Experience with Eight Brocades Qigong with Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming - Sitting or Standing

[ihateclowns]

Hello, anyone here has any experience with Eight Brocades Qigong with Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming or from other teachers?

 

[Frater M.M.]

I've done a little of both, following his YouTube vids, in the past. Also read one of his books on qigong. I think he's good and well regarded, but I haven't done it long enough to be able to personally report anything back to you, unfortunately.

 

[ihateclowns]

Thanks, yes he is good, have seen his full 6 DVDs of Qigong theory long back but just like you I never stuck to any form, now I have decided to start with sitting first and then standing later. Hope to see some benefits.

 

[Frater M.M.]

Definitely be interested to hear any results you get.

I don't really have the capacity to do any more physical stuff in my week (already have gym, Pilates, dance) but I remember his seated version is very light weight physically. Maybe I'll take another look at this myself or maybe even something simple like seated Daoyin

 

[ihateclowns]

sure but like most I'm too surprised that these simple movements can yield results though there is scientific research showing some benefits.

 

[Frater M.M.]

Amazing to see a video of his is still up there with some nice commentary. The seated version is even easier and lighter than I remembered.

I haven't looked at the research in a while but there seem to be some interesting reviews and meta-analyses out there. I think the bulk of the research is for standing qigong and not seated tho (I believe for the last 2026 link, 17 out of 18 trials are for standing qigong).

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[ihateclowns]

think the bulk of the research is for standing qigong and not seated tho (I believe for the last 2026 link, 17 out of 18 trials are for standing qigong).

Yes seems to be and for research all forms of qigong, tai chi are the same when it comes to results. One has to try and test for results, sometimes I think it to be the case that people back then must have got bored while breathing chi or prana in and came up with forms to get over boredom.

 

[Frater M.M.]

sometimes I think it to be the case that people back then must have got bored while breathing chi or prana in and came up with forms to get over boredom.

Yeah, tbh I'm not really a fan of just sitting around doing stuff (only as a last resort). I've always preferred motion/bodily rhythm: taichi, moving qigong, etc.

Even with "simple" stuff like zazen I'd much rather dance or play guitar than stare at a wall or look at my breath.

 

[ihateclowns]

Hope you have seen some videos of sparring between tai chi masters and other eastern marital arts even Aikido vs BJJ, muay thai and others, Joe Rogan enjoys those somehow.

All these from east are only namesake martial arts they are not for real life defense at all, all must be for internal health and long life without any need to confront enemies. But Dr. Yang says one form (I don't know which one) was developed by a Chinese general for soldiers so there is a lot of superiority in these forms owing to being in existence for so long.

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 4:29 AM

don't remember which one*

 

[Frater M.M.]

ok I still have my post so we can bring back the croaking frog

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Hope you have seen some videos of sparring between tai chi masters and other eastern marital arts even Aikido vs BJJ, muay thai and others, Joe Rogan enjoys those somehow.

All these from east are only namesake martial arts they are not for real life defense at all, all must be for internal health and long life without any need to confront enemies. But Dr. Yang says one form (I don't know which one) was developed by a Chinese general for soldiers so there is a lot of superiority in these forms owing to being in existence for so long.

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 4:29 AM

don't remember which one*

Yeah, this is what happens when the croaking frog comes out of its well and encounters a real frog on the road

Yeah, on the whole this has been my experience in the past. I actually went to a dedicated tai chi "dojo" the other year (run by Sifu Gary Wragg) just to try out a qigong class. It was good but I never went back and decided to focus on different exercises (as I said further up). They actually do fighting/sparring there with actual pads and gloves (as opposed to just things like pushing hands) but I never actually attended a tai chi class to see exactly how they did it.

I'm not sure which style Dr Yang had in mind but I guess it will also depend how you train/cross-train it. I mean, it will never stand in the mma ring on its own IMO but it might be enough by itself to knock a random drunken attacker to the ground while you run off.

... I just looked it up. Apparently, Yang in his book Eight Simple Qigong Exercises for Health, attributes the Eight Brocades to General Yue Fei (1103–1142) of China's Southern Song dynasty for improving his soldiers' health/physical conditioning. Also, Xingyiquan and Eagle Claw martial arts styles are traditionally associated with Yue Fei.

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As ye train, so shall ye fight

There's a story about this cop who was so obsessed with gun disarming that he would practice the same move thousands of times with his partner - grab gun with both hands, twist, take away gun, hand back gun to partner, grab again gun with with both hands, twist, on and on and on, until the disarming move became second nature to him. One day he was in a 7/11 when some guy tried to rob the place and held him at gunpoint. The cop reacted without thinking, grabbed the robber's gun with both hands, twisted, took away his gun - and promptly hand the gun back to him as he had done in interminable hours of practice. Luckily for him, his partner shot the amazed robber before the guy could do any damage, or so the cautionary tale goes.

