June
   2006   

Meditative Walking

Bagua Zhang, Yin Style, Bear Forms

Valley Spirit Center, Red Bluff, California

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June 1,  Thursday,  2006

Walking and Taijiquan at daybreak for 2 hours.  

Last day of school year for students of CUESD for the 2005-2006 school year.
Worked 12- 4 pm.  

Gym Workout from 4:30: Weightlifting, teach yoga, and teach taijiquan (last evening Tai Chi class.)  . 

Published my Meditative Walking webpage.

North Yolla Bolly Peak, 7864 feet, 2397 meters
Due West from our home in Red Bluff, CA

"In the Wintun Indian language, "Yo-la" meant "snow covered", and "Bo-li" meant "high peak". The second part of this wilderness' name refers to the headwaters of the Middle Fork Eel River which originates in this remote and rugged land.

This wilderness area was first protected in 1931 when it was classified as a primitive area. Further protection was given when this area became part of the National Wilderness Preservative System, created by the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The California Wilderness Act of 1984 added another 42,000 acres to the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness, for a total of about 150,000 acres."
Yolla Bolly Wilderness.  This Wilderness area is east of North Yolla Bolly Peak.   

Peakbagger Details

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings  Notes on the Way

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June 2,  Friday,  2006

"The secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all
the details of daily life, and in elevating them to art."
-  William Morris

Walking and Taijiquan at daybreak.  Weightlifting and 45 minutes of spin at gym with Tonya.    

Work for CUESD from 12-4.  Present CUESD Website project to Principals.  

Karen and I go out for dinner and shopping in Redding.  

The most basic and important difference between internal and external martial arts is the method of generating power or "jing" (manifest energy). At the root fundamental level, the most important factor which qualifies an art as internal is the use of what the Chinese call "complete," "unified" or "whole body" power (jengjing). This means the entire body is used as a singular unit with the muscles of the body in proper tone according to their function (relaxed, meaning neither too tense nor too slack). Power is generated with the body as a singular unit, and the various types of energies (jing) used are all generated from this unified power source.
The external martial arts, although engaging the body as a whole in generating power sequentially, do not use the body in a complete unit as do the internal martial arts. The external styles primarily use "sectional power" (ju bu li), which is a primary reason they are classified apart from the internal arts. A variation of this sectional power in the external arts is the special development of one part of the body as a weapon (iron palm, iron broom, etc.). The internal tends to forego these methods in favor of even development of the whole body, which m turn is used as a coherent unit.
 Xing Yi Quan, Tai Ji Quan and Ba Gua Zhang all have unified body motion as their root; hence, they are internal styles. However, since each of these styles emphasizes different expressions of this unified power, they are not the same style.

-  Tim Cartmell, Internal vs. External Martial Arts

http://www.shenwu.com/Internal_VS_External.htm

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June 3,  Saturday,  2006

Walking and taijiquan at daybreak.  Teach taijiquan and yoga at gym.  

Moving hoses for watering, weeding, pruning, mowing, clean up.   

Reading and writing.  

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la SainteTerre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes aSainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man—then you are ready for a walk.

Henry David Thoreau, Walking

Books that I am currently reading:

365 Days of Walking the Red Road: The Native American Path to Leading a Spiritual
Life Every Day.  By Terri Jean.  Avon, Massachusetts, Adams Media Corp., 2003.  360 pages.  
ISBN: 1580628494.  MGC.  A collection of quotations arranged by the days of the year.  Includes facts and biographies pertinent to Native American culture.  

The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation.   By Thich Nhat Hanh.
Berkeley, California, Parallax Press, 1996.   Revised edition.  74 pages.  
ISBN: 093807783X.   MGC.  

Chi Walking: The Five Mindful Steps for Lifelong Health and Energy.  By Danny Dreyer and 
Katherine Dreyer.  New York, Simon and Schuster, A Fireside Book, 2006.  Index, 258 pages.  
ISBN: 0743267206.   MGC.  

Mount Analogue.  A Tale of Non-Euclidian and Symbolically Authentic Mountaineering Adventures.
By René Daumal.  Translated from the French by Carol Cosman.  Woodstock, New York,  Overlook Press, Tusk Ivories, 2004.   120 pages.   ISBN: 1585673420.  MGC.  

Food for Solitude: Menus, Meditations to Heal Body, Mind and Soul.   By Francine Schiff.  Rockport,
Massachusetts, Element Press, 1992.  271 pages.  ISBN: 1852301813.  MGC.  

Websites to visit:

 Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.

http://www.contemplativemind.org  

Tai Chi Heartworks

http://taichiheartwork.blogspot.com/

Dynamic Balancing Tai Chi
http://dynamicbalancingtaichi.blogspot.com/

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings  Notes on the Way

http://nothingness23.blogspot.com/

June 4,  Sunday,  2006

Walking and taijiquan at 7:30 am.  

Working on the new garden expansion project: pathway into the garden.  

Reading and writing about walking and food.  

Watering from middle ditch.  

