Till One's Last Breath

導氣令和，引體令柔

Guiding the vapours to attain harmony, stretching the body to achieve suppleness.

龜縮頸，耕牛之力

The turtle retracts its neck, the strength of the ploughing cattle.

龜尾升氣，丹田煉神*

The turtle tail makes vapours rise, Cinnabar Fields refine the spirit.

What if keeping a flat stomach for the author of this blog requires imprinting various motions on a rather tiny segment of the body while breathing in and out? Devoid of any muscle contraction, this leads, among other things, the abdomen to be swallowed, the whole body fascias to extend, the backbone to straighten all the way up to the cervical vertebrae, the buttocks to tense and the eyelids to open¹.

Ascetic Embryonic Apnoea

習閉炁而吞之名曰胎息。

The practice of holding one’s breath and swallowing is called foetal breathing¹.

但能閉至七八十息以上，則臟腑胸膈之間，皆清氣之布矣。

But if one can hold one’s breath for seventy or eighty breaths or more, then clear vapours will permeate all the organs and the space between the chest and diaphragm².

One of the techniques one hardly witnesses any more, in what people still call martial arts, is the apnoea ones: holding one’s breath. It is even to some extent prohibited in some practices, cutting off one’s breath rightly seen as a nervous reaction linked to freezing on the spot. One should not deny that, faced with an assault, freezing and cutting one’s breath counts as a poor idea. As for a lot of issues in leisurely practices, it has then been decided that holding one’s breath is just bad. This goes against the old practices approach, where things neither fall under the category of good nor bad, but have to be confronted with one’s aims and situation. It boils down to assessment and whether the advantages outweigh the drawbacks. Finally, one can observe that predators tend to apparently freeze when they are poised to pounce. 

Pouring, Another Reverse Breathing

氣灌丹田

Vapours pours into the Cinnabar Field

吸自背下五端，呼灌於骨盆轉

Inhaling from the back down to the five extremities, exhaling to pour into the pelvis in a rotation.

Usually, people refer to reversed breathing, 逆呼吸法， as a technique where one expands his/her stomach while breathing out and shrinking it while breathing in. If such a technique, provided one uses a belt to keep the stomach from bulging, is a good start, it is just what we could name as the entry breathing, often called 'the vapours sink into the Cinnabar Field'. As mentioned in a previous post about breathing, one then has to evolve towards other types of breathing, the next one being not sinking but pouring. 

Gravity and the Circle

界是功能之限

Realm is the threshold of capacity.

Gravity, like breathing, is a constant in our lives. For those who are studying old practices, it is, as far as training is concerned, the perfect example of how virtuous and vicious circles will shape training and fundamentally change it. In this case, it is very simple. As long as we grow, up till maturity, the influence of gravity is positive. It makes our body stronger and exercices will tend to use at its best this opportunity. Once we become grownups, it is reversed; gravity slowly impedes us on all and any level.

Women And Breathing

理是功能之本，法是功能之基

The intrinsic order is the essence of capability, method is the base of capability.

女子無丹田，煉炁在膻中

Women don’t have a Cinnabar Field, training vapours is in the mediastinum.

男子之命在丹田。丹田者，生丹之真土也；女命在乳房。乳房者，田氣之木精也。

Men’s life resides in the Cinnabar Field. The Cinnabar Field, this is the real soil which gives birth to the Cinnabar; Women’s life resides in the breasts. The breasts, those are the real wooden essential liquids of the field of vapours¹.

To understand fully old methods, one has to take into consideration three things: they are, intrinsically, very versatile. Hence, most of the time, they are not governed by rigid rules or principles; they customise training according to each and everyone. There isn’t, apart from some basis, a standard training to be followed. This starts, of course, by recognising and taking into account the obvious difference between men and women and then between all distinct kinds and shapes of bodies; Finally, they come from various traditions that may address or express the same issue in diverse ways, especially because they are meant to be an oral transmission. All this is unfortunately a far cry from most of the training in internal styles nowadays. 

Where Is My Weapon?

槍扎一條線，棍掃一大片

The spear binds a line, the staff sweeps a large area¹.

