transmission?

[Anonymous]

I noticed something as I started watching the second shipments dvd’s compared to the sections in the 1st shipment of dvd’s. Has anyone else noticed “transmission” occurring during either the 1st set and/or 2nd set of dvd’s? I didn’t notice it at all in the 1st set, but I noticed something during what I’ve seen so far in the 2nd set. Whether its intentional transmission per se, or just “Bruce is doing something or other, and my internal radars are pinging it” I’m not entirely sure. Anybody else notice anything along these lines? I’m kinda of the suspicion that whenever a teacher teaches they are “transmitting” something, but it may not be coherent or intentional enough to be “transmission” per se.

[Anonymous]

Hi again, Scott.

This is an interesting observation. I haven’t really noticed anything myself. I’m sure I could gain through more focus and concentration when working with the materials. I’ve done quite a few workshops with Bruce when he does transmit, and let’s us all know that he’s doing it, and it’s something you can’t mistake. Could he be doing it without telling us? Hard to say and I’m not sure about the taoist ethical take on something like that. My own feeling about it is that I will make no judgement either way, keep working with the materials and practicing, and see what happens.

Best,
Matthew

[Anonymous]

In the 1st dvd section of the 1st dvd in the second shipment he makes a comment along the lines of “a lot has been going on non-verbally here” and whatever else he said as part of that sentence or two or three that made me wonder about transmission. My best guess is that he was doing *something* in person at the time of filming for the people physically present with him. Does that mean that somehow that whatever was “recorded” and could be “accessed” by people just watching the dvd? I know people in other areas who claim to have done exactly that. Another possibility is that he isnt really doing anything particularly special or out of the ordinary for him, but since most people are not ba gua/chi masters, when I see him doing his normal whatever stuff I’m all like “hey guy who is really good at this martial/spiritual whatever stuff!” and it invokes whatever response in me.

This is diverging a bit from bagua, but I’ve spent time in other areas where, whether “transmission” or not, people “give off stuff” and other people notice it. Hindu saints for example. Bringing this back closer to bagua, I’ve also been around some chi gung people who could “lift” the chi levels of everyone in their vicinity, for example. For some people thats a conscious and effortful act, for others it just happens. Usually people who can do that talk about “how much people pick up from me depends on how ‘clean their radar’ is, not on what I’m doing.” Personally I see no ethical issue here. On one level, everyone constantly “gives off” information about how they are doing physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, but people who do it consciously are usually “clean” enough to do it intentionally and in a ethically responsible way. Personally I’ll take that over random people on the street [at work, etc] any day of the week. At this point I’m talking more about “aura dynamics” than I am about “transmission”, so I’d better stop before I get too off topic.

Anyways, again it was just an observation and I’m curious what other people may have noticed along the same lines.

Thanks for the response.

Would you mind talking a little about your practice, and some of what you have been focusing on or working on lately?

[Anonymous]

Hi, Scott.

I’ve been working through the materials a second time. So, I’m on module 4 for the second time. I’m focusing on twisting and the beginning meditations from audio disc 3, the spc warmup and creating mental space. I get ip early, do 40 minutes of seated meditation, 15 minutes of a basic stretching kind of warmup, about 15 minutes of Bagua warmups/body unifications. Then 30 minutes of walking, starting with a few minutes of straight line walking, then the rest circle walking. I do some energy postures then palm changes. Some days it’s more of one and less of another.

There’s a lot to learn. How about you? What’s your practice?

Best wishes,
Matthew

[Anonymous]

I don’t think you could pick up on energetic transmissions from watching DVDs. It’s one thing to send vibrations through the air that people pick up on directly, but to store them and play them back is something beyond technology as it stands.

I’ve heard of people lifting the chi of others as well. Our wing chun grandmaster Chu Shong Tin did it while my instructor was training at his school a few months back. He said that he could feel his energy as he walked behind him.

[Anonymous]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the response about what you practice. That gives me some extra bearing to gauge off of.

Both of my non-BKF instructors were really big into circle walking as a chi building exercise. Both also dealt some with martial applications, but not very much. The Boulder guy knew a lot, but I think he had the problems that lots of his students didnt have much martial arts practice, so he generally left things pretty light in terms of details. We did 8 energy postures and I wanna say 8 direction transitions [inner palms and outer palms, am I recalling that naming convention right?]. Those classes had like 30-40 people in them, but the bagua subgroup was about 10 people. That was like 8 years ago or so. Oh, and class was 1 day/week, for 1.5 hours. For about 4-5 months/year. I think I went through two cycles with him, then I think he quit teaching publicly and apparently moved to Hawaii [part time?]

The Denver teacher had lived in Taiwan I believe it was, and also knew a lot. He had a group of students before I joined in, but they all quit showing up so classes quit happening about 4-6 weeks after I started. He clearly knew a lot, and taught what I could absorb, but we only had about 4-6 weeks to get through stuff. He was really big into circle walking for chi accumulation, and frequently went into specifics and things to work on. That class was once/week for 1.5 hours.

After the second guy, I often did circle walking on my own, largely as a chi acquisition thing. Given my apartment layout, I tend to walk smaller circles [6 ft in diameter or less], which I think is part of why I like doing more of them before direction changing. 8 steps/circle is typical for me. Lately, most of the time I do 1 or 2 I-chuan postures before bagua, and that definitely amplifies things.

