Random thoughts about the palm changes

In this post I thought that I’d talk a little bit more about how I approach BaGau from a much broader perspective. There are myriad ways to organize the material. You could start with the axial pairs: Heaven and Earth (up/down), Fire and Water (left/right), Wind and THunder (front/back and possibly the diagonals), Mountain and Lake (in/out). Or you could start with the philosophical principles, or with neigung. These are just some thoughts I’ve had about the various palm changes. I’m constantly trying to develop a more comprehensive view that still remains consistent with everything that Bruce has taught me.

I’ve learned the body mechanics for the 1st (SPC), 3rd (Wind palm), and the water palm directly from Bruce. Everything else is self taught. Over the years I’ve pieced together a version of all the other palm changes from various other sources. My impression is that you keep revisting these over and over as your understanding grows. Each palm has some unique qualities that they develop that once learned can be folded back and incorporated in all of the other palms; however, it is important to keep them clear and seperate before integrating them.

So the SPC palm change develops all things yang. Think about every neigung element and what is defined as yang and you should be able to isolate that in the SPC. Lengthening out, opening a joint, twisting out, energy up the side channels and central channel, moving energy from the center to the periphery, opening an energy gate, an organ or a cavity etc, etc. From a neigung perspective this is the basics and is more mundane and attainable. The heart-mind is a prerequisite to understanding the SPC’s spirtual aspect and its deeper meaning as the Heaven trigram.

The Double Palm Change (DPC) emphasizes all things yin. Likewise it develops lengthening in, closing the joints and cavities, twisting in, bringing energy in and down, etc. Where the SPC brought energy up the back of the body, the DPC change completes the macro cosmic orbit down the front. As a set the SPC and DPC are complimentary opposites. They are axial pairs. They teach all of the vertical circles that form up and down. In the SPC and DPC you are just learning to focus your attention first on one then the other and eventually you relax into being able to pay attention to both yin and yang simultaneously. But this is where it starts to get a little confusing because you can’t have a yin without a yang. This goes back to the philosophical foundation of Taoist cosmology. In western science, the concept is expressed by Newton’s 3rd law of motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So while you were learning the SPC and concentrating on the yang neigung elements, the yin elements were always there although they may not have been conscious. In this way the DPC contains the SPC. It is also why the SPC ultimately contains every other palm.

This is too abstract so I’ll try to illustrate this with an example. Take twisting in the foot. At first the twisting is a bit vague. You just twist the foot out or twist in anyway you can. Later you start noticing that the twisting starts somewhere in the foot and ends somewhere in the foot. Eventually the twist completes a circle. When you start getting a lot clearer, the twisting begins to go deeper and you develop a much stronger sense of twisting the energy directly from the mind. At this point you’ll be able to feel the twisting right down to the bone, but not necessarily in the bones yet. You should be able to “put your mind into the foot”. For me, this is the bridge to spiraling energy body. You start realizing that you don’t have to move the outer tissue to create the twisting. You start to notice the complete circle that any twist creates. This is the basis for all circular internal movement. Spheres get created by varying the plane of the circle until all possible angles are completed. Eventually, you’ll also notice that twisting out simultaneously creates an equal and opposite twisting in. For a long time the mind bounces back and forth from the yang side to the yin side. But they both exist. It is impossible to create a yang without a yin. You can focus your consciousness on one to the exclusion of the other, but they both still exist. So in the SPC you’ll concentrate on the twisting out. In the DPC, you’ll concentrate on the twisting in. When you can work with them both simultaneously with a relaxed mind, your ready for the wind palm.

The 3rd palm is the Wind Palm. It teaches you how to spin around the central channel. You really should understand that a circle has a yang and a yin side as well as a center. I like to think of this as a projecting side and a retracting side. In the Wind palm, the center is your central channel. You spin by putting your mind on the central channel and create both a projecting side and a retracting side simultaneously. If you do it correctly, there is no inertia. Any felt inertia or resistance has to be dissolved. If you are working energetically, you should be able to spin like a whirling dervish and stop on a dime. At this point your emotions will likely be amplified greatly. You can’t do this without stirring things up. You also learn to start segmenting the body. Previously in the SPC and DPC, twisting was more pure. If you twisted out, everything twisted out. If you twisted in, everything twisted in. Now, in the wind palm, you have to start mixing yin and yangs. I use the trigram to determine that mix. The wind palm is a yin line on the bottom and two yangs lines on top. I interpret that to mean that I’ll twist the wrist and elbows out while the shoulder twists in. (Stick your hands above your head. The hand corresponds to the top line, the elbow to the middle, and the shoulder to the bottom line.) This applies to the legs as well as well as the tan tiens: upper, middle, lower. Another way to look at this is in the context of change. Yang reaches it pinnacle and births a yin line on the lower line. The twisting of the feet represents two smaller yangs condensing to form the yin. I think this is the easier way to practice at first because you are basically twisting everything in one direction. The bottom is just doing something new. This quickly gets so complicated that it is virtually impossible to approach it with the normal thinking mind. You have to engage and work with the heart-mind.

One of the benefits of playing with the other palm changes is that it really challenges your fundamentals. You have to not only understand them but embody them as well. Another benefit is that you have to refine your ability to feel and understand how smaller and smaller parts of the body work. This deepens your understanding.

The Thunder palm is the forth palm change. It is about the energy that generates thunder not a thunder clap. So something deep in the earth stirs which generates a potential which generates an arch of lightening which generates thunder. This palm is about that initial impetus not the thunder clap. The palm change helps you focus on the lower tan tien. The two upper yin lines condense into the lower tan tien. The Wind palm and Thunder palms are axial pairs. They both are about arousal. The Wind palm births yin. The Thunder palm births yang. In the Thunder palm there is this potential created that Bruce likens to static electricity. In terms of twisting, the wrist and elbow twist in while the shoulder twists out. They are diametrically opposed and this difference makes each stronger. It also creates the potential. The yin reaches its peak and creates the yang line on the bottom.

Fire is interesting. The energy that I feel is like a backdraft. The stronger I twist in and manifest the middle line of the trigram, the faster I turn. It is like creating a void or vacuum that has to be filled. I think this is what the I Ching means by the clinging. In the context of twisting, the middle is twisting in and the upper and lower twist out. I haven’t figured out how to utilize the middle tan tien yet. For now, I just let whatever happens to it happen. It is conscious but receptive, its yin. I create the middle line primarily by twisting the midriffs’ gates inward on each side. They express two smaller yang twists condensing inward.

Fire’s axial pair is Water. Both Fire and Water palms are about the middle tan tien. The Water palm rotates the middle tan tien both vertically and horizontally. It really starts to bring out the spherical nature of projecting from the middle tan tien in any direction you choose. The twisting in the arms, legs, and body are all coordinated and coupling. They each express the yin-yang-yin pattern. In contrast to the Fire palm, the middle tan tien in the Water palm is entirely yang and very active. All of the movement is created from the middle tan tien.

Notice that we’ve dealt with all of the tan tiens together and then the lower and middle individually. The last axial pair, Mountain and Lake, deal with the upper tan tien. The Mountain palm has this great way of spiraling to a still point as well as creating a point of stillness that you pivot around. I believe the point of stillness can be moved to anywhere. The point is super condensed. I should be easier to move a mountain than this point. The condensing yin is about to reach its peak which will be expressed by the Earth palm and then will birth yang.

The 8th palm, Lake, is the most mysterious. Although it is the least understood, it is also my favorite palm. It continuously spirals in every conceivable direction simultaneously. I work at the other palm changes, but I just do the 8th because I enjoy it.