Walking #4

It's been a busy weekend but I've been reading this interview with Wang Xiangzai that "adz" sent me. It's from the 1940's and really captures Wang's voice like nothing else I've read. He riled people up in a good way. Check it out. If anyone knows the Chinese for "...intuitively perceiving the peristalsis of the whole body," I'd like to know the characters.

Here is my "Dao of the Day": We don't know how humans can walk on two feet.

Birds can walk on two feet but they have huge feet relative to the size and weight of their bodies. Humans have at least six different mechanisms which allow us to balance, a few of which we understand, like fluid in our ears. But basically walking on two feet is still a mystery. When my students are trying to learn something new that seems difficult I remind them that they have already mastered walking, and that's a skill way beyond anything I can teach.

Irreversibility

The reason for discipline is to make a practice irreversible.

There is a gongfu rule of thumb, "one day missed, ten days lost." If you start a practice and miss a few days of practice right at the beginning, you basically lose your momentum and have to start over. If you learn something new and don't practice it the next day, it is usually lost by the third day, you'll have to re-learn it. If you have been practicing everyday for nine months and you miss three days of practice, you've basically set yourself back a month.

Chinese martial arts work by momentum, that is why discipline is so important. In English we often say, "Practice it until it becomes second nature." This is a similar idea.

Problems arise when we don't really understand why we are doing a particular practice. Kinesthetic learning often starts out with a method that is supposed to reveal some type of fruition over time. Once the fruition is revealed it can be integrated into everything we do. Sometimes this means we can drop the method. Sometimes the method is itself part of the fruition.

For example, the Kitchen God lives over the stove in Chinese homes. He represents an irreversible commitment to keep the house clean. The method is cleaning on a regular schedule. When cleaning becomes "second nature" the method can become more spontaneous, but it can't really be dropped. The fruition is living in a cleaner, simpler, healthier environment, where things are easy to find, easy to store, and easy to get rid of.

But discipline itself is a hook with out a worm. If the fruition does not reveal itself, or if the fruition we thought we were going to get doesn't materialize, the experiment is a failure--the discipline should be dropped. With kinesthetic practices expect to have a clear idea what fruition will eventually become irreversible after about two months. It sometimes takes a little longer to get the idea. A method can easily take two years to truly become irreversible but you should know long before that what the method is doing and how it is changing you.

Most Daoist inspired methods reveal something about your true nature. Often it is an appetite of some kind. The most obvious example is that sitting or standing practices reveal an appetite for stillness. After about two years of discipline your appetite should be strong enough to direct your practice, rigid or militaristic discipline will actually hold you back. I know my morning standing practice is irreversible because if some anomaly or emergency disrupts my practice, the rest of the day I feel myself being pulled toward stillness--At the end of the day I jump into bed and savor the thought of waking up to my practice.

The rule of thumb is this: We are doing experiments which reveal our true nature; we are not signing up for self-improvement.

Taijiquan and Death

Today is Yom Kippur.

It is traditional to greet people with the saying, "May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a Good Year."

Chinese and Jewish traditions both use the same metaphor to think about human conduct. Once a year our actions are recorded in a book and that book contains both a tali of our meritorious acts and records our fate for the up coming year. Our actions throughout our life have a cumulative effect.

In the Chinese tradition when we die our actions during our lives continue to effect the living after we have died. Ideally, we simply become a supportive ancestor for our descendants. But it is also possible that we pass on bad habits, strange quirks, or even vendettas.

The residue of our inappropriate conduct during our lives is called unresolved qi. It becomes the responsibility of our descendants to resolve this qi for us if we leave it floating around after we have died. One way this is done is by offering incense and sacrifice to ancestors. This is mandatory for Chinese people.

The resolution of unresolved qi can also be achieved through appropriate conduct. For example if we brake a bad habit like quiting smoking, or start a good one like keeping the kitchen really clean.

