final throw or takedown to the ground. There are two huge common mis-perceptions about this kind of practice that I have bashed my head in trying to correct for years on this blog without success, but here goes Attempt #45634:

The Two Big Common Fallacies about Push-hands/kuzushi (推手/崩し) Drill(s)

a. It is not learning to "defend real estate" which would obvioiusly be pointless. It is not a combative drill at all!!! The attribute that derives from long-term correct practice of fixed-step push-hands can be applied to a wide variety of combative practices, but in and of itself, don't try to make push hands into some kind of direct or technique-based type of combative training. It isn't that. It's like Marines doing pushups, they're developing attributes that can be applied elsewhere.

b. It is not about "rooting" !!! How many times to I have to say this? Just because it is "fixed step" (neither person supposed to move feet unless forced by partner's unbalancing to do so to remain standing), does NOT mean it's all about "rooting"! Rooting is a rudimentary Tai Chi skill, easily mastered in a week or two by anybody, especially people of heavy physical mass. Rooting means very little unless you want to be an NFL linebacker. Let me say it again: any time you find yourself in a configuration of your invariant posture resisiting his static/monotonically increasing pressure, you are rooting, that is ding - it's basically pointless and certainly NOT the point of this drill. So all those demo's with ten guys pushing in a long, tense line on The Master - forget all that. Irrelevant. Your goal is to never allow him, by any momvement or means he may apply within the basic agreed framework, to unbalance you (force you to take any step, even one small step, to remain balanced/standing), meanwhile you easily and lightly take his balance away. That's why they call it kuzushi, dumbkopf! 

*pant* How many times I gotta say it...

Anyway. We were discussing the apparent lack of skilled practice partners for this. Never fear. You can easily and instantly upskill your partner to almost any level desired to make things spicier for yourself. Here are just a few of the ways that I use to apply extra hot sauce when the partner is just too far below my level:

1. Use one hand while he uses both. Hook either your lead or offside hand behind your back into your belt and unbalance him with just your one hand.
2. Use no hands while he uses both. Hook both hands in your back belt and yet be unpushable by him.
3. Let him stand in fully braced "bow" type of elongated strong stance while you just stand upright, feet shoulder width, like waiting for a bus mode.
4. Let him stand normal push hands "bow" stance braced mode as in Point 3 above, while you stand in bow stance - but on your heels only. You, amazingly remain unpushable.
5. Let him stand normal push hands "bow" stance braced mode as in Point 3 above, while you stand in bow stance - but on your balls of feet only. You amazingly remain unpushable.
6. Tie your upper arms flush against your body with a karate obi, tie just above your elbows so that only your forearms can move freely, yet remain as effective as ever. He works with full freedom (within the framework) as ever.
7. Let him move freely like moving step push hands, while you don't take a single step yet remain able to unbalance him at will and never forced to take a step.
8. Combine any two or more of the above restrictions.

These are just a very small sample of what can be done within the basic kuzushi framework without additional risk of injury, nor any need for any change or upgrade whatsoever in terms of facilities, available space, surfaces, safety equipment/accessories, special clothing, etc. 

All the above are intending to reinforce the basic and normally totally misunderstood point of fixed step push hands which is that it is NOT about (as often disparaged) nor is it a directly combative training drill, it's something far deeper, an attribute training for energetic relaxation. But for some reason people have a really, really hard time understanding that. 

Oh one more thing, the original list of Ben Lo teachings stories that previously appeared under a different tab on my website is now a document in the list under the Writings tab there, Master Benjamin Lo Teaching Stories.

 

Merry Xmas gift from Cat Scam Enterprises LLC

People  (well, the more honest and polite ones) often ask me after a meetup, what's the secret of that soft-yet-jolting power. Sometimes I say "Just learn Zheng/Lo Tai Chi and yer good". But that's me being lazy. The real answer is deeper - it isn't necessarily tied to any one style or framework (though in practice it almost comes down to that anyway). 

But the real answer in concrete terms is that you have to work and strengthen the lower body like hell in cultivation mode, and then never use any physical strength whatsoever in deployment mode. Just that simple to say, hard to do. As for teaching frameworks that impose this discipline, well as TC readers should know, I tend to plump for one in particular uber alles, the Zheng/Lo Tai Chi 37 system. 

