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, Directing Breath To Emptiness

 

得胎息者，能不以鼻口噓吸¹

Who obtains the fetal breathing can, without his/her nose or mouth, slowly breathe out and in.

食氣者必謂吹呴呼吸，吐故納新也²

Who nourishes himself/herself from vapours has to be called the blowing and yawning breathing, spitting out the stale and receiving the fresh.

其息深深。真人之息以踵，眾人之息以喉³

Their breathing came deep and silently. The breathing of the true man comes from his heels, while men generally breathe from their throats. 

鼻息無聲神氣守⁴
Soundless breathing through the nose, guarding vapours and spirit

Breathing is a much more complex subject than it seems. It encompasses multiple exercises coming from various and sometimes quite different, if not opposite, traditions. The general term breathing, therefore, can refer to the lungs main function, a cutaneous possibility, an organ-related capacity, a directional practice and so on… Goals are also numerous, from relaxation to waking, from heating to cooling, from posture to movement, from Berzek to emptiness, etc., a myriad of exercises so that one can easily get lost and most of the time ends up practising a mix of now and again actually incompatible ones.

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Reaching Higher

天門亢

The gate to the Heavenly Palace is haughty

 

 

 

 

Old practices based on change were very adaptive, a thing which is almost lost in today's mass teaching, posture, routines and exercises being quite standardised and always to be repeated the same way regardless of the different body shape and transformation. Before, they were considered to be tools that one could modify, not only according to its body, mind and level of understanding, but also simply to what kind of objective one would look for.

The Swallowed Third Foot

  

龜縮頸，耕牛之力

The turtle retracts its neck, the strength of the ploughing cattle.

氣隨糞行
Vapours follow excrement.

五常，全寓性¹

The five constant virtues, all residing in the sex.

Sex remains taboo for some, a power to be mastered for others and often a laughing matter for everybody. Still, old practices aimed to fully understand any and every part of one’s body, nothing was left untrained. Since it used to be a verbal transmission between a teacher and his student, the taboo nature of the topic was actually not a big issue. This is a bit different if it has to be written down and the present post will be as short as possible, most of this kind of teaching should be kept as a timely transmission from teacher to student.

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, External Connections

 

頭部，身軀，腿足，為天地人三盤

Head, torso and legs, the heaven, earth and human plates

三盤一軸

Three plates, one axle

三盤對天

The three plates face the sky

Some martial art schools use the three plates theory, and the first two quotes are pretty common. As far as verticality is concerned the plates can be extended to any part of the body, the idea being that a vertical alignment means a horizontal one (the third quote and the concept of crosses in training). The best known one is the book on the head.

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.

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, The Method Behind It, Intertwined But Body Comes First

玲瓏變化布周身

Exquisite changes arrange the whole body.

法是功能之基

Method is the foundation of capability.

脾藏營，營舍意，脾氣虛則四肢不用，五臟不安，實則腹脹經溲不利

The spleen stores the reconstruction, in which abides the will. When the vapours of the spleen are empty, the four limbs are then of no use. When the five organs are not at ease, it makes the stomach distended and inhibits urine and defecation¹.

As far as the machine, the body, was concerned, deep transformations were sought after in internal practices. The goal was to make it more efficient and better suited to the needs of combat. The nurturing of vitality targeted the former. The method acknowledged the fundamental intertwinement between the body and the mind, the former actually being the lead. 

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.

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. 

Bamboo

武藝不學不通，雜技不練不精

Martial art skills cannot be understood if not studied, acrobatics are not outstanding if not practised.

勢如破竹

A posture totally like a bamboo¹.

Though a new realm, bamboo naturally follows what was achieved in the locks, starting to learn how to tense the whole body through fascias and muscle relaxation. Therefore, where one had to soften one’s body in straight and round, bamboo is all about hardening it, nonetheless by means of relaxation. Still, bamboo training is also finding means to enhance the spine flexibility as well as to reach deeper fascia webs. Finally, such training deals with ways to improve one’s grip and the flow of vapours.

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.

Lean And Sinewy

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.

To compare with 外練筋骨皮.

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.