One, Unified Energy

[Anonymous]

It’s hard to reply to your whole intent–so, forgive me for being selective and picky–there are so many ways to approach these issues.
Beating this “ligament” thread probably won’t get us very much further.

So let me broaden the conversation a bit.

Bruce just put Month 13 of his “Old Yang Style Tai Chi Edition” online (I don’t know if you subscribe to this or not).
At Session 6 he discusses “space”–Yang Cheng Fu’s Principle #10: seeking stillness within movement.
I know you are interested in the “tai chi space.”

His first point was that there is a difference in how the term (stillness within movement) is used in spiritual Taoism and how it is used in Martial Arts.
(Chen stylists and Yang family members did Martial Arts, they never used Tai Chi spiritually for meditation.)

I’ll paraphrase Bruce:
Seeking stillness within movement is creating space inside the mind.
Stillness is when your mind doesn’t move, it has infinite space.
When you move (physically) you reduce the internal space inside you because all the movement is itself taking up internal space inside your mind, it’s limiting your mind.
To think outside the box you have to have allow more stillness in your mind, which removes the constraints of the box, allowing you to be aware of the spiritual nature of what you are doing.

Currently, in my practice, I am focusing on the Kwa–not the lower dantien or the feet. That’s just seems to be what happens when I do tai chi or bagua.

When earlier Bruce explained that the Kwa was a cavity through which energy flows–that rung true to me. Now I’m using the yin and yang energies in both the feet and legs to load up the kwa.
Most acupuncture points are at body cavities.
This is also true for the “Bubbling Well.” It’s a cavity–this space need not be constrained by a box of bones, muscles, ligaments around it.
Oh, oh–here I go again on the “ligament” concept.
Better drop it right here.

Bob

[Anonymous]

First, thanks for the information on stillness. It doesn’t surprise me that there are different contexts and meanings for this subject.

On the ligament thing: I have a way to “map” the palm changes to specific ways you apply pressure to the feet. It is a really nice way to get every channel moving in very specific ways that correspond to the energies of the trigrams that Bruce has described. Unfortunately, unless Bruce teaches about this, I’ll never know if it is part of the Bagua system. I practice it because it is a great way to continue to learn how to connect and unifying everything in various ways.

To tie these together I’d add that there are only two trigram energies that I that I’ve understood: Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the space that Bruce is referring to in the spiritual tradition. When you connect to it and use it pure, there is nothing else. Earth is everything bond or manifest. It always has two sides. It is heaven,but you’ve made some distinction about it. At its most rudimentary level the distinction might be as simple as up/down, left/right, front/back, in/out.

But that’s another post…

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Robert.

I thought I had posted a reply yesterday but I think it got lost in the shuffle somewhere. There appear to be lots of differences between the martial side of things and the spiritual. Your post just reminds me how much is lost in translation or going to be lost.

[Anonymous]

Ligaments.
Bruce also just addressed “ligaments” in the newest release of his lessons on “Heaven and Earth Qigong”
(Month 13, QiGong Session 5).
He is using this to teach stretching and releasing ligaments of the spinal vertebrae during a forward bend and return to vertical.

This is kinda a mechanical issue (rather than working with the 16 neigung)
Bruce notes that ligaments relate to the actual mobility of your body.
This makes me keep in mind the 70 percent rule.
As you probably recall in the BMC, Bruce is adamant about the 70 percent rule–addressing it early on when doing bagua warmups–when he explains Dragon Body Turns he cautions that one’s internal organs are supported by ligaments–if they turn too far too fast before they are properly stretched and trained, internal organs can be injured.

As I discussed ligaments with my live bagua authority, he illustrated the purpose of dropping the elbow down the right channel–forearm parallel to the right channel, hand and index finger pointing straight up–then twisting (ligaments) outward to spiral energy from foot to head.
Just one use of flexible ligaments between joints.

The function of the Qiao Mai Extraordinary Vessels are also relevant here because they are the vessels which enable us to stand erect in a dynamic way. Through them yin and yang energy moves from the depth of the earth to the top of the head. It is where we move in all directions from the solid base of our feet on the ground. The source of the movement served by Yin and Yang Qiao Mai comes from our central inner source–hence the connection of the central channel with the side channels.

So there seems to be plenty to think about when we incorporate flexibility training of ligaments into our bagua and tai chi movements.

It’s hard to separate physical movement from energy movement.

[Anonymous]

Stretching and releasing the ligaments is physical and it is also included in the 16 part neigung. I’m using the same mechanism in the foot to trigger everything you described in the spine as well as the whole body.

Sprialing also has a more physical aspect which I’ve called spiraling physical body which is different IMO than spiraling energy body. In fact, the physical alignments you described with dropping the elbow are a physical way to work the right channel, but there is a more energetic way of understanding it and things like dropping the elbows and sinking the wrist which ultimately is part of spiraling (again IMO).

The movement of Yin and Yang you described is what I’m able to control from the foot. Once you have the body linked up (which is the hard part) you can control all of the major flows from the feet and move energy in a lot of different ways. There a so many ways I have absolutely no idea how you are supposed to do it. To my knowledge, this has never been taught.

[Anonymous]

Whether you think I’m on the right track in this post or not, IMHO, I have left more hints to how the energy arts are organized in this single thread than has been taught over the past forty years. I’ve quoted Bruce in other posts where he has said that he has only taught about 20% of what he knows. All of the online training is a rehash of what he has been teaching since I started in 1990. Without a retreat center there is a huge amount of material that he will never pass on.

At this point I don’t even think I’ve gotten to the spiritual part of the arts. If I were to guess, I’ve just crossed into the middle ground. I’m concentrating on the Chi phase and planning to get as clear and strong as possible in preparation for what comes next.

[Anonymous]

I just looked at the detailed course description for Bruce’s upcoming Bagua event. Notice the first three components (quoted below). They are under the chi and physical components of circle walking and the SPC. These are neigung elements being taught and learned using circle walking and the SPC as the container. The first step, alignments, is the minimum requirement to keep from hurting yourself in the next steps. Next, you’ll learn to connect the legs and feet to the spine, and then the arms and hands. Bagua starts from the feet. The next step is connecting to the lower tan tien. And note that the spinal stuff doesn’t include the neck and head, but the lower tan tien does. This is like a high level summary of my original post:

“The chi and physical components of circle walking and the SPC:

1) The various body alignments that must ultimately be maintained at all speeds
2) Connecting the chi of the spine first to the legs and feet and next to the arms and hands
3) Connecting the chi of the tantien first to the legs and feet and then through the torso to the arms, hands, neck and head”

[Author]

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