Heart Health

I just want to say something simple about the heart.  The heart needs enough space to operate.
If the heart is competing for space with the lungs, it’s going to have problems.
Fortunately this rarely happens because the lungs can expand downward with the movement of the diaphragm muscle.  The diaphragm moves with the expansion of the belly, the expansion of the lower back, and the expansion of the diaphragm-like structure on the floor of the pelvis.  If the gates of the legs are open the experience of breathing will continue down into the feet.
Likewise if the lower back expands, the upper back will follow it, expanding the ribs out to the sides and, if the gates of the arms are open, the experience of breathing will continue out into the arms from the back.  It will also travel up the back of the neck over the top of the head.

This is a simple description of health.  It is an anatomical description of what is called “pre-natal breathing.”  It is probably what happens during sleep, and during rejuvenate rest.  It is also a common base practice for most types of qigong.  It is a description of the dynamic structural alignment which gives the heart the largest possible space to live in.  [It is not a description of neidan (elixir) practice.  It is not a power gathering method.  It is not some cosmic sexual orbit.]

Constricted Belly & Lower Back

The rib cage can expand and condense quite a lot. If the abdominal muscles are constricted the expansion of the lower back and pelvic floor will be restricted too, and the gates to the legs will surely be closed during activity.  The body easily makes up for this by lifting the front of the rib cage.  This works fine, it will create plenty of space for the heart and lungs to operate optimally.  However, it will create some compression between the shoulder blades where the ribs insert into the spine.
The rib cage is structured such that the largest expansion happens by lifting the ribs out to the sides, expanding under the armpits, which also expands the upper back.  The full expansion of the rib cage creates some expansion in the chest as well but not lifting.

Exercises which tighten the abdominal muscles, or the space between the shoulder blades don’t seem to cause any short term problems.  However, over the long term if other factors like stiffness in the chest, spine degeneration, or pour circulation appear--these sorts of exercises will simply give the heart less room.  And that is a serious problem.

The space between the shoulder blades should be loose and lively.  Feel the skin between a cat’s shoulder blades and you’ll see what I mean.  The area behind the heart should be loose-- tiger skin loose.

Update:  I've been looking around google images for a normal CT scan of the abdomin and you wouldn't believe how many images of really messed up people they have up there.  Yikes.

Are the Gods Real?

The World in an Incense Burner

Are the Gods real? This is simply not an important question.  A horror movie, no matter how fake, can still make your skin crawl.

As a teacher of internal martial arts and qigong I often give instructions to students which they find incredible.  For instance I might say, "Move your skin up but your body down."  Or I might say, "Spiral the bones inside the tissue."  Sometimes I'll describe a feeling outside of the body, as if the we were moving in water or mist.  People often ask me, "Should I visualize what you are telling me?"  Or, "Should I just try to imagine what you are telling me? because I don't know how to do that."

What will "work" for the student at this point varies a lot from student to student.  Sometimes it helps if I have a student put their hands on me while I do the movement.  Some students will learn by watching closely.  Some students will simply figure it out with time.  Some students will require a different exercise, or a different description, or a different metaphor, or a different context, or a different type of pickle in their porridge (yes, I do make these sorts of suggestions).  Some may even get it and not realize they have gotten it.

But the answer to the question, "Should I visualize? should I imagine?" is simple.  Yes, you should imagine to the exact extent that imagining actually makes your skin crawl.  We tend to think, in our "agency driven universe," that imagination is not real.  Imagination is real.  No movement happens without imagination.

Here are two posts I wrote in 2007 which deal with this question as philosophy and cosmology:

Understanding Chinese Culture (Part 1)

Understanding Chinese Culture (Part 2)

Chi Kung for Making Babies

Year after year, day after day, I hear people expressing enthusiasm for qigong.  I suppose we could say I share their enthusiasm, after all, I've spent many, many years practicing qigong every single day.  The problem is that qigong is not an enthusiastic tradition.

After something on the order of 30,000 hours of practice  all I can say is, I don't know anything.  (According to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours theory, I have accumulated enough experience to have mastered qigong three times!)

To me, the practice of qigong is about becoming a baby.  It is about returning to innocence.  It is about discarding knowledge for the simple reason that babies have it all, already.

