Relation : rise / fall energy – Open /close Joints – Breathing

[Anonymous]

Hi
I am practicing the BGM and Yi Chuan postures. I noticed the similarities between Yi Chuan standing postures and Bagua 8 postures. Both use breathing/ Open- Closing Joints/ Energy rising and falling to maintain the static postures. Of course bagua takes it one step further by holding the postures while stepping. Bruce mentions the purpose of the static postures is to draw / store energy to the lower dan tian and then lead the energy from the dan tian to the extremities (hand/ feet/ head) To accomplish the storing and releasing of energy what is the relation between energy – open close joints – breathing?

breath in – close joints – energy draws into dan tian

breath out – open joints – energy from dan tian to the fingers and feet.

Steven

[Anonymous]

hi steve
good question.
in the big picture, bgz energy movements should ultimately come from the feet, and have the energy constantly opening up and out as you walk. he was really on us at the instructor training to keep opening up the body and the energy. (that’s for postures, single palm posture, and heaven palm change, other changes are different)
he’s also talked about how in BGZ, the breathing is not always or even usually connected with the movement, at least not formally. it’s important to be able to pulse quickly, such as when your striking or doing something, and to be able to change movement rhythm or power your projecting, while keeping your breathing smooth and connected. if you train the body to breathe with the movement, you get a situation where you can’t move too slow or fast, or change too quickly, because your breathing won’t smoothly change as fast as you might want your body to.
my feeling is that the pulsing and breathing is going on, but it’s kinda supporting the overall energy flow, rather than being the dominant one.
this gets to be a big subject, getting the different nei gung to be both connected and able to adjust freely.
I focus more on pulsing when im standing, it’s easier to do than when walking, and when im walking, I focus more on flow of energy through the body.
I will also mention that I find it incredibly useful to practice around a big tall healthy tree. I find I can feel a lot more of my chi, I get connections more easily, and I remember things about the practice that I don’t seem to so much when im working out in my living room. this stuff is also supposed to open us up to the energy of the environment, and having a good environment seems to help a lot.
team earth, baby!

hope this helps, and id love to hear what others have experienced as well..

[Anonymous]

Hi Richard,
Thanks for your reply, i agree. Bruce also mentioned in his DVD’s as a beginner when you start out with circle walking establish a breathing pattern it will help you to focus and align your movements. However when you move faster you will have not time to think about your breathing too many things happen at the same time.
Likewise as a beginner if your main objective is to “open your body” to be able to lift your hands and store/release energy into Dan Tian
The question remains for me Is what I mentioned in my first post a valid pattern or method?

breath in – close joints – energy draws into dan tian
breath out – open joints – energy from dan tian to the fingers and feet.

Steven

[Anonymous]

Hello steven, it sounds like your focusing upon a fundamental essence as I tried to do- the integration of the unity-pulse as a basis of different practices (which then can go into the different details). I would say a key component in your phrasing of your question is the distiction between what is called “swallow and spit-out” in shaolin, and many other internal arts seem to imply a separate-nearly Syringe like action- pull-in “load, and then shoot that out.. as if they can be distinct… this distinct from KaiHe (open and close, perhaps even better as Open-ing and Clos-ing, with a sense of absorbing and Radiating.. so its like Closing like a Vacuum-suction, vs a syringe that is loaded and fills… just like Opening is more a blower/~hairdryer vs squirt out… IE Opening is a radiating Energy flow that fills an entire sphere (or start in a line, circling, and then in all directions-balanced) so as start to open, physically one is beginning to send out- but energetically one is and remains at the beginning and is simul already expanded ( ie like how an electromagnet is turned on and is instantly filling the entire field… , then filp the polarity and that same entire field is instantly flowing the opposite direction.. but no sense of overreaching or of becoming compressed– can keep a “closing” energetic charge- more and more- even if the “movement” has run out of linear space..

Along with the above- my first thought was what might seem a side issue to your question (how to coordinate) and yet I sense that isn’t quite the right question- is the idea that KaiHe (opening into Closing into Opening) vs twisting, vs breathihg, vs rising-sinking, vs center-to periphery… those are each separate components expressions of the primal pulse, but all are different- just like a sound board in a recording studio- before can use different level-knobs in coordination, they each need to be distinct and then can combine them.
but more so- all those components are circular- even as one is expanding, their is a connected, per the whole, compression- just as while Rising (energy, stay physcially sunk and rooted), their is a connected Sinking (of energy) .. (also as opening, there is a connected whole closing..) The key being the mind connects to only one side of that polarity at a time, and when the hand-off occurs switching modes that needs to smoothly linik…
If done so- a momentum builds up- like pushing someone on a swing-set (or a penduluum)- as the system builds up a connected-full-smooth (like a tesla-coil voltage kicker)- its ithe timing and the linking of the flow.. builds up, it beomes more a unique thing- distinct unto itself. and each time I’ve reached a new level of integration and contact with a component, it hasn’t been what I thought it would be like.

ie each of these components are connected to the same whole “pulse” (yet as mind-root that “pulse” really is both stable-quiet, and simultaneously Opening AND Closing at once- yet not two things.. that dynamic is then “Ridden” as a boost, switching sides… when first one, and then a separate (say Center-to-periphery-to-Center-to-Periphery.. which is constantly redeifined in context and content)- when that is felt. and then Separately say KaiHe or Breathing.. jseparately becomes clear and distinct- then both can be contacted- and then third one can “now and then” contact how each of those two are expressions of one pulse (Even If they are Out of Synch, out of Phase, etc.)

