This month again I am busy and unable to post proper article.
So let me share the Taichi classic again! This time I like to post of the classic on Push-hand. Please post your experience and view on this part of Taichi.

by Li I-yu
as researched by Lee N. Scheele

Formerly people said: “being able to attract to emptiness, you can use four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds.” Not being able to attract to emptiness, you cannot deflect a thousand pounds. The words are simple, but the meaning is complete. The beginner cannot understand it. Here I add some words to explain it. If someone is ambitious to learn this art, he can find some way to enter it and every day he will have some improvement.

Desiring to attract to emptiness and deflect a thousand pounds, first you must know yourself and others. If you want to know yourself and others, you must give up yourself and follow others. If you give up yourself and follow others, first you must have the correct timing and position. To obtain the correct timing and position, you must first make your body one unit. Desiring to make the body one unit, you must first eliminate hollows and protuberances. To make the whole body without breaks or holes, you must first have the shen [spirit of vitality] and ch’i [vital life energy] excited and expanded. If you want the shen and ch’i activated and expanded, you must first raise the spirit (pay attention) and the shen should not be unfocussed. To have your shen not unfocussed, you must first have the shen and ch’i gather and penetrate the bones. Desiring the shen and ch’i to penetrate the bones, first you must strengthen the two thighs and loosen the two shoulders and let the ch’i sink down.

The chin [intrinsic strength] raises from the feet, changes in the legs, is stored in the chest, moved in the shoulders and commanded in the waist. The upper part connects to the two arms and the lower part follows the legs. It changes inside. To gather is to close and to release is to open. If it is quiet, it is completely still. Still means to close. In closing there is opening. If it is moving, everything moves. Moving is open. In opening there is closing. When the body is touched it revolves freely. There is nowhere that does not obtain power. Then you can attract to emptiness and use four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds.

Practicing the Form every day is the kung fu of knowing yourself. When you start to practice, first ask yourself, “Did my whole body follow the above principles or not?” If one little place did not follow them, then correct it immediately. Therefore, in practicing the Form we want slowness not speed.

Push hands is the kung fu of knowing others. As for movement and stillness, although it is to know others, you must still ask yourself. If you arrange yourself well, when others touch you, you don’t move a hair. Follow the opportunity and meet his chin and let him fall naturally outward. If you feel someplace in your body is powerless, it is double-weighted and unchanging. You must seek the defect in yin and yang, opening and closing. Know yourself and know others: in one hundred battles you will win one hundred times.

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Tai Chi

Nice mail i got today .. like to share this with you all.

Operator : “Thank you for calling Pizza Hut ….”

Customer: “Helloo, can I order..”
Operator : “Can I have your multi purpose card number first, Sir?”

Customer: “It’s …,hold……….on……889861356102049998-45-54610″
Operator : “OK… you’re… Mr Singh and you’re calling from 17 Jalan Kayu. Your home number is 4094! 2366, your office 76452302 and your mobile is 0142662566. Which number are you calling from now Sir?”

Customer: “Home! How did you get all my phone numbers?
Operator : “We are connected to the system Sir”

Customer: “May I order your Seafood Pizza…”
Operator : “That’s not a good idea Sir”

Customer: “How come?”
Operator : “According to your medical records, you have high blood pressure and even higher cholesterol level Sir”

Customer: “What?… What do you recommend then?”
Operator : “Try our Low Fat Hokkien Mee Pizza. You’ll like it”

Customer: “How do you know for sure?”
Operator : “You borrowed a book entitled “Popular Hokkien Dishes” from the National library last week Sir”

Customer: “OK I give up… Give me three family size ones then, how much will that cost?”
Operator : “That should be enough for your family of 10, Sir. The total is $49.99″

Customer: “Can I pay by! credit card?”
Operator : “I’m afraid you have to pay us cash, Sir. Your credit card is over the limit and you owe your bank $3, 720.55 since October last year. That’s not including the late payment charges on your housing loan, Sir.”

Customer: “I guess I have to run to the neighbourhood ATM and withdraw some cash before your guy arrives”
Operator : “You can’t Sir. Based on the records, you’ve reached your daily limit on machine withdrawal today”

Customer: “Never mind just send the pizzas, I’ll have the cash ready. How long is it gonna take anyway?”
Operator : “About 45 minutes Sir, but if you can’t wait you can always come and collect it on your motorcycle…”

Customer: “Never mind just send the pizzas, I’ll have the cash ready. How long is it gonna take anyway?”
Operator : “About 45 minutes Sir, but if you can’t wait you can always come and collect it on your motorcycle…”

Customer: ” What!”
Operator : “According to the details in system, you own a Scooter,….registration number 1123…”

Customer: ” ????”
Operator : “Is there anything else Sir?”

Customer: “Nothing… by the way… aren’t you giving me that 3 free bottles of cola as advertised?”
Operator : “We normally would Sir, but based on your records you’re also diabetic……. ”

Customer: …. (abusive language )
Operator : “Better watch your language Sir. Remember on 15th July 1987 you were convicted of using abusive language on a policeman…?”

Customer: [Faints]

Do we really want this much of personal info been shared to the service desk in future… centralized data sharing for effective service also cause lot of trouble in modern world!

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general

A nice story…

One old man was sitting with his 25 years old son in the train.The train was about to leave the station. All passengers were settling down on their
seat. As the train started, young man was filled with lots of joy and curiosity.
He was sitting towards the window side. He passed out one hand to feel the passing air and shouted, “Papa see all trees are going behind”.
The old man smiled and admired son’s feelings.
Beside the young man one couple was sitting and listing all the conversation between father and
son. They were feeling little awkward on the attitude of 25 years old behaving like a small child.