Western philosophy finds its beginnings in walking, with the Peripatetic philosophers, who walked boldly out of the dark and deep realm of myth and into the lighted house of logos. (Some might say this was also a step in the wrong direction.) Peripatos originally meant a covered walking place, and the school provided by Theophrastus for his teacher Aristotle likely yielded the name for this group of thinkers, who were thought to have walked and talked among the trees in the morning as a method of learning. (It is disputed as to how widely this method was adopted, though the view goes back at least as far as Hermippus at the close of the 3rd century BC.)

15. On the other side of the globe, walking has always been a part of the philosophical Way, as in Taoism and Zen Buddhism, where the sages and monks sauntered the countryside in search of enlightenment. Walking is even given a special place as one of the four Chinese "dignities" (modes of being in the world), along with Standing, Sitting and Lying. In the Dao De Jing, we encounter, "Gladly then the Way receives/ Those who choose to walk in it," though we also find a warning that walking is not such a straight-forward enterprise: "He who tiptoes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk."

a Few Foot Notes on Walking
David Macauley

http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v10.1/Macauley.html  

"Hi Mike!  I am Mustafa from Turkey.  I lıke Tai Chi very much, .but we don't have a Tai Chi school in Turkey.  I need a master.  Can you help me.  I need some books and videos.  I once met some Shaolin monks and they taught me some Sun Tai Chi. 
I could not not finish my education.  I believe that you can help me.  Thank you 
for your website and everything."

June 5,  Monday,  2006

Walking and Taijiquan practice at daybreak.  

Working on garden expansion project and outdoor shelving doors.  Some fine 
improvements and watering the back porch.  

Gym at 4:30 pm.  Weightlifting for 45 mintues, teach spin class from 5:30 to 6 pm, 
attend cardio kickboxing class led by Tonya for 60 minutes.  

Worked on organizing my FeedDemon search lists and FeedDemon summary webpage.  

This is an excellent chart provided by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
They offer a variety of electronic versions of this "Tree of Contemplative Practices."

June 6,  Tuesday,  2006

Walking and taijiquan practice at daybreak.  

Digging new trench for waterline.

Work for CUESD from 1-4 pm.  Prepare for meeting with Wes, CUESD webwork.  

Gym at 4:30:  Basketball warmup, teach yoga from 5:30 to 6:45 pm.  

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

- MarkTwain

In laughter we are lifted above our feelings of fear, discouragemnet and despair. People who can laugh at their setbacks no longer feel sorry for themselves. They feel uplifted, encouraged and empowered.

- Allen Klein 

Daily

Qi Dao Newsletter   World Institute for Self Healing

A View From Deepest Space

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html

Feet are for walking (or so I've been told).
It's been that way since the days of old.
But, from what I've seen, that's not really true.
There are other things that most feet do.

There are footballs and footsteps and footprints of age;
footers and footnotes to cover each page;
footing and footwork to help make a stand;
footholds and foothills that cover this land.

But whether in north, east, west or south,
feet are commonly found in one's mouth.
A phenom I'll grant, so hard to be so
to totally cover the heel and each toe.

Still, most people won't let this get in their way
for they cram it in once and that's where it stays.
We're talking 'bout doctors and lawers -- people of wealth
plus the folks in the ghetto; heck, even myself.

This penchant we have it's like a disease
one that moves 'round on the wings of the breeze.
Whether in romance or nations at war
your mouth is the place your foot was made for.

But one shouldn't laugh for it sometimes brings pain
'cause sandals and boots are made of coarse grain.
We should all know by the way it appears
that some keep their feet in their mouths for years!

The solution, it seems, is to quit making shoes
for a shoe in one's mouth has hardly a use
(except, of course, to remind of what's there
that fashionable piece of unsightly footware).

Well, I've now come to the end of this tragic tale.
I covered it all from hill to the dale.
The moral, I guess, should not be in doubt --
This foot in my mouth will never come out!

Trey Smith, The Rambling Taoist

http://ramblingtaoist.blogspot.com/2006/03/feets-by-foot.html

We can change disharmony, transform tension into relaxation, fear into joy, illness into health. The power is in us, not in the situation nor in the other person.

(Wolfe Lowenthal)

Ten Steps You Can Take to Guarantee Failure

1. Make your goals vague.

2. Make your goals difficult to visualize.

3. Think and speak negatively about your goals.

4. Avoid planning incremental steps.  

5. Don't Do - Talk.  

6. Wait until you are motivated.  

7. Don't set a date.

8. List why it's impossible.  

9. Don't research your goal.  

10. Think of anything except your goal.

http://goalsuccess.typepad.com/goaltips/2006/05/10_steps_you_ca.html

“When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win” - Ed Macauley

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.” - Martha Graham


"When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform, always do the most disagreeable first." - Josiah Quincy

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose." - E.M. Gray

"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell." - Buddha

When I am Nothing, that is Wisdom. When I am Everything, that is Love.

June 7,  Wednesday,  2006

Walking and taijiquan practice at daybreak.  

Work for CUESD from 9-4 pm.  Meet with Wes, follow up in my office.  

