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.

Hard Round Or Tender Oval

打拳壯筋骨

Training to strengthen fascias and bones.

寧練筋長一寸，不練肉厚三分

Rather train to lengthen the fascias by one inch than to thicken the flesh by one third.

Contracting the muscles has become such a common norm that we tend to think that it is the only way to move, generate strength... Even when the terms of isotonic, concentric and eccentric are used to oppose three states, maintaining the same length, shortening and extending, it is always in regards to contraction. Still, there is a world outside of contraction, where the muscles relax and extend to their fullest, tensing without contracting. Already mentioned in this blog (see Fascia Elasticity), the image of the bow is central to such understanding, using the body and more especially the fascias and the flesh elasticity is a question of structure.

A Bit Of A Stretch

練形者，又名曰展筋脫骨
He who trains the shape, also called spreading out the fascias and the bones coming off1.

Flexibility has been researched for over 100 years. Its track record is unimpressive, particularly when viewed in light of other components of physical fitness. Flexibility lacks predictive and concurrent validity value with meaningful health and performance outcomes. Consequently, it should be retired as a major component of fitness2.

Open societies in our times suffer from a never-ending flow of information on any and all subjects and coming from virtually anybody with a computer who decides to write on something. Adding the marketing, political and other agendas people tend to push through information, the result is more confusion or a return to just one’s own beliefs, even though they are totally false. Old oral transmission was all about self-discovery, which meant information was scarce and shared only when time was ripe.

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. 

Overload

铁杵成针

To grind an iron bar down to a fine needle

集腋成裘

Many a little makes a mickle (many hairs make a fur coat)

The use of weights in old practices is often a misunderstood issue. Indeed, it is often considered as either good or bad. Old practices were all about method, which means most of the time neither a total inclusion, nor exclusion, of any exercise. It was a question of opportunity, so of when, how and why. The first question to be answered was why one would use weight in training, then would come the when was it opportune and how to train with them. Since training was primarily customised for children and teenagers, whose body would transform very quickly, the opportunity to use weights in training would come very fast. Hence, as far as teenagers were concerned, weights were almost from the beginning a part of their training. Unfortunately, going from children professionally trained to leisurely adult changes totally the equation. Therefore, it may be interesting to describe how adults shall face the weight issue.

Suppleness is in the Details

二曰左偏臥，頭枕左足尖，左手搬左足跟，右換如之*

Second, on the left side, the head lying on the extremity of the left foot, the left hand pulling the left heel, then doing exactly the same on the right side

Most of the trainings to improve fascia elasticity were originally meant for teenagers, if not very young kids, quite violent and/or intense in order to take the advantage of their very flexible body and influence their growth. Since grown-ups and/or leisure practice cannot reach such intensity without surely harming the body, the issue is how to adapt old trainings and one's objectives in order to still be able to improve elasticity and connectivity.

Back to the Fascias II, Using Fascia Elasticity

筋道不舒長，欲伸而筋不能伸*

When the fascia channels are constrained and short, one cannot stretch at will

發如美人之採花，收如文士之藏筆**

Sending out like a beautiful lady picks up flowers, gathering like a scholar collecting his brush

Fascias by essence being passive tissues, the main issue is, of course, how to make them participate as much as possible in motion and power generation. Stretching and particular body angles are the main way some old practices used to have the student understand how to generate power using fascia elasticity as it has been described in the section Fascia Elasticity. Still, to further understand how this works, it may be interesting to use an old martial art method, studying animals.

Being passive structures transmitting mechanical tensions, one cannot use fascias directly but only through muscles, body angles and sometimes gravity or any other outside force. If in the posts The Bow, Cornerstone of Elasticity and The Cross and the Six Directions, the principles behind the angle issue has been described in details, the muscle issue can be further explored. The first issue resides in the kind of muscles one is looking for to enhance the use of facia elasticity, mainly the difference between tender and hard muscles. Furthermore, building from the example of the hanging gibbon against working on a chin bar, one can also explore the difference in motion between the use of muscle contraction and fascia elasticity.

Rock the Cinnabar

內有丹田，氣之歸宿*

Inside are the Cinnabar Fields, the place vapours return to

勁從足下起，還得丹田足

The strength raises from the feet on the prerequisite the cinnabar field is sufficient enough

掌心力從足心印

The force from the centre of the palms comes from the mark in the centre of the feet

Working on one's vitality flow, as it was explained in the two previous posts, was one of the objectives in the old practices. To do so, apart from mobilising one's organs, one could work on, or enhance, certain parts of the body having an impact on such flow. Of the numerous parts, the most famous are the cinnabar fields, 丹田.

Vitality and Strength

眼無神, 拳無魂

Eyes with no expression, boxing without spirit

氣發若風行, 氣納吞百川*

Vapours are emitted like the wind, vapours receive, swallowing a hundred rivers

夫內勁寓於無形之中，接於有形之表，而難以言傳**

The inside strength is in the incorporeal, connecting with a corporeal expression, thus very hard to convey in words

Chinese arts differentiate strength from just body force. In Chinese, force is 力, which originally was a representation of human tendons or connective tissues***, "筋也。象人筋之形". Strength is 勁, the "underground river", 巠, of force, 力.

Vitality and Force

全神貫注

To concentrate one's attention on

神清氣爽

A clear mind in a calm state

聚精會神

To concentrate one's attention on

心馳神往

One thoughts fly to (a place or a person)

Similarly as to the difference between fascias elasticity and muscle contraction, it may be interesting to try to first determine what belongs more to vitality. Of course, since vitality is mainly invisible, contrary to muscle mass, the noticeable differences lie more in effects than on visible or touchable things on one's body.

The Cross and the Six Directions

沉肩墜肘，含胸拔背

Sink the shoulders and drop the elbows; contain the chest and pull up the back

鬆腰坐胯，開襠膝撐

Relax the waist and sit the hips; open the crotch and have the knee brace

Once the evolutive principles behind the figure of the bow are understood, one has to expand the connectivity of the fascias by connecting different lines together, and their elasticity by going beyond lines into surfaces and volumes.

The Bow, Cornerstone of Elasticity

兩肩垂兮十指連

The shoulders drop, the fingers link!*

兩手垂兮兩肘彎

The hands drop, the elbows curve!**

屈可伸兮伸又屈

Bent but able to stretch, stretched but also bent!**

前開後合天然妙，雙峰對峙

A natural wonder the front opened and the back closed, the two acromions stand facing each other***

To be able to use fascia elasticity, as it has already been mentioned in previous posts, one has to stretch connective tissues to gain elasticity and get the proper alignments to really connect the whole line again. But this combination of stretching with proper alignments goes beyond just transforming the body, it is a mean to get the fascia lines to tense, first indirectly and then actively.

Naturally Contracted or Natural Elasticity

優力無力

No force is the better force

In theory, the difference between contraction and elasticity seems not too complicated. On one hand muscles contract and/or become loose while, in the other hand, facias extend and retract. In practice, and especially nowadays where muscle contraction is the main solution used to generate force for most humans*, it is a more complicated problem, a lot of practices advertising not using muscle contraction, either for marketing purposes or earnestly, while they still do.

Bones and the Force

氣沉骨堅

Heavy vapours and strong bones

骨堅筋柔

Firm bones and supple fascias

As far as the body force is concerned, the external part, the most important was neither muscles nor even fascias for the internal arts, but it was the bones. Bones and force are the typical example of how internal arts work, body force was first about a stronger structure and, to achieve it, stronger organs.