Trul Khor experiences

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:14 am

I had the pleasure of learning Trul-Khor recently. It is a very interesting combination of breath retention, movement, qi gong and impact training. The whole set takes about half an hour.

Despite all the falling into seated positions on the ground the shock to my spine has been remarkably mild. Very surprising.

It has a distinctly martial vibe associated with it as well.

If anyone has questions about it feel free to ask. Likewise if anyone has experience with it, I’d like to know what came out of the practice.
Last edited by Peacedog on Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Trick on Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:51 am

trul-khor, is that thai? is it an "ancient" method or new-age'ish ? yoga like or very different ?
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Fri Mar 06, 2020 8:15 am

It's one of the foundational tantras from Tibetan Buddhism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trul_khor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSyqAJUYJdk
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby BonesCom on Mon Mar 09, 2020 2:23 am

I'm not sure if you'll be into this but I recently enjoyed Guru Viking's interview with Ian A. Baker, in which (IIRC) he mentions trul khor along with some Hindu tantric practices and some work with lei dao practitioners in Indonesia: https://www.guruviking.com/ep23-ian-a-b ... nterviews/
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:51 am

It's a good interview and I bought a copy of his Tibetan Yoga book. I've also got a friend that travelled to Bhutan with him a few years back. He's an interesting character.

My big take away so far from the practice has been the use of vase breathing, rotation of the abdomen and breath retention to pressurize various parts of the body. The gentleman I learned from also stated that at advanced levels of practice that you could use vase breathing with rotation in other parts of the body.

On a practical basis, the exercises reduce the sensation of pain within the body. At this point it seems to last for about 48 hours. Very useful for reducing minor aches and pains. Considering the amount of impact upon the spine from doing beps this is very surprising. Beps involving jumping up from a seated position and dropping from a standing position onto the buttocks.

Frankly, I think a lot of people here would enjoy the practice. The gentleman I learned from referred to this as "using the body to strike the mind."

Various body training methods are a specific interest of mine based off their efficacy in training the meditative/yogic abilities.

Conventional yoga practices lacking much in the way of active visualization and a reliance on static versus moving breath retention seems to result in much slower development. That said the body locks and things like nauli kriya are quite genius when applied properly.

I'd wanted to learn Ken Fish's body training method for this reason, but when I approached him about it a few years back he was uninterested. It's something I should probably re-engage him on at some point.
Last edited by Peacedog on Tue Mar 10, 2020 6:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby D_Glenn on Wed Mar 11, 2020 9:38 am

Peacedog wrote:It's a good interview and I bought a copy of his Tibetan Yoga book. I've also got a friend that travelled to Bhutan with him a few years back. He's an interesting character.

My big take away so far from the practice has been the use of vase breathing, rotation of the abdomen and breath retention to pressurize various parts of the body. The gentleman I learned from also stated that at advanced levels of practice that you could use vase breathing with rotation in other parts of the body.

On a practical basis, the exercises reduce the sensation of pain within the body. At this point it seems to last for about 48 hours. Very useful for reducing minor aches and pains. Considering the amount of impact upon the spine from doing beps this is very surprising. Beps involving jumping up from a seated position and dropping from a standing position onto the buttocks.

Frankly, I think a lot of people here would enjoy the practice. The gentleman I learned from referred to this as "using the body to strike the mind."

Various body training methods are a specific interest of mine based off their efficacy in training the meditative/yogic abilities.

Conventional yoga practices lacking much in the way of active visualization and a reliance on static versus moving breath retention seems to result in much slower development. That said the body locks and things like nauli kriya are quite genius when applied properly.

I'd wanted to learn Ken Fish's body training method for this reason, but when I approached him about it a few years back he was uninterested. It's something I should probably re-engage him on at some point.

This makes me think of something from my teacher’s Bagua Tuina, where there’s a bunch of different hand shapes and different techniques for pinching, tapping etc, but one of them is a pounding technique where he would lightly use a hammer fist directly downward onto Dazhui point (c7) to send energy down through the whole of the person’s spinal column.

Btw, are you on the rsf Facebook group?

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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Wed Mar 11, 2020 2:25 pm

D_Glenn,

Interesting use of the hammer fist. I imagine a lot of the iron wire exercises from the southern styles have a similar effect along with the tetsutaba exercises from Japan.

I was unaware of the Facebook group. Is it worth checking out?
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Formosa Neijia on Fri Mar 13, 2020 12:07 am

Peacedog wrote:Conventional yoga practices lacking much in the way of active visualization and a reliance on static versus moving breath retention seems to result in much slower development. That said the body locks and things like nauli kriya are quite genius when applied properly.

