OMG! This is Butt Simple

Intellectually Bagua is supposed to be pretty simple. It is really an affirmation of Taoist cosmology. Before I go there, let’s take a step back and remember one of the early seminars when Bruce taught the single palm change.

In the Single Palm Change, Bruce taught that there are really only three divisions: single, double, mix. Yang, yin, and all of the ways they can be mixed. That’s it.

There’s the energy bodies: physical, etheric, emotional, mental, psychic, karmic, individuality, Tao. These need to be opened. Which simply means you need to be aware of them – completely aware.

There are eight layers inside the body: 5 layers that get you to the bone, the bone matrix, the bone marrow, and the central channel.

There’s the sixteen neigung which is a catalog of skills that need to be acquired through persistent practice. These help you to develop awareness.

In Bagua, the palm changes are the container for learning about and developing the requisite awareness.

Jing, Chi, shen, wu, Tao is the typical learning progression.

Ultimately everything just pulses. It opens and closes. That’s it. However, there are several patterns to the opening and closing that are independent of the layers, energy bodies, etc. and these are also learned in the palm changes. The change over point always goes back to the same place – the central channel and emptiness.

The confusion comes from mixing all of this together because it is all present simultaneously. That’s why it appears to be so difficult to sort out.

So, in the Fire Palm Change, Bruce appears to be teaching yin/yang lengthening, but he is really teaching center to periphery. He teaches yin/yang lengthening in stages. First in the arms, then legs, then both simultaneously. Also the arms are broken down into sections and he teaches how to progress from the fingers to the elbow, then the shoulder, then the shoulder’s nest, then the internal organs, then the lower tan tien. Then he similarly works the legs from the toes to the lower tantien. Then both simultaneously.

However, there are multiple meanings to center to periphery. He was just teaching a simpler version: along the length of the limbs into the lower tan tien. I also know that the close is closing into the bone matrix toward the central channel. The lower tan tien is also on the central channel. So, I’m suggesting the we are going from the hands and feet to the lower tan tien and simultaneously into the central channel through the layers of the body like concentric spheres. Now that may be the subject of the Water Palm Change, but the idea is simply to find the changeover “space” in the central channel within each of the patterns that the palm changes represent. I can’t figure out the exact palm change and the exact pattern for each one but I getting close.

The jing, chi, shen, wu, Tao progression takes you through the tantiens and developing complete awareness of the energy bodies.