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Hi,
In the Dragon and Tiger DVD set, as well as in the XingYi set, Bruce recommends not “short-circuiting” the etheirc body, ie not bringing the hands closer than a fist’s distance to any part of the body during any Chi Gung.
Does this apply to the standing dissolving position of Energy Gates ?The 3 students portrayed doing dissolving on page 94 of the book Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body have their hands touching the sides of their thighs, but the picture of Bruce on page 110 shows him with his hands slightly away form his sides…
Testing both gave me the following results : hands touching the thighs is easier and more relaxing, but less energyzing. Hands slightly away from the sides feels more “full” but I get slight pain in my shoulder joints (maybe due to the fact that my shoulder alignments might not be perfect).
What do you all think ?
Erwan
Hi Erwan-
I think you nailed the trade-off between the two positions with the test that you ran. Nicely done!
I would only add that the palms facing backwards at the sides of the body can be more of a marker of shoulderblade/shoulder alignment, than a hand position per se. What I mean is, position your hands by gently spreading the blades across the upper back and let that turning go down through the arms, rotating the hands into position. (related to your twisting/turning question: “turning” is what happens to tissue when you relax it and let it be turned by the movement of the bones. Go through “turning” phases first to loosens things up, layer by layer, so that eventually you start moving tissue to turn bone — that’s “twisting”)
The stronger the connection is between the point on the spine between the blades, out to the tips of the fingers, the more connected this is going to feel (making it less and less necessary to touch the thighs over time).
Hope that helps,
Dan
Thanks Dan. That’s a whole lot of information in one short answer !
Thanks a lot for the tips on twisting. Sounds like I was perhaps being a bit too forceful with my movements…
No problem!
Forcing into a twist is a really common thing, because actually feeling the turning is pretty subtle at first. It sounds like you were on the right track, with an exercise like cloud hands, just following the motion of the arm (forearms and upper thighs are the two easier places to start, IMO). Loosen, loosen, loosen.
“Loosen, loosen, loosen”
Which goes to say that I am probably getting more from Cloud Hands when I do it in a soft way rather than when I am trying to generate power…
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