The Silly Magic of Asian Martial Arts versus Reality

 

Algorithm for learning the Basics of Internal Strength: A Universal Approach

 

A lot of people want some simple directions for getting their foot in the door for "internal strength", qigongs, and various martial-arts, so this article is an attempt to suggest basic goals and skills that will apply across many different Asian martial arts and qigongs.  It's nice to have a lot of academic discussions about the intricacies of "internal" practice, in our forum discussions, but without significant results it's all just a lot of talk and role-playing.  What are the keystone elements we should be examining and practicing?  Once we know and understand the key elements, what training actions can we apply across the board in Chinese martial arts, qigongs, and related studies?

 

First of all, remember that the Chinese martial arts and qigongs can be looked at as methods of developing the "internal strength" that has to do with the involuntary-muscle/fascia systems and the tendons and connective tissues (including the mesentery): these involuntary systems add to the normal muscle and bone strength.  So, if you are doing Taijiquan, Xingyiquan, Shaolin Northern Fist, Liu He Ba Fa, and so on, you can look at these methods as ways to develop your internal strength that also have a built-in method of fighting.  But primarily, we can look at the Chinese/Japanese martial arts systems as being children of internal-strength development.  That is their common denominator and that is why they wave the flag of the Yi-Yang symbol, the symbol of the continuous cycle of Open and Close: ☯

 

So, what would be productive first steps in the development of internal strength that would apply to all of the Chinese and Japanese martial arts.  Here, below, are my opinions of what to do in order to get a well-grounded start … and then some.

1.       Breath Practice: Reverse Breathing and Pulling-in the Tissues.

2.       Jin Practice: The practice and development of mind-directed force skills.

3.       Movement Practice: Moving against imagined resistance in mind-related directions (jin).

4.       Standing Practice:  "Condensing the qi" and holding jin directions in balanced, cohesive qi-tissues.

5.       Moving with the Dantian, if that's in the Art you choose to do.

 

The Two Basic Functional Qi's

 

The above recommendations are normally considered to be methods of "strengthening the qi", but it might be helpful to break the functional "qi" into two sub-branches.  Bear in mind that we're talking about the qi that is physical and not the myriad sub-groups of medical qi: medical qi definitions come from the physical qi-paradigm, but they are a later development and offshoot from the original qi-paradigm. 

The two "qi" sub-branches that I use are:

1.       The breath-related qi-tissues that can be controlled both voluntarily and involuntarily.

2.       The qi-tissues that must be controlled via imagery and rapport with the subconscious.

 

As a general rule, most qigong and martial practices are going to include some controls/practice of the body with both the breath-controlled qi and the mind-controlled qi, but let's give a quick example of a breath-controlled qi strengthening and a mind-controlled qi strengthening, for clarification.

 

If I stand in a Zhan Zhuang, with the Open and Close tissues of the body evenly stretched all over the body, the mind is used to generate various jin directions and hold them: sometimes jin in one direction and sometimes jin in six directions.  The rest of the body must be completely muscularly relaxed, the lower back relaxed, and the top of the head's weight is resting at the soles of the feet.  The jin parts of the standing posture are an example of the subconscious-only controlled parts of the qi.  The pulling-in and relaxing outward part of the tissues that is responding with the breath, that is an example of the breath-controlled qi (although there is always an element of mind-control in all movements).

 

Breath Exercises for Daily Practice

 

There is a more complete article on reverse-breathing in this 6H blog, so here I'm just going to hit the highlights of how's and why's.

 

Reverse Breathing is used to pull the tissues of the whole body into a slight elastic tension: the elastic tension adds to the powers of the muscles and skin of the body.  It is a mistake to treat reverse-breathing as a local, torso-only mechanism, as some people do.  The whole point of reverse breathing has to do with the "pulling-in" of the elastic body-wide qi and respiration tissues so that the elastic effect can be used to supplement our normal muscular strength.  There is also an accompanying increase in abdominal and bodily hydraulic pressure that accompanies reverse breathing and that pressure is considered a part of the qi-tissue-related strength.   Bear in mind that in order to optimize the use of the elastic qi-tissues of respiration, a person needs to re-coordinate the way he moves.  Moving the body-wide system with the dantian as the main pivot/locus is the optimum way of moving, but we'll discuss that further on.

