Sex and Chi

Nei Jia: the Qigong and Taijiquan Forum Taijiquan and the Internal Martial Arts
1

Here is part of an interview I read at Chinafrom the inside featuring MR.MA CHUANXU a Bagua Practitioner . …………………. (thanks for directing me to the site Laughing Cow – some good reading to pass the time at work …oops! I mean my free time)

JS: As far as I know Taoists suggest that one should also stop having sex, otherwise the Small and Large Heavenly Circles will never open. Is that true for Bagua Neigong practice as well?

MR.MA: Yes, this is very important condition. My teacher told me that at the very beginning - if you want to develop true skill, you must be like a monk, living in celibacy. There is a story about “Coal” Ma, who was selling coal in Beijing’s Caishikou. When he started to study Baguazhang from Dong Haichuan, he took his quilt and moved out to live in the shop. He lived there for three years and did not return home even once during that time.
Your body requires one week to recover after one sexual intercourse. i.e. come back to the condition before the intercourse. One hundred days is required to recover Original Qi (Yuan Qi) completely (i.e. recover to the condition before one had any sex). About three years is required to open Small Heavenly Circle.

JS: What about married people? I’m afraid people who have families will have difficulty with developing any Internal Skill then…

MR.MA: There is not a big problem with practice in Middle Basin (Zhong Pan), you can still get Internal Skill. However once you decide to practice Lower Basin you have to stop any sexual activity.

JS: What if one decides to practice in Lower Basin without fulfilling that requirement?

MR.MA: You will only hurt yourself. Lower Basin is a very demanding practice for the body and it will not be able to endure it. During Lower Basin practice you have to eat well and have good rest. It is like having a bank account. If you draw 1 million dollars from it and then transfer 1 million back it is OK. If you transfer 1 million and one dollar, you will have little saving - surplus energy. However if you transfer only 990 thousand, you will be in dept - your body will not be able to recover from the effort. In this way although your muscles may get stronger, your internal strength, internal potential, will decrease. This phenomena can be easily recognized by hearing one’s voice - weak voice, neither loud nor clear, sometimes accompanied by coughing is the symptom of low energy level. Lower Basin method is most suitable for young, unmarried people. Otherwise you have to make the decision to become like a monk for three years…

JS: We were talking about Small Heavenly Circle. What about the Large Heavenly Circle (Da Zhou Tian)?

MR.MA: Once the Small Circle is opened, the Large will open naturally. There is a saying “Small Achievement comes in three years, Big Achievement - in ten years” (Xiaocheng San Nian Dacheng Shi Nian). One has to live in celibacy for at least six years to achieve true skill. Once the skill comes out, you still have to limit the number of sexual intercourses. Two, three times a week will ruin your skill completely. Once every two, three months is not a big problem.

JS: What do you mean by ruining the skill?

MR.MA: Your legs and waist (lower back) will lose the flexibility and strength. There are many martial arts practitioners who had remarkable skill in youth but when older they could hardly walk. This was caused by excessive sex. One of my teachers, Guo Gumin, was never married. When I started Bagua practice in 1961, for six years I was practically living in celibacy as well. At 5:00PM I was coming back home from work, ate dinner, and immediately went to practice. I was coming back at 1:00AM, after 6-7 hours of practice. Everyday, without even one day of rest.

JS: But in this way you did not sleep enough. You did not have enough rest.

MR.MA: Correct practice is better than sleep. What you practice is Internal Skill, it nourishes your body.

JS: You are almost 70 now. Do you still practice everyday?

MR.MA: I get up early in the morning and practice for three hours, everyday. (Mr.Ma’s wife added that he does it everyday no matter what the weather is, even on Chinese New Year, the most important festival in China)

JS: Back in the 1960s did you practice any other exercises apart from walking in a circle? Some forms of sitting meditation or standing pole (Zhan Zhuang)?

MR.MA: Sitting or standing meditation are for Neigong only. Walking practice is also called “Moving Pole” (Huo Zhuang/Xing Zhuang) and has very important advantage - it develops both Waigong (External Practice) and Neigong at the same time. When you walk in a circle, you nourish your Internal Qi every minute, you build it stronger and stronger. That’s why walking in a circle is so important and at the same time so difficult to understand.

JS: Did you learn and “Light Skill” (Qing Gong) as well?

MR.MA: Walking in a circle develops “Light Skill”. Once you reach a certain level you are able to walk without touching the ground.

JS: How is that possible?

