Ailerons

Many people have pointed out that Taijiquan may be an art designed to keep the dynamic quality of our sea legs, while on land.  It is at least designed to get us to give up the predictability of our land legs.  The image often repeated in both martial arts and Chinese medicine of the dantian being an ocean would somewhat support this thesis to.  Shirley seamen realized that the gentle pitching and rolling of the ocean was good for the internal organs.  Perhaps they wanted to keep that quality of health once they gave up the sea life.

So naturally I recommend people try doing their taijiquan on a boat sometime.  I would recommend you try it on an airplane too, but now-a-days that will likely get an over reaction from your fellow air travellers.

Still, if we were making up a new martial art today we would have to consider that by far the most potent images of balance and power are fighter jets.

The first attempts at making an airplane had to solve the problem of creating lift and steering, but once those problems were solved the airplanes still didn't stay in the air because air is not even.  In order to keep an airplane in the air one must constantly correct the pitch and the roll.

That's what ailerons do.  And that is what internal martial arts must do too.  To generate continuious power while maintaining circular motion requires constant correction.  To have unbroken balance and power we must always have an active correction mechanism which allows for adjustments of up and down, front and back, left and right and spiral twisting.  These adjustments must all be simultaneous, we never sacrifice one dimension for another.

Are ailerons a good metaphor for this?

Distinguishing Jing and Qi (part 2)

Musicians must learn to distinguish between jing and qi.

Most of you don't know that I studied Indian Classical Tabla drumming.  You can hear me playing on a few of my Youtube videos, but don't go back and listen to them for that reason alone, because I never got especially good.  I did, however, approach the study of Indian Classical music the way I approached everything in my twenties--that is, I practiced like crazy (four hours a day for several years).

In Indian music there is a virtuoso  rhythmic pattern which repeats three times called a tihai.  Tihais can be long or short, they come in many different types and they are amazing to hear.  But at the highest level, the level of the greatest musicians, there are actually only two types of tihais, ones from the heart and ones from the mind.

Both of these two types of tihais are improvised.  Tihais from the mind blow you away with their perfect blend of structural precision and complexity.  Tihais from the heart are more difficult for me to explain, they are more relational, emotional, and transcendent.

Zakir Hussein said that when he plays tihais he is actually making and seeing multi-dimensional geometric patterns in his mind.  Ali Akbar Khan said that he is playing with pure light.

When we really play music, our mind is not on the notes, the time signatures, beats, or scales.  When we really play music we want to express mood, sentiment, and emotion.  It's not usually raw emotion either, it is what we might call a crystalline form of emotion--Emotion which has already been explored, plumbed, completed or even resolved.

One's mind must not be focused on the musical details of technique, composition, or if I understand the Indian master's explanations above correctly--our minds shouldn't be on the music either.
In music as in internal martial arts, one must separate jing and qi--the physicality from what animates it.  

Monkey View

Monkey sees the peach and up the tree he goes. He doesn't think about climbing the tree, he thinks about the peach.

If he wants the peach badly enough, he may completely bypass the difficulty of climbing, but he may also miss the subtlety of the bark or the softness of the leaves. The peach may even be part of a trap set to capture him.

If you want to make a movement you are doing more difficult-- think about it. If you think too much about running while you are running, you are likely to trip over your own feet.

Many martial artists are motivated by fear or insecurity. Of course, if those were your only motivations, you wouldn't be human, you'd be a ghost. But it is worth thinking about. If you're training for self-defense, it is likely that you are afraid of being attacked. If you are training to look attractive to potencial mates, it is likely that you feel insecure about your current appearance.

The fruition, the peach if you will, of pursuing training motivated by fear, is of course, more fear. Likewise, the peach of training to look more attractive is more insecurity. Fear and insecurity have no end.

A lot of people train because they believe they are likely to be the victims of violence and it often turns out to be a self fulfilling prophecy.

Your view, your default understanding of why you practice, is more important than any other factor in martial arts or qigong type training. If your view is narrow, like that of the monkey going after the peach, you may indeed have very clear fruition. You may get what you want, provided what you want is not a fantasy. A very narrow focus is useful for bypassing obstacles and difficulties, but you will also bypass all the other potencial types of fruition. The narrowness of your view may turn out to be its own trap.