 

At first, the pulling-in of tissues with the breath is most easily felt in the hands and finger of an extended and slightly stretched arm.  Gradually a person can feel the pulling-in over more and more of the body, particularly if they first stretch the tissues in that area of the body, first.  For instance, if I lean slightly backward with my arms out by my sides and stretched slightly backward, I can fairly easily feel the tissues stretch across my chest and along the insides of my arms and hands/fingers when I do a reverse breath.  Gradually, these tissues develop and the elastic strength of the whole body adds significantly to the total strength of the body.  Some people practice this inhale contraction of the body to the extent that they can rest a clean hand on a clean glass surface (like a large jar laying on its side), inhale, and pick up the jar without having to contract their fingers.  This trick is a common show of qi-development skills and it demonstrates that the involuntary muscles within the skin can gradually be strengthened so that the contraction of the skin is enough to cause the hand to adhere to a smooth surface.

 

A brief example of using the qi-tissues in a strike with the right elbow: inhale and elastically tension the tissues of the back and the outside of the right arm while moving the right arm toward the left, in front of the chest.  As you inhale with a reverse breath and move the arm, you should easily be able to feel how the reverse-breath inhale tensions the superficial tissues of the back and arm.  At peak inhale, sink suddenly and allow the sinking to squeeze the pressure in the torso, thus suddenly increasing the pressure and elasticity of the back/arm … this will trigger a muscularly relaxed arm to hit toward the right side.  Try it a few times while attempting to make the hit with just the elasticity and the turn to the right, but without making any real muscular effort.

 

Use the principles above to add to your daily practice in moving and your qi will strengthen.  If you're doing a Chinese martial art and you haven't been introduced to reverse breathing and the body's elastic potential, you've been short-changed.  The ancient qi paradigm included these physical body mechanics of qi-tissues, but there was included a hypothesis about an invisible element of an etheric "qi" that was also pulled in with the breath.  That unseen and unmeasurable aspect of qi was sort of a fudge factor that allowed for the effects of food energy, good/poor sleep, the effects of oxygen, and so forth.  This is the so-called "Qi of Heaven".

 

Because reverse breathing is going to be a new method of training for most people, it should be done lightly and for shorter periods as one begins.  An experienced instructor is a major plus and even a daily check of blood-pressure is helpful.  Try not to let any pressure accumulate in the head, at any time: tucking the chin as a way to block pressure to the head is helpful.  Be very careful and go slowly at first: it takes time for the body to adjust and condition itself.  If there are any doubts or worries, have yourself checked by a physician.

 

The inhale "pull-in contraction" is just one side of the coin; there is also an exhale "squeeze contraction" for power application, but this article is mainly to get people started so we won't spend a lot of time on topics other than "getting a foot in the door".  Remember that all of these things are body developments that take time and persistent practice; you can't expect results in a couple of weeks, nor should you throw in the towel because you don't get results quickly.  The "pull-in" ability of the legs, for example, will take the longest time to achieve and it can be a year or two before you can really feel the results.

 

 

Breath "Locks" (Yogic "Bandhas")

 

The "suit" of qi-tissues is something you'll want to treat and exercise as a whole-body, connective unit … like a skintight "suit" such as some action-hero would wear.  The reverse-breath inhale pulls the suit material inward along the limbs toward the middle.  The "suit" is pulled inward by the lower abdomen pulling inward and the perineum/anus pulling upward during the inhale: so, the pulling upward of the perineum anus is part of the process involved in controlling the whole "suit" during breathing practice.  Tucking the chin, as stated earlier, is a way to prevent excess blood-pressure from going into the head.  But how about the touching of the tip of the tongue to the upper palate behind the front teeth?

