Till One's Last Breath

導氣令和，引體令柔

Guiding the vapours to attain harmony, stretching the body to achieve suppleness.

龜縮頸，耕牛之力

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

龜尾升氣，丹田煉神*

The turtle tail makes vapours rise, Cinnabar Fields refine the spirit.

What if keeping a flat stomach for the author of this blog requires imprinting various motions on a rather tiny segment of the body while breathing in and out? Devoid of any muscle contraction, this leads, among other things, the abdomen to be swallowed, the whole body fascias to extend, the backbone to straighten all the way up to the cervical vertebrae, the buttocks to tense and the eyelids to open¹.

Pouring, Another Reverse Breathing

氣灌丹田

Vapours pours into the Cinnabar Field

吸自背下五端，呼灌於骨盆轉

Inhaling from the back down to the five extremities, exhaling to pour into the pelvis in a rotation.

Usually, people refer to reversed breathing, 逆呼吸法， as a technique where one expands his/her stomach while breathing out and shrinking it while breathing in. If such a technique, provided one uses a belt to keep the stomach from bulging, is a good start, it is just what we could name as the entry breathing, often called 'the vapours sink into the Cinnabar Field'. As mentioned in a previous post about breathing, one then has to evolve towards other types of breathing, the next one being not sinking but pouring. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Deeper, lighter

河深靜無聲，藝高不壓身

A deep river is still and soundless, superior skills do not restrain the body.

.

To compare with 功到取成.

Cycles, Evolution

理是功能之本，法是功能之機*

Pattern is the foundation of capacity, method its pivot.

One of the reasons, but not the only one, of the versatility of the internal arts’ theory, is that training has to adapt its principles according to one’s body deep transformation. To do so, apart from the hijacking method already described many times in this blog, characters with more than one meaning or rewording a saying were amongst the means used to achieve multi-layer understandings.

Writing And Chaos

一層功，一層理

A  level of skill, a level of theory

沉肩墜肘

浮肩昂肘

Sinking shoulders and dropping elbows.

Floating shoulders and soaring elbows.

以氣為主，以力當先

以氣為主，以理當先

Vapours direct, strength must come first.

Vapours direct, theory must come first.

There is a fencing manual, the Sword of Chaos, which embodies the internal arts influenced by the Taoist theory. It has already been quoted in this blog but it may be interesting to develop parts of it as examples of themes often recurrent in internal practices. Still, before doing so, following the last post on the Lady of Yue, one has to further understand what kind of writing is mainly found as far as martial arts are concerned and the issues brought along. 

A Natural Breath

呼吸往來，不及法禁

Exhaling and inhaling going and coming, never reaching what the system prohibits

呼 to breathe out, exhale

吸 to breathe in, inhale, absorb.

往 to go, towards, past

來 to come, to arrive, next

不 not, no

及 to reach, up to

法(灋) method, system, to punish, to force

禁 (jìn) to prohibit, to forbid, (jīn) to contain, to restrain oneself

Breathing is one of the cornerstones of old practices. If the first part of the quote seems quite clear, the second part is quite obscure, what is prohibited by the system isn’t explained further in the text.

Closing the Doors

肛門不提，丹田氣散，内中空虚，元氣*虧損

When the anus is not pulled up, the vapours around the cinnabar field disperse, the inside becomes empty and one's vitality depletes.

As it has been mentioned in the previous post, one could compare training teenagers and adults to fixing new or already used cars. Hence, when training adults, one has to consider the body deterioration, a thing teenagers have not yet undergone. As far as internal alchemy is concerned, it is mainly about the organs and their capacity to generate heat. Hence, their place, size and insulation are important matters to deal with when training adults. Right place and size are determined by the capacity to keep the stomach flat and insulation is working on the sphincters so that the sex and the anus are kept as closed as possible most of the time. Both issues are mainly solved by working on the pelvis and the perinea.

Shape, Vapours and Spirit

布形候氣，與神俱往

Deploying the body and awaiting the arrival of vapours, entirely bound for the spirit

布 to spread, to deploy, to disseminate, to dispose, to arrange, cotton cloth

形 form, shape, body

候 to await, to attend, to wait upon, to inquire after, to serve (by extension, in 伺候)

氣 vapours

與 used to introduce 神 the recipient of the action, with, to follow, to assist

神 spirit

俱 all, entirely, without exception

往 in the direction of, towards, bound for, to go

From a basic understanding, such statement can be expanded or modified to decipher even more out of it.