Gym at 4:30:  Weightlifting for 45 minutes, spin class with Heather for 30 minutes, 
cardio-kickboxing with Tonya for as long as I can last.    

June 8,  Thursday,  2006

Walking and Taijiquan at daybreak.  

Work in garden: finish path to new garden extension.  Continue digging trench for new
pipeline in expanded garden area.  Small chores around back porch.  Start on 
workworking projects.  Reading and writing.  

Karen and I attend the CUESD Managers potluck dinner at Steve and Cindy Kelish's new
home in Corning.  

Working on new garden expansion in the morning.  Digging trench.  

Take Karen to Redding airport for her trip to Portland for Alicia June Flinn's baby shower.

Lunch and shopping in Redding.  

Watering and digging some trench work.  

Beyond the Fields We Know

I suppose the simply truth of the matter is that I have always been enthralled by doorways (blue or otherwise), windows, gates, thresholds, hearths, chimneys, hidden forest trails, gaps in the hedgerow, garden hollows and portals of any kind. It isn't unusual to find me standing lost in thought in front of a newly discovered gateway or curled up in my morris chair at home with a mug of tea and a faraway look in my eye, thinking about such places and where they go. I'm entranced by their situation, their architecture, the materials of which they are formed, and even their color, as much as I am by what lies beyond them.

Liminal spaces can be compelling, and they can exert a powerful tug on the sensibilities. Every hero's journey or heroine's journey begins with a call to adventure, with one breathtaking, serendipitous, watershed moment in which she or he recognizes a liminal space, responds to its eldritch music and steps across the threshold into another realm. No hero or a heroine here (at least in this lifetime), but the presence of a gateway, any old gateway, calls to me in a voice as lyrical and compelling as that of the mythic sirens, a mere glimpse or a casual mention of one, and off I go.

Mircea Eliade once wrote of doors and thresholds as being both symbols and passages, as places where the passage from the profane to the sacred world becomes possible. The philosopher Martin Heidegger described thresholds as joinings or spaces between two worlds, potent common or middle grounds which hold, join and separate two worlds, all at the same time. In other words, thresholds are sacred places which form a boundary between what is "here" and what is "there", but they are in themselves neither here or there.

Within the seemingly empty space of a doorway or a threshold, one sometimes senses ancient, wild and chaotic forces in motion, and thresholds have the power to open a cranny or passage between this world and the other side, allowing those tumultuous forces to blow through. Cultures from ancient times to our own knew it, and they took special measures to secure such places, carving arcane protective sigils on their door lintels, inserting sprigs of rowan and Brigid's crosses into the doors themselves, burying pins and needles beneath their hearth stones, sweeping and blessing their thresholds, and nailing horseshoes above their doorways.

Be Kerrdelune

Beyond the Fields We Know III

http://kerrdelune.blogspot.com/2006/06/beyond-fields-we-know-iii.html   

Walking and Taijiquan at daybreak.  

Gym:  teach taijiquan and yoga.  Shop at Home Depot.

Watering around house, and work on new shed door.  Dig some trench.  

Selecting music for Spin 4 mix.  Reading and writing.  

Head Upright
To prop up the head is to raise the crown of the head properly. In Taiji Quan, make sure that the head is upright, the crown flat, the neck straight and the chin drawn in. It is required that the baihui acupuncture point at the crown of the head is propped up gently as if lifted up by a robe. At the same time, the crown of the head must be kept so flat that a bowl of water placed on it would not spill. To keep the head upright and the crown flat, the neck most be straight and the chin drawn in. But if overdone, this position will make the neck stiff and the movements unnatural. Therefore, in propping up the head, excess effort should be avoided. It most be natural. Once the crown of the head is raised properly, the energy will be summoned and the movements will become steady and sturdy.

Reference:
Basics of Taiji Quan by Li Xingdong
Foreign Language Press, Beijing Jan 2000
ISBN: 711900171X

Scatter my ashes in my garden
so I can be near my loves.
Say a few honest words, sing a gentle song,
join hands in a circle of flesh.
Please tell some stories about me
making you laugh. I love to make you laugh.
When I’ve had time to settle, and green
gathers into buds, remember I love blossoms
bursting in spring. As the season ripens
remember my persistent passion.
And if you come into my garden
on an August afternoon
pluck a bright red globe,
let juice run down your chin and the seeds
stick to your cheek. When I’m dead
I want folks to smile and say:
"That Patti, 
She sure is some Tomato!"

Patti Tana (from Make Your Way Across This Bridge)

http://www.gardendigest.com/images/sun1.gif

Walking and taijiquan at daybreak.  

Construction projects, painting, watering, and cleanup.  

Reading and writing.  

Weightlifting at gym in afternoon.  

Who am I?"

Such a strange question,
uttered endlessly, 
by weekend seekers of the Lost Psyche. 
Feigning amnesia,
they blather about their true selves, 
their Grand Soul lost somewhere outside their petty lives,
hidden away and blocked by fleeting fleshy passions,
stolen away by the finite soma and mundane mind. 


Their Real Self: pure, eternal, blissful, free, true, wonderful;
right around the supernatural corner, 
waiting for them like a blind date. 