I suggest students practice with the widest most open ended view possible. The term view as a metaphor for motivation, understanding, orientation, and purpose is particularly brilliant because it parallels how the eyes should be used in training. Don't lock your eyes on a point, take the widest possible view.

If you practice with a broad view, you will love forms.  Set routines, or forms, are great because they teach you to forget.  When you practice a form over and over and over, it becomes automatic.  You can completely forget the movement, in fact you should. Once a form becomes automatic you can do all sorts of experiments.  You can make an infinite number of subtle or dramatic changes to the quality of the form.  You can also do an infinite number of experiments with your mind.

Ex-Romantics

I'm Mr. Negative (Mr. "Nego" for short) when it comes to Romantic ideas like; "You've just got to believe," or "Everyone has an inner Genius waiting to be revealed," or "Revolution now," or "Peace," or "How do you feeeeel about it?," or "I need a cleanse," or "Inner truth is found through embracing the mystery," or "Natural is better than synthetic."

There are a lot more of those slogans which define the rigid Romantic mind-set. I could go on ridiculing it all day, but I won't. Sometimes natural is better than synthetic, sometimes not. The reason I bring this up at all is that I used to be a Romantic, I used to believe all that stuff, so I'm sympathetic. I viscerally understand why this kind of simplicity is appealing.

Actually I'm more than sympathetic. As pathetic as this might sound-- being a Romantic was a gateway to learning about the body, the mind, martial arts, and Daoism.

If I can point my students in the direction of a bridge, that is preferable to gate, but if a gate is the only thing they see, then by all means, they should take the gate!

Trusting the Circle

One of the first obstacles a push-hands student has to overcome is the tendency to either pincer or be "against the wall."

To pincer means to bring your forearms towards each other in an attempt to squeeze off your opponent's forward attack.  A pincer motion will compress the shoulders  creating a rigid defense.

To be "against the wall" is the opposite of pincering.  It means to pull your arms away from each other as if you were falling back against a wall and you wanted to cushion yourself by having your completely spread arms hit the wall first, palms to the front.

Pincering and "against the wall" are impulses, they don't need to taken to their complete expression-- the smallest hint of either is a mistake.

Instead of these two, we learn to make a circle with our arms.  If my opponent attacks from the outside of my circle, I make it bigger.  My arms don't have to be touching each other but the arc of each arm should be on the same circle as the other arm (they should feel connected).  The most common defect here would be to push up against the attack instead of just making the circle bigger.  (This defect will force a reversal from your opponent.)

If my opponent attacks form the inside of my circle, I make the circle smaller.  The two arcs of your arms can overlap.  The most common defect with this one is pushing downward, (which will also cause a reversal).

Once the technique is mastered the opponent attacks with one arm inside the circle and one arm outside the circle.  So that you have to create two circles (arcs or partial rings really).  Then you add turning in the kua (hip region).

Once these techniques have been internalized, it becomes much easier to trust the circle.  An attack in which you can feel your opponent's jin or power, can be stopped by keeping and changing the circle.

Push Hands: Small Circle, Big Circle

Small Circle push-hands is a rules set which can have moving feet, but really ought to be learned with fixed feet first.  Small circle push-hands allows no grabbing, slapping or striking.  You can only do peng, ji, lu, and an.  The reason it is called small circle is because you are trying to develop peng, ji, lu, and an (ward off, push/poke, draw inward, cover/contain) in a continuous circle, no breaks, no moments of intermittent force.  Small circle push-hands can be completely improvised or it can follow a set sequence.
Once you have established small circle push-hands there are lots of subtler games that can be played from it.

Big Circle push-hands gets it's name because to play it one must break the small circle.  The rule set allows for grabbing (chin na), plucking (zai), elbow strikes, throws, and traps (zhou), forward strikes with the shoulder (kao), and two directional attacks to the opponent's frame which can be light swipes, slaps or sudden jolts(lieh).

Most people learn both big circle and small circle at the same time.  I think that is a mistake, the two rule sets should be clearly differentiated.   The question remains, which is better to learn first?

Small Circle push-hands is the heart of the game, but to deal with an aggressor you must know Big Circle push-hands cold.

The Coccyx and the Xiphoid

I could not find an image of a whole human torso in the mid-sagittal plane on the internet. Perhaps that is the reason why I am writing this post. (This project to map the body will be great when it is finished.)