The Zheng/Lo Tai Chi system has the required attributes, one for power/energy cultivation, and the other for its deployment.

Cultivation: my teacher worked us like a rented mule on lower body training to the point that I had to use my arms to lift my own legs into bed at night aftereach 3-hour class (daily, back in SF time). Now that's working yer lower bod. If you haven't trained with my teacher back in the 80's/90's you don't know the taste of it and probably never will.

Deployment: At the same time, in the push hands / kuzushi part of the training, there was his absolute uncompromising insistence: no power, no strength, no more than four ounces of force what-so-ever.

Those are the twin attributes required of a serious internal training system. All the rest, your qi gong hand waving, your posture/structure fetishisms, your three gates and meridians and meditations and what have you -that's all just window dressing and icing on the cake.

But I don't mean to say that the Zheng/Lo system is the only possible approach that could incorporate those essential two attributes (extreme lower body training in cultivation, no strength whatsoever in deployment). 

The only other framework known to me that incorporates the correct approach to both aspects above is one that seems on the surface to be miles away from Zheng/Lo Tai Chi (or any kind of Tai Chi). It's SAGAWA Yukioshi's Daitou Ryuu jujutsu, learned by him from TAKEDA Sokaku and amped up with his own add-on's. 

I always say: Sagawa's AIKI power and the authentic TAIJI power are one and the same thing. 

An overview of Sagawa and his method is given in the book Transparent Power by KIMURA Tatsuo. But people love to bitch about that book that he didn't give any training details, no take-away's you can really sink your teeth in and work with for daily training. 

However, the cognoscenti are aware that an extensive set of Sagawa's personal training notes and diaries, including his own outline of his daily solo private training regimen and how he came to develop it was actually collated and published as a special feature in the June 2008 issue of the popular Japanese martial arts journal, Hiden.

That 6/08 issue is essentially impossible to get your hands on now, totally sold out and unavailable either in Japan or overseas. However, I have a copy of this on hand, so as an Xmas present to you guys I am posting my original translation of the entire special section in that issue:  'Sagawa's Training Legacy'. 

Yes - I'm fully aware that some disjointed slices of this special section have been translated and posted here and there on the web in the past. The problems with those are:

• bad translation e.g. adequate human translation from Japanese to French, but then you have to auto-Google that from French to English
• awkward, fragemented web format hard to view and print
• only a few chunks of one part out of the four-part special feature were covered

 The full feature consists of the following four sections:

1. Interview with TAKAHASHI Masaru "How can we follow in the footsteps of genius?"
2. Sagawa's Training Methods
3. Basic Training for AIKI Power
4. Body Methods for AIKI

The first part is done and linked above (Tai Chi website). Others to follow when I feel like it and get to it.

One with Everything

Today I got the following tropical disease vacc's & med's (and boy are my arms sore)

• Hepatitis A&B Combo, TwinRix
• Inactivated Poliomyelitis
• Japanese Encephalitis
• Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis / Tdap
• Typhoid (Typhim VI)
• anti-malarial

Plus, I was sternly warned not to contract the dread Dengue Fever - for which there is nor vacc nor med's!

*bite nails*

Now I could be anywhere right? A region-free anthropoid. And I'm fully armored against the creeping dawn of Anthropogenic Global Warming Doom. 

 

 

 

 

Tepid Out

No mucho happening. Had a good week in LA, and was able to do several hours box training at Wild Card Club every day. Boxing is fun to play but ultimately, I must admit, pretty much pointless. (as opposed to everything else we all do, right). *sigh*

The deepest pointless art though absolutely is Tai Chi.

Oh - speaking of Oriental Exoticism, I just got done with Matthew Polly's latest book:

Tapped Out - Rear Naked Chokes, the Octagon, and the Last Emperor: An Odyssey in Mixed Martial Arts

It's interesting as far as it goes. Actually it's very much a genre piece, the genre of intelligent semi-participatory journalistic observer jumps around a bunch of famous trainers/sites. Pioneered by George Plimpton way back the day. But it's one of the weaker entries in this sub-species. American Shaolin was much more interesting. 