Somehow related is my pet karate peeve concerning partner practice involving throws and takedowns where karateka often are often in the habit of offering a friendly outstretched hands to their downed opponents to help them up. Imagine being actually so chivalrous in real-life situations - both the defender and the aggressors would be able to exploit such a courteous gesture in any number of painful ways. When being taken down, you should roll away as quickly as possible and only get up once you've put a safe distance between you and your attacker, else you risk being hit with soccer kicks to your ribs or head. The guy left standing, on the other hand, could be dragged down and… I'd rather be hit in the face than being caught in an armlock on the ground, it's a horrible feeling, and

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are even worse, I can tell you that from personal experience. Being so courteous and helping your partner up in such situations can be tantamount to handing the gun back to the 7/11 robber in real life.

Great cop story and yes I remember when I did (external) martial arts many years ago, it felt like I was training reflexes. Sometimes I'd find my body moving and blocking a strike before I even had time to think about it consciously. If you're not training realistically it's basically guaranteed to end in disaster.

A Slo-Mo Rant

I wonder whether any discussion about martial arts energies is possible without addressing the concept of qi, i.e. without explaining it rationally in terms of modern science, without debunking it as mythical, etc. In my opinion, the widespread exaggeration of the power of qi stems from humanity's unfortunate lust for miracles, its hunger for all kinds of sensations, and for heroic sagas about brave underdogs defeating much stronger opponents (David may have vanquished mighty Goliath but let's not forget that the guy had been using a projectile weapon). Why is it that miraculous powers are ever only ascribed to martial artists and not to golfers, tennis players, or swimmers? Why are there no tales about wizened old hermits running rings around much younger players on the soccer pitch? A story about how a

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should not have made the BBC World News but then the poor guy was a tai chi master who had agreed to this uneven match of his own free will, so the public probably couldn't wait to witness some wondrous feat as per time-honoured narrative. Of course the tai chi master didn't win and was knocked out - did anybody expect a different outcome? Millions of Chinese apparently did…

In actuality, such contests do both tai chi and mixed martial arts a disservice. The tai chi master is made to look like a fool, the MMA fighter like a brutal thug, and everybody loses. However, traditional Chinese internal and external martial arts only have themselves to blame for this debacle after making bold claims such as these:

This skill can be used martially or medically as a projection skill. Basically, the person who has developed their chi to this level has obtained enough energetic strength to affect another person’s cells and bioelectric field through emitting their chi.
Sifu Dan Ferrera, "Qigong & The Power of Magnetic Fields" (free booklet)

Bagua's power, however, is more like an inflated beach ball: the practitioner's body becomes full of energy, which can be moved about at will and can be manifested to bounce an enemy a great distance away.
Liang Shou-Yu, Yang Jwing-Ming, Wu Wen-Ching - Baguazhang (Emei Baguazhang) - Chinese Internal Martial Arts, 1996

I take this to mean that practitioners able to transmit their qi outside their body to affect an opponent at a distance... Again, I'm not interested in debunking such claims and won't wait with bated breath for another mismatched contest, this time between a Baguazhang adept and yet another MMA fighter.

Bagua fighting is quite crazy if you've ever seen Bruce Frantzis wildly flailing his arms at an opponent. (Can't link this vid because I'm only allowed 2 media links in one post. Will do it later on in thread, if interested, but you can easily find it on YT if you haven't seen it already).

But yeah, there seem to be some wild over claims from IMA. This whole video has some classic clips in it but I queued it up to my favorite one -- plus the last one where he cripples some poor woman, looks he fakes a seizure and then blames her for not stopping him because she had doubts, right at the end of the whole vid

 

[ihateclowns]

I'm not sure which style Dr Yang had in mind but I guess it will also depend how you train/cross-train it. I mean, it will never stand in the mma ring on its own IMO but it might be enough by itself to knock a random drunken attacker to the ground while you run off.

... I just looked it up. Apparently, Yang in his book Eight Simple Qigong Exercises for Health, attributes the Eight Brocades to General Yue Fei (1103–1142) of China's Southern Song dynasty for improving his soldiers' health/physical conditioning. Also, Xingyiquan and Eagle Claw martial arts styles are traditionally associated with Yue Fei.