Taijiquan clearly falls into this category. It is a positive social practice, it keeps people in good health, and it improves the efficiency of our movement so that we aren't wasting qi. Central to the practice of taijiquan is the exploration of wuwei: variously translated--not doing, non-aggression, or "like water it does nothing, yet leaves nothing unnourished."

Taijiquan is the practice of easily bringing things to completion, it is practice for dying a complete death. A death in which the only legacy we leave behind is unconditional support for the living.

Standing for Weakness

Is standing meditation practice good for posture and alignment?

Here are the two main theories:

1. As soon as we attempt to hold still tension begins arising in locations where our alignment is inefficient.  If we can apply that information, we can improve our alignment.
2. Circulation does not stop when we hold still so locations with poor circulation quickly become apparent.  Slight changes in alignment at these locations may improve circulation, which could be considered an improvement in alignment.

If you do standing practice without correcting your alignment, your muscle tension will actually increase.  It is a slow and painful way to build muscle, and not very effective I might add. However if you are constantly fiddling with your alignment you will become more and more contorted and unstable, that's a big mistake.

Practicing internal martial arts correctly means accepting our natural weakness.  Being weak is okay.  It certainly doesn't inhibit fighting if that is what you like to do. Most fighting systems agree that the ability to relax is valuable because if you are relaxed it's easy to change. Generally fighting systems prefer strength and conditioning with their relaxation. The influence of Daoist precepts and conduct practices on the internal martial arts is most apparent in their rejection of strength and conditioning.

Correct standing practice makes us weak and sensitive and thus more prone to injury.  The type of rest that we get from standing meditation has some healing effects. Most likely those effects are do to the improvement in circulation which supplies nutrients and replaces damaged tissues.  Standing heals the little tiny injuries which otherwise would restrict our breathing and degrade our alignment.  But honestly, slow gentle practice and plenty of sleep will do the same thing.

But...if you like to play rough on a regular basis, (and many of us do) standing will repair those little injuries that would otherwise tend to pile up.  Any improvement in alignment also improves power. But from a Daoist point of view all you are doing is re-establishing what is normal.  It is normal to play rough.  It is normal to heal.  It is normal to have access to highly efficient movement. It is normal to just stand still and do nothing.  It is normal to be weak.

Standing the Hype

I think the main reason some Internal Martial Artists don't do standing meditation practice is because of the preposterous hype surrounding it. You know what I'm talking about:

"Use your intentions to draw-in the Qi of heaven and the Qi earth and mix them in your lower dantian (cinnabar field)."

"The qi you store in your lower dantian can be used to heal all illnesses, physical ailment and emotional imbalances."

"If you practice standing still for an hour everyday without fail, the qi you cultivate will slowly build until you have enough of it to blast swarthy martial opponents across the room."

Please, could we get an English translation? Because my inner-high-school-science-teacher is getting a cramp from laughing too hard.

Standing still for an hour or so is the best way to measure whether or not you are:

1. Getting enough sleep


2. Getting enough rest


3. Eating the right amount and types of food relative to the amount and types of exercise you are doing.

If you have not been doing these things well over the last 3 to 5 days, an hour of standing meditation will be extremely difficult.

That's it, that's my translation! The qi of heaven means fresh air and good ideas. The qi of earth means food, rest and sleep.

To cultivate qi means to monitor and adjust your conduct and habits so that your appetites are responsive, dynamic, and easy to satisfy.

Tomorrow: Does standing practice have any direct healing properties? How? For whom?

Side Note: Soup is good food, and this is an internet miracle.

Sleep

Getting enough sleep is one thing. Consistently sleeping until you are not tired is another thing entirely.

Everyone knows that if you exercise well, you tend to sleep well. Unfortunately exercise can be overdone. If you regularly begin your practice at night after you are already tired you run the risk of giving yourself insomnia; tapping into that deadly "second wind," and depleting your yuan qi.

