Chi and Prana

[Transcript of my chat with Rupesh on Chi and Prana]
Rupesh: anyways , i was going to write to an email about some new discovries about chi or qi I started to stuy
Guru: Great!!
Rupesh: i was wondering how it was different from prana in pranayama in our yoga
transformed into chi/ki/qi in oriental martial arts
Guru: It's the same AFAIK.
Rupesh: I have bought some books about qi gong and start reading about it and practice some the techniques to feel it
AFAIK?
Guru: As Far As I Know.
Try to get this book "The Science of Breath" by Shri Rama. Himalayan Institute Press.
An excellent book as it explains the scientific basis for many of the concepts in pranayama.
Not very common in yoga books.
Rupesh: cool, i will look for that, but i did notice that prana transformed its name in martial arts but also the purpose
like in tai chi , i have there 4 different styles
2 are for healing and 2 are used for martial arts to defend themselves
Rupesh: oh, k , well i was trying to find the transformation between the prana in yoga and using chi in martial arts
Guru: How are the healing chi different from the defence chi?
Rupesh: and I was planning to practice chi breathing first
and incorporate that into my forms in TKD
Guru: Do they teach you that in the class?
Rupesh: so far I have found that the healing and martial chi are one and the same but chi in general has lot to do with your imagination ,
especially during the practice of making your chi strong , you imagine ,
Guru: We'd brought a book on Chi Gong and Sex :D
Rupesh: like you are as strong as be able to lift the earth or as tall as the skies or as delicate to float on the water
no kidding , that would be a side effect of chi of course
Guru: Tantra related Chi practises...
But the things you said are similar.... imagination....
Essentially Kundalini is raised during these practises....
Rupesh: well, they do not teach much about chi at my school , unfortunately , may be in the upper belt levels
Guru: Ok.
Kundalini is the lowest chakra and related to sex.
Rupesh: I suppose , but I am sure I will find the Answer
Guru: The person who started teaching Yoga at Shao-lin would also have taught the Tantra practises to his disciples...
Rupesh: where and when and how yoga and martial arts understand the concept and use it
Guru: That's how Chinese kung-fu got hold of all the Chi meditations...
I think his name was Da-Mo in chinese and dharma something in India....
Rupesh: that makes sense, it does look like the concepts passed on from yoga to martial arts than the other way
Guru: Yep.
The chinese picked up a LOT of stuff from India...
They named it differently in their own fashion later....
Rupesh: I have read some where about bodhi dharma , one of the budhist monks taking from india to china or shaolin
Guru: Get the book I told you about.... it'll make a lot of things clear.
Most yoga books try to hide the Real meaning behind the bandhas and kriyas....
Rupesh: but i believe chinese did enhance it and practice and made the concepts stronger
Guru: They all give the warning that doing these practises incorrectly can lead to physical and mental damage....
Usually saying something like "The forces unleashed by these practises may be beyond the capacity of the unguided student to control...."
Rupesh: a stong pill with a warning
but without practicing how would any reach to that point
Guru: That's what I also feel...
and if you think about it a bit....
who taught the first guy to discover this stuff....
he would have learnt this on his own...
Rupesh: comparitvely , wonder why oriental people are known to hte world more active in there daily life than indians
