CHI WEIGHT LIFTING to end the day!!!

Plato’s evergreen classic!!!

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peace out!!!

My “treatise” on chi weight-lifting for Mark and Greg and the ret of the on-line community.

——————————————————————————–

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ International Healing Tao On-Line Discussion Group ] [ FAQ ]

——————————————————————————–

Posted by by Plato Rosinke on November 06, 1998 at 13:21:02:

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The garbage that follows is based on my personal experiences, and is intended to supplement “formal” instruction from the Healing Tao and not to supplant it (I know I am punking out here but I need some protection.)! I claim no association with anything or anybody except my parents, let alone the Healing Tao. I am not a certified instructor by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I remotely certifiable. Furthermore, I have been under psychiatric care at least once in my short life. The following can be reprinted, re-posted, or tossed about the streets to annoy your municipal authorities…

…and on that note!

The first thing we have to look at in terms of the lifting practices within the bone marrow disciplines is the cloth you use. I suggest going out to the local garment district (Manhattanites are so spoilt!) and cutting two square yards of cloth to be butchered to your exact specs. at a later time. Don’t be a cheap bastard and get the best silk you can get. You want the thinnest possible fabric with the most strength. DO NOT use a braided cloth with heavy weight. The ends of your cloth should be slightly frayed, yet trimmed of loose strands which can cut flesh under weight like a piano-wire across a high-way.

When you get home, cursing the clogged streets, throw the fabric into a commercial washing machine and run it through TWO cycles. Wascomat machines and those that have high r.p.m.s. are the best. This will get out all of that sheen which will cause slippage, as well as break in the fabric. Let it drip dry. Do not throw in dryer! We want pliability!

Rubberized, vulcanized, or hammertone plates are the best weights to use as you don’t get metal splinters
all over the place. They also sit with more stability. Chia sells a beautiful lifting bar, but it is best with
rubber-coated plates since the dimensions of his bar do not match the inside diameter of standardized plates. Standardized lifting bars as well as Olympic-sized chi-lifting bars can be purchased from the IronMind catalog. They are at IronMind.com yet you must order the catalog and they do not take credit cards or partake in e-commerce. These lug-heads won’t know you’re purpose when you order this stuff as they sell it for different lifts, so don’t come off like a freak!

You won’t need more than 45lbs of plates, and they should be broken down as follows:

3 X 10 (lbs.)
2 X 5 (lbs.)
1 X 2.5 (lbs.)

If you don’t aspire to “heavy” weight (note that 40+ lbs. is chumpy in some gatherings) cut back on the 10 lb. plates, as you will need the others for incrementation.

Before we get into the lifting, let’s talk about injuries. First of all, once the weight is increased past 25 lbs. Injuries are practically guaranteed at some point or another. The idea is to practice damage control.

Problems under 45 lbs. are:

· Pain
· Broken capillaries
· Internal hemorrhaging

Problems over 45 lbs. are:

· Who knows?

Pain is normal. You will learn to like it. There are a lot of nerves here, so get used to it! Clearly, there are different types of pain and until you have done the practice for a while you should pay attention! Even Master Chia remarked somewhere that you get used to the pain of “testicle tapping” and will come to translate it as pleasure (if this is a mis-quote let me know—I got it from the videos).

Broken capillaries are purely psychological. You will always have fine red splotches peppering your
balls. This is very common and is a result of what will be an enlargement of your circulatory system in the genital area. Capillaries have such thin walls they don’t stretch easily and blood is always spilling in and out. Don’t get neurotic, yet I understand the concern! Unavoidable!

Speaking of enlargement, expect your balls to grow and your sack to stretch—big veins will take the stage.
Your penis, however, will remain the same so don’t get any kooky ideas that will prompt an accident!

Ruptures and hemorrhages are AVOIDABLE, yet expect one from time to time if you go heavy. They all have one root cause—improper knotting of the cloth. I will teach you how to minimize the mess later. If you have an accident, DO NOT FREAK OUT. Don’t run to the hospital either. BEFORE you start lifting, GO DOWN TO YOUR LOCAL CHINATOWN and get some bottles of YUNNAN PAIYAO. The stuff is cheap, cheap, cheap!!! Ingestion of the ground-up bark of this unique tree stops all bleeding within seconds WITHOUT INDUCING CLOTTING. Your blood will appear to freeze into a rubbery gunk and you will heal quickly and without ANY SCAR TISSUE. Nobody understands how this works, but it is used in the Chinese military. It has saved me many a time in many different activities.

