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I started to write a post for another energetic interpretation of the single palm change. As I was writing it just seemed too complicated for a single post so I thought I’d break down a couple concepts and then put them together later if they make sense to enough people.
One of the components the post was built on is the concept of spiraling physical body. I made this term up. It is intended to contrast with spiraling energy body. Ultimately all energy movement moves in either circles, spirals or a quantum leap (which I won’t discuss here). Before you start working directly with energy, you can work based on simpler, physical principles that build a good foundation for energy movement. If you can move energy already, the principles I describe should still be applicable and reinforce what you are already doing.
So let’s start with creating a spiral by combining lengthening and twisting. I’ve talked a lot about twisting in other posts. In this one I want to go into more detail for each segment of the arms and legs, but before I do that we have to discuss lengthening a little more.
To make any spiral, you want to both lengthen and twist at the same time. If you’ve learned Marriage of Heaven and Earth, you should think of lengthening along the yin/yang meridians. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. There is a spectrum. If you just stick your arm out further as you twist the wrist, forearm, or bicep, you’ll be creating a spiral. You can get more internal by lengthening the yang side of the arms. And still more internal by lengthening in along the yin meridian and out the yang meridians at the same time. You can get still more internal if you can feel the pressure out from the tan tien through the arms and still more internal if you can feel the bone marrow move like water in the bones. Eventually you’ll be able to feel the spiral of the central channel. The point is that something is going out or in along the length of the arms either away from or toward the tan tien, center to periphery or periphery to center. How you do it is determined by your skill level.
I’m going to suggest that the direction of twisting doesn’t determine the yin or yang movement. The movement toward or away from tan tien will. A yang movement will move center to periphery and a yin movement will move periphery to center. If you try to practice this, always couple a twist out with center to periphery movement and a twist in with periphery to center movement. It just makes it easier to learn. Later you’ll be able to do it any way you want.
So let’s get back to twisting. Twisting is really, really simple. Everyone can twist their hand in and out. So let’s not complicate it. The pinky and thumb is mostly irrelevant. Concentrate on the movement in and out along the length of the bones. Just twist in when you want energy in and twist out to make it go out. What people rarely understand is how to twist each segment of the arms and legs. This was one point I was trying to make in my post “The Foot is not the Ankle”. So, you need to play around and figure out how the muscles twist in the hand, forearm, bicep, and from the shoulder’s nest toward the heart.
Each segment has to be mastered. Start with the hand first. It is the easiet just because we all use our hands and can feel them. The goal is to feel something move from the finger tips towards the wrist while you twist in. You are trying to crush the fingers into the wrist. If you can close the wrist from the fingertips that’s even better. I don’t care how you do it. Just get a felt sense of something moving toward the wrist, compressing it. Once you’ve reached the end of your twist or the maximum movement toward it — reverse the twist and allow everything to return. You should feel the blood, chi, muscles, or sinovial fluid move back toward the fingers. If you can catch the wave, add to it anyway you can while extending the fingers as you twist out. Just keep doing this until it gets easier, more relaxed, and smoother. When you start getting it, you’ll notice that the amount you move in is consonant with the twist. It is coordinated. The joints will also start opening and closing because the nerves start to release.
The next segment is the forearm. The forearm and hand are independent but most of us move them as a unit. We want to isolate them here. You want to move something from the wrist to the elbow. The trick again is to match the twisting with the movement. You’ll know when you have it right by the feeling. Again, jamb the wrist toward the elbow and then soften the whole thing when you have a felt movement of something from the wrist to the elbow.
The next segment is along the humerous. You never twist the bone. You’ll either twist the soft tissue around it or move the fluid inside. We want to move something from the elbow to the shoulder’s nest while twisting. Be very clear about how this segment twists back and forth. Bend the elbow and make a 90 degree angle between the humorous and the ulna and radius (bones of the forearm). Place the arm against your body like it is in a sling. Now rotate the arm away from the body while keeping the same bend in the elbow. That’s the twist. Toward the body is in. Away from the body is twist out. The twisting has to be coordinated with a movement from the elbow to the shoulder’s nest without raising the shoulder. If you let the shoulder raise, the pressure won’t go into the cavity of the shoulder’s nest. It will just raise the shoulder.