MR.MA: The idea is to use your Dantian, waist, to move. I’m sitting here right now. If you want to attack me I can move fast forward without using legs, but by straightening the waist. (Mr.Ma made a demonstration - from a sitting position he was able to move fast very far forward before he touched the floor with his legs).

JS: It all sounds and looks very mysterious…

MR.MA: It is not mysterious at all, it’s just a matter of skill, of hard practice.

What are your thoughts on this? It certainly seems excessive. I don’t know if I could handle that. On the other hand boxers don’t have sex for months before a fight so there must be something in it. Has anyone ever tried an approach like this? If so what were the effects?

2

Miles.

I don’t study bagua but I have heard this from a variety of sources.

As for Sex and Chi, we are told in my kwoon(TJQ) not to do certain Qi-gong unless atleast 3 days have passed since we last had sex.
I have often heard that it takes 3 days for your body to recover from sex.

Actually we got a long list of reuqirements for some, which makes it tough to do them everyday. :wink:

So if you want to become good less/no jiggles with the Wife/GF.

OTOH, most of the masters of old were blessed with quiet a bit of off-spring and considering the child-death rate than. Hmmmm.

Seeya.

3

Superstition :stuck_out_tongue:

4

hmmm

You are both right and wrong about it. Your body does NOT take 3 days to recover from sex and its not your Qi which dissipates its your Jing.
Depending on your age, for example if you’re in your twenties then, your body only takes 24 hours to recvoer if you’re in your 60’s it can take at least a week to recover from Jing dissipation.

Giving up sex is ignorant because it isn’t sex which depletes it its ejaculation so one can modify ones sex to reduce the frequency of it so as to maintin healthy Jing maintainance.

5

Laughing Cow
Hmmm, got to wonder if they are practicing what they are preaching. I guess it is also true on a more physical realm as well…as babies are probably the biggest suckers of chi ever! Well they make you tired anyway.

Repulsive Monkey says:
[Giving up sex is ignorant because it isn’t sex which depletes it its ejaculation so one can modify ones sex to reduce the frequency of it so as to maintin healthy Jing maintainance.:]

Could that be why I was so tired as a teenager? (Im serious)
I was always sleeping, I think I was going for a world record…of course the excessive pot probably didnt help.

Also the next obvious question now is if it is about ejaculation then women should be in the clear right? I guess most women have to go through child birth at some point in their lives though.

Last thing!
Isnt this all just hear-say. I mean I can buy that there is proabably alot in this but if it gets to the point where people say {its 24 hours not 3 months} etc. it makes you wonder how accurate this type of info can be. How can it be proven? What are we going on here? How do you know how long it should take? If different internalists say different things then it cant be standard. It also cant be measured easily. Or is it a matter of getting to such a high level that one can feel for ones self how long it takes to recover?

6

“Once every three months isn’t a problem.”:eek:

7

Hmmm…

If we were talking about car batteries and not the human body then I might believe this.

You’d use up the juice from the battery and then you have to charge it up.

But Chi is NOT electrical energy. It is a vague concept which is equated to overall health and vigor.

Humans were designed to have sexual intercourse. Simply look between your legs if you don’t believe me.

In addition we were designed to have sex for pleasure as well as for procreation.

Holding in your ejaculate is not a natural body process.

The biggest argument I think for not indulging in sexual excess is that you tend to lose focus and drive that could be further devoted to your MA training.

Other than that I think it is a bunch of hocus pocus and we should strive to have a healthy and BALANCED sex life.

“MR.MA: Your legs and waist (lower back) will lose the flexibility and strength. There are many martial arts practitioners who had remarkable skill in youth but when older they could hardly walk.”

This teacher sites this annecdotal story about too much sex leading to problems later on. Is he a doctor? Could it be that these problems are totally unrelated to sex?

We don’t know because this annecdotal not scientific.

8

I’ve always wondered about the “wet dream” factor.

9

Holding in your ejaculate is not a natural body process.

The natural cycle is to create offspring, and die soon afterwards having fulfilled your purpose. The old documents often refer to reversing the cycle. How else do you think your hair can change from gray to black again? :wink:

10

Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

Leave the chi, take the sex.

11

“How else do you think your hair can change from gray to black again?”

“Just for men” hair dye.

Magical isn’t it?

12

Originally posted by Miles Teg
Also the next obvious question now is if it is about ejaculation then women should be in the clear right? I guess most women have to go through child birth at some point in their lives though.

AFAIK, as I know women loose theirs during the period.

Either way it seems to be linked with certain fluids/tissues leaving the body and needing to be replaced.
(Hormone related??)

Of course this opens up the next question, is it still feasable and needful to go through this type of training in a modern world?

Seeya.