I have broken more capillaries than I have money in the bank (which isn’t saying a whole lot now), had several small ruptures, one big one and an incurred an avulsed (torn open) artery in my scrotum. It is scary but you will get better if you take your herbs and lay the fuck down and pretend nothing is wrong. Besides, what is the hospital going to do? You want those idiots making a bigger mess! Alright, there are some cases but…

As a matter of fact, if anyone is interested, I will send you the Yunnan Paiyao for free. Just e-mail me with your address and I’ll ship it off. Taoists have more energy than most, so if they worry needlessly they muck up the collective. I have plenty of empathy for accidents to the genitalia caused by attempts to
better the self, so don’t hesitate. Then again, if six-hundred folk send me an e-mail we will have a problem so don’t do it frivolously or you’ll chalk up bad karma.

The next step is to shave your genitalia! Use a beard trimmer and don’t go for a clean shave. It is not necessary and will potentially cause ingrown hairs and… oh yeah, using a beard trimmer with the safety guard off and a dropping battery charge is how I avulsed my scrotum, so don’t get into the same stupid scenario.

The penile shaft needs a close one, however, and I found the Remington TF100 to do the best job and it costs like $20. The fancy stuff is bullshit.

Don’t lift right after shaving. Irritation is a no-no!

Don’t lift after a shower, or when you are a greasy, dirty pig. You’ll have slippage of the cloth!

Don’t lift on a humid day without the drying effects of air conditioning. Slippage again!

Don’t lift if you are depressed.

Don’t lift when you are angry or emotionally extreme (so when do I do it?).

Don’t lift when you do not have a nice and full sensation in your sack like it was made from neoprene.

Don’t grow bored or contemptuous of your practice. If you do, stop at once!

Here is the moment of truth—the lift. How you tie the cloth is everything. I will not repeat what is in the books, but some vital points are:

· Cloth should not bunch up or knot anywhere but on the bottom of the loop facing down.
· You should go for the cleanest “tie” possible.
· Do not hesitate to tie the knot as tight as possible—no slippage.
· Lift from the floor and never allow the weight to clear more than 2-3 inches in case an emergency landing becomes imperative.
· Don’t allow the skin to get caught up in the knot.
· Work the knot as high up against the pelvis as possible.

“Dirty” knots and bunching fabric are what causes internal bleeding. They don’t exert an even pressure.

Lifting techniques are on the videos—Bone Marrow, Thunder Power…

The most subtle overlooked aspect of lifting is structural re-alignment of the practitioner!!! As you practice, you hip alignment will change for the better, but this will throw a monkey wrench into your activities. If you sense any re-alignment, scale back the weight! New lengths of tendon will be exposed, pressure localization will shift, and new areas of fascia will be called into the range of motion.
These new areas will not be used to the weight, and your system will not be able to react to
it safely from a kinesthetic standpoint. Furthermore, the cloth will sit differently.

Why should you lift heavier and heavier? Is there a “reasonable” or optimal weight? First of all, nobody is going to tell you to lift heavy in any forum or on any media that is admissible in court! In my opinion, though, lifting over 40 lbs. is unnecessary and dangerous. Furthermore, I don’t find that you get any added benefits. Around 20-33.5 lbs. is what works for me.

I tell you all of this because you have people telling you officially that you should never go over 17-1/2 lbs. without assistance. What kind of assistance might that be? Seriously, everyone lifts more weight on the sly. The practice is addictive–be warned!

What is the advantage? Unless you lift sufficiently heavy weight, you are not releasing enough hormones.
Period. Why spend 1-2 hours of your miserable lives indulging in some preposterous discipline if you are going to half-step?

If you do this long enough with the right weight, your pelvic and urogenital diaphragms will grow stronger than you thought possible, you will not be in danger of getting hernias, you will “turn off” your sex drive easily, and you will not suffer in the cold. I am not “manly” by any stretch of the word, yet
I can run around in the dead of winter without a jacket on many a day and I rarely suffer from a chill or get hit with sick or wet “winds.” Yeah, one day you can draw in your sexual organs. I sure as hell can’t, but maybe one day I will be able to.

Oh, I forgot to mention! You can ingest more drugs!

You will feel the difference when the weight crosses the threshold—a volcano of hormones!!!

Q: “If all this is so good, then why don’t you do it anymore?”

A: “Good question! In truth, I found myself embracing the subtle, potentially masochistic aspects of the practice more than I should. I began to notice self-destructive behavior cropping up, coupling with an annoying sense of obligation.”

EXTRA CREDIT: Tired of performing your healing sounds? Try going as long as you can after chi-lifting without doing them to build the ability to take discomfort! It is amazing how your tolerance grows and grows. You’ll come to love the stagnant heat in the winter!*

*This is a joke for most, but for me it is a reality. Pathetic.

ESSAY: Why is the bathroom at my job always filled with defecating animals no matter what time I venture to use it? Compare and contrast the way public bathrooms degrade the human soul—whatever that is!

BONUS POINTS: Who wrote this snippet of lyrics from my favorite song? They dedicate their lives/
to running all of his/He tries to please them all/this bitter man he is/Throughout his life the same/he’s battled constantly/This fight he cannot win/a tired man they see no longer cares/The old man then prepares/to die regretfully/That old man here is me.