Gingsen Chicken Soup

Found this recipe on the web:
Ginseng is the most celebrated medicinal herb among the cultures of the world. It has a rich history and is extensively used as a restorative and preventer of disease. No other natural product can match its reputed healing powers.
An aromatic relative of wild sarsaparilla, Ginseng imparts a special taste to any dish, especially one which combines hearty flavors. Whatever its medicinal properties, this is a delicious traditional Chinese soup.
2 pounds of chicken pieces or small game hen
2 cups chicken stock
2 slices fresh ginger
4 scallions, white part only
1 ounce ginseng root, sliced
2 tablespoons rice wine or dry sherry
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

Blanch the chicken pieces in a large pot of boiling water for 3 minutes. In a large pot, combine the chicken stock, chicken pieces, ginger, scallions and bring the mixture to a boil. Turn the heat down, cover, simmer for 2 hours, adding water when necessary. Add the ginseng, cover and cook for 1 more hour. Remove the ginger, scallions, and skim off all surface fat. Add rice wine or sherry, salt, pepper, and sesame oil. Stir the soup and serve at once.
Serves 4 to 6 as part of a Chinese meal, or 4 as a single dish.

Inner Fire

Cultivate your chi to build the inner fire. Feel the warm feeling inside. The heat of the little burning sun radiates outward. Cultivation, my friend.

Ten Year Form

I have studied Taichi under Master Anthony Ho Nan Jie for about 3 years now and I still have not completely learned his short form yet. I think it is going to be 10 years before I will. But I don't think Master cares. We spent most our time practice push hand, chi kung, or doing combat taichi techniques. He always said Taichi is about balance and feeling, so that is what we practice the most.

Two Days Before Christmas

Just two days before Christmas 2010 and I decided to write to my blog after almost a year not touching it. For my Taichi training, this year has been especially special and interesting. My teacher Tony Ho said most of us completed the chi kung traing. Most of us were able to bring our hands up and showed that we could compress the chi ball. This give us the sensation of feeling the chi and how strong it reacts to your hand compression. I used to move a lot when I practiced chi kung but now I was able to bring it inside. Not chi-jumping like crazy anymore. I guess I passed that phase of training now. I feel full inside when I practice regularly. Sometime the warm sensation going up my ming menh point, up to my left or my right kidney. Sometime it going up my spine. Feel warm in my dan dien from time to time. I like it the most when the warm feeling comes unexpectedly, like when I was just taking a walk half an hour ago. Well, that's it for now. Merry Christmas everyone.

Breathing with your feet

Can you breath with your feet, or your hands? That's a crazy idea, right? There is no nostrils on your feet, how do you suppose to breath with your feet, fools? Well, you see, I think it is more a symbolic term. It is not breathing in the same sense that your lungs do but if your Dzung-tuyen cavity on your feet or your Lao-gung cavity on your hands are open, each time you breath, you can sense the chi moving in and out of our hand and feet. The Dzung-tuyen and Lao-gung points are the point where universal chi entering and exiting your body so when you breath, your Yi move the universal chi in and out of your body, creating a sensation that you are breathing with your hands and feet. This two points are very important in chi training. The people whom have these points opened have to be very careful to protect them from bad enerngy (chi) from entering your body. I had an experience with this to share with you. One of my Aikido brother, Mr. Quang had kidney cancer last year so my friend and I came to visit him at the hospital. When we were leaving, both of us shake his hand. I felt a strong shock in my hand when I shaked Quang's hand. It felt like someone stick a needle at my Lao-gung point and it last for a good 5 minutes. So the first lesson learned is protect your Lao-gung points when you are near sick people. Doctors and nurses probably have a certain God-given chi/energy protection to protect them from their sick patients. The second lesson for me is people whom have cancer some very dark, bad, strong energy that you don't want them in your body. The good news is my Aikido brother, Mr. Quang beat the cancer and healthy now. Yeahhh!

The Joy Of Doing Form

Today my teacher teaching us a couple techniques from the Wu taichi form. He used to tell us not to pay attention too much to the form, but now he said we are getting better, stronger with our chi so it is time to do form. He took a couple techniques and break it down. He said external kung fu styles like Shaolin use forms to learn the body motions. However Taichi we use forms to learn about our own body. A simple movement like wuji or holding the pi pa is not so simple. Each movement is now broken down to many sub moves. We move, listen, move again, listen, adjust, feel the change in our body. This is very different than how I used to do forms. I used to use muscle to move the arms, the legs, trying to complete the motion and move on to the next one. Now each movement is deliberate. Arms float up by itself without using much if any muscular strength. Feel like floating on air. We were working on "Slant Flying Posture" and he told us to put one hand under the other arm's elbow, the other over your chest, let them float up and cross each other, spread them out like an eagle spreading its wing. When I put my hands in the under elbow position, I suddenly feel like I was holding a small balloon full of air on each hand. When I moved my hands and they were crossing each other, the balloons seems to interact, like there are some atraction forces between them. It seems to me each posture was created to stimulate a certain chi channels, certain chi flow in some part of your body. Some movement we run the hand over the arm channels. Some movement we collect the chi in the kidneys. It reminds me of Hatha Yoga posses and how each posse suppose to stimulate some prana (life) forces in your body.

I was so joyful, keep on smiling. I now can feel something when I do form. Form now has life. There is an essence into it, not just empty flowering movement. It has a purpose. Joy oh joy, the joy of doing form.

Januanry 24, 2010

- Choke hold. Engage with your neck. Use leverage. Feel the clamp. Go with the direction of the force. Redirect it back to your opponent. Unbalance.
- All in the mind. Hold your ground. Breath using your back. Open your mouth. You can do it.
- Taichi form. One hand under elbow, one hand over and above your heart. Feel the chi ball. Feel it. Spread the eagle wing.