You know who you are!

You are a unique body - interdependent with the watery world;
a boxcar of moving memories - a rich history;
known from the fruits of your work; 
meshed with some family, holding somebody dear; 
Somebody - unique as the fingerprint of your DNA;
named, spoken for, listening, and ...
Your search for "yourself", your anxious questioning, 
makes no sense. 

A stale mantra, 
a face before you were born koan:
"Who am I?", sterile, silly,
Pointless. 
Yet, following an irrelevant spiritual advisor's advice, 
You try to figure it out, for hours and weeks,
befuddled, awed by your confusion, thinking
It's your puny powers of meditation or belief or determination
that keep you from discovering 
The Holy Grail of the Genuine Self. 

You know who you are!

You might want to change who you are,
or forget who you were, 
or tell others about who you are, 
or learn why you get tricked into asking yourself this foolish question ...
but those are quite different issues. 

- Mike Garofalo, Above the Fog


"Who are you? Who? Who"
- The Who, Who Are You, 1978


"Who am I," he asked himself.   Posted to Green Way today.  

http://egreenway.com/weblog/2006/06/11/who-am-i-he-asked-himself/

The Shaolin Workout: 28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior's Way.
By Sifu She Yan Ming.  Rodale Press, 2006.  Index, 293 pages.  ISBN: 1594864004.  
MGC.  Shaolin Temple USA Project.  

Faster is Also Fun

I very much enjoy doing martial arts forms, including some Taijiquan forms, at a faster, lively, and more powerful pace.  I think of it as the Yang energy style.  I also do Bagua quite fast at times.  I sometimes use upbeat music to step up the pace.  I also ake cardio-kicking boxing classes with Tonya.  

Here are a couple of books that I find useful to read to help me work on my faster pace:

The Shaolin Workout: 28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior's Way.
By Sifu She Yan Ming.  Rodale Press, 2006.  Index, 293 pages.  ISBN: 1594864004.  
Excellent photography by Bob Scott.   

Sifu She Yan Ming has a dream of building a replica of the Shaolin Temple in upstate New York.  Read about this project at Shaolin Temple USA Project.  

Complete Kickboxing: The Fighter's Ultimate Guide to Techniques, Concepts,
Strategy for Sparring and Competition.  By Martina Sprague and Keith Livingston.
Wethersfield, Connecticut, 2004.  Index, 479 pages.  ISBN: 1880336847.  

Walking and Taijiquan at daybreak.  

Digging trench, and wood working projects.

Attend meeting of Tehama Commission on Aging.  

Pick up Karen at airport in Redding.  Dinner in Redding.  

Taijiquan and Qigong Camp in La Honda, California.  
Master George Xu and Master Yun Ying Shen led our workshop.    

Taijiquan and Qigong Camp in La Honda, California.  
Master George Xu and Master Yun Ying Shen led our workshop.    

Liping Julia Zhu is a certified Qigong instructor from China and a disciple of Taoist Master Yu Anren. She was a gold medalist in the 1996 International Martial Arts Tournament. She is the Qigong instructor at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a licensed acupuncturist, and a Zen student, currently residing at San Francisco Zen Center.

Tassajara Retreats in California: Qigong for Healing, Zen and Taichi, Zen and Static Qigong 
and Zen and Dynamic Qigong

Liping Julia Zhu www.qidragon.com 

Qi Dragon Health and Healing    Featuring Liping Julia Zhu.  San Francisco.  She is a certified Qigong instructor from China and a disciple of Taoist Master Yu Anren.  She is the Qigong instructor at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a licensed acupuncturist, and a Zen student, currently residing at San Francisco Zen Center.

Taijiquan and Qigong Camp in La Honda, California.  
Master George Xu and Master Yun Ying Shen led our workshop.    

Yoga can also calm your body and your mind, which can help people who suffer from insomnia. Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, PhD., an instructor of medicine, division of Sleep Medicine at the Harvard Medical School recently published a study. He found a half hour to 45 minutes of daily yoga practice with a focus on meditation and breathing, helped chronic insomniacs sleep through the night. The subjects increased their overall sleep by 12%.

Yoga breathing can help lower your heart rate and calm your nervous system. The breathing techniques can help alleviate serious anxiety and depression and reduce stress. Practicing yoga for an hour and a half three times a week can make your heart healthier in just six weeks. A recent study out of Yale University School of Medicine had 33 men and women who practiced yoga at that rate. This lowered their blood pressure and improved their blood vessels’ ability to expand and contract by 17%. Researchers believe the improvements are based on the stress-reducing benefits of yoga.

Kim Black, Getting Healthy Through Yoga

Taijiquan and Qigong Camp in La Honda, California.  
Master George Xu and Master Yun Ying Shen led our workshop.    

Taijiquan and Qigong Camp in La Honda, California.  
Master George Xu and Master Yun Ying Shen led our workshop.    

Taijiquan and Qigong Camp in La Honda, California.  
Master George Xu and Master Yun Ying Shen led our workshop.    

Returned home to Red Bluff.  