Now for the twist that no one thinks about. This is the segment of the central channel that moves from the shoulder’s nest toward the heart. If you think of a runner pumping his or her arms, that’s the rotation. There is a bunch of anatomical tissue that makes this work, but we don’t care about the details. Everyone knows how to pump their arms in this fashion. What you don’t do is spiral energy in and out that segment. Again try to compress in along the segment while you twist in. Twisting in will lower the arm. Twisting out will raise the arm. Something has to move in to spiral inward and something has to move out to spiral out. The in and out has to be coordinated.
If you can get the feeling of matching the twist with the movement in or out along any segment, you’ll be able to understand how energy moves in spirals anywhere in the body. It will help the joints open and close. It will also help release the nerves.
When you combine all of these you’ll get a movement like the single palm change. One arm is going in and down while the other arm is going up and out. Cloud hands in Energy gates is the same movement.
The legs work similarly. As above, so below. The segments are exactly the same. Toes to ankle, ankle to knee, knee to kwa, kwa to the central channel to the tan tien. You should be able to work out the segments, but do the arms first and complete them before working on the legs. The legs are significantly more difficult because they have to hold up all of your weight at the same time.
If you get nothing else from this post you should understand how simple twisting is and realize that you can already do it. Lengthening in and out is more difficult. Start with what you can do. If that means using muscular contraction, so be it. You’ve got to start somewhere. Work segment by segment. Eventually you’ll be able to combine them until finally you can move from the finger tips to the tan tien as a continuous spiral.
Good luck. I hope this makes sense.
Fascinating post. Especially the part that deals with the shoulder’s nest toward the heart, the twist that no one thinks about. Now that I’m thinking about it, it gives me a new access to work on some neck problems I have. For me, it is also a missing part to connect the center with the arms. Again a post form you, that has brought me a quantum leap further. Thank you very much.
Keep in mind that this is the dumb way to do this. We’re supposed to work from the tan tien out, but in my experience that isn’t easily done. The problem is feeling the tan tien. You have to feel it to work with it. So, the procedure I described helps you to work backward from the hands which are more easily felt toward the center. All of the pressure you are trying to exert on the tan tien is part of the storage cycle to help power the tan tien. I think Mike Sigmund used to call this the peng path. It has to be clearly felt.
Bruce shows the twisting in the tan tien in the last installment of the Bagua Mastery program. He also covers the segment from the shoulder’s nest to the heart in the context of shoulder blade. In my practice, the spiral from the shoulder’s nest toward the heart is what opened up the shoulder blade, not the other way around. When I focused on the shoulder blade, I screwed up. I never got the kind of freedom that he demonstrates. I did get it by focusing on the spiral. My guess is that the spiral opened up the energy lines that control the shoulder blade. So, although this may be ass backwards, it did help me.
Also note that Bruce goes into a lot of the safety considerations for performing the twisting. Just remember you never twist the bones or the spine. Go for the soft tissue in front of the spine and be gentle especially in the beginning. Be safe, go slow.
In retrospect, I probably should have used the term rotation in place of twist and the term twist in place of spiral. This would have made my post more consistent with Bruce’s terminology.
Spiraling is a more complex verison of twisting. I assume Bruce taught it at the double-palm change seminar, but I don’t think it appears on the DVDs.
It has been a while since I originally posted this. There are several refinements that I can add. The most important one has to do with the shoulder blade. When I posted this, I could feel another segment but I didn’t mention it because I didn’t get how it functioned. I now think it is the gate that controls the shoulder blade.
