When I embarked on this internal gong-fu journey, I never thought I would have my morals and beliefs challenged as being an impediment to making progress. In fact, this is exactly what I've encountered.
Truthfully, I encountered this years ago and at that time I considered the notion at least unreasonable and at most completely insane; in both cases, dismissible. Now, after many years of encountering this again and again, I am beginning to gain clarity in understanding the mechanism of how my rule-based behavior, a.k.a. my "moral code", is embedded in my physical structure. The degree to which I want to "hold onto" this behavior profoundly influences the degree to which I prevent myself from "letting go" and relaxing. In other words, what I am holding onto is preventing me from progressing further.
So in the conversation of breaking the rules, of playing at the boundaries of "moral behavior" I must be clear that I am not talking about breaking any laws of my domicile. What I am referring to is the degree to which I allow or "hold back" my Intention's natural, spontaneous, authentic expression. (As I mentioned in my previous post, "IMA is about clarifying and purifying the body's expression of intention.") The boundaries of the legal system of my domicile actually leave a lot of room for a wide variety of expression of human nature.
Shutting down or holding back any aspect of this expression and then attributing this to my morality as a choice has been an insight long in the making. I'm now thinking that it is not my morals dictating my behavior to me, rather, it is my decision to prevent "ch'i flowing" in, and feeling a deep connection through, a particular area of my body that is the root of particular "moral behavior". For some people this is their voice or their heart, and for others, like myself, this is the pelvic/dantian area.
A good internal gong-fu teacher must be both as compassionate as the Buddha and as impudent as the Devil.
In contemporary American slang, if your teacher isn't "yanking your chain" and "pushing your buttons", that is, if your teacher isn't aggravating you and goading you to look at areas that you would never in a million years dream of exploring from your own initiative, well, then you may never discover your deeper holding patterns.
I think that for many people, our moral compass runs pretty deep. We just know what is right and what is wrong. So obviously, having to face my feelings of doing something that completely goes against what I have always abided by is extremely difficult. It is one of the most challenging aspects of training I have ever faced.
From my own experience, I now see how behavioral patterns that may be considered moral or immoral are built into the body's structure; they are one and the same. Holding onto a moral, ethical, religious, or spiritual belief is *holding*. In a practice where relaxing and letting go are the methods to discovering the principle of connection, holding for whatever reason may be the factor inhibiting further progress.
Is the underlying premise based on holding or is it based on letting go and discovering connection?
What is "the line" that you would never cross? Maybe, that is where you are stuck.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Remember, The Moon Is Round: Journal Notes #127
Notes from my October 2014 Zhan Zhuang Training Journal. I train with The School of Cultivation and Practice which practices Wujifa.
* At the beginning of this month I had difficulty rolling out of bed and being appropriately attentive for 6:00 AM stance practice so I changed my schedule to stand 30-40 minutes as soon as I get home after work, then dinner, then walk, then more adjunct exercises, then reading. (The adjunct exercises are the laying down lower abdomen breathing with knee movement, mini squats, and weighted pivot on femur head.)
* Question: I've got pain in my shoulder when I let my arms hang at their side, for example, when doing the femur head pivot but they don't get sore when in stance when I have the forearms at a 90 degree angle. What's up with this?
* Many people say the internal martial arts are based on intention but they seem to not explore the depths of what this means functionally. IMA is about clarifying and purifying the body's expression of intention. IMA is about finding the true expression of who you are; the purest expression of your intention. If you lie and deceive others, e.g., you are shrewd, then you probably lie and deceive yourself. If you lie to yourself, your body gets confused about the expression of intention. You say that you want to calm the muddy water but your intention really is to continue stirring the muddy water.
* The Daoist Sage lived with integrity and connection. When you try to "game the system" or go against your natural character, then you build an armor over your natural character. Armor shows up in the body as tension. Tension is an armor against allowing free flowing natural expression. Tension protects you against experiencing "qi-flowing". Is that what you're afraid of?
* Don't judge others. It's OK to be hypocritical. Be honest with yourself. Believing you are upholding one standard and then doing something contradictory and then rationalizing that behavior is counterproductive to developing "song".
* Hypothetically, it should take someone, with no previous experience at all, two to three years to get a feel of relaxed connection and maybe to fa-jing. The problem is that by the time people get to this level, they've got years or decades of experience that they want to make this fit into. It simply cannot be done! Therefore, most of the gong-fu involves undoing bad habits and cutting through resistances to that which the person dedicated time and energy; the armor of pride.
* WUJIFA is not the finger pointing at the moon. The methods are the finger; the guide. Wujifa is the moon that the methods are guiding you toward. Remember, the moon is ROUND. And ROUND in Chinese is kind of a cultural code word for "connected"! Methods guide you to feeling connection! The full, round moon is a symbolic reminder of what you are striving towards; striving to develop the feeling of completeness, fullness, connection.
* When people do reverse breathing they tend to hold muscles already in chronic tension. Thus, people who think they are doing an advanced breathing technique are in fact fooling themselves. You cannot do reverse breathing correctly until you get complete freedom of movement through the abdomen and kua area.
* In Wuji, it's not about yin-yang. It's about what you feel! When you get in the mindset of open-closed, front channel-back channel, tight-loose, etc., then you'll never be able to develop the speed that comes with connection; when the whole body moves as one. When you get present and get connected, then you're on a different path than the yin-yang people. Wujifa is a system to get you unstuck and out of the yin-yang rut.
* Be attentive to feeling the juiciness, the sauciness, the sensuality of your body. Mmmmm.. on inhale and recall a favorite scent or smell that takes you back to a lovely, happy time. And Ahhhhhh on exhale with the relaxed exhilaration of that wonderful memory.
* Notice those situations and moments when you shut down your natural sensuality. For example, you smell your favorite cake and you feel an urge for cake but (due to dietary restrictions) you tell yourself, "I shouldn't have cake." or "Cake is bad for me." and you fight the feeling or depending on your "will power," you kill the feeling. Or you make others wrong for eating cake so you don't feel bad about wanting cake. There are many variations of stories we tell ourselves many of which result in shutting down the very connection to feeling we want to build up.