I'd wanted to learn Ken Fish's body training method for this reason, but when I approached him about it a few years back he was uninterested. It's something I should probably re-engage him on at some point.


Don't the ashatnga people use breath holds while moving? I assumed they did.

For another perspective on yoga breath holds while moving, I find Simon Borg-Olivier's stuff very informative. He put a lot into this clip:


I had the pleasure of learning the strength version of the muscle change classic from Dr.Fish. Hopefully he can show you a few things since his material is excellent.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Fri Mar 13, 2020 8:36 am

Thanks.

I've long maintained that classical barbell training is in fact the Western version of yoga. It involves breath retention and moving the body through its full range of motion. And from a yogic perspective it radically enhances the various energies of the body.

I liked the video and am checking out more of his stuff on Youtube. Again, thank you. As I often say, "I don't know what I don't know."

The Indian Hatha yoga traditions are my weak point in yogic/meditative practice. That said, Tao Semko has a vault of several thousand hours of material on this available online. However, the membership fee is substantial.

And I have no doubt Ken has a lot to offer. Hopefully, one day I can take advantage of that.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Formosa Neijia on Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:54 am

Peacedog wrote:I've long maintained that classical barbell training is in fact the Western version of yoga. It involves breath retention and moving the body through its full range of motion. And from a yogic perspective it radically enhances the various energies of the body.

I liked the video and am checking out more of his stuff on Youtube. Again, thank you. As I often say, "I don't know what I don't know."

The Indian Hatha yoga traditions are my weak point in yogic/meditative practice. That said, Tao Semko has a vault of several thousand hours of material on this available online. However, the membership fee is substantial.

And I have no doubt Ken has a lot to offer. Hopefully, one day I can take advantage of that.


Weight training does have things to offer in this area. The "virtual belt" idea from Paul Chek is vital for pressurizing the torso and utilizing the weight training belt is similar in many ways to the methods used by some cultivators to push the breath upward.

Thanks for mentioning Tao Semko. Looking at his and Simon Borg-Oliver's stuf, they both seem to have the 5 elements/chakras as a base although it's hard to tell how much the breathings and openings are incorporated into Simon's stuff. The previews of his videos show lots of postures but he's also got quite a bit of detail so it might be there. Tao's stuff seems like seminar material recorded 15 years ago and at a high price. I'm also put off by the whole "application" process and providing 3 references. But his nauli video looks good and I appreciate the detailed desriptions of what he's offering. I'll keep him in mind.

Regarding price, Dr. Fish told me several times to get seriously into Pilates because of what it had to offer in way of body development methods and i have found that to be cheap and useful. Udemy has several in-depth courses on it from this lady that are often only $10 when they are on sale. https://www.udemy.com/course/pilates-a- ... -sessions/

Having paid a high price for some of this stuff in the past, I've found that even when the high price stuff is useful it usually disapoints me in the long run.

Another place to look for breathing holding/movement work is systema breathing which seems to be based on the Buteyko method. They do a lot of movement training including pushups, etc. while holding the breath but it's on the EXHALE for the most part which causes it to feel totally different to me.

I'm also weak in the hatha yoga but I appreciate the fact that because it's so popular, there are a lot of people talking about the techniques. This makes it harder to get ripped off or stuck since you can compare what you've been told to others. That's something that makes me a bit wary of trul khor and other practices.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:24 am

Thanks for the tip on Pilates. A few people have mentioned this to me as well.

Regarding Tao's material, I can recommend it. It basically consists of daily practice sessions covering at least a decade. The material covered is well taught and has filled in missing pieces of things I had learned in person from others. As an solo learning tool the one difficulty is that you have to work your way through the lessons one to another and this is time consuming. That said, his pedagogy is on point and he covers a lot of hard to find material. It also works as an excellent compliment to material I've learned from others for this reason. As an example, learning trulkhor in the format I did would have been extremely difficult without his material to fill in the gaps that came from learning in person from a seminar with 50 students in it. He also has a method for reinvigorating the endocrine system using pressurization of the lower abdomen that takes about 10 minutes a day that is worth the purchase price by itself. Really good stuff.

I would add that I suspect the reason for Tao being careful about people joining, and no I've never spoken to him about this, is that some material in the video vault is really only appropriate for people that have discipline and/or a certain level of yogic development. The inexperienced, or simply lazy, could cause themselves real harm with some of the technology contained within it. And its not like many of the people using his stuff live nearby where they could get to him if things cook off poorly.