Healing?  No one knows what causes healing.  If your life is causing you stress or pain, return to simplicity.  Start from the beginning.  Qigong is a series of movement strategies to coax you back, back to the beginning of the process, or the project, or the job, back to the movement, back to the original inspiration which started to take shape in your body.  Qigong is a process of unraveling, it is a type of forgetting.  Is it medicine?  I dare say it is not.  Can it result in healing? I think it can.

Discovery?  Yes, you will make discoveries along the way, but then you must discard them.  If you build them up into a system of levels and achievements, treat those levels the way any 2 year old would treat a castle made of wood blocks.  Cast them asunder.  Because orthodoxy must have a way to renew itself or its qi will become stale.

Forms?  Forms take you back to before you were born.  They are a way to dance in your ancestor's body.  They collect the width, and breadth, the boundaries of movement knowledge.  They are empty.  Honor that emptiness.

If you write about your discoveries, have the child-like humility to memorize them, and then eat them.

In two years of writing this blog I have not recommended a single book about how to do qigong.  This is not because I'm an asshole.  It's because by the time these books are printed the qi is already stale.  Babies like to chew on books.  I've yet to find one that tasted the way a book should taste.

Five Levels of Muscle Training

This is a description of internal martial arts from the point of view of muscles.  These five levels apply to taijiquan, baguazhang, xingyiquan and (applied) qigong:

1. Moving and Coordinating; running, jumping, rolling, lifting, stretching, etc.


2. Static Structure; The ability to hold a static shape for a long period of time, and transfer force applied on any part of the body to the feet, the back or another limb.


3. Continuous Structure with Movement;  All muscles must move in twists and spirals following the flow of the bones and ligaments.  Muscles weaken and become sensitive.  Force can be applied in motion at any angle from any part of the body.  Force can be avoided without losing whole body integration.


4. Empty and Full at the Same Time;  All muscle tension must be discarded along with all intention to move.   Any solid concept of body structure must be discarded or melted away.  Muscles function like liquid and air.  (Power becomes unstoppable but unfocused and difficult to direct.)


5. Whole Body Becomes a Ball.  Resistance training for big muscles only.  Small muscles are used mainly for sensitivity and force transfer (ligament support).  Muscles move only by "ten directions breathing," they move in all directions using expansion and condensation, not lengthening and shortening.

Notes:

The separation of jing and qi, which happens automatically in stillness, needs to be available in motion to enter level 4.

In order to act through a body, that body must be felt as a dream.  Dreaming is not like the conscious mind.  If you think about running, you are likely to stumble.  In order to run, speak, or do any of these types of muscle training, you must first dream it.  In order to reach level 5, levels 1 through 4 must be felt as dream.  In other words, they can be done spontaneously by feeling, without thinking, or willing.

______________________

Thoughts:

From my experience, this order is essential.  Each level takes a minimum of two years training.  Some internal traditions attempt to start their training at level 4 and then go back and fill in gaps in levels 1 and 2 through diligent forms practice.  The attempt to fill gaps in level 3 through push-hands training.  That seems like a mistake.

The quickest way to get level one skills is through rough play or dance (forms with speed and rhythm).

Level 2 can only be learned through a teacher/partner who tests your structure.

Levels 3 and 4 will be inhibited by strength training.

The key to transitioning from level 3 to level 4 is non-aggression, wuwei.  Aggression is refined to perfection and then discarded.  This transition probably requires working with emotionally mature partners.

Applications do not work at level 4.  Period. But paradoxically, the ability to use weight and momentum improves.

The good news! Yes, it takes at least ten years (two years for each level, and a minimum of three hours everyday), but levels 2 through 5 can be practiced at any age.  Levels 2 through 5 actually get easier with age because muscles become weaker and skin becomes looser!

What Are All the Different Styles of Chi Kung?

I'm working on a web page that will be a clear and thorough explanation of Qigong.  It will include links to articles which explore various details in greater depth.  The following is a short section I have been working on:

Below is a list of all the styles of qigong.  Nearly all qigong practices are named after a cosmological principle (like hunyuan, which means original chaos) or a metaphor which is specific to Chinese culture like Wild-goose, (which means lots of weird movements stuck together in one form).  I haven't included every single name because the same type of qigong sometimes goes by different names, this is a list of qigong by characteristics and type.