every time we see on tv , oriental guys are practicing tai chi every where , even in the busy cities like hong kong or singapore or bijieng
Guru: It's the weather I tell you....
They've got cold weather....
Helps you do Tai Chi....
Even our own yogis went to Himalayas to do tapasya...
Just kidding...
:D
Rupesh: anyways , like someone said "practice is the mother of all the skills" we have lot say , that is indians aobut our culture and wealth but no practice
Guru: I think that Pranayama is also done by equal no. of people....
The only thing is the chinese arts are suited to practise by people not interested in mind control....
The benefits are also more tangible.... than in pranayama...
Most people think OH!! I just sit in a corner and breathe....
Rupesh: i guess, but yoga is very popular here, probably a yoga master can get laid more than geek
Guru: the first thing you think of in Tai-Chi is the slow motion hand waving... as if the person is inside the sea waves...
:D
Good place to practise Tantra chi huh?!! ;-D
Rupesh: goof
anyways , its just pity sometimes to hear people talk about yoga and see through them that have no concept what so ever
they wouldnt even understand what name of the posture means
Guru: Yoga guys are very round-about when talking of the concept.... don't give it to you direct....
I think an american yoga expert would be much more direct and to the point.
Rupesh: but we do have people out here who go all the way to china or some orient country and learn martial arts out there and teach it here
who really study it
which i think is pretty cool,
Guru: Yes. They're more action-oriented....
Both the Europeans and the chinese/Japanese....
more yang.
Seems like we're more Yin in that sense.
Rupesh: but i was reading about the food types which fall under yin and yang
all the indian food looked like yang
Guru: Chi Gong/Pranayama allow in many stages to control different aspects of our body and mind....
Rupesh: which I thought was interesting
Guru: Uh,huh....
Rupesh: what>
Guru: According to acupressure 5 tastes are sour, hot, sweet, salt, bitter
They in turn are related to the 5 energies Wind, Heat, Humidity, Dryness, Cold
in turn related to Intelligence/Anger, Laughter/Passion, Greed/Calculation, Sadness/Discipline, Fear/Wisdom
The first 2 energies are Yang energies....
Last 2 energies are Yin energies and the middle one is more balanced...
Sent at 8:07 PM on Friday
Rupesh: ok
Guru: So the Yang foods would be sour, hot.
Yin foods would be salty, bitter.
Rupesh: but what about the food, all the spices we are yang food rather than fruits and veggies which are yin
Guru: With Sweet foods being humidity ie balanced...
Rupesh: so how would indian people form balance other than eating yogurt at the end of the meal
Guru: It's not that straight forward.
we eat curd which is sweet or sour....
Exactly!!
The reason is Spicy food lasts long in our hot conditions....
Rupesh: and oriental people on the other hand do eat lot of sea food which is yin but add spices as yang
Guru: if you don't have a fridge then this type of food lasts long...
example is pickle....
Spicy and salty....
lasts verrrrry long...
Our food is not that salty as its impossible to have that high salt in normal food...
If you look at the "tadka" put into daal it has mixture of all the tastes.... including bitter(methi seeds, mustard seeds etc)...
This has its origin in Ayurveda which prescribes Kheer as the best food for yogis...
Light and easily digestible...
Ok maan!! It was nice talking to you... but gotta leave for home now...
I'll include this chat in my next blog posting!!! :D
Rupesh: ok, drive carefully, will yap some other time
Guru: Bye