The only other video learning system I can recommend is Gary Clyman's Mind Light Neigung and 5 Element system. They are extremely expensive, but to my knowledge he is the only person I've met who has systemic method for learning the chi circulation form of nei gung. Until someone else wants to get off their ass and ridiculous codes of secrecy, Clyman is it for that material. It is fast acting and hard hitting. This can be applied to a variety of other forms of energetic practice as well. You also learn how to properly perform one of three condensing techniques I've seen in 30 years of looking for this kind of stuff. The second I've never seen anywhere outside personal instruction and the third is bumpachen from trulkhor practice.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Trick on Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:54 am

Peacedog wrote:Thanks.

I've long maintained that classical barbell training is in fact the Western version of yoga. It involves breath retention and moving the body through its full range of motion. And from a yogic perspective it radically enhances the various energies of the body.

I liked the video and am checking out more of his stuff on Youtube. Again, thank you. As I often say, "I don't know what I don't know."

The Indian Hatha yoga traditions are my weak point in yogic/meditative practice. That said, Tao Semko has a vault of several thousand hours of material on this available online. However, the membership fee is substantial.

And I have no doubt Ken has a lot to offer. Hopefully, one day I can take advantage of that.

yoga in the sense of gymnastic postures combined with breath has its root in north europe/scandinavia it was adopted by the british army as physical education for soldiers, and the empire intoduced it in india..prior that the indian 'yogis' just hanged around being high on some narcotic substance
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Formosa Neijia on Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:26 pm

So how accurate and comprehensive are the available materials on trul khor?
I ask because I've gotten stuck many times part way into a system with no way forward or the system is obscure so there are no second opinions to be had.

It seems like this teacher is pretty prolific on Youtube:


And the translations are available here: https://www.nalandatranslation.org/publ ... tructions/

There are some serious pitfalls regarding the Tibetan material. Tibetan Buddhists in general have a terrible reputation here in Taiwan and there was even a banner erected in Chinese and English by a Buddhist organization outside of a major subway station warning people to stay away from those practices. Seems the "left hand path" is quite common. The Naropa sex scandals immediately come to mind.
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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby shawnsegler on Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:26 am

I was unaware of the Facebook group. Is it worth checking out?


Not really as such. There's no discussion at all. It's a way for members to stay connected while on FB and is reasonably useful for that, but it's mostly 2 or 3 people who want to advertise their respective martial arts businesses on a daily basis.

So....if you're on FB a lot, it's probably worth your time to join, but other than that...nothing special.

My 2c.

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Re: Trul Khor experiences

Postby Peacedog on Tue Mar 17, 2020 6:43 am

I don't have a huge data set to work with, but the Tibetan style teachers I've met tend to be pretty open regarding what they teach in terms of technique. Now finding someone who will teach is another thing. Also, from the little I've seen, much like the Chinese, they don't teach much in the way of foundational practice. So, if you haven't developed your clairsentience (subtle sense of touch)/clairvoyance/ability to hold posture/etc. that basic training is up to you. Unlike a lot of other groups, they do fully explain the technique being instructed however.

As for the sex scandals it is to be expected and I think a cultural sticking point between the Chinese and Tibetans. Karmamudra, or meditative sexual practice, is an integrated part of the Six Yogas of Naropa. If this is a part of your system, people will abuse it.

Also, unlike the Chinese and Thai systems, the greatest practitioners of the Tibetan systems were yogis like Milarepa and Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche were not monks. Rinpoche in particular was married and had two daughters.

I've stated this elsewhere, but I personally believe the monastic orders are, in part, an intentional effort on the part of host societies to literally breed out people who have a natural affinity for this kind of thing. They are a trap as in "look you can practice all you want, but you don't get to have children."

The fact that the Japanese and Tibet systems tend to produce as many magicians as they do would seem to support this supposition, but it could just be a sample size issue. FWIW, I've never met a mainland Chinese, or Thai, practitioner out of a monastic order who was all that good in terms of the meditative/yogic game. Overseas Chinese where the monastic orders break down are a different story.

Also, the ridiculous training timelines for meeting certain yogic developmental timelines in the monastic orders don't jive with what I've seen outside of those amongst people who actually did the work. I've met far more "enlightened" people in martial arts circles than I ever did in monasteries.
Last edited by Peacedog on Tue Mar 17, 2020 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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