I first started studying qigong in 1977 when I was 10 years old because it was considered a basic requirement of Northern Shaolin training.  I first heard the term qigong when I was about 20 in the late 1980's as qigong fever was sweaping Mainland China.  By 1995 I had seen every type of qigong on this list.  Every year I hear someone claim to have discovered a new, yet ancient, type of qigong that is more special that all the rest.  Inevitably what they are practicing is just one the following repackaged.  While I find the claims a little pretentious, the trend itself is positive.  All forms of qigong become very personal over time because all dedicated practitioners will naturally combine and integrate the following types of qigong to suit their needs, values and in accordance with their temperament.  I myself have created two "new" types of qigong; Tiger Skin Qigong and Chicken Toe Qigong.  Here is the list:

Zhangzuan (Standing Meditation, done in various postures)

Wu Xing-Five Organs (While the movements themselves may differ from school to school, the basic idea that each organ generates, and is tonified or depleted by, a particular quality of movement is the same.)

3 Dantians (the use of swinging movement generated from, and integrated with, the three centers of the body, abdomen, chest and head) (Note: Swinging the arms from the lower dantian while shifting weight from foot to foot is the most widespread form of qigong.  Variations are used in almost all martial arts schools.)

Cloud Hands (a simple asymmetrical movement of the arms which can be use as a base for integrating other types of qigong)

Muscle Tendon Lengthening (The art of stretching)

Golden Ball (Moving qi around the dantian)

8 Extraordinary Meridians (Exploring how qi moves around the surface of the body at the moment of birth)

Heaven & Earth (Micro/macro cosmic orbit, three dimensional pulsing & elasticity, usually symmetrical movement)

Spine training (Bend the Bow and Shoot the Arrow; drawing qi into the spine for healing, power, and for connecting the movement of the limbs to the spine )

Chan Su Jing, (Silk Spinning --joint releasing & spiraling movements) go

Immortals Dancing in the Clouds (Bone Marrow Washing, Sinew integration, and development of spherical movement)

Daoyin (Orthodox Daoist Lineage Hermit Practice which uses extensive stretching, with rolling slapping jumping, pounding, scraping and self massage.  Sometimes broken into pieces, sometimes combined with circus training or monkey kungfu.)

Hunyuan (Prenatal movement rediscovered with an emphasis on the movement of fluids and the development of the qualities of empty and full.  Often asymmetrical.)

8 Silken Brocade (8 Sinew lengthening and integrating movements)

Wild Goose (A particular teacher's 'list of favorates' put together into a form linking them together.)  (Geese in the wild do lots of different types of movement.  They run, hop, swim, fly, flap, squawk, root, gargle, preen, stretch, stand on one leg, etc...)

Tai Chi--(Taijiquan, the martial art, can be practiced purely to get the benefits of improved balance, mobility, flexibility, and circulation.  In this case it is often simplified and/or made symmetrical. )

Conditioning Techniques  (Iron shirt, Gold Bell, iron palm--toughening exercise for forearms,shins, and torso)

Taoist (Daoist meditation is sometimes taught as stillness qigong.  Particularly jindan, the golden elixir, and various tension dissolving techniques).  (Sometimes the deity visualization intermediary practices are taught without explicit naming of the deities-- only their attributes as visualized.)

Now that I've released the comprehensive list I encourage people to challenge it!  Have you seen or practiced a type of qigong not on the list?  Can you describe it's attributes?

Note: Obviously I've discarded the standard Communist Government organization.  I've never seen Buddhist, Confucian, or Neo-Confucian qigong.

Update: We had a discussion on Facebook, where my blog now appears (search for Scott P Phillips if you want to be my friend).  I decided that the last category "Taoist" is an identity, and therefore not suitable as a category because it opens up the possibility of naming techniques after identity groups of regions.  Therefore, I am changing the "Taoist" Category to "Inner Alchemy."

The Ball

George Xu used a surprisingly counter intuitive definition of a ball the other day.

The term "ball" gets used in martial arts and qigong all the time.  Of course there's "ball up you firsts," but there are lots of other uses.  The term ball is used as a metaphor, a verb, and as a spacial description.  George Xu was using it to mean something else entirely.