* Question: How did you develop the ability to see into the body to the depth you are able?
* Do you remember the exercise I described in my September notes Journal Note #126 where I talked about placing my greater trochanter against an immovable object? Well, after proudly showing my instructor this wonderful weighted hip-swivel exercise and having him point out how my body was responding, the bottom line is that such an exercise is the wrong path and I would make better progress this way:
I was shocked! "You know, all this is under my radar! I don't notice this at all!"
He said, "I know. You cannot notice your own armors. You need someone to notice them for you."
Because I am that, I cannot notice that my body responds this way. And yet, he and my other school brothers have all commented that when they lay hands on me and feel my structure, this is indeed an accurate portrayal of how my responding musculature feels to them. Even though I believe and I feel I am relaxed, yet they notice something else entirely.
* Some so called "internal practices" are in fact a combination internal-external. This means their power is derived from bracing (external) and White Crane (done "internally", that is, driving from the chest). Contrast this with full internal where there is no bracing and there is whole body connection driven from the kua. The internal-external practices can develop power quickly and therefore are the most popular.
* I've been experiencing an extenuated noticing of feeling in my hip joints as I walk/move.
* When people with a normal/usual level of body awareness get their first sense of body awareness, they will label their experience "Body Awareness" without any sense or feeling of the gradations or levels and assortment or variety of kinesthetic feelings awaiting them. For these folks, breaking the surface is so different from their normal everyday lives that this experience gets labeled as if body awareness were like an Off/On switch and they "got it".
* I now understand the meaning of "Breathing is a method" as meaning that the breath can be used to exercise intention by "directing" it within the body. It is also a method to help liberate stuck parts of the body, for example, "breath into the kua" directs my awareness to my kua and by involving my breath, further reinforces and deepens my "body awareness", that is, my internal proprioception skills in a manner that also helps to get these parts moving.
Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: Exercise for Kua Freedom of Movement: Journal Notes #126
Next article in this series: Vertical Kua Exercises: Journal Notes #128
* At the beginning of this month I had difficulty rolling out of bed and being appropriately attentive for 6:00 AM stance practice so I changed my schedule to stand 30-40 minutes as soon as I get home after work, then dinner, then walk, then more adjunct exercises, then reading. (The adjunct exercises are the laying down lower abdomen breathing with knee movement, mini squats, and weighted pivot on femur head.)
* Question: I've got pain in my shoulder when I let my arms hang at their side, for example, when doing the femur head pivot but they don't get sore when in stance when I have the forearms at a 90 degree angle. What's up with this?
Answer: Show me. When you do your stance, you are slightly tensing and raising the shoulder and when your arms hang, you're rolling the shoulder forward and slightly hunching.
(Me: At this point my instructor gave me structural adjustments: pinched the scapula together and told me to forcefully use my rhomboids to pull my shoulders down. He pushed down on my shoulders as a prompt.)
Notice how your hands rolled out. Keep your shoulders there and flatten your palms against your legs. Head back and up. Now, use proprioceptors to notice where your body parts are. What do you feel?
Me: I feel a stretch from the feet through the kua and a strong stretch up and down the front of my torso.
Instructor: Good. Now, roll your shoulders forward a little like you had them before. What do you notice?
Me: The feeling in the kua lessens. It's harder to feel.
Instructor: You won't get a good feeling in the kua if the structure of the shoulder is wrong.
* Many people say the internal martial arts are based on intention but they seem to not explore the depths of what this means functionally. IMA is about clarifying and purifying the body's expression of intention. IMA is about finding the true expression of who you are; the purest expression of your intention. If you lie and deceive others, e.g., you are shrewd, then you probably lie and deceive yourself. If you lie to yourself, your body gets confused about the expression of intention. You say that you want to calm the muddy water but your intention really is to continue stirring the muddy water.
* The Daoist Sage lived with integrity and connection. When you try to "game the system" or go against your natural character, then you build an armor over your natural character. Armor shows up in the body as tension. Tension is an armor against allowing free flowing natural expression. Tension protects you against experiencing "qi-flowing". Is that what you're afraid of?
* Don't judge others. It's OK to be hypocritical. Be honest with yourself. Believing you are upholding one standard and then doing something contradictory and then rationalizing that behavior is counterproductive to developing "song".
* Hypothetically, it should take someone, with no previous experience at all, two to three years to get a feel of relaxed connection and maybe to fa-jing. The problem is that by the time people get to this level, they've got years or decades of experience that they want to make this fit into. It simply cannot be done! Therefore, most of the gong-fu involves undoing bad habits and cutting through resistances to that which the person dedicated time and energy; the armor of pride.
* WUJIFA is not the finger pointing at the moon. The methods are the finger; the guide. Wujifa is the moon that the methods are guiding you toward. Remember, the moon is ROUND. And ROUND in Chinese is kind of a cultural code word for "connected"! Methods guide you to feeling connection! The full, round moon is a symbolic reminder of what you are striving towards; striving to develop the feeling of completeness, fullness, connection.
* When people do reverse breathing they tend to hold muscles already in chronic tension. Thus, people who think they are doing an advanced breathing technique are in fact fooling themselves. You cannot do reverse breathing correctly until you get complete freedom of movement through the abdomen and kua area.
* In Wuji, it's not about yin-yang. It's about what you feel! When you get in the mindset of open-closed, front channel-back channel, tight-loose, etc., then you'll never be able to develop the speed that comes with connection; when the whole body moves as one. When you get present and get connected, then you're on a different path than the yin-yang people. Wujifa is a system to get you unstuck and out of the yin-yang rut.
* Be attentive to feeling the juiciness, the sauciness, the sensuality of your body. Mmmmm.. on inhale and recall a favorite scent or smell that takes you back to a lovely, happy time. And Ahhhhhh on exhale with the relaxed exhilaration of that wonderful memory.
* Notice those situations and moments when you shut down your natural sensuality. For example, you smell your favorite cake and you feel an urge for cake but (due to dietary restrictions) you tell yourself, "I shouldn't have cake." or "Cake is bad for me." and you fight the feeling or depending on your "will power," you kill the feeling. Or you make others wrong for eating cake so you don't feel bad about wanting cake. There are many variations of stories we tell ourselves many of which result in shutting down the very connection to feeling we want to build up.
