Learning Day: Taoist Feces Exercise 🌭

Hold on, this can’t be right. This DVD is called… Taoist feces exercise.

What a lucky mistranslation this must be of an ordinary kung fu style. How hilarious that the Chinese phrase for “self defense for seniors” is the same as our word for “feces.” Unless… no. No, this video couldn’t possibly be about… no. Impossible. This isn’t… no. No.

This is a kung fu style for pooping. I guess you have no reason to believe me and my Mandarin is not good enough to detect sarcasm, but I am 99% sure this is a kung fu style for pooping. Even if this wasn’t called Taoist feces exercise, I would recognize a man channeling the cosmos to shit his pants anywhere. Which raises the question, fucking what?

Taoist feces exercise is a series of ten tai chi movements sincerely designed to evacuate your bowels. They are demonstrated by 90-year-old Xuan Tongzi, sometimes by a waterfall, sometimes from a dimension beyond our understanding. The subtitles say he has a “florid complexion and bell-like voice” which are strange things to notice about a man flushing waste through his body with ancient magic. I would have probably said, “Xuan rides atop a torrent of diarrhea and that should be plenty of details by which to recognize or remember him.”

This martial art is perfect if you need to desperately poop forty minutes from now and have plenty of room to stretch. The ten skills cure more than “can’t poop,” though! There is a long and unlikely list of diseases it claims to eliminate. Again, maybe. These are not good subtitles, and I do not trust turd karate.

According to the video, these stretches should take care of your “hypertension high blood fat  hyperglycemiacervical spondylosis hyperosteogeny and constipation and so on.” And maybe I’m cynical, but it seems suspicious that sitting down and nodding your head cures constipation but also a diverse bunch of medical problems found right next to each other on Wikipedia’s “List of diseases.” It’s like saying, “I’ve had plenty of sex partners! Milky Puppet, Chandra, Charlotte, Chelsie, Chair, and Chair!”

So let’s hold off on telling science some old guy in his pajamas solved hyperglycemia cervical spondylosis and focus only on the constipation. And about that, I have some good news: mother fucking time travel.

This started as a man dedicating his life to kung fu and then dedicating that kung fu to shitting, so I’m betting this was crazy before its meaning was beaten to death by language barrier. But if I’m understanding him correctly, which again– ridiculous, he knows you’re worried about pooping too soon. Don’t be. These movements will create time fluctuations in your bowels to hold your feces in stasis until you can get to a toilet. Maybe? All I know is I am so happy right now. This coot doing laxative tai chi said the words “time quantum from the time point of going to lavatory to relieve the bowels after.” What a miracle.

“I practice accumulative feces skill in last seven to eight decades,” Xuan tells us, his teeth snapping down on every inconceivable word. Whoever was in charge of his green screen knew the seriousness of this announcement and took away the crashing waves and cosmic wonder. He’s no sorcerer. He’s just a man in a television studio telling you he’s been storing pressurized waste inside himself for 80 years. “May our deaths be glorious,” he tells a toilet with a bow. “Whatever they call you.”

Find a safe place attached to an anus you trust, and let’s begin our movements.

The first movement is called “Head skill.” You look to the side, then up and down, sometimes chomping. As with everything else in Taoist feces exercise, I can’t be sure if his martial arts style includes random bite attacks or if he’s screaming in pain from snapping his neck around. There is no microphone on Xuan Tongzi. Whether he is shouting instructions or his last words as his colon turns inside out, there’s no way to tell. My theory is they recorded 55 minutes of whatever the Mandarin word for “AIIIIiiiIEeeeeeEE” is, then decided to do voiceover instead.

“Head skill” really is just looking around from a chair, so I think you got it. Let’s learn the next movement.

“Teeth granding skill” is similar to “Head skill,” but with less head. Bite, bite, bite, you shit-filled kung fu masters! We are now twenty percent done with Taoist feces exercise, and we have simulated a mild discussion. That’s the razor’s edge you didn’t know you were walking every time you had a conversation from the middle car seat.

I refuse to believe how close this is to nothing. Let’s get some more teeth granding information.

Okay, so you bite exactly 36 times and…  then stir tongue? I know we’re watching an elderly madman crap his pajamas, but this got fucking gross.