Not entirely Polly's fault though. It's just that this basic schtick of bounding around famous MMA training sites/coaches and writing light puff pieces on them and the sport has already been pretty well covered recently. I would cite Sam Sheridan's books as better pre-existing material on this. For example, Polly goes to Thailand but that chapter offers absolutely nothing original or entertaining. 

He did luck out though in that after investing almost a year of daily training to prepare for his one single exhibition fight (just to be able to document soup-to-nuts complete experience picture in the book) he drew, by chance, an absolutely ideal opponent. 

Anyway though I don't oppose MMA in any way and I respect everybody's skill and athleticism and mutual courtesy and rigorous training and so on, still it's a celebration of violence just like boxing. Deep down it's not really distinct from our species-specific WAR fetishism, and thus somehow sad to read about and contemplate, when all's said and done. 

 

Montague v. Capulet

Well that was certainly one of the weirdest documentary films I've ever had the pleasure, if that's the word. KNUCKLE, detailing the endless pointless inter-clan feuding between sub-families all within the Anglo-Irish "traveler" community. Constant bickering back and forth, erupting into periodic bare knuckle boxing matches. (bare knuckle, no rest periods, go til one quits or can't continue).

People, well men really, are insane. There simply is no other word. But of course there's an economic angle to it too, seems to be very heavy big sum betting on these illegal set-to's. I could detail more on it but my hands sore from boxing for two hours, just go see it yourself.

Oh hell, this was supposed to be a blog about combatives wasn't it? So I'll pass around one practical tip of Traveling People martial arts widsom  from this movie: if you really hate some rival out there, challenge him to a bare knuckle boxing match Irish style but for weeks prior to the fight, soak your hands for 20 minutes every day in gasoline, your hands will reportedly become "rock hard" and you'll totally destroy your man's face, permanently. Send him to the ER for sure. But don't come whining to me if you try this and fuck it up and end up igniting your own face. Cause I'm not going to pay the funeral bill, that's one thing for sure.

 

 

The Doctor is In

As I am back in LA for the week, I will go back to the Wild Card Boxing Club for couple hours training each day, as I did a few months ago.

Today Freddie Roach was presiding, that was interesting as when I trained in September he was away in Phillipines running Pacquiao training camp. But now he's totally on the scene and I had a chance to meet and chat with him, extremely nice guy, despite all the recent honors, awards, attention, press etc. he's totally down to earth as far as I could tell.

Even though the WC trainers grind you halfway to hell (their sessions are so rough) yet I held up better than expected stamina-wise, even though I've only been into my loca home club for training twice since I returned from Japan, so I ought to be totally out of shape and maybe in standard terms I am but I have tweaked my internal training program just slightly but that's had a massive effect on my physical stamina even when wrung through the WC wringer. So that was good.

Definitely a different, more intense atmosphere when the Cat's not away, and a lot more crowded too. Well, I understand, people like to feel some sort of alpha figure is paying attention, makes the whole thing seem more meaningful.

I'll write more from the floor of WC if/when anything noteworthy (beyond normal blood, sweat, and tears) should happen to transpire.

Have now updated the Chinese version translations of Benjamin Lo FIVE TRAINING PRINCIPLES that's been on my site for a while, new version done in consultation with, and having approval of, the man himself. 

On my site www.zmq37.com under FORM tab, or just read below:

The Five Training Principles

1. Relax your entire body completely  全身放松

2. Distinguish between full - empty / substantial - insubstantial  分清虚实

3. Turn from the waist  转动在腰

4. Body upright  立身中正

5. Fair lady's hand  美人手

(6. Do 1 - 5 above SIMULTANEOUSLY at all times  五项同时做到 )

 

OK, the Sagawa / Tai Chi annnotations doc on my site is now complete. There were two sections:

1. Introduction

2. The Selections

... now final section added:

3. The Contradiction?

The third and final section discusses Sagawa's tough-ass solo training regimen, in light of the alignment of his main teachings with the Tai Chi principle of relaxation, established in Section 2.

Enjoy as literature or as birdcage lining, I care not which.