Here are the most common uses of "ball'

• Imagine you are sitting on a large ball


• Imagine you are holding a ball in your palm


• Imagine you are holding a ball using your arms and torso


• Imagine you are inside of a ball


• Imagine a ball next to you or behind you


• Turn, roll, bounce, shake, spin or compress and expand one of the above balls you have imagined (but actually do the movement


• Align your body and limbs in arcs, which are part of imagined balls, now move the balls


• Have your arms connect to each other through your opponent (this one is actually a ring)


• Connect your arms to each other or a leg or both legs, or through space using an imagined ball

I could probably keep going.  Am I missing anything big?  Any other uses of the term ball in martial arts?

The definition George Xu gave me was in someways more concrete.  He said a ball, like a basketball for instance, has a skin, a surface thickness.  As a ball inflates, deflates, rolls or bounces, the dynamic pressure on the surface of the ball must change.  The surface of our physical body is like the thick skin of a basket ball.  It is capable of changing in tone, or being stretched around a curved surface.  Use the surface of your body like a ball.

When you practice gongfu, you must always "have a ball."

Tangki

In Tainan I saw a Tangki (Mandarin: Jitong) at the Tian Tan Gong (Alter to Heaven Temple).  He was wearing shoes, and all yellow cotton clothing.  He was doing a treatment/exorcism on a man in a wheel chair whose legs looked a little swollen, they both looked to be in their late 40’s.  They were directly in front of the gods, in the center of the temple in a small space between a giant incense burning and an altar table.  For the Tangki to dance around the man he had to wheel himself forward and backwards about a foot, which kept him involved while he sat there.

I don’t know what God was possessing the Tangki, or even if he was possessed, perhaps not, or only a little bit (I did not see him “fall” out of trance at the end).  He did a martial arts like dance holding a bunch of incense in one hand.  It was already going when I entered the temple and continued for about 10 minutes.  Using the incense, at times he appeared to be writing Chinese characters in the air around the body of the guy in the wheelchair while making sword fingers with the other hand.  Sometimes he held a posture while pointing his sword fingers at his own abdomen.  Sometimes he touched the man, at one point he pushed vigorously on the back of his head.  He shook and did fajing (explosive power release) a lot.  His breathing was somewhat erratic and audible.

Toward the end, the Tangki had someone bring him a paper cup of something, probably water, and he pointed  at it (concentrating his qi into it?) and danced with it for a while before giving it to the guy and having him spill it and spread it around on his legs.

When he was done he went over to the side and sat down on a bench, he was pouring sweat.  Then the guy in the wheelchair jumped up and started dancing.  Just kidding.  During the ritual I talked to one of several people who were watching, a young man who seemed upset and said the man in the wheelchair was his uncle.

There are many similarities between the Qigong master I saw the other night and the Tangki.  Both are self taught.  Both are called.  Both discover their gift.  Both poke and prod.  Both are doing mysterious healing on someone else.  I believe Tangki’s will accept trivial donations of money, but they essentially, accept a life of poverty along with the job/role of being Tangki, they both express the importance of keeping money out of the ritual.

Frankly, the gongfu performance I saw in the park the morning in between the two had some similarities to the Tangki exorcism too.  The dancing around in martial postures, the importance given to breathing, and the fajing.

The blended ritual I saw is not in these two videos, but a lot of other Tangki stuff is, and Youtube is amazing:





Also, to continue with my stating the obvious jag; There is an enormous wealth of video about Chinese ritual on youtube or google video search if you use Chinese Characters. ?? (Tangki)

Baguazhang in Tainan

Saturday morning Sharon Lee came to my hotel with her young friend Kevin (a tri-athlete) and his girl friend Yixian. They took me to his bagua class. I guess we were a little early because instead of going straight to the park we went to his teacher’s house. He and his wife were selling breakfast in sealed plastic cups (like they use for bubble tea). We got to try both types of breakfast, one was a pearl barley wolf berry (gojizi) thing, and the other was a more fruity beanie thing. They were both good. I concentrated on the barley one because pearl barley is known to “drain damp,” and believe me, I got damp. (For those of you who don’t know any Chinese Medicine, damp is how you feel after eating fried food with beer.)

Meeting Master Lin Miaohua I was immediately struck by his long neck relaxed shoulders and open chest. He had the same drum I use in his house and he had a lot of weapons. Next door was his painting studio, all traditional, lots of great looking flower scrolls and calligraphy. He is 71 years old.

