DojoKitchen: SUN-SHEN Tai-Chi Blog

Small Heavenly Circle Continued

2010-06-02T13:29:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 6/2/10 – Wk38 D3 (Str 9.12.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Continuing the story on my journey with the Small Heavenly Circle meditation from last week:

Years later, I was sitting cross-legged and working on my Dan-Tien breathing. This was a good day. I had just completed Taoist Yoga and my body felt loose and relaxed. I felt the heat comfortably accumulate in my Dan-Tien. At some point I started feeling the heat coming down my central channel down the front, and then it naturally started overflowing from my Dan-Tien out and up my spine. The Taoists say that water rises to the head, and the fire descend to your Dan-Tien. The teachings say that when your Dan-Tien is warm and your head feels clear and cool, your energy is balanced and circulating well. That is exactly what happened. I started out this practice by moving my attention from my crown chakra (crown of my head) to my upper Dan-Tien (third eye), and then to my throat, then to my heart, then to my stomach and eventually to my Lower Dan-Tien. When I moved my attention from the crown to my third eye (middle of forehead) I felt the denseness in my head moving down. When I moved the attention again, I felt the denseness again moving down to my throat. It was both weird and a really cool sensation. When I say denseness, it basically felt like this energy cloud of haze moving down my center. By the time this dense sensation moved down to my Dan-Tien, my head cleared and my Dan-Tien was warm. When I exhaled, the heat rose up my back, but by the time it reach my head, it was cool and refreshing. Afterward, as I was breathing, I felt the heat accumulating and circulating down from head to my Dan-Tien clearing and emptying my head, and I felt cool energy climbing up my back to my head refreshing my head in a continuous cycle.

To be continued.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
    1)       Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
    2)       Breathe naturally (Covered 4/20)
    3)       No sound breath (Covered 4/21)
    4)       Crow Bridge (Covered 4/22)
    5)       Dan-Tien Breathing (Covered 4/23)
    6)       Directed Breathing (Covered 4/26)
    7)       Small Heavenly Circle (Covered 5/25 ~ )
    8)       Great Heavenly Circle
    9)       Reverse Breathing
   10)   Whole Body breathing

Small Heavenly Circle

2010-05-25T22:12:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 5/25/10 – Wk37 D2 (Str 9.12.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

“Small Heavenly Circle” breathing.

The purpose of practicing “Small Heavenly Circle” breathing is to open up your energy channel that runs through the vertical center line of the front and back of your torso. In case you want a visual aid, just type in Du Mei channel on the internet, you will see what I am talking about. Small Heavenly Circle is another name for the Du Mei channel.

So, unless you have some knowledge of energy practice, you are probably wondering why you should try to open the central channel through “Small Heavenly Circle” breathing. I mean Tai-Chi is a martial art, so it has to benefit martial arts somehow, right? But how does breathing and getting the energy channels to open up help your martial arts? Here is how. When the central channel opens, you gain access to an uninhibited and unlimited source of energy. This means you gain access to unlimited source of power. Even when you start achieving this partially, you start gaining seemingly superhuman powers.

When you study meditation and enlightenment across the different schools of thought across the different parts of the world, there are some differences, but there is an underlying theme that is common to almost all of them. You will notice then that opening the central line so the energy can flow freely through your central line is the key to enlightenment. It allows all the necessary energy to induce a state of enlightenment to flow into your mind. Also, according to Acupuncture theory, all your 12 meridians (pathways that distribute energy through your whole body) are connected to your central line. This means that the energy opens up to the rest of your body and brings an unending supply of energy, which is the key to a fully healthy body. If you think about it, a healthy body in conjunction with a fully open mind is the equation for reaching your full potential. The idea of using breathing to open your central channel: not so exciting. Reaching your full potential so you can have super human abilities: very exciting. This is the reason why so many monks and martial artists sit and do this boring breathing exercise day in and day out.

When I first started learning Small Heaven Circle Breathing, I of course started with the Dan-Tien Breathing covered on 4/23. Now, learning Dan-Tien breathing for me was not a pleasant experience. I was having all kinds of gas issues. I was working too hard, controlling my breath too much. My first Taoist teacher told me that I should not try to get real air there, but just the chi. That made no sense to me back then, but I had moments where I experienced my Dan-Tien getting warm and filling with the energy. Then I would get over zealous and then try to force the breath down there to get it even hotter, which would result in just more gas and stomach aches! But those smaller moments gave me hope and I kept practicing. I think another reason I kept practicing is because I saw what was possible from witnessing the feats of my senior martial arts brothers and my teacher that seemed just super human to me. Then, I had this experience that hooked me for life. It was in the middle of winter. It was a cold snowy day, and my brother and I had decided to go out to get something. I had been practicing earlier before we decided to go out and for one reason or another, it was working. Each time I inhaled, my Dan-Tien would fill up with warmth and radiate out to the rest of my body, and when I would exhale my hands and feet would radiate heat. I don’t know what got into me, but I decided to go out in my T-shirt, running pants, and sandals. My brother packed himself in winter wear completely covering his whole body. While we were walking, the world seemed completely different to me. It was beautiful. It seemed balmy and the snow seemed like flakes of cotton falling. I looked over to my brother and I caught eyes that looked at me as if I was crazy. He had his hands in his pockets and was shivering from cold. He took out his hands and grabbed mine and to his surprise and mine, my hands were very warm, his hands were really cold. This is the day I realized what happens when the energy channel in your body opens up.

To be continued.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
    1.    Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
    2.    Breathe Naturally (Covered 4/20)
    3.    No Sound Breath (Covered 4/21)
    4.    Crow Bridge (Covered 4/22)
    5.    Dan-Tien Breathing (Covered 4/23)
    6.    Directed Breathing (Covered 4/26)
    7.    Small Heavenly Circle (Covered 5/25 ~ )
    8.    Great Heavenly Circle
    9.    Reverse Breathing
    10.   Whole Body Breathing

2010-05-24T16:07:00.000-04:00

Hello my beloved fans!!!!

I am back! Ok, while I was away, in my cave, I was in deep contemplation. I have been pondering how I could make this writing more helpful. After much research, talking to people, reading books, and letting it marinate, I think it gelled.

Melanie, my beloved wife, found me this quote yesterday and I realized this was the answer:

“Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to convince you, but on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else’s head” – Malcom Gladwell

I have decided to start the journey to engage you more and give you more of a glimpse into my head (I know, scary, I know). I won’t be writing everyday, like I used to. I tried to finish “Small Heavenly Circle” today, but it is not quite done yet, so please have patience! I will aim to provide quality versus quantity. I aim to have the article done by Tuesday!

Now in the mean time, Joe wrote his experience with Tai-Chi in the Spiritual blog section! Go check it out!!! http://dojokitchenspiritual.blogspot.com/

Sang

2010-05-10T17:34:00.000-04:00

Hello to everyone who’s been reading the blog!

Thank you for your interest and hopefully we’ve been able to aid in your progress of practicing Tai-Chi! We are currently going through some restructuring of our presentation and how we can more effectively present our material. We will be taking a temporary break while that is happening. In the mean while, please visit our Fan page on our Facebook. We have been putting video instructions on Facebook for your information. You can get to our Facebook through the new updates on our website. We will be back and running on 5/24!!!!

Thank you for your patience!!!!

Sang

Road Trip!!

2010-04-29T15:37:00.000-04:00

I will be driving to Atlanta with the family for a wedding this weekend. We had to get ready for the trip and didn't get the chance to get the writing up. Will be right back on line next week! Road trip!!!!!

Directed Breathing

2010-04-27T13:35:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/27/10 – Wk33 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Directed breathing is where you lead the energy with the breath. Traditionally, this concept is also called Hen Ha.

You could almost argue that in the end, we learn all this in order to learn how to breathe. If you know how to breathe, then you accomplish everything with just breathing. You can accomplish alignment with breathing, you can accomplish movement with breathing, and you can accomplish relaxation with breathing.

So, here is how you practice Directed Breathing.

Some ground rules. When you inhale, you inhale through your nose, and your tongue is on the roof of your mouth. When you exhale you exhale through your mouth, and your tongue is either relaxed, or on the bottom of your mouth, behind your bottom teeth, but not touching. (In the beginning the tongue is not as important, but as you get better in your ability to direct your breath the tongue will naturally come into play)

Now relax the center of your palm, and imagine you are exhaling out the finger tips. You will feel as if your hand is filling up on the inhale and then emptying on the inhale. When you get comfortable with this, start inhaling up to the forearm where you are filling the breath coming in through your fingertips to the forearm and then out. Do this while your arms are dangling. Then breathe in to the rest of your arm. You will feel as if your arms are filling up and floating.

Now for this practice you may make sound with your breathing, especially when you exhale. When you exhale, keep your mouth relatively closed and exhale as if you are blowing into a balloon. When you exhale, imagine that you are exhaling into and out of your limbs instead of out of your mouth. A good way to imagine it is as if your limbs or wherever you are directing your breath is the balloon and you are blowing into that part of the body. Make sure you are relaxed, and that you are leading with your breath.

In the beginning, this breathing will bring warmth and fullness into your body. Then it will relax deeper, and it will help you heal and get rid of any tension in your body. Try it. If you have tension in your shoulders, breathe into that area, fill it up, and exhale that fullness out through your hands.
Eventually, this will become power. When you do this breathing, you feel your limbs and your body filling up with air and being supported from within. Eventually, it starts moving you and pumping you. For instance, if you practice this breathing during push ups, you will notice that on the exhale, the breath pushes you up, and in the inhale, the breath lets you down.

As mentioned in the very beginning of this chapter directed breathing leads into Hen Ha breathing. Hen Ha breathing is explosive energy breathing. In the western concept, directed breathing is also pressurized breathing. I will explain this further tomorrow!

For today, play with breathing into different parts of the body.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
   1. Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
   2. Breathe Naturally (Covered 4/20)
   3. No Sound Breath (Covered 4/21)
   4. Crow Bridge (Covered 4/22)
   5. Dan-Tien Breathing (Covered 4/26)
   6. Directed Breathing (Covered 4/27)
   7. Small Heavenly Circle
   8. Great Heavenly Circle
   9. Reverse Breathing
   10.Whole Body Breathing

Dan-Tien Breathing

2010-04-26T16:56:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/26/10 – Wk33 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Dan-Tien breathing is nothing more than breathing with your lower abdomen.

The good part of the equation is diaphragmatic breathing. But it is not all. It is a good place to start though so let’s start there. Relax your rib cage, and imagine that your lungs move (diaphragm) moves down as you inhale instead of your chest expanding outward. You will notice that your breath sinks down and low. You will also notice that the lower abdomen expands as you do this breathing.

The lungs don’t have much space to expand outward because of your rib cage. However, the lungs are well designed to move downward. When you inhale downwards, you will notice that you can take a much deeper breath. Not only that, as your lung moves downward, it creates movement in your intestines. This is part of the reason why your lower abdomen expands since your diaphragm squishes your organs. This effectively creates a massage for them which promote internal organ health.

Now here is where the Dan-Tien breathing becomes a little more mysterious. On a simple level we can say that Dan-Tien breathing is diaphragmatic breathing. However, there are some differences. When you do Dan-Tien breathing properly, your lower abdomen area really heats up. You feel like a hot air balloon and your whole body is energized. It also feels as if you have a little pump about 3 finger widths below your navel that moves in and out. You pelvic floor feels lifted and supported. The heat that is created is not generalized either. It is a point. Another way effective way to feel Dan-Tien breathing properly is by breathing in from your Ming-Men towards the Dan-Tien. Imagine the air is coming in through your lower back towards your Dan-Tien.

Before you start do a intestine warm up exercise, where as you exhale, you draw your lower abdomen in, and push it out as you inhale. Do that about 30 times before you attempt this breathing. When you do this exercise, draw in or pushing out as much as you can without causing tension in your body. This will help you to feel loose before you practice this. Don’t force anything. Stay relaxed and it will come.

Enjoy!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
    1. Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
    2. Breathe Naturally (Covered 4/20)
    3. No Sound Breath (Covered 4/21)
    4. Crow Bridge (Covered 4/22)
    5. Dan-Tien Breathing (Covered 4/26)
    6. Directed Breathing
    7. Small Heavenly Circle
    8. Great Heavenly Circle
    9. Reverse Breathing
    10. Whole Body Breathing

Crow Bridge

2010-04-22T12:19:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/22/10 – Wk32 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Crow Bridge refers to connecting the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. There are a lot of explanations as to why this should be done.

Crow Bridge is named after the legend of a couple that were separated from each other and could only meet once a year when crows would form a bridge for them to meet. The tongue is supposed to bridge a natural Chi pathway that is disconnected from the roof of the mouth to the throat. It is believed that by placing the tongue on the roof of the mouth, you complete the Chi pathway the travels through the center of the front of the body.

It is also said that the mild tension on the tongue necessary to create the bridge allows the white blood to flow through your mouth to prevent your mouth from getting dry, meaning your mouth will salivate. I didn’t understand the importance of this until I started studying relaxation a bit deeper. Apparently, when the mouth is dry, the body will not relax. When the mouth is salivating it is a signal of relaxation. Also, when you place the tongue on the roof of your mouth, your jaw cannot tighten. According to western science, the body cannot relax unless you have a relaxed jaw. So, the Tai-chi people figured out that by placing the tongue on the roof of the mouth, you salivate and create a slack jaw that brings you into deeper relaxation.

Pretty cool huh?

So, when you remember, gently place your tongue on the roof of your mouth and relax your jaw, and you will feel much more relaxed. It also helps you regulate your breath as well.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
1.Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
2.Breathe Naturally (Covered 4/20)
3.No Sound Breath (Covered 4/21)
4.Crow Bridge (Covered 4/22)
5.Dan-Tien Breathing
6.Directed Breathing
7.Small Heavenly Circle
8.Great Heavenly Circle
9.Reverse Breathing
10.Whole Body Breathing

No Sound Breath

2010-04-21T16:37:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/21/10 – Wk32 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey

Today’s blog is going to be short. No Sound breath or silent breath.

When you practice Tai-Chi or Chi-Gong do it so that you cannot hear your breath. Gabriel used to say that you should breathe so that nobody can tell you are breathing. The test is if you put a feather under your nose, the feather wouldn’t move as you are breathing.

Now I can’t do that, at least not for any length of time. But the longer I train, I feel my breath deepen and lengthen, and I feel the flow of Chi increases with this breathing. It also creates more pressure, but it is gentle.

There is breath with sound that we practice, but that will be covered later. For now, enjoy practicing the silent breath and remember, no matter what happens relaxation comes first!

Have fun!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
1.Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
2.Breathe Naturally (Covered 4/20)
3.No Sound Breath (Covered 4/21)
4.Crow Bridge
5.Dan-Tien Breathing
6.Directed Breathing
7.Small Heavenly Circle
8.Great Heavenly Circle
9.Reverse Breathing
10.Whole Body Breathing

Breathing Naturally

2010-04-20T18:11:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/20/10 – Wk32 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

There are breathing concepts, breathing techniques and breathing exercises. But before any of that, you have to just let your breath be and observe it.

When I first joined my teacher Gabriel my mind was filled with the idea of different breathing techniques that would make my Kung-Fu (Martial Cultivation) more powerful. I was excited to learn the secrets of breathing. With anticipation I asked, so while doing the form, how do I breathe. He said, “Just breathe.” I was in semi shock. I said, “I thought you were supposed to exhale while you extend and inhale while you retract. Am I not supposed to do some kind of breathing.” He replied eloquently, “No.”. He had a talent for anticlimactic answers.

Later, as I practiced it became clear to me that the form teaches your body to breathe. As you do the form, your breathing naturally changes to about 5~6 breaths per minute as your body calms and relaxes. Also, if you are relaxed enough, you notice how your breathing naturally starts correlating to the moves. I realized much later all the breathing methods taught are just a summary of what happens naturally when you practice the form over time with awareness on your breath.

There are breathing exercises and techniques taught outside the form, but it is not taught while doing the form until later. This is because trying to coordinate your breath and movement consciously is unnatural and often creates a disharmony between the breath and your movements. The breathing exercises allow you to practice the different aspects of breathing so you can learn the distinctions of what all can be done with breathing and until your control gets better and it all starts coming together. Once your breathing is natural, and your control of your breath is natural, you can start incorporating breathing methods to enhance the explosive power of your form.

However, in the beginning the only thing you need is awareness to notice the unconscious tension in your body as you go through the movements of the form and let go of them. You may have experienced holding your hand in a tight fist unconsciously and only letting go of it after noticing it. It is very much the same concept. You cannot let go of that which you don’t know you are holding on.
See how you want to breathe naturally. How is your throat, your shoulders, your chest, your rib cage while doing the form? Are they all moving with the breath? Are they soft and relaxed? How does it want to breathe? Now extend this awareness not just during the form, but while typing on your computer, while sowing, while doing your dishes or whatever else it is your doing. There are not too many things I know that you can do without breathing. 

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
    1. Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)
    2. Breathe Naturally (Covered 4/20)
    3. No Sound Breath
    4. Crow Bridge
    5. Dan-Tien Breathing
    6. Directed Breathing
    7. Small Heavenly Circle
    8. Great Heavenly Circle
    9. Reverse Breathing
    10. Whole Body Breathing

Awareness of Breathing

2010-04-19T15:36:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/19/10 – Wk32 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Breathing is the most important part of Tai-Chi. I would say that Breathing is the most important thing period especially considering the amount of time it takes to have an immediate impact in your life. You don’t need a formal education to figure out that it doesn’t take long at all from the time you stopped breathing until it has a deep and profound impact in your life.

I often tell people that breath is the most important diet in their lives. Energy has different states. At its lowest vibration level, it is solid. You heat it up a little, it becomes liquid. Yet, you heat it a little more, it becomes gas. Then it becomes plasma, and I am totally blanking out on the other stages, but with my limited scientific understanding at some point it becomes light. Sunlight. I have often read that all food we eat is a variation on sunlight. Sunlight gets stored in the plants, and then animals eat so that they can get the sunlight through the plants.

Besides light, air, a gaseous state, is one of the purest forms of the elements that you can ingest that is always readily available. How significant of a diet air is I feel is grossly underestimated. I also think people don’t understand how much of an immediate difference breathing can make to your physical and psychological state. I think one way of looking at things is from the perspective of impact to life. If you stop eating food, on average you have about 3 weeks before you die. If you stop drinking, you have about 1 week. If you stop breathing, you have about a few minutes. There is brain damage when it is oxygen deprived for more than 1 minute. Brain damage with just one minute!!!!

A lot of people are not aware of this, but when oxygen gets scarce, the priority is the brain. The brain is an oxygen hog. It weighs about 2~3lb but it consumes about 20% of your oxygen. This means that during stressful times when your brain is working overtime and is consumed with negative thoughts, and is running very inefficiently, it is draining you of much more oxygen than usual, and that oxygen has to come from somewhere. Most of the time stress causes shallow breathing. So, less air coming in, a lot of oxygen being consumed very inefficiently, and less oxygen going to the rest of the body. No wonder we feel sapped and tired when we are stressed.

