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." )

Internal Coordination

Internal coordination is the ability to link-up the movement of one part of the body to another, it is an essential aspect of qigong and all internal arts. Another way to think about it is to say the six limbs, head, tail, arms and legs, are all connected to the movement to the lower dantian, or the belly. With practice, even very small movements will become supported by the subtle movement of the rest of the body. This is primarily accomplished through the continuous twisting and wrapping of soft tissue from one extremity to another.

In qigong as well as all the internal arts, internal coordination is achieved within the frame of the tailbone sinking, the top of the head rising and the shoulders directly aligned with the hips so that the spine itself does not twist at all. This leaves all the internal organs free to move with the twisting and wrapping of the extremities.

This is just a small piece of a very large proccess and there are many different approaches to teaching this principle. Some teachers may treat it as 'advanced' and so many qigong movements neglect this principle. This is partly because it is possible to break the over all principle of internal coordination into smaller components and develop them independently. It is also partly because once the principle is thourghly integrated into ones movement it is possible to be internally connected in any type of movement, including freely twisting the spine.

In practice, internal coordination is usually combined with other teachings; for instance, pulsing the joints, opening the qi gates, and various hydrolic processes in the body.

If you focus your training on internal coordination your movement will be come more snake-like.

Stance Training

All Chinese martial arts schools do stance training. It is often considered the most important training for developing a gongfu foundation.

I estimate that I have stood still for on the order of 6000 hours, probably more. The longest period of time I have held a single stance is 6 hours. My shaolin students learn and train the following stances: Horse, Cat, Falling stance, Bow'n'arrow, Monk, cross leg or t-stance, and natural step (ziran). Every movement in taijiquan should be held, and basically the same goes for xingyi and bagua.

Wang Xiangzhai, the highly influential 20th Century founder of Yiquan said quality stance/stillness training was what all great Chinese martial artists have in common.

My own experience is that deep stance training is more effective than stretching and high kicks for re-making young Northern Shaolin students bodies so that they have a bigger range of movement potential. This is sometimes called, "getting the qi in the channels."
While in my twenties, an hour a day of low stance training initially made my thigh muscles and shoulder muscles bigger, but as time passed and my alignment improved my muscles got smaller and smaller. This is sometimes called, "qi going into the bones."

It's true, my muscles got smaller. My alignment improved and along with it my ability to issue power, to connect (integrate), twist, and pulse (open/close). Believe it or not, I got weaker. Not lazy or deficient but muscularly weaker and functionally more sensitive.

As time has passed I feel my use of higher stance training (still an hour a day) has helped develop more freedom and naturalness in my everyday movement. This is sometimes called, "Writing the Classics (jing) on your bones."

Stances on one leg, both high and low, are essential for developing kicking power, and are of course great for balance (in a future post I'll explain the physiology as I understand it.)

There is a ton more I could say about this subject and probably will in future blogs. I encourage readers to add your comments about what role stances have played in your training. In your opinion, what does and what doesn't stance training achieve?

Qi Jocks

Qigong Doctor or Qigong Master (notice my finger is half-way down my throat) Sha can download new software for your organs.

It's a typical Monday afternoon here in the city, but something very unusual is happening in Stacey’s Bookstore on Market Street. Sha Zhi Gang, a licensed medical doctor and acupuncturist from China, is downloading a new lung into a Sacramento lawyer's body.

The lawyer, Kevin Lams, had gone through three rounds of chemotherapy over the last two years, but the cancer is back again. He is getting desperate, he said, and turned to Sha for help.

Dr. Sha looks like any other Asian businessman in his dark blue suit and yellow tie, but he's actually an eccentric spiritual healer who claims the Divine has given him the power to download soul software and heal a range of ailments.

When I saw this article in Wired Magazine, and watched the video, I started writing an essay called Qigong Ethics. It isn't finished yet, partly because a difficult question arose.

Your average American with what I call a functioning BullSh_t buzzer will recognize this as faith healing. Most parts of the world have some version of it. Subordinate yourself to a charismatic, fun for the whole family. It is always a performance but the vocabulary changes. Believe in the power of _____ to heal you. The problem arose because in China instead of calling it god, magic, or the spirit of Mumukupa-- they called it qi (See my definition of the many meanings of qi.)

Historically, qi is one of several words used by trans-mediums and shaman to describe unseen power. What happened is that in 1949 China banned all religion and all religious expression. It is still controlled but there was an opening after the Cultural Revolution ended in the Early 1980's when the government said it was okay to practice Qigong for health.

This little opening in the 80's led to an explosion of emotion, ecstatic expression, and religious feeling all focused around qigong. Nancy Chen's brilliant book, Breathing Spaces Historically there was no distinct subject called qigong. Movement and meditation practices were always tied to, and regulated by, a religious group or martial arts lineage.
Here is the ethical issue: About 65% of the problems people go to a doctor for are self-created problems. When a person gets us to change our un-healthy behavior it has a real medical effect. Doctors may tell patients, change or suffer and die.  How often does that work.?

On the other hand, the performance language of a qigong master is frankly insane; but for some reason, after a "master" performs a healing, if he/she tells the patient to "meditate in this position for 45 minutes a day for 108 days and stop eating fried foods," the patient often does it! They certainly have a better chance of getting someone to change their un-healthy behavior than I do. I get a really strong vibe of dishonesty from these qi jocks, but those behavior changes really can help people.

