Lake Palm Changes to Single Palm Change

[Anonymous]

I’ve been practicing the Lake Palm almost exclusively for weeks. I’ve been focusing on developing the central chi and central channel using that form. As I shifted my focus from the two ends creating the center to just the center, my practice naturally flipped back to the Single Palm Change. I found myself practicing the SPC over and over trying to hone the central channel down to the tiniest thread.

[Anonymous]

If you watch Module 13 video lesson 09, I really think Bruce is talking about a lot more than the Thunder Palm Change. Karma is the result of resistance. It is a byproduct of getting stuck. Setting up the central nervous system to dump relaxation to the muscles is a good strategy for not getting stuck and for eliminating all anxiety of the mind. Anxiety is the hyper focus on yin or yang.

I think you need to get past yin and yang, find the space in the center that is neither yin nor yang, and then function from there. The whole of Bagua is designed to set this up.

[Anonymous]

James, I like the way you select key videos to review.

Bruce’s video on the “The Illusion of Internal and External” contains a lot to think about.
However, Bruce’s forte is translating philosophy into martial applications with more Thunder than thought.

It prompted you to comment,
“I think you need to get past yin and yang, find the space in the center that is neither yin nor yang,”

IMO there is no space that is neither yin nor yang.

Zen monk Dogen (1200-1253) articulated a principle of the
“total exertion of a single thing.”
Another way Dogen frames this principle is,
“As one side is illuminated, the other is darkened.”
This points to the dynamic relationship of yin (darkness)
and yang (light).

So, in the external arm movements of the Lake Palm Change as yin is totally exerted, the yang is hidden.
Follow just the left arm from the left side:
it circles clockwise—left to right—in front of the body, then it crosses the center front of the body into the right hemisphere.
As the left arm circles back toward the right ear, it has moved into yin territory (I’m beginning to inhale) heading towards behind the head—at occipital level—until the left hand comes in towards the body’s center line behind the body (I’m still inhaling).
At the back center line inhalation finishes.

(Also the right arm has come counterclockwise around to the back of the head to meet and cross the left hand at the back center line.)

I assume that this is one of the moments when/where in space that you say there is neither yin nor yang.

I experience this as the space where/when yin has been totally exerted
and yang is hidden.

It is a mystical point/time.
(call it “emptiness” or “stillness” or “neither existence nor
non-existence”)

It is also the time/space when/where yang is created.
Now the arms continue circling forward counterbalancing each other (I’m exhaling now) until they again meet and cross, this time at the center line in front of the body. (exhalation ending).

“Right within light there is darkness,
But don’t see it as darkness:
Right within darkness there’s light,
But don’t meet it as light.

Shih-t’ou Hsi-ch’ien (700-790)

[Anonymous]

If you have access to the Tai Chi Mastery Program, check out the second to last video (now labeled Lesson 167). At 6:30 into the video Bruce explains why he doesn’t write about this stuff and why it has been kept secret. I’ve simply found how the fajing works inside the spine and I have a very clear methodical approach to upgrading from the basic connection, lengthening, bend and stretch, open and close material that Bruce has taught to the more advanced material that he typically only alludes to.

[Anonymous]

I’m looking for places in the BGMP where Bruce talks about this. The only one I’ve found so far is Module 4 Video Lesson 08. But there is so much extraneous garbage in this video it will be almost impossible for you to find or understand what Bruce is really talking about.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jim

William C C Chen calls “neutral” “Free. “

[Author]

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