Another interesting fact about breathing is that it is the gateway to your unconscious. This is very interesting, at least to me. Most organs are autonomic.   That means that without your awareness, they run by themselves. You don’t have to consciously do anything. All except your lungs. Your lungs are semi autonomic. They run by themselves, but you can control them as well. You can consciously hold your breath or change their rate and their depth. Not only that, through breathing you can consciously and effectively change the rate of your heart. Your heart by itself is autonomic. You cannot control your heart directly. But your heart rate is directly connected to your way of breathing. So, through your breathing, your heart can be controlled. Thus, your breathing is the gateway to your autonomic system, the part of you that is unconscious. The state of your body is the expression of your unconscious mind. So, by learning how to breathe can help you change your state of mind. For instance, they have found that the ideal rate of breath rate is about 5~6 breathe per minute. Interestingly, when this happens, you hit a clear state of mind and euphoria that you can experience during meditation. Interestingly, it is also the only known physical action you can take that effectively allows you to control the effects of fear such as tunnel vision, freezing, complex motor skills, and conscious thinking just by reducing your heart rate.

For today, let us start with Awareness. You cannot change that which you are not aware that you are doing. Observe your breath through your day. Notice when you hold your breath. Notice where you hold your breath. Notice how that makes you feel, and how it affects your energy level. Then notice the rate of your breathing. Notice these things especially during stressful situations. You will have a fascinating day.

More tomorrow.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1 – 4/14)
8. Principles Governing Breathing
    1. Awareness of Breath (Covered 4/19)

2. Breathe Naturally
3. No Sound Breath

    4. Crow Bridge
    5. Dan-Tien Breathing
    6. Directed Breathing
    7. Small Heavenly Circle
    8. Great Heavenly Circle
    9. Reverse Breathing
    10. Whole Body Breathing

2010-04-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

Feedback

[Path to Mastery 4/16/10 – Wk31 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

I was talking to my buddy Alexis, a very enlightened individual, and I learned a lot.

We talked about the different aspects that bring about the enlightened state of mind, the mind that is free and full of light. In a sense this is the state of mind we all are trying to get to, whether it is through success, money, meditation, prayer or stealing your sister’s candy. We do things so we can be free, so we can all get to a place where we are happy.

While we were discussing this, we were discussing how important it is to create a reliable system that would allow people to consistently get to that place of the mind and body where there was fulfillment.

Then it dawned on me. The Tai-Chi system is a system of feedback.

We learn through feedback. Without feedback, we cannot learn. Our senses are nothing more than the feedback the brain receives so it has data to take another action appropriate for the next situation. If your interpretation of the feedback is incorrect, you could be in a lot of trouble. If you were looking at a wild animal, and you thought it was smiling but really it was baring teeth, you could end up with a lot of teeth marks.

People often have this mistaken idea that the system is there so you can learn a bunch of techniques. Well, that would make a very limiting system. What if you come across a situation where the technique doesn’t apply? You cannot enough techniques to account for all situations. Instead, it would be more helpful to have an understanding a guidance system that allows you to navigate through the changes and allow you to come up with techniques that suit the situation. This way, you don’t need to rely on memory. Instead, you can let the moment guide you.

Then why is there a Tai-Chi system with forms and 2 person forms, which are basically techniques? The form has 2 functions:

First, it helps you get into an ideal state of mind and body, where emotionally you are feeling free and in awe, as if you are looking at the world from the top of the mountain. Physically you are feeling relaxed and powerful, as if you just woke up from a nap in the Bahamas and you are feeling energized and refreshed. Techniques are not as useful when you try to make them happen in a natural environment where things are constantly changing. But if you set up the environment to be ideal for the technique then you limit the variables, and you can have an ideal experience through the technique without distractions. For instance, it is good for a basketball player to practice free throws. It gives them the feel of an ideal shot. But then the player has to practice shooting the ball from all kinds of different angles while the other players are coming at them while maintaining that same feel. The form is for practicing an ideal state of mind and body like a basket player practices free throw for the feel of an ideal throw.

Second, you start using the form as a feedback system to check whether you are in your state or not. Since you become more and more familiar with your ideal state while doing the form or 2 person forms you learn to carry over that state into your daily life. In the beginning, the durations are short, but as you increase the amount of times you are in it, it becomes natural. According to Alex, in Tibetan Buddhism, they express this thought by saying “Short duration many moments”. Once you are thoroughly familiar with how the form is supposed to feel, you have an accurate feedback system to get you into that state by yourself without anybody’s help.

By the way the ideal state is nothing special. Ideal state is a state of mind when you are natural, and you are happy. For instance, it is any state where your emotions and physical sensations are positive. For instance, you could be involved in drawing a painting and you are so absorbed that you have lost all sense of time, or you could be playing music and you are the music, you are out in nature and just caught up by the beauty, or you just enjoy the simple pleasure of the breeze and you are present enough to enjoy it. In some ways, you could say that this ideal state is nothing more than you not being so caught up in your thoughts and mind that you don’t know that life is passing by you. I wanted to mention this because I have seen so many people make this experience so grand and so great that it is unattainable. The great pleasures in life are inevitable. When you learn to appreciate the simple pleasures, then there are many more great pleasures.

Now that you know the system is to act as a feedback mechanisms, I would like to give some pointers for your training. We all have an innate inborn wisdom. Nobody taught us what grace is, but even people who have never seen Tai-Chi when they see it they think it is graceful. Not only that, but if we have a novice and a master practicing together, they all know who the master is, even if no one told them. How do we know? How do we know what looks good and what looks bad? Somehow we just know. That doesn’t mean you will know what to do, but when you do something right, you will be able to recognize it because it looks better than it did before.

Using this concept, when you practice, do it in front of a mirror. You will see the discrepancy between what you are actually doing and what you think you are doing. It is a great teacher. A barber can cut his own hair. He just needs lots of practice, patience and a mirror.

Last, when doing the form you are not sure whether you are doing it correctly or not, imagine that the gravity increased 10 times. This will help with the sense of gravity and will give you a much better sense on what your alignment should be.

These 2 tools should become of great treasure to you if you use them. Have a great weekend!

2010-04-15T17:02:00.002-04:00

Still working on it! Will post as soon as it's done! Thank you for your patience.

Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien

2010-04-14T16:04:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/14/10 – Wk31 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Now that we have discussed the Dan-Tien from an energetic view, let’s cover it from the physical perspective, the opposite perspective, the Tai-Chi way! This will be the last principle we cover on Relaxation.

We covered the physical location of the Dan-Tien previously when I covered ‘Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ in principles regarding the lower body in the alignment chapter (Covered on 3/16). Now let me add a little more detail. Besides, being 3 finger widths below the belly button, and a third of a distance from the front inside the body, the Dan-Tien is located between the 3 points, the Ming Men (across your belly button on your lower back), and your Kwa (the crease where your thighs meet your pelvis). Of course it is not in the center of these 3 points, but it feels like the Dan-Tien sits on a point where these 3 points converge. I jokingly refer to it as the holy trinity because these 3 points always have to move together as one.

Gabriel told us that when you move, your movement starts from the Ming Men. I asked him “What about the Dan-Tien?” since every book on the market said that you had move from the Dan-Tien. He said the Dan-Tien was where the weight was, and what kept the body centered and stable. It was like an anchor.

When your Ming-Men moves, since it is your spine, your entire body moves immediately. Now for the entire body to move in unison, the spine needs to move in coordination with the 2 ball joints where your femur (thigh bone) adjoins the socket in your pelvis. As you are reading this, you should try moving your 2 ball joints from your Ming-Men. Now try moving one ball joint in order to the other ball joint and your Ming-Men. Switch between the sides. You will notice that your shifting and rotation is a lot easier and your movements will be a lot smoother. This kind of stable movement causes relaxation, and you will feel your lower abdominal (Dan-Tien) area relaxing deeper and getting a fuller feeling. Most likely one of these 2 methods will work better for you depending on your make up and where you are in your training.

The key here is that you move all 3 in unison and awareness. This brings about relaxation and the relaxation sinks to your lower abdomen, which means that they actually settle to your pelvis. Traditionally, Dan-Tien means the field where Chi can be cultivated (For details, review the Lower Body principles in the Alignment Chapter, when we were covering ‘Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered on 3/16)). So, the Dan-Tien is like a storehouse for Chi. Now, translating that into physical terms, feeling that your Dan-Tien is full of Chi would mean that your organs are relaxed, your guts are full of blood from the relaxation, and your guts are settled in your pelvis so your lower abdomen feels full. This fullness secures the spine and allows it to move against a stable environment. Of course since the spine is supported and secured, the whole body can relax deeper as well. So in summary, the relaxation fills the Dan-Tien, and the Dan-Tien secures the spine, and that in turn relaxes the body even further. It feels like a pole that is secured to the center of a tire. If the tire is not full and heavy, the pole is going to be wobbly.

As a minor point, when you relax, and the tension goes away, you can feel how the body is connected to the Dan-Tien and your waist in a kinetic chain, a chain of muscles that work together. You feel how all movements come out from the Dan-Tien and the waist.

Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien can be approached from different angles. You can produce it through using the mind, and you can also achieve it through moving from the holy trinity. You have also learned how to do it using alignment from previous chapters. In the end all these are variations on how to relax the body enough so that the energy flows and the body reaches a resting point. Only then can you produce powerful movements that come out like a wave from the Dan-Tien. This concludes our discourse on Relaxation Principles.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use mind not use strength (Covered 4/7)
   3) Internal external mutually integrate (Covered 4/8)
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath) (Covered 4/9)
   5) Extend into infinity (Covered 4/12)
   6) Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien (Covered 4/13~4/14)

Chi Sink Dan-Tien

2010-04-13T18:05:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/13/10 – Wk31 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

When you know how to ‘Dropping the Weight’, and ‘Extend into Infinity’, then you have ‘Chi Sink Dan-Tien’.

When you have one principle, then you have all the others. It is important to mention on many occasions and to stress that all these principles are really describing the same thing. If you will these principles are check points to see how well you have any one of the principles. It is a reality check. If you have one principle, but not another, then you know that you don’t really have either. There is lack of understanding somewhere.

Many years ago I read a book called ‘The book of Ki’, by Koichi Tohei. I recommend this book to anyone. It is a great book to study Chi. In this book he mentions 4 principles of Ki (Japanese way of saying Chi):

1) Relax
2) Extend
3) Weight Underneath
4) Keep one point

The 4th principle, keeping one point is what we call the Dan-Tien. In this book, it mentions that by brining awareness to your one point (your Dan-Tien), you bring you body to being centered. Your body relaxes, and your body extends out from your Dan-Tien, and you feel the weight underneath. When one is present, then all the others are present. Another thing that I thought really helped was how to find the Dan-Tien. If the Dan-Tien is the center of your body, extend your mind out equally in all direction. As you expand out, you will feel your center becoming more clear. Extend it out until you start going out of the atmosphere, and start expanding your mind out into the universe. Since the universe is infinite, you are the center of the universe from this perspective. As you bring your mind out further and further, you will notice that your center becomes warmers, more centered and clearer. You will notice when you do this, you are extending, you will automatically feel relaxed, and you will the weight underneath. All of the principles are present. This is one of the many ways to find your Dan-Tien.

Tomorrow, I will discuss another.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use mind not use strength (Covered 4/7)
   3) Internal external mutually integrate (Covered 4/8)
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath) (Covered 4/9)
   5) Extend into infinity (Covered 4/10)
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien (Covered 4/12)

Extend Into Infinity

2010-04-12T01:02:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/12/10 – Wk31 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

The principle of extension is a key concept to succeeding in Tai-Chi.   Extension is the Yang, if letting go and relaxing is the Yin. Extension balances limpness. Without extension, you cannot relax properly.

The actual concept of extension is ‘Extend Into Infinity’. I think the name explains it for itself. Not much mystery.

Here is a key concept in Tai-Chi that is integral to understanding all of Tai-Chi, if not life itself. Opposites are actually the same thing. They are not two separate things opposing each other. The two sides of a coin cannot exist without each other. That is Yin and Yang. Here is another example. Confidence without Humility is Arrogance. You cannot be truly confident unless you are humble. Without humility, it becomes imbalanced and you become arrogant. Now you can imagine what humility without confidence becomes. This is a very useful concept in considering your life. Let me give one more example to nail it to bed. Courage cannot exist without fear. I heard this quote, “True courage is not the absence of fear, but doing the right thing in spite of the fear”.

It seems we miss out on so much of life, because we have the wrong picture of the world and thus we miss what we are looking for even when it is staring us in the eye because we don’t recognize it.

So, we want relaxation, but we can’t have it without extension. Extension is support. Without support we cannot relax. One of the reasons people lay down when they want to rest is because their body is supported through out their whole back and thus there is a wider area of support. When you are standing on one leg it is wobbly because you are standing on a wobbling surface, you are not going to be able to relax. If your standing leg has support, your body becomes stable, and the body can let go.

All the principles can be explained using extension and dropping (letting go/weight underneath). These are the 2 fundamental principles that come out of the original principle Yi Chi Li (Mind leads Chi, Chi leads Muscle/strength). For instance, ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ is a principle of extension to the crown of the spine. By leading the mind to extend from your crown upwards, your whole spine extends and the rest of your body hangs from it. ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ is a principle of dropping. Extension is the principle of leading with mind to direct your energy. Letting go/dropping/weight underneath is when you let go with your mind and move your mind away from doing anything with that part of the body. When you have extension, then you have letting go on those parts where you are not extending. As a whole we call this combined state of extension and dropping ‘Relaxation’.

Now, that you have the yin and yang of a relaxed state, play hard with it, have fun, and you will master it!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use mind Not Use Strength (Covered 4/7)
   3) Internal External Mutually Integrate (Covered 4/8)
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath) (Covered 4/9)
   5) Extend Into Infinity (Covered 4/10)
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien

Weight Underneath

2010-04-09T09:19:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/9/10 – Wk30 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:
‘Weight Underneath’ was more or less covered yesterday when I discussed Soong. But I find this concept to be very useful, and of value in its own right, so I would like to discuss why it is specifically named ‘Weight Underneath’.

First, stand as if you are at the edge of a swimming pool, and you are about to jump in. Let both of your arms hang from the side, and you are probably leaning slightly forward and your weight is on the balls of your feet because you are ready to jump. This is the ideal position to feel the weight of your arms just hanging from your shoulders. Now when you let your arms hang like this, and just work at letting go, you will feel your arms getting heavier and heavier, getting further and further relaxed.

The issue is when you start raising your arm. You can relax as long as you keep your arms dropped, but it gets more difficult when you start moving.

Here is where ‘Weight Underneath’ comes in handy. From the position of your arms dropped, feel the weight of the arms. Feel how the heaviness is underneath your limbs, as if meat was hanging from the bone (that is actually exactly what is happening to your muscles, hanging off your bone!). Now, imagine that you are a puppet and that your wrists are being raised by the strings. While your wrist is being pulled up by a string, maintain the feeling of the weight underneath your limb. You will notice the shoulder stays settled, and the elbows stay dropped. You will also notice you arm stays heavy and relaxed. You may use the balloon underneath the arm, but I like providing different visualization exercises because they allow you to use your mind differently. It is often the case that the student will find one visualization method more effective than another. Also, the different visualization brings different effects and becoming sensitized to these differences is important.

Some people like calling this dropping or sinking weight, because the visualization of continuously dropping as if you were a sack of potatoes being dropped or as if you were sinking through mud slowly helps them better.

This is a great simple principle of a relaxation method if you want to just focus on training relaxation! Have fun playing with this principle!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use Mind Not Use Strength (Covered 4/7)
   3) Internal External Mutually Integrate (Covered 4/8)
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath) (Covered 4/9)
   5) Extension
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien

Internal External Mutually Integrate

2010-04-08T12:40:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/8/10 – Wk30 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

‘Internal External Mutually Integrate’ is an important principle in the externally focused society that we live in. This principle is how to coordinate the feelings of the internal part of your body with the external look of your form. This principle basically says that Tai-Chi is not only about how it looks from the outside, but the movements are coordinated with how it feels from the inside.

When you do Tai-Chi, you should feel as if your upper body is a cork that is floating on water. As the waves come and go, you just float and ride out the wave. You should feel as if anything above the pelvis is floating above the water. This sensation doesn’t come because your body is bobbing up and down, but it is created because it feels like your pelvis is floating above your legs. As you shift your weight to the front or the back, you feel the pumping of your legs and even though from the outside it looks flowing and level, it feels like the legs are pumping your whole body.

You also feel the heat pushing up from your legs up your spine and out your hands as your legs are pumping. This creates a sensation as if you are a hot air balloon, and you feel your body getting warm and you feel as if there is warm lava flowing around. Things that were tight inside loosen up and start moving and eventually feel as if it gets absorbed into the rest of the body.

It is said you should feel as if you have no corners. In Chinese the word corner is used for sharp angles like the corner of a square desk.   In short, while doing the Tai-Chi form, you should feel as if there are no sharp corners, no abrupt angles in the body. You should feel rounded and easy like a ball.

Your spine should feel suspended, energized, and straight. You should feel that each side of your body is a column on its own and is standing by itself. When you get this sensation, you will naturally feel that the spine is suspended by itself.

The word Soong (Relax) here is significant. If you get the sensations above, you have Soong. It is to describe the sensations of letting go and sinking (you keep feeling as if you are being pulled down. You can feel the weight of your body. It is also referred to as feeling the weight underneath. ). Yet it is also light and ready to move, comfortable and springy that comes from fullness such as that of a full balloon.

If you have Soong, then it doesn’t matter whatever form you are doing. You are doing Tai-Chi. You could be doing a Shaolin Form, but it will still be Tai-Chi since you have the internal principles of Tai-Chi working within you. Changing the external so you can have Soong, and doing things with Soong is to have ‘Internal External Mutual Integration’.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use Mind Not Use Strength (Covered 4/7)
   3) Internal External Mutually Integrate (Covered 4/8)
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath)
   5) Extension
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien

Use Mind Not Use Strength

2010-04-07T21:50:00.001-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/7/10 – Wk30 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

‘Use Mind Not Use Strength’ has depth the more you chew on it. According to the Koreans: what’s good will produce more juice (flavor) the more you chew on it, unlike gum. This is definitely one of them!

The importance of this becomes most apparent when you either do pushing hands or you practice your jing (power generation) with another person. When you are about to do Fa-Jing (explosive energy), you imagine your force going through the other person first. You feel them getting lighter and you follow through that feeling of lightness, and to your surprise you see them flying. The entire time, your muscles feel relaxed and you feel like you are doing the form. This is what makes Tai-Chi fun, and this is what makes Tai-Chi mysterious. It makes sense that the mind affects your own body, but when the mind starts influencing things outside of your body, that just adds to the wow factor.

