Contracting or Spreading

 

筋道不舒長，欲伸而筋不能伸

When the fascias channels are constrained and short, one cannot stretch at will1.

練形者，又名曰展筋脫骨
Who trains the shape, also called spreading out the fascias and the bones coming off2.

Contraction, especially when grown up, is so ingrained in our body that, even when someone has transformed his/her body through stretching, the reflex will remain. Training from a later age, one also has to learn again how to spread instead of contracting. To make it simple, where one tenses the arm muscles, bending them by making a fist, one has to reach the same state by opening the hand, fingers spread as much as possible, pushing the elbows in an unbending arm motion. Basically, those are exactly opposite moves.

Understanding the fundamental opposition in motion between a body that creates tension and power through contraction, mainly using muscles, and one that does it while spreading, mainly using fascia elasticity, and being able to deliver because the body has already been transformed is one of the meanings of 'No strength is the better strength'.

Spreading instead of contracting is very hard for an adult, even with a transformed body, because it goes basically against all the reflexes one has learned previously. An easy example could be sitting and reaching for a bottle a bit far on the table to drink. The usual motion is to reach for it, compress it lightly while contracting the arm and bringing it in an almost straight line to one's mouth. Oppositely, the spreading motion requires to lightly hold it3, slightly move it away from the body and then, in a round motion, bring it to the mouth.

Those differences are fundamental because they imply a very different way to hold a weapon. Indeed, one has to understand that the spreading motion, both well understood and executed, leads to the impossibility to close a fist. Indeed, if one can stretch up to the locks, the hand will then take a shape close to what is often called the 'Eagle Claw'. Still, such a hand structure does not come as a shape to be imitated, which would be external, but as a consequence of a right stretch leading to a lock, which is internal. In other words, trying to make a fist while spreading done correctly, one reaches a point where he/she cannot close any more the fingers4. Such a hand posture is actually the basic way to hold most weapons. Indeed, One would not grab a weapon, like a spear or a sword, pressing the entire hand around the hilt, but just rest it at the root and the tip of the fingers, giving those a more active participation in the weapon motion.

Changing the reflexes for the upper part of the body, especially the arms, is actually relatively easy because they do not support the body like the legs do. Doing the same from the feet to the waist is the real hardship since one has to basically learn to walk again. This is one of the reasons which made the ancient arts first stress on posturing. Indeed, once the right angles mastered at the straight level, one would add breathing with a shrinking (in)/spreading (out) motion to teach the whole body, hence the legs, how to spread instead of contracting. A motion in stillness, one of the explanations of the famous 'motionless motion' for those who have already heard about it. Mastered, one would then try to slowly walk the 'spreading walk5'. And then faster and faster until it becomes a second nature.

1 Fascias Change Canons, Stringed Together Vapours Secret, Training the Shape Discourse, 易筋經，貫氣訣，練形論. 

2 Fascias Change Canons, Stringed Together Vapours Secret, Training the Shape Discourse, 易筋經，貫氣訣，練形論

3 Old internal practices tend to stress and improve some not so developed qualities in the human body. In a parallel with skin breathing, they also devised special training to improve as well its capacity to stick, leading to the legendary wall climbing skills. Without going to such feats, one would try to emphasise more on sticking the tip of the fingers to hold a bottle than pressure it.

4 This has a lot to do with the quartering of the center of the palm and the place called 'tiger's mouth', 虎口, between the thumb and the index.

5 Some styles would use what they called 'supple forms' (something looking like some Taiji style or motion Qigong nowadays) to learn to shrink and spread the body at slower but not too slow pace.