Everyone that has even peeked at Traditional Chinese anatomical concepts is familiar with the du and ren channels which wrap the torso at the mid-sagittal plane. (The term du meaning governing, and the term ren meaning conception.) Basically, one goes along the back of the torso and other goes along the front. The coccyx and the xiphoid process run along these meridians.

The coccyx, otherwise known as the tail bone, and the xiphoid process, located at the very bottom of the sternum, are simular in many ways. They are both bones which attach at one end to another bone and at the other end appear to be reaching out into the abyss. They are both joints. They are both capable of movement much like the tip of a finger. Most people have little awareness of either, and it is even rarer that someone would comment on their mobility, or mention the two of them in the same breath.

They are in fact connected together. A ligament extends from the bottom of the sternum straight down to the pubic bone which is then connected by a series of bifurcating ligaments to the coccyx.

The xiphoid process is involved with breathing and it touches the diaphragm. Ligaments also come down from the back of the diaphragm along the front side of the spine all the way to the tip of the coccyx.

If force along this plane is diverted to the left or the right by tension or irregularly shaped bones it will be diminished. Feel the connection between these two important bones and joints. Check to see if you transfer power directly between them along the ligaments. If not, you will want to improve that connection, it will improve your overall alignment and power.

The Heart

Summer is the season of the heart and bitter is the flavor recommended to help with the transition into Summer. In Summer the main change in our practice is that we try not to sweat.

The average human heart beats about 3 billion times and then it stops. The logic of doing exercise which increases the speed at which your heart beats is that after you finish exercising your heart will beat slower than it would have if you hadn't exercised at all. So although you'll use up a whole bunch of beats in that hour of aerobics, you'll more than regain the number of beats you lost in the 23 hours until your next workout. If you exercise regularly it will likely take you more years to reach 3 billion beats.
It's a good theory.

My sister is a swimmer. She loves to race and she trains hard. One of the ways she trains endurance is that she will time herself swimming a given distance as fast as she can. She then immediately takes her pulse. Instead of trying to swim faster the next time, she tries to swim the same distance in the same time, but with a lower heart rate.

Chinese martial arts, particularly the internal arts of bagua, xingyi, and taijiquan, use a simular strategy during the summer months. We try to practice as fast as we can without increasing our heart rates. Some practitioners actually take their pulse in the "play the pipa" posture or another posture where the fingers go to the wrist. But that isn't necessary.

With a little practice it is possible to become very sensitive to the feeling of the pores of your skin opening and closing. You can in fact gain some control over this process, but simply monitoring your pores will tell you if your heart rate is increasing. Of course the pores open to release sweat, and that is what is meant by the proscription to "practice not sweating."

Another way to lower your heart rate, improve your stamina and perhaps lengthen your life span is to attend to the center of your palms. The acupuncture point on the center of your palm is actually about one inch in diameter. It is called the Laogong point (Pericardium 8) and it is associated with the heart. (The name Laogong means "palace of toil.") The center of the palm should remain relaxed. If it hardens, it is likely that your heart is working harder. You can feel your heart in your palms, you can feel an increase in blood surge. You can even feel your pulse continuously while you are doing the form, but that isn't recommended because it requires excessive concentration, which isn't very relaxing.
In bagua, xingyi, and taijiquan (most obviously in the movement lu), the center of the palm is actually pulled back. This can be done manually by expanding the elbow which creates a vaccum which then sucks the center of the palm back up toward the elbow. But that just helps you get the feeling. In actual practice the martial arts postures allow the heart to move effortlessly backwards and down (the kidneys move forward and up) creating a feeling of connectedness between your palms and your heart.

Note: There is no way someone with this knowledge could get carpel tunnel syndrome.

Training tip

I've decided to add a new category called training tips.  These will obviously consist of preliminary steps one can take to achieve perfection.
Try to connect your arm to the opposite side ribs in everything you practice-- forms, single movement  practice, resistance practice, push-hands, opening the car door, whatever.

The bones naturally spiral in such a way that the opposite side ribs are often more important for support and connection than the same side ribs are.  When using both arms, this practice will give you the feeling that your arms are crossing on the inside--since each arm is extending and contracting from the opposite side ribs simultaneously.

It will also give you the feeling of having more leverage in push-hands because your arm is effectively longer. Enjoy.

Notice: In the picture from DKImages, the force goes from the left forward knuckle to the right side of the upper back.