Yea I already replied may be you didn't get to see, despite being Taiwanese Dr. Yang comes off as a Chinese supremacist may be he was paid by CCP who knows, but he bragged so many times in the 6 DVDs of Understanding Qigong even at couple of places in Brocades DVD.

Honestly Qigong, Tai Chi have their benefits but they don't benefit as much as physical culture of Yoga does as Yoga gives all the benefits of Qigong / Tai Chi if done with Pranayama and fixes all internal problems and makes bones and muscles very strong.

Internal martial arts is a wrong term because there is no research on getting internal organs healthy while there is so much research on Yoga reversing so many diseases.

Body conditioning is done very well in Shaolin at least till a decade ago not sure about now and what is its state.

But I have seen Taoist practice of Iron Crotch a guy dragging a heavy machinery with his balls and one master doing exercises with more than 120 kilos or so holding by his balls. It is a superhuman feat so surely there are some benefits but these internal martial arts won't help to defend ourselves on the street.

Great cop story and yes I remember when I did (external) martial arts many years ago, it felt like I was training reflexes. Sometimes I'd find my body moving and blocking a strike before I even had time to think about it consciously. If you're not training realistically it's basically guaranteed to end in disaster.

Yes body acts on its own after a while it is inherent to all forms of martial arts but imagine you practise a form for 10 years and unable to defend yourself from a street thug, your entire confidence would fall apart and some may even like to go back to dojo and punch their master.

If you see aikido moves by grand masters it looks worse than scenes from Matrix movie.

May be like everything martial arts are undergoing degradation too.

 

[Frater M.M.]

Yea I already replied may be you didn't get to see, despite being Taiwanese Dr. Yang comes off as a Chinese supremacist may be he was paid by CCP who knows, but he bragged so many times in the 6 DVDs of Understanding Qigong even at couple of places in Brocades DVD.

Thanks for reposting, I caught bits and pieces like you remembered it was brocades by Yue Fei but I forgot this bit. It was a lot easier to search for HoldAll's stuff because it was already there.

Yes, it could be anything, quite frankly. We'll never know. I remember at the time of the tai chi master vs the mma guy, Chinese authorities got really angry with the mma guy (Xu Xiaodong) and barred him from going around fighting all these masters.

Honestly Qigong, Tai Chi have their benefits but they don't benefit as much as physical culture of Yoga does as Yoga gives all the benefits of Qigong / Tai Chi if done with Pranayama and fixes all internal problems and makes bones and muscles very strong.

Internal martial arts is a wrong term because there is no research on getting internal organs healthy while there is so much research on Yoga reversing so many diseases.

Very interesting. From my experience, Pilates is outstanding for rehab if you can find someone decent, especially if they are physio trained. Yoga is great but not done it recently and never for rehab.

It's hard to tell with recent multi-studies research/reviews because we don't really know exactly what kinds of yoga is involved (it's not all the same, as you well know).

This one gives us:

Yoga interventions had strong effects on depression, blood pressure, blood glucose, and fatigue management, while weak evidence was found for pain management and arthritis.

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This is an interesting comparison for lower-back pain:

Background: There were limited studies that directly compare the outcomes of various mind-body exercise (MBE) therapies on chronic non-specific low back pain (CNLBP).
Objectives: To compare the efficacy of the four most popular MBE modes [Pilates, Yoga, Tai Chi (TC), and Qigong] in clinically CNLBP patients, we conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA).
...

Results: NMA was carried out on 36 eligible RCTs involving 3,050 participants. The effect of exercise therapy on pain was in the following rankings: Pilates [Surface under cumulative ranking (SUCRA) = 86.6%], TC (SUCRA = 77.2%), yoga (SUCRA = 67.6%), and qigong (SUCRA = 64.6%). The effect of exercise therapy on function: Pilates (SUCRA = 98.4%), qigong (SUCRA = 61.6%,), TC (SUCRA = 59.5%) and yoga (SUCRA = 59.0%).
Conclusion: Our NMA shows that Pilates might be the best MBE therapy for CNLBP in pain intensity and physical function. TC is second only to Pilates in improving pain in patients with CNLBP and has the value of promotion. In the future, we need more high-quality, long-term follow-up RCTs to confirm our findings.

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there does seem to be some evidence for tai chi/qigong:

This review identified 26 systematic reviews published since 2014 that assessed the effectiveness of tai chi or qigong across 21 adult health conditions. Among these, 2 reviews (on hypertension and osteoporosis) concluded with high certainty of benefit, while 16 reviews showed moderate certainty of benefit for conditions such as chronic low back pain, diabetes, depression, falls, and knee osteoarthritis. Each review compared tai chi or qigong to another active therapy (eg, exercise, education), and more than half of the reviews included over 10 primary studies. Evidence on adverse events was reported in 69% of reviews, with no serious harms generally noted. One review about tai chi and falls did report moderate certainty of evidence for small harms from any adverse event. Future research should focus on expanding high-quality trials to other conditions and implementing protocols to collect data on adverse events to further inform clinical and policy decisions.