A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt.
He said, "I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart."  
"One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one."  
The grandson asked him, "Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?"  
The grandfather answered, "The one I feed."

Treat yourself as if you already are what you'd like to be.  
-   Wayne Dyer

.

I very much enjoyed the Tai Chi Camp last week from June 13th to June 18th.  

Around 35 Taijiquan, Qigong, and Chinese KungFu enthusiasts trained together at the San Francisco Jones Gulch YMCA Camp for 6 days.  People of all ages attended - from persons in their 20's to people in their 70"s (e.g., Master Yun is 73 years old).  There were many highly skilled teachers and advanced players who attended this camp.   The camaraderie and enthusiast was excellent.   Women and men trained long and hard up to 9 hours each day.  

The YMCA Camp is located in the dense redwood forests between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, about 15 miles south of Half Moon Bay and 12 miles east of the Pacific Ocean.  The Camp facilites were very satisfactory and the food ample and tasty.  

We were led by Master George Xu and visiting Master Yun Yin Sen from Shanghai, China.  We did various qigong forms each day, practiced Liu He Ba Fa, the 10 Animal Xing-Yi, Chen Style Taiji, and played Push Hands.  

Master Yun Yin Sen started internal arts in Yang Style Taiji. Since 1980 he studied with Zhang Chang Xin in 6 Harmony-8 Method, Liu He Pa Fa and Yi Quan Zhang Zuang (post standing). Zhang Chang Xin was one of the top students of Wu Yi Hui, founder of the form. Also since 1882 he studied with Han Qiao (Han Jiao), Lu Gui Yao, Liang Qi Zhong, all masters of 6 Harmony-8 Method (more). In 1992 he became Anhwei Province 6 Harmony-8 Method Association Secretary and is now President. In 1997 he received the government sports association second degree master's certificate. From 1979-2005 he has been been invited to performances and lectures internationally, very active in the world: 1999 to Russia, 2002 to London and 2003 to England.

Many students have studied with Master Xu for over a decade.  He showed why their deep respect is well founded.  

I was a bit sore and tired at times, but felt I was well conditioned for the camp.  I have lots more to learn as a tai chi and qigong practitioner.  

Websites of people who attended workshop:  

Master Xu

Xu, George.   Master of Taijiquan: Chen Style, Wu style, qigong, XingYi, and weapons forms.   San Francisco, CA.  He leads workshops, retreats, and produces high quality 
videotapes.   

www.zenchen.org/Chen_Style/Master_George_Xu/master_george_xu.html

Shanti School of Taijiquan.  Susan A.  Matthews.   

http://www.susanamatthews.com/

Liping Julia Zhu.  She was our translator, along with Master Xu, for this event.   She is an accomplished qigong teacher and taijiquan performer.
http://www.qidragon.com

Cloud Hands.   By Michael P. Garofalo.  

Daily

"The wisdom of the mystics, of the Sufi, of the great yogis, or of the zen masters might have been excellent in their own time - and might still be best, if we lived in those times and those cultures. But when transported to contemporary California those systems lose quite a bit of their original power.

They contain elements that are specific to their original contexts, and when these accidental components are not distinguished from what is essential, the path to freedom gets overgrown by brambles of meaningless mumbo jumbo. Ritual form wins over substance, and the seeker is back where he started."
-   Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Kent Howard. $25/month. Nibubikan, 636 Nord Ave. Contact Kent: 898-8305 days; 893-4381 eves.

Work for CUESD from 7:30 - 4 pm.  Gym: Weightlifting, teach spin cycling from 6-6:45 pm.  

Practice Taijiquan at night.  

"What allows the energy you work with, gather and create a life of its own is humour. Humour is a lightness that admits of other possibilities. Combine that admission with hearty connectedness and those possibilities become incorporated into a body teeming and seething with life. If humour is maintained then those incorporated possibilities – each one a thread of energy if you like – remain in some way distinct – do not agglutinate into one amorphous mass – and there quickly comes a point where the combined intensity and complexity of these interacting threads develops into what feels like awareness.

Humour is not taking things, especially the self, seriously. It confounds the logical, rational, linear mind, which always struggles to force your movements into some preconceived template, with an element of play which revels in the surprises inherent in the unfolding of creative and natural processes. In a way humour is the most valuable possession you have because it allows you to put up with anything, not with resignation but with a smile – a mood and energy that is always opening and searching not for comfort and ease but for those threads that can be brought into the whole to transform it into a vehicle capable of thrusting you to the next level; humour finds fuel everywhere. Humour also admits that sneaking feeling that you are getting it wrong – that your efforts to do and to make are coming from a part of you – your conditioning – foreign to your essential nature. Humour is a natural and gentle way of applying shocks to your conditioning – unsettling it and loosening its iron grip sufficiently for your essential nature to momentarily peek through. This essential nature, so used to being plastered over, pushed into the background and over-ridden by the bullying conditioned and conditional mind, has a completely different relationship with reality than that mind: soft, playful, interactive, ringing with laughter – imagine children at play – but it needs years of gentle coaxing and encouragement before it will venture forth and take the lead in your life. Scars don't heal overnight. Humour – the touch of lightness that refuses to linger for too long and never repeats itself (jokes are rarely funny second time round). Your conditioning needs repetition to survive and it uses up most of your vital energy in the process of constantly reviewing and recounting its domain – imagine the lonely miser pointlessly counting his money each evening before he can sleep. Your conditioning is telling you the same joke over and over and because you don't realise it's a joke you listen and approve. Humour is the only effective way to cut through this – because it is so gentle its blade is very keen."
-   Steven Moore, 61106, Tai Chi Heartwork, http://taichiheartwork.blogspot.com/2006/06/humour.html

Walking and taijiquan at daybreak.  Watering, mowing, and construction projects.

