Training the First Three Palms

[Anonymous]

I’ve described many ways that I’ve approached and trained various palms over the past 5 years. My practice continues to evolve and I continue to find possible ways to organize the material. At the moment I’m simply focusing on creating expansiveness and the force that let’s it all in.

So, the focus of the single palm change is to just close (let it all in), then open (expand everything out). I’m only doing one or the other at any moment. I’m either expanding from the tai chi space or letting it all into the tai chi space. In the double-palm change, I divide the body in half and then create yin and yang from the tai chi space on each side in all combinations (This includes yang-yang, yin-yin, yin-yang, yang-yin, not yin and not yang, both yin and yang.). Basically, I’m getting used to having both yang and yin occurring at the same time.

In the Wind palm, I do something more sophisticated: I setup the expansion in the upper arm from the middle and upper tan tiens while allowing it all into the lower tan tien. So, I’m doing two things at once. This isn’t like the double-palm change which seperates into two pieces. In the Wind palm, I’m performing yang and yin in the same space.

This is a literal interpretation of the lines of the trigram with each line corresponding to one of the tan tiens. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is that the more I expand the upper, the more the lower arm goes into the lower tan tien. There is a balance being created and maintained and yang and yin are flowing (or changing might be more appropriate) based on that particular configuration.

I used to try to pull the energy into the lower tan tien, but that is completely unnecessary.

I like this practice because it includes a lot of the sign posts that Bruce has said we should be looking for.

* The trigrams are ultimately instructions for the three tan tiens
* Each palm builds on the previous one(s). There is a definite sequence.
* Yang and yin have to be understood
* You have to understand the tai chi space
* You have to have all of the 16 part neigung unified.
* The channels have to be capable of aligning
* The trigrams become transformations of yang and yin as well as form
* The tai chi space is the source of all form
* You start to see that everything is empty including everything you perceive as “you”

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