‘Use Mind Not Use Strength’ is important to practice when you are just training by yourself, however. It is easy to use strength and tense when you are practicing with someone else in the beginning. When you practice by yourself, you get to feel what it feels like just by yourself. This is important because when you are with someone else, it should feel like you are still just by yourself. If you have never just practiced by yourself, then you won’t know what it is like to be just by yourself.

You practice ‘Use Mind Not Use Strength’ by leading the move with your mind first. You don’t just do the move, but you visualize the move before you do it, and then you let the energy go first, and then you let the body follow the sensation of the energy. Pretty soon your body goes where your mind goes. Since you guide with your mind and let your body follow the sensation of energy, your body stays relaxed.

Try this trick. Imagine there is a balloon underneath your arm and it is lifting up your arm. You will feel as if your arm is being lifted, and you will be very relaxed. Try just lifting your arm. You will notice that as long as your attention is on your arm, it tenses, but the moment you follow the sensation of a bubble underneath your arm lifting your arm, your arm becomes more relaxed. This is a phenomenon of ‘Use Mind Not Use Strength’. You don’t use your body, you use your mind to create a sensation of energy, such as an energy ball underneath your arm, and then let your body be moved by that sensation.

Have fun playing with ‘Use Mind Not Use Strength’!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use Mind Not Use Strength (Covered 4/7)
   3) Internal External Mutually Integrate
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath)
   5) Extension
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien

Mind Body Release Relax

2010-04-06T16:47:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/6/10 – Wk30 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Hope you had a great Easter Weekend! I know I did!

Starting today we will be covering the Tai-Chi principles governing Relaxation. First one up is
‘Mind Body Release Relax’.

This is a great principle. This one basically says that unless the mind is relaxed, the body cannot relax, and unless the body relaxes, the mind cannot relax. It shows that the mind and the body is the same. You cannot separate them.

There is a reason the word ‘Release’ is mentioned first. Tension is like having your hand clenched into a fist. Now imagine your shoulders are a clenched fist and you are letting them go. You will feel them relaxing and dropping. Muscles that are tense are like fists that are clenched. For them to relax, you have to let them go. In order for you to notice that they are clenched, fist you need to notice them. You cannot let go of that which you are not aware.

If you let go, then relaxation automatically comes. Relaxation is a state. Letting go is the act.

Here is an even more powerful exercise for when you are stressed. Imagine that you let go of the grip that your forehead has on your brain. As your forehead lets go of the front part of the brain, feel how your forehead opens up and how your brain relaxes. Feel how your whole body starts to relax as your brain relaxes. Go to any part of your brain that feel tense and release that part of the brain. Feel the relaxation in the body.

This is what you do in No Tai-Chi before the form begins. This is what you do through your day so you keep your mind relaxed. You will notice that when you are rushing and you feel tense, that your brain will be buzzing. Exhale, take a deep breath and slow down. Release and relax your brain, and feel your mind calm.

The mind and the body is a feedback loop. It may take a little time before your body and mind completely relaxes. After you release your brain, you may notice parts of your body feeling tense. Relax and exhale through those parts of the body. Slow your exhale. As you feel those parts of the body relaxing, you will feel your brain further relaxing and your mind further calming. As your mind slows, you will feel the body relaxing deeper.

These are the signs that you are relaxed. You will feel your jaws relax, and your mouth will salivate. This is one of the reasons why in Tai-Chi you place your tongue gently on the roof of your mouth. It will create saliva to flow in your mouth and relax your body. Your shoulders will relax, and your face will be smiling. Incidentally, this is also that same physical state of happiness. Additionally, your hands and feet will get warmer. According to my friends in the medical field this means that the tonus on the parasympathetic nervous system has increased and your body is in healing mode and your tonus on the sympathetic nervous system has decreased so that you are not in your excited state of feeling like you are in a fight or flight mode. You are no longer running from your adrenalin addicted state as we discussed last Thursday.

Moral of the story? Being relaxed is being happy!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release Relax (Covered 4/6)
   2) Use Mind Not Use Strength
   3) Internal External Mutually Integrate
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath)
   5) Extension
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien

Principles Governing Relaxation

2010-04-01T15:52:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 4/1/10 – Wk29 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Today, we enter a new chapter, principles governing Relaxation!

So far we have covered principles on Alignment and principles on Movement. I could say that you move and align properly so you can relax. We haven’t covered Breathing yet, but it is true that you breathe so you can relax even more deeply. The whole point of doing all of this is so you can relax deeper and deeper. Relaxation is pleasure. Relaxation is health. Relaxation is having time. Relaxation means that there is no stress. Relaxation is naturally what we all seek, but at the same time it eludes us.

The issue is that even though we all want relaxation, we don’t do anything to get it because we believe that power is with strength, mass and speed. This is why we get tense and we rush all the time, and try to get more of everything. We believe relaxation is what we get to do after we have tensed enough and accumulated enough and rushed enough.

I’d like to make a proposition. I’d like to make a proposition that we don’t really believe in this. Not really. We just don’t believe in it for ourselves. I find it interesting that in all the years I have been doing martial arts, and that is 25 years at this point in my life (Since 1985), I have never seen anyone marvel at someone who is tensing, struggling, and rushing. People are always impressed with the people who are effortless, flowing, relaxed and have grace in their demeanor and movement.

When there is a stressful situation, we have respect for that person who stays calm, collected and relaxed. Relaxation is confidence. When we see someone rushing about, we don’t think of confidence. As a matter of fact, you will notice that almost always without fail, the person who stays clam, and relaxed will always get more done. This is especially true since they don’t have to rush back to correct their mistakes, even if they happened to get done first.

It’s also only when you are relaxed you can laugh and have fun. Relaxation is happiness.

We know deep inside that relaxation is true power. We just don’t believe in it for ourselves, and we just don’t know how. Most of us have never been shown how. A lot of us believe that someone is just born confident, happy, or relaxed. We stop trying because no matter how hard we try we just never seem to get there.

Isn’t it interesting that we try so hard to get there? We also try to get there by rushing so we won’t have to rush anymore, and we also try to get there by tensing and trying to do as much as we can. If relaxation is the act of letting your muscles go, and you are engaging your muscles more and more, I wonder how that is going to work out. I propose that if you tense, you get better at tensing, that if you relax, you get better at relaxing.

Now before we go any further, I’d like to debunk a myth. Relaxation is not being limp. Relaxation is balance. From a Tai-Chi perspective, relaxation really runs the whole gambit from being limp all the way to being tense. When I first joined my teacher Gabriel, he said relax, and I went limp. He said, not limp, relax. I was completely confused. He showed me how relaxation is really what I came to call relaxed tension in real life application. Even people who are calm, collected, relaxed are not limp. If they really were, they would have fallen to the ground. People who are limp are not relaxed. They lack discipline. True relaxation only comes when there is a well balanced mix between relaxed muscles and engaged muscles to suit the purpose. So, people who are laid back are not relaxed either. They lack balance. They still feel stressed, they just ignore it. It is not the same as feeling truly relaxed and in balance.

When you are truly relaxed, there is no more inner struggle, both mentally and physically. When there is no inner struggle, there is peace and calmness and relaxation. When there is no struggle, even if muscles are engaged, it creates smooth flowing movement. Relaxation is the absence of struggle. Relaxation is grace and flow.

Relaxation in Tai-Chi is the act of letting go of all you can while still being able to perform the task. It is the active practice of less is more. Too many cooks in one kitchen is not good. They get in each other's way. The same is true with your body. In Tai-Chi we practice what is called the unbendable arm. You stand straight up, in a manner where you feel centered. Then, while maintaining your stance, you extend your arm out and make a fist, and tense it as much as you can. Your partner comes up to you and bends your arm. Now, you relax, and open your palm. Then you imagine your arm is one piece and your fingers extend to touch the wall across from you while relaxing everything. The way you know you are relaxed is by feeling the weight of your arm underneath. It is important that you do not lean forward while doing this. Then again, you have someone try to bend your arm. You and your partner may notice that it is a lot harder to bend your arm. As a matter of fact, often times, if the arm could be bent with tension, the arm can’t be bent at all when it was extending and relaxing. This is because when there is tension, your antagonistic muscles are engaged. All this means is that when your triceps were tensing to keep the arm extended, your biceps were tensing to bend your arm. In short, you were struggling against yourself and that is why your partner could bend your arm easier. When you are relaxed, you don’t feel your body because it’s not fighting itself anymore. When your triceps are engaging, your biceps are relaxed and thus your triceps have more strength. This is true for your whole body. Relax and just move the minimum. If you are shifting forward, relax everything and just push with your back leg, and even then, use as little as possible, so you don’t feel anything. So, relaxation is learning how to relax what you can while engaging what needs to be engaged so you are streamlined and focused.

Effortlessness comes from an attitude and belief that there is a better way to do this, and the right way to do this is effortless and I just need to find this way. Effortlessness comes from a belief that less is more. It comes from a belief that it’s about working smarter, instead of harder. Try this next time when you open a jar. If you can’t open a jar and you were struggling, then straighten up, relax, smile and open it as if it were nothing. You’ll be surprised. More often then not, you will be able to open it effortlessly. Try it with jars you can open. It will open a lot easier and it will cause a lot less tension in your body.

Relaxation is like compounded interest. In the beginning, there is little to show for it, but the more you practice it, the more you get from it. The more you practice it, the more benefits you feel from it, and the better ways you find to do it. I guess it’s really like anything. My suggestion to you is try it and see for yourself. Stop rushing. Stop tensing. Stop slouching. When you find yourself doing one of these things, just exhale and start letting go of your tense muscles. Start moving at your pace instead, so physically you slow down. Start smiling. This will allow your breath to return to it's natural relaxed state.

If you feel that you are a naturally excitable person, don’t confuse relaxation with having no personality. If you know me I am a very high energy person and I am very active and animated. Kids, have a lot of energy and are animated. We bounce of the wall and people find us disgusting because we are busting with energy. But we never think kids are rushing or tensing or not relaxed. That is because kids are relaxed. Often times, we confuse relaxation with being dead. If you are really relaxed, you will naturally have more energy and more likely to be active. But you will also be calm, and not frantic. There won’t be nervousness around you.

One last thing about relaxation: Relaxation is being settled. When you are relaxed, you are at resting state. So, whatever your personality, relaxation is your natural resting state. It is a state where you are efficient, where you are not addicted to adrenaline. Adrenalin is what kicks in to protect us when there is fear. When you are relaxed, it is a state where there is no fear. In short, if you rush, or you have addictive habits, or any other negative tendencies that cause stress, you are addicted to fear or as we like to refer more lovingly, we are addicted to adrenalin. Adrenalin itself is not bad. But an addiction is like any other addiction. It is bondage and it is not good. It distorts who we are. I think it is important for us to know that being relaxed whoever you are is your natural state. Being relaxed means you are just being you. I feel this is important to know because often times we think we can’t be relaxed because we ‘think’ it’s not really us. It is vital that we realize that we are a generation that is addicted to adrenaline and that it has become the norm, and that it is keeping us from being who we really are. Whenever you are addicted to something, especially fear, you can’t really be yourself, . Being relaxed means being your true self.

Whether you will succeed in relaxing or not will be a matter of priority. If you don’t think it’s valuable enough for its trouble, you won’t do it. I hope relaxation will be your new priority in life.

Enjoy your Easter Weekend! There will be no blog tomorrow.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body: (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement #1~5 (Covered 3/24 – 3/31)
7. Principles Governing Relaxation – General Concept (Covered 4/1)
   1) Mind Body Release and Relax
   2) Use Mind Not Use Strength
   3) Internal External Mutually Integrate
   4) Dropping the Weight (Weight Underneath)
   5) Extension
   6) Chi Sink Dan-Tien

Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

2010-03-31T00:26:00.001-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/31/10 – Wk29 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Of course we covered ‘Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ when we were covering the Alignment principles for the lower body.

The idea is that if you put your weight, more on one leg then the other, you create mobility. Also, if you only engage one leg at a time, you create a clear unified direction for the body, which creates power. Mobility and power are important aspects in martial arts, or life in general. Mobility creates adaptability and power creates the ability to change things.
‘Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ also is a movement principle. It is also used to describe the shifting between Yin and Yang. For instance, when one arm goes down, then the other goes up to act as a balance. When the muscles engage, it is Yang, when it is not it is Yin. When something is Yang, it must become Yin or it has no power. When something is Yin it must become Yang or it has no power.

When you do the form, as you move, if you pay attention of the filling of your limbs with movement and then emptying of movement, you will appreciate the flow of movement and the rhythm of movement. As you keep practicing you notice that the energy fills the arms when the limb is filled with movement and flows out of it when the movement flows out of it. Eventually you learn to surrender to the flow and feel of the energy, and the filling and empting of the energy becomes like the tides coming in and out from your limbs.

To be able to distinguish the insubstantial and substantial clearly in a form bring grace. And grace is power.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body:
    1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered 3/23)

6. Principles Governing Movement
    1.Seek movement in stillness (Covered 3/24)
    2.Seek stillness in movement (Covered 3/25)
    3.Mutual connect without interruption (Covered 3/29)
    4.Top bottom ‘each other’ follow (Covered 3/30)
    5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly (Covered 3/31)

Top Bottom Mutually Follow

2010-03-31T00:22:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/30/10 – Wk29 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Top Bottom Mutually Follow

One of the most common interpretations for ‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’ is that the hands and the feet match. They are also called top bottom harmony. It means that your hands and your feet move together.

Now let’s test how good your memory is. ‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’ was covered once before. Do you remember which principle it was that was related to ‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’ is? If you can’t, here is a challenge! See whether you can find it between the principles already covered. If you got, ‘Relax Waist Squat Crotch’, you got the right one. I recommend that you go back can cover that principle again. The rest of the article will not be as concrete without you clearly remembering the ‘Squat Crotch’ portion of the ‘Relax Waist Squat Crotch’ principle.

‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’ is simple, yet intricate like all Tai-Chi principles we’ve been covering. Tai-Chi principle is like an elephant. Imagine you are trying to describe an elephant. You have probably seen one so no problem. You know what I am talking about. But imagine you are trying to explain it to someone who’s never seen one. Tai-Chi principles are the descriptions and summary of when your mind, body, energy is in a certain state. So, ‘Relax Waist Squat Crotch’ describes or summarizes how the body is aligned when the upper and lower body is unified. ‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’ describes how you when your upper and lower body is unified. If top bottom unified body is an elephant, imagine that one principle is describing how the elephant looks, and the other principle is describing how the elephant moves.

These are the things you should train in successive order to cultivate this phenomenon ‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’.

1. When you move, move with your feet first. If your arms are relaxed, you will feel your legs leading the movements of the arm. For instance, let’s say you are in a back stance of your left leg, and your arms are both in a position ready to push. Then relax your arms and relax your front leg, and push with your back foot. You should feel your arms being pushed out like a hydraulic pump.

2. When you step, when your feet lands, your steps should also finish. In the form, what that means is that when your shift finishes, your strike also finishes.

3. Last, when you feel your arms are being moved by your legs, then you start moving from your lower back. Your legs and arms will move from a central location, expanding and shrinking.

4. When this feeling becomes clear, then you will feel your movements extending out from your Dan-Tien). You will feel the movement being connected to the surface of your lower abdomen and that connection traveling up your lats to you’re the underside of your arm until it reaches your palm. You will feel the same feeling extending out the outside of your legs as well.

5. This one is harder to describe, but you will feel a spiraling feeling out from your Dan-Tien.

6. Eventually you feel a spot inside the lower abdomen and it feels like the movement is coming out and being supported from the inside as if everything is a shell around it.

7. You feel a central pillar connecting the crown of your head and your perineum and you feel energy pathways out from the central pillar and you feel everything extending out from the central place.

All these things are supposed to happen. These are the different aspects of the elephant called upper and lower body unification. In case this feels overwhelming, just remember this. If you had never seen an elephant, you’d feel overwhelmed by the numerous descriptions. If you just saw it once, you’d be ah-ha!!!!   The principles are summary of feelings. So, just try the suggestions above, and if you feel anyone of them, you will recognize it by feel a connection in movement between the lower and upper body. If you feel any connection, you may not have all of it, but you got some of it. When you see the elephant for the first time, you won’t get all of it either. To really get to know the elephant, you have to spend some time with it.

To summarize, ‘Top Bottom Mutually Follow’ is the description of a kinetic movement chain between the lower and upper body. When you are training to move while you performing ‘Relax Waist Squat Crotch’, and you feel your legs are moving your arms as if your leg were like bellows and you arms were balloons being powered by it, you got it.

Have fun playing with the elephant.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body:
    1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement
    1.Seek movement in stillness (Covered 3/24)
    2.Seek stillness in movement (Covered 3/25)
    3.Mutual connect without interruption (Covered 3/29)
    4.Top bottom ‘each other’ follow (Covered 3/30)
    5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

Mutual Connect Without Interruption

2010-03-29T13:25:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/29/10 – Wk29 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Mutual Connection Without Interruption.

This principle has 2 layers to it. On one level, it is talking about how one move is flowing to the other without interruption. On a deeper level, it is talking about how the body is uninterrupted and flowing. When the second one happens, the first one happens naturally, so I will dive into the second definition.

To explain ‘Mutual Connection Without Interruption’, it is best to explain ‘Stringing the 9 Pearls’. Stringing the 9 Pearls refers to getting the 9 major joints through which most of your force goes, aligned with each other. Starting with your arch (some refer to the first point as your ankle) (1), your knees (2), your hips (3), your Gate of Life (lower back) (4), between your shoulder blades (5), base of your skull (Some believe this point to be the major protruding vertebra that connects your neck to your shoulders) (6), your shoulders (7), your elbow (8), your wrists (9).

When you move, all of these 9 points are supposed to move. One is not supposed to move without the other. It is said that the waist is the commander. So, all movement starts at your Gate of Life, or your lower back. For instance, if you are in a front stance doing Push, and you want to shift back, then you move back from your Gate of Life, and you let the Gate of Life pull on your other joints.

Now, when you are learning the form, you will learn that you are supposed to clearly distinguish between the separate moves that you are not supposed to just flow from one move into another. So how does that work???? Which one is it? Well, it is both.

When you come to the conclusion of the move, you are supposed to extend the move into the eternal horizon through your mind. If we go with the Push example again, you should imagine that you are pushing into infinity. Also, you should feel that your fingers and arms are getting longer, your spine is getting longer and your head getting taller, and your legs getting longer and your feet more firmly getting rooted into the earth. In short, you are expanding in all directions. Perceptually, you will see that even if the body is not moving there is a sense of movement and the energy of the movement continues. It is weird and hard to explain if you have never seen it, but when you see someone doing it right, you will see them completing the push, but you will not feel that they really ever stopped, even though they distinctly finished the move and then moved on to the next move.