He took us to the park and we did a little warm up. Then he demonstrated his Baguazhang. He is a student of Zhang Cilong who was a student of Sun Lutang (1861-1933). So this was great stuff to see. Sun Lutang was famous for his fighting ability, for creating a synthesis of Baguazhang, Xingyiquan and Taijiquan. He taught with "Yang Shao-hou, Yang Shao-hou, Yang Ch'eng-fu, and Wu Chien-ch'üan on the faculty of the Physical Education Research Institute where they taught T'ai Chi to the public after 1914. Sun taught there until 1928, a seminal period in the development of modern Yang, Wu and Sun style T'ai Chi Ch'uan. (quote from Wikipedia) Man, even I’d go back to school for that!

Master Lin is a master of hard and soft. Feeling him attack is like fighting with an electric switch. If he touches you he is sure to give you a shock. He specializes in two legs off the ground fajing explosive power. He has shaking power too. He showed me a whole bunch of forms including some Shaolin and a low ground fighting system called Diliang (I think, it means lay down on the ground). His baguazhang uses small steps and focuses on explosive power. The key to his power is in making the torso like a vacuum which can suddenly suck in the limbs and then cause them to pop out like a fire cracker. Here is a quick video with more to come.

Real Lineages

One of my students pointed out that in the previous post on the early 20th Century I asserted that lineages were invented to defend gongfu against attacks by Modernity, claiming that there was continuity between an older pure martial tradition and certain contemporary styles. They were all trying to avoid associations with performance, ritual, religion, or failed rebellion.  Where as in the book Qigong Fever, we see that after the Cultural Revolution (1967-1977) lineages were invented to make qigong appear ancient and mysterious, pre-Modern claims of authority.

Still, in both eras movement artists desired to have the authority of some all powerful "science" on their side; a desire which seems absurd now, in a time when no one is contesting my right or my duty to practice and teach gongfu.  Politics is not a rational process.   Lineages are a political tool, not a rational one, and certainly not scientific.

Perhaps I accidentally implied that no lineages are real.  Shaman, Wu, Tangki, magicians, even puppeteers pick disciples to whom they give the responsibility of passing on a classical art or ritual tradition.  In India, Japan and China the disciple is often a family member, but if the extended family hasn't produced any suitable offspring, a disciple will be adopted.

The more illegal (remember legal/illegal is a continum in China) an art is, the more likely it is to be secretive.   Also, magicians, martial arts and ritual experts usually had good reasons to keep trade secrets close to their chests.  Lineages served this political purpose well.  The early 20th century ridiculed secretive behavior none the less, and people at least pretended that all their secrets had been revealed. (I believe Cheng Man Ch'ing wrote a book on  Tai Chi book called, "There Are No Secrets.")

I don't believe there are real historical martial arts lineages which were devoid of performance, ritual, religion, or rebellion.  But lineage, by its nature, is a changing thing and could certainly purge itself of these aspects and remain a lineage.  But be suspicious, a martial art that has had a lot of purging will also have a lot of inexplicable baggage.  It's a lot easier to assess the value of an art when you have the whole thing intact, and NOBODY seems to have that!

I suspect there was some previous era where martial arts were shared freely.  Buddhist temples had open courtyards where locals could get together and practice.  Villages had clan halls where people could get together and practice.  I think there was always some paranoia, but it may have been more like basketball secrets.  Every village and every temple sponsored a team, and everyone wanted the quality of their competing teams to be high--so after dominating for a few seasons-- you traded coaches.

I'm optimistic that the commercial world is leading us into an era of great sharing.

If there was a "how to" martial arts literature prior to the Ching Dynasty, it seems lost to us now.  Martial arts have come down to us primarily as the arts of the illiterate.  I do believe at one time martial arts were "high-culture." The evidence for that is in the philosophical literature of the Waring States Era.  It is entirely possible that the Tang and Song Era had these too,  but perhaps they were destroyed during the years of Mongol rule.

