Eyes and Baguazhang (continued)

In the fourth Palm Change (zhen), the eyes smoothly transition back and forth between looking far off into the distance and zeroing in on a point, like clouds forming and then dispersing and then forming again.

In the fifth Palm Change (li) the eyes are trained not to respond to, or get drawn off when arms come in and out of the field of vision. This is done by circling the arms in the coronal plane, while turning and walking. It is also used for training us to not blink when bursts of air or hands come suddenly toward the eyes.

In the sixth palm change (kan) the eyes do the same thing they do in the third palm change, but instead of spinning the body, the head looks spontaneously form side to side, creating a similar blur or whirl effect while doing the palm change.

Again, it is easy to imagine these uses of the eyes becoming different types of possession. The fourth, taken to extremes is what people who are manic look like after not sleeping for a few days.

The eyes of the fifth are important for any type of fighting, but would be dangerous walking through brush because we need to close our eyes quickly if a branch is snapping toward them. I know of an old Gongfu master who worked bank security and kept a bit of metal-filings dust in his pocket to throw in peoples eyes if necessary. Better hope your blink reflex is operating if that happens. Taken to a possessed extreme, these are the bug eyes we sometimes see on crazy people.

The eyes of the sixth can be many things, among them an Exorcist head spinning type of effect, also seen in African and Chinese possessions.

If it is not obvious already, there is some danger in trying these yourself. The danger is minor as long as you:

1. Are relaxed, the eyes should never ever feel like they are doing work.
2. Understand that you are learning what not to do.
3. Are comfortable trying to be just below average.
4. Know in your heart that cultivating weakness is O.K. because we humans are strong enough already.

Push-Hands and Arguing

Taijiquan is the art of not being defensive.

I grew up in a home where arguing was as important as food.  On a recent trip to Turkey I discovered that even in academic and journalistic circles, skill at arguing was very low.  People would argue but if, for instance, I said something like, “I think there are three distinct issues here,� they would get upset become defensive and the argument would lose it’s basis in rationality and civility.  Lack of free speech, years of propaganda, and a difference in culture all contributed to their assessment of me as too confrontational.

On the other hand, on the same trip I went to Israel where several people confided to me, in admiration, that I don’t argue; instead I discuss things clearly and articulately.   I thought the contrast and the comments were quite funny.  Israel is one the few places in the world where a person can get into an argument at a bus stop with a complete stranger and feel like you are making new friends.

Arguing probably releases dopamine into my system, it is my element.  There is no greater complement you can pay me than to convince me I am wrong.

Push hands is similar.  Like arguing, it often reveals more about an individual’s nature and skill, than it proves right or wrong.  Just because you win, doesn’t mean your idea or skill will work in the real world.  When I argue with someone of lesser skill I don’t attack the weak parts of their argument.  Instead I go after the parts I think are the strongest, the points that are most central,  and are the most likely to change one of our opinions.

Push hands is the same.  If I’m pushing with someone better than myself, I’m keenly aware of the smallest possible error they may make.  Even if I find an error I may not be able to use it against them, my purpose is to learn what they are doing so that I can replicate it myself.  Only by deeply understanding the core of their idea can I have any hope of winning.

On the other hand, like arguing with someone who has less skill than I do, if I’m pushing-hands with someone of lesser skill, I don’t try to win by attacking them where they are weak, I try to beat them at their strongest point.  I handicap myself so that we can both learn and improve.

Push hands is not fundamentally about winning.  It is a kind of intimacy.  Too many people push-hands defensively.  Push-hands and arguing are the same, when someone becomes defensive we both stop learning.

A Non-Epiphany Art

Chinese Martial arts and Qigong from a Daoist point of view are non-transcendent traditions.

These arts are primarily about revealing the way things actually are, they are not self-help or self-improvement regimes.

However, most people are on a transcendent path. We want to improve ourselves. We want to heal. Or we want to get a 'leg up' on the next guy, spiritually, morally, physically, or intellectually. So most of us regularly, and all of us sometimes, practice these arts in a transcendent way. We try to get better!