* Question: How did you develop the ability to see into the body to the depth you are able?
Answer: I worked five years at B.W. Clinic. When a patient came in, I'd look at his/her body. I'd then ask myself, "How does that feel in my body? I'd then try to replicate their structure in my body. Then I'd ask myself, "How can this be resolved to ease?" I then followed my intuition. This is in contrast to the clinical mechanical application of techniques that many massage therapists follow which will never lead to developing this ability.
* Do you remember the exercise I described in my September notes Journal Note #126 where I talked about placing my greater trochanter against an immovable object? Well, after proudly showing my instructor this wonderful weighted hip-swivel exercise and having him point out how my body was responding, the bottom line is that such an exercise is the wrong path and I would make better progress this way:
- Go to a hardware store and purchase a small (3" or 4") lazy susan turntable bearing plate.
- Get into standard Wujifa zhan zhuang stance position. Put the bearing under one heal.
- Shift your weight to the side opposite the foot on the bearing.
- Now, use the minimum amount of muscle needed to slowly turn the knee as far inward and as far outward as possible swiveling on the bearing. Do several reps.
- Repeat on the other side.
- Practice to develop less and less amount of muscle needed to get movement. Really feel into the hip socket! Try to keep the rest of the body as still as possible.
Answer: Based on your hour a day practice (30 minutes of stance and 30 minutes of adjunct exercises) and your every-other week class attendance, work up to adding only five ounces of weight onto the swivel after two weeks.
Why? Why so little and why so slow?
Because your tendency still is to muscle the exercises and this sets up the wrong pattern in your body. You're still using tension to notice the feeling of connection (this is the faux connection) and you want to find the feeling of connection in relax.* At one point in the above discussion, which lasted nearly an hour, my instructor unashamedly demonstrated (through acting out) how my musculature responds to adjustments to stand with a more relaxed structure. He acted out a guy with a fearful face, with gasping breathing, ducking and dodging imaginary threats and incoming attacks. It was quite a vivid display.
I was shocked! "You know, all this is under my radar! I don't notice this at all!"
He said, "I know. You cannot notice your own armors. You need someone to notice them for you."
Because I am that, I cannot notice that my body responds this way. And yet, he and my other school brothers have all commented that when they lay hands on me and feel my structure, this is indeed an accurate portrayal of how my responding musculature feels to them. Even though I believe and I feel I am relaxed, yet they notice something else entirely.
* Some so called "internal practices" are in fact a combination internal-external. This means their power is derived from bracing (external) and White Crane (done "internally", that is, driving from the chest). Contrast this with full internal where there is no bracing and there is whole body connection driven from the kua. The internal-external practices can develop power quickly and therefore are the most popular.
* I've been experiencing an extenuated noticing of feeling in my hip joints as I walk/move.
* When people with a normal/usual level of body awareness get their first sense of body awareness, they will label their experience "Body Awareness" without any sense or feeling of the gradations or levels and assortment or variety of kinesthetic feelings awaiting them. For these folks, breaking the surface is so different from their normal everyday lives that this experience gets labeled as if body awareness were like an Off/On switch and they "got it".
* I now understand the meaning of "Breathing is a method" as meaning that the breath can be used to exercise intention by "directing" it within the body. It is also a method to help liberate stuck parts of the body, for example, "breath into the kua" directs my awareness to my kua and by involving my breath, further reinforces and deepens my "body awareness", that is, my internal proprioception skills in a manner that also helps to get these parts moving.
Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: Exercise for Kua Freedom of Movement: Journal Notes #126
Next article in this series: Vertical Kua Exercises: Journal Notes #128
Sunday, October 26, 2014
A Walk with My Teacher Through His Garden
I arrived early for class one balmy August morning. My instructor was already sitting on his front porch in his favorite chair, enjoying the mid-morning energy. After we bid our greetings, he arose from his chair and said, "Follow me. I want to show you something..."
"OK." I replied as I followed him down the steps of his porch and into his yard.
He led me to a small Japanese maple tree where we stopped and stood for a moment. Drawing a slow, long breath, he finally said, "Look at this tree and tell me what you see."
After years of trying to second-guess the answer to these kinds of questions, I've settled on simply saying what I see and then wait to discover where the conversation goes from there. So I replied, "I see a small tree".
His response began with his classic wry smile. I knew something good was coming.
Trees will grow according to their environment. We can intervene with vision to shape their growth. We can prune or use wire or other props to encourage a particular growth pattern. You must first have a vision of how you want the tree to look before you consider which methods to apply. You must also know how the tree will respond to various methods over time. You must also know the time horizon of your vision. Do you understand? Pruning and supporting are two methods and may seem contradictory but they are not contradictory when applied at a specific time and at a specific point.
He continued talking about the various branches, pointing out where he had pruned and why and how this pruning supported his vision of the tree's growth. He also pointed out heavy copper wire, which I had not even noticed, which he said was there to gently train those branches to grow in a particular direction. As he went on and on, my mind drifted off, pondering, "Do you understand?" I was pulled back to the moment when he said, "Let's go back and sit down."
"So," he began, "Do you have any questions?"
"I'm getting stuck on the, "Do you understand?" I mean, yeah, the metaphor seems obvious but I think that I probably don't have the same idea that you want to convey."
Too many people practice without a vision of where they want their practice to go. They may start with curiosity and get hooked into a practice and then get strung along pursuing whatever is presented to them. Suddenly years have passed...
"Yeah, this is pretty much how it works", I interrupted.
You see, if there's no vision or purpose, then you wind up making decisions based on "it just seemed to be the logical next step". Following "the logical next step" could take you on a very interesting journey. But this is not vision. Having a vision of where you want your practice to grow will help you avoid the trap of "the logical next step". You can approach practice with a near-sighted "do this now" or with longer range vision.
"So, then, what's the difference between vision and purpose? You always ask, "What's your purpose?"
Vision is based in kinesthetic feeling. Purpose is based on concepts and words. When you apply vision with purpose then you get functional! Look at the masters. See the vision they were seeing.
