Wujifa Mini Breathing Squats: Journal Notes #116

Notes from my October and November 2013 Zhan Zhuang Training Journal. I train with The School of Cultivation and Practice which practices Wujifa zhan zhuang.

* Question: I've been practicing the combined mini-squats with theraband stretching. I can feel the bottom fill and the top fill and stretch but I'm having a problem connecting the top and bottom.

Instructor: What are you focusing on?

Me: The problem. (notice the way I phrased my "question").

Instructor: Focus on what you can do and grow that.

Me: I can feel the bottom and top.

Instructor: Now focus on coordinating the bottom and top. Focus on coordinating the top with the squat. For you now, you've got to remove structural artifacts causing deviation. Lock and point the elbows down. Turn the palms down while maintaining a slight stretch in the theraband. Now breath.

Instructor: How does that look?

Comment from school brother: "It looks like how Shi-li should look when it's done correctly."

Me: I can definitely feel the breath driving the stretch of the theraband. The stretch is not being driven by arm or shoulder muscle movement.

* I need to focus on details but if I focus on details I can miss the key driver. It's tricky to figure out where to focus.

* Simple warm-up exercises can also reveal great depth when done properly over time. The Wujifa neck and hip circle warm-up exercises are designed to help you notice and feel fascial stretch and connection.

* Regarding our Wujifa neck circle warm-up exercises... The reason for maintaining the nose forward while circling the head is to notice where fascial adhesions or muscle tensions attempt to pull your nose away from its forward position. When done correctly, you should feel the fascial stretch work its way around your head, neck, and upper torso as you rotate your head. Work to remove deviations and eliminate variables in movement.

* Regarding our Wujifa hip circles warm-up exercises... This needs to be done in the same precise, controlled manner as the neck circles. If your hip circles look like a hoola-hoop movement, then you are doing the exercise with breaks and this makes it more difficult to feel fascial stretch.

* When circling the hips around one (weighted) foot, the stretch goes through the center of the weighted foot, not across to the other foot. The stretch goes through the body from the dan-tian to ming-men. In the beginning it is difficult to feel this stretch going through the body. In the beginning it is best to identify and resolve structural deviations.

* Question: In Tai-chi they say, "Rooted in the legs and directed by the waist." To me, the waist (a.k.a dan-tian area) is the spine L1-L5 which is the driver of the movement. Right?

Answer: Movement driven by the spine is not internal movement. (Here he demonstrates a side-to-side movement.) Look at the front in relation to the back. (The abdomen moves a lot in relation to the spine which hardly turns at all.) The abdomen is the driver, not the spine. The spine only turns a little relative to and because of the more powerful abdominal movement. This is not to say that the waist doesn't move, because it does. Because your focus is misdirected, it is better to say that the spine is not useful for you to consider as a driver in the manner you are considering it now.

* Remember, if you try to see movement done in "X" paradigm through the perspective of "Z" paradigm, then you'll never see "X" paradigm movement. You've got to throw out your "Z" paradigm frame of reference.

* More about mini-squats practice. In the beginning, simply coordinate breathing with movement. From standing, breathe out and squat a little. Breathe in and rise up a little. Practice breathing deeply into the lower abdomen and pelvic floor. Feel the intra-abdominal pressure pushing out the lower belly (especially the point just above the pubic bone) and pushing down the relaxed pelvic floor muscles. Notice abdominal breathing in and out. Spine doesn't move much.

* The Wujifa mini- breathing squats train horizontal kua movement and the Wujifa side-to-side exercise trains vertical kua movement. Once you can independently demonstrate horizontal kua movement and vertical kua movement, then you have the two directions and can begin combining.

* We practiced a little strength-testing - pushing to test ground path. I'm using/engaging too much muscle. Why? So I don't "lose". What I learned is that I should only practice to the limits of what I can do correctly. If I exceed my correct limits by falling back on bad habits and tricks, then I'm impeding my own progress.

* While practicing mini- breathing squats, I notice that if I let the pelvic floor extend down and the lower abdomen fill out, then not so much pressure goes up. If I expand the lower end maybe half way and hold that there, then more pressure goes up to the chest and shoulders. This is the first time I've felt this so obviously.

* Remember to use the breath as a means to develop intra-abdominal pressure to help you feel lower into the abdomen. Breathing is a method. A goal for you now is to use breath and pressure to help you develop your feeling in your kua.


Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: Questions About Dan-Tian Rotation: Journal Notes #115
Next article in this series: Trying vs. Trying Too Hard: Journal Notes #117

Questions About Dan-Tian Rotation: Journal Notes #115

Notes from my September 2013 Zhan Zhuang Training Journal. I train with The School of Cultivation and Practice which practices Wujifa zhan zhuang.

