Warm up question

[Anonymous]

For warm up 1, I am not exactly sure how to do some of the instructions, especially the intermediate level instruction.

Can someone experienced with this program give me some enlightenment with regard to the following questions?

1. What does it mean to “make sure your kwa shrinks and slightly closes”? What feelings should I get if I am doing it correctly?

2. How do I “coordinate the opening and closing of your joints with your breathing. With regular breathing, expand your joints on the inhale and close them on the exhale and vice versa for reverse breathing”? How do I expand my joint? Do I just think about it and the joints will open? What sensation am I supposed to get if the joints are opened?

3 How do I “gently expand and wrap your buttock muscles forward to encircle the front of your pelvis”? I am not even sure what that really means. Can someone please explain?

Are all the above supposed be something I let them happen naturally? In another word, I do not intentionally try to make them happen while doing the warm up. I simply do the warm up according to the instructions the best I can, and I will eventually be able to feel the joints expand and close on their own?

Any insight will be highly appreciated.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

Hey buddy.

I think questions 1 3 share the same answer at a basic level. If you get your pelvic tuck done right, 1 3 will automatically happen. The pelvic tuck as in flattening your lower back. The feeling is sitting on a high stool to trick your body into achieving it. Bear in mind the 70% rule. Don’t force it too much. This took me years and there are only degrees of correctness.

Question 2. When you breathe in your abdomen expands and there is an elastic feeling like a ball inflating. Trying “feeling” your hand inflate as you breathe in. The opening of the joints approximately feels like that. The spaces between the bones expand ever so slightly. It is a very subtle feeling and at first your body may not respond as these are unusual commands. Over time you can just think it as you said. The breathing example is just my way of approximating the feeling using words. It is not a training method.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

The intermediate level instructions are only meant for people who already have mastered the program at the basic level. In my understanding, they’re a sort of ‘second round’ of doing the program again, at a deeper level.

From what I understand, if we are beginners, we should just focus on doing the basic level instructions as best we can before going on to later stuff…

Concerning the Kwa, you could start by learning about the Kwa Squat. A good source for that is Paul Cavel’s “5 Keys” program, available on the Energyarts site.

If you want to learn more about opening and closing, Bruce teaches it specifically in the Chi Gung set called ‘The Mariage of Heaven and Earth’.

Best of Luck,

Erwan

[Anonymous]

i think the fundamental point that would answer all the questions has to do with experiencing chi flow and how it impacts you and what it feels like. When i teach people i go through an excercise where you open your shoulder “valve” by having your shoulder blade move away from your spine. Bruce goes over this in many of his teachings. This gives you the first feeling of chi flowing from your shoulder into your fingers.

After this you learn to move chi into your joints. When this happens they expand and you get used to feeling it. There is a cheap bar trick where you flow chi into your right hand and becasue there are so many joints it makes the hand “grow” you put your left and right hand togeather and it magically looks bigger! Even more fun is when you move the chi in another person and make their hand get bigger.

When you do this day in and out eventually you get the sensitivity to feel the joints expand – not just see by comparing. When you are able to fill a joint and make it expand you basically do the opposite and compress the chi (kinda like a spring) the joint will follow and compress.

All of your questions are basically variations of expanding and compressing different joints.

For question 3 it’s kind like expanding… but more like wraping…which is covered in very great detail in Bruces Hsing-i program where he focuses on all the biomechanics of the Sant ti posture. The idea is your chi flows from your spine and circles around to the front…kinda like the chi is hugging your pelvis from behind.

Not sure if i helped or cofused more… Let me know and i’ll try to elaborate!

[Anonymous]

Thank you two for the help. Really appreciate it.

Is it safe to say that most of the instructions are not necessarily instruction, but rather phenomenon that will naturally happen on their own over time as my practice deepens?

For example, although I don’t exactly know what shrinking and closing the kwa means (nor do I know how to do it and what doing it is suppose to feel like), but will that just starts to happen noticeably and naturally on its own after several weeks of practice?

I ask because I need to differentiate between actual instructions that I intentionally do (such as toe pointing inward) and those things that I need to let happen naturally without actually trying to force it to happen (such as expanding the joints).

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Joking,

My Bagua teacher said to
stand in ice-cold water up to your waist to feel how your kwa shrinks.

[Author]

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