Fall Training

Continuing with yesterdays post:

There is a Chinese saying: Open up to new practices in the Spring, avoid sweating in the Summer, Develop Power in the Fall, and Store Qi in the Winter.

Fall: What is power training? For the most part, power training is the process of improving efficiency. Of the hundreds of different power training techniques one can think of, most, if not all, can be understood as efficiency training. Power training is a process of refining technique. It is the harvest season.
Here is a short list:
Compress (shrink), expand (explode),
Move the whole body as one unit.
Coordinate every part of your body simultaneously.
Focus all 400 muscles on one task.
Use all of your body weight when issuing force.
If you use waves to generate power from one part of your body to another, make sure none of the wave ‘action’ is dispersed before hitting it’s target.
Make all waves smaller and more refined (hidden), so that there is no delay when issuing force.

The process of refining technique can include lots of other aspect of training besides power training. The big question I have for my readers is: How much power does a martial artist need? Isn’t there some point at which more power training is just silly. Isn’t that the point of a lot of Kungfu movies? If my punches can break bones, and knock a man 50 pounds heavier than me to the ground, do I need more?
Isn’t it true that after I have developed a certain amount of power my curve will start to level off, meaning I have to work a lot harder to get a much smaller improvement? I have heard people say that a martial artist's power can keep doubling every few years, isn’t this just a fantasy?

Spring and Summer Training

There is a Chinese saying:  Open up to new practices in the Spring, avoid sweating in the Summer,  Develop Power in the Fall, and Store Qi in the Winter.
Why not practice everything all year round?  If gongfu/neijia(inner arts) is not a processional religious tradition why would we practice this way?  Is there any good reason?
Let’s talk about what the saying means first.

Spring:  Opening up to new practices, of course means learning new routines and new techniques, but it also means stretching more, increasing your range of motion, and breaking up any stagnation leftover from Winter.  Usually Spring is associated with the Liver organ, which "stagnates" from too much fried or greasy food.  The liver is "tonified" by vigorous movement.  Spring is a good time to sweat a little.

Summer:  Not sweating is a form of endurance training.  This season is associated with the heart, which is the Emporor of the Organs.  The country is well run when the Emporor has nothing to do.  Of course we know the heart is a pump that needs to keep pumping, but does it need to pump fast?  To understand how not sweating can be endurance training consider running 100 yards as fast as you can and timing it.  Immediately take your  pulse.  Now try to run the same distance in the same amount of time, and try to do it with a slower heart rate.
The Chinese idea works just the opposite, try to move as much as you can with out increasing your heart rate enough to break a sweat.  Over time you will be able to move faster and more vigorously without increasing your heart rate.
Running through a few Shaolin forms at performance speeds still gets me breathing hard.  It feels good, but I don’t do it everyday, and I actually think it would be counter productive if I did. When I go backpacking with a heavy pack, everyone else seems to get tired first, so it must be working.
I would argue that we really don’t need what many people call "cardio-conditioning." What do my 100 a day readers think?

Walking #3 (Story)

In the religious Daoist tradition stories are considered qi transmissions. To study personally with a great bagua or qigong teacher is of immeasurable value but we can receive qi transmissions in many different ways.

Once during the Qing dynasty in China the Emperor and his courtiers decided to make a sport out of all the outrageous claims martial artist were making. They had many martial artists brought one by one to the palace and asked them to perform many feats, after which they were usually put to death.

The Emperor heard about a bagua master who people claimed could move any stone. So the Emperor had a huge stone brought into the courtyard using long levers and pulleys. He then had the famed martial artist brought to the palace. Upon seeing the challenge he asked to be given 24 hours and some torches to see by. Amused, the Emperor granted the request. The martial artist began crawling all over the of the stone, looking and feeling everywhere. 24 hours later the Emperor and his courtiers returned and demanded to see the stone moved. The martial artist then put one finger on one particular spot and using just that finger succeeded in pushing the huge stone all around the courtyard. The Emperor and his courtiers were so impressed that they granted him his life.

It seems that even stones have acupuncture meridians.

It is said that a bagua practitioner who has reached the height of mastery can step on a solid cobble stone and turn it to dust. I imagine that such steps are extremely light.
The adepts experience of the world is recreated in each step or gesture we make. Qi gong practitioners don't just re-learn how to walk, we are continuously re-learning how to walk. We are demonstrating true openness to the possibilities. The fruit of practice is that walking itself becomes unconditioned.

Walking #2 (Toddlers')

Watching toddlers' movement can be really instructive.  Toddlers are unstable and actually rely not on strength or righting reactions (both of which develop and integrate with time) but on the softness of their bones and the fluidity of their joints.  They can make great errors in stepping and stumbling because they have a large range of motion in their joints.  They easily recover from falls.  Their bodies are buoyant and adaptable.  Their joints acutually pulse, or open and close, as they walk or reach out for something they want and draw it back toward their center (or their mouth.)