In Tai-Chi there is movement even when there is no movement.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered 3/4)
2. Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3. Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4. Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body:
   1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered 3/23)
6. Principles Governing Movement:
    1.Seek Movement in Stillness (Covered 3/24)
    2.Seek Stillness in Movement (Covered 3/25)
    3.Mutual Connect Without Interruption (Covered 3/29)
    4.Top Bottom ‘Each Other’ Follow
    5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

Training is a Teasure Hunt

2010-03-26T13:47:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/26/10 – Wk28 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World:

Training is an interesting experience.

Of course, when we train in our school we believe every moment is training, and we take time to work on our connection and our alignment, movement, breathing, relaxation in everything we do, while not working at it. The idea is to feel all that while not thinking about it. To just be. This is when you are the most natural, most powerful. In case you want to try this, you have to aim to ‘feel’, not think. If you are typing, and you are thinking about relaxing your forearms, and breathing through your fingers, you will have trouble in life. You have to not think about it and just feel your way through it. Have fun doing it!

And then there is of course focused training where you are working on developing specific qualities. By either practicing the form, or conditioning or pushing hands, you can limit some of the other variables, and zoom in on a certain quality you would like to develop.

So, I have been doing the 108 for over a decade now, and I am starting to really appreciate the form. There are infinite things you learn from the form. That’s right, if you learn the principles right, you start learning from your body as your body goes through the form and starts changing. As your body changes and adjusts, new connections keep getting developed and you start becoming aware of things you weren’t aware of before. From this awareness, you start a discovery process and you even start being able to control things you couldn’t before or didn’t know you had control over. The body keeps transforming and the new awareness provides an ongoing ever-expanding learning process.

Let me give a more concrete example of what I mean. A couple days ago while doing 2 person work, I experienced two lines extending from my bubbling well, through the back of my ankle, up my sides, through my armpit, all the way to my fingers became more distinct. When that happened, my Dan-Tien expanded and became more condensed, but more free. All of a sudden I could whip out my motion from my Dan-Tien in a much more powerful manner than I could before. The interesting thing about this is that as time goes on, it seems there are so many different types of connection to the Dan-Tien. There are different connections that are established or connections that were always there that you didn’t know to utilize because you weren’t aware of them. As you become more and more aware of these connections, your freedom of movement and the power of your movement naturally increases. Not only that, but your overall comfort of the body and emotional confidence increases as well.

This freedom of movement comes both through working with others and working by yourself. When you are working by yourself, the advantage is that you get to listen to your body without distraction. You can often times feel your integrity better when you are by yourself and a lot of natural connections are discovered while doing the form. When you find a new connection while practicing by yourself, you test the connection by working with someone else. Another person gives you good feedback and a reality check of your own sensitivity level. But of course, it can happen in the middle of two person work as well. In this particular instance I was practicing my Fa-Jing (Bouncing someone), and found the connections in midst of practice. I was feeling how my structure feels against my partner’s structure. When you look for this sensation, at some point his structure becomes really light. Also, it feels like he is starting to go in that direction even before I start. Then I just follow through that sensation and he goes. Sometimes, it helps to have a real person standing there so that you can feel how the weight feels through your body. You feel how your body wants to move naturally and how it feels powerful and how it feels weak.

It’s kind of a treasure hunt.

Seek Stillness in Movement

2010-03-25T14:50:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/25/10 – Wk28 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Seeking Stillness in Movement… isn’t that contradictory to seeking life? Yesterday we talked about Movement being Life. So, if you seek Stillness in Movement, isn’t that the same as seeking death within life?

Seeking Stillness in Movement is seeking quietness within movement. It is seeking a continuous steady flow. We recognize a continuous steady flow as grace.

In Tai-Chi there is a concept and a training method that is called silk reeling. There are Tai-Chi styles where there are separate exercises that are called silk reeling and then again there are styles where they use the form to practice silk reeling. The concept of silk reeling came first before the exercises were developed, so you may practice silk reeling either way. The important thing is what it means so you may seek it in your practice.

When you reel silk from a cocoon, it has to be done with a steady hand. If, at any point, you vary the pulling speed or the strength of the pull you damage the silk. So you are not allowed to pull suddenly or hard. From the perspective of the silk cocoon, it is one uninterrupted continuous pull. You have to train the form with the same idea. It is said in the Tai-Chi classics that the Tai-Chi form is sometimes referred to as the long form. The reason it is called that is because it is considered one long continuous move. When you do the form, you are not doing a lot of different moves. You are indeed doing one long form, continuous, steady, and uninterrupted.

For some of you this may seem too abstract. On a more practical level, you may consider this as carrying over the structure and flow you learned during standing meditation to moving meditation, the form. As you do the form, you have to carry the same principles you maintained during the standing meditation practice. Since you seem still when you are doing standing meditation, and you are carrying it over to movement, you would be seeking stillness within movement. This principle is deeper than this, but this is the right entry point to a whole new world. You will see the rest as you walk down this path. Once the journey starts, follow the journey, do not hold on to the doorway as truth. If you hold on to the entry point, you will never experience the journey.

As your training in this principle deepens, eventually you start understanding how this applies in relation to another person. Until you gain the continuous connection within, you will not be able to understand the secret of the explosive power in Tai-Chi.

I have heard that infinite patience is immediate results. This is definitely true in Tai-Chi. Train with infinite patience, and you will understand what it means to have immediate transformation.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered 3/4)
2. Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3. Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4. Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body:
    1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered 3/23)

6. Principles Governing Movement
    1.Seek Movement in Stillness (Covered 3/24)
    2.Seek Stillness in Movement (Covered 3/25)
    3.Mutual Connect without Interruption
    4.Top Bottom ‘Each Other’ Follow
    5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

Seek Movement in Stillness

2010-03-24T15:06:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/24/10 – Wk28 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

So, we close one chapter and open a new chapter in the realm of principles. We finished the alignment principles, and how we will go into the movement principles.

When you are true to one principle, all the other principles are working. If you find only one principle working in your body at a time, that means that your understanding of that principle and all the other principles is lacking. All principles are one and the same. This is the beginning of understanding.

There are 5 movement principles we will be covering:
1.Seek movement in stillness
2.Seek stillness in movement
3.Mutual connect without interruption
4.Top bottom ‘each other’ follow
5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

Seek movement in stillness is a very simple principle, but it is one of those things that gives you more juice the more you chew on it.

At a fundamental level, seeking movement within stillness is the same as seeking the movement you feel when you do the mental visualizations. When you are standing in a standing meditation posture, you are standing still, yet, when you picture ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’, then you feel your body shift, move and change. There is movement within stillness.

If you do not feel that there is movement inside your structure then it is dead. When it is dead, you do not have movement for movement is life. Anything that is dead has no power. To seek movement within stillness is to seek life.

When you stand and you feel stiff and like a statue, then you are a sitting duck. There is no energy within you, and you are still just waiting to be broken. Yet, when there is movement and flow within, you are like a live branch, green and lush inside underneath the bark, flexible, springy and full of life. It cannot be easily broken and it has power.

Once you get the fundamentals of the visualization, you enter the stage of breath and if you breath properly, you will feel hot air or energy moving through your body as if you were a hot air balloon. Sometimes, you will feel like molten lava flowing inside you, and you will feel like you are sweating from inside. When this happens, you have true intrinsic energy. This may take some time to cultivate.

When the inside moves, you will be grounded, relaxed and ready to move anytime. The inside will move first so that even when there is no movement you can generate a lot of power. Since there is movement inside you, you can generate power as if you are moving without moving. That is the true advantage of this skill. You have the power of movement without movement.

So, where to start on this journey of ‘Seeking movement within Stillness’? Start with standing meditation. Practice the Alignment principles while standing until you feel you are flowing all over even though you are not moving. But simplest of all, imagine you are standing by the edge of a swimming pool and imagine you are about to jump in. This state of getting ready to jump creates potential energy within you that is ready to be converted into kinetic energy anytime. As you stand in a manner readying yourself to jump, you will feel the energy filling your body all the way to the crown, it will open your body. Once your body is open, you will feel your energy flow through and around your body. When you ready yourself to jump, your Bubble Well opens and your Dan-Tien opens. This seemingly trivial detail is the secret to mastery. Pay a attention to the details and your path won’t wander.

It is said, a few inches off ends up being a thousand miles off. Tai-chi is a lifetime of play. Do not hurry. Enjoy the journey where you are. Pay attention to the details and that is the short cut.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body:
    1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered 3/23)

6. Principles Governing Movement
    1.Seek movement in stillness (Covered 3/24)
    2.Seek stillness in movement
    3.Mutual connect without interruption
    4.Top bottom ‘each other’ follow
    5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

Body Body Centered Upright

2010-03-24T09:58:00.001-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/23/10 – Wk28 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

In the last 2 weeks we have completed the Alignment principles concerning the Upper Body, and the Lower Body, five principles each. Now there is one principle left for the whole body: Body Body Centered Upright.

Body Body? Well, if I translated it instead of transliterating it, it would simply be Body. The Chinese word for Body is Shen-Ti. Both words mean body. The first word, Shen, describes the bulk or the mass of a body. The second word, Ti, describes the form or the type of the body. Both words put together describe the human body.

So, the principle means that the body is centered and upright. Boring right? I mean this is so obvious. This is what we learned from our 4th grade elementary teacher but promptly decided to ignore. It just didn’t seem that important and besides it wasn’t cool to be centered and upright. We may have gotten laughed at.

Well, the Chinese had an art for making something not only very interesting, but very cool. They even went one step further. They showed how this one principle holds the secret to the universe. Curious yet?

To start with, the concept, centered, within this context means you are in the middle when seen from above. Next, upright is from the context of seen from the side. Having this background, now you get a clear picture that you are supposed to be centered, in the middle from the top view, and upright form the side view.

But what’s in the center? What is upright? Often times it is considered to be the spine. This is not a bad start. Eventually, however, one’s training will loose its depth unless ones move towards the real center. The real center is the line that is in front of the spine, connecting the crown of the head and the perineum. To be centered is to mentally align the crown and the perineum. When this happens, the main energy highway in your body is established and your whole body straightens around this line. Once it is straightens, it starts radiating in all directions and the column starts expanding, and the energy spreads evenly though the whole body.

When you get this sensation, it is pretty cool. For some of you, this sensation will be very strong and immediate, but for some of you, you will have a tough time feeling the center line. This will depend on how much blockage there is in your energy channel. As you do the form day in and day out, within 90 days doing the form daily, with the center line in mind, you will see a profound change. Mark it on the calendar and see for yourself what happens. You will be amazed.

When you feel the energy spreading, you will start feeling your aura expanding, and eventually you will start feeling the boundaries of your aura clearly. That is a good place to be. As you walk around, you will feel your boundaries and when your energy is low, you will feel them less and less and more of your body. This becomes a good gauge of where you are with your energy level.

So, we covered centered. Where are we with upright? In the very beginning, when you first learn the form, you learn that upright means to keep the spine, or your center line we discussed above vertical. This however, is only to train the sensitivity to keep the center line straight. Often times people don’t have a sense for the center line and when they bent from the hips, the spine bends and thus the center line bends as well. Eventually you learn how to maintain the center line even as the spine bends, but one should establish a strong center line before that can happen. This often takes years. So, don’t start bending your center line before you start getting a clear sense of your center line.

Once you get a clear sense of your center line, you naturally move in a way where your center line is uncompromised. In the beginning you will have to hold the structure to cultivate the center line, but eventually the center line empowers your body and holds the structure. You will feel a well of energy supporting your structure from within. When that happens, you will feel a sphere around you emanating from the sphere and you will feel your center line hovering in the air, between your legs and arms. You will feel yourself naturally moving around from the center line and you will notice that the center line does not need to be vertical.   It can be at any angle as long as the spine is straight. In the beginning like all things this feeling comes and goes. But when you have this feeling, this is when you feel your opponents push into your structure and bouncing off of your center and your field. You literally feel the negative vibes of other people bouncing off of your aura. Now this is a much better incentive to keep your spine straight then the one you received in 4th grade isn’t it? I can’t even remember what mine was.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.    Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2.    Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3.    Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4.    Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5.    Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
   1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
   2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
   3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
   4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)
   5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body:
   1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered 3/16)
   2)’Relax Waist Squat Crotch’ (Covered 3/17)
   3)’Round Crotch Bend Knee’ (Covered 3/18)
   4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ (Covered 3/19)
   5)’Foot Sole Stick Earth’ (Covered 3/22)
5.Principle Governing the Whole Body:
   1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered today)

Foot Sole Stick Earth

2010-03-22T15:48:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/22/10 – Wk28 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

‘Foot Sole Stick Earth’. Straight forward.

This principle means that you have to feel as if the Sole of your feet is stuck to the ground as if it is a suction cup. I had to look up the dictionary to be sure but ‘Sole’ apparently indicates the part of the foot between the balls of your feet and the heel.

This is interesting because in Chinese, the word sole that they use means whole bottom of foot. But interestingly enough, the Tai-Chi Classics say that your bubbling well should be stuck to the floor. The bubbling well is the place of the foot that goes in when you try to make a fist with your foot. When you imagine that you are standing on your bubbling well, you will feel as if your sole is a suction cup. So for our purpose, sole works not only fine, but might even work better.

Here are some key things to know about ‘Foot Sole Stick Earth’.

It’s not about the foot, but your knee. ‘Huh?’ Did I get your attention? I hope I did. That’s right. It’s not about the foot. It’s about how you position your knee. This is the secret. If you position your knee properly, you get the ‘Foot Sole Stick Earth’ phenomenon.

Now as you stand shoulder width apart, Visualize your knee lining up with your bubbling well. That’s it. That is the secret. But if you do this simple step right, this is what give you the rooting power and the sensation of your sole sticking to the floor.

If you are not sure what the bubbling well is, line your knee up with the balls of your feel and stand on the ball of you feet, while your heel is still touching the floor. You may wonder how this creates a suction cup feeling if you are not standing on the whole foot equally. When the knee is over the ankle, the foot and the leg up to the knee creates a very secure base. When the base is secure, everything above the knee can relax. You will find out that if your knee is aching from practicing it is often because your knee was not balanced over your bubbling well, and the weight was not falling on the bubbling well/ball of your feet. This alignment secures the knee.

Once the knee is secure, your thigh and hamstrings relax, and you will feel the ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’. Without a secure base, without support you cannot properly relax. It’s like laying down on you back. When you are laying down in a good bed, you can feel the entire body relaxing and then just basking in the pleasure. This is because your entire back is supported and your muscles don’t need to engage as much to keep the body balanced. The same is true when you are standing. When your base is secure, it helps you to be better balanced and thus be more relaxed. The more secure your base, the deeper you can relax.

For training purposes, you can stand heavier on your heel. Standing on the heel will bring more structural strength and muscular tension. I often find that people also get their knee pain this way. However, it is a good supplemental training since it trains different aspects of your structure. Standing on the whole foot will calm you and deeply relax you more, but your stance will be higher. This is a good one to practice if you are feeling like you need rest. Last, you may practice with your weight primarily on the balls of your feet and your toes. When you are on your bubbling well, unlike being on your heel, it creates jing, springy power. When you are on your toes, the springy power and mobility amplifies. On the day, your body will tell you which method you should use to train that day.

Now, one important note is that the alignment of the knee and the bubbling well is not a physical alignment. There is a physical alignment, but it is more a feeling that your knee is aligned with the bubbling well. There is a connection you should feel from the bubbling well to your knee. Another thing you should mind is that you should never stress this connection physically. For instance, in the beginning it is fine to stand on the balls of your feet where you feel a lot of pressure on the ball of your feet. But as you get more secure in your sense of the connection, you should lessen the physical pressure until there is no physical pressure and only a sense of connection with no extra physical burden. Tai-Chi is a mental martial art. The mind intends it and the body follows the intention, so as a general rule, your intention and visual perception, and your kinesthetic sense of internal connection will increase but your physical stress will always decrease. The body will feel more and more relaxed, lighter and lighter, and movements will become easier and easier, and you will feel an intrinsic sense of strength coming from deep within almost as if you are a highly pressurized balloon. This is one of the reasons Tai-Chi is called an internal art.

In short, less is more. Always remember, less is more. Start with concrete and then try to do less and less. Have fun with ‘Foot Sole Stuck Earth’.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered 3/4)
2. Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3. Principles of Upper Body (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
    1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
    2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
    3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
    4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)
    5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)
4. Principles Governing Lower Body:
    1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered 3/16)
    2)’Relax Waist Squat Crotch’ (Covered 3/17)
    3)’Round Crotch Bend Knee’ (Covered 3/18)
    4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ (Covered 3/19)
    5)’Foot Sole Stick Earth’ (Covered Today)

Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

2010-03-19T13:41:00.002-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/19/10 – Wk27 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

‘Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly means that your weight is either on one foot or the other.

Pretty boring right? Why would they even have such a lame principle after all those deep mysterious and powerful principles?

Nothing beats simplicity. What is simple once has dept year later. The principle Yi-Chi-Li, when I first learned it was the blandest principle ever. I mean seriously, I thought to myself, who doesn’t know that already? How can that be a secret? Now I know it is a secret, and now I understand it is the best kept secret.

‘Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ is the same. For now, use it as feedback to let you know whether you are getting the other principles correctly or not. When you shift from one foot to the other, when you are done with the move, if you are well centered, you should be able to pick up the other foot without moving your upper body at all. If someone was just looking at your upper body, they should not have been able to tell that you picked up the other foot. If your hip has to tilt to one side or the other for you to be able to do this, that means your stance is no good. By learning to shift clearly to one side and the back to the other, you learn how to keep your structure balanced while shifting from one leg to the other.

Now of course there are a lot of moves where you don’t shift all the way, and your weight distribution is only 60:40 or 40:60. The deeper meaning of ‘Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ is that you engage only one leg at a time. When you shift forward you push with your back leg only. When you shift backward, you push with your front foot. This creates unified power. Rest of the body is relaxed so it doesn’t fight itself anymore. A good example is that of the unbendable arm. Try this with a partner. You stand with your feet a shoulder width apart, and implement ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ and ‘Chi in Dan-Tien’. Then extend the arm out from your center, and relax it. Then in your mind extend the arm as if the fingers are going to lengthen until they touch the wall on the other side. Then try to have your partner bend your arm. You will find that it is either impossible for your partner to bend your arm, or it is extremely difficult to do so. Now, clench your fist and tighten you arm and keep it stiff. Then have your partner bend it. You’ll notice it is a lot easier to bend the arm. This is because the bicep and the triceps were both engaged and they are antagonistic muscle to each other. In the same manner, if the body is relaxed then the body will not fight itself, and when you are shifting you only engage one or the other leg, the direction and power generated from the body is streamlined and clear.

Last, the reason you should not stand equally on both legs is because when you stand more to one side or the other, it creates mobility. You are not a sitting duck. Because you are relaxed, when you stand on one leg and you get pushed, you flow from one move to the other naturally.