* Question: Does the saying, "rooted in the feet, directed by the waist, expressed in the fingers" mean that the pelvis should be "locked-in" with the legs and the main horizontal movement is attained by rotating the lower thoracic and sacral vertebrae - that is the area below the rib cage and above the pelvis? How does dan-tian movement show up here?

Answer: Instructor demonstration: Notice that there is very little skeletal movement. The movement is driven from the abdomen in front. So, no, dan-tian movement is not driven by muscularly rotating the spine in back.

* Practice:
Get into a kind of usual zhan zhuang stance position. Now stick your butt out. This means to really arch your back. Let your belly hang out in front. Really lift your butt up in the air. Feel your femur heads roll forward. Your knees may point a little toward each other or feel a little "pigeon toed". This gives you a "kua in" feeling in the front along your inguinal crease.

Then, keeping the front relaxed and "kua in", release the arch, relax the back and allow the lower back to settle and drop. If done properly, you will feel an even greater feeling of "kua in".

The trouble is that most people are too tight and while they can let their bellies hang out, and make the arch, and stick the butt out, they can't maintain the "kua in" when they release the arch. If this is where you're stuck, then this is where you have to work.

A typical mistake to get the arch out of the back is to tighten the abdominal muscles which pulls up the front of the pelvis and forces the back to drop. But this pits one muscle force (the front) against another (the back). Doing this will prevent you from ever getting any dan-tian rotation! You've got to maintain the "kua in" feeling in front with a relaxed back!

You do not get dan-tian rotation by tensing the abdominals! Focus on keeping the abdominals relaxed while also relaxing the spinae group. This will allow the pelvis to rotate on the femur heads. This is really tricky and can take years to figure out. While this in itself is not dan-tian rotation, it is a critical pre-requisite. If you don't fulfill the pre-requisites, how can you graduate to upper-level coursework?

* If you can't get this basic movement with relaxation and get the resulting openness in your zhan zhuang practice, then your zhan zhuang is too rigid.


* It's now been two months since I've returned from China. For the four weeks that I was in China I opened to new food, new friends, new experiences. I relaxed and let go. I felt so much more alive even though I know I did not intentionally change my fundamental soma-psychological patterns. When I returned, my intention was to continue to grow and nurture the opening feeling that I was feeling.

* Question: You know how we say that there is no separation between stance practice and daily life, well, over the last four weeks (since I've returned from China), I've been working on being more expressive of my sexuality as opposed to continuing repressing this "part" of myself due to my moral and religious beliefs around being a "good" man. What I'm noticing is that I can feel more deeply into my pelvis during zhan zhuang stance practice. How can I know if this change in my daily life is actually creating a change in my internal gong fu practice or if I'm somehow imagining the relation?

Instructor: Show me what you are doing.

Me: I demonstrate my zhan zhuang stance.

Instructor: That's better. I notice that you are still holding just above the pubic bone; that little bit of muscle. Try this. Visualize and feel your genitals expanding downward with each in-breath but don't contract with each out-breath; maintain allowing a relaxed expansion.

Me: I try this exercise.

Instructor: What do you notice?

Me: I can feel like more abdominal pressure going down from my abdomen into the tops of my legs.

Instructor (asking my school brothers): What are you guys noticing?

Comments: He's sinking more. There's more connection through his pelvis/dan-tian.

Me: At that point, I got very self conscious and embarrassed and stopped practicing. When I tried to get back to that kinesthetic, I could not do it. I will practice this at home.

* My note: I practiced this particular method for the next two weeks and between this and other changes in my personal life, I noticed my zhan zhuang stance practice becoming more inspired. I was waking up early and feeling excited about practicing again. I was developing more of a different kind or quality (?) of feeling in my pelvis. And then something happened and I could literally feel myself "shutting down" or "withdrawing" from continuing developing these deeper feelings... again.

* My note: What is different or unique this time is that I am able to observe my going through this opening and closing process whereas previously "I" was the opening or closing. It's like before I was too close(?) to the kinesthetic so I could not distinguish "myself" from "my kinesthetics". I think my four week vacation in China gave me a break in ways I had not anticipated. I don't know. Something shifted. I don't understand. Nonetheless, this is a valuable insight.

Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: Going Places and Coming Home: Journal Notes #114
Next article in this series: Wujifa Mini Breathing Squats: Journal Notes #116

A More Functional Understanding of Qi and Qi Gong

One of the problems with translating qi as "energy" and qigong as "energy work" is the ambiguity of the term "energy".

Without mentioning that the Chinese word for "energy" is not qi, by pigeon-holing qi to mean "energy", reduces this multi-flavored, multi-purpose concept from the Chinese language to a term that pretty much bears no functional value in our western culture.

In its ambiguity, qi as "energy" is ripe to be interpretted to fit a wide variety of beliefs; qi as cosmic energy, qi as bio-chemical energy, qi as, well, whatever you like.

