How to Engage the Central Channel

[Anonymous]

Even though the subject of the central channel is a more advanced topic, I thought I’d write something about how I got to the point of working with it. Hopefully you’ll get a better sense of the progression I used and gain some perspective on whether your on the right track in your own practice.

When I first met Bruce, I was clueless. I couldn’t feel chi and didn’t even know that the central channel existed. I started like everyone else: I took a class, tried to practice what I could, and began puzzling over the whole subject of Taoist practices. 22 years later, I’m still clueless and puzzling over the whole subject of Taoist practices.

I did standing. I learned the Wu short form from Bruce, a few neigung sets, and eventually Taoist meditation. That’s when I really knew that I was really clueless. I learned the Yang long form at “Jimmy” Yang’s with Alan Dougall and the Yang long form from Gin Soon Chu as well as a little push hands which I really never got. I learned Taoist breathing, a little Bagua, and more and more details about the neigung sets.

The point is for a very long time I just did the best I could to follow along and absorb as much as possible. Each of the sets teaches you a little more. As you practice you get a little better even if that is a very tiny increment. The biggest change is that you start to be able to feel and become aware of your body, chi, and mind in ever changing new ways. But it is an incredibly slow process, or I was exceedingly impatient. Both are probably true. Anyway, round and round you go. Learning and re-learning the material.

At some point I started to get the sense of being able to expand and condense all of the soft tissue at once. I think this is the control of the cells and the interstitial fluid movement. Note: you make the cells expand to get the fluid into the cells and your shrink them to squeeze it out. I’d only get glimpses of this but over time I finally got better at it and started to be able to control it a little bit. The sense of expansion is important and usually felt first. It is vague at first. Eventually the sense of condensing can be controlled and you’ll eventually compress the whole body around and toward the bones. The trick is to open first then close. So you have to get the vague sense of opening the field and you have to leave it open while you condense. This is the hard part. The condensing happens within the field it isn’t the collapsing of the field. If you can do this, you can condense toward the bones. I experienced it like pressure that squeezed toward the bones. The pressure can penetrate the bones toward the central channel. At this point everything was still fairly vague but considerably stronger than anything else I had done. I just thought that if I got better at it, I’d get stronger. Based on my experience that isn’t what happens and I suspect that many people stop there thinking that that’s it. For me this was just the entry point. I also think I just described how you go from the outside in.

But, there is a much stronger and direct way. For me this just came later. I think this is what Bruce calls working from the inside out. In the Bagua Mastery Program it is described in great detail in the sections on breathing. I have no idea whether I could have done this more directly.

Once I had access to the central channel, I was able to work with it and I used the Bagua Mastery material to guide my practice. Module 4 has all of the reverse breathing methods up to central channel breathing. Obviously, follow Bruce’s instructions and progression.

My point is that I didn’t approach it the way it is laid out on the mastery program. I also don’t think the material would have made any sense without fumbling around for so long. I never practiced breathing coordinated with my movements and still don’t. I follow Bruce’s original instructions from 1990: breathe. All of the reverse breathing techniques make sense to me and I can do them. I just don’t bother. I can show you how they work and even how they function as diaphragmatic pumps that move blood and fluids, but I still don’t bother. IMHO, the reverse breathing techniques make more sense for Hsing I than for Bagau. I’m working on the Level 11 central channel progression and probably will be in that material for quite some time.

I just don’t think I could have moved out the central channel without first having a vague sense of the whole thing. Who knows? I suspect that more people will come from the outside in than from the inside out. So, hopefully some of what I describe will guide you and you’ll know it can be done this way. When you come from the inside out, there is way more precision and focus. The effects on the body are significantly stronger. Once you got access, you have to go through the progression as Bruce described in order to realize the maximum potential of what can be done.

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