The basic Daoist outlook is that life is not a struggle, we're alright the way we are. We're nice enough, strong enough, smart enough, and we have enough qi. Practice is just a way of tuning our appetites for exercise, stillness, sleep, fighting, nutrition, contact with other people, etc.... We are naturally disciplined and curious.

This outlook is sometimes framed in a quasi-transcendent way as a simplification process, a letting go, a returning to our original nature(s).

Thus, epiphanies are really not part of the tradition. Now and then we learn a trick, or discover something cool, and we get excited. But it's not like most Yoga classes, where people brag about being filled with the glorious pure light of the universe everyday, before knocking back a double soy latte, jumping in the hybrid for an hour commute and then punching the clock.

Anyway, in almost 30 years of practice I've actually had two epiphanies.

1. After years of practicing with very low stances and yet constantly hearing "sink your tail-bone," "go lower," and "song;" one day I did just that, I sank my tail-bone. I simply understood on a kinesthetic level what my teachers had been trying to teach, and from then on I did it correctly.

2. After doing a couple years of chansijin (taijiquan silk reeling exercises), one day my chest just relaxed. For a week after that my appetite for food dropped to about half a meal a day. Presumably I was using so much effort keeping my chest up, that when I stopped my body had some reserves left to run on. After a week my appetite came back, but it's been a little smaller ever since that day.

Baguazhang: Please don't hurt me!

I hope this blog riles some people up.

The basic circle walking style with the hands out to the side and fingers open is utterly unique to baguazhang. Unique of course unless you're an actor and you've had to play a sneaky, frightened character who is trying to get around the outside of a fight in order to make off with the money, (like mister Pink at the end of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs).

In Capoeira there is an idea called poison and honey. Here is how it works. One tries to appear submissive and vulnerable in such a way that it will draw an attacker into a trap. For example, it looks like you could step on my leg, but when you try to do so you get kicked or swept by my other leg.

We all know that Baguazhangs's open and extended fingers  are used to develop a type of power training. But they really look like an enticement to grab that will perhaps trap the attacker. Even so, the side walking with hands out is pretty much what anyone trying to walk around someone else's fight would do.

Hunch up like a turtle or a rabbit while doing the walk and you'll really look scared and pathetic. Is this part of the tradition? Could it be that the original inventors of Baguazhang were trying to synthesize the qualities of a frightened body with the qualities of a fearless body? (Here I'm talking about before Dong Haichuan, since I don't find the single inventor story all that credible.)

P.S. The great picture above is of Dr. Her Yue Wong founder of the Ching Yi Kung Fu Acadamy.

P.P.S. Capoeira Science has great videos!

Balance

It is a standard of Chinese martial arts that one should cultivate balance. When I learned my first broad sword form (wuhudao) my teacher, Bing Gong, had me learn it with the sword in the left hand because I am left handed. This meant that I had to learn a mirror image of the form he did. Being the precocious kid that I was, I taught myself the right hand too.Later a second teacher, George Xu, taught me another sword form (baxianjian). At the beginning I suggested that perhaps I should learn it left handed. His response was memorable, and classic gongfu-teacher-speak, "You don't have any idea how to use either hand...yet." (I learned it right handed.)

Balance can be measured or assessed in a number of different ways. Here is a short list which I will elaborate on in a future post:

TYPES OF BALANCE

• What is Comfortable to use: One's preference for left or right can be balanced by using the "good side" less

• Body shape and size (including balancing muscles on the left with muscles on the right). Think losing muscle to get to balance, instead of building muscle to get there.

• Weight distribution (front to back and side to side)

• Range of motion (functional range of motion and optimal range of motion.)

• Muscle strength or weakness as distinct from size

• Ability to move qi, fluids, micro-articulation of circles (or other shapes)

• Since the internal organs are never balanced in terms of weight and size they can be balanced in the sense that they can all be felt with equal clarity.

• Multiple layers of qi. Starting a Weiqi (the feeling of the surface of the body) and then going inward layer by layer, sensing left to right, front to back or top and bottom.

• Balance is also part of complete embodiment. What feels balanced?

• Lack of balance in range of motion lower down in the body effects the verticalness of the spine and all angles above the hips? The levelness of the hips dramatically effects the verticalness of the spine.