Flow is what creates energy. By maintaining ‘Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’, you learn how to create flow while being relaxed and maintaining your core integrity!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered 3/4)
2. Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3. Principles of Upper Body (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
    1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
    2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
    3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
    4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)
    5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)
4. Principles Governing Lower Body:
    1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered 3/16)
    2)’Relax Waist Squat Crotch’ (Covered 3/17)
    3)’Round Crotch Bend Knee’ (Covered 3/18)
    4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’ (Covered today)
    5)’Foot Palm Paste(Stick) Earth’

Round Crotch Bend Knee

2010-03-18T01:33:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/17/10 – Wk27 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

One of my student and good friend told me that I only get away with some of the things I say because of my Asian accent. I think these Crotch subjects definitely qualify for those subjects that I can talk about naturally because I have an Asian accent. So listen to these words with an accent. It will sound more authentic!

So, we are on a roll with Crotch principles. Yesterday I covered ‘Relax Waist Squat Crotch’, today we will be covering ‘Round Crotch and Bend Knee’.

So far we have been covering the principles from simple straight forward visualization principles that allow you to lead your chi. As we covered in the very first day of the principles series, all the principles are covered by one, and only one principle. Which one is it? You thought ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ didn’t you? Go back and check the blog on 3/5, principles principle.

If you did remember correctly, congratulations! The principle of all principle is ‘Yi Chi Li’, which stand for ‘Mind Chi Strength’, simply meaning that the mind leads Chi, and that Chi leads your muscles. Visualization is one of the most effective ways to lead your energy.

The body is a very complex organism. To consciously coordinate all the different parts of the body moving together while making sure your timing and all the different angles are correct is too much for your brain to handle, especially if you are dealing with an opponent. Visualization allows for a simple mind picture to simplify the coordination of all the different aspect of the body. Here is an example of this concept. I had a friend who was learning how to run. She would keep pounding her heel into the ground, and she had trouble because of it. She received advice from her friends who were consummate runners and she even received advice from professionals. They taught her the mechanism of running, of how to land with the heel and to go heel toe, heel toe. They taught her how to coordinate her arms and legs. It wasn’t helping and she was frustrated. I told her to just keep her eyes on the horizon and start running at a comfortable pace, and to forget the body mechanics. I told her to imagine that as she started running towards the horizon, the horizon was coming towards her. As the horizon came towards her, it started merging with her feet and that as the horizon merged with her feet, it started pulling her forward. I told her that the floor would come towards her and merge with her feet and she would start flowing towards the horizon as if the floor and she were one.

You should have seen her face the next day. She was ecstatic! She said that her feet stopped pounding and she started flowing! Now she is an excellent runner. This is some of the Tai-Chi visual principles for running. If you stop to consider, it is not easy to control the body when you are going at a fast speed to precisely land and smoothly coordinate the heel toe transition. Most of us learned how to run when we were kids and hardly think about it anymore, but if you actually consciously try to run heel toe heel toe, you will notice that most of you will get stiffer and start pounding the floor too. This goes to show how much of even our simple movements are highly complex movement that we don’t think about it anymore because we mastered them when we were little kids. The visualization takes the burden of having to individually coordinate the different parts of the body and simplifies things.

Today, we will depart from the straight forward extension principles. Today we will create balls!

So, here is today’s visualization practice:
8)    Imagine your crown being pulled up by a golden string (Ok, maybe one simple extension).
9)    Now as your spine lengthens, and your shoulders drop away, imagine that there is a tennis ball in your arm pits creating a hollow sensation in your armpits. When this happens, you will feel your arms lengthen. When that happens imagine your arms on the side are comfortably resting on a large ball as if you had a giant Buddha belly.
10)    When you perform ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’, imagine that your upper back and your lats are part of a giant ball and is expanding. This should make your chest feel so relaxed that you can imagine that your chest cavity is empty and there is an empty ball sitting in your chest cavity.
11)    ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’ should make your Dan-Tien feel like a ball with a black hole at it’s center.
12)    Now that Chi is in Dan-Tien (A shorter way to translate ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’), you should feel Relax Waist Squat Crotch.
13)    Yesterday I explained that your legs should be bent and your tail bone dropped, and your small of your back should flatten out as your lower abdomen becomes engaged. When this happens, you should feel as if there is a ball supporting the inside of your legs. This is called ‘Round Crotch’. If you don’t feel it, imagine that you have a tube of balloon that comfortably rounding your legs and supporting the inside of your legs. Now you should not round it in a exaggerated manner. It has to be natural. It is the sensation of feeling a ball of energy between your legs.
14)    The knees should be bent comfortably. You should feel the natural springiness of your legs through the bent legs as if they are springs. The knees being bent should make you slightly bow legged, but only enough to make the knees be directly above your arches. So, if you are standing shoulder width apart or more with your legs, you bow them enough so that seen from the front, you knees are directly above your arch. This creates direct support from the ground for the knees, and since the knees are not at odd angles, they are well supported. This is what creates the sensation of having a ball between your legs. This is called ‘Round Crotch Bent Knees’. It is this principle that creates the rooting power and the springy power generation that make Tai-Chi powerful as a martial art.

The application principles which we will be covering later talk about how the power is generated in the legs, control by the waist, expressed through the fingers. The ‘Round Crotch Bent Knees’, is analogous to the root of the tree. The trunk above the root can only shake as vigorously as the strength of its roots. As you train this principle, these words will become clearer to you.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.    Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2.    Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3.    Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4.    Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5.    Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
   1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
   2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
   3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
   4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)
   5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body:
   1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered 3/16)
   2)’Relax Waist Squat Crotch’ (Covered 3/17)
   3)’Round Crotch Bend Knee’ (Covered today)
   4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’
   5)’Foot Palm Paste(Stick) Earth’

Relax Waist Squat Crotch

2010-03-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/17/10 – Wk27 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

I hope you got a kick out of today’s title ‘Relax Waist and Squat Crotch’.

So, yesterday I covered the nature of Chi, and the existence of the Dan-Tien. And then we reviewed how ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’ is related to the rest of the principles that have been introduced so far.

If you thought I covered all the secrets of ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’, you are mistaken. Yesterday, I only covered the visual aspect of the principle. I couldn’t tell you all the secrets even if I wanted to because I don’t remember all the details unless they are triggered by some stimulus. I am a natural walking secret! ;)   Moral of the story? Ask lots of question until it’s been all covered.

So, here is how the rest of the secret of the ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’ was triggered. As I was contemplating how to teach ‘Relax Waist and Squat Crotch’ in relation to ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’, I remembered I needed to cover some more details before I could do it. Lame isn’t it? I know.

Here we go:
4)    Perform ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’. Now you should have mastered this concept. If you don’t know what I am talking about, go back and read blog on 3/8.
5)    Perform ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’.
6)    Perform ‘ Settle Shoulder Drop Elbos’.

When you do this, you should by now feel your chest is relaxed and your lower abdomen is feeling full from your relaxation having sunk to your pelvis. This is nothing more than your diaphragm relaxing and the breath dropping lower and your organs relaxing and resting on your pelvis as they should. Now, we covered portions of this yesterday. Here is the extra information. When your chest is sufficiently relaxed, you will feel your rib cage dropping. It will feel as if your rib cage is dropping into your abdominal wall. When your elbow is dropped or extended properly, you will feel that your elbow is connected to your solar plexus. Only then will you feel as if the solar plexus is empty. To add some more detail, you should feel that your solar plexus area relaxed and as if it is hollow inside. Some consider this to mean ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’. This may be because ‘Contain Chest’ is also translated ‘Hollow Chest. Any way, at this point, you should feel as if you have a buddy belly.

When you reach this point, then you will feel your lower back letting go. Waist in the oriental concept is not the belt line. Waist is your lower back. It is the entire area that is between your ribs and your hips (pelvis). When your lower abdomen engages, and your rib cage relaxes to the point it hides in your abdominal walls, you will feel that your lower back lets go and relaxes. This is because you lower back is supported.   In short, ‘Relax Back’ is the description of ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’ from the back. Key to remember, you cannot achieve either ‘Relax Back’ or ‘Chi Sink to Dan-Tien’ without ‘Drop Elbow’.

Now to the Squat Crotch. When you lower back is relaxed, you will feel your sides below your armpit relaxing all the way down to the side of your legs. When that happens, you will feel your pelvis relaxing. When that happens, bend your knees a little bit and sit on your legs. Just imagine that you are sitting on a high stool. Make sure that you feel as if your hip bones are facing forward and you will feel that the curve in your lower back disappears. When the lower back flattens, this is called ‘upper and lower body become one’ or ‘Top and bottom mutually follow’. More on that later.

As you get better, your legs will get straighter and straighter and eventually you will be able to squat with your legs straight.

When you achieve ‘Relax Waist Squat Crotch’, then you will feel as if your pelvis is floating across the air as if you are a hover craft when you walk or do the form. The level of your head will stop bobbing up and down, and level out. Your balance will be steady, and you will feel rooted and settled at the same time.

Tomorrow, ‘Round Crotch Bend Knee’!!!!!!!!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.    Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2.    Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3.    Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4.    Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5.    Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
   1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
   2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
   3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
   4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)
   5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)
4.Principles Governing Lower Body:
   1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered today)
   2)’Relax Waist and Squat Crotch’
   3)’Round Crotch and bend Knee’
   4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’
   5)’Foot Palm Paste(Stick) Earth’

Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien

2010-03-16T10:25:00.000-04:00

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Starting today we will be covering the Alignment principles concerning the lower body. Today’s principle will be ‘Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’.

Let have a quick review. There are 4 areas that need to be trained to enhance and cultivate your energy. We call these 4 cultivation areas the BARS: Breathing, Alignment, Relaxation, Slow/Synchronous Movement. Currently we are covering the Alignment principles. Within the Alignment principles, we have covered the principles of the Upper Body:

   1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)

   2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)

   3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)

   4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)

   5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)

We also discovered that all these principles are just one principle, each describing different aspects of the same principle.

Now, there are also 5 Lower Body principles:

1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’

2)’Relax Waist and Squat Crotch’

3)’Round Crotch and bend Knee’

4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’

5)’Foot Palm Paste(Stick) Earth’

Let’s start on our journey of the Lower Body principles. The first of the principles is ‘Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’.

Two words that need to be explained, Chi and Dan-Tien. Chi is the Chinese word for air or energy. The Chinese character for Chi is the symbol of rice with steam rising from the rice. The steam is the Chi. This kind of gives you and idea of how the Chinese view Chi. I would like to note that even though the word Chi means air, it is closer to the meaning of energy and not oxygen as we are accustomed to thinking nowadays. It is important to note that when this word formed way back when, they did not have a concept of this gas called oxygen.

Here is a better way to get a feel for the word Chi. Imagine that these Taoists are observing what the breath does to the body, and how the energy interact within the body and outside the body. They realize that the energy is invisible, and they also note that whatever they breathe in is invisible. They also note that depending on how they breathe, their body heats up, softens, and this heat or energy circulates around the body. They don’t know what it is, but they know it is invisible and it has power. They have to call it something. So guess what, they call it “Chi’.

So, from a modern perspective if you look at the word Chi as the catch all word for the phenomenon of energy you have an idea. Chi describes all the different sensations or phenomenon that you get to experience in the body that is not visible. I think the new hip modern word to describe this in English is energy. When you see the world Chi, you can safely substitute the word energy.

Dan-Tien is another one of these mysterious words. Dan is the word for red, and Tien is the word for field (like farm land). The Character for Dan is the world Sun and Moon put together. It is supposed to symbolize the essence and source of all energy. So Dan-Tien is the field where Chi can be cultivated. Dan-Tien is the field of Chi. The location of the Dan-Tien is 3 finger width from your belly button from the front view. From the side view, it is a third of the distance of the cross section from the front of your body.

Here is the visualization:

1)     Imagine that you’re the crown of your head is being pulled up by a golden string. Yup that’s right. ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’!

2)     Once you feel your spine is suspended, imagine your forehead opens up. You may imagine that the place a little above the space between your eye brows has a dot, and that dot expands into a big circle until it spreads to your temples. You should feel as if there is a glowing ball right behind your forehead as if there was another eyeball. Some of you may know this is called the 3rd eye, or as 7th Chakra. In the Taoist system this is called upper Dan-Tien. There are 3 centers, or 3 Dan-Tiens in the body. The upper, middle and lower Dan-Tien. The middle Dan-Tien is center of the Cest. The lower Dan-Tien is the Dan-Tien mentioned above. The word lower Dan-Tien is used when the other 2 need to be mentioned.

3)     Place your tongue on the roof of your pallet behind your teeth. Make sure that the tongue does not touch the teeth.

4)     After opening the upper Dan-Tien, use your mind to guide a line down the center of the front of your body. As you guide your mind down, you will notice that there is a heavy sensation that follows. Guide it down until you reach your Dan-Tien. You will feel the heavy sensation sinking to your Dan-Tien. When the sensation reaches your Dan-Tien, you will feel a sinking sensation and the insides of your lower abdominal walls letting go. That letting go makes the lower Dan-Tien, or the abdominal walls feel like a full hot air balloon.

In the beginning, some of you may feel this sensation and some of your may not. Stay with it and you will feel the power of this exercise as your cultivation of your Dan-Tien deepens. If you don’t feel this in the beginning, keep up with the visualization, but at the physical level, when you perform ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’, you will feel your chest relax and the relaxation sinking to your lower abdomen. That is another way to do this. Continuing on the same theme, if ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ is done is properly, and ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ happens, and then you will feel ‘Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’.

Aren’t you curious how the rest of the principles are tied to the same principle?



History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.

1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)

2. Standing Meditation

3. Stepping Mediation

4. 7 Basics

5. Basic Form

6. 30 Form

7. 108 Form

8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.

1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)

2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)

3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)

4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)

5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:

1.     Introduction (Covered 2/25)

2.     Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)

3.     Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)

4.     Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)

5.     Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:

1.Principles (Covered 3/4)

2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)

3.Principles of Upper Body (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)

   1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)

   2) ‘Tailbone centered and upright’ (Covered on 3/9)

   3) ‘Contain chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)

   4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)

   5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered 3/15)

4.Principles Governing Lower Body:

   1)’Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien’ (Covered today)

   2)’Relax Waist and Squat Crotch’

   3)’Round Crotch and bend Knee’

   4)’Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly’

   5)’Foot Palm Paste(Stick) Earth’

Wrists and Fingers!

2010-03-15T13:49:00.004-04:00

[Path to Mastery 3/15/10 – Wk27 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

‘Squat (settle) Wrist Open (extend) Fingers’ is the name of today’s principle.

So last week you found out how your tailbone; your chest and back; and your shoulders and elbows were coming off of your Empty Spirit that had made your Summit Strong. The challenge today will be to show how your wrist and fingers are also connected to the crown of your head, or the ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’.

Typically the visualization for this principle is simple: Imagine that your finger tips are attached to a string that comes down to about your shoulder height and is secured to the ceiling. Then imagine that you drop your wrist down, while your fingers are not moving because of the string. This is called ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’.

Should be done right? Not quite. The visualization that is most often given as dropping the wrist is actually incorrect. It actually is dropping the forearm. That is correct. It should be both the elbow and the wrist that is dropped. You should imagine that you are standing next to a tall railing and that you are dropping your forearm as if your wrist is trying to squat on the railing while you are keeping your finger tips in the same place.

The visualization usually given for fingers is for your fingers to extend, or your finger tips being pulled up by a string. That is only partially accurate. A more accurate visualization is that of your fingers opening up as if they were the petals on a flower opening up, with the center of your palm being the center of the flower. Your palm has to open up and you have to feel your fingers opening up from the palm out. The fingers will extend, but you have to feel the fingers expand as well. A good way to imagine it is as if you fingers are spreading over a basketball (without your fingers spreading out from each other too much). If you feel webbing expand between your fingers and you feel the width of your finger expanding, while your fingers are getting longer, you have the right feeling. Most of the time people describe this as just extended, but the actual meaning is open.

So how is this related to the spine? Well, this is where to me it gets fascinating. Try this. Drop your wrist while keeping your fingers open. Start feeling what your shoulder feels like. Now drop your elbow while maintaining your fingers open and your wrist dropped. You will notice that when you had just dropped your wrist while not dropping your elbow, your shoulders probably didn’t feel as settled. When you drop the elbow, you probably felt that the armpit was hollower and felt that the shoulder was more relaxed and more settled. Now, while maintaining the elbow and wrist in place, make your fingers go limp. You will notice that the top of your shoulders became tight and the arm will feel heavier.

The placement of your wrist and your fingers affect how well your shoulders can relax, and thus affect ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’. As we have been discussing, ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ is just another description of the physical body when the spine is properly aligned.

Isn’t it amazing how the body is connected in such a way that parts of the body that are seeming completely separate from each other have such influence on each other? So here is another revealing truth about the principles. The principles are not a technique to use the body as a tool. The principles are a feedback, a standard that helps you recognize whether you are natural or not. So, imagine this: the tip of your crown is hanging from the heavens and you are like a puppet hanging from above, you let the rest of your body hang. This is when there is no extra tension, how your chest and back would sit, how your shoulders and elbows would sit, and how your wrist and fingers would be.
Didn’t think there would be so much to wrist and fingers did you?

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered 3/4)
2. Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3. Principles of Upper Body (Start on 3/8)
    1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
    2) ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
    3) ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
    4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered 3/11)
    5) ‘Squat Wrist Open Fingers’ (Covered today)

Does Gratitude have a Physical Body?

2010-03-12T23:30:00.002-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/12/10 – Wk26 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s world:

What is thankfulness? Thankfulness is the emotion you feel when you feel eternity. When you feel eternity, you are truly in the moment, where you are in the flow of time, where ironically the passage of time becomes irrelevant.

Today I was driving down the road, and I had noticed that there was a sense of calm, peace and pleasure in my body. I was enjoying the sun streaming down on all of us with its beautiful rays. The sky was still high and clear enough for the light to create this crystal like atmosphere that I love so much. It was beauty. Then I realized that I was very grateful.

That in itself was not special, but what struck me was that this was the same sensation I get when I am relaxed and when I am meditating or just breathing from moment to moment. That’s when I made the connection. I realized that the physical sensation of relaxation, when your body is in the moment, not rushing, that is when subconsciously you don’t have a scarcity mentality. You don’t need to rush because there is enough to go around. There is enough time to get things done. When we have enough, when there is abundance, we relax. When there is abundance, we feel safe and secure, we feel grateful. I realized that the sensation of relaxation is gratefulness. Before when I felt this sensation during meditation, I felt the gratitude, but didn’t make the conscious connection. I didn’t make the connection because I didn’t realize that you can’t be grateful unless you are relaxed. This realization made thankfulness very concrete. Now thankfulness has a body. I feel forevermore grateful for this wonderful gift of concreteness.

Now that I know the physical nature of gratefulness, I can slow down and not just think that I ‘should’ be grateful, but I can actually practice gratefulness.

One way to practice gratefulness is by practicing Dan-Tien breathing. As a matter of fact I was practicing breathing when I noticed the beautiful weather. Dan-Tien breathing is a breathing practice to cultivate your internal energy. Dan-Tien is the area in your lower abdomen, three finger widths below your belly button. This is the area that is also commonly called Sea of Chi (energy). By breathing through this area, you can awaken a lot of energy within yourself.