In the classics, in Bagua, in NeiGung, etc. there is talk about how pulsing is established and then coordinated and rapidly changing up rhythm, and new coordinating patterns- etc. indeed but that seems be in the same context of how practitioners (for ex in Bagua) practice without any sense of the self at all, and just the sense of the event occuring as it is arising, and flow within and between the changes and the energies of the Pakua” -very cool, good to know and work towards but a stretch for most until later- and just as the stepping of Bagua has the “palm” positions (linked together, one to the next, via Palm changes), all upon body-states of etheric-contact to enviro- etc… each done indiv, and then layered together.. I’d say the above pulse expressions

and as you mention Ichuan postures, and related FaJin, are “like” Bagua upper-body stretch (and related FaJin)- separated from the Stepping of either (as IChuan applcation has stepping of its own).. I find the Bagua postures and the IChuan Postures, a related subject, but quite distinct from each other- a sense of connection and fullness being different (not sure a clear word of how, but not the same)- then feel that sense of “body-state” and “pulse that”… the suddeness of the release of Energy is the key, but not by “breaking the rhythm, nor flow, nor by isometrically sticking and then shooting, but rather that “half of the circle” being linked to the physical-frame movement- and the Energy flowsort of overwhelming the physical movement (vs using the physical movement to drive-encourage the energy flow (as it begins– same linkage, different linkage).
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The 2 recently posted Videos of Bruce from the TaiChi Mastery program (lesson 2 and lesson 3) I’d say relate to your question, and might clarify how Richard’s answer I think addresses your answer more than may have been clear at first (?) —Especially the part about simulanity (as there is an Up, there IS a Down, as there is an Outside there IS an Inside- and viceversa) – that applies more to the E-flow than the movement (and thus pulsing-polarites).

anyway- I found the idea in my head was clear, but as I tried to write out the essence of what my experience has shown the clarity I needed to find on this issue- I found it was a bit difficult to express (as the important part of the issue is not in our usual perspective on this- so hard to express it).. I hope this adds something

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last point- the difference between 3 practice modes Ive found for this:
A) in position and focusing upon one “pulsation component” trying to expand one’s contact with it, and sense what is in the way of being able to “move it” in the same way we move a finger or arm- think it and it moves, like bending a finger, not done by “inhale” create a mental-picture- a big deal, etc… but that is needed when one doesn’t have a connection with something in one’s nervousystem (like trying to wiggle an ear, or raise a single eyebrow, or bend and straighten one’s ring finger- assuming those are difficult for someone… pulsing being much more so

the feeling, like the above, of a pulsing, but it being “like” (as a metaphor, I don’t mean this as the same as) but like how the heart beats, or how breathing occurs when it is full and smooth- there is a rhythm and sense of timing of its own, decide to suddenly change in midst of that rhythm and you disrupt (distinguish ChiGungTuiNa and other Partner “jointpulsing” exers- the one doing to other approaches parlty as A) above and yet feel it build as a pattern and momentum develops… so it becomes — and “takeover the flow you use your “intention” to follow along, rather than impose a rhythm… so it is feeling- in or out?, left or right? in the flow-rhythm sense different ways to balance out the “sphere” and which ever way the flow expands-deepens it increases and deepens.

C) apparently neutral, and yet in distinction from the above- it then connects to the above over time- just be “in alignment” ie not collapsed so that your position doesn’t bind your flow (although later even if collapsed- start the flow of internal pulse and it should still start up- and you feel it)…. thus “just stand”- and notice- is there a Pulsing? was there a pulsing already-always going as yyou started to look? (vs only if you “impose” if only after you look and “start it up” likely just feeling subtle movement from tensing, vs underlying E-flow… notice that Energetic flow (if a joint isn’t constantly moving, at least a bit- Arthritic and all linked E-lines are blocked.. any Egate “completely” stuck and stopped immediately starts to stop-up and block all others linked- until eventually all stop (sickness and death)…
thus we think:I’m not feeling an eflow until I start it “pulsing” ..?

alternating between A and B and C- over time increases the flow (makes it bigger- at first it needs to be “loud” for us to hear it, and the movement is quite smal and subtle, once we could easily notice small-subtle-quiet movement… we are more experienced, and at that point we can make the movement bigger… and yet to gain that experience we need to be able to clearly sense when it is and when it isn’t happening (vs thinking it might be)

– and whatever we feel may not be the “important part”… once the chi-flow or base pulse or whatever of the 16… once that becomes clear likely we will think- oh, that’s different than I thought it was going to feel like, I thought it would be more like ___ so I was looking for that other feeling, I never thought it could be ___.. etc.

I hope this helps someone- please forgive my lack of clarity in expressing this- wonderful subject

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