Work for CUESD from 11-4 pm.  Gym:  Weightlifting, teach yoga from 5:30-6:45 pm.  

Summer morning -
As for tomorrow night,
who knows.

"Gao Fu, a Chen style master, was asked this question: What makes a T'ai-Chi movement a T'ai-Chi movement? Her reply was that if the intent leads the energy and the energy leads the muscles and bones then it's a T'ai-Chi movement. If the mind goes directly to the muscles and bones, bypassing the energetic level, then it's an ordinary movement. I like this definition because it's principle-based rather than tradition or form based. It also implies that in order to feel into the inherent balance underlying the surface of anything (T'ai-Chi means essentially unforced balance) I have to surrender to that holistic body intelligence that I call "energy". I can't force it or have it on my own terms. I don't make it happen, I allow it to emerge. I don't train to increase this balance since that is impossible. I train to increase my experience of that balance and innate intelligence, to give it more avenues through which to express itself and because it's a pleasure to participate in the movement of the universe.

This is a pretty abstract definition. Practically speaking I would also add that a good T'ai-Chi movement should be rooted in the feet and powered primarily by the legs. The waist should direct that leg generated power with some degree of turning. The power should move up the spine and gather strength between the shoulder blades and finally issue out the arms to the hands. This is easily said, but in practice many T'ai-Chi practitioners end up powering their movements with their waists or arms. If the waist powers the movement, the root usually ends up being in the pelvic floor instead of the feet. This usually results in knee problems as the legs are not grounded and end up twisting. If the movements are powered by the arms one ends up with so-called "local strength". Local strength means the arms move separately from the ripple or wave of power coming up from the feet and legs. Gao-Fu's definition is profound but general. It implies that in order to improve my experience of personal and universal balance, not to mention martial ability, I need to stop forcing the muscles and bones through the use of will power. I need to relax into the "energy" level of awareness and let the muscles and bones follow."
-   Gene Burnett, Questions and Answers
http://www.geneburnett.com/gb/Q&A.asp

TCHOUNG TA TCHEN
August 23,1911 - February 22, 2000

http://www.wuji.com/Masters/Tchoung%20Ta%20Tchen.htm

Walking and taijiquan at daybreak.  

Watering, mowing, and construction projects.

Massage with Carol Borer.  Dental work appointment.  Shop at Home Depot and elsewhere.  

Watering at night.  It has been very hot and windy lately.   

"Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors.
Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny."
- Gandhi

Walking and taijiquan at daybreak.

Watering, weeding, and construction projects.

Teach taijiquan and yoga from 10-12:15 at TFFC.  

Business trip to Chico.    

Watering at night. 

Working Your Way Through the Mysterious Labyrinth of Tai Chi.   By Walter Capps.  
© 1995.  PDF Format, 707Kb.  75 pages.  Studies in Chen Taijiquan based upon
the teaching of Master George Xu.  Appendix, glossary, index.  For more information,
email the author.  

Baguazhang, originally called Turning Palm is a very tradtional Wudang style of wushu. Since the propogation of Baguazhang by Dong Hai Chuan (1813-1882) over one hundred years ago during the Qing Dynasty, there have been many inheretors of the style. Presently, there are styles which have originated from Yin Fu, Cheng Ting Hua, Liu Feng Chun, Li Chun Yi, Huang Bo Nian, and Jiang Rong Qiao.

The basics of Baguazhang is walking in a circular fashion utilizing the walking in the mud step. The stepping of Baguazhang is centered around the cyclical changes of motion. The basic stepping method includes raising, lowering, hooking, opening, advancing, closing, blocking, crossing, and turning all of which is the manifestation of change within Yin and Yang. Baguazhang is based on circular movements with hitting points. The practitioner spirals to the left and turns to the right whereupon the opponent cannot come near. The two main palms are the dragon and ox-tongue palms.

The main fighting characteristics of the style is to push, to hold, to carry, to cling, to move, to grab, to encircle, to intercept, to hook, to hit, to block, to close, to weave, and to poke. The basic palm mentods include the Eight Mother Palms, the 64 Palm style, the Eight Animals, Dragon shape Palm, Swimming Dragon Continuous Palm, Nine Palace Palm, Thirty Six Leg Methods, Seventy Two Leg Methods, etc...

Baguazhang also has an extensive array of push hand methods and weapon sets utilizing the Bagua Broadsword, Bagua Straightsword, Cresent Moon Knives, Bagua Spear, Bagua Staff, etc. 