........

Quite a few months NO actually a year passed before we had our next conversation :

bhallu, dipti and myself had attended a 'shibir'/workshop on Suryanamaskar, Pranayam and Meditation conducted by our communities Swamiji.....
Everyday for the last 1-2 months we used to practise that in the mornings....
Rupesh: cool , i have tried that for a while but I was not able to calm my mind
i still have the tired feeling , to go back to bed kind of thing
Guru: esp. the meditation and mantra-japa....
Rupesh: good , i have not tried that
that is sitting meditation?
Guru: Yep.
Rupesh: do u do breathing with it?
Guru: Yes.
Rupesh: visualization?
I think proper breathing and visualization are key for the posture to work
Guru: Yes you're supposed to concentrate on the mantra and the deity you're praying to...
Essentially I found out the reason why it's so difficult to stay in one position....
Rupesh: u know that the oriental martial arts emphasize chi(qi) and flow of it in there art forms
Guru: It's mostly about balancing the weight of your head around 3 kgs....
Rupesh: thats part of my exercise to , balance
Guru: A small change in head posture leads to imbalance....
Rupesh: i feel that in my kicks every day , allignment
Guru: I found that I can easily stay in the seated meditation posture if I'm conscious of my head movement.
Normally I could easily meditate for 30-45 minutes at a stretch without feeling discomfort/pain....
The body actually would start feeling a bit weightless due to lack of posture problem....
Though found a bit of stiffness on getting out of the meditation esp with the cold weather....
Rupesh: thats something i feel in the standing meditation too
Guru: Might help to wear some light clothing in that....
Rupesh: yeah
Guru: You should definitely talk to Bhallu... he's further out in the meditation experience...
Rupesh: cool
Guru: He's following Brhamari pranayam, and Bhastrik which makes the mind really calm and you don't get distracted by thoughts unless you want to...
I tried out these techniques and found that they work!!!
Only thing is normally when I start doing things welll suddenly I feel like giving it up....
Rupesh: never heard of em
Guru: :-) :-(
These are reallllly simple techniques in yoga.... 1st one is making a bees sound while breathing out and the 2nd one is bellows breathing rapid....
The good thing is after a take break ... 1 month or so... I normally get back on track without a problem.....
so hopefully I'll start doing the meditation again very soon.
Rupesh: sounds intresting
Guru: It works and is reaaallly simple...
Funny thing is in the past these techniques were taught only to select few....
Try to find the book "The science of breathing" by swami rama....
search for himalayan institute....
Rupesh: i think i have that one
Guru: It's a newer publication by swami rama....
http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/
Rupesh: i have the one called science of breath
by ramacharaka
Guru: That one is different book....
This book is really VERY good...
http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/Shopping/s-37-books.aspx
Meditation and Its Practice, Living with The Himalayan Masters,
(books that we bought)
Path of Fire and Light, Volume 1,
Path of Fire and Light, Volume 2,
Science of Breath,
Stretching Without Pain (just found it on the website)
Actually I've gotta find and buy these books here in Bangalore...
Bhallu bought these in Hyderabad...
Man those are the best books on Yoga and Meditation that I've seen...
He introduces the subject very logically without mumbo-jumbo...
and clearly tells you WHY you're doing something....
he doesn't just say "Do this and it'll help" he'll tell what happens when you do it, How to do it and why you should do it.
Rupesh: u mean swami rama?
Guru: Yep.
He was the Shankaracharya of one of the 4 maths founded by the original shankaracharya....
He doesn't talk like a Mathadipati at alll.... more like a logical person like you and me but with more insight and experience...

Sights and Symbols

I'd read a modern Indian short story named "The Mighty Hand of Hanuman".
This scene made me think back to that story.
Driving by on the way to office on my scooter, I saw a strange sight.
On a 90 degree turn parked in a thicket alongside this bylane off the road was a huge Yellow Claw lying extended and prostrate as if in a prayer of supplication.
Its Chunky metal facets, dull yet metal bright, resting the massive weight on to the scattered "murram-matti" on the black tar road.
The feeling was as if this behemoth were slowly sinking its teeth into the black skin of this road.
The Orange colored body of this gentle giant with a single claw telescoping forwards, Bright Yellow in color.
Like a Crab coming up from the ocean swells to rest on land before foraging for food along this "sandy" shore.
Praying to the blue sky with wisps of a white cloudy beard for a good harvest of rocks and boulders.
Tons to be shifted by end of day. The peace of prayer before the work ahead.
The human laborers soon swarming like the Sucker Fish beneath a Great White Shark.

Today I looked out the window and saw a Picture-Perfect scene!.
A Lone Tree, trunk knotted with bark rough and tawny wood inside.
Quite lopsided, its branches on one side near totally lopped off.
A small 'tala'/pool of water near it, reflecting the sheets of rain-drops falling in drapes of white.
The mud around brownish red, with tracks of heavy vehicles forming small sluices of water.
The only contrast was a hard cut dam of granite blocks forming an artificial ridgeback mini-mountain
Near the horizon were some trees looking like shrubs, misted over by the waving curtains from the clouds
This whitened scene with a road running through it, black tar and the zebra signs contrasting against the wet outside.
From inside my cozy a/c quarters I could look out on this beautiful scene.

