Functional Qigongs 2
Going back to the example in Functional Qigongs 1 of the
qi-tissues of the chest, arms, and dantian pulling the arms inward and using
breath … do that a few times as a warmup and then let's look at a slight
tangent to some of the same tissues or tissues nearby.
If you look at a diagram of the muscle-tendon channels (the muscle and tendon paths/channels upon which the acupuncture "meridians" are based), you can see that there are three channels that are used to lift and Open the arms: large intestine, small intestine, and triple burner. The 3 Yin channels are, of course, used to contract and Close the arms. Notice that the Yang muscle-tendon channels that pull the arm upward are rooted in the head and neck: something higher on the body from which to hang the arms.
Focus on the tension between the neck and hands and don't
let it break; also, don't let the lift turn into a muscular affair. You can probably lift the arms to somewhere
below the horizontal without losing the tension or changing over to muscle. Stop and let the arms rest on the tension.
Now, mentally keep that tension that you caused with your inhale
… just 'will' the contraction to stay in place … while you go back to breathing
normally while holding the arms up with your qi. Hold the arms in place for a few seconds to
a few minutes: your qi will get stronger and stronger over months of practice. In fact, you can say, in the traditional
manner, that you are using this exercise to "strengthen the qi" in
the Large Intestine, Small Intestine, and Sanjiao channels. If you changed into various positions and
postures, you could solve for ways to strengthen and manipulate other channels.
Here's the well-practiced Chen Ziqiang holding a sand-filled
basketball using the qi-tissues of the arm.
Zhan
Zhuang Basic Stance
We could easily morph the held-up arms in the previous
example into a form of Zhan Zhuang (standing post exercise). First of all, take a look at an acupuncture
doll and realize that most of the Closing channels are on the front of the body
and on the insides and undersides of the limbs.
The Opening channels are on the back side of the body and on the upper
and outer sides of the limbs. Treating
the body as generally two areas, Front and Back, we can (after some breath and
qi skills have been developed) not only contract the upper sides of the arms
and neck, but we can also inhale and pull-in the superficial tissues of the Front
and Back. The contraction of tissues on
the front of the body tends to make the body Close or contract; the contraction
of tissues on the back of the body tends to make the body Open and expand. If we "pull in" both Front and Back
together, they tend to balance themselves, while at the same time bringing the already-held-up
arms into the correct position for Zhan Zhuang. It is important that all of the muscles be kept very relaxed; we're working to develop the qi, not the muscles.
As a side point, it should be mentioned that the area of the
crotch, from one leg over to the other, also has qi tissues and those tissues
can gradually be strengthened to the level where you can more or less sit down
into your crotch and maintain a low posture.
A high, comfortable posture is recommended for people just starting.
In some Chinese martial arts, they have one posture they will practice for
"Open" and one posture that they will hold for "Open". Yang Cheng Fu reported used "Play Pi
Pa" and "Single Whip" for those purposes. The good thing about Zhan Zhuang, as
described above, is that a person can practice Open and Close simultaneously,
using that posture. Remember, though
that the use of jin is necessary in order to have a complete Zhan Zhuang posture.
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