I have prior background in multiple other external martial arts, hatha yoga postures, “spiritual” yoga stuff, zen buddhism, and some other stuff. I’ve been doing chi based practices, mostly breathing practices, since my teenage years.

At this point in time the intention of my training largely follows what Bruce advocates: hit the foundations hard, build up chi and internal flow, spend time on energy postures, “developing the carrier wave”, and I like this whole monastic take on bagua.

Going forward my hope is to meet up with Lee Burkins every so often, and have him critique me in detail and prep me for what is probably around the corner training-wise. Thats what he did the other times I visited him.

[Anonymous]

I feel like this is veering kinda far away from the topic of bagua practice so I don’t want to talk about it too much, but there are pictures of people that act like “spiritual lightning bolts”, and if a single picture of a long dead person can do that its not much of a jump that a collection of pictures [ie video] could do it too. Thats my opinion/experience anyways.

The teacher I had in Boulder, his teacher came in once [Madame Wu I believe her name was, I think she immigrated from China and was leaving near Seattle or something], and personally having her in the room I felt like I had, say, 20% more chi and that all of my chi flowed 15% more efficiently. Also, the Boulder teacher himself, I distinctly remembering going up to speak with him after class one week and from 8 feet away I knew I was *in* his aura, not just near it or touching an edge or something, but *in* it at 8 feet away.

While interesting to talk or hear about, I feel that topics like this don’t particularly relate to bagua practice, so I don’t think I want to talk about them too much more here right now. Again, I started this topic hoping that someone else might have had similar experiences or reactions to Bruce’s DVD’s and might be willing to talk about it. Bruce’s latest book about bagua tai chi and I-ching talks some about spiritual transmission, and thats part of what motivated me to start this forum topic.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, Lee Burkins can help you out man, he knows this stuff well. He is someone who you can trust that will bring out the best in your practice and can help guide you through training with Kumar. YOu need mentors in this system as BKF rarely has time for one on one with people. So you have to find his senior students and get all you can, each of them has something from BKF that they do well. Lee is the senior-est among them ( that are still part of the group) when it comes to Ba Gua.

Jess O

[Anonymous]

When you practice around the teacher it tends to cause you to reach a higher level, like you can do extra things. Then later you have to find that feeling for yourself.
1% is the seed, the other 99% is watering it.
The Ba Gua Program has some good lessons, and I really hope people are “doing” them rather than putting them on a shelf to gather dust.

[Anonymous]

Lee is a great guy. I trained with him twice, and it was this great and inspiring combo of him being totally over my head while watching him do all his stuff real smoothly thinking “hey, someday I could probably do most of that” while making incremental progress where you are. He is a really great instructor who does a great job both with where you are now, and with pointing out what is coming down the road. I wish he wasn’t on the other side of the state, so i could see him more frequently, but I’m greatful that is he “reasonably” closeby.

[Anonymous]

I was asking Matt some about his training, and he spent time talking about how he structures his training time. If people are willing to talk about it here, I’d be curious about what “issues” or “topics” people are working on in their training, or have been working on lately. I’ll start:

Personal observations on my personal training:

I’ve done lots of yoga and martial arts before, with a lite smattering of tai chi, hsing-i, and bagua. It’s always interesting to me to compare experiences between these things. I’ve always approached bagua from the emphasis of chi development, while remembering that somehow or other other people also use it to be able to fight. When I did tai chi I liked that it was very smooth and soft. Bagua I like, in part, because its an even more effective method of chi cultivation and chi circulation, in my experience. In previous years when I did bagua the “spiraling” really was noticeable to me, as my chi moved in ways I’m not used to, and chi flows unblocked or amplified in ways I’m not used to. Of late I have particularly noticed the increased chi acquisition in the palms and hand/.forearm. Somewhere Bruce talked about “nerves becoming liquid”, I’m not sure I’ve experienced that per se, but both previously and in ba gua I’ve felt stuff that was “in that direction.” My laogung points definitely kick it up multiple notches when I practice bagua, and I feel things heading towards my dan tien area. My dan tien feels larger and more active than what I’ve usually felt in the past. Currently I dont feel all that much going on in my yongquan/feet, but they are probably pretty decent anyways. I dont feel the spiraling as much as I used to, but I also dont currently practice looking towards the center of the circle. I do much more feel chi above me and chi below me, which may or may not outright be heaven and earth chi respectively. The current physical issue I find myself dealing with the most is hip displacement, which I’ve encountered before in bagua practice as well. My hips push out to the left too far, and it kind of comes and goes. I’m currently working on doing and incorporating energy postures into my practice, and need to go back and do more line walking.

My work has been very busy of late, but Friday is my last day there, I’m hoping to do some traveling, then I head back to school to educate for a career transition. I havent had nearly as much time as I had hoped and planned for bagua practice and dvd viewing, but I’ve incrementally done small amounts of dvd viewing, and am consistent in circle walking 6 days/week, usually with I-chuan stake standing beforehand.

[Anonymous]

I can’t speak for others, but personally I definitely watch the dvd’s and spend time consistently practicing.

I hope we all find what we are looking for.

[Author]

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