Each internal organ has two basic ways of moving, the generative and the re-generative. For example the liver uses jelly-fish-like movement to distribute blood out to the muscles when it is in the active generative cycle. When you get a good night's sleep blood draws towards the liver and it swells up. During the re-generative cycle the muscles need less blood.

In addition to the quality of its movement, the shape or tone of an organ is indicative of its functioning.

Internal Training

The first level of internal martial arts is usually try to do nothing internal so that you can just relax. The second level involves feeling the internal organs moving but do nothing with them. At the third level, we connect the movement of the organs to the movement of the limbs, head and torso. All three levels are actually infinite; we never stop practicing them.

All three of these practices tend to involve changes to the movement, shape and tone of the organs. When this happens it can trigger a need to return to the re-generative cycle. In other words, sometimes an hour of no-sweat Taijiquan at 8 AM can leave us wanting to get back into bed.

This can happen even if you are getting enough sleep because an individual organ may be in the process of changing. Hopefully the internal practice is improving the organ's efficiency (but as we age it is certain that eventually our organs will start to fail). When we resist the urge to sleep, we are resiting the process of re-generation.

Don't Short Change the Organs!

Whenever the seasons change or you change your internal practice, your internal organs will need a new type of sleep and rest.

If you still feel groggy after 10 hours of sleep it is because one or more of your internal organs didn't get the kind of sleep (think: shape/movement/tone) that it needed.

Note: Stillness and other "resting" practices move and shape the organs in different ways than sleep and activity. Rest, sleep, food and exercise are all indispensable

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Surrender?

The Taijiquan Classics say: "The most important thing in a fight is that you win!"

Not.

What I think is most often missed about the Taijiquan classics, because it isn't explicitly stated, is that they present Taijiquan as a conduct practice.

The literary roots of these classics are pretty clearly Daoist and Confucian. The style, language and even a few quotes make this clear. The Taiji classics are syncretic, meaning they draw on several sources yet give a feeling of cohesive wholeness.

Both Daoism and Confucianism conceive human beings, or perhaps I should say humanness, in terms of commitments. It is easy to argue that a person who starts eating human flesh has lost their humanity, but what makes Daoism and Confucianism distinct from "Western culture" is the notion that humanness is a continuum.

In other words, they pose the question, "Just how human are we?" Confucians answer the question by saying there is a protocol one can follow which is based in, and renewed by, an examination of our natural relationships with other people. How well we interact with the people close to us will influence how well each of them interacts with the people they know-- thus creating interlocking chains of good conduct leading all the way from the Emperor to every person in the nation.
Daoists agreed with this assessment, but they said that if a mechanism exists by which we are all connected, than it works on the cosmic level too. Thus our conduct must be connected to animals, stars and earthquakes. Popular Chinese religion often took this idea in to the realm of "wacky." Cults regularly sprung up saying things like, "If we regularly use too much energy getting across town, we will cause the icebergs to melt, the seas to rise and soil to become parched." Oh wait, that was Al Gore--anyway, you get the idea.

Confucians and Daoists both summerized their teachings with lists of precepts. I should add that Daoist precepts often concerned the inner workings of the body itself. While it is often posited that bad digestion must somehow be connected to earthquakes, the connection is not known, and keeping in mind that the connection itself is unknown--is a Daoist precept.

Oh yeah, I was supposed to be talking about Taijiquan. Well, if you take almost any saying from the Taijiquan Classics like for instance, "One's form should have no hollows and no projections" it is easy to see that this is a suggestion about how to perfect the efficiency of one's movement. Confucians think that efficient movement rectifies the heart/mind, and thus leads to clarity in one's actions-- which makes it easier to align what one intends with what one does!

If your intention is to resolve a dispute quickly and efficiently, it is entirely possible that the easiest resolution is to just drop your guard and take the hit.

The Re-generative Cycle

Here is a concept from Chinese Medicine which has a lot of currency for internal martial artists.

