Bending the Bow

未学功夫，先学跌打

Before studying skills one shall study acrobatics

百折連腰盡無骨*

A hundred twists linking the waist, a boneless utmost

These two quotes are a perfect example of what kind of suppleness was required in the old days for Martists. Basically, one had to push flexibility to its utmost limits. Therefore, a great part of the basic training was extreme flexibility. Still, it was not the only basic training for internal arts, the other one was posture, learning a correct alignment. In a sense, those two trainings were not only made to complement each other but also as antidotes. Indeed, for the least, correct alignment locks the body in certain angles, restraining its movements and therefore diminishing its flexibility while extreme flexibility puts the body in detrimental angles which may, in term, lead to injuries.

Still, injuries from extreme flexibility training were not a big issue in the old days because it was meant for teenagers having a very supple body by nature and because it would take them around one year of hard training, a short period, to reach it. Once reached, it was just a question of maintaining it, which is much less violent and dangerous for the body.

Unfortunately, those kinds of goals and their training and rules were made for professional children, they cannot actually apply to leisurely adult training because of their stiffer body which cannot transform fast enough. Hence, where children would first prioritise flexibility over alignment, adults shall to do quite the contrary. 

I. Different Bodies, Different Rules 

Teenagers have a very flexible body which, because it is growing fast, can transform rapidly. Adults do not, hence their training cannot be the same.

a. Stick or Rope

Comparing an adult body to a teenager one could be seen as comparing a stick to a rope. Indeed a teenager body is a very pliable one and can be mistreated while an adult body is stiffer and shall be handled with care to avoid breaking it.

Hence, taking the opportunity of its pliableness, training teenagers can first focus on flexibility over alignment, trying to stretch the body in all kinds of postures, even non-aligned ones, to make it as elastic as it can be through extreme flexibility. Therefore, training basics for teenagers in internal arts in the beginning would be very close if not exactly the same as training them for acrobatics or dancing, hence the frequent link between these in the old days. That is why old sayings and texts, such as the two quotes in the beginning of this post, insist on such skills**.

The problem is adapting such requirements to adults. Too often adults try to reach the feats of teenagers, training in the exact similar way only to end up hurting themselves. In fact, in order to avoid injuries adults have to emphasise alignment over flexibility. 

In other words, children training basics shall first try to reach flexible feats notwithstanding a correct alignment while adults shall stretch themselves while strictly keeping the right alignment notwithstanding flexibility goals.

b. Fast and Slow

Teenagers, because they are still growing, may have the opportunity to correct, even reverse, the effects of wrong training. This is why a lot of basic skills for children do not focus on the right alignment. Indeed, teenagers well trained only need a couple of months to less than a year to reach all the flexibility feats, such as the front split, needed when trying to make the body as elastic as possible. Once reached, they learn to keep on doing them but add the right alignments. In other words, training internal arts, a teenager will first train to reach the same flexibility acrobats or dancers have, but to almost never put again the body in some of the more extreme alignments a dancer or acrobat will still keep for the sake of beauty.

What takes teenagers months can be easily translated in years for adults, especially when the training is not regular. Because of this, adults have to follow even more the many a little makes a mickle method. They then face the issue that they will only discover they are on the wrong tracks when it is too late most of the time, i.e. when the last straw leads to an injury. Therefore, as fas as adults are concerned, alignment rules have to be strictly observed.

Then, what are the visible consequences for an adult when keeping correct angles?

II. Stiffer but Nimbler

The main issue for adults is to prevent injuries, internal arts favouring endurance over performance. In order to do so, keeping certain alignments would have priority over added flexibility, apparently reducing the later. Once certain fascia connections mastered, one could again take some liberties with alignment but never as much as teenagers can. Still, adults may face issues which cannot be solved by such method.

a. Seemingly Stiffer but Nimbler Inside

One of the many reasons behind alignment is actually to create an elastic tension in one’s body in a very similar way to a bow. Therefore, by adopting certain angles one actually stretches one’s body though it may not be visible to the eyes. This type of flexibility which stresses on the hardest parts of the body like the chest and the pelvic areas is the most important one for internal practices. Adults shall in priority create such tension regardless of how not much one’s body will bend.

Keeping correct angles, especially the ones linked to the pelvis, will noticeably reduce one’s apparent flexibility by locking the body. Hence, it will be impossible to put the head against the knees for example, because one would also have to keep his/her butt tucked in. Therefore, stretching with the correct alignment will actually make someone look much stiffer than he/she is actually. Still, maintaining the correct alignments will allow to work on more and deeper fascia lines, giving an extra but not visible to the eyes flexibility, or more precisely elasticity.

b. Connected Flexibility

Another reason to work with a proper alignment while stretching for adults is to reconnect fascia lines. Only when reconnected, one may consider deviating from keeping the alignment rule. Indeed, once the fascia lines really reconnected, it is possible to go above the alignment rule while stretching on the prerequisite the fascia lines connection is kept.

Let’s take again the example of tucking in the butt against trying to put the head against the knees. At first, tucking in the butt will keep the torso from bending too much forward. But, once the lines starting from the feet up to the waist or higher are reconnected***, one can try to move the torso forwarder, letting the lower back natural arch slowly reappear, but on the requisite it can maintain the connection. Apart from feeling it, a thing internal practices actually do not take as a sign of good or wrong doing, there are two ways to check if the connection is maintained: first while doing it one’s butt and lower stomach will remain tensed and never lax, second when putting back up the torso, the butt will get even more tensed.

c. Limits

Dealing with adults in training is like taking care of a used car. Not only their age matters a lot, in their twenties or seventies are two different worlds, but one has to check for the broken parts.

Hence, as far as this elasticity is concerned, adults may have, because of ageing and general motion and motionless habits, some part of their fascia lines which have lost most of their elasticity and cannot be revived by simple alignments and regular stretching. It may take then some special stretching, or even the use of machines to sort of kick-start again the elastic process. This is especially true for the chest and the pelvic area where the presence of not really articulated big bone structures makes them easy to become very stiff and lose their elasticity.

Adapting training for professional teenagers to leisurely adults raises some integrity issues for the body as far as flexibility is concerned. Still, internal arts also have to consider what is called internal alchemy and it happens that the pelvis alignment is extremely important in such matter.

*Emei Taoist Boxing Song, 峨嵋道人拳歌

**Often critics of some stretching and how they are detrimental to the body do not realise that most of them were aimed at children or teenagers and just for the relatively short period of time needed to reach their flexibility goals, not a lifetime stretching method for anyone of any age.

***With time, the back arch pushes one’s pelvis to sort of fall forwards, disconnecting the fascia lines at the thighs and the pelvic area. The tucking in the butt exercise is a way to maintain or reconnect.