In the "internal" martial arts, the term "qi flowing" and "qi not flowing" has a very specific meaning. These phrases, according to my understanding, are a short-hand, abbreviated way of noting a particular kinesthetic feeling.

Just as many of the martial arts have both an external and internal component to training, and some of these internal components are considered qigong, does one switch from the very practical training of self-defense techniques to a mystical, woo-woo, feel the cosmic energy with the hope that this further improves one art? Sadly, this happens.

From my experience, instead of focusing on deepening a practical mind-body connectedness, the typical teaching of qigong ironically tends to do just the opposite! So what is a practical way to look at qigong?

Let's take a look at the December 2011 issue of Acupuncture Today (Vol. 12, Issue 12) which has a wonderful article by Joseph Davis titled, Demystifying Qi Gong.

What I like about this article is that A) it is written from a more clinical, holistic, perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and B) it explains that qigong practices are meant to be simple, functional, grounded, exercises to help "me" discover and connect with "my body" here and now.

Here are a few excerpts which resonate with me and with the perspective I promote in this blog.

So what is the essence of Qi Gong for TCM practitioners? It is a method of fostering basic awareness of body and breath, coordinated with simple movements, with the aim of cultivating smooth flow of qi to promote health.

Foremost, it is vital to explain that qi isn't some magical force that emerges once we've purified the body, silenced the mind, and harmonized the emotions. Qi Gong begins with connecting with how your body, breath, and mind feel, exactly in this moment.

For our purposes, we are just trying to connect with the quality of feeling awareness...

With just a little bit of attention, we begin to see that these sensations, feelings, and thoughts occur in a spectrum - from the very dense sensation of embodiment in gravity (down/earth/yin), to the rarified realm of ideas (up/sky/yang), and the subtler nuance of breath and emotions that happens between these two poles. And here's the real transmission - it is this whole collection of experiences that is actually our qi. This recognition is the portal to real Qi Gong, and it certainly does not require some Qi Gong "master" to point out. Yin, Yang, and qi are experiences that we all have, all day long.

Instead of introducing our patients and students to qi as something distant and mysterious, we start right where we are. As I noted above, I find the phrase feeling-awareness, or aliveness are often better to use than something from a different language. What we are looking to get our patients and students to recognize is this basic subjective sense of being alive, which is the most immediate and concrete thing in the universe. Without trying to define or capture it too tightly in thought, we can then begin working with it in the context of simple movements, coordinated with the breath.

What I learn from this article is that qi, as it is used in qigong exercises, is a kind of short-hand abbreviated term denoting a combination of feelings/sensations of embodiment, ideas, and emotions. Qi is a shorthand way of noting my overall "aliveness".

What I've learned from my Wujifa practice is that the feeling of "aliveness" while always available, is often blocked by my various physical and emotional holding patterns. Achieving deeper and more amplified feelings of "aliveness" can sometimes take some work. And sometimes feeling more "aliveness" and connection than I typically or normally experience, can be overwhelming both in terms of the sheer experience and in terms of the implications to living life from that more "alive" space.

Even though I had long thought that I was fully in my body (afterall, I've been practicing Tai-chi for many, many years), I was both disturbed and intrigued when I discovered that I had developed elaborate techniques to avoid being fully embodied!

And so while I've elaborated one of the key points of this article, go check out the rest of it - the author makes a few other points in which you may be interested.


Further reading from my blog:

Demystifying Qi Seminar Video (October 18, 2012)
Chinese Martial Arts Without The Qi (August 2011)
Internal Gong Fu Paradigms (November 2010)
Feel Your Chi Between Your Hands? (June 2010)

Another book worth reading:
Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China

Wujifa Now on Wikipedia

On November 6, 2013, a Wujifa page was launched on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wujifa. On November 24, 2013, this page was deleted.

In the spirit of sharing what I've learned, here is a brief recounting of the short life of the Wujifa page on Wikipedia.

On November 10, 2013, an entry was made calling for the Wujifa page to be deleted. After a period of back-and-forth "discussion" between the "deleters" and the "keepers", on November 24, the Wujifa page was deleted by Wikipedia.

Prior to this experience, I had made certain "moral high ground" assumptions about Wikipedia. Now having gone through this process, I've learned about the dark side of Wikipedia. And as it turns out, there is a fair amount of online documentation about the "dark side" of the Wiki world.

Here are a couple things I learned that may help temper your understanding of Wikipedia if you didn't already know this:

• Using the argument that a page is or is not "notable" is a notable problem with Wikipedia.
• The "standards" are not applied uniformly.

The Wujifa page was deleted on the argument that there was no "significant coverage in reliable independent sources." (Apparently, this is a boilerplate excuse to delete a page.)

