Can qigong gorilla recommend any specific teacher or book on TCM, taiji, qigong, yoga?

https://www.reddit.com/r/EarlyBuddhismMeditati/comments/g49mg6/tcm_soak_feet_in_hot_water_daily_for_excellent/fo6ai2a/?context=3

Q: I'd like to thank you for your recent Qigor posts. I for one will be taking notes on all of this stuff. This sort of information based on experience can be hard to find. Considering my situation (young and health issues) I've found the one blind spot for me in Early Buddhism seems to be a lack of focus on taking care of one's health. This is one thing I commend the ancient Chinese traditions for in particular. And on that note I was wondering if you might recommend any tangential materials worth reading ie. TCM, energy channels, basic healthcare and learning about the human body. I'm also interested in learning energy work/breath techniques ie. Daoist (imagining core Qi as a warm goey ball) and similar to the instructions laid out in Keeping the Breath in Mind.

I suppose the lack of focus on healthcare makes a certain degree of sense, as times were very different when the Buddha set out his Dhamma instructions for us. And of course core Dhamma was always the priority - however these days we are surrounded by health hazards, some of which we don't recognize as such due to lack of education on the matter. So knowledge about maintaining a good posture, not sitting too long, staying away from things like sugar and processed "foods", abstaining from pornography and media, are all very valuable and relevant to modern practice. After all, the longer one's healthspan and lifespan are, the longer one can practice on the path.

A: (lucid24-frankk)
Offhand, I can't think of something I can whole heartedly recommend, not because it lacks value, but because it can easily lead to spending too much time researching what is valuable and interesting methods from a certain perspective, but can easily make us lose focus on dukkha and liberation from it. This is the main reason I feel why the Buddha didn't talk about the benefits of yoga, stretching, and some cardio, it can lead to distraction. One thing I would recommend, if one is a total beginner with taiji, qigong, or yoga, is try out a few classes where its available to you just so you have some reference point of actual physical experience. It's hard to pick up many things from just reading about it or watching video. In the long term though, I'd recommend people practice yoga, taiji, etc. on their own.

Q: Alright thanks for the advice. The modern world is full of Mara’s lures beckoning us into distraction, and I’ve found if I’m not careful my mind is all too willing to rationalize why I need to do this thing or that as opposed to getting to work with meditation.

Anyhow I’ll look into possibly finding a teacher to learn a bit of Taiji or Qigong directly, sounds like a better idea than trying to start things up entirely by myself.

A: great thing about taiji, qigong, yoga, is that you can do it simultaneously with sati, jhana, samadhi. Say someone spends an average of 2-4 hours a day doing walking meditation. You can substitute in any of those 3 modalities for walking, and reap the benefits of all of that. The reason I'm really hesitant to recommend and books or specific teachers, is because if you learn those specific lineages in their natural environment with those teachers, they teach many time consuming nuanced details about those specific arts that are not important and completely irrelevant for jhana, optimal health. That is why I publish my notes on qigong gorilla, to extract the essence of what is useful and can be done simultaneously with jhana. But the limitation of qigong gorilla, is if you don't already have some personal experience with those arts, it's unlikely you'll fully grasp how much you can relax and how much tension you carry around until a good teacher can point it out in person.