• Fighters know that you can have a 'blind spot,' a place in your preception where you don't sense things very well. For instance punches that come from a certain angle are more likely to hit you. These can and should be 're-embodied.

Measuring what Doesn't Happen

The notion of gongfu is new to the world outside of China. Within Chinese civilization gongfu is most certainly not new, but it's fair to say that there are new permutations, qigong as a distinct category being one of them.
Innumerable different methods and styles of qigong have made it into the 21st century. The rush of modernism everywhere has been quick to cast aside what seems worthless in a mad rush to discover and promote whatever will produce short term benefits. In this rush qigong has been stripped of context and pigeon-holed as just a health practice, a way to become powerful, or a mystical fantasy. Does the world need new fantasies? does it need new ways of becoming more powerful? If we take these explanations at face value there is no need to try and understand the origins or the real intent behind the creation and preservation of qigong. I think qigong deserves a closer look.

The experience of practicing qigong for a period of many years is not one of heroic accomplishment, it is more likely one of satisfying blandness.

The effects of qigong are difficult to measure by looking directly into the practice itself, there is more to notice if we look outwards. Our daily interactions with the world is the place where we are most likely to notice the impact of this increased sensitivity and ease.

If qigong is the practice of not leaving a mark on our bodies, then a possible result of working in the garden all day is that our back doesn't hurt. Absolutly worthwhile, yet in the short term it's difficult to measure something, that doesn't happen.

Yes, I know there is such a thing as an "outcome study," where we look at the incidence of say diabetes in the general population and see if a sample of qigong practitioners have a lower incidence rate.  Or we look at survival rates for a sample of people with a terminal disease  who practice qigong verses those who don't.  However the nature of a personal qigong practice, by definition, varies so much, and indeed personal commitment to practice varies so much, that getting a sample on the scale of a 100 or a 1000 people just doesn't seem likely.

So qigong is likely "falsifiable" only in the sense that you can do your own personal experiments.

How Physical Therapy Rattles Qigong

A by product of all the enthusiasm that is generated around sports are changes in the way medicine is practiced. (Enthusiasm about medicine has also changed the way sports are practiced.) Sports medicine is designed to get players back on the field as soon as possible so they can play again. The practice of building up muscle around injuries functions like pain killers, making it possible to return to the sport before the injury has fully healed because tense muscles limit sensitivity to pain, as well as mobility.

This principle is now applied in order to get people back to work faster, to resist all sorts of joint and back pain, and to 'fight' aging. This approach inhibits the natural healing process. From the point of view of Daoism this is a form of aggression known as 'attempting to put off your fate.' Eventually it returns (to all of us) and usually with a vengeance. (see chapter 30 of the Daodejing)

I'm not attempting here to accurately represent the methods of physical therapists, a constantly changing field, which is particularly skilled at getting people walking again after surgery. What I am suggesting is that common notions of how healing works can be obstacles to understanding and practicing qigong. A Qigong approach to relieving pain is to increase circulation to any areas of tension so that the possibilities of healing can take place. We stabilize the area with precise and balanced alignment and we practice moving in alignment within a smaller range of motion. In essence, we create a safe enough environment to let relaxation happen, dissolve tension, and let whatever healing can happen, happen.

Pain tells us an injury has taken place. Pain is often associated with tension. If the injury is so serious that no one thinks it will ever heal, than perhaps building strength (ie. more tension and with time, insensitivity) is the best option. It is a situations in which "you are trying to dig a well after you are already thirsty."(Nei jing,Classic of Chinese Medicine, Commentary on the Inner Classic or Chinese Medicine)

On the other hand, if the injury is associated with an area of strength, or chronic tension, and is exacerbated by habitually tense movement or posture, than strengthening more muscles will make the problem worse in the long run. In the short run the problem may appear to go away because it has been obscured...... but this is not true healing.

Strength and Modernism

The worldwide movement called 'modernism' seems to insist on squeezing everything 'traditional' to see what can be extracted of value. This view assumes that what is of value in tradition can and should be extracted from the valueless mumbo jumbo of belief and superstition. What this aggressive view misses when applied to internal arts is that they have already been refined many times- every generation goes through a process of unfolding the material of the past and making it their own. Internal arts, and gongfu in general, are super concentrated already.

