Condensation and The Belt

氣聚丹田

Vapours gather on the Cinnabar Field

息息歸臍

All breathing returns to the navel

龜尾升氣，丹田煉神*

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

Internal Alchemy is not only about fire, it is also a question of condensation. The places where vapours are supposed to mainly condense are called Cinnabar Fields, 丹田 (down, middle and upper), which will be dealt in another post. Condensation was a question of accumulation in the first place, and compression in the second, the two first skills targeted by internal breathing, 息.
Such condensation had a visible effect, called the ball of vapours, effect even more visible nowadays because of the oversight of the use of a belt.

Accumulating and Compressing

As it will be developed more in details in the next post, internal breathing, 息, though linked to it, does not refer to the usual pulmonary one.

Internal breathing was a way to create Cinnabar Fields which would allow vapours to condensate around them. Then, one would be able to condensate them during inhalation and then disperse them during exhalation. Furthermore, to protect the organs, the aim was also to keep at all time during motion at least some condensed vapours in the stomach and the abdomen.

The first stage was accumulation, the second compression. 

Accumulating

This was leading to what is sometimes called the ball of vapours, the capacity to inflate his/her lower stomach, from the navel to the perineum, making it hard without neither any muscle contraction nor direct fascias extension but by the condensation on vapours in the area. Actually, exactly in the same way eating a fair amount of food can harden the stomach. It was a question of pressure exerted, not muscles contracted. As inflating a ball, the beginner would know he was going in the right track when he could, not get a hard stomach, but feel a weight in this part, one of the reason sometimes the breathing technique is called 氣沈丹田, vapours make the Cinnabar Field heavy**. He/she would first develop a resistance in this part, soft but getting harder if you press on it. Just like a not too inflated ballon, which it was, one could only condensate that little vapours in the beginning of his/her training.

Once one was able to concentrate more and create a harder ball of vapours in the lower part of the stomach, he/she would have to do the same in the upper abdomen (down the thoracic diaphragm) in the same way.

Once both skills obtained, it was then basically like creating something like a ball that one can move from down to up, make it revolve around its centre (going more on the side, in the back and then in the front in a circular move), different exercises to improve the organs through active pressure.

Compressing

Then, the student had to learn to compress the vapours, the same ball with the same amount of vapours but made smaller and smaller until it would be almost invisible, but also much harder. Here, the student was using a classic method of training in the old practices, putting the body in two opposite directions in order to strengthen it. Indeed, the concentration of vapours would push the connective tissues around the stomach outside while those tissues will push back inside to keep the stomach flat, or even make it flatter. The aim was multiple, stronger fascias, stronger organs through even more pressure, more heat....

To avoid the problems linked to the accumulation stage and help with the compression one, students were wearing a belt.

The Belt

Before becoming a colourful sign of achievement in the modern world, belts in internal arts had an actual purpose, keeping the connective tissues from extending too much while practicing the accumulation, or simply said keeping the stomach from protruding, and accelerating the compression process. Various belts from large silky ones to more specialised ones were worn, with an emphasis on the waist (where it had to be tied for the least).

Accumulation and the Belly

Since vapours concentration has a similar pressure effect on the stomach as food being ingested, being able to concentrate more and more vapours was like eating more and more, with the same effect, the belly would grow if not kept in check. Since it would have been very hard to start directly by both accumulating and compressing because one was not able to condense vapours from the beginning, one could not try to simultaneously concentrate vapours and press the stomach with his/her fascias from the very beginning. That is why one had to find a way to avoid the stomach fascias to extend and the belly to grow, hence the belt. Tying a belt on one's waist or whole stomach would keep it from overgrowing too much and let the student concentrate on the first skill to be obtained, condense vapours in the region.

Compression and the Fascias

The concentration phase mastered, the compression one would naturally come. To be able to compress correctly vapours without contracting muscles in the area, it was necessary to be able to work with the lines of fascias such as the one of the waist that rounds the body, the middle line from the upper abdomen to where the skin joins on the crotch, the lines connecting the backbone vertebrae to the front of the stomach... The belt, by exerting pressure, was giving a first key to understanding. It was also a way to check out if one would compress while gathering vapours, if the belt was felt or not. Felt, it would mean the belly would try to grow, not felt that it was shrinking.

No belt would not only mean getting a big belly, but it would reduce the compression process if not make it impossible. Another virtuous circle becoming vicious.

Because of the oversight of the reasons behind the use of the belt and its forsake, a lot of people practicing internal breathing methods become fat and can only limit themselves to the accumulation training. One can easily make the difference between a fat internalist by breathing and one by love of good food: the first one will keep a big belly, if not even grow it bigger, when training, fighting..., while the other one will suddenly have it totally disappear, "swallowing one's stomach".

* Real Canons on Internal Skills, 內功真經

**A good example of an evolving notion with different meanings, making one and only translation impossible, 氣沈丹田 being also translated as vapours submerge the Cinnabar Field (the first skill to obtain), sink the Cinnabar Field, lower the Cinnabar Field... all corresponding to different types of training