Let’s move on to the next movement: “Rub waist with separate hands to reinforce kidney.”

This one seems easy. Scream nonsense, absolute chittering nonsense, while you swat at your kidneys. There doesn’t seem to be a wrong way to do it. Maybe I’m the idiot, but for some reason I thought we would be learning how to swirl some kind of mystical energy through our bodies, not reaching back and pinching crap out our holes like we’re toothpaste tubes. So far, this seems like something the first ape to discover constipation would have invented with the added slurp of some tongue stirring.

We’ve attacked the poop from the back, now let’s go at it from the front. Focus your tummy for “Abdomen kneading skill.” This is extra crazy when you consider how in the fiction this man lives in, he could have dedicated 80 years to death touch or levitation. Xuan probably trains alongside kung fu masters working to throw qi balls or bring the dead back to life, and he’s chosen to master rubbing his belly for maximum poop. If Xuan was in Street Fighter, half-circle back would make him eat a bowl of oatmeal and excuse himself.

Another thing I admire about Xuan is how he admits this might not work, but in a way that makes it seem like it’s your fault. For instance, if you have done all this and “bowel not be relieved still,” it’s up to you to make adjustments. Try closing your scapula backwards. Or shrink neck. That’s really his advice! Because everything about Taoist feces exercise is perfect! Try shrinking your neck, you prison-boweled coward!

“Face-washing skill” is useful in emergencies where you rubbed your feces in the wrong direction.

Let’s move on to the most important part of your digestive system– the back of the head. Snap your fingers against your skull in a skill Xuan calls “Sky-shaking drum.” This is the kind of excellent move-naming we were missing. If I had any notes for Taoist feces exercise, it’s how everything should have been called something like this. The tummy rub could have been “Naughty Bear Steals The Honey” and the kidney milking was obviously “Dirty Boy Fingers The Breakfast Sausage.” This move has some really specific instructions, so let’s learn more.

You’re going to want to really squeeze those antilobiums, but it’s a trick. You want your skull to think you’re building to some kind of sky-shaking drum climax, snapping and squeezing, then suddenly yank your hands away. It’s called Dominant Monkey Edges The Ear Canals, and it will make you shit.

I don’t have anything to add to this next one, so I’ll simply repeat Xuan’s instructions, which are also the name of the skill.

Rub ears

“Comb hair with fingers” builds on the face and ear rubbing we learned earlier with an added tapping. Remember to do this gently– sound is greatly amplified inside the body and if you frighten your feces it may never trust you again.

The next skill is called “Horse-riding step and move hand like clouds,” which is a big step up in difficulty from sitting on a dining room chair and pawing at yourself. With a wide stance, you summon and consolidate your qi around your pelvis, which should add some psychic damage to your farts.

In a movement Elvis Presley might call, “Say, Forrest Gump, show me that crazy little walk you just did there,” Xuan grabs each knee and wiggles it. This leads to disaster. He starts demonstrating a move he did not name, but definitely calls “Rubbing the diarrhea out of pant leg.”

Lick around the inside of your filthy mouth while you squash liquid poop into your slippers. Don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time. It takes some up to 80 years to master this technique.

It’s been a crazy workout, and depending on your quantum fluctuations, you are now either bursting with feces or covered in them. It’s time for “Cooling-down.” Start by rubbing yourself, doing your best to avoid erogenous zones.

When you’re starting to feel more comfortable, really go for it. You should look like a below average actor in a shampoo commercial. “The Beginner Mime Looks For His Wallet.” Spread your legs and rub until you’re evenly coated in everything your body rejected from breakfast. If you’re doing it right, positive energy will be swirling around you, the kung fu shit pervert. Okay, now stop.

The next skill is called “Get rid of the stale and take in the fresh.” You stand very still and let a cameraman film you while your viewers get increasingly confused.

I should mention this DVD is over an hour long, but not because Xuan had a lot to tell us. It repeats these movements over and over, and a weird amount of Taoist feces exercise is this old man standing very still while three seconds of ocean footage loop behind him. It was only on the third demonstration of “Standing,” when we got more details about what we should be doing here. And here is where we find out if you have become the poop master.

Without looking at the next gif, try to guess Xuan’s instructions.

You were right! You fill your thorax with air and pull up your anus! There is nothing left to teach you!

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