The other group of people who have lineages are Daoist Priests, Daoshi.  Daoism is a lineage tradition, everyone given the title Daoshi was included in a lineage and each individual teaching or text had its own lineage.  In the event that someone set off on their own and created some new supportive practice or teaching, after a generation or so it/they would be incorporated/adopted into existing lineages.  Scholars have their doubts about just how far back some of these lineages go, but no one doubts that they do go way back.  But it is also true that most of these lineages are secret. The ones we know about are the ones that stopped being secret to some extent.  I suspect that martial artists, beginning in the Ching Dynasty, started imitating Daoist (and Buddhist) ideas of lineages.  Martial arts may not have had lineages before that.

Then again their may have been secret Daoist lineages of martial arts.  As Shahar points out in his book Shaolin Temple, the popular literature of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties grew out of theater and is perpetually making fun of Daoists, Buddhist, officials, and martial heroes (xia) with their secret techniques.

I've been looking through the index to the Ming Dynasty Daoist Cannon (Daozang) which was just published last year.  There are a lot of texts which describe physical practices in conjunction with ritual, purification, astrology, meditation etc... There may even be a few texts which are primarily movement oriented (requiring lineage transmission, of course), but I see nothing resembling martial arts.  If such texts ever existed they are either still hidden, or they were destroyed 900 years ago a long with thousands of other texts during the Yuan Dynasty.

3-D Feeling

The first chapter of the Daodejing (Laozi) begins;

The Dao that can be spoken is not the constant Dao,

The names that can be named are not the true name,

(Dao ke dao fei chang Dao, ming ke ming fei chang ming)

Generally, "names" is understood to mean four things: actual words, images, concepts, and metaphors.

This is not an outright rejection of these four types of "names."  The chapter deals with how "naming" functions in relationship to experience.  (See this previous post on the Quest for Power.)

In order for a human body to function it must have a mind.  Minds move bodies.  How do minds do this?  I'm not seeking a "scientific" explaination here.  I'm asking, how do we experience the process?

Can a human be still?  The answer is no, it is not possible to be still (even in death).  Only relative stillness is possible.  In relative stillness, the mind continues to move the body.  It is fair to say mind and body are inseparable, and for this reason Orthodox Daoism teaches that in stillness practices the mind should be given no more attention than a toe or a rib.  Every square millimeter of the body is a cherished blessing.

However, Daoism and Tantric Buddhism sometimes use "visualizations" within their stillness practices; and they certainly use "visualizations" when practicing ritual.  The beginning visualizations are often military, generals or characters known for extraordinary discipline.  The images then transition towards subtler, softer, and lighter images.

Infinite architectural design

But the terms "visualization," "images," or "picturing" are not adequate terms to describe this process of mind.  It might be better to think of them as 3 dimensional feelings.   For a human to function we need to feel.  We need to feel in 3 dimensions.  Any movement we do is organized by a 3 dimensional feeling.  It is as if this 3dFeeling holds us together and gives us order.

When we are walking down the street, we have a particular 3dFeeling.  We need this feeling to function, without it we wouldn't be able to stand, walk, or look around.  These 3dFeelings are infinite, even this particular 3dFeeling we use for walking is infinite. But it is the kind of infinite that happens within boundaries.  That particular 3dFeeling is very stable, it is changeable, but it doesn't change very much.  However, when we were children learning to walk, that particular 3dFeeling was very unstable.  Each time we tried to find it, it was a little different, we had to learn to replicate the same 3dFeeling day after day in order to walk like the adults around us.  As a teenager, I decided my walk wasn't cool enough and I actively changed this 3dFeeling, which in turn changed my walk to the degree that my new cooler walk became automatic and unconscious.

The affects of a particular 3dFeeling are sometimes noticed by other people.  We say, "That guy looks like he has a dark cloud over his head," or, "She looks like she is about ready to break out in song!"

These Daoist and Tantric Buddhist 3dFeeling-stillness-ritual-practices free us from the 3dFeeling habits we have developed through our lives.  They un-lock the absolutely normal everyday 3dFeelings which order our movements, giving us the ability to be at play with 3dFeelings.

This is what we call an adept.  This is what we call the earthly immortal "dancing with qi."  Internal martial arts  are simply not internal if they lack this type of freedom.  And it is freedom, not power.   It is potency, not a tool.  Yes, applied to fighting, it can unleash unstoppable power.  Yes, applied to healing, it seems to produce amazing results.  But to use it as a tool is to limit it.  The adept cherishes freedom, accepts fate, and leaves his/her potency unexpressed.  But even this freedom is not the Constant Dao, it is only a "name."