Retention Revisited

It’s not really a problem for me now with my current pattern of hermiting.
I do a hermit retreat once per year in the winter, and save up the money in
advance for it, and then pay for it all in one shot. It works out rather nicely.

If I wanted a more lengthy stay, I’d probably save more in advance or explore
other avenues. Note that a hermit retreat is not just simply living alone
(which is much easier to do on the cheap), it is living in isolation with
daily energy devoted mainly toward practice. This, by necessity, requires
a different set of circumstances, i.e. being in a situation where you subtract
away daily time spent on trying to maintain your living state. This requires
proper planning in advance to ensure success.

S

Hi ChiFiend,

Getting around to addressing your other questions . . .

>>>I am also wondering if, again hypothetically,
>>>you had a serious relationship and you decided
>>>at some point in the future that you wanted to do
>>>long term retention and you had plenty of time
>>>available for practices. Wouldn’t you need to do
>>>the big draw during sex in order to keep from spilling?
>>>For that matter, when you have sex with a girl now,
>>>given that you do practice short-term retention,
>>>do you use the big draw to accomplish retention?
>>>If not, how do you do it?

While you are having sex, you can also be breathing in Earth qi
which cools off your sexual energy at the same time as it is
being heated up by the sex itself. The length of time before
the ejaculatory mechanism kicks in depends on a number of factors:
one, being how long have you been retaining; two, how skilled
are you at breathing in Earth qi while having sex; three, whether
you and your partner have the “right” sexual rhythm. All of these
things are going to either shorten or lengthen the time to when
the NATURAL human response is triggered and you let go. If the
length of time you have sex is shorter than the time to which
the ejaculatory response is triggered, based on the preceding factors,
then you don’t need to do anything special, i.e. just breathing in
the Earth qi into your sexual center and core will be enough.
If, on the other hand, it is longer, then pretty much you are
going to have to do the big draw or *some variant* to short-circuit
the response. There’s going to be no getting around it.
If things get too hot from enough stimulation and enough rhythm,
and not enough Earth qi to cool it off, nature kicks in.
And unless you are an absolute master (or have biological problems),
with enough time, you will get too hot no matter how skilled you are.

But you have tools.
Big draw is one of them, as are other tricks that are similar in flavor.

FYI: I’ve “tested” it in the field. It does work . . .

However, my experience in “dual cultivation” is quite “limited”, so
I can’t say too much more on that aspect to be honest with you.

On the other hand, I still want to return to what I said earlier,
in that there are some “what I feel” good reasons you may
want to release . . . benefits/gift to partner also worth considering.
And if you are going to release, and not use the semen for another
purpose, you may as well let someone else benefit from it, in my view.
But this starts getting philosophical at some point . . .

Lots of different things to consider; it’s a complex issue; and
there’s not one “right” answer I think. Each person, situation, and
pair of people are different and need to be evaluated
openly on a case-by-case basis, rather than a “one-size-fits-all”
approach in my view.

But this is just my feeling, and I am far from a pro.
So I don’t know if I’ve helped you, or just confused you more.

But there it is, anyway . . .

Best,
Steven

>>>With regard to breathing in earth qi while having sex,
>>>this was a little puzzling when I first began to think about it.
>>>My first thought was, why in the hell would I breathe in earth qi
>>>when having sex with a female? The female is yin and the earth is yin.
>>>Why wouldn’t I just focus on breathing in qi from the female?
>>>Isn’t it the same? I can’t see any difference other than the
>>>obvious difference that the hot female body that I am writhing with,
>>>though yin, makes me very hot, whereas the earth does not.

The fact that the earth is yin is exactly the point.
You are very yang, and your male jingqi wants to expand out.
The female is yin, receptive, and very encouraging for that expansion.
In other words, she is magnetically drawing you to ejaculate as you
expansively want to.

The yin earth qi helps cool and calm down this energetic expansiveness.
You don’t want to be trying to take in qi from the female, that’s
not going to make you want to ejaculate into her any less. Besides,
sex is not supposed to be vampirism, you are not supposed to be trying
to take qi from your partner. Qi is exchanged, but it is done in
mutual exchange and cyclical flow as a consequence of sexual exchange
and dual cultivation, not as an attempt by the male to “keep his ejaculate”.

>>>When you talk about the rhythm of partners,
>>>are you referring to the karezza (very slow)
>>>type of interaction or what? Please elaborate on your
>>>views about this.

That’s a fine practice, but not what I was referring to in my post.
I was making the comment that if the two people involved get into
the right rhythm, then it can start feeling really good, “too good”,
in the genital region, and then the desire to ejaculate can get
overwhelming . . . just a natural consequence.

>>>When you say “I have tested it in the field”,
>>>please tell us more specifics about which aspects
>>>of this that you have tested and how it worked for you.

I was hoping you could fill in the dots. 😛

To be blunt, I have had sex with a woman, and retained my
ejaculation by doing the big draw when in the heat of
the moment. Advantages: I got an orgasm, and didn’t
ejaculate; I maintained my erection, and could keep having sex;
by lasting longer, she herself had a powerful orgasm, and
was thoroughly enjoying the process . . . we only stopped
having sex eventually because both of us had reached the point
where we started getting a little sore and we had had enough
Disadvantages: She felt guilty that I didn’t ejaculate. She
thought I wasn’t satisfied; even though in fact I *was* completely
satisfied. I felt great, blissful, and energized.

Cheers,
Steven