Category Archive

In light of Ralph’s “One Hundred Days“, I decided the timing was right to jump in myself and train consistently for 100 days. I am actually planning to attend an upcoming workshop by Fong Ha, a practitioner of Yang Taijiquan and Yiquan. It just so happens the workshop is roughly 100 days away! What a coincidence.

Last night’s zhan zhuang began with a rough start. I was a bit tense after a long day. I started off with a basic wuji stance with hands at my sides. I kept the stance pretty high without a desire to go low. Right off the bat, I could feel the tension in my hips and thighs. My mind was wandering, and images of The Peaceful Warrior flooded my mind where Nick Nolte asks the young athletic if he can ’stand like this’ and proceeds to do what I think is a zhan zhuang embracing the balloon posture. I pushed the thoughts out and focused on the inner smile.

Practicing the inner smile allowed me to really sense the tension in my body. The tension in my lower back was brought to the front of my attention. To address this, instead of tucking the pelvis, I worked on lengthening. I picked up this exercise a while back. Basically, instead of forcefully tucking one’s pelvis under, I imagine a pulling down force that causes my lower back to straighten. While they may sound the same, the latter has worked out very well for me.

As I was lengthening, my hips were slightly flexing causing me to sink a bit lower in my stance (maybe 5 degrees or so). The more I did this, the more I began to feel as if I was sitting on a chair! It literally felt as if an invisible chair was behind me supporting my body. The tension in my thighs and hips dissolved.

Next, I incorporated the imagery of head erect, but instead of hanging from above, I imagined something pulling me from above. While keeping both forces (down through tailbone, up through head) I began to feel as if I was floating, yet firmly rooted.  The more I pulled up on my head, the more the tension along the inner side of my arms went away. It was wildly strange, yet very exciting at the same time because I felt as if I tapped into something and I did not want to stop.

The coolest thing about the whole ordeal was it literally felt as if I was maintaining the universal post or standing stake zhan zhuang posture WITHOUT EFFORT. I was not trying (physically nor mentally), I was just there, just in it, just being. This sorta felt like my previous zhan zhuang adjustments, however this time, I was not leaning forward, I did not feel like I was going to fall backwards, and the whole ‘pulling from above’ added a new dimension to the stance and training that I have never experienced before.

After zhan zhuang I went into the Yang Long form and instantly I noticed a difference. I felt very grounded and rooted in my movements. I was not doing the minor adjustments to my stances, I was not checking my transitions, all of it just flowed and moved very smoothly. The brush knees were executed without hesitation and adjustment during each transition. Overall, the form felt much, much better.

Last night during zhan zhuang, I had quite a difficult time releasing the tension from my calves. I tried to use quite a bit of mental imagery of melting down, sinking to bubbling well and into the earth, etc etc, but it was difficult.

Then I remembered a story I read about TT Liang encountering a taoist recluse in the mountatins. I believe the story goes that Liang was showing him the form and when he got to the ‘rooster stands on one leg posture’ the taoist said, ‘no good, no good’. The taoist then approached Liang, touched his calf and said ‘wood’. The taoist then did the posture himself and asked Liang to touch his calf and to Liang’s amazement, it was soft as cotton.

At this point, I would say my calves are like decomposing wood, still slighty soft, but brittle. Softer than metal, but not as soft as wood. Someday, perhaps I can achieve cotton.

Not sure if it’s the reduction in coffee, the increase in sleep, the increase in meditation or all of the above, but lately I’ve been feeing much more ‘alert’ when I do taiji. I have basically modified my own schedule to include zazen and zhan zhuang before bed. In addition, I have cut out ALL coffee intake and try to get to bed by 10pm resulting in an average of 6.5 hrs of sleep a night.

In the past, I have written about how felt sleepy during meditation [If you're tired then sleep] but lately I no longer feel tired. Sure, sometimes I don’t ‘feel’ like meditating and would rather just go straight to bed, but I choose to ’sit hard’, and ‘just do it’.

I start off the session with some basic breath counting, usually 2 cycles of 10 counts, and then I just sit. Even if I start off the zazen session tired, once I get into it, I feel very alert.  Time also seems to pass by much quicker now and I don’t have as much pain in the back or legs as before.  When I feel like it, I then switch over to a standing zhan zhuang wuji posture and then cycle through a couple of yiquan postures.

With the energy flowing, I go straight into some form practice. Lately, I have been concentrating 90% of my time on Yang taiji.  There’s just something about the Yang form.. plus, when I have tried chen, my knees will soon start to hurt, even in a high stance. I still think it has a lot to do with the side to side shifting in Chen, whereas the Yang is more forward and back movements. My knees like forward and back movements

It is quite nice to go directly into form work after a good session of meditation. My mind is clear and I feel alert. A couple of nights ago, I felt as if my eyes were like a hawk flying through the air looking for the mouse in the field. I know.. a bit cheesy on the imagery, but that’s exactly how I felt. As I moved, I was completely aware of my surroundings and body. My steps were light and nimble and I exerted just enough muscle to correctly form the shapes I was after.