That gate is the most important for the arms to have power. When Bruce shows all of the movement of the blade he is usually moving the gate in space. Think of a ball in your hand and you are making circles in space by moving it through the air. Like all gates, there is another way to move them; you rotate the ball while its center stays stationary in space. Both are part of basic neigung practices and both can be done simultaneously. The rotation tightens your spirals considerably and like twisting, if it is done incorrectly, it can tear your body apart. Done correctly it can internalize your movement and moves you toward spiraling energy body.
I’ll also mention that the gate in the shoulder blade has a direct corollary in the butt. The shoulder’s nest and this gate can create some really interesting dynamics and leverage. You’ve got to learn to play with them separately and then in tandem.
I’ll try to add some additional refinements when I have more time.
I’ve been practicing this. It’s been really good so far but I’m unsure about how to spiral energetically. If I don’t move my arm then I have nothing but my intent to create the spiral. That’s ok but it feels like my intent projects in more or less a straight line. How do I approach this? I really don’t have much of an idea why spiralling energy is better than straight energy so I guess if you could answer that then I might be able to figure the rest out.
I purposely called this post spiraling physical body to distinguish it from the real thing, spiraling energetically. I think there are some very important steps to get before you go for spiraling energy.
Bruce talks about this in the context of the double palm change on one of the DVDs. There is some great material there. He actually talks about rotation, twisting, and mentions spiraling, but doesn’t tell you exactly how to do it. He does talk about twisting from the tan tien. You’ll want to have this down before you attempt spiraling.
Bruce talks about pushing and pulling energy up and down the legs in the context of twisting the tan tien. I think he is confusing as hell in this section unless you already know what he is talking about. It is much simpler at first: you just have to turn the tan tien in one direction until you feel it move out to a hand or foot. Eventually, you should feel the twist equally in both legs or both hands or both your hands and feet simultaneously. Once you can do this, you’ll have a felt connection and it is easy to feel and thus control whether it is going away from the tan tien or coming into it.
This is the whole trick to everything in his system – you have to feel the connection. Without being connected, you can’t use your mind to manipulate it. Every movement is really a movement of your mind or at the least is coordinated with the mind. It is a mind body connection. When you begin to open your heart mind, it becomes so easy to create a spiral because you feel the entire spiraling pathway in more detail then you can imagine. It is like cheating. When you start to experience stillness the interior of the body becomes very three dimensional. It is easy to feel how every thing is related to everything else. You just feel it. It is conscious, felt, and obvious.
So, back to the beginning: Are you able to lengthen the physical tissue enough to feel your hand connect to the tan tien?
Can you feel the gate in the center of the tan tien? Is it vague or clear like a theoretical point?
Can you twist the tissue around the tan tien about the size of a baseball or softball?
Can you rotate the energetic point of the tan tien?
Do you feel a clear twist through the legs and arms?
Can you do yin/yang lengthening?
Can you bend and stretch?
Can you open and close?
All of the questions serve two purposes. I need to understand where you are and unless you answer yes to every question, you probably aren’t ready to do spiraling. Don’t get me wrong. You can learn spiraling energy body before you know how to do all these steps, you just won’t be able to spiral very well.
Hope this is helpful. I’m happy to help if I can. Keep in mind I can only describe what I do. This may or may not be correct. I don’t believe that anyone has been fully taught spiraling, just pieces of it.
Very helpful as always.
Are you able to lengthen the physical tissue enough to feel your hand connect to the tan tien? I can certainly feel a connection after doing the steps you described. Moreso through the arm as it becomes more vague entering the body. I am also starting to do it with incoming force by letting it rest on the tan tien and sending it back.
Can you feel the gate in the center of the tan tien? Is it vague or clear like a theoretical point? It’s vague. My training has been more about lifting the spine so far, but I can feel a quite strong sensation when I really let go down the front of my body. It’s a bit uncomfortable around that area to be honest. Like a pressure of some sort.
Can you twist the tissue around the tan tien about the size of a baseball or softball? No haven’t tried.