劍走青，刀走黑

The sword goes green, the sabre black².

青龍偃月刀：劈、砍、撩、掛、斬、抹、截、攔、挑、刺

Green dragon crescent moon sabre: hack, slash, lift up, hang, chop, strike out, intercept, block, pick, stab.

Since pretty early in history, martial arts circles in China were linked to a lot of practices, from the pure battlefield ones to hunting (the bow), physical strength (weight lifting with the famous tripod cauldron), spiritual search (lots of martial arts have such a claim. Let’s also remember that among the six arts taught by Confucius two were the chariot and the bow), ceremonial (dance³ and the bow), competitive (tripod cauldron lifting, wrestling and, again, the bow), protection (militias and escorts) and so on… In times of constant war or great insecurity, almost everybody knew how to handle a weapon, in times of peace, some martial practices became pure entertainment⁴, in times of unrest some practices were constricted to the elite, in times of peace sometimes the establishment looked down on martial skills⁵.

Iron Breath

治身：天門，謂鼻孔開，謂喘息闔，謂呼吸也¹

Cultivating the body: the Heavenly Door, called opening the nostrils, called closing gasping and resting², which is called exhaling and inhaling³.

天門亢，擤鼻，旡

The Heavenly Door is haughty, blowing one’s nose, to choke⁴.

Iron training and its main breathing technique, empty breathing, are exercises less and less witnessed in internal practices. They target the capacity to tense all and any part of the body while relaxing and stretching. They use an old type of respiration, sometimes linked to Taoist practices, which consist of taking a long exhalation to empty as much as possible, not only the lungs but the stomach and the whole trunk for the least, and keep at all costs this state while inhaling. 

Pillars and the Bamboo

練拳無樁步，房屋無立柱

Training boxing without the pillar steps, a house without stud.

練拳不溜腿，終究冒失鬼

Training boxing without kicking¹, this is imprudent after all.

要知拳精髓，首由站樁起

To know the quintessence of boxing, it starts from standing the pillars.

壓而不溜不中用，溜而不壓笨如牛

Pressing but not smoothing² is useless, smoothing but not pressing stupid as a bull.

練功不站樁，等於瞎晃蕩

Training skills without standing the pillars, it is as rocking aimlessly

拳以椿爲根，椿以拳顯神

Boxing has the pillars for roots, the pillars have boxing to manifest the spirit.

For a lot of martists and Qigong aficionados, 站樁 means holding a stance, often as long as possible. This is actually more an interpretation than a real translation, 站, meaning to stand (on one’s feet) or to halt as far as training is concerned, and 樁 pillar or stud. Hence, holding a posture is surely only one of the numerous training 站樁 refers to. Furthermore, this practice is often confused with rooting² while it is actually, first of all, balance which is sought.

Where Do The Vapours Go?

清陽發腠理，濁陰走五臟

The pure Masculin spurts out in the lineaments, the turbid Feminine penetrates the five organs¹.

筋骨之強弱，肌肉之堅脆，皮膚之厚薄，腠理之疏密，各不同

The strength or weakness of the fascias and bones, the sturdiness of brittleness of the flesh and the muscles, the thickness or thinness of the skin, the sparsity or density of the lineaments, each according to its own².

腠者，是三焦通會元真之處，為血氣所注。理者，是皮膚臟府之文理也

The lineaments, it is where the triple burner harmonise the true original, where the blood and the vapours pour. The vein lines, it is the pattern of the skin and the internal organs³.

其流溢之氣，内溉臟腑，外濡腠理

When the vapours are overflowing, inside it irrigates the internal organs, outside it moistens the lineaments⁴.

There is a trinity in the internal practices called 氣，理，血， vapours, veins and blood. It is helping in the other riddle, 氣隨血行, vapours circulate following the blood. Indeed, as the blood nourishes the body circulating through its vessels, the vapours should do the same through an alike type of vessel to provide for, at least, one’s vitality and spirit. Hence, 理 in its meaning of vein is placed at the centre of this trinity to stress on the similarity of the blood and the vapours circulatory systems. To decipher this riddle, one can look at the term 腠理, lineaments, used in Chinese Traditional Medicine.