Organizing Around the Joints vs Bones

[Anonymous]

I’ve been thinking about this post for months. I’ve hesitated to post it because it runs counter to much of what Bruce has taught and written. Most of the time I end up finding Bruce’s descriptions are more accurate so in the end, you’ll probably think so as well. But, there is value in looking at the neigung material in different ways. This post will likely be too curt to understand, but I didn’t want to forget it. I think it is one of the keys to how I broke through the “intermediate rut”. So, here’s my observation.

One of the barriers to moving into the intermediate material is doing Bruce’s exercises exactly as taught. It is better to think of each exercise as a single step that is intended to help you grasp a single concept or skill.

Everyone seems to have gravitated to thinking about twisting and spiraling that is organized around the joints. The end result is a hyper focus on the opening and closing of the joints. If you do this you’ll typically think and train as though your power comes from the joints. If that is your point of view, I don’t agree.

The movement of the joints is essential and a clear sign of softening and relaxing the body properly. It is an important step, but it is only one step in a very long journey.

What if you organize your spiraling around the bones? instead of trying to get the joints to move (open and close), what if you try to get the twisting of the soft tissue to squeeze and release the bones? This is a very different way of organizing your spiraling physical body. It creates connected pressure into the bones and bone marrow which is one of the first steps toward releasing the nerves and finding the tai chi space.

[Anonymous]

Notice that this progression is basically the same as the progression I mentioned in my previous post, “Tissue to Fluids to CNS to Spirit”, and again Bruce’s comment about getting past the mind and nervous system (see quote below) is relevant. It’s all the same thing.

Physical tissue is clearly part of the Bagua phase. The transition to fluids begins the Dragon Bagua phase. Getting past the CNS is completing the Dragon Bagua phase. Working with the central channel and finding the tai chi space is the beginning of Swimming Dragon Bagua.

In Module 5 video 12 at 2:30, Bruce says this:
“The art of meditation – you can not truly begin to get past your mind until you at least go the first cut of getting past your nervous system. You can’t. It’s not possible.”

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to post another-angle on this, I wonder if you are connecting ‘twisting’ (&spiralling) to Opening-Closing (of Egates, the first contacted are in the joints, but not the jt itself, and then there are other places- in the acu-merids, and then in the Echannels).. -but as you mention: looking at KaiHe in the Jts is focused around them, but all that I have seen from Bruce is that twisting is around the bones… (powered from ‘in’ the soft tissue perhaps, bur not twisting ‘from’ the jts..)
(which makes sense, unless you try and make those two the same thing, perhaps?

I wonder if the key is whether twisting, and KaiHe, are considered to be driven, indirectly, from the soft-tissue….. vs twisting, and KaiHe, (and bend&stretch which incorps lengthenin&lengthenout activation).. are each driven by the mind supporting an elastic type reaction (ie like pushing a kid on a swing- goes fwd.. slows comes back… its not so much the soft tissues movement, thought that is an outward foundation but the energetic stability of the flip,)

– the twisting/spiralling might more be tied to lengthening (the later is along the line-axis of the bone, then the former gets more length by curving that path – so still going in the direction of “along the bone” but just like a straight road to X is shorter, and a curvy-curly road to X is longer, even if the “as the crowflies” is the same distance)… more road is found/created inbetween)….

KaiHe is something that happens “to” twist (the twist itself can open or close.. or better link open-to-close-to-open…… but KaiHe is not the same thing and fully independent of.. (If they are seen as just aspects of one thing, vs implemented that way in a particular expression- by blurring them, it downgrades, in my understanding).
============
This last sentence, from your last paragraph:
<>
seems to imply, to me, that your understanding in the past was/is that spiralling wasn’t ‘organized’ around the bones? (then you say “instead of trying to get the jts to move open and close” … which only makes sense if one isn’t doing both.. they aren’t mutually exclusive, but each adds to the other.. especially if the lower-dantien/centre has learned each, and then it takes over doing them as well as it takes over integrating them (earth element? fire- to- earth shows How-To ~hou-tu)

best of luck on your practice and discoveries I hope above might add to that in some small way. cheers

[Anonymous]

I’ll try to find the video where Bruce refers to the distinction I’m making. It is just a very quick aside that nobody would probably notice because he hasn’t taught this explicitly (at least not when I was around). On that video he does mention that it is a next step after the opening and closing of the joints is understood.

[Anonymous]

I never intended for anyone else to really understand what I meant by organizing around the joints vs organizing around the bones. Sorry for the confusion.

I just wanted to remember the concept. This is one of several leaps that I made in my practice that may not be correct. It is how in hindsight I believe a penetrated the bones and discovered how to work with the bone marrow which was the key to finding how the nervous systems flips from yin to yang which is a precursor to finding the central channel and finally the one change.

[Anonymous]

In the module 4 written material (p 84-85), Bruce details the next steps after learning to open and close the joints.

Next,

1) The body cavities
2) Spine
3) Etheric body
4) Central channel
5) Three tantiens (lower, middle, and upper)

This makes the point that the joints are one of the easier pieces to learn. There is a lot more material after opening and closing the joints.

[Author]

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