"At green belt we learn moo pal dan kun - eight advanced military breathing exercises - which emphasize a dynamic cycling of energy throughout the body."
This is not right. Pal Dan Kum is not advanced nor is it military. It is actually the standing set of an exercise called Ba Duan Jin and, according to legend, created during the Song Dynasty by Marshal Yueh Fei. This is the same person that is credited with the creation of Eagle Claw. Pal Dan Kum was taught for health to civilians, and to Boxing practitioners.
Ba Duan Jin should use a simplified version of the same kind of breathing found in Iron Shirt, but has been shown to be more efficacious with something called pulsing breathing, as it builds up less pressure and has a lower risk of injury.
Bal Dan Kum is a basic form of Ki-Kong (Ki-Kong is Qigong in Korean).
The NQA, National Qi Association has a host of training events. There is also a group affiliated with Taoist Master Mantak Chia that has events as well. That group is called Healing Tao. Both of them can further your knowledge of QiGong.
I personally prefer Iron Shirt and the Shaolin Version of Ba Duan Jin. That version is more continuous in movement, and seems to help "crack" my back. For whatever reason, all of my tension goes right into my back and neck, and the twisting in that version seems to help release it making me by far more comfortable.
Steve,
One does not destroy the body with Hard Style. Though the health benefits are not as great as with an internal style, one actually needs both. Fa Jing requires a certain amount of muscle tension, as does simple acts of life. Remember that if one goes to far to either Um or Yang, the opposite will be found. I suspect this is why Hwang Kee moved from the Pyung Ahns to the Chil Sung and Yuk Ro as the intent behind those is to be more harmonious with practice. According to Hwang Kee, Tang Soo Do was based on the philosophy of No Ja. This is why the TSD version of the PA forms is not as hard as the version taught by the Chung Do Kwan. Master Bowman recently did a comparison and he said that in his opinon the version we do seems more consistent with the way the Softer schools of Karate do it, than Shotokan. I'm inclined to agree. I do think that there is some discrepancy in Volume II because certain forms attributed to Northern Style do not have characteristics of Northern Style, and the same is true of the Hyung associated with Southern style. I think the solution to this is simple, and that Master John Hancock stumbled onto it. Master Hancock, if you remember, and I went rounds about Ship Su actually being a tiger form,and I showed it to a Tiger Sifu who said no way. But that was Southern Tiger, or to be more specific Hung Gar. I practice an art called Shandong Black Tiger, a relatively rare martial art, and yet in one of my sets there is a sequence which appears that if a similar sequence in modified slightly in Ship Su, is the same sequence, with the same movements and in the same order. That gives pause. I think that the TSD hyung are just so far removed from our Chinese cousins that typical classifications do not function anymore. Ship Su appears to be a Southern style Hyung, but the Shandong province is a Northern province. Shandong Tiger has characteristics from both North and South, though it is a Northern system.
Opinions?