 

Try this:  Close your mouth, tongue tip resting up on palate, and inhale with a reverse breath about halfway and then try to pull the rest of the breath/air in through the skin on your face.  Your subconscious mind will try to oblige the "pulling in through the skin" visualization and you'll feel the skin of your face tighten and pull inward.  You can't normally contract these tissues voluntarily, but you can get the subconscious mind to contract them by using focused imagery (at first; later you'll be able to do it almost instantly, skipping the need for imagery).   Next, try the same procedure of inhale, but leave your mouth hanging open and notice how you can't easily make the same tissues contract when the mouth is open that tip of the tongue connection is not made.   That's the reason for doing breathing practice in qigongs and Yoga with the mouth closed and the tongue tip on the upper palate: the unity of the "suit" is not there around your face if your mouth is open for the inhale-contract.  For the exhale squeeze-contract, it's okay for the mouth to be open: that's why soft breathing practice is done with the mouth closed, but more vigorous exercises usually "breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth".

 

Basic Jin and Movement Exercises for Daily Practice

 

Rudimentary jin skills are not that difficult to learn; one of the problems with jin skills, though, is that many people get a grasp of basic jin skills which are pretty incomplete, and they think that they have arrived.  In my personal experience, it's easy to think you've "got it", only to look back in later years and realize that your self-congratulations were premature and a bit egoistic.  Trust me, I've been there and done that: looking back, all I can recommend is that people assume they're probably doing things wrong and persevere, continuing to practice.

 

Since there are other posts on this blog with more "what" and "how-to" directions, let me just suggest some thoughts on practice:

 

Jin is about bringing the solidity ground as your main source of strength and the weight of your body as the secondary source of strength: both of those sources of power are from gravity and hence gravity is the "Qi of the Earth".  Why use muscular power (Li) when you can let the solidity of the ground or the pull of gravity do the work for you?

 

Begin learning to always sink the source of your forces to the soles of your feet.  "Sink the qi to the dantian" is a relevant saying, but since most people don't really know how to use the dantian to control the body, yet, it's probably better to think of "sink the qi" as strictly learning to let all incoming and outgoing forces arrive at or derive from the solidity of the ground.  If you repattern your body to function from the ground instead of the torso, you will have your foot across the threshold of Chinese martial arts.  Read some of the 6H Blog articles on jin for more detailed discussions and for more on using the weight to pull the body downward for downward forces.

 

One specific recommendation for moving through various martial forms is to do them slowly while pretending/imagining as realistically as possible that you are moving against water or even mud.  If you do this type realistically enough, the subconscious mind will recruit the qi-tissue systems that supplement movement so that those supplements become a part of our regular movement.  This type of movement with the imagery/"intention" component is often simply called "yi" movement.   Movement should always be a combination of yi/intention and the qi-tissue/breath components.

 

"Standing Post" – Zhan Zhuang Practice for Daily Exercise

 

Zhan Zhuang is an exercise that does several things at once.  First, though, it's important to relax the muscles completely and to relax the lower back and knees so that the focus is on the qi-tissues and intent, but that being emphasized, let's look at some of the main things to note about Zhan Zhuang practice.

 

1.       The "suit" of the body can be roughly viewed as 3 areas or sheets: Front of the body for Yin/Closing; Back of the body for Yang/Opening; From head and neck along tops of arms to the hands or lifting and expanding the arms.   The arms should be held up by the head-to-arm area; the arms should swing together to the point where the back of the suit and the front of the suit are in balance and the arms are hanging at the level where the suit up to the head is comfortably holding them.

2.       All muscles should be relaxed and the lower back should be relaxed so that the buttocks drop slightly downward.  Knees are relaxed.  The head is positioned so that its weight is resting through the skeleton on the soles of the feet (i.e., peng jin).