I recalled one of the Wujifa slogans, "Follow not in the footsteps of the masters. Seek out and discover what it is they sought."
As others arrived for class, I sat quietly pondering this unique teaching. A couple months have now passed since that summer day and whenever I see that little tree, I can see the twisted, windswept tree of his vision. Even now, seeing a twisted, windswept tree, I am gently and subtly reminded, "What's your vision for how you want your practice to grow?"
He led me to a small Japanese maple tree where we stopped and stood for a moment. Drawing a slow, long breath, he finally said, "Look at this tree and tell me what you see."
After years of trying to second-guess the answer to these kinds of questions, I've settled on simply saying what I see and then wait to discover where the conversation goes from there. So I replied, "I see a small tree".
His response began with his classic wry smile. I knew something good was coming.
Trees will grow according to their environment. We can intervene with vision to shape their growth. We can prune or use wire or other props to encourage a particular growth pattern. You must first have a vision of how you want the tree to look before you consider which methods to apply. You must also know how the tree will respond to various methods over time. You must also know the time horizon of your vision. Do you understand? Pruning and supporting are two methods and may seem contradictory but they are not contradictory when applied at a specific time and at a specific point.
He continued talking about the various branches, pointing out where he had pruned and why and how this pruning supported his vision of the tree's growth. He also pointed out heavy copper wire, which I had not even noticed, which he said was there to gently train those branches to grow in a particular direction. As he went on and on, my mind drifted off, pondering, "Do you understand?" I was pulled back to the moment when he said, "Let's go back and sit down."
"So," he began, "Do you have any questions?"
"I'm getting stuck on the, "Do you understand?" I mean, yeah, the metaphor seems obvious but I think that I probably don't have the same idea that you want to convey."
Too many people practice without a vision of where they want their practice to go. They may start with curiosity and get hooked into a practice and then get strung along pursuing whatever is presented to them. Suddenly years have passed...
"Yeah, this is pretty much how it works", I interrupted.
You see, if there's no vision or purpose, then you wind up making decisions based on "it just seemed to be the logical next step". Following "the logical next step" could take you on a very interesting journey. But this is not vision. Having a vision of where you want your practice to grow will help you avoid the trap of "the logical next step". You can approach practice with a near-sighted "do this now" or with longer range vision.
"So, then, what's the difference between vision and purpose? You always ask, "What's your purpose?"
Vision is based in kinesthetic feeling. Purpose is based on concepts and words. When you apply vision with purpose then you get functional! Look at the masters. See the vision they were seeing.
I recalled one of the Wujifa slogans, "Follow not in the footsteps of the masters. Seek out and discover what it is they sought."
As others arrived for class, I sat quietly pondering this unique teaching. A couple months have now passed since that summer day and whenever I see that little tree, I can see the twisted, windswept tree of his vision. Even now, seeing a twisted, windswept tree, I am gently and subtly reminded, "What's your vision for how you want your practice to grow?"
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Exercise for Kua Freedom of Movement: Journal Notes #126
Notes from my September 2014 Zhan Zhuang Training Journal. I train with The School of Cultivation and Practice which practices Wujifa.
* During the month of September, I devoted a good deal of time and energy to calming an emotionally distraught family member. This left me tired and out of sorts and consequently my practice time suffered. Things settled down toward the end of the month and I got back into practicing about an hour a day; half-hour stance and half-hour other exercises.
* A sole practice of zhan zhuang stance is not enough. You also need to do isolated exercises to get the feeling of relax in specific areas of your body.
* In one class, one of my school brothers reminded me a a class a couple years ago where we were all together and I clawed my forearm and cried, "I can't feel anything!" This was a huge turning point for him! In my moment of frustration, he realized that he couldn't feel the things that he was being instructed to feel for either! He slowly then came to realize that "armoring" is a word signifying this non-feeling condition. "Armoring" is not a mere theoretical or mental construct or metaphor. It is a real description of areas of the body where a person is tense or is blocking from feeling. I mention this here because:
* My instructor has been saying that I am amongst his worst students because he's had to "dumb down" even the most basic exercises. I prefer to reframe this the following way: due to my armoring, he has had to refine and calibrate his teaching methods to the most elemental, fundamental level to facilitate opening, relaxing and feeling in areas that are traditionally the most locked down and difficult to open.
* Sometimes I feel overcome with pride with what this little band of practitioners is accomplishing. Between a devoted teacher and dedicated (even if sometimes troublesome) students, methods of building internal connection are being tested, developed, and documented that will benefit generations of practitioners in a way that other teachings of this topic will never be able to.
* The following is an exercise that I was shown in class and that I've been working on to help develop more range of motion in each hip:
* I've also been practicing this exercise:
* I demonstrated my mini-breathing-squats in class and was told that the "going up" looks OK but the "squatting down" part is broken. Just as the "up" is as if inflating and slowly building pressure as I'm inhaling deep into the lower pelvis, conversely the "down" is as if deflating and slowly releasing that pressure on the exhale. We reviewed again the details of the min-breathing-squats. Remember, the entire "mini-squat" only moves in a 6"-12" range from the full upright position to the full squat.
* My instructor told the story again how he spent years working on isolating muscle activation. I think this gave him the "competitive advantage" in learning and developing a very deep sense of kinesthetic feeling. A simple and beginning example of this is to rest your arm on a firm surface and then relax and tighten the bicep and only the bicep and no other muscles. Once you are able to do this, then relax and tighten only the tricep. You get the idea. Practice this on all the muscles throughout your entire body.
* While practicing mini-squats at home, I got an insight regarding the exhale/deflation. I also got a deeper feeling for the intentional-mechanics of the hips and knees movement. How to explain? Previously, I "thought" I had the intention of "knees forward, sit back and down" but I always got corrected so obviously something was missing. With this deeper feeling, I found a much clearer sensation of the knees driving forward while simultaneously sitting back and down.
* My school brother asked a question. I answered with my understanding of the question. He said, "You don't know what I'm talking about." Our instructor then answered the question. How could he answer it and why couldn't I? He could understand that the words of the question were selected to represent a feeling my school brother was experiencing. I didn't understand the kinesthetic feeling he was trying to verbalize.
Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: What's Sex Got To Do With It: Journal Notes #125
* During the month of September, I devoted a good deal of time and energy to calming an emotionally distraught family member. This left me tired and out of sorts and consequently my practice time suffered. Things settled down toward the end of the month and I got back into practicing about an hour a day; half-hour stance and half-hour other exercises.
* A sole practice of zhan zhuang stance is not enough. You also need to do isolated exercises to get the feeling of relax in specific areas of your body.
* In one class, one of my school brothers reminded me a a class a couple years ago where we were all together and I clawed my forearm and cried, "I can't feel anything!" This was a huge turning point for him! In my moment of frustration, he realized that he couldn't feel the things that he was being instructed to feel for either! He slowly then came to realize that "armoring" is a word signifying this non-feeling condition. "Armoring" is not a mere theoretical or mental construct or metaphor. It is a real description of areas of the body where a person is tense or is blocking from feeling. I mention this here because:
- An emotionally dramatic moment in class led him to understand what constitutes a functional internal practice.
- This experience changed his approach to practice from thinking it was all mental gymnastics to realizing the actual physical work that was needed. He's since made a lot of progress!
- He articulated his turning point with such clarity! This may help others understand too.
* My instructor has been saying that I am amongst his worst students because he's had to "dumb down" even the most basic exercises. I prefer to reframe this the following way: due to my armoring, he has had to refine and calibrate his teaching methods to the most elemental, fundamental level to facilitate opening, relaxing and feeling in areas that are traditionally the most locked down and difficult to open.
* Sometimes I feel overcome with pride with what this little band of practitioners is accomplishing. Between a devoted teacher and dedicated (even if sometimes troublesome) students, methods of building internal connection are being tested, developed, and documented that will benefit generations of practitioners in a way that other teachings of this topic will never be able to.
* The following is an exercise that I was shown in class and that I've been working on to help develop more range of motion in each hip:
- Get into the Wujifa zhan zhang stance position; feet parallel and one foot's length apart. Flex the knees a little.
- Shift weight to right so all weight is on right leg.
- Lock the right femur into place so that both the knee and the greater trochanter remain perfectly immobilized! This is the key to this exercise! I've been practicing this by standing beside an immovable object, like a door, and holding my right greater trochanter against the door knob.
- With the right femur locked in place, and keeping the lower back relaxed, then slowly move the left side of the pelvis forward and back on the horizontal plane with the only movement occurring at the right hip socket.
- Repeat on the other side.
When I do this correctly, with my weight sunk, my quads fatigue within a minute. My instructor has exposed to me the many ways that I cheat. In other words, there are many ways to do this wrong. Here are a few:
Why are these mistakes? If my focus is on proving that I have a full range of motion and no tension or holding my femur and pelvis, then I am more likely to unconsciously add elements like the above as "proof" that I can do this.
- Rotate the shin bones on the ankle bone.
- Rotate the femur with the shin bones.
- Tuck and untuck the pelvis.
- Move the other leg excessively giving the illusion of pelvic movement.
As I practiced this over the month and worked on distilling out the errors, I discovered that in fact I have very little range of motion (at most only eight degrees) and very little single leg strength under a slowly moving load. This is in contrast to the nearly 90 degrees range of motion I have when I rotate an unweighted leg (on the heel resting on the ground) from foot forward to foot to side.
So the issue is not range of motion in the hip socket per se, but rather the way I "hold" myself upright. My habitual range of motion has patterned certain muscles to work in certain ways. I'm strong enough within that patterned range but weak on the edges. I think this exercise is designed to extend this range.
When I shifted the focus of practice to monitoring for cheating, e.g., "Am I maintaining stillness and non-movement throughout my body? Am I only moving at the hip capsule?" then my practice changed. It was the same "external" exercise but when I practiced with a different purpose then I got different results!
After getting a feel for this (which may take months of practice), then apply this to walking. Grab your pants at the side pocket seam and then as if throwing something, throw/pull your pant seam forward throwing the unweighted leg forward. Pulling the right side means rotating on the left femur head and pulling the left side means rotating on the right femur head. This exercise provides the greatest opportunity to cheat so pay careful attention!
An advanced form of this exercise involves counter-twisting the spine and punching forward with the hand opposite the forward foot. This begins to look kind of like a simplified Xing-yi.
* I've also been practicing this exercise:
Facing a surface that is about waist height, I extend my arms over my head and bend over to this surface placing my elbows on the surface. Squat down a little bit. With my torso hanging relaxed like a hammock strung between my elbows and hips, I then create the feeling as if I am pushing out a poop. Feel the skin across my pelvic floor stretching and opening. I couldn't feel anything "back there" for several weeks but eventually I began to notice how the greater trochanters can move a little more than before.
Why bend over to do this exercise? Because bending over takes the back and torso out of the equation. In this position I can learn that it is not my tight back causing the problem of "frozen" hip joints but rather it is a tight butt and tight pelvic floor.
* I demonstrated my mini-breathing-squats in class and was told that the "going up" looks OK but the "squatting down" part is broken. Just as the "up" is as if inflating and slowly building pressure as I'm inhaling deep into the lower pelvis, conversely the "down" is as if deflating and slowly releasing that pressure on the exhale. We reviewed again the details of the min-breathing-squats. Remember, the entire "mini-squat" only moves in a 6"-12" range from the full upright position to the full squat.
* My instructor told the story again how he spent years working on isolating muscle activation. I think this gave him the "competitive advantage" in learning and developing a very deep sense of kinesthetic feeling. A simple and beginning example of this is to rest your arm on a firm surface and then relax and tighten the bicep and only the bicep and no other muscles. Once you are able to do this, then relax and tighten only the tricep. You get the idea. Practice this on all the muscles throughout your entire body.
* While practicing mini-squats at home, I got an insight regarding the exhale/deflation. I also got a deeper feeling for the intentional-mechanics of the hips and knees movement. How to explain? Previously, I "thought" I had the intention of "knees forward, sit back and down" but I always got corrected so obviously something was missing. With this deeper feeling, I found a much clearer sensation of the knees driving forward while simultaneously sitting back and down.