The Eight Verses of Wudang Mountain Badunjin :

1. Lift the ground and hold the sky to take care of the three internal cavities
2. Draw a bow to the left and right, just like shooting a vulture
3. Lift the hand up singly to tone and caress the spleen and the stomach
4. Look backwards to cure the five strains and seven injuries
5. Reach down the leg by both hands to strengthen the kidney and the reproductive organ
6. Swivel the head and rock the bottom to calm down
7. Rotate fists and stare to add stamina
8. Vibrate the back seven times to expel illness

The first segment takes care of the three chiaos (internal organs), the second segment strengthens the heart and the lung, the third regulates the spleen and the stomach, the fourth cures strains and injuries, the fifth toughens the kidney and reproductive organ, the sixth calms the nervous system, the seventh increases stamina, the eighth gets rid of illnesses. It has materialised the merging of the theory and movements of Badunjin with clinical sports, as well as specified the importance of life-nourishment and health-preservation. Badunjin Qigong, uplifted by the modern medical confirmation from Chinese and western professionals and scholars, continues to be revitalised and made to perfection. Thus it has been made even more suitable and practical to serve the needs of the modern era, and advances with time.

The theory and movements of Wudang Badunjin is thorough; it is safe and easy to learn, and has a wide application on medical cure. Externally, it exercises the skin, muscles, tendons and bones; internally, it strengthens the organs, improves the circulatory system, and consolidates the spirit of well being. Its movements involve breathing naturally, and are smart & light, continuous and lively, elegant and beautiful, stretchy and graceful, alternating relaxing with tightening, synchronising harmoniously, can be fast or slow but with distinct rhythm, can be complicated or simple, active or quiet, and cohere the opening with the closing. It stresses on the mutual use of toughness and gentleness, the training of the internal and external body parts, the merging of activity and quietness, the balancing of the left and the right, the top and the bottom, alternating the real and the virtual, and nourishing both the body and the spirit. The amount of exercise and the length of the practice session can be adjusted anytime, and it can be practised alongside with other exercises. Age, sex, body nature, location, equipment, time, season, etc do not restrict the practice. It can be practised individually, with the whole family, or with a group. The all-encompassing effect and value of its body-strengthening and medical aspects is evergreen."

Wudang Mountain Badunjin Qigong    20Kb.  Original (in Chinese) written in Hong Kong by 
Woo Kwong Fat, the 28^th Generation Master of Dragon Gate Branch, Wudang Mountain.
http://www.geocities.com/wudangqigong/badunjin.html

Watched the film: Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon.  

Walking and taijiquan at daybreak.

Watering, mulching, and construction projects.

Chinese lunch, shopping, and bookstore browsing in Chico.  

117 degrees F in Red Bluff today - a record temperature.  

Work in the yard on various projects from 5 am - 11 am.  
Work for CUESD 12-4.
Gym:  Lift weights then teach 2 spin classes.  I was really tired when I finished teaching
two spin classes in a row.  

Watched the film:  House of Flying Daggers.  

Graham English's Integral Conversations

http://integral.grahamenglish.net/

"The cure for boredom is curosity.  There is no cure for curosity." 
-  Dorothy Paker

Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

Wang Wei
A FARM-HOUSE ON THE WEI RIVER

In the slant of the sun on the country-side,
Cattle and sheep trail home along the lane;
And a rugged old man in a thatch door
Leans on a staff and thinks of his son, the herdboy.
There are whirring pheasants full wheat-ears,
Silk-worms asleep, pared mulberry-leaves.
And the farmers, returning with hoes on their shoulders,
Hail one another familiarly.
...No wonder I long for the simple life
And am sighing the old song, Oh, to go Back Again!

http://www.seishindo.org/practices/katsugen_undo.html

"Katsugen Undo"
Natural movement that renews life at its root

Practices index 

The basics for this exercise are taken from Haruchika Noguchi Sensei and “Noguchi Seitai”. “Seitai” basically means “properly ordered body.”

In very simple terms Noguchi sensei said that we all have a tendency to hold on to excess energy that inhibits us from rebalancing ourselves and thus we inhibit our ability to remain physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy.

In terms of what we are exploring together, the above means that we often tend to create limiting and habitual forms of somatic communication. We lose the ability to fully communicate with our body, and we lose the ability to be fully aware of the communication of the body. It is the communication patterns of the body that lead to our verbal communication patterns. When you limit your ability to communicate somatically and be aware of your somatic conversation, you also limit your ability to communicate verbally and be aware of your verbal conversation. Of course your overall state of well-being will be affected as well.

The greater your ability to be aware of and embody a full potential range of somatic communication, the greater your ability to communicate verbally and “understand” your feelings.
Prior to attempting to understand the verbal communication of others:
1) Enliven your own ability to communicate somatically to yourself.
2) Learn how to understand the somatic communication of others.