One of the deleters explained "reliable independent sources" this way:

Examples of sources that might support notability: a chapter in a notable book on martial arts, a series of articles in significant martial arts magazines or journals, a journal article about the subject, newspaper or magazine articles in significant publications. I would even go so far as to include discussion of the subject by notable persons in published interviews.

There are numerous examples of Wiki pages created and edited by "insider" experts (not no-nothing independent sources) and pages with and without "reliable independent sources". I leave you to find these on your own.

The Wiki user who initiated the call to delete, has an "Editors Barnstar". What is this?

Your recent cleanups, edits, and deletions on the list of martial arts page show significant dedication and discipline. Thank you very much for your hard work and contribution to Wikipedia. For these merits, I would like to award you this Editor's Barnstar. Xiliquiern 03:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

So it seems that in the Wiki world, one can earn "points" for getting pages deleted. I did not know that creating a page on Wiki entered that page into a competition for points. Is the competition stacked in favor of the user with the most points? I don't know. This was my first time in the ring.

And so while Wujifa was short-lived on Wikipedia this time, I am confident that as more practitioners become aware of the elegance of its simplicity to develop the "internal" kinesthetic skillsets, then Wujifa will also become known through the traditional journalistic "reliable independent sources".

Going Places and Coming Home: Journal Notes #114

Notes from my July and August 2013 Zhan Zhuang Training Journal. I train with The School of Cultivation and Practice which practices Wujifa zhan zhuang. (Note: These journal notes combine both July and August because I was traveling in China for four weeks, from June 20 to July 18.)

* One of my Wujifa school brothers, Dan, is in town and attended the July 28 class. Dan is working on his PhD. in BioEnergetic Analysis. Our instructor asks Dan to work with me.

We stand face to face. I'm in zhan zhuang. He's coaching. He places his fingertips on my kua and adjusts me just a little off where I was. He then instructs me to feel the muscles under his fingers.

Standing and looking eye to eye gets too intense for me and I look away and back and close my eyes and "go inside". With each of these re-locations of my attention, he says, "It's OK. You can go there. You can go there too." After a bit of this running around, I break and I am fully present and in my body in a way that is different from my customary way of going "inside". To this he responds, "I like when the real Mike shows up."

I say that I feel like quitting. The feeling is overwhelming. And he says he gets that feeling too but just keeps going. "Just notice that you feel like quitting and keep going."

We must have gone through about forty minutes of this kind of cycling between connecting eye to eye, feeling it's too intense to be that present with someone, looking away, looking "inside", wanting to quit, being reminded to focus on the muscles under his fingers...

I got two big A-ha insights out of this training session: 1) I refined my understanding of all the "places" I "go" to avoid being fully present, and 2) I have been fooling myself about my feeling of having my awareness "inside"; this too is a dis-associated place. I learned that truly being present in my body is an "ON/OFF" proposition. Either I'm in there and present or I'm not. It's a unique feeling.

Here's a very rough sketch of how I might graphically depict this experience. My drawing is really bad. I hope you get the idea.

* The practice of Wujifa involves looking for connections. However, most people have to untangle themselves and become deeply aware of their parts first and get the parts to move freely in order to feel into the parts. After this, then feel connection between the parts.

* It is difficult to see a problem in somebody else who has the same problem that I have. The benefit of watching someone who has the same problem that I have is that I can see how I appear and then know what is being seen in me. Obviously I can't identify this other person. My instructor has to point this out to me.

* When punching, don't lead with the fist. Lead with the kinesthetic stretch. Go for feeling the stretch. This will also help focus on feeling the connection to the ground.

* Each Wujifa exercise has a primary focus, a specific movement to train a specific feeling. Do the exercises as prescribed to find the feeling.

* Taking the external path inward is OK but if you get stuck at any point along the way and if you think that that point is what generates power, then you've fallen into a trap. The goal is to use the abdomen movement as the driver in a connected, coordinated manner with the rest of the body.

* If you are focused on getting a feeling of power or force and your method doesn't include the abdomen, then you're missing the internal. People tend to focus on the stuff that is external relative to the abdomen and mistake the power generated there as being internal. Sure, the more internal you go, the more power you can generate. Generating power externally (again, relative to the abdomen) is a lot easier and more comfortable but it is still external, relatively speaking.

* We practiced a few assessment exercises:

• Anterior/posterior pelvic tilt.
• Rotating the shoulders laterally while keeping the hips relaxed and still.
• Rotating the hips laterally while keeping the shoulders relaxed and still.
• A cross body stretch to feel the fascial stretch criss-cross the back.
• A cross twist step to feel elongation criss-crossing the back.
• Tippy bird and variations. If any of these feel easy, you're doing them wrong.

Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: My Training Roller Coaster: Journal Notes #113
Next article in this series: Questions About Dan-Tian Rotation: Journal Notes #115