* My school brother asked a question. I answered with my understanding of the question. He said, "You don't know what I'm talking about." Our instructor then answered the question. How could he answer it and why couldn't I? He could understand that the words of the question were selected to represent a feeling my school brother was experiencing. I didn't understand the kinesthetic feeling he was trying to verbalize.
Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: What's Sex Got To Do With It: Journal Notes #125
Sunday, September 28, 2014
What's Sex Got To Do With It?: Journal Notes #125
Notes from my August 2014 Zhan Zhuang Training Journal. I train with The School of Cultivation and Practice which practices Wujifa.
You should know that in the non-public, that is "indoor" classes which I blog here, genitalia and sex are in fact mentioned routinely. It has been my own sense of what is proper to write about which has prevented these class notes from going public as it were.
Something has shifted in my practice recently and I don't feel compelled by the same inhibition. And so beginning with this Journal Notes entry, I will begin providing notes that discuss the role of sexual expression in developing connection.
* Through the month of August, I was waking up just before 6:00 am and practicing zhan zhuang for 30-40 minutes before going to work. Some of these morning sessions were more like "sleepy stance". In the evening I would practice other exercises like the mini-breathing squats for 30 minutes.
* I go for a walk each day during break at work. On these walks I focus on letting the lower abdomen just above the pubic bone relax and move as it will. One day while walking I noticed this area moving more than it had been. By the end of my 20 minute walk, that area was getting sore and I got a little scared of what might happen. (Nothing happened.) Whenever I walk, I focus on letting go of holding in the pelvic area as much as possible. I interpret this feeling like my hips are swaying with a feminine quality.
* Question: Now that I've noticed this holding and release just above the pubic bone, what is the next step? How do I work on this?
* Let's say that you have a knotted ball of string. Loosen one knot and focus on how that change impacts the whole. Don't continue focusing on that knotted area. Don't compartmentalize. Focus locally, notice the result, then focus globally and notice the larger result of that "isolated" result. This is the process.
* Me: I've been practicing the baby rollover that I learned in July and I think I've made some good progress.
* Question: Is shaking during zhan zhuang practice the door to fa-jing? I ask because when I was standing the other day, I was shaking and there were some very sudden drops which left the hands behind giving the impression of projecting the hands forward.
* The external way is to use muscles to force the desired structure to appear. The internal way is to relax and discover how the desired structure shows up.
* Those who are dedicated to a system tend to see through the lens/filter of that system. It is difficult for them to compare the internals of a different system to the internals of their own.
* People can't do whole-body (some say six harmony) movement because their pelvis is locked. You've got to get the pelvis freed first! Some women have a very free pelvis but it is disconnected from the heart and mind. Unlock the pelvis and connect it to the heart and mind.
* Data is a tool. It is useful but it is not the truth. Data is one step removed from feeling which is true. Concepts and words remove us from the present. Change perspective.
* When most people say, "That's interesting", what they find interesting is usually a trigger that inspires them to create action, to pursue what they find interesting. I used to be like that, following my curiosity. Part of my shutting down has been to diminish what I find interesting by putting it in a box labelled, "That's interesting" and then ignore it instead of explore it to see where it might lead.
* How does this show up in your practice?
* Question: What is a good student?
* A word can evoke an image. An image can evoke a kinesthetic expression/emotional feeling. A kinesthetic feeling can evoke an emotion and vice versa, an emotion can evoke a kinesthetic response. Opening a long locked-down ano-genital area can evoke feelings which may be conceptually interpreted as threatening one's sexual identity. The response to this can be a renewed closing or shutting down to those feelings to keep the rigidity of the identity intact. Only when you notice this cycle, are you then able to change it.
* The "Gold Standard" of internal connection is, "When one part moves, then all parts move." Few if any are capable of going from 0 to 100 in three seconds. How do you get there? Deconstruct it. Dumb it down. Simplify it into a wide variety of simple exercises to develop feeling, to help the person get past their armors, to build a repertoire of kinesthetic feelings. THEN and only then can you begin to connect these experiences to develop a generalized feeling of connection. This is the Wujifa path to begin developing "When one part moves, all parts move."
* I realize now that for many years I completely did not understand the vision of the various exercises I was doing. I saw them as isolated, unrelated instances. Now I see more clearly how the various exercises are extracted methods of the "When one part moves, all parts move" kinesthetic quality. It's all to easy to get caught up in individual methods and lose sight of the purpose... even when repeatedly reminded!
* The phrase, "Where the mind goes, the chi follows." also means that language, words, semantics are a reflection of how the mind is operating. The words I use are a linguistic expression of my body disposition at that moment. The flip side of these phrase is "Where the mind is stuck, the chi is stuck." And by extension, where the body is stuck, so too the chi is stuck and so too the mind is stuck.
* If a practitioner for whatever reason is holding back from pursuing or engaging in sexual activity, it seems that the unconscious fascial response through the genital/kua region, that is, which connects from hip to hip through the genitals, assumes a "holding" pattern which is not relaxed and so inhibits the ability to feel in general and feel into the pelvis specifically. (Those who regularly engage in sexual activity but are holding somewhere else will also find it difficult to feel into their body.) If sex is where you are holding back, know that holding is holding and letting go and relaxing the holding, will open a door to discovering more feeling and internal connection.
* Question: Why do you sexualize everything?
* Everything is Wujifa follows the principle of connection. Beginners look at parts. Working on parts is a useful method for beginners. But the principle of connection is to look at the whole. So if you see only a part, then this violates the principle of connection. As you gain skill, then look more globally. For example, if you only look at the front channel or the kua, or whatever, then you violate the principle. It is useful to understand how the parts work but getting stuck at the part level violates the principle. As a caveat, beginners should not try to do full body viewing because they overlook their own habitual disconnection. Hence, the reason for the methods that work on parts is to help the beginner notice and feel deeply into that part (even if "deeply" for that person at that time is in fact very superficial).
* You can notice what you notice. You cannot notice what you do not notice. This seems to be an obvious truth but it is often overlooked.
* If you look at one part, the tendency is to ignore other parts that you're not paying attention to. So if the exercise is to only practice moving one part, you may inadvertently move five other parts. Hence, it is critical to have someone notice for you; to bring your attention to what you are not noticing. (The "noticer" will only be able to notice in you what s/he has already resolved in him/herself.)
