If you cut kheikis without roots, the baby orchid will not survive. You must leave it on the mother plant until they produce long enough roots to sustain itself.

If the plant is producing kheikis on a flowering stem, over time the stem will dry up and the kheiki can be removed. Sometimes you don't need to cut anything just let nature take it's course.

Of course, you're more than able to cut the kheiki away from the stem once the roots have grown to a good length if the flowering stem supporting it doesn't dry up.

i didn't understand that at all king.
so keikis on a flowering stem is a bad thing and should be removed?
sorry for all the questions.
at this point i'm just feeling like i should leave it to do what it needs to do on its own. But this cutting of the keikis thing has me really confused

Kheikis on a flowering stem is good. It means whatever is happening with the mother plant (good or bad), you have an opportunity to raise another plant of the same kind.

Basal kheikis are also good. It also means whatever is happening with the mother plant (good or bad), you will have an opportunity to raise another plant of the same kind.

Cutting of the kheikis is so that you can isolate them into individual culture (as in you can pot them up or mount them as individual plants).

Basically the name of the game is to have more. The more the better. The more the merrier. You know, that whole thing. In this context it's the right way and good way to be greedy (God won't hurl lightning at you and scold you in a thunderous voice for being greedy and wanting more of the same kind of orchid to be in existence).

More plants of the same kind means if one dies you're not going to cry about it because you have tons of others of the same kind. This is how mother nature intended it to be. It's a numbers game like everything else in life.

oh i feel like a big pain in the butt
but...
how in the world do i do this?

Just to keep things simple, I going to backtrack. So forget all the other stuff I said before about kheikis for now.

Follow this instead.

Don't cut any flower spikes or any kheikis off.

Leave them alone and maybe you'll be able to wiggle the kheikis off one day.

No offense, but apparently you don't appear to be ready to cut kheikis away from the mother plant yet.

In the meantime, keep reading about Phals.

i'm not offended at all. I know I am certainly not ready to do any cutting of kheikis.

will be going to library tomorrow to see what books they have available.
thanks again
jennifer

If I may make a recommendation. Stephen A. Frowine wrote a pretty comprehensive book about Phals, you should check it out.