Gravity and the Circle

界是功能之限

Realm is the threshold of capacity.

Gravity, like breathing, is a constant in our lives. For those who are studying old practices, it is, as far as training is concerned, the perfect example of how virtuous and vicious circles will shape training and fundamentally change it. In this case, it is very simple. As long as we grow, up till maturity, the influence of gravity is positive. It makes our body stronger and exercices will tend to use at its best this opportunity. Once we become grownups, it is reversed; gravity slowly impedes us on all and any level.

Women And Breathing

理是功能之本，法是功能之基

The intrinsic order is the essence of capability, method is the base of capability.

女子无丹田，炼炁在膻中

Women don’t have a Cinnabar Field, training vapours is in the mediastinum.

男子之命在丹田。丹田者，生丹之真土也；女命在乳房。乳房者，田气之木精也。

Men’s life resides in the Cinnabar Field. The Cinnabar Field, this is the real soil which gives birth to the Cinnabar; Women’s life resides in the breasts. The breasts, those are the real wooden essential liquids of the field of vapours¹.

To understand fully old methods, one has to take into consideration three things: they are, intrinsically, very versatile. Hence, most of the time, they are not governed by rigid rules or principles; they customise training according to each and everyone, there isn’t, apart from some basis, a standard training to be followed. This starts, of course, by recognising and taking into account the obvious difference between men and women and then between all distinct kinds and shapes of bodies; Finally, they come from various traditions that may address or express the same issue in diverse ways, especially because they are meant to be an oral transmission. All this is unfortunately a far cry from most of the training in internal styles nowadays. 

Where Is My Weapon?

槍扎一條線，棍掃一大片

The spear binds a line, the staff sweeps a large area¹.

劍走青，刀走黑

The sword goes green, the sabre black².

青龍偃月刀：劈、砍、撩、掛、斬、抹、截、攔、挑、刺

Green dragon crescent moon sabre: hack, slash, lift up, hang, chop, strike out, intercept, block, pick, stab.

Since pretty early in history, martial arts circles in China were linked to a lot of practices, from the pure battlefield ones to hunting (the bow), physical strength (weight lifting with the famous tripod cauldron), spiritual search (lots of martial arts have such a claim. Let’s also remember that among the six arts taught by Confucius two were the chariot and the bow), ceremonial (dance³ and the bow), competitive (tripod cauldron lifting, wrestling and, again, the bow), protection (militias and escorts) and so on… In times of constant war or great insecurity, almost everybody knew how to handle a weapon, in times of peace, some martial practices became pure entertainment⁴, in times of unrest some practices were constricted to the elite, in times of peace sometimes the establishment looked down on martial skills⁵.

Iron Breath

治身：天門，謂鼻孔開，謂喘息闔，謂呼吸也¹

Cultivating the body: the Heavenly Door, called opening the nostrils, called closing gasping and resting², which is called exhaling and inhaling³.

天門亢，擤鼻，旡

The Heavenly Door is haughty, blowing one’s nose, to choke⁴.

Iron training and its main breathing technique, empty breathing, are exercises less and less witnessed in internal practices. They target the capacity to tense all and any part of the body while relaxing and stretching. They use an old type of respiration, sometimes linked to Taoist practices, which consist of taking a long exhalation to empty as much as possible, not only the lungs but the stomach and the whole trunk for the least, and keep at all costs this state while inhaling. 

Where Do The Vapours Go?

清陽發腠理，濁陰走五臟

The pure Masculin spurts out in the lineaments, the turbid Feminine penetrates the five organs¹.

筋骨之強弱，肌肉之堅脆，皮膚之厚薄，腠理之疏密，各不同

The strength or weakness of the fascias and bones, the sturdiness of brittleness of the flesh and the muscles, the thickness or thinness of the skin, the sparsity or density of the lineaments, each according to its own².

腠者，是三焦通會元真之處，為血氣所注。理者，是皮膚臟府之文理也

The lineaments, it is where the triple burner harmonise the true original, where the blood and the vapours pour. The vein lines, it is the pattern of the skin and the internal organs³.

其流溢之氣，内溉臟腑，外濡腠理

When the vapours are overflowing, inside it irrigates the internal organs, outside it moistens the lineaments⁴.

There is a trinity in the internal practices called 氣，理，血， vapours, veins and blood. It is helping in the other riddle, 氣隨血行, vapours circulate following the blood. Indeed, as the blood nourishes the body circulating through its vessels, the vapours should do the same through an alike type of vessel to provide for, at least, one’s vitality and spirit. Hence, 理 in its meaning of vein is placed at the centre of this trinity to stress on the similarity of the blood and the vapours circulatory systems. To decipher this riddle, one can look at the term 腠理, lineaments, used in Chinese Traditional Medicine.

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Tiny Details Great Impact

天門亢

The gate to the Heavenly Palace is haughty

含胸拔背

Containing the chest and pulling up the back

提肛吊肚

Lifting the anus, hanging the stomach

Tiny details inside the body are always hard to describe and may slightly differ for each student according to their body built. Looking for them often leads to investigating more and more the different possible meanings of the sayings. Indeed, at this point, one should not try to reproduce externally what they illustrate, such as the ones quoted, but analyse the internal process which produces such results. It is, after all, the internal arts main focus.