* Me: Recently in zhan zhuang practice I noticed my entire torso from top to bottom inflate with each inhalation. (I demonstrate.)
* Question: I'm continuing practicing laying down breathing. Is there more to this exercise? I feel like I'm doing this exercise better now. I'm really focusing on relieving the stuck point between my femurs and pelvis that caused the pelvis to move. I'm feeling the breath pushing the legs apart and I feel a pulling of the legs together.
* Trevor Skyped in from California. He's making great progress! When you train like Trevor is training then you make progress. When you don't put in the time, then you don't make progress.
* After work one day as I was walking to the car, I was thinking, "Lead with penis" and I felt a little forward opening and then just as suddenly a thought spontaneously appeared, "Don't stick that thing out there! It will get cut off!" My conscious reaction to that was, "Oh, so that's how deep traumatic muscular memory goes!" (I was circumcised when an infant and like most guys never thought anything of this. About ten years ago I started reading about genital mutilation and its deep psychosomatic effects on individuals and society at large.)
Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: The Intention to Roll Over: Journal Notes #124
Next article in this series: Exercise for Kua Freedom of Movement: Journal Notes #126
* * * *
If you've been following this blog for the five years I've been writing, you'll know that I've never directly referenced genitalia or sex. The astute reader likely thinks this is odd since the pelvis contains, among other things, genitals, and genitals were designed for sex.You should know that in the non-public, that is "indoor" classes which I blog here, genitalia and sex are in fact mentioned routinely. It has been my own sense of what is proper to write about which has prevented these class notes from going public as it were.
Something has shifted in my practice recently and I don't feel compelled by the same inhibition. And so beginning with this Journal Notes entry, I will begin providing notes that discuss the role of sexual expression in developing connection.
* * * *
* I've been practicing the laying down exercise; lay on back, feet flat on floor (knees bent up) with feet a little closer than hip distance apart, coordinate breathing with knee movement; breathe in and knees splay out to about a 45 degree angle to floor and breathe out and knees return to upright position. The key is to breathe into the lower abdomen so the area immediately above the pubic bone on inhale feels like a pressure pushing the knees apart and on exhale the knees return to upright.* Through the month of August, I was waking up just before 6:00 am and practicing zhan zhuang for 30-40 minutes before going to work. Some of these morning sessions were more like "sleepy stance". In the evening I would practice other exercises like the mini-breathing squats for 30 minutes.
* I go for a walk each day during break at work. On these walks I focus on letting the lower abdomen just above the pubic bone relax and move as it will. One day while walking I noticed this area moving more than it had been. By the end of my 20 minute walk, that area was getting sore and I got a little scared of what might happen. (Nothing happened.) Whenever I walk, I focus on letting go of holding in the pelvic area as much as possible. I interpret this feeling like my hips are swaying with a feminine quality.
* Question: Now that I've noticed this holding and release just above the pubic bone, what is the next step? How do I work on this?
Answer: Don't "work" on it. Continue to set the intention to allow movement to show up and remain in the moment with it.
* Let's say that you have a knotted ball of string. Loosen one knot and focus on how that change impacts the whole. Don't continue focusing on that knotted area. Don't compartmentalize. Focus locally, notice the result, then focus globally and notice the larger result of that "isolated" result. This is the process.
* Me: I've been practicing the baby rollover that I learned in July and I think I've made some good progress.
Instructor: Show me.
Me: I demonstrate.
Instr: That is much better. Can you do it with more relax?
Me: I don't know. How? Where are you seeing not relax?
Instr: Drop your head. Relax your solar plexus/xyphoid process area. Don't go limp. Good. Now try again.
Me: I do it but with some shaking and jerking. I feel like crying. I want to call the change subtle and distinct but it is a huge change! I feel more of my entire body elongating.
* Question: Is shaking during zhan zhuang practice the door to fa-jing? I ask because when I was standing the other day, I was shaking and there were some very sudden drops which left the hands behind giving the impression of projecting the hands forward.
Answer: No. Shaking appears at the cusp of letting go. Shaking is oscillating between relaxing and holding. It is your brain saying, "Relax! No! Hold on! No! Relax! No! Hold on! No! Relax!..." much more quickly than you can form the concepts and words. When you get shaking, take a deep breath and relax. Let go. Calm down. You may get a few violent shakes afterward and that's OK. The goal is to relax, not to shake. Shaking is a byproduct of relaxing.
* The external way is to use muscles to force the desired structure to appear. The internal way is to relax and discover how the desired structure shows up.
* Those who are dedicated to a system tend to see through the lens/filter of that system. It is difficult for them to compare the internals of a different system to the internals of their own.
* People can't do whole-body (some say six harmony) movement because their pelvis is locked. You've got to get the pelvis freed first! Some women have a very free pelvis but it is disconnected from the heart and mind. Unlock the pelvis and connect it to the heart and mind.
* Data is a tool. It is useful but it is not the truth. Data is one step removed from feeling which is true. Concepts and words remove us from the present. Change perspective.
* When most people say, "That's interesting", what they find interesting is usually a trigger that inspires them to create action, to pursue what they find interesting. I used to be like that, following my curiosity. Part of my shutting down has been to diminish what I find interesting by putting it in a box labelled, "That's interesting" and then ignore it instead of explore it to see where it might lead.
* How does this show up in your practice?
* Question: What is a good student?
Answer: One who asks, "What is x?" and then says, "Show me." and then goes home and practices x, returns in a week and asks for verification. A good student is one who is curious and open about feedback.
* A word can evoke an image. An image can evoke a kinesthetic expression/emotional feeling. A kinesthetic feeling can evoke an emotion and vice versa, an emotion can evoke a kinesthetic response. Opening a long locked-down ano-genital area can evoke feelings which may be conceptually interpreted as threatening one's sexual identity. The response to this can be a renewed closing or shutting down to those feelings to keep the rigidity of the identity intact. Only when you notice this cycle, are you then able to change it.