So, as I have been practicing this, I have been noticing if I breathe in with my lower belly and let it fill up, it creates a comfortable and pleasurable sensation. I can feel the tonus on my sympathetic nervous system calming and the tonus on my parasympathetic nervous system increasing, meaning I start feeling all relaxed, calm and pleasurable. I tried to recreate this sensation of filling my belly, but then it would get tense. So, instead, I just started working on feeling pleasurable. Man, things calm down and time seems to stop. Hunger stops and you just feel good. I have been Dan-Tien breathing while I work on typing (as I am doing now) or just regular daily activity. This sensation of fullness and pleasure creates a deep sense of satisfaction. I have been feeling more and more grateful.

It is nice to have methods to practice gratitude in a physical manner.

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

We will continue on our journey of the principles on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!

Shoulders and Elbows!

2010-03-11T13:24:00.001-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/11/10 – Wk26 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Today you will find out how Shoulders and Elbows come off of a strong summit!

So here is the visualization method for ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’:
1.    As you let your head rise using the golden string, you feel your neck lengthen, and eventually the rest of the spine.
2.    At some point, when the spine is erect enough, you will all of a sudden feel the shoulders drop off your neck. Yup, that’s right. You will realize that your neck was scrunched in between your shoulders or vice versa. As you pull out your neck from between your shoulders, the shoulders lengthen and then drop away from the spine. Now, if this is not happening, most likely your chin is not tucked in, your throat and neck are too tight, and your head is not set far back enough for it to be balancing on top of your spine so the extra tension that’s been holding it from falling off will let go.
3.    Now in addition, as the neck is lengthening, you can imagine that the shoulders are like the round asian roof tiles and that they are lightly settling down to the bottom. Then, imagine that your shoulder tips are starting to drift away from your ears, and as they start to drift away, feel (imagine) your collar bones lengthening. This will drop your shoulders and let them rest.
4.    Now imagine that someone grabbed the skin on the tip of your elbow and started gently pulling on it so that your humerus (your upper arm bone) started lengthening away from your armpit. You may also imagine that there is a weight attached to the elbow and it is hanging away from your shoulders. This will allow your shoulder to drop even further and relax even further. It will also create a hollow sensation in your armpit, and if the elbow is sufficiently extended enough, and your shoulder blades are apart from each other as you learned in ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’, then you will feel your elbows connecting to your stomach through your rib cage along the line of your lats.

Now in reality, when the ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ is properly implemented, the elongation of the spine will cause the shoulders to drop and settle naturally, and the elbows will naturally extend out as the back becomes expansive from the shoulder blades and clavicle (collar bone) hanging away from the spine as it extends. Also, ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ is a function of the elbows extending out and thus creating the shoulder blades to drift apart from each other so that the effects of ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ can happen. In short, ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ and ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ are exactly the same principle in which one describes the condition of the Chest and Back, and the other describes the condition of the Shoulders and Elbow when the Spine is properly lengthened.

Starting to see a theme here?   We’ll see tomorrow!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.    Introduction (Covered 2/25)
2.    Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
3.    Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
4.    Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
5.    Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body (Start on 3/8)
   1) ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
   2) ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
   3) ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ (Covered 3/10)
   4) ‘Settle Shoulder Drop Elbow’ (Covered today)

Chest and Back!

2010-03-10T16:32:00.000-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/10/10 – Wk26 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Once you take care of your head and tailbone, you take care of your chest and back.

The principle today is called ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’. When the empty spirit is strong in the summit of your head, the crown, then the neck lengthens followed by the rest of the spine. When that happens, your collar bone rises and your chest lengthens. Now, as the spine lengthens, your back becomes expansive. When you back expands, and your collar bone rises, your chest relaxes and recedes. This explanation may not be clear just from reading it, but when it happens you will know exactly what I am talking about.

Now here is the mental imagery that will help you get this principle in case you had trouble with the explanation above.
1.   Imagine that your crown is being pulled up by a golden string.
2.   As your head is pulled up by the string, and you feel your neck lengthen, you should feel your chin being pulled in. In case you don’t feel this, your neck is too tight. Relax, and tuck in your chin.
3.   As your head rises and your chin tucks in, imagine that your back is up against a wall, and your spine is becoming so straight that the head shifts back so it is touching the wall. The key here is that as your head shifts back to touch the wall, you are very likely to raise your chin. Be sure to avoid this. Check yourself against a reflection to make sure you are not raising your chin as your head shifts back.
4.   Then imagine that the crown of the head aligns with the center of your body all the way to your Hui-yin (perineum). When the head shifts back, it sits directly in line with the spine and the pelvis. This allows for your back and shoulder muscles to relax since the muscles no longer need to work in order to pull your head up from falling.
5.   Now imagine that your shoulder blades are drifting apart from each other. If you look in a mirror, you should see your shoulder blade edges disappear and your back becoming an expansive roundish surface. You should kind of feel as if your back is that of a turtle shell. When this happens, your collar bone will feel as if it lengthens, and as your collar bones lengthen, you will feel your chest relax, and the relaxation sinking to the lower abdomen (This is called Chi Sinks to Dan-Tien, however the specifics will be covered later in the lower body principles). As the back expands, the chest, which consists of ribs, have enough space to just hang naturally from the spine, while the shoulders have drifted apart to either side enough to create more space in between. This creates a feeling as if everything is just hanging from the spine.

If you have been paying attention, you would have noticed that both ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’ and ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ are really the same principles as ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’. This will be a reoccurring theme as you study Tai-Chi. You will notice that the principles are really just describing different aspects of the same thing. This is what is fascinating about Tai-Chi. Tai-Chi can become as detailed as you want, but can be as simple as to be described with just one principle. Hope you are curious as to the rest of the secrets that make up ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’!

To be continued tomorrow!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1.   Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2.   Standing Meditation
3.   Stepping Meditation
4.   7 Basics
5.   Basic Form
6.   30 Form
7.   108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1.   8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2.   San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3.   Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4.   Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5.   Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6.   Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7.   Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8.   Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
9.   Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
10.   Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.   Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.   Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.   Principles of Upper Body (Start on 3/8)
       1)   ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ (Covered on 3/8)
       2)   ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’ (Covered on 3/9)
       3)   ‘Contain Chest Raise Back’ (Covered today)

The Crown and the Tailbone!

2010-03-09T10:48:00.001-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/9/10 – Wk26 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Yesterday we covered ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’. Today we will be covering ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright of the Upper Body' Principle.

All the upper body principles hinge on these 2 principles. These principles are really the opposite side of the same coin. They are the same principle described form the opposite direction: The first one from the top and the second one from the bottom.

Now after you implement ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’, when your spine is suspended enough, your tailbone drops. If it drops properly it will feel as if your tailbone is centered, and as if your tailbone extends between your legs all the way down and falls between your feet. This sensation is called ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’.

Ideally speaking just by doing ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’, you should automatically get ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’. So this principle doesn’t exist by itself but exists as a feedback to show whether you are doing ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’ correctly.

Now, if you have stiff back, and the energy is not flowing too well, then you do use ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’ to let the energy flow and correct and lengthen your spine. You imagine that the tailbone is extending down toward the center of the earth, and you will feel your tailbone loosening up and dropping. Another method is to imagine that there is a weight attached to your tailbone and it is pulling you down. In other words, from your belly button up, you should feel you are lengthening up, and from your belly button down, you should feel your tailbone is dropping.

When your tailbone drops between your legs and connects with the center of the earth, you will feel your feet are rooted to the ground. You will feel as if you are anchored. This is because you are! When the tailbone drops properly, it transfers the force coming down your spine through your legs to your feet in a manner so that any force coming into you is transferred straight to the floor. This phenomenon is called rooting. When this happens someone can push you and it will only secure you stronger to the floor. You won’t have to dig your heel in or use any strength. The natural structure of the body when held properly will do it by itself.

When you implement the first principle, ‘Empty Spirit Summit Strong’, it allows your upper body to hand and rest from your suspended spine and deeply relaxes and let go. Energetically, it connects your crown to the universal energy around you. This is referred to as connecting to the Heavens.

When the second principle, ‘Tailbone Centered and Upright’ is implemented, then the body is balanced and supported and thus can again deeply relax. Your body cannot relax without having a firm foundation and being well supported. For instance, if you are trying to balance yourself while standing on a ball, you will find it very hard to relax. The reverse is also true. When your tailbone is dropped, it actually produces a sensation as if you are sitting on a stool. You feel very relaxed and settled. Energetically, the sensation that your tailbone is connected to the center of the earth allows you to connect to the energy from the earth and allows your energy centerline to open up between your crown and your tailbone. Eventually, it is the tailbone that connects to the earth center but your Hui-yin point (your perineum) that connects to the center of the earth, and that is when your centerline truly opens up.

That is enough on the tailbone! More tomorrow!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:
Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6.   Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7.   Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8.   Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
9.   Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
10.   Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.Principles of Upper Body (Start on 3/8)

Principled Upper Body!

2010-03-08T15:12:00.001-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/8/10 – Wk26 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

So, today we will be covering the principles concerning the upper body.

Principles Governing Upper Body are:
1.   Empty Spirit Summit Strong
2.   Tail Bone centered and up right
3.   Contain Chest Raise Back
4.   Settle Shoulders Drop Elbow
5.   Squat (settle) wrist open (extend) fingers

Since the mind leads the energy and the energy leads the body, these poetic phrases are meant for the mind to lead the energy, so your body follows.

Empty Spirit Summit Strong is often translated as empty spirit reaches summit, or insubstantial spirit/energy reaches summit. When I learned this principle, I was told to imagine that there is a golden string attached to my crown and that your head is being pulled up by that golden string. (This crown in Chinese is called Bai-Hei. This is where your skull fused together. You can find it by drawing a line from the tips of your ears until they meet on top of your face.)

When you picture this in your mind, you will feel yourself getting slowly taller. It will feel as if your head rises like a tortoise's head lengthens out of it's shell. As the neck lengthens, you will feel your shoulders drop and your arms lengthen as well. If you stay with this sensation, you will feel your entire spine lengthen, and eventually you should feel like your spine is suspended in mid-air. In the beginning this may be a subtle feeling, but eventually it becomes a very distinct feeling. Often, people will feel their spine getting warm and then the spine loosening up.

The interesting thing about this whole phenomenon is that even though there were physical changes, it was initiated only by the mind. Just by imagining that the head was being raised by a golden string from the crown, your spine lengthened, your body relaxed and you started feeling more energy in your body.

This principle is called Empty Spirit Summit Strong, because when done right, you feel a very strong sensation of energy at your crown and it feels as if the energy is pushing you up or pulling you up depending on how you feel it, and the rest of the body is just hanging from your crown. Thus, the summit of your head, the crown is strong with the empty spirit, the energy.

There are exercises for the mind. There are exercises for the body. There are exercises for your energy. The power of Tai-Chi is that Tai-chi exercises the mind, the body, and the energy in one exercise. By learning how to visualize things in the mind, and then letting your visualization materialize through your energy and through your body allows you to let your mind and body unify.
You will find the power of this as we go through the principles and as you practice it more and more.

You will experience your concentration becoming stronger, your energy flow through your body becoming more distinct and powerful, and your body becoming more limber, stronger, and agile.

More tomorrow!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6.   Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7.   Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8.   Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
9.   Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
10.   Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1.   Principles (Covered 3/4)
2.   Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3.   Principles of Upper Body (Start on 3/8)

Principle's Principle!

2010-03-05T19:48:00.002-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/5/10 – Wk25 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

So starting today, I will begin our journey on the Tai-Chi principle governing the area of Alignment in our system.

Alignment governs the principles regarding posture.

I will first outline the Alignment Principles below. These may sound weird. These are transliterated as much as possible, because in my experience interpretation always leaves out too much information. Transliteration may not sound pretty, but you will get a better feel of the thinking behind it. Each word is a Chinese character. In case I needed to use more words to translate the character, I used colon signs. In case different words could be used to translate, I put the implied meaning in parenthesis. This means the Chinese character has both meanings.

Principles Governing Upper Body:

1. Empty Spirit Summit Strong

2. Tail Bone centered and up right

3. Contain Chest Raise Back

4. Settle Shoulders Drop Elbow

5. Squat (settle) wrist open (extend) fingers

Principles Governing Lower Body:

6. Chi at Dan-Tien

7. Relax Waist and Squat Crotch

8. Round Crotch and bend Knee

9. Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

10. Foot Palm Paste(Stick) Earth

Principle Governing the Whole Body:

1. Body Body Center Upright

Hope you enjoyed these names!

Now before we dive into these, I need to mention that there is one principle that governs all of these principles. It is the foundation cornerstone that governs all of the principles.

This principle says:

Shen Yi Chi Xue Li (Sprint Mind Energy Blood Strength(Muscle))

According to this principles, the spirit leads the mind, the mind leads the energy, the energy leads the blood, and the blood leads the muscles.

For practical purposes, the key thing to remember here for our study is Yi Chi Li.

This basically says that you should use the mind to lead the energy, and then the energy will lead the body. In short, these principles have little to do with your body. All the alignment needs to happen in your mind first before the body even moves.

Starting tomorrow, I will show how the principle of Yi Chi Li applies to all these principles. As we move on in our journey, it’s going to become clearer and clearer.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.

1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)

2. Standing Meditation

3. Stepping Meditation

4. 7 Basics

5. Basic Form

6. 30 Form

7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.

1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)

2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)

3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)

4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)

5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:

6. Introduction (Covered 2/25)

7. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)

8. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)

9. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)

10. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:

1. Principles (Covered 3/4)

2. Principle of Principles (Covered today)

Principles!

2010-03-04T17:10:00.002-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/4/10 – Wk25 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Principles! It is the principles that make Tai-Chi what it is.

It was once explained to me that principles are those things that are always true. Even if the circumstances change, the principle remains the same regardless, such as gravity. It’s a principle that things will always fall down, not up.

There are principles that govern Tai-Chi. Thus, Tai-Chi is not a set of forms. Tai-Chi is a set of principles. There are many different Tai-Chi styles, but they all follow the same principles. You can make any martial art Tai-Chi as long as you use Tai-Chi principles. Thus, it may look different but in actuality be the same, and it may look the same but in reality be different.

There are many Tai-Chi classics on the principles that govern Tai-Chi. There are Tai-Chi principles on how to do Tai-Chi, how to learn best, how to cultivate your energy, how to do pushing hands, how to fight, how to cultivate your body, and many more.

On the whole, there is the self cultivation part of the system, and the interactive cultivation of the system. For simplicity, we will call it the meditational side, and martial side. The meditational side would be the Chi-Gong, standing meditation, forms (moving meditation), Nei-Gong (internal cultivation = energy meditation). The interactive side would be pushing hands, san-shou (free hand 2 person form).

Now, since Tai-Chi is an energy martial art, how well the energy flows through your body, and how well you can utilize it is the gauge of success. So, your sense and strength of Chi is your gauge. By the way, in case you are not familiar with Chi, just replace the word Chi with energy for now.

If Chi is your gauge, there are 4 areas of cultivation for it in Tai-Chi:
1. Breathing
2. Alignment (posture)
3. Relaxation (state of muscle)
4. Slow Movement (or synchronous movement)

When these 4 areas of cultivation are being done properly, you will know whether you are doing them correctly or not by how well the Chi is flowing and how strong it is.

I will start covering the principles in each area starting tomorrow. Stay tuned!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
9. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
10. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered today)
2. Alignment Principles

Freedom is Discipline!

2010-03-03T09:44:00.001-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/3/10 – Wk25 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Free hand weapon

The title “Freedom is Discipline” may have thrown you off. Freedom Discipline is a complete oxymoron.

Like all truth, truth is simple yet profound. Truth is often paradoxical. It’s like the North and South pole of a magnet. You need the Yin and the Yang to make the whole truth.

So, how does this relate to weapons? Weapon is the ultimate discipline. When you learn to use weapons, you have to be disciplined because if not you can be injured or injure your partner that you are training with. You also need to be disciplined because if you are not, it is easy to make the training none realistic.

To stay with a real or realistic weapon is hard. If you have an edge coming into you, you will be extra diligent, or it would be a good idea to be extra diligent. You must be very relaxed and very calm, not reacting. It is when you react that accidents happen. When you are conscious, you may get injured, but it will not be as bad as reacting to a situation.

The irony is when you train under a higher discipline, everything else gets easier and your range of freedom increases. If you have trained with live weapons, or something that does pose some danger, then your skill level goes up. This is the reason you train free hand with weapons. The risk increases your sharpness of mind, and it increases your sensitivity.

When you can do free hand with weapons calmly, relaxed consciously, you have freedom with almost everything else.

It is extreme discipline that gives extreme freedom.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
9. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2)
10. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered today)

Freedom is Living on the Edge!

2010-03-02T14:47:00.000-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/2/10 – Wk25 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Free Hand Training:

So, we discussed Free Hand Pushing Hands and how it relates to freedom. Today, I would like to discuss another definition of freedom.

We discussed that freedom is not resisting the opponent while not allowing oneself to be compromised. There is an opposite side to this truth: Freedom is going beyond your limitations.

It’s actually the same thing, but it looks totally different doesn’t it?

In free hand, anything goes. There are no rules except for making sure you are comfortable with what you and the people involved are doing. It is your responsibility to communicate if anything is happening that you are not comfortable with. You start moving very slowly, and as you get more and more comfortable you start increasing the speed. This helps you notice your body, what feels right and what feels off. Eventually, the speed goes up until you are going at full speed. But by that time, it will feel comfortable because your body and mind have adjusted.

In free hand pushing hands, there are certain set rules so you can limit the possibilities of what can happen to you so that you can simplify the chaos a little bit. For instance, in the beginning, you don’t step around, and you don’t strike or kick, or do any kind of grappling. You strictly push and sometimes you pull, but that is about it. This helps the students learn and adjust to chaos in a relaxed environment.

I was talking to my friend and we talked about how great it is to finally being able to do something that you’ve always wanted to do but didn’t have the confidence because you had never succeeded at it. Facing your fears and going through them is real freedom. That is what sky diving is about. Fear makes you not do things that you want to do.

Free hand helps you face your fears and learn to move naturally in a manner your body wants to. You let go and you let your mind sit back and observe and learn. You will start feeling what natural movement to your body is. You will feel when you are powerful and coordinated and when you are not. Pretty soon you will notice that you are learning from your body and your body will feel like it can do things it couldn’t do before. You start going beyond what you thought was capable.

True freedom is being able to continuously go beyond your limits, which would be a no limit life. This is an exciting life isn’t it? Tai-Chi is a technology that makes change safe and easy. It allows you to live at your limits without frustration or discouragement. It provides you with the tools to face them safely.

Now, when you read “True freedom is living at the edge” it feels a little different doesn’t it?

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8. Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1)
9. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered today)
10. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills)

The Power of Absolute Freedom

2010-03-01T14:14:00.000-05:00

[Path to Mastery 3/1/10 – Wk25 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Free Hand Pushing Hands Training:

You can have the power of absolute freedom when you understand what it means to be free.