Health: Stretching, Mudras, Pranayama and 5 Elements

Transcript of my chat with Rupesh

>>>>>>>>>>>
Guru: Hi.
Rupesh: i am looking at brad appleton , thnx for the linx
Guru: Welcome. I've been meaning to write (a blog) on stretching for many years now.... your mail was the last nail.... ;-D
The blog is still in draft stage and will need some rework before its good enough to post.
Many good blogs have started as mail conversations....
Rupesh: cool, man , good to know about it so I can apply them to my routine
Guru: Yep.
Actually I found Brad's FAQ a bit intimidating when I first read it....
finally I evolved my own take on stretching.... mostly static yoga-asana based stretching....
Esp. the part on breath control is a key one....
Rupesh: i tried the breathing while doing yoga and sure makes a difference
Guru: It's almost like doing trance in the stretch pose....
Remember PattabhiRam?.... meeru chaaaala haaiiiigaa unnnaru....
Rupesh: :)
Guru: 20 minutes of this and both mind and body feel refreshed....
I've started doing Shavasana after my Jogging... helps me relax fully before setting out for office....
Anyway I've found that each asana requires something like 20-30 days to "set" in....
Rupesh: thats true, I read somewhere that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit
Guru: While writing to you did some research on ligaments, that was a missing piece... "they stretch under tension"... I always knew that sub-consciously, but now I know it for sure.....
The Vakra-Vajrasana really lenghthened my inner knee ligaments... when I come home from office I can feel it stretching like candy... :D
Rupesh: cool, so you can do full splits now?
Guru: Nope.... I've wantedly not tried to do them...
Though I'm sure that my stretching must have improved a Lot....
The more I try harder the sooner I give up the exercise...
so I'm just trying to enjoy what I do....
I'm satisfied that my joints are not atrophying even though I've got such a sedantary lifestyle in office....
Rupesh: that makes sense
Guru: That's enough for now. If and when I achieve full-stretch will be a happy day...
Rupesh: r u doing it everyday as a routine
Guru: but let it come when it wants to....
Yep. Since many years now.... The gaps were when I tried too hard and had some inflammation of the joints... but those were lessons well learned...
So now I only try to improve or maintain what I can achieve everyday....
Only doing a day's worth no more. Same with jogging and weights....
If a break happens I let it.
Pick up where I left off once I feel like it again.
This way seems to work for me. May not work for all.
As you can see blogging has made writing very easy, I tend to write a story where a few words will do.... :D
So mostly blogging involves blabbing a lot and then trimming it down to a smaller size.
As Lincoln once said "Please forgive the lengthiness of my letter, I had no time to write a small one"....

Rupesh: well, i enjoy reading about yoga and stuff , so I do not have any complaints man
but the good thing is that I do not have to look through 10 books to find what I want to , instead I can read ur blog and get it right away

Guru: Yeah. That's the intention. Many times I write blogs for myself to note down all the good points and critical things for future reference. A kind of shortlist from books etc for easy reference.
Did you try orkut.com?
Its a social networking site....

Rupesh: the essence

Guru: Yup.

Rupesh: I train with black belts in tkd every class

Guru: Sahi hai...

Rupesh: and its explosive if i add some breathing into the kicks
even with limited motion ,
but I still have to learn to the 'Yell" thing

Guru: I'm exploring this area also....

Rupesh: i am sure u do it when used to do karate

Guru: Yeah. Initially it was somewhat strange. But I learned how to do that.
For me the trick was To create an echo in the confined practise area...

Rupesh: well, I havent go it yet , but I am sure it has to do with ur breathing

Guru: Started the thing from the belly button and let go with a blast....
As if trying to know over the opponent with the blast.
There is a Simha-mudra in Yoga, it involves a mirror.

Rupesh: right :)

Guru: Try it once.
Helps to focus the aggression and let it out under control.
We learned some Acupressure somewhere along the way....
It says that you can control the emotions and energy flow in your body using mudras....
It works. I tried it in jogging...

Rupesh: mudra? like a pose?
or a seal?

Guru: Have to learn Pranayama... for that.
Yeah mudra means seal as well as pose.
Most mudras are done with fingers touching one another.

Rupesh: makes sense

Guru: When you're doing stretching one mudra can make for calmness and steadiness... the one thats shown for meditation....
Touching the index finger to middle of thumb....
Peace, calm and steadfastness...

Rupesh: cool, i had to try that ,we get here a tv channel called fit tv and they have some yoga and martial art shows, not completely westernized

Guru: I've got 2 VCDs with Yoga lessons on that by that daadhi valey baba on Aastha TV....
I think he teaches pranayama also...