The body has two cycles: A generative cycle which is operative whenever we are active, and a re-generative cycle which is operative when we are sleeping and resting.

First I should remind everyone that people cultivate Qi in four ways: Eating, Moderate Exercise, Sleeping, and Resting.

The generative cycle uses up qi, if we stay in the generative cycle we will slowly get more and more tired until, if we are still healthy, the re-generative cycle grabs us and throws us on the couch. If for some reason we don't have an opportunity to rest our reserves of Qi called Yuan Qi, or original Qi, start getting used. This is what people sometimes call "getting their second wind." If we habitually tap into our reserves of original Qi, it often leads to insomnia, and then slow degeneration; the body's ability to store and distribute fluids becomes impaired leading to weakening of the teeth and spine, loss of flexibility, and eventually death (a final return to the re-generative cycle).

OK, that was grim. But remember sleeping and rest allow our bodies to re-generate so that we don't expend Yuan Qi. Eating, Exercising, sleeping, and resting are all essential. A change in one of the four will produce noticeable changes in the other three.

So where do internal martial arts fit in? If practiced correctly they fall in between exercise and rest. It is possible to practice in such a way that you move between the generative and re-generative cycles. The long term effect of daily practice is that you can easily start up the re-generative cycle while you are in slow motion, doing simple tasks, like making tea, or taking a stroll.

More on this soon: Internal Arts and Death

I got the Art work above from Jamie J. Rice, check it out

Ibex Clothing

I've been writing a bunch of material on Daoism and will likely post it on it's own page in a few weeks.

Also I've been reading Frank Allen's new book, the Whirling Circles of Ba Gua Zhang, published by Blue Snake Press, so I'll be reviewing it soon.

This week I started teaching new Shaolin Classes for 8 and 9 year olds. It is a 25 week residency in a public school and we meet twice a week (4 classes total). Will likely have a performance at the end.

I also gave my Taijiquan students at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine their final exam, and did a demonstration for everyone.

So instead of writing some high fa-luting little ditty, I've decided to tell you about my favorite workout shirt! The Ibex form-fitting wool shirt. They are strong, thin and light weight. They don't get stretched out and they don't shrink. They actually fit me, which is amazing.

They don't smell bad the way synthetics do. They are totally amazing because the fabric breathes so well when I'm sweating and keeps me warm and dry the rest of the time, which is really important in San Francisco fog. I just totally love them. I have two short sleeve and three long sleeve shirts. One of the long sleeves is 17.5 Microns (fabric thickness) and has a zipper, that comes halfway down the front. I wore it everyday on my two weeks of mountain adventures this summer. It took me two years but that one has finally come to the end of it's life.

I can't find the 17.5 on amazon.com but the rest of the shirts are there, and if you buy one by clicking on my links, 15% goes to me! I haven't sold anything at all from my site yet, but it sure would be cool to make enough money to cover my beer expenses.

Mens Shirt

Womens Shirt

Never Fight

There is an old Chinese proverb that I have always liked, but let me apologize in advance for any underlying misogyny or other offenses to contemporary morality.

Never fight a woman, a monk, or a sick man!

This proverb cuts to the core of Chinese martial arts thinking-- that's why I like it.

Never fight a woman because if a woman is willing to fight you, it's a sure bet that she has some surprises. Surprise is the greatest weapon of all. Women's martial arts start from the assumptions that one has:

1. A shorter reach


2. Less power


3. Less ability to use conditioning or physical integration for an effective defense. Basically, smaller bones can be made tougher but bigger bones will usually break them anyway.

Women's martial arts focus on using sudden overwhelming force on the most vulnerable areas. They often use tricks, surprises and small hidden weapons. (You have been warned.)

Never fight a monk because monks are known for their extraordinary discipline. It is likely that they have trained One Technique over and over again; and you don't know what it is.

Never fight a sick man, because he may be sick from training too much!