A Question of Size, a Question of Time

筋道不舒長，欲伸而筋不能伸*

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

手屈而不伸者，其病在筋**

He whose hands are bent and not extending, its illness is in the fascias

To furthermore understand what is sought for in the search of straightness, and even elasticity more generally, it may be interesting to explain furthermore the first quote, from the Fascias Change Canons, more known as the YìJīn Jīng. Indeed, it contains a few keys to understand what is sought for when working with fascias. As it has been mentioned in a previous post, martial enigmas always hold more than one meaning (hence, the above translation of the first quote was meant to illustrate a former post). Then, from a basic understanding, one can try to expand certain characters.

Spirited Heart

心平氣和*

A peaceful heart for harmonised vapours

藏所藏：心藏神，肺藏魄，肝藏魂，脾藏意，腎藏志，是謂五藏所藏**

What storages store: the heart stores the spirit, the lungs store the corporeal soul, the liver stores the immortal soul, the spleen stores the intention, the kidneys store the will, this is what is called "what the five storages store".

Training differentiates the spirit methods, 神法, from the heart methods, 心法.

Breathless

呼吸往來，不及法禁*

Exhaling and inhaling comes and goes, never reaching what the method prohibits

At first your breathing will be rough. When it gradually calms down, your ch'i will become lively and should feel as though it fills Heaven and Earth. This is not a matter of holding your breath or straining your ch'i. In this case, your ch'i fills you internally and becomes active.**

當明內外呼吸之歸***

When understanding where internal and external breathing converge

Breathing is a complex matter which has been briefly described in Breathing, Complex and Evolving. Being one of the main obvious activities our body has, it is naturally ultimately the main tool used in practice, whether external, the body, or internal, the organs. Of all the different ways to train one's body, in the end, it just becomes a question of a correct breathing. Indeed breathing directs everything, from body relaxation and stretching to organs pressure, from body angles to vapours flow, from body stillness to mind awareness, from movements to emptiness of one's mind. Therefore fascias and vapours are linked through breathing, they naturally expand and retract following one's breath. Whether external (pulmonary) or internal, it may be interesting to describe a few ways breathing is used in order to decipher the method it relies on. 

Fast and Furious

故身雖疾而心自暇*

Therefore the heart remains naturally leisurely even though the body is swift

故以神為主，形而從利。以形為主，神而從害**

Therefore when the spirit takes control, the body follows for its own good. When the body takes control, the spirit follows for its own harm

電挈昆吾晃太陽***

To wield with lightning speed, Kunwu swings the Great Yang

There is a urban legend about some Japanese soldiers during World War II able while charging to withstand the shots fired at them until they reached their opponents and killed them. Only then would they die. If the Boxers' Uprising taught us to be extremely cautious with tales of seemingly extraordinary feasts performed by Asian martial arts against modern weaponry, this legend remains interesting because it tells about an achievement sought while training fast and in frenzy, "getting out of one's body".

All Along the Watchtower

故氣雖結而神自揚*

Therefore the mind naturally expands itself even though the vapours bind themselves

百拳之法，以眼為網**

All the boxing methods have the eyes as a key link

Moving extremely slow, taking half an hour to execute just one move, was made to further train one's heart capacity to endure by having one's mind even more awake. This is actually the essence of the peeping thief technique.

Still, Keeping at Bay

神寧氣靜

A mind at ease and calm vapours

神非其所宜而行之，則昧*

If one's spirit does not operate properly, it looses its clarity

Following the feminine and masculine principles theory**, the body (the external), and the mind (the internal), should compensate each other, meaning if one is fast, the other should be slow. If this seems quite easy, it gets complex if the concept of vitality and its materialisation (vapours) and the issue of the organs are added.

The Sleeper Must Awaken

心平氣和

A stable heart for harmonised vapours

擊敵有用形，用氣，用神之遲速*
The speeds of one's body, vapours and spirit, all have to be considered when fighting an opponent 

故每一勢之操縱手法，心先，命門為次，頭又次之，手足之次而又次之**

Therefore, when executing each posture technique(s), the heart comes first, the Life Gate (Mingmen) second, then, after, the head, hands and feet being even more ancillary

If one's body speed issues seem complex, the internal part, organs, vitality, mind and their relation to the body is even more challenging in internal arts. Before explaining the impact of the different training speeds on the internal side, it may be useful to first explain, or recall, how the mind and the vitality can influence speed. Indeed, speed is not only a question of going fast in martial arts, it is also a question of having swift reactions. Hence, mind, through its clarity, improves one's reflexes while vitality makes someone more reactive.