Rupesh: cool, i can see if they have something interesting ,

Guru: acupressure tries to control chi-flow/prana-flow using needles, points etc.. mudras also do the same....
but by breath-control you can control it without even raising a finger....
Some mudras will activate the energy, some will make it burst forth, some will steady and some will reduce energy flow....

Rupesh: i may not remember all this, do u have it on ur blog?

Guru: Kinda like Warm-up, Action and Cool-down.
Don't worry this chat is going into the blog!! :D
Many chats and mails make a blog..
Many of these things are in my mind, they only need a seed to crystallize on and such chats are the best.. kinda like a faq in the making...
I've got a few books on acupressure therapy which talks about controlling energy flow through mudras...
5 elements stand for Wind, Heat, Earth, Metal, Water....

Rupesh: excellent material

Guru: Wind is like children running here and there without aim, asking questions, boiling with energy, anger, growth.
Heat is like teenager, passionate, commited, energetic, ambitious, lustful, idealistic
Hotness is related to Heat. Its like the heat after the sun sets, balmy, more relaxed, satiated, comfortable, like after climax.
Earth is collecting, gathering, storing, looking further than today.
Metal is regret, discipline, past, sadness.
Water is fear, death, despair, wisdom, cunning....
These 5 elements form an unbroken ring. Water/Fear leads to Wind/Anger.... and the cycle continues.
Each of the 5 fingers stand for an element.
Thumb being Wind, Index Heat, Middle Earth, Ring metal, Little Water.... Isn't it a strange co-incidence that Ring finger has metal ring on it....
I think it is to increase committment and steadfastness in the person wearing it.
The Meditation Mudra is what is known as Yin-Dryness/Metal mudra...

But more on that later.
You must be busy working... I'll elaborate more on this in an email and blog. I'll just paste these points and write some more.
I've gotta leave for home now.

Center - The origin of everything

5 elements are like 5 fingers stretching outward and back from the centre of the hand.
Homo/Hetero is like the palm and the fingers.
Neutro is like the middle of the palm.

Energy MUST change form between the 5 (continuous) types.
In order to attain control over the 5 types, we must go 1 level higher/deeper to Yin/Yang level.
Above that lies the Neutro level, the eye of the storm.
Shoonya or Center is the where energy comes from.
Something comes from Nothing/Stillness.

This zone of calm is where lies the balance. Nirvana = Where none of the 5 waves arise and subside into the calmness of the depths

Health: "Be Like Water, My Friend", Yoga and Stretching

This is a transcript of my mail conversation with Rupesh
>>>>>>>>
Hi Rupesh,

This is an awesome collection of info and links on stretching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching
Brad Appleton's comprehensive "Stretching FAQ"
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stretching/SM00043/RETURNTOOBJID=DA0576C0-D1A7-4CEC-89966330AC25C727&RETURNTOLINK=1&slide=5

I've read the FAQ before, but the secret lies in patiently applying the principles.
"There's a difference between Knowing the Path and Walking the Path"

bye,
Gullu
>>>>>
Hi Rupesh,

Best of Luck on the Belt-Test in TKD!!
Its quite good to hear that you're doing Yoga stretching....
Its more a type of static stretching compared to the more activated stretching used in the martial arts. I like to think of asanas as:
"Hold the position which you want to be comfortable in"
ie kind of like setting jelly in a bowl. Hold it there long enough and you get the shape.
Of course our body is not jelly (the bones are too hard, but the joints are not).
But over time the ligaments do behave somewhat like that.

