Foggy Heart

心靜气動

A still heart for moving vapours

二振气，三安和

Second rouse vapours, third calm and at peace*

The two main pillars of internal arts are the heart and the Qi, emotions and vitality. If one was to describe a high internal level, even though martial arts have little to do with meditation, it would be through two lotus postures. The first one would be a Martist at noon in the middle of a very hot summer in a very stuffy room.
He would be sitting in the lotus posture, long trousers, long sleeves and wearing socks and shoes. His eyes would be wide open while his hands locked together on the stomach and arms touching the body. He would not sweat, not even a little bit. The characters 靜, still, 心, heart, and 守, to guard, would describe what he was doing. The second one would be in deep winter in the middle of the night, raging billowy snow in a windy night. He would be sitting outside in the same stance, shorts and short sleeves and no shoes or socks. His eyes would be half closed and his hands would lie, separated, on each of his thighs, fingers wide opened, arms as far of the body as possible. Around him the snow would have melted and his whole body and clothes would be emitting vapours. The characters 動, moving, 气, vapours, and 展, to spread out, would describe what he was doing.

The first lotus represents, of course, the stillness or absence of emotion an internal Martist is looking for. The second the heat he can create in order to generate as much vitality as possible. It is also interesting to notice that one of the techniques used, internal breathing or 息, is supposed to calm and mobilise at the same time the organs, one of the essentials oxymorons to be solved by the Martist.

Emotions

Vitality through Qi being at the centre of Internal practices, the first thing a Martist had to learn is not how to produce more in order to consume more as in nowadays consumer societies motto, but to save as much as possible. The emotions, by depleting Qi, are what had to be reduced, if not rendered totally inexistent, in oder to save as much vitality as possible. Being emotionless was also, of course, a mean for fighting, trying to reach a void in order for one to become like a machine. Emotions being associated with the organs in Chinese medicine, the main work to become emotionless would be on them. The training was both internal, cleaning and balancing the organs, and external, learning to keep any sensation to reach the organs. Indeed, emotions being either created by the organs themselves, their state or unbalance towards each other (what we often call a personality trait, like being prone to anger, anxiety, depression...), or coming from our five senses, from outside stimuli.

Cleaning and Balancing 

Cleaning was made through a balanced diet, avoiding too addictive products, and by heating the organs, so through exercise, in order to get rid of the poisons accumulated during the day. The idea was make them as clean as possible, the taste of one's sweat being the way to judge (it will be developed in a further post). Hence, training in the morning just right after waking up and before eating anything was considered one of the best ways to cleanse oneself internally. Balancing was mainly done by making sure the organs were all in their rightful place, "五臟六腑，個按其位", which basically was done by training the flat stomach as it was described before. 

Sensations

Sensations creates emotions, either by the stimuli they give to the body or by the desire their absence may lead too. In the old days, it was firstly about having the right environment for training, secluded and away from any temptation. The student had to clean, balance and then strengthen his/her organs, at first through heavy stretching of the lines of fascias (see the example of Liver and the Grip in Health), and then all kind of exercises including shaking, beating and respiration like 吞吐, gulping and spitting out in this particular case.

Then came the use breathing, relaxation through exhalation, to learn to relax one's organs if confronted by a desire or a too strong sensation. The idea is that emotions stress the organs and the way to avoid it is keeping them relaxed at all times; heavy stretching and other exercises would have already improved their flexibility, making the relaxation process easier. Then, if confronted by a heavy sensation or desire, one would have to relax the organs before it could reach them. To make things easier in the beginning, a whole ritual could be made in order to keep the student mind occupied somewhere else, Hence some hand gestures, the use of chaplets, reciting some verses... Once mastered, the student would also learn to relax while inhaling, sort of going from shallow relaxation while inhaling to deeper one while exhaling. The steadiness of one's breathing, deep, uninterrupted and long would be the way to judge one's capacity to remain calm. Any shortness, even very little, acceleration or hold of one's breath would be a sign that emotion(s) took hold. Sweating for no physical reason (exercise, extreme heat...) would also being a sign of nervousness. 

It is obvious that studying as a hobby in a consumer society makes harder an already very difficult practice, the senses, and especially the eyes, being bombarded everyday by stimuli.

Once learned how to calm the organs while relaxing them, the student would then have to learn how to mobilise them in order to create the necessary heat to make vapours.

Heat

Physical exercise, by heating up the body, allows the essential liquids contained in the organs to transform into vapours. Basically, the liquid nutrients that nourishes the body through the blood become vapours that nourish the spirit/soul through the Qi. On one side it maintains physical force while, on the other, vitality. But creating vitality is not enough, it is a question of balance. Hence, if physical exercise is necessary to create vapours in order to increase one's vitality, at least in the beginning, it also depletes Qi and vitality. The idea is then very simple, create more than what is used, and three ways to improve this internal alchemy can be found:

- First, as it was described before, to be as emotionless as possible, enjoying the quietness of a landscape while hiking will be more fruitful than rushing to a meeting.

- Second, reduce the cost of motion. Moving using the fascias elasticity is supposed to be less consuming than by contracting and loosening one's muscles.

- Third, reduce motion as little as possible while still heating up the organs. It basically starts by holding a low posture until the legs start to warm up.

To make it simple, breaking a sweat while running to the school because one is late to pick up his children, very stressed and not even realising where they stand waiting, would most probably result in a negative balance, while enjoying quietly one's morning jog on a fresh but nice day, smiling at everybody, would most probably be positive.

Internalists went even further and tried to find how the organs would heat up. They came up with different exercises to do what they called "mobilise the organs", a way to pressure the organs, but with no stress, and make them heat up. It was also a way to increase Qi flow, called the big and small revolutions, 小周天與大周天, another thing for another post. Most of the way to "mobilise the organs" was done through some of the techniques called, 淬, to quench, which basically consist in putting the body in two opposite directions. The typical exercise was the one of the "spying thieve". The idea was to imitate someone trying to look from behind a wall without being discovered. One had to put very slowly his head out of the wall to be able to look but, at the same time, be ready to put it back behind it as fast as possible to avoid being spotted. Being super slow and careful but at the same time ready to move very swiftly, if done in a totally relaxed way through proper breathing, 息, was the kind of two opposite directions exercise that would help to understand how to mobilise the organs. And, in a way, being totally still in a lotus posture while the organs are heavily mobilised is exactly such exercise, just a higher understanding of it.

Mobilising the organs would create heat, which would clean them and, thus, reduce one's emotions, a full circle.

The relation between calming and mobilising the organs had to be understood as a complementary opposition in order to create a virtuous circle, the more calm were the organs the easier it was to heat them, the hotter they became, the calmer they could be. Solving this oxymoron was the most important thing for an internal Martist.

*Piercing the Louse, Ten Essentials, Jijian. 貫虱心傳，十要，紀鑒