Free hand pushing hand training provides Tai-Chi practitioners with the experience of absolute freedom. For the Tai-Chi practitioner who understands what free hand pushing hands is about, they also understand what it means to be free in the most tangible way.

Freedom is a very abstract idea. What comes to mind when you think of freedom? Jumping off the plane and sky diving? Eating all the ice cream you want without the consequences, or having all the money you want in the world to do as you please?

These things do make you feel free. Freedom is being able to do what you want. But is it being able to do whatever you want? When somebody imposes their desire on you when you don’t want it, and they get their way, we don’t call that freedom. We call that oppression. So, obviously, to be free does not mean you can do whatever you want, it means you can do whatever you want without having to negatively affect someone else.

In case someone imposes on you, the ability to stay centered and calm, without letting it affect you, and then asserting your position clearly would be the ultimate act of freedom. This is what people like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi are remembered for. This is what every human being wants deep down inside: The strength to not be pushed around, the strength and ability to not be bullied and stay one's own ground.

That is what free hand pushing hands was designed to train. For a lot of us being assertive is a nightmare. There are some exceptions, but on the whole we are nice people and don’t like to hurt other people's feelings. Of course there are some bullies who ruin it for the rest of us, but even those bullies bully others because they don’t want to be bullied. They bully first so no one would think of bullying them. As a matter of fact, bullies are ultra sensitive to being bullied. Pushing hands teaches us that being assertive does not need to be hard. Pushing hands teaches us that you can be nice and assertive. Pushing hands teaches us that being assertive is good for both parties.

When you learn free hand pushing hands, you learn how to yield to the push of another individual. You learn how to listen and follow to their push. Since we stand on 2 legs, and they only have a finite amount of length, at some point they will run out of length. You learn that you start yielding and before you run out of length, to turn on your center and redirect the push slightly. While you do that you also push the other person with your other side to return the force that is coming you direction. If you were pushed on the left, you push with you right. While doing this, what you learn is how not to resist the other person while keeping your own center.

Over time you learn it is not about pushing the other person over, or about being right. You learn what is important is that your own center is not compromised and that you don’t resist the other person. You don’t fight them at the point they are pushing. You listen and you yield and then respond from a place of solid center.   Once you learn this, you learn that there are clear boundaries and that these clear boundaries should be respected. Pushing hands is about understanding these boundaries.

As you improve in your experience in pushing hands physically, you start realizing that this interaction is not just physical, but also mental. As a matter of fact, it is more mental than it is physical. The physical just materialized thoughts and intentions into reality. At this point, your assertiveness starts having a new meaning. You yield, listen, and then respond mentally instead of reacting to the situation.

For free hand pushing hand practitioners freedom is a way of life. As their ability improves to handle more and more complex attacks calmly and in a relaxed manner, so does their sense of freedom. And since the boundary of where freedom ends and begins is clear, you are able to be carefree and go full out!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6. Introduction (Covered 2/25)
7. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26)
8. Free hand pushing hand (Covered today)
9. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills)
10. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills)

Freedom from within

2010-02-26T11:58:00.006-05:00

[Path to Mastery 2/26/10 – Wk24 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Freedom comes from within.

Within Free Hand (The un-structured part of the system) we have free movement and free conditioning. Before we can discuss free movement and conditioning, we have to discuss the nature of freedom.

Freedom is a perception. I once heard Wayne Dyer tell this story of a man who was in prison. He had programmed this satellite and he was the only programmer who knew how to operate it. This satellite was too important for the government and thus they imprisoned him so nobody else could get in contact with him. Now something had gone wrong with the satellite and they wanted his help. But he wouldn’t respond to the people who were talking to him. So, one of the agents told him, “If you cooperate with us, we can give you your freedom”. The programmer answered, “You mean you can give me my liberty. I have my freedom. Go away.” This is a powerful illustration that real freedom comes from within, not the outside.

So, why do we talk about this? Because unless you can free your mind your body wont free either. The limit of our body depends that on of our minds.

If I were to ask you to do as many push ups as possible, like most people you would do them until you feel pain in your arms and then stop. If I encouraged you and told you that you could do more, you’d probably pull off a couple more and then feel that you couldn’t do another push up. But if someone put a gun to your head and told you that you had to do more push ups, you’d be able to do a lot more than you ever thought you could. When your life or someone else’s life depends on you then your real limitation will come out. This clearly illustrates that what we perceive to be our limit and our actual limit is far different.

For any martial artists or warrior of any kind the ability to assess reality and handle pain is key. When you are trying to survive, getting distracted in any way, especially by pain can be detrimental. Learning to have a clear and calm mind even when there is pain or discomfort, or other kinds of distraction is very important. This would be true to any situation in life not just martial arts. The ability to stay focused on the goal and not be distracted is fundamental to any success.

You learn how to relax, breath, move, and hold your body so you can calm yourself when there is pain. You learn there is good pain and bad pain. Bad pain damages the body. The good pain used correctly can build you up. You learn that breathing and relaxation can directly influence your pain. Further on you learn that the mind itself can control the pain.

I once heard, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice”. As you learn how to condition your body through breathing and relaxation work, you learn that pain is a signal and that even though the signal itself is real that suffering is in the mind. When you learn that even if the body suffers the mind doesn’t need to suffer, there is a whole new freedom that comes with this knowledge. You start getting a better understanding of reality and how most of the time our thoughts limit us. You start seeing how much of our lives is limited by our limited thoughts. This is the beginning of a new way of seeing things.

Furthermore, you learn how to taken on life, without having to compromise your own integrity. As you learn to condition through breathing, relaxation, slow and fluid movement, while keeping good structural integrity like your body was meant to be or sometimes in completely compromised positions, you start getting a sense of when your body is natural or not. There is a deep comfort and pleasure of just being. You become more and more sensitive to this deep comfort, and you start moving freely within this total natural self. In this way of moving, there is no haste. At this stage, there is stillness in your movement, and there is movement in your stillness.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covered from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
6.   Introduction (Covered on 2/25)
7.   Free moving – conditioning (Covered today)
8.   Free hand pushing hand
9.   Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills)
10. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills)

Form and beyond...

2010-02-25T13:28:00.003-05:00

[Path to Mastery 2/24/10 – Wk24 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Now so far, we have been covering the structured part of the system. Starting today, we will be covering the part of our system that is unstructured. Today, I will give you an overview of the unstructured training.

One can argue that the unstructured free hand part of the system is the purest part of the system. Tai-Chi is formless at its essence. True Tai-Chi is a state of absolute harmony and uninhibited flow. It is where things are absolutely natural.

However, there is one catch. In order to be free, one has to have discipline. Let me illustrate with an example that I heard Steven Covey once use. In order for you to have complete freedom at the piano, you must have put in endless hours of discipline before you can have the freedom of a master pianist.

Going through the Tai-Chi system teaches you what it means to be natural. By practicing the postures and movements, how to relax and how to breathe, one becomes more and more familiar what it means to be at an ideal state. It is not unlike practicing to have the perfect free throw form in basket ball. This familiarizes the player with what it feels like when he or she has a good shot.

However, if the basketball player only practices free throw shooting, their game will not improve. They need to practice how to interact and how to shoot while interacting, while being interrupted, while in mid-motion, or any other state they might encounter during a play.

Using the same analogy, the structured part of Tai-Chi teaches you the ideal feeling of being natural. The unstructured part of Tai-Chi teaches the chaotic side of things. It teaches you how to guide yourself through the chaos. I have come across a martial art called Guided Chaos. The concept is the same.

My coach Jeff would say, you get what you practice. He was saying that when you practice the form, you get good form, but no more. In order for you to get fighting qualities, you must experience the chaos of a fight. It is one thing to have flow and peace when it is just you. It is quite another when you have unpredictable movement coming in your direction and you are trying to have flow and peace.

The unstructured part as a whole is called free hand. In free hand training, you start by moving in slow gentle movements. During the slow, gentle interaction you learn how to respond in a relaxed and calm manner. As you get better, the speed of the interaction naturally gets faster and more complex, but your mind will feel familiar with the feeling and speed of the movements and thus will stay calm and relaxed.

We have to remember, no martial art started off as a form. The fighting came first, and then the form. As you train this simple and safe interaction, you start to realize why the form is the way it is. You realize that the secrets of Tai-Chi is in pushing hands, but only if it is done correctly, of course.

Some more on this tomorrow.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.

1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)

2. Standing Meditation

3. Stepping Mediation

4. 7 Basics

5. Basic Form

6. 30 Form

7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.

1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)

2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)

3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)

4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)

5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:

1. Introduction (Covered today)

2. Free moving - conditioning

3. Free hand pushing hand

4. Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills)

5. Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills)

2010-02-24T10:16:00.002-05:00

Tai-Chi and Healing

[Path to Mastery 2/24/10 – Wk24 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Tai-Chi is not only a great exercise, martial art, and meditation, but also a great healing art. Tai-Chi is both a self-healing and healing others art.

So many people with different kinds of ailment get better from doing Tai-Chi. I just went on the internet to pull some references and there is tons of it out there. Here is one quote that covered a wide range:

“The Harvard publication included the latest research on how tai chi could benefit patients with arthritis, breast cancer, heart disease, hypertension, Parkinson's disease, stroke, even sleep problems and low bone density.
"This is big," Douglas said.

-- Orlando Sentinel, August 17, 2009
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/orl-self-health-tai-chi-081709aug17,0,4151868.story

I’d say that covers quite the range, but just so you know, the list is quite a bit longer. Just from memory and experience, I know it helps with high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, balance and strength, heightened immunity, stress management, ADD, Multiple Sclerosis as well.

Tai-Chi focuses on strengthening your health instead of getting rid of your disease. You will commonly hear of older people practicing Tai-Chi living their lives like young people. When Gabriel, my teacher, was in his eighties, he was flipping me around like a rag doll, and I was in my twenties.

Now, this only covers the healing benefits of doing Tai-Chi, but on top of these benefits, Tai-Chi also has healing methods to help other people. Tai-Chi healing methods range from Qi-Gong healing, joint manipulation, massage, and acupressure.

Tai-Chi healing is effective because it comes from first hand experience. In Tai-Chi a practitioner first experiences healing on one’s own body. Since one has experienced the benefits, one is intimately familiar with how the healing works. Through practicing Tai-Chi, one gains a keen understanding of the body. Science is still unfolding all the different reasons as to why Tai-Chi has such profound health benefits for you but while science is searching from the outside, you become the scientist of your own body. This intuitive sense becomes a great aid in healing.

It is also effective because the practitioner learns to understand the weaknesses and the strengths of the body and mind intimately well. It is a martial art, so it needs to understand what makes the body and mind be strong, and when, where and how they are weak. When you know how to destroy, then you also know how to strengthen.

Tai-Chi healing knowledge comes from the accumulated effort of taking care of injuries. It’s a martial art after all. One of my old martial art teachers used to say, first learn how to heal before you learn how to break.

Tai-Chi also trains for sensitivity. I saw my teacher working on someone else once and I thought they were doing pushing hands, but upon further examination, I realized that he was just moving the patience limb by listening to it and by moving it to get rid of its resistance and to restore the flow of the movement. He had enough sensitivity to feel the whole body through the arm and how it was connected to the rest of the body.

Tai-Chi is an internal martial art, which means that it is a type of Chi-Gong exercise. Chi-Gong means Energy Cultivation. The practitioner learns how to cultivate energy and how to guide it. As part of the practice, the practitioner learns how to use the energy to heal. I remember one time when we were sparring, Joseph got kicked in the shin. He got kicked hard enough where the shin started getting black and blue and started swelling up. Mike and I started sending Chi and it started healing immediately. By the end of it, the bruise was practically gone. When we tap into that energy and learn how to harness it, our lives are very different.

This would be some of the reason why Tai-Chi is an effective healing art. I’d like to recommend for you to go on the internet and do some research by yourself. You’ll be surprised how much research there is on Tai-Chi and how widely it is recommended!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.

1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)

2. Standing Meditation

3. Stepping Meditation

4. 7 Basics

5. Basic Form

6. 30 Form

7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.

1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)

2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)

3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)

4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)

5. Healing System (Covered today)

Next we have our non-structured part of the system

2010-02-23T12:09:00.002-05:00

Aren’t weapons cool?

[Path to Mastery 2/23/10 – Wk24 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Tai-Chi Weapons

In the Tai-Chi weapon system the weapon is not treated as a tool that is separate from oneself. One is supposed to learn how to be one with the weapon.

Weapons typically is an exciting topic for a lot of people. There is something fascinating about weapons. We all understand instinctively that it is not easy to move a foreign object around like some of these experts do in movies. When we see people swirling swords around with effortless ease and elegance as if it is alive it captures our awe.

Training with weapons is a natural progression from training without weapons because Tai-Chi is about relaxing further and further until one can harmonize with its environment to achieve oneness with all that is around. So in order to deepen one’s sense of relaxation and in order to understand how to merge with foreign objects to achieve oneness, this is a great practice.

Yang style Tai-Chi traditionally has 3 or 4 weapons depending on which family you speak with.

Tai-Chi sword
Tai-Chi saber
Tai-Chi spear
Tai-Chi staff

According to some, the staff and the spear form is the same since second generation Yang family, Yang Ban Hou’s mother was afraid that her son might kill someone so she cut the spear tip off. Real Tai-Chi practice of either empty hand or weapon, however, has no form. This is because one is supposed to learn how to follow the natural flow of the body or the object one is holding in order to blend with the flow of whatever is happening. The form provides the opportunity for one to familiarize themselves through the experience of the people that came before them. At the core of Tai-Chi concept, anything can be a weapon as long as you can sense it’s center and balance and you learn to follow it with precision.

One learns that the weapon is supposed to be held loosely so that you can feel the weight of the weapon, and one learns that the weapon can be treated as either a new joint, or an extension of a limb. One learns that the weapon has its own center of gravity, or natural balancing point, and that you need to listen for it and learn to follow and respect it while learning to borrow its center and join it with yours.

So, in some ways, with what most people think of weapons, the concept is reversed in that you are not the one controlling the weapon, but that you are following the weapon. Since you are following the weapon, you can access the full power of the weapon, and thus borrow its full strength.

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
4. Weapons (Covered today)

Now we just need to cover:

Healing System

Feedback:
Nick,
I saw your u-tube and your form has improved considerably! Keep watching the video on the web, and keep reviewing your own video clips. The Carry Yoke does look a lot better! One key correction, Monkey Stepping back, when you step back, your legs can't cross. You have to make sure you keep shoulder width. Keep working hard.

Joe,
Great comments. Love it. I think your comments are better than my blog!

2010-02-22T15:36:00.000-05:00

Universal Effect

[Path to Mastery 2/22/10 – Wk24 D1 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

One of the great things about Tai-chi is that as your Tai-Chi improves it has a direct reflection of growth in the rest of your life.

Last Saturday, Alexis, one my students said “Tai-Chi is about using form to connect with what’s beyond form”. I thought that was beautifully expressed.

I experience this in every single class of mine with someone coming up and telling me how Tai-Chi is transforming their life and having an effect on it. For instance, on the same Saturday in an earlier class (I chose this example since this seemed like a serendipitous days), Claudia said that the practice of extending from your shoulders really helped her with her singing. The practice of extending from your shoulders is imagining that a line of energy is extending form the bulging tip of your shoulder muscle between your neck and your shoulder tip. This location on the shoulder is considered to be one of the key lung points and this visualization lines up your shoulders and hips and opens up your breath pathway and your lungs.

Claudia is a professional singer and she teaches singing. She is of course experienced with breath work and is very familiar with it. She said that she really like this technique because it stabilized her and it helped with her voice. I love the fact that she started practicing Tai-Chi not to long ago and simple things like these are helping her practice.

Tai-Chi works on getting rid of the resistance in your body so you become natural. When your body starts functioning naturally the way it was designed to work, our hidden potential starts coming out. When you are more fully you, and you stop fighting yourself, of course everything else is going to become easy.

This is why Tai-Chi has such a universally transforming effect in your life.

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Before we move on, I’d like to make a quick summary of the Tai-Chi overview we have covered:

So far we have been covering the Formalized traditional system of Tai-Chi. We are coming close to the end of covering the entire Formalized part of the training.   Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system:

1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)
2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Mediation
4. 7 Basics
5. Basic Form
6. 30 Form
7. 108 Form

We covered the Interactive training after we went public with the blog.
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)
    Part 1: Explanation of Ba-Gua (Covered on 2/16)
    Part 2: Yin-Yang Theory (Covered on 2/17)
   Part 3: 8 Trigram (Covered on 2/18)
    Part 4: 5 Element (Covered on 2/19)

Now we just need to cover:
1. Weapons
2. Healing System

Sometimes it is a good idea to just look at all the information that has been covered before you move on. It gives a good sense of where you are in the journey.

We will continue our journey with weapons tomorrow!

2010-02-19T20:35:00.000-05:00

True Mastery?

[Path to Mastery 2/19/10 – Wk23 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

So now that we have covered some of these concepts, you are probably thinking how deep do you need to understand these philosophies in order to master Tai-Chi?

When I asked my teacher Gabriel about this he threw in a curve ball to this whole question. He said that it was all a bunch of phooey. That’s right. That is the official nomenclature for non-sense.   He explained that when he was learning there was no such thing, and that over time, people started just adding a whole bunch of superficial knowledge that distracted you from the real knowledge.

Now, I have heard, read and talked to a lot of people who agree with this and disagree with this. After years of practicing, however, I agree with my teacher. Can real knowledge come from concept or do you need to experience it? Can you get benefits without letting your mind and body improve in a real and physical way?

Real knowledge can only come from practice. It resides hidden within your body and mind that can only be unlocked through this key called practice. When you practice, you body and mind make connections that you didn’t even know existed. You literally find parts of yourself that you weren’t familiar with. These discoveries allow you tap into your hidden potential. When you tap into your hidden potential, then you are starting to meet the real you. Who is more real? All of your potential or just what you are capable of up to now?

I think a real life example of mastery and what it means to tap into full potential is worth seeing. I received this link from my friend Frederique not too long ago. I think you will thoroughly appreciate this movie clip of Evelyn Glennie, a deaf musician doing a lecture. I wanted to choose this instead of Tai-Chi, because I didn’t want to show a Tai-Chi example that would color your mind of how Tai-Chi could be done. Instead, I wanted you to see an example of mastery in a different setting who talks about and demonstrates these principles involved with attaining real knowledge.

http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html

I hope you enjoy it!

On a closing note, these philosophies are very powerful and affective approaches to life. These concepts can help you understand things better. I’d like to say stay open. Don’t get caught up by these ideas, explore. Some of these ideas may allow you to help when you are stuck.

