posted on 21.11.09

10 year old Chen Taiji stylist. Those are some rubber legs!

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posted on 21.11.09

Rare Cage Match: Shaolin vs. Karate.

Great!

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posted on 21.11.09

The Silent Flute- The Final Bruce Lee Film that never was

Often I wonder how Bruce’s living presence may have changed the final outcome of this film. Nevertheless, some very intriguing teachings- like the shamanic vision of the Blind Man leading him to real world action. Also interesting to see David Carradine here. His karma was pretty well wrapped up with Mr.Lee’s now wasn’t it?

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posted on 21.11.09 Renewable Energies - Human & Global - Link Roundup

taichisageblog:

It has been a quiet time here as we move on into Fall, and with that it is a good time of year to give renewed attention to our energy. Here are several links that have shown up recently having to do with our own body and the global body we are part of.

Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light” - Found this one intriguing as it points to what Seers have been saying about humans for ages…

  • The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal.
  • Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals.
  • (This visible light differs from the infrared radiation — an invisible form of light — that comes from body heat.)
  • To learn more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy male volunteers in their 20s were placed bare-chested in front of the cameras in complete darkness in light-tight rooms for 20 minutes every three hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days.
  • The researchers found the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at 10 a.m. and its peak at 4 p.m., dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest there is light emission linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.
  • Faces glowed more than the rest of the body. This might be because faces are more tanned than the rest of the body, since they get more exposure to sunlight — the pigment behind skin color, melanin, has fluorescent components that could enhance the body’s miniscule light production.
  • Since this faint light is linked with the body’s metabolism, this finding suggests cameras that can spot the weak emissions could help spot medical conditions, said researcher Hitoshi Okamura, a circadian biologist at Kyoto University in Japan.

They also had a nice graphic showing this healthy photon emission:

Healthy Body Photon Emission Chart via Live Science

Here is a short article on “how acupuncture works” in regards to pain management via nerve manipulation. It also has an interesting collection of outbound links: “New Scientific Breakthrough Proves Why Acupuncture Works”.

  • New groundbreaking research shows that the insertion of an acupuncture needle into the skin disrupts the branching point of nerves called C fibres. These C fibres transmit low-grade sensory information over very long distances by using Merkel cells as intermediaries. Dr. Morry Silberstein of the Curtin University of Technology will publish his research in the Journal of Theoretical Biology later this year.
  • We have never really had a scientific explanation for how acupuncture actually works,” he said. In the absence of a scientific rationale, acupuncture has not been widely used in the mainstream medical community. If we can explain the process scientifically, we can open it to full scientific scrutiny and develop ways to use it as a part of medical treatments.”

  • Dr. Silberstein mentions that they have known, for some time, that the acupuncture points show lower electrical resistance than other nearby areas of the skin. His research specifically pinpoints that the C fibres actually branch exactly at acupuncture points. Scientists don’t know exactly what role C fibres play in the nervous system, but Dr. Silverstein theorizes that the bundle of nerves exists to maintain arousal or wakefulness. The insertion of the acupuncture needle disrupts this circuit and numbs our sensitivity to pain.

Here are those outbound links for further consideration:

Finally, powering the entire planet with only renewable resources: Wind, Water and Solar. “Study: Shifting the world to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 - here are the numbers”:

  • Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so could result in a 30 percent decrease in global power demand, say Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi.
  • To make clear the extent of those hurdles – and how they could be overcome – they have written an article that is the cover story in the November issue of Scientific American. In it, they present new research mapping out and evaluating a quantitative plan for powering the entire world on wind, water and solar energy, including an assessment of the materials needed and costs. And it will ultimately be cheaper than sticking with fossil fuel or going nuclear, they say.
  • The key is turning to wind, water and solar energy to generate electrical power – making a massive commitment to them – and eliminating combustion as a way to generate power for vehicles as well as for normal electricity use.
  • Jacobson and Delucchi used data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration to project that if the world’s current mix of energy sources is maintained, global energy demand at any given moment in 2030 would be 16.9 terawatts, or 16.9 million megawatts.
  • They then calculated that if no combustion of fossil fuel or biomass were used to generate energy, and virtually everything was powered by electricity – either for direct use or hydrogen production – the demand would be only 11.5 terawatts. That’s only two-thirds of the energy that would be needed if fossil fuels were still in the mix.
  • In order to convert to wind, water and solar, the world would have to build wind turbines; solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar arrays; and geothermal, tidal, wave and hydroelectric power sources to generate the electricity, as well as transmission lines to carry it to the users, but the long-run net savings would more than equal the costs, according to Jacobson and Delucchi’s analysis.
  • “If you make this transition to renewables and electricity, then you eliminate the need for 13,000 new or existing coal plants,” Jacobson said. “Just by changing our infrastructure we have less power demand.”

That was a big enough chunk of stuff to work with for now. More later!

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posted on 14.11.09

Iaido - 13 Katas.

While many are no longer fans of form, his delivery, spirit and smoothness is inspirational.

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doragon:

The Secret of the Golden Flower: Illustration: Stage 1 of meditation: Gathering the light Chinese Taoists believe this book was written by Wang Chong yang, who is the student of Lu Dong bin. This book focused on Taoist inner alchemy practice techniques. Notable English Language translations have been made in 1920 by Richard Wilhelm (originally translated into German, and then into English by Cary F. Baynes), and in 1991 by the respected Harvard academic, Thomas Cleary. The translations are at variance. Wilhelm’s inspiration derives from his Chinese practitioner teacher. Cleary’s authority relies on his prolific experience in Eastern Studies. Per some rather insightful entries in Wikipedia: Classic works of Chinese philosophy preserve a spectrum of pre-modern science, from a time when philosophy and science were less distinct. The foundations of their teachings often do not comport with modern science, yet the teachings are of significant efficacy in providing a degree of awareness that might otherwise remain obscured by modern society’s attention to more stringent standards of rational thought. the poetic aspect of Chinese philosophy communicates an imagery that serves to inform and confirm practitioners according to their own predispositions. The poetic imagery essentially conveys ideas and perceptions better suited to imagining than reasoning, with the hope that in time a convergence of imagery and reason will take place in a manner that is informative.
posted on 09.11.09

doragon:

The Secret of the Golden Flower: Illustration: Stage 1 of meditation: Gathering the light Chinese Taoists believe this book was written by Wang Chong yang, who is the student of Lu Dong bin. This book focused on Taoist inner alchemy practice techniques. Notable English Language translations have been made in 1920 by Richard Wilhelm (originally translated into German, and then into English by Cary F. Baynes), and in 1991 by the respected Harvard academic, Thomas Cleary. The translations are at variance. Wilhelm’s inspiration derives from his Chinese practitioner teacher. Cleary’s authority relies on his prolific experience in Eastern Studies. Per some rather insightful entries in Wikipedia: Classic works of Chinese philosophy preserve a spectrum of pre-modern science, from a time when philosophy and science were less distinct. The foundations of their teachings often do not comport with modern science, yet the teachings are of significant efficacy in providing a degree of awareness that might otherwise remain obscured by modern society’s attention to more stringent standards of rational thought. the poetic aspect of Chinese philosophy communicates an imagery that serves to inform and confirm practitioners according to their own predispositions. The poetic imagery essentially conveys ideas and perceptions better suited to imagining than reasoning, with the hope that in time a convergence of imagery and reason will take place in a manner that is informative.

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