Suddenly young man again shouted, “Papa see the pond and animals.The clouds are moving with train”.
The Couple was watching the young man
embarrassingly. Now it started raining and some of
the water drops touched the young man’s hand. He was filled with joy and he closed his eyes.
He shouted again,” Papa it’s raining, water is touching me, see papa”.
The couple couldn’t help themselves n asked old man,”Why don’t u take ur son to some hospital for consultations?”
The old man said,” Yes, We were coming
from hospital only. Today, my son got his eyes first time in life”.

We must not come to any conclusion until we know all facts.

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general

Did you heard of a board game were the board contains rabbits, cats, dogs, horses, camel and elephant, these animals try to pull and push each other and the rabbit tries to run across them and reach the target ultimately to achieve “Goal”! In this field all the animals are scared of the 4 traps! Sounds like a jungle book or a kid’s game? Certainly not! This is a board game similar to chess! Sounds interesting?! This series of my article speaks about my experience and journey in the Animal battle game called Arimaa!

Arimaa is a board game like Chess. It requires same board and number of pieces with minor alteration.
Let’s see how this game is linked so much with Chess.

Board
The Game uses 64(8×8) squares
All squares have same color except 4 squares.
The 4 squares (c3, c6, f3 and f6) are called traps.

Pieces
Pieces are divided into 2 groups of 16 dark pieces and 16 light pieces.
Dark and light are called in chess but in Arimma we call them as Gold and Silver.
In chess the pieces are 1 King, 1 Queen, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, 2 Rooks and 8 Pawns. Arimaa also it has same numbers and pares but name of the pieces are changed, they are Elephant, Camel, Horse, Dog, Cat and Rabbit.

Equipment,
You no need to buy anything! The Standard Chess set will do. Open your chess board, place 4 coins in c3, c6, f3 and f6 square. These squares are the trap squares. Your chess pieces are considered like this:
Chess | Arimaa
King | Elephant
Queen | Camel
Rook | Horse
Bishop | Dog
Knight | Cat
Pawn | Rabbit
Now you can place your pieces on the board and start playing.

Arimaa was the brain child of Omar Syed, a Indian born American, who created this game in the inspiration of 1997 battle between Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue. (A historic battle of Man and Machine). Syed designed this game since it was user friendly to play (more easy than chess) and very tough for machine to device calculations with that of the human being. Hence in the year 2002 he announced a $10,000 price annually available for an individual or an organization that creates a machine which can beat a human Amiraa player.

Arimaa.com has nice resource for learning and playing.

Arimaa Tutorial Lesson1 | Lesson 2

Sample games to look at!

Karl Juhnke (Fritzlein) vs Jean Daligault (chessandgo)
2009 Arimaa World Championship
Final game, move 35

Let me know your experience and view on this game. I am going to post my experience and lesson learnt in my forthcoming articles. So keep reading.

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Arimaa

We care for our home, our office, our backyard…. But what about our Earth! We cut trees for our living… we ever thought to menimize our requirements to contribute for “Saving our Planet”

Here are some tips towards Green Revolution.

There is a cute small round press button at the bottom right corner of almost all monitors: Please make use of this (Power button)

Stop pri nting out novels, magazine and other e-books. This is a classic example of paper wastage.

If you have forgotten to give double-side prints, make sure you make use of the empty sides as scribbling pads or for your kids’ imposition.

Take two minutes from your busy schedule before hurrying back home to shut down the computer.

All of us are big time Googlers. Have you heard of the Blackle search engine? Blackle (Google powered) is a search engine designed all in Rich Black so that your system consumes less power. So change your homepage.

Plastic bags these days indeed come in bright and flamboyant colours and tempt us to take them home with us. But the saying, “Appearances are deceptive” holds true for these plastic things too. Next time, hold back or go prepared to counter temptation with a cloth bag.

Roses, Jasmine, Hibiscus and Peas; All these saplings cost hardly between Rs 10 – 20 each. Can’t we afford to plant these in and around our houses? Also, more importantly, caring and maintain them as they grow?

Try to segregate the different kinds of waste into Bio-Degradable (Fruit or vegetable waste) , Recyclable (waste Paper, paper products) and Electronics (Floppy disks, CD-ROMS ). Once you have segregated your thrash, look for specialized trash cans to throw them away.

Try to minimize the use of horns. Honking has drastically increased and this adds to the noise pollution and does not pro vid e a conducive environment to live in.

Use rechargeable batteries though it’s an expensive product, it’s one-time purchase. Recharge when required. (Same applies to cell-phones, MP3s, iPods and Laptops)

The best pens to use would be ink ones. Though if you have to use a ball point pen, buy refills instead of buying new pens. Pencils are much better for rough use! (That’s why we used it at school!!!)

Remember to close water taps before preening in front of the mirror. Of course you are beautiful, but Water is a precious resource!

Let’s not just wake up and walk out of finished meetings and conferences with a sigh of relief, let us remember to turn off the lights and projectors too.

Take few minutes to learn about topics like ‘Global Warming’ , ‘Air / Noise /L and / Water Pollution ‘ etc apart from constant surfing of News, Latest Gadgets, Movies and Music.

It’s been said, we’re going to run out of water before we run out of oil.
Shorten a 10 minute shower to 5 minutes and save at least 25 gallons of water.
Don’t run the water while you brush your teeth.
Find a leaky faucet around the house, so it can get fixed.

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Nature

This is a very nice story. i remember my another post on the same moral. The Law of the Garbage Truck

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbours to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.
A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon,
everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

MORAL :
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred – Forgive.

2. Free your mind from worries – Most never happen.

3. Live simply and appreciate what you have.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less

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general