* The "Gold Standard" of internal connection is, "When one part moves, then all parts move." Few if any are capable of going from 0 to 100 in three seconds. How do you get there? Deconstruct it. Dumb it down. Simplify it into a wide variety of simple exercises to develop feeling, to help the person get past their armors, to build a repertoire of kinesthetic feelings. THEN and only then can you begin to connect these experiences to develop a generalized feeling of connection. This is the Wujifa path to begin developing "When one part moves, all parts move."
* I realize now that for many years I completely did not understand the vision of the various exercises I was doing. I saw them as isolated, unrelated instances. Now I see more clearly how the various exercises are extracted methods of the "When one part moves, all parts move" kinesthetic quality. It's all to easy to get caught up in individual methods and lose sight of the purpose... even when repeatedly reminded!
* The phrase, "Where the mind goes, the chi follows." also means that language, words, semantics are a reflection of how the mind is operating. The words I use are a linguistic expression of my body disposition at that moment. The flip side of these phrase is "Where the mind is stuck, the chi is stuck." And by extension, where the body is stuck, so too the chi is stuck and so too the mind is stuck.
* If a practitioner for whatever reason is holding back from pursuing or engaging in sexual activity, it seems that the unconscious fascial response through the genital/kua region, that is, which connects from hip to hip through the genitals, assumes a "holding" pattern which is not relaxed and so inhibits the ability to feel in general and feel into the pelvis specifically. (Those who regularly engage in sexual activity but are holding somewhere else will also find it difficult to feel into their body.) If sex is where you are holding back, know that holding is holding and letting go and relaxing the holding, will open a door to discovering more feeling and internal connection.
* Question: Why do you sexualize everything?
Answer: Back to you, Why do you interpret what I say as being sexualized? The truth is that 99% of people's problems are in their pelvis, including you. Getting the pelvis unstuck is the key to developing connection. Because the pelvis contains the ano-genital structures and this is where people are stuck, how else am I to talk? So if your structure is revealing that you are holding in your penis, the easiest way to talk is to say to drive your penis forward. And you have seen for yourself how you have difficulty with this simple exercise.
By nature we are sexual beings. We are only here today due to thousands of years of sexual activity of our ancestors. Ironically, we live in a society of sexual creatures that dampers their natural action/expression. You have to find a balance of expressing feeling without engaging in socially inappropriate action.
Most people drive their pelvis forward by moving the spine because the muscles in the back are locked. When the back muscles relax and let go, then the pelvis can rotate on the femur heads. You can't feel connection through slackness or tightness.
* Everything is Wujifa follows the principle of connection. Beginners look at parts. Working on parts is a useful method for beginners. But the principle of connection is to look at the whole. So if you see only a part, then this violates the principle of connection. As you gain skill, then look more globally. For example, if you only look at the front channel or the kua, or whatever, then you violate the principle. It is useful to understand how the parts work but getting stuck at the part level violates the principle. As a caveat, beginners should not try to do full body viewing because they overlook their own habitual disconnection. Hence, the reason for the methods that work on parts is to help the beginner notice and feel deeply into that part (even if "deeply" for that person at that time is in fact very superficial).
* You can notice what you notice. You cannot notice what you do not notice. This seems to be an obvious truth but it is often overlooked.
* If you look at one part, the tendency is to ignore other parts that you're not paying attention to. So if the exercise is to only practice moving one part, you may inadvertently move five other parts. Hence, it is critical to have someone notice for you; to bring your attention to what you are not noticing. (The "noticer" will only be able to notice in you what s/he has already resolved in him/herself.)
* Me: Recently in zhan zhuang practice I noticed my entire torso from top to bottom inflate with each inhalation. (I demonstrate.)
Instructor: Good but don't go down that path. The problem is that you're hinging/bending the back to get that feeling.
Me: I didn't notice this.
Instr: I know. Can you get the same feeling AND keep the back straight?
Me: (Trying)
Instr: Now you're slightly rocking your pelvis.
Me: Now that you mention it, that is barely perceptible.
Instr: Barely perceptible to you. Obvious to me. The way you are rocking your pelvis is causing you to lose connection. You're losing upward force. Keep the pelvis rigid (as a temporary medicine) and feel the upward force.
* Question: I'm continuing practicing laying down breathing. Is there more to this exercise? I feel like I'm doing this exercise better now. I'm really focusing on relieving the stuck point between my femurs and pelvis that caused the pelvis to move. I'm feeling the breath pushing the legs apart and I feel a pulling of the legs together.
Answer: You're not breathing entirely into the lower abdomen (into the pubic area). You're breathing partly into the chest. This is a leakage. You need to have all the breath go into the pubic/kua area. Try this. Put your hands on your chest. Breathe in and raise the chest. Now breathe out and lower the chest. Notice the location of the chest on complete exhalation. Now, without moving the chest, breathe into your pubic/kua.
Me: I get more breathe into the kua. Wow! That's interesting. (I'm trembling after a few breaths.) I get this at home but after 15-20 minutes of practice.
Instr: You start trembling when the charge gets into the pelvis. You just plugged a leak and so now more charge is going there more quickly. What is the trembling saying?
Me: Nothing. No words. Just an "ahhhh" sound.
Instr: If you gave it a voice, what would it say?
Me: "You go girl!"
Me: (surprised at the words that just came out of my mouth) "Whoa! That's weird! Why would it say that?"
Instr: You've got to wake up your penis (your male genital energy). It's been sleeping too long.
* Trevor Skyped in from California. He's making great progress! When you train like Trevor is training then you make progress. When you don't put in the time, then you don't make progress.
* After work one day as I was walking to the car, I was thinking, "Lead with penis" and I felt a little forward opening and then just as suddenly a thought spontaneously appeared, "Don't stick that thing out there! It will get cut off!" My conscious reaction to that was, "Oh, so that's how deep traumatic muscular memory goes!" (I was circumcised when an infant and like most guys never thought anything of this. About ten years ago I started reading about genital mutilation and its deep psychosomatic effects on individuals and society at large.)
Further reading:
Introductory article explaining this "Journal Notes" series: Zhan Zhuang Training Journal
Previous article in this series: The Intention to Roll Over: Journal Notes #124
Next article in this series: Exercise for Kua Freedom of Movement: Journal Notes #126
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