When this 'separate out the chafe from the wheat' notion of modernism is applied to qigong, qigong seems to weaken and wither away. If we insist on examining qigong from the point of view of Modern medicine for instance, or sport based athleticism, at best qigong will appear to be mild hypochondria or a fantasy. It will seem too insignificant, too slow, too ineffective, and too boring!

But don't let that get you down. What happens if we turn the table around and use qigong to examine these other two? Modern medicine seems obsessed with inconclusive tests and invasive procedures, it's way too much- way too late. Sports look like competition induced trance, as a way to achieve glory with out sensitivity.

Such attempts to 'cross reference'-- or as the cliche goes, 'meld east and west'-- are delicate projects which too often bring with them a kind of enthusiasm which lacks sensibility. Fields of knowledge have their own inherent logic only when considered in context. We don't use molecular biology to analyze traffic congestion, or shipbuilding to analyze pastry making. This being said, indulge me in this brief look at what weight lifting is from a qigong point of view. I am often in situations of trying to explain qigong to people who lift weights. Normally I try to use language and terms which bring them into conversation comfortably, rarely do I get to explain what it is like to look out at the world from the perspective of someone practicing qigong. Here goes.

Weight lifters carefully damage muscles and other soft tissues a little bit at a time causing contractions in all the soft tissues around these minor injuries, generally restricting the circulation of qi. This then causes the muscles to grow larger and more rigid in order to reduce future injury to themselves and other soft tissues. Most people do it for the look or the feeling of strength. This suggests that they started out feeling weak, or are perhaps drawn to an idealized image of what they could be. Others lift weights because the work they do or the sports they play are characterized by regular injuries, the added bulk gives them some protection, and the reduced circulation makes it possible to sustain small injuries without feeling them.

The work and exercise people do often leaves a regrettable mark on their bodies. On the other hand, if you are good enough to play for the Chicago Bulls, do it! Why resist? Some fates are easier to unravel than others.

If my arguments seem to strong, perhaps there is a resolution. Daoism has always held that there needs to be many different ways for different people to fulfill their natures and that despite apparent differences we are all participants in a larger collective body and we actually need each other to be different in order to support a community, or a community of communities. The world is big enough for many different ways of being. My guess is that weight lifting has its true roots in the skillful wielding of heavy weapons and that perhaps what seems like two diametrically opposing views actually has a resolution in the practice of martial arts, something close to my heart.

If after reading this you still wish to lift weights, my suggestions are: Be graceful, develop evenly, and use loss of movement range as a measure of when you've gone to far. I will venture that the real distinction between muscular strength and muscular tension is: Strength happens where you want it to happen, tension happens where you don't want it to happen.

In the practice of qigong we do not want strength or tension and we tend to follow this simple adage: If it feels like strength-- it's tension! Qigong practitioners are adept at releasing unwanted tension from anywhere in their bodies.

Martial Arts approaches to Training

"Be uncontentious and no one can compete with you"  (Dao de Jing)

In recent years a lot of qigong that is popularly taught has been categorized as martial arts qigong.  (I think it is mistake to use this category in the first place, but if we do use it we will have to divide it up further.)  This would be qigong created by and for people who were put in the position of needing to fight.

Traditionally in China the army was filled by both volunteers and draftees.  Resisting the draft often carried the penalty of killing the resister's entire family, so Chinese armies often represented diverse segments of the population.  This fact and the cultural diversity of China naturally led to a wide diversification of approaches to the warriors' life.  People expected to have to go to war, some trained for it from an early age and some did not.  Again, differing views created different  approaches to qi gong, or in this case military training

For convenience, I've broke the topic up into three main traditions.
The first tradition is trance induced fighting and is very old.   The idea here is that winning is more important than living.  Winning is so good and loosing is so bad that it would be worse to come back a looser than to die giving it your all.   The best example of this is trance possession, war dances.  A milder form is the haranguing that happens at sporting events.

The second military tradition would be training to build stamina and resist pain.  If you imagine yourself suddenly drafted into the military at age 14, the sooner you could freely thrust a long heavy spear, the better for your survival.  Training with weights and qi gong practices like Iron-t-shirt and forearm conditioning are all good examples.