"...it's bones are soft, it's muscles are weak, and yet it's grip is very strong,"

(Daode jing Chapter 55, Liu ming)

Qi gong and internal martial arts combine these two approaches to movement, that of the very young and that of the very old. Both approaches can be considered weak.

From doing these practices, as we age, our joints have more space and we use the space that we have more efficiently. We return to balance without much strain or effort.

Somewhere I picked up the saying:  "Walk with your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds."

Walking #1 (Older people)

What is it like watching most older people move? Is it a source of pity or sympathy, or perhaps a foreboding omen of what we can some day expect ourselves? If we were to study older peoples' movements with respectful inquisitiveness what might we learn?

Young people walk by falling slightly forward to create momentum and continuously catching themselves with their front foot as they stride forward. This type of movement requires:

1. The ability to suddenly contract muscles should we mis-step or slip.

2. Well integrated reflexes, righting reactions, and equilibrium responses so we can stop abruptly.

3. Buoyancy in the joints(space/fluidity) and a fairly wide range of motion to account for sudden variation.

As people age it becomes more difficult to maintain the muscle tissue sufficient to catch oneself, right oneself and return to balance. As people age they often develop a reduced range of motion do to repeated injuries, including what we tend to call normal wear and tear. Even small injuries often leave scar tissue which reduces pliancy and range of motion. This along with a general loss of fluids in the joints leaves less space in the joints for movement. This not only makes large steps difficult or painful, but the righting reactions needed to re-balance are often out of ones range of motion or would themselves cause re-injury in the joints.

Big steps, or any type of reckless movement, brings the risk of falling and breaking already deficient bones. Thus how do older people walk? Hesitant little steps. They test the ground with each step and find their balance with each weight shift, doing their best to maintain their balance all the time.

Eventually, everyone's muscles and reactions degenerate and we are all, in a sense, forced to except the sensitivity that comes with weakness (in Daoism this process is called return).

When older people walk they draw on all the resources they have, (they'll take your arm if you offer it.)

Those in the past, who cultivated the Way,
Were subtle,mysterious, abstruse, penetrating,
Unfathomable, and so too deep to describe.
Because of this,
I can only tell you how they seemed.
They were cautious, as if crossing a river in winter.
Always watchful of danger on all four sides.
They were ceremonious and polite, like being a guest.
Yielding, like ice beginning to melt.
Plain and unconditioned, like an uncarved block of wood.
As open, as a valley.
Murky, like turbid water.
Who among you can be so murky and yet know
Quiet and Clarity within?
Which of you can enter stillness only to return to movement?
Those who keep this Dao,
Avoid fullness.
Because they are not full,
they can renew themselves and not be worn out.
Daode jing Chapter 15 (Liu ming)

This quality of movement, testing the ground before a weight shift, avoiding muscle contractions, essentially seeking depth and ease, are all things we do when we practice qi gong, taiji, or bagua. Aging may actually make them easier to do!

The Kinesthetic nature of Internal Arts

There is a convention of dividing gongfu into internal and external, and following that logic qigong is also sometimes divided this way. When we refer to qi, we often mean the animation of the interior world, the felt world. This is meant to be distinct from the seen world, how our bodies look, our form, the external shell. The traditional way to learn something is to begin with the external, and gradually become more internal. As the internal develops there is a movement outward toward refining the external, and then back toward the internal again; a circular process. The real distinction is that ‘internal arts’ put more emphasis on the internal, and do it sooner, almost from the beginning.

Taijiquan is the most well know internal art, but baguazhang and xingyiquan along with hundreds of qigong exercises (many of them abstracted from one of those three arts) have been steadily gaining in popularity. The following is meant to be helpful in understanding the term, 'internal.'
If you move your tongue around in your mouth and then do the same thing looking in the mirror it will appear that your tongue is moving differently than it feels. The tongue tends to exaggerate the size of objects it touches. This becomes really obvious when you have a cut on your tongue. Similarly, the back of the palms and the front of the wrists perceive heat and moisture quite differently. (You can try it right now.)
The internal organs move around like the tongue and each has it's own very specialized sensory and motor nerves, as well as its own intelligence. The feeling of lifting up your right kidney feels very different than the feeling of lifting up your right shoulder, but both can be felt. Rotating your liver feels very different than rotating your head, but both move independently. Our internal organs move around semi-consciously most of the time, completing specialized functions automatically.
This 'internal' movement necessarily supports all our other movements. This is experience is the basis for Structure school of Chinese medicine. The premise of which is that chronic illness, injury, "deficiency" or "excess" will have a physical impact on the underlying structure of our bodies. It will eventually reshape even our bones.
All our 'external' movements like waving our hands or wiggling our toes are interdependent with internal movements for support. This is part of the function of our organs, our vessels, glands etc…, form is inseparable from more obvious function( their form shape and movement have a function in addition there systemic functions). When that support is partial, inhibited or too abrupt we say qi flow is inhibited or restricted. Over time these qi restrictions may become imbalances, stiffness, collapsing, or pain, in both 'internal' and 'external' movement.
Qi gong teachers have many devices for developing students' sense of the internal. Remember that the concept that qi itself is not restricted to or limited by ideas of internal or external personal space, it's bigger than that. Working with the concept of qi means not restricting our view to just organs, or even the limits of the physical body, it would suggest an expansive view, and a softened focus. [Where you practice matters!]
Thus it follows that this seemingly infinite movement inwards also continues as our gestures, movements, and our senses move out into space. Tying the internal to our conduct and to the shape of the environment we live in.
Imagination is a necessary component of feeling. Most people feel their liver moving, they just haven’t named it and thus, in not naming it, they have not differentiated it. (is it still part of undifferentiated chaos?) Feeling is a type of distinction which requires some imagination and some practice.

