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.

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. 

Health

然而練筋易而練膜難，練膜難而煉氣更難也

However, it is easy to train the tendons but harder to train the membranes; and as hard as it is to train them, it is still harder to train vapours*

If you are to meet two sharpshooters and one comes with a weapon that seems a bit shady and especially not well taken care of while the other person with a perfectly maintained one, you may not know who shoots best but you will definitively know who is the professional. In the old days, the body was an essential machine for a Martist, it had to be kept fit and in perfect health.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Train, Refine, Temper

練形術

Art of training the body

煉石補天

Refine the stone to repair the innate

千錘百鍊

After hard work and numerous revisions

練, 煉 and 鍊, are all pronounced liàn. They are all made of 柬, to select, but written with different radicals*. They all can be used as to describe one's training. Even if they seem interchangeable, those three characters actually refer to different parts of training in internal arts.

External Comes First

又有三步睡功夫。一曰仰臥，兩腿直，十足指回勾腰控，存想湧泉，雙手搭扣撐住；二曰左偏臥，頭枕左足尖，左手搬左足跟，右換如之；三曰伏臥，雙手抱頭，足跟朝天，十足指尖用力向地，存想泥丸。隨便臥時，頭腰腿要三直*

There are also the three "lying down" skills. First, the one on the back, legs straight, the ten toes hooking through the waist, keeping in mind the Gushing Spring (涌泉, acupoint located in the middle of the foot), the hands locked together to support; 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; third, on the stomach, two hands holding the head, the feet arch pointing towards the sky and the ten toes vigorously pointing towards the ground, keeping in mind the Mud Pellet (Upper Cinnabar Field also called sometimes the Third Eye). However one is lying, head, waist and legs have to be kept straight.

External Comes First is also a classic example of the oversight of heavy stretching as first training, because the reasons behind it are forgotten, it is a too strenuous exercise and it usually used to take only a couple of months since the students were normally teenagers.

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.

Condensation and The Belt

氣聚丹田

Vapours gather on the Cinnabar Field

息息歸臍

All breathing returns to the navel

龜尾升氣，丹田煉神*

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

Internal Alchemy is not only about fire, it is also a question of condensation. The places where vapours are supposed to mainly condense are called Cinnabar Fields, 丹田 (down, middle and upper), which will be dealt in another post. Condensation was a question of accumulation in the first place, and compression in the second, the two first skills targeted by internal breathing, 息.

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"*. 

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.

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.

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.

Acrobatic Die

未学功夫，先学跌打

Before studying skills one shall study acrobatics

One shall keep in mind, as it was reminded in Standing, that old schools used to be for professionals, their usual students were teenager, if not kids, whose body could be transformed very quickly. Hence, the extreme flexibility required of martists described in the quote was something so obvious that the reasons behind it and part of their training methods have been lost in our modern leisurely times.

Training acrobatics was a way to improve one's elasticity as well as reconnect all the fascia lines, allowing more freedom and smoothness in one's moves. It was also a means for the losing battle against ageing and gravity. Nowadays, students being most of the time adults and the heavy stretching exercises often demoted from their status of basics to useless acrobatics, it may be necessary to remind what were some of their former goals and how can we get back some key points in our trainings without having to aim for an acrobatic flexibility.

Breathing, Complex and Evolving

睡則氣以耳出，名龜息，必大龜壽*

Vapours comes out of the ears when resting eyes closed, what is called the tortoise breathing, for certain the big tortoise lifespan 

人能依嬰儿在母腹中，自服内氣，握固守一，是名胎息**

If one can do like a baby in a mother's womb, taking by himself internal vapours, holding and protecting tenaciously the unicity, what is called the foetal breathing

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

Breathing is one of the most important things in life, thus the core of internal practices. Whatever he/she would do, an internalist was always about checking the impact on his breathing and heartbeat. Being a key issue made it also a complex one, it was not only about lungs, but also about heartbeat, skin, fascias, organs...

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.

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.