Can you rotate the energetic point of the tan tien? Haven’t got it to a point yet.
Do you feel a clear twist through the legs and arms? Not quite. Still working on refining it. Some parts are really good but others need work.
Can you do yin/yang lengthening? Not sure what that is.
Can you bend and stretch? Not sure what is involved in that.
Can you open and close? Yeah some gates I can do it and some I can’t. Well I presume so anyway. Feels like when I open a gate it lifts slightly and/or takes some of the weight from that area. Makes things seem more effortless with open gates. Sound right?
I guess I should start refining the tan tien since everything starts there. What would you recommend for getting it from a general sensation to a refined point?
I’ll give some more thought to what might be most helpful. For now, I’ll just comment on a couple of things from your answers.
1) It sounds like to can feel the pressure of an incoming force go all the way back to the tan tien. That’s really good.
2) ” …but I can feel a quite strong sensation when I really let go down the front of my body. It’s a bit uncomfortable around that area…” This isn’t good. This is your body telling you that you are doing something wrong. My guess is that you are collapsing and feeling something impinge on a nerve or something else. When you do this stuff right, it makes the body feel more comfortable.
3) Use Opening Energy Gates to work through the twisting if needed. Walking the circle is much harder. It looks simple especially if you aren’t doing it particularly well. Energy Gates will be easier, straight line walking will be more challenging, circle walking will be even more difficult.
4) You probably need to get some instruction in the two neigung sets “Marriage of Heaven and Earth” and “Bend the Bow”.
Gotta go. Like I said I’ll give this some more thought.
Are there any books or DVDs that cover the sets you mentioned? Hard to get face to face training since I’m in Australia, although if I know what I should be aiming for I do know a fair few people who are internal enough to help me get there.
Hi, Cameron.
The Energy Gates book and CD set are quite good and you can probably make a fair amount of progress without an in-person teacher. There is a video of this Bruce made a while back, but I don’t see it on the Energy Arts website. There’s also a video he made of the Marriage of Heaven and Earth, but I don’t see that anywhere in the store either. I would think they would covert them to DVD, but maybe there are some problems with the quality of the picture or maybe Bruce has decided they’re not up to his standards. These videos are pretty old.
To my knowledge, Bruce hasn’t published anything on Bend the Bow. However, there’s a teacher in New Mexico, Robert Tangora, who has studied with Bruce who has released some interesting DVDs. He teaches some spinal qigong that’s similar to Gods Playing in the Clouds as well as some central channel (zhong ding) exercises that are pretty cool. He just published a book about cloud hands that has some excellent information.
I’ve done several clinics with Robert at Brookline Tai Chi here in the Boston area, including a weekend on Bend the Bow. His approach is slightly different from the way Energy Arts instructors teach it. Although he has studied with Bruce and knows Wu style taiji, I’m not sure where he fits in Bruce’s system. He’s not listed as a senior instructor in this site. So he’s not an authorized teacher of Bruce’s system, but he’s definitely knowledgeable and experienced. You can check out his website (www.tangorataichi.com) and see if you think his materials might be worth checking out. The production quality is not as good as Bruces recent work.
Maybe some other folks can chime in here.
Good luck, matthew
Oh yeh I remember watching an interview Dan Kleiman did with him. He seemed to really know his stuff. I’ll check out his material. Thanks for the tips.
I wasn’t aware that Bob Tangora had written a book. I ordered it after I read your post. It arrived last night. I haven’t finished reading it from cover to cover but I already love it. Bob’s focus is on Tai Chi. The book is the first attempt I’ve ever seen to describe the how-to of the “deeper and less obvious aspects of internal training”.
Matthew, Thanks for mentioning it.
Dan kleiman has invited Robert to Brookline tai chi to teach the material from his cloud hands book and will run a clas before then on the supporting exercises in the book. I like the book a lot, too. It’s got a lot of real stuff in it. He’s really good in person, clear, articulate, able to demonstrate everything he’s talking about.
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