Sturdy Structure

拳怕少壯

The fist fears the young and robust¹

膂力過人

An outstanding backbone strength²

打拳壯筋骨

Training strengthens fascias and bones.

刀越磨越亮，體越練越壯

The more is polished a knife the brighter it is, the more is trained a body the stronger it is.

冬養骨，夏伸筋

Winter to grow bones, summer to extend the fascias

The need to first transform the body, stressing on fascias and bones, which has already been described in length in this blog, is the basis of the external training of internal practices. 

It is all a question of structure. Before even entertaining the idea of fighting, one had to improve his/her physique to make it much stronger³. This was, indeed, the first aim of the training, building a stronger and healthier body, the first half of the saying, 少, young, for health and 壯, robust, for a solid body.

Health and youth will be developed in the next post, what is defined as a strong structure in this one.

Two of the three sayings quoted above mention fascias and bones, not muscles. Indeed, one of the cornerstones of internal practice is to view muscles as the part of the body needed to move, but not for power. The main strength then comes from what is most important in one’s body: structure. Clearly, the bones, because of their weight and resistance, indirectly produce the hard and rigid power while fascias an elastic one, firm or tender according to one’s needs. Therefore, when training to become stronger, the impact on the bones and the fascias is what is sought for.

Training bones and fascias are somewhat related, 抻筋拔骨, stretching the fascias and pulling out the bones or the famous 易筋洗髓功, skill of cleaning the marrow bone from the Fascia Changes, are some of the examples one can find.

Training fascias⁴ is, of course, mainly a question of stretching. Starting from the basic⁵, one shall look for more and more extreme ones to reach deeper and deeper parts of the body in all directions. Apart from natural stretch from posture, learning to reverse the contracting muscle reflex to a relaxing and stretching one is also what is going to tense the fascias. Finally, cotton like training is meant to teach a much harder part, improving fascia elasticity by compressing them.

Bone training is a little bit more complex, where internal meets external, because, for internal practices, it mainly concerns the marrow bone and is a training more for teenagers than for adults, the idea being to influence one’s growth in order to have stronger bones. Weights, a great health allowing the kidneys to produce more marrow are the main means⁶. Trained at a young age, one’s bones will become totally round, concave, which is especially visible on the tibias.

Being sturdy was not enough, one had to keep young, slowing down the ageing process, training then the organs to do so.

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1 Good martial arts sayings always play on characters' polysemy. From “vigorous” in previous posts to “robust” in this one being such an example. 

2 This saying is interesting because its usual meaning is "possessing extraordinary strength", 膂力 having the meaning of bodily strength. Still, 膂 has also the meaning of backbone, and refers to the spine region as the vertebrae with the paravertebral muscles. Hence a better and stronger backbone for more strength.

3 A myriad of exercises trying to influence growth in order to create a stronger body from early childhood to teenage years used to exist in old practices. Most of them are not trained anymore, becoming or already being legends of old time. Such are the so-called virgin skills.

4 See the section Fascia Elasticity for even more details.

5 Unfortunately, even the basic stretching, like being able to do the splits, have become now a feat to reach, another example how the ancient practices little by little whitered after transferring to the civilian sphere.

6 Other exercises also exist, like rubbing or hitting hard objects. There are, most of the time, trained by external practices while internal ones may do it sometimes but with a very different aim than the one of getting bones harder.