Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Bar, Book and Pendulum

練長使短

Training in length, using short

練重使輕

Training heavy, using light

Most of the devices used in the search of verticality usually target the backbone, a stronger stretch or a better vertically. Two examples can be given, the use of chin-bar like tools for stretching and the book and pendulum-like ones for verticality.

I. Gravity and the Bar

From static to motion, for this kind of tool, since what is searched for is a better stretch of the backbone, and even the whole body, rules are quite opposite to what is usually done when using the so-called pull-up bar, which is actually exactly what is not sought in this case. Indeed, the idea is to have and maintain against all odds at least the arms and the torso as straight as possible (as the hanging gibbon moves, mentioned earlier in this blog).

Still, one has to be relaxed without being lax. This means that alignments, especially tucking in the but, containing the chest and pulling lightly up the occiput, have to be maintained. Otherwise, any exercise will actually stretch the wrong part of the backbone.

Done correctly, gravity changes from foe to ally. Finally, one can also use the bar with the feet on the ground or even upside down, the legs then as straight as possible.

II. Book and Pendulum

A book on the head to maintain a certain straightness is quite a renowned exercise. What is less known is that there are also some tools to align correctly the spine on its other tip, some used more as folklore nowadays than for the right reasons.

Furthermore, old practices differed by making a difference between looking for alignments, using firstly very light things (a sheet of paper instead of a book) and then reinforcing it by adding very progressively some weight.

Finally, putting something on the top of the head was meant to better work on the chin and occiput alignments while holding another one at the crotch level to better understand which muscle chains and fascia webs are involved in the tuck of the butt.

As for everything in internal arts, it is always more a question of how to than being right or wrong. This is even truer when it concerns breathing, the next post.