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Is anyone working with the side channels in their Bagua practice? I’ve been using them in the torso like they are smaller central channels. In other words, the side channels can replicate exactly the same bend the bow and spiraling actions of the spine. I find that moving energy strongly through the side channels in the torso also moves the energy through the smaller side channels in the limbs and head.
When I practice the single palm, the rotations of the side channels and central channel are a matched set: the side channels and central channel rotate/spiral in the same direction and the energy moves in the same direction.
When I practice the double-palm change, they spiral exactly the same way but one side channel makes energy go down and the other goes up. You have to know how to balance the side channels to do this without torquing the sacrum; otherwise, you are very, very likely to injure yourself.
In the third, you wrap both side channels inward toward the lower tantien. This is done in the arms and legs and the torso. In a more complex version, I add another axis of rotation. Not only do I wrap the sides toward the spine, I also bow which is really a rotation in the shoulder’s nests and the kwa. Everything goes in toward the lower tantien so it closes to produce an opening. This is how I manifest the yin within the yang.
The forth palm change reverses all of the rotations producing an opening of the tantien that flips to yin. Like the double-palm change it can split them as well.
The fifth palm change works the coronal axis (the third dimension). At this point the central channel contrasts with the side channels: it purposely rotates/spirals in the opposite direction of the rotation/spiral in the side channels.
In the sixth the side channels are rotating in opposite directions along the coronal axis.
The seventh is combining all of the dimensions at once to produce clear opening and closing.
Right or wrong, good or bad – in the end, I find this practice opens the channels and starts to give me access to the the three tantiens – neigung elements 14 and 15. I can start to feel how they open in close in patterns that match the lines of the trigrams. So, a yang line is an open of the tantien and a yin line is a close of the corresponding tantien.
Remember when I post this type of thread that I’m not suggesting that this is what the palm changes are. I’m just playing with one of the 16 neigung elements (the 12th in this case, “Awakening and using the body’s left and right energy channels.”). All of the 16 part neigung should be in every palm change, but that doesn’t mean you’ll use those elements in exactly the same way. A practice like the one I described is just a methodical way to train every aspect of a neigung element and thus gain some level of mastery.
I’m wondering if we made a collective list of everything we know about the left and right energy channels, how long would that list be. We all would have a picture of the side channels, we would know they have something to do with the two columns of energy that run between the shoulder’s nests and the kwas, we would know that they are supposed to be balanced somehow. What else?
Remember when I post this type of thread that I’m not suggesting that this is what the palm changes are. I’m just playing with one of the 16 neigung elements (the 12th in this case, “Awakening and using the body’s left and right energy channels.”). All of the 16 part neigung should be in every palm change, but that doesn’t mean you’ll use those elements in exactly the same way. A practice like the one I described is just a methodical way to train every aspect of a neigung element and thus gain some level of mastery.
I’m wondering if we made a collective list of everything we know about the left and right energy channels, how long would that list be? We all would have a picture of the side channels in our heads from Bruce’s books, we would know they have something to do with the two columns of energy that run between the shoulder’s nests and the kwas, we would know that they are supposed to be balanced somehow. What else?
I searched through over a decade of notes from every neigung, Tai Chi, and Bagua seminar that I’ve attended or have someone else’s notes from and those three things points summarize everything I’ve ever been explicitly taught about the side channels. I haven’t flipped through the BMP material yet. Anyone find anything else?
On page 57 of module 8 of the BMP, I found “Level 5: Engage and Balance the Left and Right Energy Channels”
“Different ways of working with the body’s left and right energy channels balance, engage and activate the first six energy bodies…” and “Through the neck and head, the left and right channels follow several pathways, each of which primarily influences and activates the psychic, karmic or essence (body of individuality) energy bodies.”
The module contains a concise summary of the nine levels of chi development in the single palm change. I’m working with the left and right channels that run along the bones of the spine. I not sure if this is supposed to be part of opening the central channel or the left and right channels. I work with them at a deeper layer of the left and right channels. I have multiple ways of working with them that correspond to the trigrams and the palm changes. I use the physical movement of the forms to decipher what the pattern is. Although I don’t know exactly which pattern corresponds to which trigram, I can tell that they open the body more, make it calmer, smoother, and more balanced. So, the net effect is exactly as Bruce describes: they activate, engage and balance more of the channels.
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