All Along the Watchtower

故氣雖結而神自揚*

Therefore the mind naturally expands itself even though the vapours bind themselves

百拳之法，以眼為網**

All the boxing methods have the eyes as a key link

Moving extremely slow, taking half an hour to execute just one move, was made to further train one's heart capacity to endure by having one's mind even more awake. This is actually the essence of the peeping thief technique.

Slow but Alert

In static training, the body being motionless, one just have to concentrate on one's mind. Moving very slow makes things more complicated, the body motion being added to the equation, hence the Chinese saying, "慢而不斷", slow but with no break. If staying still in a lotus posture requires already lot of patience, moving really slowly adds to it because one is always tempted to move faster under boredom or loses concentration and breaks the motion. In this sense, moving slowly requires the mind and the body to adopt the same exact slow and very steady pace, something quite hard to reach if one's heart cannot remain perfectly quiet. 

Still, moving very slowly is not a kind of half sleepy motion, not only because one may lose his/her real control if not awake, but also because staying alert is a life saving skill for a martist. Hence, once again, the heart and the mind are calm and the body moves very slowly while one's vitality has to be at its fastest speed, one remaining wide awake.

It is interesting to notice that old internal practices particularly stress on the capacity to become and remain as alert as possible. After all, still, normal and slow paces all insist in their way on this skill. In the wild, whether predator or pray, being alert is one the main skill animals use to just survive. By often removing the non-stop dangers living in the wild may bring, civilisation has already naturally hindered our capacity to always remain alert, hence the need to insist on such skill for old practices. When leaving in relatively at peace societies, the effects on one's vigilance are even worse. It is interesting to also notice that apart from rules coming from experience, where to sit, places to avoid, being always in a group whenever possible, never leaving his/her weapon out of hand..., the vigilance internal practices trains is an instinctive one coming from the subconscious. In other words, it is the "there is something in the air" effect that is also sought, the capacity to decipher without searching for them very small details, almost invisible or inaudible but leading to what would be called a gut feeling. Slow motion is a way to discover this kind of attention to details or, in other words, "slow hence detailed".

Slow motion is also one of the easiest way to learn to mobilise one's organs, the peeping thief technique.

The Peeping Thief

To understand the relation between slow movement, peaceful mind and being wide awake through vitality, one has to go back to "mobilising the organs" basic training, the peeping thief. Indeed, a peeping thief has to move very slowly in order not to be spotted while remaining extremely alert and aware of its surroundings in order to swiftly move behind the wall again if he/she feels he/she might be spotted. Therefore, one is moving slow but staying very alert in order to be able to suddenly, swiftly and deftly move whenever needed. Relaxing while literally pulling one's body and mind in two opposite directions, very slowly but being ready to be as fast as lightning, is what will mobilise one's organs in order to have their vitality flow as fast as possible. A sign one is doing things correctly is, of course and again, the eyes, wide opened and shining. After all, the text from which the second quote was taken goes on: "以眼為尊，謂精神巧處全在眼上", the eyes have seniority, in other words any ingenious vitality reside in the eyes. Still, the idea isn't to force the eyes lid to be opened as wide as possible and try very hard to have shinny eyes, it has to come as a side effect of one's organs being mobilised, something not to be sought but just a natural outcome.

If eyes wide opened and shining are what is required while training, one shall learn after how to modulate his alertness level, but this is another matter. It is also interesting to notice that the peeping thief is what could be called a lightness training. Indeed, while executing such slow motion, one has to be make his/her body as light as a feather. Practicing first empty handed, such lightness shall be first sought in the easiest place, the arms. The way to find such lightness in the hands and the arms is to move as if one was holding a very delicate object, the kind of which would break right away if pressed even very slightly. Such skill would lead to what is often called grace and what would make male Martist look a bit camp, even quite effeminate sometimes. For those practicing it, the known silk reeling technique follows similar principles.

Extremes join, once the slow motion was mastered, one could finally contemplate the as fast as possible training, a quite hard one because breathing had to remain stable, uninterrupted, one not allowed to even slightly pant.

*Divine Motion Canons, Left (Upper) Second Paragraph, Talking about the Divine Motion Body 神運經右（上）第二章，言神運之體

**Short Hits Poses and Motions All Boxing Schools Manual 短打身法統宗拳譜