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.

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.

Firmly Elastic

魄門亦為五藏使*

The Mortal Soul Gate is also of use for the five organs  

下收穀道，上提玉樓**

Down holding the Grain Path, up lifting the Jade House

As it has been already mentioned many times in this blog, adapting professional training made for physically and mentally strong teenagers to leisurely adults raises a lot of issues. It is interesting to notice that one of the first issues is actually the basic training for any style focusing on fascia elasticity: flexibility. As it was mentioned in the posts concerning such elasticity, flexibility for those old practices is not meant to acquire acrobatic skills, even when the results seem quite similar. Indeed, as acrobatic postures may look, they still have to follow a set of rules concerning body alignment, like tucking in the butt for example.

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.

Posture With A Little Push

A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind¹.

把勢、把勢，全憑架式

Skill, bluster, it is all a question of posture².

理是功能之本，法是功能之機

Structure is the essence of capacity, method its crucial point².

Posture used to be one of the cornerstones of internal practices. It served many purposes, but deep body transformation and breathing training were amongst the most important. Nowadays, postures are limited, both in their range and diversity.

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.

Light Heavyweight

無力優力

No force is the better force

重裏觀輕勿梢留*

Watching lightness inside heaviness, leaving no extremities

練重不如練輕

Training heavy cannot match training light

Weights used to be a very important part of martial trainings, it was, after all, already part of the military exams during the reign of the first Chinese female emperor, Wu Zetian (AD 624–705), as well as later for higher levels examinations when military exams were taken seriously. Therefore, in the old days, training with weights would never have been an issue, just regular practice. Furthermore, it was also a way to further understand some of the meanings of the oxymoron of the first quote, being powerful without using force.

Drastic Changes

杳之若日，偏如滕兔

Dark then like the sun, slant like a surging rabbit

杳 distant and out of sight, gloomy; dim; dusky, dark and quiet, disappear, remote and out of sight, obscure, dark, mysterious, deep.

之 "then" (之 knows multiple uses as a particle, in some cases with no particular meaning. Translating it by "then" is just to avoid not mentioning it), up to. 

若 as if, like if, assuming, similar.

日sun.

偏 slanting, leaning.

如 like, as if, such as.

滕 to surge, water bursting forth.

兔 rabbit.

This phrase is a typical example of a totally obscure text when one has not been given any clue to decipher such sentences. To understand what seems not only a total paradox but also two statements which do not seem to have any connection, one has to remember that change was the cornerstone of old practices. Indeed "Martial without change, a waste of the study of the Art"*. 

Twists and Locks

無力優力

Without force is the better force

直而不直，曲而不曲

Straight but not straight, curved but not curved

三節九段，三弓九曲

The three parts and the nine sections, the three arches and the nine curves

Straightness with a body as lax as possible is just the first step of training. Indeed, as it has been described in the previous post, one has to change his/her body to make it supple enough to be able to work with fascia elasticity instead of muscle contraction. Once the body is transformed enough, one can go a step further and learn how to tense it. If intent and using the cross and the six directions principles has also been described before, the ultimate roundness through the locks is supposed to tense the body automatically. Still, one shall not put the cart before the horse, enough flexibility has to be achieved to be able to contemplate the locks trainings, otherwise not only it will not work, but it will also end up harming one's body. To achieve the locks, one has first to go from straightness to roundness, working on twist and the six directions. Then, when enough extra flexibility has been gained, locks will be about using it to tense up through particular angles.

Transforming First the Body

三年樁，兩年拳

Three years of postures, two years of boxing

百折連腰盡無骨*

A hundred twists linking the waist, a boneless utmost

練形者，又名曰展筋脫骨**
Who trains the shape, also called spreading out the fascias and bones coming off

Different athletes have different bodies. From a weightlifter to marathon runner, because the physical abilities required and the motion imposed are very different, the type of bodies are very distinct. Even for Martists, sometimes one can recognise who is practicing what just by looking at their bodies and how they move.

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.

Don't Come Empty Handed

技巧者，習手足，便器械，積機關，以立攻守之勝者也。*

To become skilled, one shall study hands and feet, which is useful for weapons, accumulating gears, to establish victory in attack as well as in defence.

刀隨身轉，身隨刀行

The single-edged sword shifts following the body, the body moves following the single-edged sword

身不離槍，槍不離身，槍隨身走，身隨槍動

The spear does not leave the body, the body does not leave the spear, the spear goes following the body, the body moves following the spear

槍紥一條線，棍掃一大片

The spear pierces a line, the staff sweeps a wide expanse

In most of the old schools in China, empty handed and with weapons are both trained. If training weapons seems totally logic, It can be useful to dispel the confusion surrounding the notion of empty hands. In the old days, a martist could sleep naked, but certainly not without his/her weapon. Warfare and combat was, in the old world as it is now, mainly a question of weaponry. The weapons have changed with technology, but they always have been a part of human conflicts.

Back to the Fascias I, New but Old

然而練筋易而練膜难*

However, it is easy to train the tendons but harder to train the membranes

筋有十二經絡**

The fascias are twelve net channels

足太陽之筋***

Fascias of the Foot Great Masculine

Internal practices centre themselves around three notions: fascias, vitality and breathing. If fascias seem to deal with the body power, the external force, vitality with its internal aspect and breathing with rhythm, they are actually intertwined. Indeed, the work on fascias improves one's organs, hence one's vitality, and regulates one's breathing. Vitality, through swifter moves, improves fascias resistance and stronger organs allow a deeper and uninterrupted breathing. Breathing, through relaxation, improves fascias stretching and saves vitality by keeping the emotions under check. One could say the bones, our frame, should be also mentioned as a very important issue. Still, they are a byproduct of vitality through the kidneys and thus included in this one. Since training is often about repetition, it seems opportune to revisit those three concepts from time to time.

The concept of fascias, or connective tissues, which seems to have appeared around the 19th century in modern medicine and became more and more known recently**** is a notion very close, if not alike, to what one of the best known book of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, describes as 經筋, the fascia channels (a modern fascia line compared to an old Chinese fascia channel). Still, 筋, which is often taken in its meaning "tendons" for a lot of martists, is and has not been the only term used to describe connective tissues. Therefore, it seems necessary to first deal with the terms covering the concept of fascias in Chinese.

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. 

Bending the Bow

未学功夫，先学跌打

Before studying skills one shall study acrobatics

百折連腰盡無骨*

A hundred twists linking the waist, a boneless utmost

These two quotes are a perfect example of what kind of suppleness was required in the old days for Martists. Basically, one had to push flexibility to its utmost limits. Therefore, a great part of the basic training was extreme flexibility. Still, it was not the only basic training for internal arts, the other one was posture, learning a correct alignment. In a sense, those two trainings were not only made to complement each other but also as antidotes. Indeed, for the least, correct alignment locks the body in certain angles, restraining its movements and therefore diminishing its flexibility while extreme flexibility puts the body in detrimental angles which may, in term, lead to injuries.

Shake Your Body

快而不亂，慢而不斷

Fast but not messy, slow but with no break

快則適時，慢在得位*

Quick then timely, slow for gaining position

凡一身之進退動靜，一心為主**

Forwards and backwards, movement or stillness of one's body are all decided by the heart

Speed is a more complex notion in training, and more especially when the organs, the vapours and the mind are combined with body motion. Hence, the opposition between what you do while fighting (the faster the better) and training does not apply for speed. Indeed, while training, normal, fast and slow speed are all applied, each having their own purpose, the skills obtained through each type of speed being all useful while fighting. 

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.

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.

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.

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”.