The third martial tradition is the so called neijia (inner arts) which includes taijiquan, xing yi and bagua.  This type has the flavor and reluctance characteristic of those who cultivate weakness.  In this tradition the battle field is viewed as an expression of qi.  The battle field substitutes for the body in which the smooth flowing of qi is a priority, not avoiding war, but being uncontentious.  Looking for resolution is different than trying to win, although winning may be necessary for your survival.  This is not a passive tradition, in fact attacking first can easily be the quickest cleanest resolution with the least loss of life on both sides. How this tradition came about is an interesting question I plan to continue exploring. Perhaps people who had been cultivating weakness, were drafted and this was a natural expression of their circumstance.  This third traditions takes the longest to develop usable skills, and seems like a privileged position with in a military world.

Chinese generals sometimes called themselves Daoists.   Perhaps they were trying to show affinity to certain chapters from the Dao De jing like the one at the top of this post.  There is no connection between generals who called themselves Daoists, and religious Daoist.  They had a completely different job description.

In reality, many training methods fall somewhere in between the three traditions I outlined above.  Shaolin quan is somewhere between the second and the third tradition, depending on how it is practiced.  Taiji quan can be practiced with flaring nostrils and ferocious growls.  It follows, of course, that in peoples attempts to preserve methods from generation to generation that these different traditions have often been combined or entangled, creating many hybrids and combinations of methods and views.

Tuishou vs. Roushou (push-hands vs. soft-hands)

Tuishou and roushou are what we might call martial arts parlor games. They are gentrified, limited two person fighting games.
For me, and many martial artists, tuishou and roushou are the arts of not becoming defensive.

How does this work?
On the emotional level one must train how to lose well before developing skill. The pride of winning is totally addictive. Because the parameters of both arts are strict limitations on actual fighting, someone who wants to win will keep trying to change the rules, or the parameters of the game. They will up the ante by, for instance, resetting their foot in a game of fixed foot tuishou. I often have a student handicap them selves so that they can practice losing to someone who is less skillful than they are. I tell beginners, the goal is to make your partner happy. To do this you have to really try to get to know your partner. If you practice correctly, an experience of intimacy replaces the desire to win.

How is this done?
There are many steps so I'm just going to cover a few of the ones that deal with undoing defensive responses.

First you must make and feel a ring shape with your arms (later it becomes a ball). Practicing very slowly at first, have your partner use their arms to make contact with your arms on the outside of your ring. Keeping contact your partner then slowly moves their hands toward your neck. A small increase in the size of your ring will arrest their progress (once they are stopped they should not keep trying but instead break contact and start again). This un-trains the defensive response often called against the wall, meaning using your back muscles to pull your arms apart (a reflex we use to protect our head and neck when falling backwards).

Second, you make the same ring but have your partner use their arms to make contact with the inside of your ring. Again they should proceed to attack your neck. Arrest the attack by making the ring smaller. This time you may have to also turn at the hip socket so that they don't touch your body, but shrinking the ring will stop their progress toward your neck. This un-trains the defensive response often called pincering, in which one uses chest and pectoral muscles to force the forearms together making a narrowing corridor shape with the arms.
Do not respond to these attacks by moving your arms up or down, just change the size of the ring. Then try the same thing with one arm inside the ring and one arm outside the ring. Repeat the exercise daily until it is second nature.

Once you have basic tuishou skills and you know how to keep your frame, you can try roushou. The big difference between the two is that roushou allows slapping with a soft hand. The basic rule is that I can only slap with as much force as I can get sliding off of my partner's defense. The harder or more actively my partner defends, the harder and more often they get hit. And of course, the same goes for me. So first you learn to defend lightly, than not to defend at all. Very cool.

Since both practices train sensitivity, it's fair to say that the muscularly stronger opponent has the disadvantage. Still it would be a mistake to say that we cultivate weakness because it gives us an advantage. The real reason for cultivating weakness is that it reveals our true nature. It's not that our true nature ever actually goes away, it's just that strength and the fears or fantasies that produce strength tend to obscure, or one might even say numb, our true nature.

Just a note: Searching google video for 'push-hands' gets lots of interesting results, but searching for 'roushou' gets nothing I would actually call roushou.  Time to make a video.