If you're interested look up "Mandukasana". Its the same way a frog sits, stretches out the hip joint while actually give full range of motion in rotating the hips. I found that slowly stretching some parts helps to reduce the strain. I followed the following sequence to improve my stretching :
1) Vajrasana (toes pointing back)
Effects - improved the upper hip and inner hip joint. Allowed me to sit on the floor in between the two legs.
2) Supta Vajrasana
Effects - improved the back and upper hip joint.
3) BhooNamana Vajrasana
Method - Do the Vajrasana toes pointing back, bend at the waist and try to lay the chest flat on the thighs. Keep arms at the side or behind the back.
Effects- totally freed up the back and top of the hip joint.
4) BhooNamana Padmasana
Method - Do padmasana, bend forward with your hands joined and pointed forward, and slowly lower your head until it touches by sheer force of gravity and relaxing of muscles and slow stretching of ligaments.
Effects - totally frees up the inner thighs (like butterfly exercise) and the lower back.
5) Vakra-Vajrasana (toes pointing at right angles to legs) (soles of feet pointing backward)
- improved the inner knee joint extremely allowing the lower leg to move independantly of the thigh. Had to do Ardha form (alternating left and right legs) for quite some time before doing the full asana.
6) Ardha-Mandukasana (alternating left and right legs) same as above but knees kept as far apart on both sides as possible.
- improved rotation of thigh bone on the hip joint (now the inner thigh is able to touch the floor).
7) Mandukasana (just started doing the mandukasana directly just a few days back).
- improved the stretching at the pubic bone where the inner thighs join the center point!!
I can actually hear the click of the joint and feel the slide as the ball and socket joint in the hips and thigh bone, makes the inner thighs slide forward and touch the ground. I guess this will be less noticable as time goes on and smoothness increases in the joint rotation.

I got this by trial and error. Many times I attempted these asanas all at once and tried too hard to get the stretch. The result was pain in the joints and giving up new asanas esp. for months on end. Finally I found out what works and what doesn't and how much is good enough.

An aside on Breath control: I found that doing the asana and observing/counting the breath helped me to settle into the asana like jelly. I gave up thinking about the stretching so much and just enjoyed the feeling of relaxing all my muscles. So much so that the first thing I do after coming from work is to do the asana. This gets the stiffness of sitting in a chair for 8-10 hrs and driving 1 hr. out of my body. Watching the breath become lighter and slower and the heart-beats following suit is so good its like taking a gentle sunbath!! :D


If you think about it, jelly IS made from gelatin. The stuff that you get by boiling the collagen in the ligaments joining the bone joints. As John Little says strength comes from the joints and I guess so does flexibility. Searched for the exact medical terms on wikipedia and came up with this:

>>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligament (wikipedia)
In its most common use, a ligament is a short band of tough fibrous connective tissue composed mainly of long, stringy collagen fibres. Ligaments connect bones to other bones to form a joint. (They do not connect muscles to bones; that is the function of tendons.) Some ligaments limit the mobility of articulations, or prevent certain movements altogether.
Capsular ligaments are part of the articular capsule that surrounds synovial joints. They act as mechanical reinforcements. Extra-capsular ligaments join bones together and provide joint stability.
Ligaments are slightly elastic; when under tension, they gradually lengthen. This is one reason why dislocated joints must be set as quickly as possible: if the ligaments lengthen too much, then the joint will be weakened, becoming prone to future dislocations. Athletes, gymnasts, dancers, and martial artists perform stretching exercises to lengthen their ligaments, making their joints more supple. The term double-jointed refers to people who have more elastic ligaments, allowing their joints to stretch and contort further. The medical term for describing such double-jointed persons is hyperlaxity and double-jointed is a synonym of hyperlax.
>>>>>>>>

They were showing an episode on National Geographic about a few Shaolin monks who start a special training exercise which stretches their hip ligaments into hyperlaxity. They do this at a young age and the stretching they get is so much that not even Old Age can take the stretching away. They're able to turn their toes to an amazing 180 degrees.. I'm sure these guys could brush their teeth using only their toes for holding the toothbrush!! :D

Though we may not need such phenomenal stretching, the principles at work are the key to understanding and applying them. In practise we have limited time and effort to allocate but using these ideas can give great results over time. If we allocate 1 month for every year of our life, that comes to just under 2 years to get back the stretching we've lost. This is with least amount of pain, effort and time. 20 minutes of this static stretching will easily suffice.

Since we're still young it may not even take that much time. I've also found that each new stretching exercise makes the joints able to do movements in other exercises. Thus the rate at which results improve increases quite fast. At one point there'll be very little resistance to being comfortable in any asana.

In martial arts apart from the physical aspect is the punches and kicks, the more dynamic aspect. This of course is an area in which I've not Personally done That much. What I've known or done is from JKD. For a long time now I've not really done much in other areas and have chosen to concentrate only on stretching... I always feel that I can join the Dojo once I get the stretching. Strength and Stamina are not that much of a problem for me.