3.       Inhale with a reverse breath and feel the suit/skin all over pull inward and contract against the bones/muscles (if you've developed all over control; otherwise just feel the areas you've gained control of).  Mentally will that contraction to continue as you hold the contraction while you resume breathing (not reverse) normally.

4.       Picture a light push to the front of your arms and ground it to the soles of the feet.  Picture a light push to the middle of your back and ground it to the soles of your feet.  The head's weight is already resting through the skeleton, so that's already correct.  Feel the Earth's gravity pulling each molecule of your body straight down … strongly enough so that there is 80% downward to the 20% upward that is holding the head.  Feel the sides of your body and your arms and legs expanding outward against and equal pull inward.  If you do all of these things, you are balanced in the six directions.  Usually just learn and practice one or two of these directions at a time until you feel comfortable in doing all six directions at once.

 

So, while you're standing, you trigger the breath-controlled qi-tissues to contract and you put them on hold (this is standard for many conditioning gongs in Chinese martial arts) while they're being held statically and a slight, balanced stretch all over the body.  You use the mind-controlled qi-tissues to manufacture and hold jin in six directions, although just one direction is fine, as you're learning.  Holding jin and holding the breath-contracted tissues strengthens the tissues and the ability of the mind to hold these postures.

 

You can also do Zhan Zhuang in other ways, for instance by not holding the breath-tissues contracted, but by making the body Close and Open with each inhale and exhale, but it all depends upon what you want to train and what you want to accomplish.

 

Moving with the Dantian, if that's in the Art that you do

 

The optimal way to utilize the strength augmentation of the qi/tissues and the mind-directed jin forces is to treat the body as a single unit with the major pivot/joint and nexus of forces at the middle of the body.  The channel/meridian theory of the body is based on a more or less body-length coordination of the body structure, with the center of the body, at the dantian-area and mingmen area, being the main (but not the only) pivoting point around which the torso and limbs move.  However, in varying martial-arts and in varying degrees of competency within those many arts, the degree to which the whole body is controlled at the dantian will vary.

 

The problem with "moving from the dantian" is a lot like the other skills mentioned in this article: at first, most people have never heard of these skills before or they didn't know what the words actually meant.  When you're first shown the skills, you don't have enough of the skill available to really feel what is happening and what the future potential might be.  Because the skills have to be developed from things you can't really feel at first, there is a tendency to only try or achieve at a small level, rather than making the commitment to really master these skills.

 

In the case of moving from the dantian in various forms, qigongs, silkreeling, and so on, a person can't feel the "suit" connection at first, so it is a matter of doing more or less rote movements in an attempt to acquire enough of a connection to get the "Aha!" epiphany, because once the connection is felt, it's reasonably straightforward to continue developing it.  

 

It's not necessary to say a lot about developing the silkreeling connection because it's been covered on so many previous articles on the 6H forum and other places, but let's do a quick thumbnail sketch.

 

Going back to the idea of a full-body, skintight "suit", what we want to do is relinquish any muscular controls in the body above the waist and then wind and twist the "suit" with the lower body in an attempt to wind and twist the hands/arms or to push and pull the hands/arms.  The essential idea of moving with the dantian is that the greater power of the lower body is conveyed to the upper body via the "suit" covering of the body, the bones, and the controlling-pivot point of the dantian.

 

When we move the arm with the dantian and "suit" connections, we twist, turn, push, and pull with the lower body and through the connection of the "suit" and the bones, ligaments, and tendons, the arm is pulled by the dantian, for the most part; a push of the arm is usually done by the lower-back and legs as the body Opens.

 

In addition to moving the hands and arms with the rest of the body's tissues as they pull, push, and twist, each movement of the body should be accompanied by the proper jin force … but that takes us back to the earlier discussion on jin.  A person has to learn that every movement is a combination of jin/yi forces and qi/tissue connections and it takes time to re-pattern the body's movements in this totally new way.