13

Of course this opens up the next question, is it still feasable and needful to go through this type of training in a modern world?

No. There’s no edvidence to support any of this. The only way I see that giving up sex could help your martial arts training is that you’d have more time to devote to your training, perhaps more mentally focused(though I know some people whom this would have the opposite effect on :wink: ), and you wouldn’t be worn out from non martial arts exercise :stuck_out_tongue: The negative side affect would be a possible increased risk of cancer(acording to a study talked about in the newspaper not to long ago) :wink:

14

Originally posted by Fu-Pow
[B]“How else do you think your hair can change from gray to black again?”

“Just for men” hair dye.

Magical isn’t it? [/B]

Read this quote:

“Oh, yes, I could change my hair from grey to black with chi kung…hehehe…but I’ll use Hair dye…faster and cheaper!”

Master Deng Fuxing, my sifu.

15

This thread has caught the Gay.

16

hmmm

For women from TCM perpsective Jing gets depleted through having too many children with very little gaps between them, but NOT from climaxing like it does for men.

There is no hocus pocus about any of this, its obvious that the people saying this have precious little undertsanding of TCM and in fact some of the obvious correlations ithas with TWM.

Grey hair can berejuvenated through Taoist practises but you’re right hair dye is quicker and cheaper in the short term.

17

Re: hmmm

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Repulsive Monkey
[B]For women from TCM perpsective Jing gets depleted through having too many children with very little gaps between them, but NOT from climaxing like it does for men.

There is no hocus pocus about any of this,

***There is a lot of hocus pocus in TCM. It’s theoretical foundations are whacked because it’s based on metaphysics and not direct physical observation. The Chinese wouldn’t even cut up dead bodies to correctly define organs.

So they created this whole incorrect map of the body based on function rather than on physical location.

Practices in TCM that have no validity are slowly being weeded out by the scientific method. Practices that do have validity are usually explainable by modern science or will be one day.

It’s not to say that TCM doesn’t work it’s just the WHY it works is not quite right.

Practices like Semen Retention are tied in with Chinese hang ups about sex. So its difficult to determine if this practice is really beneficial or it is just an extension of cultural biases.

its obvious that the people saying this have precious little undertsanding of TCM and in fact some of the obvious correlations ithas with TWM.

***That’s your opinion.

Grey hair can berejuvenated through Taoist practises but you’re right hair dye is quicker and cheaper in the short term.

***Turning your hair from grey to black is hocus pocus. It’s like saying you can reverse aging. While you can slow aging (ie age “gracefully”) you can not reverse it. It is a physical impossibility.

18

There is a lot of hocus pocus in TCM. It’s theoretical foundations are whacked because it’s based on metaphysics and not direct physical observation.
It is based on direct observation. That doesn’t mean that every person can perceive it by birthright.

The Chinese wouldn’t even cut up dead bodies to correctly define organs.
When was the last time you put your hand on the stove, just to check that it still gets hot? LOL.

Practices like Semen Retention are tied in with Chinese hang ups about sex. So its difficult to determine if this practice is really beneficial or it is just an extension of cultural biases.
What difficulty? Do it yourself and make a direct physical observation…if you are able! :smiley:

19

I think the saying in WESTERN boxing “women make weak legs” pretty much sums it up. It does have an effect, and I am reasonably certain that anyone that will argue against that does not get into it with a mean, live, and resisting opponent on a regular basis. Mainly because its effects are pretty easy to feel. The why on the other hand..that is arguable..but for me..it doesnt really matter.

20

There is a lot of crazy stuff circulating around. I have two examples:

  1. Some Iron Palm masters say that if you do not practice at exactly the same time every day down to the minute you will lose your skill. So, I wonder how, hundreds of years ago, people knew exactly when it was the same time every day. There was no way anyone could have known “hey, it’s exactly 8:00am now, time to start my iron palm practice.” before clocks were invented.

  2. The whole “blowing your load makes you lose chi and makes all your practice wasted” thing. Um, guess what guys. If you don’t nut every so often, your body does it for you when you sleep. Do you know why? Because it’s natural, and because you’re SUPPOSED to do it.

So, there’s no way anyone, ESPECIALLY young guys, could have held it in for much time at all, much less 100 days or three years :eek: !!!

What do you think?

Also, in his book “Pathnotes of an American Ninja Master,” Glenn Morris was doing all sorts of chi kung and kundalini stuff, and in his words he was married and “anything but celibate” or something like that. He said he was “hornier than a three p.eckered owl” or something along those lines.

IronFist

note - you can’t say p e c k e r here. Haha, silly censors!