For Beginners

[Anonymous]

Bruce has been teaching a long time. I think he has been teaching internal arts for over 40 years. We have more access to his system than ever before. In fact, you could argue that we have more access to this material than any time in history.

Looking back over all the years I’ve studied, I see a pattern to the material. It breaks down to 5 subjects: connection, lengthening, bend and stretch, open and close, dissolving. The first four are essential to all of the internal martial arts. The last one, dissolving, is only needed if you have an interest in meditation.

Connection, lengthening, bend and stretch, open and close – each have multiple layers and meanings, but more importantly they are a progression. You can’t open and close without understanding bend and stretch. You can’t can’t bend and stretch without lengthening, and you can’t properly lengthen without connection.

If you are a long time practitioner and reading this and thinking you understand open and close, ask yourself if you ever spent time developing the connection or your arms to every section of the spine. Likewise, did you do the same with the legs. Did you spend the time to connect the legs to every vertebrae of the spine. If you didn’t, I’d argue that you haven’t completed step one, connection.

I’ve met a lot of Bruce’s students over the years. I can count on one hand the number of his students that I think did this. I’d also add that they are his best students.

[Anonymous]

If my post isn’t resonating with you, I’d suggest you read or re-read “The Interplay of Opening-Closing and Lengthening (Neigong Component #7)” in the written material of Module 1 attachment 04 Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong.

Although Bruce doesn’t explicitly use the term connection in the section, it is implied. Part of connection is just being able to feel and control any part of the body. You have to establish or re-establish the connections in the nervous system and brain to do so.

Bruce emphasizes relaxation and lengthening as core foundations for open and close. When he brings in the topic of bend and stretch when he mentions the yin yang surfaces. He is referring to lengthening on each surface of the arms and ultimately in both directions which he rarely teaches but often mentions.

I think the interplay of all 4 elements is important. It also speaks to the non-linear learning progression. You can really just learn one then the next and then the next. They are too inter-related and interdependent. So, our training is sloppy and fumbling as it must be.

The only trouble is that most students don’t gain the clarity of each component as an important and separate component before combining them. There is a point when you start to understand each independently and you use that to master each separately and in combination.

I’d also add that mastery of connection, lengthening, bend and stretch, and open and close in the jing, Chi, and shen phases are distinct and important to learn in sequence.

[Anonymous]

re-read! Thanks James.

I particularly liked reviewing Bruce’s exercise on
“Lengthening Along The Yang Meridians.”

I don’t remember doing this exercise 7 years ago.
But I must have;
I put notes in the margins.

So I did the exercise again.
This time as I lengthened I actually felt a noticeable wave move along:
1. my etheric field,
2. my skin,
3. my wei chi and
4. my large intestine meridian

Now I must work on muscles and tendons.
Maybe even the sutures of my skull—
if they haven’t completely ossified in my old age.

My keys for feeling the Qi is Daoyin and the “exertion of a single thing.”

By focusing on the yin (in the lower tantien) the yang is allowed to grow without effort.
Bruce wrote that “it must carry absolutely no iota of a sense of force with it.”
It did (not.)
That’s Qi (I know you are skeptical about the existence of Qi.)

But this accounts for reading or hearing a concept for years and never understanding or feeling it—even when it is right under your nose.

P.S. at the last minute, I did join the Opening and Closing Edition;
maybe I’ll finally get this, too.

Take care

[Anonymous]

Today I tried some of these partner drills with students.
No one felt any waves of Qi along yang surfaces.
Discouraging.

[Anonymous]

hal·lu·ci·na·tion
həˌlo͞osəˈnāSH(ə)n/
noun
an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

Qi doesn’t exist. So what does Bruce actually do and then call it Qi?

[Author]

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