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It's very hard to know exactly what's going on tho from all these studies: what styles/exercises were actually being used, what specific symptoms they were trying to address, who all these ppl were and how applicable the results are to us.

If you have any better links to studies pls share them

Body conditioning is done very well in Shaolin at least till a decade ago not sure about now and what is its state.

But I have seen Taoist practice of Iron Crotch a guy dragging a heavy machinery with his balls and one master doing exercises with more than 120 kilos or so holding by his balls. It is a superhuman feat so surely there are some benefits but these internal martial arts won't help to defend ourselves on the street.

Yeah, I remember that 90s video that was passed around my ma club with all the northern shaolin monks demonstrating things like iron skull, iron shirt and even iron eggs

Who knows what it's like now, if it's all turned into wushu/gymnastics or not?

Yes body acts on its own after a while it is inherent to all forms of martial arts but imagine you practise a form for 10 years and unable to defend yourself from a street thug, your entire confidence would fall apart and some may even like to go back to dojo and punch their master.

This reminds me of a guy I knew who did tae kwondo for years (think he achieved black belt+) and got into an actual fight, panicked, couldn't remember any practical tk and luckily just punched the guy. After that, he said to me he quit and took up krav maga.

If you see aikido moves by grand masters it looks worse than scenes from Matrix movie.

I can imagine. I've seen enough Steven Seagal films (repeatedly)

May be like everything martial arts are undergoing degradation too.

Could be. I've been out of the loop for many years. I'm not even sure what I would study now if I wasn't concerned about injuries. Maybe wing chun + BJJ or maybe krav maga. I'm not sure tbh.

@HoldAll this is the BKF vid I had in mind. When I've seen it analysed before, half the ppl were impressed and half hated it (he was just standing around letting the guy take a massive run up to him each time). I can't remember if this was him fighting post-car crash recovery or not tho:

 

[ihateclowns]

Thanks for reposting, I caught bits and pieces like you remembered it was brocades by Yue Fei but I forgot this bit. It was a lot easier to search for HoldAll's stuff because it was already there.

Yes, it could be anything, quite frankly. We'll never know. I remember at the time of the tai chi master vs the mma guy, Chinese authorities got really angry with the mma guy (Xu Xiaodong) and barred him from going around fighting all these masters.

I can imagine if I land in China or HK I would probably be questioned or taken because I shat on xi jing ping during covid all over social media

Very interesting. From my experience, Pilates is outstanding for rehab if you can find someone decent, especially if they are physio trained. Yoga is great but not done it recently and never for rehab.

It's hard to tell with recent multi-studies research/reviews because we don't really know exactly what kinds of yoga is involved (it's not all the same, as you well know).

Yes yoga helps with physio-therapy and rehab, unfortunately people think if their body is flexible they are good at yoga and without studying body anatomy they will start taking classes. If it weren't for the yoga pants most guys wouldn't even join a yoga class.

It's very hard to know exactly what's going on tho from all these studies: what styles/exercises were actually being used, what specific symptoms they were trying to address, who all these ppl were and how applicable the results are to us.

If you have any better links to studies pls share them

What are you hoping to find? It is waste of time honestly to look for benefits for something specific like white crane or some other form, just like how research is done for mantra chanting, they put all in one basket but every hymn gives different benefits.

Yeah, I remember that 90s video that was passed around my ma club with all the northern shaolin monks demonstrating things like iron skull, iron shirt and even iron eggs

Yes this is a crazy skill, there used to be a documentary called Ancient Lovemaking Secrets by James W. McNeil, it shows his Iron Crotch workout but his exercises seems to differ slightly from Mantak Chia's but didn't do much research.

Krav Maga is very practical because it has so many locks and Steven Seagal used to be good, don't know what happened but during sparring the way students fly off on their own pisses off people. Some masters do even worse than him. It is also good for close combat but unless body is conditioned not very effective.

Could be. I've been out of the loop for many years. I'm not even sure what I would study now if I wasn't concerned about injuries. Maybe wing chun + BJJ or maybe krav maga. I'm not sure tbh.

You will find out but mixing up too many things is not good and unless it is practical and applied to real life scenario it can't be called martial arts even BJJ is good for the ring not on the road because no body fights like that in real life, it is only our strong bodies that would come to our rescue.