Monday, February 15, 2010

Open Body, Open Mind


[Path to Mastery 2/15/10 – Wk23 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

As the body opens, it opens the mind to information.

Practicing standing meditation is an incredible experience.  As I train it in the mornings, I find its effects amazing.

The one thing that always occurs to me again is how my mind opens up to new information as my body opens up and the energy starts to flow.  When I start doing standing meditation I feel my body opening up and the energy starting to flow.  By the time my body feels open and flowing with warm Chi, my mood is enhanced and I feel on top of the world, my mind is clear and I my mind becomes very creative.  Everything becomes obvious, and things that were hidden before all of a sudden are in plain sight.

It is interesting to witness the secrets of the Tai-Chi classics and Tao-Te-Cheng unfold in your mind and when you start feeling all those descriptions.  This made me realize that all the secrets and information is within you and when the energy flows through you, it unlocks and reveals itself.  This is how all knowledge is created.  It comes through us when we are open. 

When the container is open, then the information can flow through.  It is as simple as getting the right posture in our body to change our mind.


Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

8 Type Pushing Hands
1. Ting Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/2)
2. Da-Lu Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/3)
3. O-Nu Bu Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/4)
4. Chuan-Jang Tui-Shou (Grasp the Bird's Tail) (Covered on 2/5)
5. Pi-Shou Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/8)
6.Chin-Na Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/9)
7. Left side Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/10)
8. Linking Tui-Shou (Covered on 2/11)

San-Shou
Part 2:
San-Shou looks not much different from how untrained people fight, but that is only from the outside.  Even though it looks the same, it is not the same.

Because of all the previous training, when a Tai-Chi practitioner utilizes San-Shou, even though they don’t look like anything special, the quality of the move is different.  For one thing, the power will be much different.  This is referred to as hidden power or internal power.  It is famous story for two masters of internal martial arts to be in a fight where they are not moving much and all of a sudden one of them flies through the air with seemingly no movement at all.  Second, the Tai-Chi practitioner is much more relaxed and flowing. 

I have seen a lot of martial arts.  I have seen American, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Israeli, French, Thai, Indonesian, Philipino, Brazilian, and African martial arts.  I have seen the newer mixed martial arts and modernized martial arts, or martial arts developed for the Special Forces or specifically for self defense.  In short I have seen a lot of them.  What I have realized after watching all this is that in the end a human being's movement in a real fight does not come out that differently from untrained fighters.  The difference is that the trained fighters are more comfortable, calmer, more flowing, and have trained to have some kind of advantage whether that is a powerful strike, sensitivity or grappling.   

In order for us to have effortless power, we must learn to move in a way we feel powerful.  When we are in danger, we instinctively go to a way of movement and posture that makes us feel safer and in a way that makes us feel we can be more powerful.  The only problem is that since we are not used to this kind of moving, we are too tense and ineffective utilizing our fear reactions.  A well trained fighter trains their body and mind to naturally move within the design of the human body to generate flow and power. 

So what Tai-chi does is it takes these different elements of the human design and brings awareness to them and trains them to make the most out it and how to find naturalness within it.  It takes the mind and the body to the different extremes of what it can do, and then lets it all come together.  San-Shou is where it comes together. 

2 comments:

  1. Similarly enough after doing the Korean intestine exercise I feel very warm and open, to me being aware of the breath is the beginning of pan awareness. Do it everyday I say!

    I like how in the end all martial arts are equal they are just different skill levels. That skill level is really just how comfortable you are in a given situation. That sure takes a lot of ego out of the martial arts world.

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  2. It is quite amazing how much there is to learn from standing meditation. The key for me is the learning how to listen, particularly when there is discomfort. When I first started standing meditation, my first reaction to discomfort was to want to quit. Now, I sometimes feel that, but for the most part, I welcome it as a learning opportunity. Inquiring about the discomfort often brings me to a new understanding of my body and a new understanding of being able to go beyond my perceived limits.

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