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Anti-Gravitational Reconnection, The Basics

 

低頭彎腰，傳授不高

Lowering the head and bending the waist, not a great teaching.

 

腰與胯合，腰催胯

Waist and hips join, the waist propels the hips

圓襠鬆胯最為良

A round crotch and relaxed hips are desirable

吸胯提襠

Sucking in the hips and lifting the crotch

There are a lot of sayings, from a martial style to another, which insist on the importance of the middle section of the body, from the hips to the waist. They are often, if not totally forgotten (who talks about the crotch, if not just as a joke?), not really a key part of training any more, hips apart. Unfortunately, crotch, hips and waist are all essential parts where the connection between the upper and lower sections of the body is made and the vitality/heat is, or isn't, insulated.

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, The Method Behind It, Changes

窮則變，變則通，通則久 

At the extreme change comes, changing then accessible, accessible then enduring¹.

物極必反

Things turn into their opposite when they reach their extreme

三伏練筋, 三九練骨

Training the fascias in the hottest summer days, training the bones in the coldest winter days.

If obviously you can’t escape changes when deeply modifying one’s body, this also remains a truth for each and everyone. Indeed, every day, if not every second, our body changes. It evolves, grows or decays according to our age and reacts to our environment and our intake habits. Even our emotions, when heightened, can have a visible impact, white hairs being the most noticeable one.

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.

Stretching To Deep Transformation

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.

百折連腰盡無骨

A hundred twists linking the waist, a boneless utmost¹.

    

The first part of internal training was meant to deeply transform the body and its metabolism. Both were trained by deeply stretching the body, though the second one also involved some special breathing and putting physical pressure on the body to make it hotter².

Stretching The Basics

未學功夫，先學跌打

Before studying skills one shall study acrobatics1

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.

三年樁，兩年拳

Postures for three years, boxing two years

The first quote apparently makes the link between practising martial arts and acrobatics, which become a prerequisite. Acrobatics and the extreme flexibility they require doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with using a sword or any weapon of the old times. So, why did it use to be a part of the basic training of a lot of styles until recently, shared by both internal and external methods? 

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. 

Finding Bamboo, Iron and Cotton

筋是功能之本，骸是功能之基，氣是功能之源

Fascias are the origin of capability, the skeleton its foundation, vapours its source.

筋骨之強弱，肌肉之堅脆，皮膚之厚薄，腠理之疏密，各不同

The sturdiness of the bones and the fascias, the firmness of the flesh, the thickness of the skin, the density of the lineaments, are each not alike¹.

Before starting with the Bamboo training, one has to realise where this new realm of training comes from. Being an oral tradition, there are still a lot of training in Chinese martial arts which haven’t been put into writing or systematised. Furthermore, with the decline of such old practices, a lot has been lost, including independent practices, such as animal walks, which disappeared and spread out, becoming a particular training in different styles. Bamboo, Iron and Cotton, BIC, wasn’t an independent practice, just some training for already transformed bodies.

Shining Eyes, Light Hands & Nimble Body

内練精氣神，外練手眼身

Inside essential liquids, vapours  and spirit are trained; outside hands, eyes and body are trained.

The concept of internal and external is a basic of Chinese culture.

Cycles, Awakened Application

拳理需靜悟，拳技要勤修

Boxing principles need to be calmly awaken, boxing skills must be diligently cultivated.

功到取成

Fetching when the skill is there.

Even for Chinese speakers, the martial art language seems obscure, if not totally incomprehensible. As far as a being an oral teaching stressing on self-discovery, it seems quite opportune to have such tool, but it has, of course and like anything, many drawbacks. Indeed, before even getting lost in translation, people often end up going astray when using terms having more than one meaning, not applying the right one to the right training.

Happy Foot

打拳容易走步難

Boxing is easy, stepping is hard

步不活則拳亂，步不快則拳慢

Boxing becomes messy when one does not step lively, slow when one does not step fast

One who has studied long enough old practices may have heard about a story or two describing the importance ageing masters paid to step. A typical one is probably the student being finally granted to see his master’s training only to end up walking hours with him. Beyond this type of story lies, for the least, two principles, “to each his/her training” and “feet go first”.

A Fleeting Light

彷彿若光，影逐形追

Seemingly as if a light, shadows one by one chasing shapes

追 chase (or run) after; pursue

形 form; shape

逐 pursue; chase; one by one

影 shadow; reflection; vague impression

光 light; ray; brightness; naked; nothing left

若 as if, like

彿 seemingly

彷 seemingly,: resembling

When trying to expand the meaning of the quote, the first thing that strikes the reader is that maybe the second part is written in the wrong order*. Hence, the whole quote has been reversed in the present post. Since this text is relatively old, a lot of what seems to be part historically part of Chinese culture may actually not be relevant.

Hitting a Wall

打人千萬，不如一紥

Countless hits cannot compare to one prick

Sharp beats blunt.