So a big deal that a lot of people make a lot of the time when it comes to learning, is learning from a teacher. And a big part of why this is important isn't just for the technical details that the teacher can provide, and physical corrections, but on the "powerful energy workings" that the teacher can perform directly on the student, and how the student, merely by being in his (or her) presence, can feel this energy and be oh so amazed.

It's why you just can't learn "the real stuff" from a book or a DVD.

Now I've always been just a bit too out of range, and always a bit too underfunded, to ever get a chance to get any of the "real stuff". I've been learning from books/DVDs since I started. Now I consider myself a pretty motivated person. I don't just read the stuff. I study it. I really make it my own.

And there's one thing that I've always thought: if this stuff is "real", if this universal energy actually exists, if these physical alignments really work, well, they should work regardless if a teacher gives me some energy juice to "start me up". Why? Well, by virtue of the fact that I'm a living, breathing human being. I got all the right parts. So it should work for me, right?

And in general, this has worked out pretty good for me. Actually, just to prevent any subsequent confusion: this has always worked out for me.

I started with the martial arts. All I had were crap McDojos. So I got a DVD. I was met with all this "oh well you can't ever learn REAL stuff from a DVD." And, I'm not a pro MMA fighter. I'm not a super ninja master. But I'm a pretty decent fighter, I can hold my own against people who put in a lot more training that I do, and I've successfully defended myself in a few encounters. All from my DVD home study material. Just looking at it, copying what I see, figuring out how my own body responded, figuring out how it would apply anatomically, testing it out, then going back to the basics.

This carried on over in qigong. I wasn't sure if qi was real, or if it was just a metaphor. But I figured, if it is real, I should have the capacity to feel it whether or not I have someone initiate me, right? It actually seems kinda fishy if you can only feel it if someone else gives it to you.... at least, that's how I saw it. Same with body alignments (which was another argument that the MAists made for why you can't learn from a DVD, because you don't have someone to correct you). I started out trying to figure out just how to get my spine straight. How do I bend from the kwa? How do I sink the shoulders and round the back, but without slouching?

I think I figured these all out reasonably well, because when it felt wrong, I didn't do it, and went back to the books/DVD's. Tinkered around a bit, until I found an alignment that felt good and looked like what I was seeing. And then I started to feel something. Qi? I dunno, maybe. Then I started to feel stuff from other people. Occasionally an animal, or a place. I'm not some ascended immortal. But I've had, and continue to have, some experiences. Some are good. Some are bad. I try not to judge. But stuff is happening.


The point is, I just don't know if I buy the whole you must learn from a teacher in person.

There are a lot of quality guys putting some quality material out there in book/DVD/audio/whatever format. Experience, I think, should be the initiator.

When you get punched in the face when you mess up a block, your body learns very quickly how to angle that block- no need to travel 2 and a half hours to get some great master to tell you to change the angle.

When you slip into the proper alignment, and your body feels unified and energized, and you can feel everything around you, that's how you know you've got the juice. I don't know if I need to travel 18 hours just so I can get someone to tell me to close my eyes so they can wave their hands around my mind, all the while telling me what they're doing and asking if I feel anything (which is kinda similar to stage magic suggestion anyway....)


I don't know what this is. A rant? A question?

I just feel like, as human beings, we all have the capability. If you got something you want to teach, or if there's something you want to learn.... why does everyone insist on this "in person" business? If you got the internet, youtube lets you upload videos for free. There are any number of free blogging services out there which will let you write anything you want on there.

It just seems to me that if you want to teach people, drop this whole "in person" business. Say what you want to say. Show what you want to show. A genuine person who genuinely wants to learn will accumulate their own genuine experiences without you having to wave your hands over them.

This post has been edited by Sloppy Zhang: 27 July 2010 - 06:04 PM

[WIKI] Libel case regarding double entendres

There is a persistent urban legend, repeated by the now-defunct UK newspaper the Sunday Correspondent, which ascribes sexually suggestive names – such as Master Bates, Seaman Staines, and Roger the Cabin Boy (meaning to have sex with) – to Captain Pugwash 's characters, and indicating that the captain's name was a slang Australian term for oral sex. John Ryan successfully sued both the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers in 1991 for printing this legend as fact. [1]

In a stage show in Frome on 5 June 2009, Richard Digance claimed to have originated this urban legend in a 1970's sketch. A 25-year injunction preventing Digance making any further references to Captain Pugwash expired at the end of 2008 and the material is now part of his act.