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In installment 3 video dvd disc 1 Chapter 5: “Opening the armpit and AC joint”, Bruce talks opening the AC joint and the armpits. Does anyone know the corresponding location in the legs for the AC joint and the equivalent to the armpit?
Hey Jim,
It seems to me that the armpit/AC opening is more generally part of “elbows away from the spine.” So the parallel process in the lower body is “knees away from the spine.” In this case, the corresponding parts are hip joint (for AC) and kwa (for armpit). At least, that’s how they feel to me….
The caveat that’s always given is two-fold:
1) You better have a great alignments before you try to activate lengthening in the legs, because you can really mess up the sacrum/lumbar stability if there are asymmetries or misalignments.
2) Opening the lower body to the same degree as the upper body is always secondary to opening the upper body. So, whatever layer opens on top precedes and facilitates the equivalent lower-body opening, as if the top is a release valve for the 10x opening you are going to create.
I’ve stumbled into #2 several times, where I find a new way to work down into the legs and create a lot of juice/opening…only to feel like my sleeves and collar are too tight! It leads to a lot of uncomfortable neck/head stuff until I find a way to release the equivalent layer in the upper body (usually with guidance from an instructor and/or bodywork to fix the build-up).
Is that the kind of thing you’re after here?
D
This is just anatomically similar conjecture, but I would think the SI joint
to be a similar to the ac and the kwa to be the equivalent of the armpit
Thx. This is how I’m practicing at the moment. In the SPC, I’m concentrating on the opening of the AC and hip joints. In the DPC, I balance the in (armpit/kwa) and out (ac/hip) simultaneously which enables a larger opening and closing than either alone. When I perform the Wind palm, I continue to utilized the ac/hip and armpit/kwa to create a closing of the lower tantien (the lower line of the trigram with emphasis on the yin) and open the middle and upper tantiens (the upper lines of the wind trigram).
Does anyone know if there is a similar body part / trick for controlling the opening of the middle tantien? Right now I’m opening all of the organs as a set. The closing of the lower tantien is facilitated by the first hand position (posture #2) and the palm strike is basically posture #4.
There are a bunch of other elements going on at the same time that involves the material in module 4 level 11.
The safety factor is balancing the pressure out the five extremities; both palms, both feet, and the top of the head. They have to be even.
Awesome! I’m so impressed that you can get the feeling of balanced pressures through those changes. No easy feat!
To what degree are you ko-ing the 4 points? When I can get that going, along with a sense of the front of the spine, I find the abdominal pressure easier to work with. Then, whatever I do with the hips and shoulders, or really, arms and legs, is amplified.
I don’t ko very much. I think I have a very similar experience but I may have gotten there in a different way. I absolutely agree the once you’ve got the internal pressure working, it is much easier to feel everything; however, I built this up from spiraling energy rather than the physical movement so I have very little external movement.
Interesting! I’ll have to ponder that one…thanks. (For some reason, I can reply to your comment directly.)
I’ve also tried to use all of the attachments to the sit bones for the yang side (equivalent to ac joint on top) and the kwa as the yin equivalent to the armpit. Both work, I’m just not sure what’s right. The hip needs to stay open in the same way the arm has to have room in the socket. So, I sort of do both at once. I’m just not sure what is correct yet.
I went back and trained this using the SI joint since you posted. I was hesitant a first. I’ve destabilized my sacrum more than once and it sucks. Dan gave a good warning about this problem and good advice on how to avoid it. Anyway I found that using the whole length of the SI joint (all of the connective tissue in the area) opened all of the tissue in the upper body. Instead of just opening the ac, I found that all of the tissue running under the shoulder blade opened along with the ac. I’m getting amazingly improved results both in the shoulders and the legs.
This is a good example of opening the top first, then the bottom, and then the lower body completing the opening of the upper body.
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