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

We have covered the following:

8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ )
             Part1: Explanation of Ba-Gua (Covered on 2/16)
             Part2: Yin-Yang Theory (Covered on 2/17)
             Part3: 8 Trigram (Covered on 2/18)

And here is the last installment of the 4 part series:

Ba-Gua Part 4: 5 Element
And now we come to the last chapter of the overview of the different Taoist Philosophies that help develop internal martial arts such as Tai-Chi and Ba-Gua. We have covered the Yin-Yang concept, the study of Changes (I-Ching). Today, we will be covering the 5 Elements.

The Five Elements really should be referred to as the 5 Movements, or the 5 phases or stages. In Chinese it is called Wu-Xing (Wu meaning 5 and Xing meaning move). The 5 Movements are Wood (Tree), Fire, Earth, Metal, Water.

Even though these seem similar to the 4 elements that the Greeks used to describe the 4 elements that made up the universe, the 5 Elements (or movements) are different. The Five Movements were used to understand the interaction and relationship between the phenomenons in nature. It was believed that all things in nature could be described and categorized between these 5 elemental qualities and their interactions and relationships.

To give an illustration, Wood creates Fire (feeds). Fire produces Earth (Ash), and Earth produces Metal (bears), and Metal produces Water (Contains water so it can be carried), and Water produces Wood (nourishes). This cycle is called the creation cycle, production, or generation cycle.

Now Water conquers Fire (quenches), Fire conquers Metal (melting), Metal conquers Wood (splitting), Wood conquers Earth (parts such as roots), and Earth conquers Water (absorbs). An alternate way of looking of this is that Wood absorbs Water, Water rusts Metal, Metal breaks up Earth, Earth extinguishes Fire, Fire burns Wood. This is called the destruction or the conquest cycle.

Each element has it’s own qualities as well. Wood is growing. Fire is at maximum growth about to decline. Metal is declining. Water is maximum decline about to grow. Earth is Balanced or natural.

By using these 5 movements, the Asians have studied geomancy or Feng shui, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, music, military strategy and martial arts. How? Well here is an example:

Metal is any kind of move that is direct, rigid and splitting. If someone approaches you with a move that has a Metal quality, then you would respond with a Fire move, which is explosive, intense and radiant. Since fire is not rigid, its radiant movements would explode through the rigidity of the Metal. Now it is conceivable to think of Water since Water rusts Metal. Water is flowing, penetrating and go around to achieve its goal.

2010-02-18T20:46:00.001-05:00

Ancient Asian Science

[Path to Mastery 2/18/10 – Wk23 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

Taoism is the oriental equivalent of Western Science.

Taoism is often considered a religion. There is a religious element to Taoism. But Taoism at its purest is the study and observation of the laws of nature in order to achieve harmony and oneness with it.

If Western science is based on analysis, the breaking down of things into smaller parts in order to understand the make up of things, Taoism observes the similarities between things and how they came together.

For instance, in medicine, the west observed how to get rid of a physical symptom. The disease is seen as a foreign invasion on the body as a separate entity. The absence of the disease would mean health. In the east, the presence of a disease was seen as an indication that the body and mind was out of balance. One observed how to bring the body back to balance and when the body is in balance the symptoms would disappear. The disease would not necessarily be seen as a foreign entity, but just as an expression of the body being out of harmony.

Like all great things, truth is a lot more complex than either model. In reality, we are nowadays witnessing both models merging because in reality they are the same thing. My hope is that these readings will help you merge these different modalities of ideas in your own mind to bring about meaningful change in your own life.

Hope you enjoy these readings.

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

We have covered the following:

8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ )
Part1: Explanation of Ba-Gua (Covered on 2/16)
Part2: Yin-Yang Theory (Covered on 2/17)

Today we will continue on Ba-Gua and cover the concept of Eight Trigram.

Ba-Gua Part 3: Eight Trigram
According to some, the Chinese went digital more than 3000 years ago, which is when the I-Ching was written. I-Ching is translated roughly as the Book of Changes.

If Yin-Yang is used to describe the opposing nature of things in the universe, than the Eight Trigram is used to show the eight fundamental transitions as Yin and Yang interact with each other.

As in the Yin-Yang symbol, Yang fills into Yin, and Yin recedes into Yang, and the universe is in a constant flux of this interchange. Now, this shows a fluid transformation from one state to another. This is analog.

Now here comes digital. If we say that Yang is a solid line, and Yin is a broken line, then you can say that Yang is 1 and Yin is 0. This is one digit. Now, if you have 2 digits, in probability, this would be 2 to the power of 2, resulting in 2 x 2, which allows for 4 possibilities. The following would be the possible combinations: 11, 10, 01, and 00. In short, you have 2 slots for the lines, which allow for 2 solid lines, a solid line and a broken line, a broken line and a solid line, and 2 broken lines. Now, these show 4 distinct phases in the transition from a fully Yang state to a Yin state and vice versa. It’s like taking a shot of the moon when it is at New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, and Last Quarter.

So Eight Trigram is when there are 3 digits. This would be 2 to the power of 3, which would be 2 x 2 x 2 = 8. The following would be the 8 possible combinations: 111, 110, 101, 011, 100, 010, 001, 000. Again, this would be like taking the picture of the moon, at 8 distinct phases: New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous, Last Quarter, and Waning Crescent. The 8 trigram is the most popular because it is considered to contain the basic key elemental phases of change in any phenomenon such as the different phases of the moon.

As explained above, change is considered the interchange of yin and yang. The eight images used to depict the characteristics of the 8 different combination of yin and yang are:

Heaven, Earth, Mountain, Lake, Thunder, Wind, Fire, Water.

This concept of I-Ching, the study of change is to break down the flow and fluidity of change into clear phases so one can understand change better. It is like creating distinctions of direction. There are 4 distinct directions, North, South, East and West. The corresponding images in the Eight Trigram would be Heaven (3 bars) and Earth (3 broken bars), Fire (1 bar, 1broken bar, 1 bar) and Water (1 broken bar, 1 bar and 1 broken bar). Then there are the 4 corners, SW, NE, SE and NW, which would be Mountain (2 broken bars and 1 bar) and Lake (2 bars and 1 broken bar), Thunder (1 bar, 2 broken bars) and Wind (1 broken bar, 2 bars). By studying these changes, one learns how to understand changes better, and how to respond to them better. As one's understanding of these changes gets more intricate, these digits get greater. The most popular combination of changes that are looked at is the 8 trigrams and the 64 Hexagrams.

It is believed that by studying these changes one learns to adapt to change better and furthermore one learns to predict the next phase of the change so one can make a better choice.

Ba-Gua is the Chinese word for 8 Trigram. So, Ba-Gua is a martial art that studies the different phases of change in order adapt and predict movements better.

2010-02-17T20:07:00.002-05:00

Understanding Self through Tai-Chi

[Path to Mastery 2/17/10 – Wk23 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

Tai-Chi is a great tool for self understanding. Practicing Tai-Chi is exploring how your mind and body is interwoven in ways you haven’t before.

When you practice Tai-Chi, you get to know a part of you that was hidden but that you have been looking for all your life: The power and potential that your body and mind are really capable of. This is because Tai-Chi is a small universe contained in one art-form. As you learn Chi-Gong (Energy Cultivation), you learn about energy, the power that is not seen but operates all of life. As you learn the form, you learn about your anatomical body, what it means to let go and feel freedom within yourself. As you learn how to fight, you learn how to interact with others without compromising yourself. Practicing Tai-Chi allows you to experience life in its full richness so that this experience spreads through the rest of your life, like a pebble thrown in a pond.

As you practices Tai-Chi, you get a better sense of reality. For instance, through pushing hands training you learn to see the world in a non-reactive calm way. When you do pushing hands, you practice listening to the pushes and pulls of your partner. When you first start, you learn quickly how you are responding to what you “think” is happening. With more practice you learn to listen carefully and you stop making assumptions. When we want to see clearly to the bottom of the water, the surface must be calm.

It is between this richness of experience of exploring oneself and the clarity of mind that allows you to find a more accurate and complete self.

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

So far, we have covered the following:

8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)
San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ )

Today we will continue on Ba-Gua and the theories behind it.

Ba-Gua Part 2: Ying-Yang Theory
If Tai-Chi operates under yin-yang concepts, Ba-Gua operates under the philosophy of I-Ching. I-Ching is the book of Changes. Now this is where it gets really sticky and confusing.

The truth is that both martial arts have been influenced by the Taoist concept of Yin-Yang, I-Ching and 5 elements. Tai-Chi is called the martial art of 13 movements, 8 postures and 5 directions. The eight postures represent the eight trigrams and the 5 directions represent the 5 elements. Ba-Gua, Eight Trigram Palm, as the name indicates is a martial art based on the Eight Trigrams. So as you can see it is not so clear cut. So, it’s not that one has something and the other doesn’t, but more on how these principles were interpreted and applied to each martial art.

To help understanding I will give a simple overview of some of these philosophies.

The Yin-Yang theory in principle is not so difficult to understand. This is just the Chinese way of explaining binary theory. All this is saying is that to every phenomenon in the universe there is an opposite reaction to that phenomenon. So, according to this theory, if there is a magnet, you won’t be able to find one that just has a positive pole.

Sometimes people confuse Tai-Chi and Yin-Yang as being the same. Tai-Chi means great extremes, or great opposites. So, it describes the separation of 2 opposites. Yin-Yang describes how the 2 opposite energies keep balance. You can see this in the Tai-Chi symbol versus the Yin-Yang symbol. In the Tai-Chi symbol, you see white and black spiraling out from the center. In a Yin-Yang symbol, you see the a black and white fish like shape with a dot of the opposite color at its center.

According to Yin-Yang theory, Tai-Chi comes from Wu-Ji. Wu-Ji means no opposites, or no extremes. This is the state before the division of positive and negative, 1 and 0. Then once Tai-Chi happens, the balance of the universe is described in the Yin-Yang symbol.

Now, I would like to caution here that Yin-Yang is non-judgmental. Positive does not have the connotation of good, and negative does not have the connotation of bad. It is used to describe good and bad, but that is all. It is used to describe. In essence it is not supposed to be used to label but to examine a condition. This is because Yin-Yang theory is used to understand the balance of things and how to bring about that balance. For example, if you have a fever, you are considered to have too much Yang energy in your body. Yang energy in itself is not bad. If you don’t have enough Yang energy then you will not have life or heat. But if it is in excess of course that is bad. So, you eat things that would bring more Yin energy to your body, or you drain your Yang energy until your body has balance. Having balance is good. Not having balance is bad. But Yin and Yang, by itself is neither good nor bad.

We will continue on the concepts tomorrow.

2010-02-16T14:42:00.001-05:00

Tai-Chi and Purpose of Life

[Path to Mastery 2/16/10 – Wk23 D2 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

Why do I want to teach Tai-Chi to others?

I have been asking this question often lately. The reason I started teaching Tai-Chi is so that people can find their purpose in life. You are probably thinking, “Practice Tai-Chi to find purpose in life? What do those have to do with each other???”

The reason is because of Tai-Chi’s incredible transformational power. Practicing Tai-Chi has transformed my life in incredible ways. To mention a few, before I started practicing Tai-chi, I had no endurance. I was in other martial arts before, and when I would spar, I would get tired within 2 or 3 minutes. Now I can spar for over 2 hours and still not be tired. But I don’t do any kind of endurance exercise. I used to have problems with balance. Now I can squat on one leg all the way down and all the way up without loosing my balance without much effort. I used to have a lot of anxiety and fear and now I feel emotionally free and high spirited. I used to have a problem with discipline and now effortless discipline is a way of life. My mind used to be scattered and now I can focus my mind. It is fun to meet old friends because they tell me how I have completely changed.

Once you have succeeded transforming in one area of life, it becomes contagious. You start having hope that you can indeed change and you start hoping again. You start recognizing there are principles to transformation and that it is not a fluke or luck. This builds confidence and this confidence allows you to dream again. The kind of dreams we gave up because we got beat up one to many times.

I have experienced this transformation and found much joy in my life. I also find there is much power in sharing these kinds of transformational experiences with others. What I want for people is for them to discover their hidden power, their hidden potential, and start seeing really how awesome they are. I want people to get addicted to growing from this experience and make self growth their passion in life. I believe this hunger and passion for their journey of constant growth in pursuit of their heart’s deepest desire is a person’s purpose in life.

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

So far, we have covered the following:

8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)

San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)

Today, we will be covering Ba-Gua.

Ba-Gua Part 1:
Ba-Gua is short for Ba-Gua-Jang, and it means Eight Trigram Palm.

Ba-Gua is strictly speaking not Tai-Chi and it is a separate martial art of its own. However, the principles that govern Tai-Chi and Ba-Gua are the same even though their manifestation is very different. It is like having the same building blocks as a kid, but coming up with very different designs.

Tai-Chi could be analogous to being a sphere. Ba-Gua would be analogous to being the circumference of that sphere.

When you practice Tai-Chi, you practice being an in-boxer. You practice as if you are at the center of a sphere. In Ba-Gua you practice being an out-boxer. You practice as if you are the outside shell of a sphere. This analogy is over-simplified, since both systems are very complex and complete on its own, but sometimes over-simplification helps with understanding.

By practicing both Ba-Gua and Tai-Chi, your understanding of Tai-Chi deepens by the contrast. As you practice the fast-paced sweeping movements of Ba-Gua, your understanding of the different kinds of movements that can be made is broadened. You start to solidify your understanding that the Tai-Chi system is one way of understanding the principles.

2010-02-15T12:45:00.002-05:00

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.

2010-02-15T12:44:00.002-05:00

Go, go, gadget, pelvis!

[Path to Mastery 2/12/10 – Wk22 D5 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

Structurally speaking, your pelvis is the most important part of the body you can train.

Picture this. Imagine that each one of your vertebra is a plate, and they are stacked on top of each other, and the pelvis is a big bowl on which all the plates are stacked on. Now imagine that there is masking tape on 4 side of the plates to hold them together. Got the picture? Now, imagine that you tilt the bowl. However you tilt the bowl will strain the masking tape.

This visual example is not that far off from your actual skeletal structure. Your pelvis is like a big bowl, and your entire spinal cord sits on your pelvis. How you hold your pelvis and move it affects your entire structure.

Your pelvis also mediates the movements between your legs and your upper body. This is the reason the Tai-Chi classics say, “Power is generated from the legs, controlled by the waist and expressed through your fingers”. Here, waist control is really how you move your pelvis. If you talk to Tai-Chi masters a lot of them will express that the secret to power is in the Kwa. As you can imagine, to move from the Kwa would be to move where the pelvis joins the femur, your legs.

Yesterday, I was training my standing mediation and then my stance training (Tai-Chi technical jargon for leg training) in the morning. As I was training it occurred to me how much Tai-Chi training emphasizes increasing your pelvic intelligence. By the time I was done doing the standing meditation, the Tai-Chi form and the sword form, my pelvic muscles were relaxed. I felt my pelvic floor well supported, my Dan-Tien full of energy, my legs light and powerful, my upper body loose.

When you train today, see how all training in Tai-Chi affects your pelvis. It will make a difference.

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 Birds 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 1:

Ah~ San-Shou. San-Shou means dispersing hands, or free hand. In others words non-choreographed fighting.

Ironically, San-Shou is a 2 person form. It is a form that teaches you how to fight. Of course, you can use San-Shou to mean free fighting, but in Tai-Chi, when you say San-Shou, it refers to the fighting form.

San-Shou is what teaches you to utilize the power generation you learned in the Tui-Shou in an actual fight. The moves are simple, shorter, without any flare. Very practical. At the same time, it is very intricate. It shows how to utilize power generation that you have been training in a much tighter space and shorter time so that you can issue power from unexpected angles and during any move.

You learn that you don’t have to issue a lot of power in order to be effective. You also learn Tai-Chi fighting techniques are very effective, meaning very mean. Most grappling techniques are techniques that break joints instantly. There are no locking and subduing techniques. Those are sensitivity and skill training exercises. All other techniques are quick striking and bumping techniques that take no preparation or any kind of technique.

When I asked Gabriel that this did not use anything like the Tai-Chi we’ve been training, he said “This is what you use when you are in a hurry”. I guess I wouldn’t want to meet a Tai-Chi practitioner when they are rushed.

To do San-Shou justice, I need a little more space. I will continue on Monday.

2010-02-11T21:45:00.001-05:00

Tai-Chi, Opposite Extremes Part 2

[Path to Mastery 2/11/10 – Wk22 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Sang’s World

Tai-Chi, Opposite Extremes Continued

Here is an example of an application of Tai-Chi.

Yin Yang symbol has a small yin and a yang. For anything to succeed one need discipline. Discipline is best achieved through a regular training. For most people when they first start training, they often quite because it is hard for them to either remember to practice due to their old habits or because they find it hard to fit it into their new schedule.

Some people have a natural gift of planning and discipline or were fortunate enough to have had that skill instilled in them at some point in their life. But for those of us that are not as fortunate, you can use the Tai-Chi concept to tip the balance.

You have seen the Ying-Yang symbol. There is a little bit of Yin, in the Yang, and a little bit of Yang in the Yin. Theses small Yin grow into the place of the Yang, and the small Yang grows into the place of the Yin. Thus eternally they are switching places.

In the beginning make a plan to practice regularly. However, if you forget to follow it, just do a few moves when you remember you forgot. There is no point in getting frustrated over what’s been done. Rather use this as an opportunity for practicing relaxation, breathing and calming the mind. Unexpected events are like a fight. In a fight, things rarely go as expected. Breath, relax yourself and go with the flow and adapt. The faster you adapt, the swifter you can defeat the opponent. When you find yourself remembering that you forgot, you also find yourself remembering that you need to practice. This is yin yang. That is the time to get in even one move and you have started on forming a new habit. This is like the little yin dot in the big Yang half of the Yin-Yang symbol. The Yin is the insubstantial, the un-structured. The Yang is the substantial, the structured. Attack the current structure with the insubstantial and start expanding the insubstantial until it fills the rest of the Yang. Then a new structure is formed.

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)

Currently we are covering the Pushing Hands in our system. All Pushing Hand exercises loop back in a continuous cycle . This allows people to most effectively hone their skills through constant repetition and it gives them direct feedback if their technique and the principles (BARS) of Tai-chi are correct. We have finished the 4 type pushing hands, and now we are on #7 of the 8 Type Pushing Hands.

Today’s Lesson:8.Linking Tui-Shou

Tui-Shou number 8, linking Tui-Shou is the last of the 8 types.

Linking Tui-Shou shows you that in Tai-Chi all techniques link to each other, that all techniques are one technique.

Tai-Chi used to be called Long Fist. The reason it used to be called Long Fist is because when you do the 108, it continues like the river, never beginning and never ending, linking from one move to the next as if the whole thing is one technique.

Because Tai-Chi is not a collection of techniques but rather natural movements that come out in accordance to the laws of nature, all movements are born of the same principles. Thus, all move naturally flow from one to the other. This is why Tai-Chi moves like the flowing river, never stopping, but just flowing around any obstacle and penetrating every opening.

Linking Tui-Shou teaches you how to implement this principle in real life.