Haruchika Noguchi sensei has at least two books that have been translated into English.: “Order, Spontaneity and the Body” (This book is his most important I think, and well worth reading) and “Colds and Their Benefits”, Zensei Publishing. Noguchi sensei used to say that the purpose of Katsugen Undo is to create an orderly way to unconsciously move the body, while adjusting those parts of the body that we cannot move voluntarily. 

Work in the yard on various projects from 5 am - 11 am.  
Doing lots of home chores on my own.  
Work for CUESD 12-4.
Gym:  Lift weights then teach Yoga class.   

We set out like ingenious machines declaring "yes this" and "no that."  Or we hold fast like oath-bound warriors defending victory.

We can say that to fade away day by day is to die like autumn into winter.  But we're drowning, and nothing we do can bring any of it back.  We can say this drain is backed up in old age, full and content, but a mind near death cannot recover that autumn blaze.

Joy and anger, sorrow and delight, hope and regret, doubt and ardor, diffidence and abandon, candor and reserve: it's all music rising out of emptiness, mushrooms appearing out of mist.  Day and night come and go, but who knows where it all begins?  It is! It just is! If you understand this day in and day out, you inhabit the very source of it all.

Chuang Tzu (19)

Work in the yard on various projects from 5 am - 10 am.  
Doing lots of home chores on my own.  
Work for CUESD 12-4.
Gym:  Lift weights, and spin class with Heather.       
Working on Sun 73 form, moves 25-35.  

Watering at dawn.    
Work for CUESD 8-4
Gym:  Lift weights, teach yoga class.   
Working on Sun 73 form, moves 25-35.  

Watch the film:  Millon Dollar Baby.  

Pulling Onions:

Be careful not to stand up for that which will cause your downfall.

Metaphors talk about the Way, but often cannot point to the Way.

Leave enough time for some pointless behavior to reveal your deeper desires.  

The real "miracle" is cause and effect.

If you want to know who I am, eat my food.   

The little choices, day after day, are the biggest issue.

Moving the mind from the head to the heart gives birth to the spirit.  

The mother of sound is silence, the father is dancing air.  

The seed and the egg: primal concerns.  

The teacher must learn to always be teaching himself.  

Yardwork and home chores from 5 am - Noon.  
Practice Sun 73 form.  
Shop in town: gardening, return videos, home, food.  
Thorough clean up inside the house.  

Feedback From Readers - June 2006

"I was so happy to read your walking meditation. I wrote to my sweetie to get him to go outside and walk. That writing made me remember.  My garden is awake but I have a few problematic areas from a bad wind storm. I never give up even when adversity comes. I have to place a few annuals to cover the spots until things heal.  Thank you for your thought-provoking website. It inspires me to write and observe my garden more."
-  Anetta Barnes, 6/1/06

"And while I'm throwing a whole lot of the world's most glorious things at you, I will tell
you that one of my favorite websites to stroll through is Michael Garofalo's 
Spirit of Gardening, which has a lot to say about complexity and simplicity."
-  Lisa Schamess,  The Truth Hurts, 
http://lisaschamess.com/2006/03/best-ofimho.html

"This is the best collection of quality quotes I have ever seen! It has great related links too. I appreciate the vegetarian quotes since I have been a vegetarian since the age of 13. This is my second year as a gardener. I have an herb garden with 12 herbs that are flourishing and a vegetable garden. I'm looking forward to exploring more of your sites."
-  Yvonne Bergeron, 6/4/2006   

"I like your website.  It is so nice that you already have the Taijiquan Camp information on it.  I am going to pass that to my Qi Dragon people to read about our recent camp."
-  Liping Julia Zhu, 6/20/2006

"No suggestions. Just writing to say.... Wow!  What an exhaustive list you've compiled! I am studying Qigong and T'ai Chi in Portland, OR, with a deeply Taoist teacher, and it has changed my life in many ways. My teacher is leaving to go live in a monastery in China, returning actually. So, I am curious who else is out there teaching, and it's a lot! I don't think I'll easily find another teacher so steeped in the deep mysticism of taoism, so I may simply practice and practice and when the right teacher is there....I'll find them. Anyway, just want to express my gratitude to you for putting so much information in one place. You seem like a good man!"
-   Benno Lyon, 6/16/06  

"Hello Mike, Greetings again from Portland, OR. Just used one of your delightful quotes as a footnote for our condo community veg garden emails I just sent out. I did a search on your site and could not find one of my favourite little poems, though it may be there. So, I thought to share it. Planting One for the mouse One for crow. One to rot, One to grow."
As always, grateful thanks for the wonderful website to browse, I spend hours just reading and enjoying. Hope you had a good visit to Portland to see your children earlier this spring. My husband and I are transplants from South Africa and thoroughly enjoying our NW gardening experience. Best to you, Terese."
-   Terese, 6/19/2006

"I wish you had been around back in 1972, I might have stuck with Taijiquan. Now I'm having to start all over. Very good website!  Thanks."
-   James Moore, 6/21/06

"Your website is excellent. It is a great feeling to find someone like yourself values Chinese cultural practices so much."
-  Master Xiansheng Bing YeYoung, Sacramento, CA, 6/27/06
http://www.sactaichi.com