Closing the Doors

肛門不提，丹田氣散，内中空虚，元氣*虧損

When the anus is not pulled up, the vapours around the cinnabar field disperse, the inside becomes empty and one's vitality depletes.

As it has been mentioned in the previous post, one could compare training teenagers and adults to fixing new or already used cars. Hence, when training adults, one has to consider the body deterioration, a thing teenagers have not yet undergone. As far as internal alchemy is concerned, it is mainly about the organs and their capacity to generate heat. Hence, their place, size and insulation are important matters to deal with when training adults. Right place and size are determined by the capacity to keep the stomach flat and insulation is working on the sphincters so that the sex and the anus are kept as closed as possible most of the time. Both issues are mainly solved by working on the pelvis and the perinea.

The difference between teenagers and adults lies in the degeneration process which leads the sphincters to become lax and the stomach to protrude**. Adults have to take in consideration which posture may accelerate or slow down such deterioration because it will have a direct impact on the organs and on the insulation of the heating process.

Basically any stretching including arching the lower back will accelerate it while keeping the butt tucked in will slow it down. Still, arching the back, if done while keeping the connection between the pelvis and the lower part, is actually an advanced training to reinforce the perinea and the sphincters.

Such connection exists for most teenagers while it does not remain for adults. Hence training teenagers is all about keeping an existing connection while adults are all about reconnecting, two opposite goals. Hence, when “closing the doors”, tucking the butt will be about reinforcing an existing connection for teenagers while rebuilding one for adults. Furthermore, teenagers will very rapidly train the arch back in order to learn to maintain such connection while taking totally inappropriate angles, while adults shall scarcely do it, only to keep a certain back flexibility, until they have achieved to finally rebuilt a strong connection. 

I. Reinforcing or Rebuilding

Before describing the difference in training between teenagers and adults, it may be useful to briefly describe the body parts playing a crucial role for closing the doors.

a. Closing

A link can be made between the practice of Mula Bandha, the aim being very similar. Still, there are many fascias lines, those going through the hips, the levator ani, the anus, the sex, the perinea, the butt and so on, which have to be taken into consideration. Basically, tucking in the butt and/or lifting up the perinea, or 會陰 if one refers to the Chinese terminology, refers to an alignment and stretching of all those parts, in order to create a lock pushing everything upwards. This has to be linked, more generally, with the capacity the body has to naturally fight against gravity***.

b. Teenagers Versus Adults 

Teenagers in good health have a very elastic and connected body. Tucking in the butt is then, for them, a way to reinforce the capacity to close the doors by stretching in a certain way all and any fascias in the pelvic area. 

Adults present a more complex issue. Indeed, the older one gets, the more he/she loses the connection between the upper and lower parts of the body the pelvic area is supposed to allow. An obvious result of such loss is the beginning of a tummy. Then, added to such loss is each and everyone different lifestyle, which may add particular issues. Tucking in the butt, if it is still possible****, will be aimed first at trying to reconnect in the pelvis area the upper and lower parts of the fascia lines. More simply, it is about connecting the thighs to the inside of the pelvic area. Such connection will give again one’s torso the support of the legs it has lost.

Internal arts used to favour endurance over performance, keeping the connection was a way to slow down the ageing of the backbone. Indeed, when the connection between the legs and the pelvis is lost, the backbone is less supported and tends to shrink even faster.

Tucking in the butt is a good example of how internal practices paid attention to the ageing process. Arching the back will be a good one for a cornerstone of their methods, virtuous or vicious circle.

II. The Arching Issue

Straightened up and stretched, one’s body will be better connected while arching will challenge such connection. The question whether such challenge works for the better or worse actually depends on the age of the student.

a. Straightness

Tucking in the butt, in the present case, is meant to first give the body as much verticality as possible in order to improve the fight against gravity. Basically, if one can fully straighten the body and have the legs fascias stretch or even push upwards, he/she may be able to find out how to fight against  such pull. Closing the doors is, indeed, not only about closing the sphincters, but also of how reversing the tendency the vapours have to flow more and more downwards with age. 

Furthermore, arching corresponds to the move one does to defecate while straightening to the opposite. Hence, if arching the back is a flexibility one shall try to keep, it is something one shall avoid as far as insulation is concerned.

b. Teenagers Versus Adults

The arching issue is actually the perfect example of an exercise which may be deemed beneficial or detrimental according to who practises it. Indeed, internal practices do not work in absolute, they first consider the circle one is in, virtuous or vicious. In good health teenagers are most of the time in a virtuous circle. Therefore, one can use exercises where the back is arched as a means to reinforce the capacity to close the doors. Indeed, maintaining them closed, basically keeping against all odds the connections between the thighs and the pelvis, while arching more and more the back, is a sound advanced exercise for teenagers.

Adults are, of course, a total different, if not opposed, issue. Not only have they lost most of the connection between the thighs and the pelvis, if not all, but also the ageing process push them towards a posture where the back will naturally be more and more arched. Hence, practising an arched posture will just speed up the process. Therefore adults cannot practise such postures before having strongly reconnected the upper and lower parts of their body.

It is essential to understand that dealing with leisurely adults changes drastically the training equation. Hence, every exercise and training, especially the basic ones, have to be revisited according to the new environment adulthood and leisure bring. Old practices were meant to train, from a young age, professionals. Hence, a lot of training are just not suited for civilians.

*元气, vitality, also means original vapours, referring then to the inborn vitality while vapours are a general term whether the vitality is inborn or nurtured.

**This is just concerning the fascia lines becoming lax, not the fat which is another degenerative process. 

***The best known being the antigravity muscles.

****Some backbone issues may prevent it. One may have to first deal with such issues before being able to safely tuck in the butt. Here actually is an example of how complex for adults can become a basically very simple exercise for healthy teenagers.