Last night, I was able to get back up to 20 mins of zhan zhuang. For the past couple of sessions, it’s been quite difficult, but the time went rather quickly last night. I got into my posture, relaxed into my stance and calmed my breathing and mind. Not too much emphasis on the breathing, and not too much emphasis on forcing calm, just letting the feeling sink. To be more inwardly focused, I closed my eyes and felt my breath while slightly listening behind. It was actually quite calming and I didn’t really feel the tension in my arms like I used to.

I went through the main 3 postures: wuji (hands at sides), holding ball at dantien level, holding ball at heart level, back to wuji.  I didn’t use any timing to note when I should switch to the next posture, instead I relied on my body telling me when it was time to switch. It was as if my body instinctively knew when the time was right and it controlled the posture switching, though quite gradual in movement.  Towards the end of the session, I started feeling as if I was expanding in all directions simultaneously.

I opened my eyes, still feeling the expansiveness and went directly into the opening sequence of the yang form. I didn’t force my hands to come up, but instead thought about the intention of my arms rising. About 3/4 the way up, I felt some slight tension in my shoulders, however instead of forcing the body to calm, I took my mind back to the zhan zhuang state until the tension dissipated. The hands then lowered and I let my intentions drive my movement.

While doing the form, I did not feel any soreness in my legs, I did not feel any tension in my back, I just let my body move.  In doing so, I still felt this expansiveness in all of my movements. It felt as if my left ward off was able to cover the whole space of my bedroom, like there was no boundry to the ward off, it was not constricted to the sphere formed by my physical body, but was able to expand beyond my physical body. At the same time, it was as if I was seeing, but not looking. Listening, but not hearing.  Moving, yet not moving.

When I finished the first section, I felt very good, very awake. I was not sore in any part of my body and I had a slight smile. It just felt good to move, and I wanted to do more.  I remained in wuji posture for a bit and went through the section in my head, it was all vivid as if I was *really* doing it. Mentally, I ended with the first cross hands. Mentally, I performed the ending posture of lowering my hands and bringing me feet together. Physically, I got a sip of water and went to bed in a very calming, relaxed state.
[tags]zhan zhuang,yang,taiji,yi,intention,expansion[/tags]

Is it okay to sweat during taiji training? I’ve asked this question before, but I’m starting to think about this again. Lately, I’ve actually been trying to avoid sweating during my forms training. Why? I’m starting to feel that if I am sweating, then I’m engaging too much musclular strength and not relying on the frame of my body for support. I’ve been told that with correct alignment, very little muscular strength will be required to support the weight of the body. Also, the importance of this alignment assists in the transferance of any incoming force during applications.

So why do I sometimes still sweat? That’s really quite easy, the answer is because I want to go low in my forms training. I’m pretty sure the problem is that I’m not relaxing my hips and kua enough so I bend at the knees instead resulting in more muscular usage of the thighs. However, this does not explain why I want to go low in the first place? Sure, in combat, lowering one’s center of gravity can be optimal, as seen in many western football players, but is there more?

This will sound strange, but I have often related something about chen style that makes me want to go lower, more so than when I practice yang style. I don’t think it’s a fault of the chen style, but a fault within my own ego and self image when doing chen. I often see masters going low and in my mind I think.. wow.. they look cool. Plus, my background in contemporary wushu and the goals of going lower to the ground than the next guy, doesn’t help either.

Working on the hips/kua aspect will be easier to address in my practice than the ego aspect. Thanks to Shang Lee’s Post on Peng, and ZenMindSword’s prose on Sung, I have even more things to think about during training!!! All joking aside, I do thank them as revisiting this topic has revealed some core topics for me to address. Thanks, guys!

[tags]taiji,sweating,ego,kua,training[/tags]

On the drive into work this morning, I asked myself, what is the role of ethical/moral character in martial arts? More importantly, is there a correlation between character and skill? Ultimate, I think not, but what questions me is how much faith can we put in the teaching? I’m not sure if I am wording this correctly, but consider the following scenario (fictitious for demonstration purposes): You are training in shaolin kungfu under a shaolin monk.  This monk transmit tons of knowledge and insight into the shaolin arts, but later you find out that he is not really a shaolin monk. He doesn’t really practice chan buddhism, he secretly has a wife and child back in china and he partakes in alcohol, women, and other unmentionables for monkly character. Does this affect or lessen the knowledge transmission?

Can the transmission be true and of value if the source is not of sound character?  I often look for examples of people who “practice what they preach” and question the actions of perceived masters with conflicting characters. For instance, what if a taiji master was very great and skilled in push hands and was known around the world, yet he liked to induldge in alcohol and women? What if another master developed key principles in understanding martial arts yet he’s a bit sadistic or has unfavorable relations with his students?  Can we separate the character from the teachings? Can we have faith in the teachings though we don’t have faith in the character?

[tags]character,ethics,morals[/tags]

During my training session yesterday, I decided to isolate a focus point, that is differentiating between full and empty in all of my stepping methods. Sure, I’ve read about this many times but how many times have I really paid great attention to this? Not really too much.

A great visual for this kind of differentiation is videos of the Dong Family Set. I get little shivers everytime I watch these videos. You can really see how much time and effort went into differentiating between full and empty. In fact, It literally appears that any one of these men could stop at ANY GIVEN POINT in their movement. I’m not talking about stopping at the highest arc (50%), but at the later arc points like the 75-95% arc ranges, the ranges in which most people just plop their feet down, including myself.

What about after the foot hits the ground? I focused on feeling the shifting of weight from heel to toe going from 0 to 100% and trying to make sure the movement ended when 100% of the weight had been transferred. Actually, I’m not sure if it was a full 0-100% in transfers, maybe 30-70% transfers as some intention is still place on the rear foot to maintain stability. I recall in doing some liuhebafa, there is a full 100% weight transfer to the front. While this sounds easy, it’s really quite hard and feels a bit alien at first.

For my training, I focused on the first section of the yang long form, personally I feel it’s more conducive to this type of analysis as most of the stepping methods are primarily either forward, or backward instead of out to the side in most chen forms. After going through a couple of yang sets, I then did the first section of the chen laojia yilu, but it just didn’t quite feel the same. I found it much harder to differentiate which could be due to my lack of skill in the form, but I’ve often commented how I feel the connection more when I do the yang set.
[tags]emptiness,chen,yang,video,dong,stepping,lhbf,connection,analysis[/tags]