I've started a bit of weights, more reps and less weight. This is already making my arm joints much stronger. Total arms in around 20 minutes.
Recently started jogging. 30 minutes divided into walking, jogging and a small uphill sprint before cooling down with jogging and walking. Its quite exhilarating to feel the familiar rush of air in the lungs on a fresh morning and the quietness of the streets.

This conversation became quite good, I'm turning it into my next blog. :D This will be a good sequel to my earlier blog on Yoga: So that takes care of your question on new blogs. Many of my blogs are saved as drafts and don't see the light of day until I find time to polish and finish them to at least a rough blog before publishing. So you'll find that my site suddenly sees lots of new additions. You can keep the RSS feed for my blog, so whenever new additions come in you'll see it in your RSS reader. Try http://www.google.com/reader.
See my blog on "Blogging without Blocking".

bye for now,
Gullu.

On 9/27/06, Rupesh Reddy wrote:
So I read both of your blogs and I think they are cool,
Have you guys got bored or busy ,because I have not seen any recent ones,
anyways , my TKD is going well, as you guys know I have my yellow
belt test on Oct14th , I have to learn not master :) 9 kicks , 4 blocks ,
3 stances , punch and 2 different palm hill strikes , phew !!

The cool thing is most of the people in my class are either black belts or lower belts ,
So Our master pairs the lower belts with the black belts most the time in the class,

So every class start with some punches and blocks for 10 to 15 minutes for warm up, some people get there a little bit early and chat with others or stretch before the class begins anyways , after the warm up , lower belts pair up with the upper belt and practice different kicking techniques , we switch holding the 'Wat ever you call that punching thing which in a square shape ' back and fort the nest 45 minutes ,

after that we do some push ups and sit ups and after the class I hang around and do some yoga stretching stuff , but some of the other students free sparring for a while, off course wearing all the protective gear ,

Yesterday I practiced the punching and palm hill strike techniques , my main problem was that I was leaning forward and up right and punch was going more inside out like a boxing style punch , my master corrected me so my motion was more balanced and circular and straighter ,

I have also noticed that no matter what you do in TKD , a kick , block or a punch , everything ends with a snap , body usually moves in a circular motion , one example is a round House kick , were the energy is stored in your hips till end and then flows to the foot right before contact "BAMM" , satisfaction of delivering a perfect kick = unlimited ,
As we have learned from the JKD books , hips play an important role in most of the hand techniques , but TKD focuses more on kicks ,

So, Happy kicking and screaming till next time,

Rup

Good Quotes

Good quotes some of which made their way into my email signature.
Too good to be lost!!

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." [Lao Tzu]

"After all is said and done, more is said than done." [Aesop]

"Small Minds discuss People,Middling minds discuss Events,Great minds discuss Ideas." [Anonymous]

"It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance." [Thomas Huxley]

"There are 2 things you can give your children - Roots.... and... Wings!!" [Anonymous]

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." [Marie Curie]

"Good Decisions come from Experience. Experience comes from Bad Decisions" [Anonymous]

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" [The Beatles]

"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare." [Fred Allen]

"Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation." [Saint Augustine]

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
[MarkTwain]

"TV is chewing gum .... for the eyes" [Frank Lloyd Wright]

Silvery Fishy Story

Many years back I'd read an Article in Newstime (a local paper).
It talked about how people in West Bengal had come up with a novel way
to make use of Sewage using simple techniques.

They would make use of wasteland/barren land.
Initially bunds are created and sewage water is flooded into this.
The water is allowed to rest for a month or so.
Gravity leads to settling of the particulate matter which forms a layer over the barren land.
Exposure to Sunlight with its UV rays leads to sterilisation of the waters.
Once the waters become clear, fish eggs are put into them.

The growth of algae and insects due to nutrient rich water leads to fat fish growing.
Soon they are harvested and sold off at the market.
The layer of sediment broken down due to oxidation and bacteria makes
the barren land fertile over a few repetitions. This can later be used for farming.

I don't clearly recollect the articles take on the presence of Heavy Metals and pollutants in the sewage. What happens to those? Or is the sewage not having these things. I wonder...