Therefore I’m dubious of distinctions between mental and physical.

What do Daoist's do?

What do daoists do? It can be divided up into three categories: Conduct, Hygiene, and Method.
An example of conduct practices are the Xiang er precepts. These are a first century C.E. summary of what the Daode jing suggests trying, like be honest, be weak, cultivate stillness, and practice wuwei. They are considered scripture for religious Daoists.(see Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures)

Hygiene practices conserve qi and make it easier to follow these suggestions, they include things like bathing practices, qi gong, and an appropriate diet.
Methods include things like zowang(sitting and forgetting), jindan(the elixir practice, internal alchemy), and ritual.

Hygiene practices can also be considered conduct practices because they are meant to have an impact on physical and qi manifestation of our daily conduct.

Qi gong, like taijiquan and baguazhang, is the practice of cultivating weakness in order to sensitize us to our impact on our environment and our environment's impact on us. For instance, I notice that my knee hurts when I walk up a bunch of stairs. If I don't know that qi gong is a 'conduct' practice, I might be inclined to think that my qi gong practice is the cause, instead of considering that the way I've been charging up stairs has been to use strength to cover-up an old knee injury, which practicing qi gong actually revealed.
Practitioners of these so called "long-life" practices, reach their peak level of performance in their 60's and 70's.

Taiji and bagua probably have their origins in ritual dances which rectify qi. That is they dance the qi (time and directionality) of the universe into a condensed moment and then dance it back out into the universe again, (wuwei). Each step containing birth and death, the rhythms of life.
Tracing taijiquan and baguazhang back to their original roots may require such a huge step backwards that it is out of our range, but it is a mistake to think they are purely martial.

Yangsheng

The term yangsheng, "nourishing life," is sometimes suggested as a precursor to qigong. But again, it means something different. The term has also been rendered into english as long-life practices, macrobiotics, or daoist hygiene. It is a more general term that refers to diet, bathing, movement, stillness, trance, calendrical observation, talisman, the ingesting of special foods, and purification for ritual.

Doctors (Zhongyi) traditionally practiced yangsheng. Elisabeth Hsu points out that it was the first part of the transmission of Chinese medical training in the first half of the 20th century. In the Dream of the Red Chamber, the 17th century Chinese epic novel, there is a fascinating scene where a famous doctor has been called to treat one of the ladies of the house. He comes in the evening, acknowledging the urgency of the situation but then says he can not make an accurate pulse diagnosis until the next morning after he has had time to regulate his own pulse.

Origins of Qigong (part 2)

An older term that is sometimes conflated with the modern notion of qigong is Daoyin . The word daoyin is more specifically, movement done in conjunction with Daoist religious practices which include various types of meditation and purification. Daoyin is better understood as the dao of religious adepts.

Hermits practicing meditation or trance for long periods of time sometimes develop poor circulation, muscular atrophy or digestion problems –this tendency inspired the development of exercises which can be done in a small space to balance the rigors of long periods of stillness. Daoyin lineages contain many layers of knowledge which have been passed down to adepts over the centuries, they are however focused mainly on developing a body which can maintain its vigor through long periods of stillness or during long periods of specialized fasting.

Systematic Daoyin looks a bit like hatha yoga mixed up with vigorous slapping, rubbing, pounding, bouncing and rolling. Individual exercises could also be extracted to treat specific ailments, but it is a mistake to say that daoyin is the same thing as qigong.

I do not reject innovation or re-invention but it is kind of funny to think of office workers cramped up in their cubicles taking a little "daoyin" break--But that’s one of the characteristics of modernity: Culturally and historically miss-match activities sharing the same space. Often the result, while sometimes humorous, is inappropriate enthusiasm obscuring shallow appreciation of tradition.

(Because Paulie Zink (see Below) teaches a daoyin lineage that is thoroughly integrated into what appears to be a performance tradition of monkey gongfu, it is possible that daoyin began as a performance tradition. It is also possible that it became part of what we might call a 'youth training program' for the Sung Dynasty version of a "Renaissance Man." )

African Bagua #2

I just posted a new video on Youtube! Check it out: African Bagua part 2