The "Balloon-Suit"
We all have internal/imagined models for the things that we do, so I thought I'd share the general visualization that I use for movement with qi, jin, breath, and dantian, just as a matter of perspective and in case it helps anyone.
The qi-tissues of the body are nominally the involuntary-muscle and fascia tissue systems that are more or less under the control of the subconscious/unconscious mind. In other words, generally speaking, we usually learn to control these systems, to the limited degree that we can, by imagining scenarios accurately and thus getting our subconscious mind to activate the proper involuntary-muscle/fascia system. For one example, I can imagine that I am at a beach on a hot day, laying with my hands slightly under the warm sands … and my subconscious will begin to accommodate this scenario by loosening the involuntary-muscles within the vascular systems of my hand.
A second example could be my receiving a push to my forearm and I relax my body and lower back, imagining a straight line from my forearm to my back foot (keeping my weight over the foot so that I don't use it as a simple brace): the body involuntary systems will try to fulfill my visualizations and a structure will form as a result of my visualization and the helpful subconscious (this is the meaning of "Xing Yi", BTW).
The qi-tissues tend to fall, in my personal model, into two basic categories: (1.) the qi-tissues that are related to voluntary-involuntary breathing/breath and (2.) the qi-tissues that are purely under the control of the subconscious. The qi-tissues associated with the breath can be partially controlled and coordinated by the voluntary mind and partially by the subconscious-mind/brainstem, so those respiratory/breath tissues and involuntary muscles are a type of dual-control tissues. The other qi-tissues are pretty much only controlled by the subconscious and you need to train and/or "meditate" in order to gain some indirect control over these types of systems. "Meditation" in a lot of eastern cultures has to do with building a rapport between the conscious mind and abilities … and the subconscious mind and its abilities. The most common subconscious-only controlled tissues that we deal with in the Chinese/Japanese martial arts are the tissues that provide the force manipulation skills, also known as jin, kokyu, and other terms.
The "suit" image or model that I tend to use is of the body as a sort of air-filled human-shaped balloon that is covered from head to toe with a skin-tight "suit", very similar to the lycra leotard/tights that a dancer might wear. One of the important attributes to my imaginary model of a "suit" is that you can selectively cause different areas of the suit to contract with a reverse-breath inhale. For example, I can dangle my arm while leaning forward slightly. With a reverse-breath inhale I can cause superficial tissues of the arm and shoulder (and back and chest, etc.) to contract, moving the arm slightly forward, or slightly away from the side of the body, or slightly backward, and so on. Since the power of the tissues isn't very great, at first most people can only move the arm (in this example) slightly with the inhale. The idea is to gradually strengthen these tissues and areas of the "suit" so that it adds to our forces, partially by contraction, but largely by connecting the powerful lower body to the upper body so that, for instance, arm power largely is a product of the power of the lower body that is conveyed upward by the winding and pulling of the fabric of the "suit".
In order to pull the extremities with the suit, the fabric of the suit must be very lightly stretched and connected from the middle to the extremities or other area, as needed. For instance, to "move the hand with the dantian" implies that there is a tensile connection between the dantian and, say, the fingers. If there is a wrinkle in our imaginary fabric, a pull at the dantian dies at the wrinkle in the material.
Many of the traditional postural considerations in the Chinese/Japanese martial arts have to do with keeping the tensile connection of the "suit" (qi-tissue connections) in a balanced, overall light connection. With a balanced, overall connection, the dantian can at any moment pull on any part of the body. For this reason, holding the head up at the crown helps to keep the faint tensile connect down the back to the Mingmen (which is just the back side of the Dantian); so the back is "raised". Sinking the dantian and crotch pulling downward helps to keep the tissues of the chest and inner arms connected to the dantian at all times: "sink the chest". Keeping the armpits slightly open prevents the formation of a "wrinkle" that could hinder the pull from dantian to fingers. "Rounding the crotch" eliminates a major wrinkle between the suit fabric that connect the insides of the two legs (if your "Standing Post" isn't stretching the tissues of the crotch between the insides of each leg, you're missing something).
Rounding the elbows slightly keep the suit unhampered out to the hands and dropping the wrists slightly helps accentuate the dantian's pull through the wrist joint. Relaxing the lower back while softening the knees keeps the connection through the lower-back while allowing the buttocks to drop slightly (don't deliberately "tuck the buttocks", just allow them to drop). The point to remember is that a lot of postural considerations in the traditional Asian arts, including qigongs, have to do with maintaining a connected slightly-tensile network throughout the body. The main nexus of the tensile connections is the dantian near the navel/abdomen/lower-back, but secondary nexuses like the perineum, chest-sternum, and throat are also parts of the network.
Zhan Zhuang, or Standing Post exercise in Taijiquan, relies on a balanced, overall slight stretch in the tissues of the body as part of its training parameters.
Up to this point we have a human-shaped balloon model which can contract selected areas of the outer shell/skin of the balloon, at will. The balloon-suit contracts and pressurizes during a reverse-breath inhale and it relaxes and deflates somewhat on the exhale. Later in practice, the exhale will also involve some contraction of its own, but to start out, the exhales should involve a relaxing and depressurizing of the "suit". The reason you see a contraction-expansion-contraction-etc in most standing postures is because they are contracting on the inhale and expanding on the exhale.
For the moment, take note of the fact that using reverse breathing that involves the whole body will gradually increase bone density in the body, due to the many, many repetitions of contraction and release on the body. The same contraction and expansion of the 'suit' is also used in the store-and-release mechanism that is used for hitting, kicking, pushing, and so on.
Movement using the Suit
Essentially, a reverse-breath (which gradually just morphs into a control of the "suit" tension; not muscular tension) assists in one part of the body's surface/suit closing while at the same time causing the other parts of the suit to provide an elastic resistance. That elastic resistance will add to, supplement, or even replace the muscular effort required to Open that part of the suit under elastic tension. Think of the reverse-breath related tissues as the physical qi of the body that is the fabric of the 'suit'. Think of the tissues that provide force stressors on the frame as the ones mainly associated with the "intent" or "yi". The yi/intent tissues react almost purely to imagination: while standing still, it is possible to arrange force paths through the body from the ground to various directions or from the pull-down of the weight to various direction. The point is that traditionally, all movement is thought of as a function of the qi and the yi. The winding, twisting connections of the body, controlled at the dantian, are the qi, while the accompanying vector-force directions (peng, lu, ji, an) are the yi.
Proper, efficient movement is considered to be an endless cycle of the body unwinding up and Open and then winding inward and Close. This constant movement between the poles of Open and Close gives rise to the idea of "Tai Chi" (Taiji) and is illustrated in the types of symbol referred to as "Yin-Yang". ☯
When the body is fully Closed, with the elbows, knees, and lower back bent, there should be a tensile connection that can be felt from the thumbs, along the insides of the arms, down the front of the torso and inguinal region, down the insides of the legs to the big toes. When the body is fully Open, the elbows, knees, and lower back are straightened and a slight tensile connection can be felt from the little fingers, along the outside of the arms, down the back and the outside of the buttocks and legs, and along the outside of the foot to the little toes. As the body moves, this slight tensile connection will range through the various tensile "channels" of the body as the body goes from Open to Close through the intermediate channels.
Body movement is generally a case of taking the powerful movements of ground, legs, hips, and waist and letting them control/manipulate the arms and torso via the connection of the suit. So, in order to build up the suit's ability to manipulate forces, regular muscular strength must be sublimated while training the suit/qi-tissues to do the work, in conjunction with the jin/intent/yi forces.
Illustration of the connections for Open and Close:
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