Our Teenage Qi Bodies

What ever type of movement or training we do when we are still growing has a lasting effect on the shape our physical body takes as adults. As the physical body is developing so is the 'shape' of the Qi body.  The particular quality and flexibility of the muscles we have as teen-agers will give shape to the qi meridians in and around the body, the body we develop as teen-agers will usually be the body shape which for us has the most unrestricted qi flow.  Practices like Northern Shaolin have been specifically refined to maximize qi circulation and should be taught in the schools.
Adults cultivating weakness should consider their development toward flexibility, softness, looseness, and internal connection in relationship to the body they grew into as teen-agers. For instance, someone who developed big muscles and played football as a teen-ager and now has muscles which are much smaller will tend to be sluggish  the circulation of qi will tend to stagnate in meridians that originally developed in a highly active muscular body.  Assuming such a person is not suffering from injuries they should consider building up the muscle a little to re-familiarize themselves with what their body feels like when qi circulation is at it's optimum.  If we take the uninhibited circulation of qi as our measure of health and our measure of how to practice- the best way for each individual to practice will reveal itself effortlessly.  The process of cultivating weakness should be a gentle peeling back of the layers of history, not an abrupt end.

Flexiblity, how important is it

Many people think of flexibility, muscle length or extension, as the opposite of stiffness, but oftentimes people are both flexible and stiff.

Looseness is a quality of movement which includes the ability to change spontaneously, quickly, and easily. Looseness and flexibility each require different approaches to training. Flexibility, looseness, softness, and internal coordination or 'connection' are four distinct qualities of movement which work together. Missing one of these four will create a deficiency. These four together support the uninhibited circulation of qi.

Stretching often feels invigorating, but it is possible to over stretch. In transitioning between stretches, ease and balance should not be over looked. If we focus primarily on developing flexibility by getting our muscles very warm, even hot, and then stretching, but little on transitions, we may end up reducing the flexibility we have when our muscles are cold, thus, making our comfort range in daily activities smaller. The nervous system becomes like a rubber-band: it stretches way out, but then it springs back in response to having been pulled out of its comfort range. This kind of flexibility is usually combined with strengthening, exacerbating the problem further with insensitivity.

In contrast, the qi gong approach is gentle,

and can be done without having to first warm up the muscles. Muscles which are always stretched to their limit don't know what a safe range of motion is, the muscles themselves appear to recoil in fear.

Someone whose muscles are very loose when they are hot but tight when they are cold will have to practice stretching in a much smaller range of motion in order to calm the recoiling effect of their nervous system. Much less common, but equally problematic, is combining over stretching with reckless looseness. Looseness with out evenness and balanced development or internal connection, can create over stretched ligaments. Many of the chronic injuries stemming from this type of looseness will be familiar to dancers.

The natural wrapping and twisting of muscles and tendons is an important developmental stage. Dancers who began their training at a young age sometimes skip this stage of development. The ability of all muscles to wrap and twist can be highly developed but it can also be overlooked in an attempt to get what is called 'a better extension.' Ligament injuries are associated with the impulse to release and extend in order to get the hands and feet as far away from the spine as possible. With out the the twisting and wrapping of muscles and tendons to support looseness in the joints, the ligaments eventually take the strain, and ligaments have little elasticity. People with these kind of injuries are usually taught to strengthen all the little muscles around the injury (a la Pilaties).

The qigong approach to dealing with this kind of an injury or tendency needs to be shown and felt first hand. It involves learning to draw qi into the central core of the body while simultaneously expanding, a sense of 'closing inside of opening.'

Individual muscles are capable of very complex movement, like the tongue which is a muscle that is only attached at one end. Many people think of muscle movement simply as a sort of on-off switch, contraction-release. In the case of most weight lifting the emphases is put on contracting muscles. Modern gyms use all sorts of apparatuses for muscle building, all essentially designed with this contraction-release concept of muscles.

Chronic tension in the spine is sometimes compensating for ligaments which are stretched to the limit by poor alignment. When the muscles around the spine attempt to protect the ligaments and become chronically tense, circulation and ability to feel the area are undermined. If any one part of the spine is restricted, it tends to restrict the movement of the rest of the spine, this is because the muscles and ligaments tend to release either in a wave sequence or simultaneously, not in isolation. When we attempt to stretch chronically tight regions of our spine, we are more likely to over stretch ligaments than we are to release the area of tension. Eventually many people strain ligaments, bone or discs.

The process of unraveling tension in the spine should be gentle and gradual. Having partners who watch or lightly place their hands on each others spine to give direct feed back about how the spine is releasing is the best way to learn this.

Many hip injuries happen in a similar way. People with a chronically tense hip, may have begun with very loose hips. The muscles around our hips twist and wrap in many complex ways. If the ability of these muscles to twist and wrap hasn't been developed in someone who has naturally loose hip sockets, minor dislocations of the hip can lead to strain on the ligaments which causes the hip muscles to contract leading to loss of mobility and sometimes chronic pain. Twisting and wrapping in muscles is a kind of developmental ground for the most dynamic and refined movement the body can do and it is an essential support for the development of healthy looseness in the joints.

When all the soft tissues in the body work together, the bones can move in effortless spirals. It's ironic that learning this is often easier for both young people whose bodies are still growing, and older people, who are losing muscle mass and find it difficult to build and keep new muscle. Those who find it easy to build dense protective muscle tissue tend to rely on bulky muscles to do everything. 'Why be weak when you can be strong?' is the conventional wisdom.

Gordon Liu

My favorite classic martial arts movie routines of Gordon Liu fighting and giving a Medical Cupping treatment and fighting while getting measured for a suit. Dreadnought!

Here you really see the roots of Chinese Opera in the Kungfu movie!  Gordon Liu was of course, the old master in the Tarantino film Kill Bill 2.