One of the nice side effects is I have absolutely no issue falling asleep afterwards. Before, I used to be a bit wired and found it slightly difficult but now it’s a cinch. I likey

One of my goals for the current year is the meditate each and every day. I am proud to say that I kept this goal up over the weekend. Friday night was a bit rough because we ended up watching a movie and staying up pretty late. Even though I was a bit tired, I ’sat hard’.

Initially, I was a bit dreary and about to fall over during my sitting, but after a couple minutes of focusing on my breath, I became more alert and awake. Physically holding the zazen posture is still a bit rough as my hips aren’t quite flexible enough. In addition, I sit regular cross-legged style and therefore my knees are up in the air, NOT creating a tripod. I don’t have a zafu so I just stack up 3 pillows on top of each other.

When I start to feel sore in the hips or lower back, I change into a standing zhan zhuang posture. Last night, I began incorporating another posture into the standing process. I start off in wuji, then change to the universal post posture (hands in front, holding balloon), and then change into a ‘wade in the pool’ posture where the arms are to the sides facing forward.

So far, so good on the meditation front. Another unbroken chain in my Joe’s Goals tracking. Keep the chain going, keep the chain going

One of my goals of the upcoming year is to try and set a little bit of time aside each day to meditate.  Last night, I did roughly 15 minutes of meditation right before bed. 10 minutes was spent sitting in zazen, with the remaining 5 spent standing in zhan zhuang.

During these sessions, I will either stand or sit, whichever I feel like doing at the time. I like to sit first as I feel it’s easier to ‘center’ myself in zazen. As soon as the physical pains start to kick in, I will stand. Last night, I noticed my posture getting very lazy and my inner thigh muscles tightening up, so I stood up.

While last night’s session was mostly spent sitting, I have a feeling I will be changing over to do more standing in zhan zhuang than sitting in zazen.  Either way, both methds are good and still count as ‘meditation’ in my book

My training time has really taken a dive lately but an opportunity presented itself to me a couple of days ago. My son was having ‘one of those nights’ at bedtime. So, I came in and did a new game with him called ‘Big Boy Sleeping’. The gist is he would sleep by himself, get his own water, etc while I was in view. Additionally, if he got scared or needed reassurance, I told him to call out ‘Ba Ba’ and I would respond.

During his self soothing time, I could have easily sat on the couch in his bedroom and dazed out the window. Instead, I took this opportunity to squeeze in a bit of training. With all the fire fighting at work for the past couple of months, I decided I would do some zazen to center myself. I found a big cushion and placed it near the opposite corner of the bed from my son. I then sat down and focused on my breath. Counting my breath and thinking of the air flowing through my nostrils, I heard a call for ‘Ba Ba’. I responded, ‘Ba Ba is here’ and my son went back to self soothing.

After a period of time in zazen, I found it increasingly harder to maintain my posture. My back was beginning to slouch and I started tilting backwards. My hips still aren’t flexible enough to hold the zazen posture for very long. I decided to switch to some zhan zhuang.

My son heard the rustling as I stood up. ‘Ba Ba is just going to stand right here’, I told him. He responded with, “Don’t leave me alone Ba Ba.” My heart warmed as I heard his response, and I assured him I would not leave him. I got into the wuji zhan zhuang posture and easily called upon the inner smile. Standing, I was shocked to feel how much tension had gotten into my upper shoulders and mid back. ‘Melt the tension down’, I told myself, ‘Melt the tension down and release the energy into the ground’.

The tension in the mid back was the most peculiar as it was mostly a couple of muscles on the left side of my spine. Had I been slouching at work? Had I been leaning more to one side? Perhaps it’s the build up of carrying a laptop to and from work using a briefcase style bag. I may need to switch back to my backpack style laptop holder to equally distribute the weight across both shoulders.

I slowly raised my hands a bit to do the ‘embrace the ball’, but at the dantien level. Wow.. the accumulated tension in my forearms and hands was crazy! Again, I told myself to melt away the tension and visualized a downward melting energy in my body. Noting the tension had not completely melted away, I lowered my hands down and remained in the wuji posture for the rest of the session.

Looking at the clock, about 40 mins had passed and my son was sound asleep. It was a good session

Ralph wrote a post titled Peace and Quietude which he stated:

My teacher said to me recently that one of the keys to understanding Taijiquan is attitude of mind, this is one of the first things to learn.

…

I realized that developing Zhan Zhuang is not necessarily about physical endurance [although I accept that it may be for some] it is about state of mind, meaning that in order to stand for extended periods of time, one needs to be in a state of quietude.

I’m sure we’ve all heard stories of how yi (intent) leads qi, but the question often arises, how can we gauge our level of yi? I remember back in my college days, I was easily able to stand for 40 mins without a problem. The first time I tried zazen (zen meditation training), I didn’t really have any issues calming the mind, I had issues with my knees and ankles hurting.

Fast forward a bit to more present time and I can definitely notice a difference. Life is not as simple as it was during my college days. Work, family, world of warcraft make their way into my thoughts regularly. I’m constantly trying to ‘take the mind back to the breath’ during static posture training.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the years of working at a computer is starting to manifest itself in my shoulders and neck. Sure, I try active sitting and reminding myself to relax, but when we’re playing fire fighter in our daily routines, it’s hard to keep the lessons of taiji in mind.

Today is Friday, and as such, I’ve put on a nice Hawaiian flower type shirt to remind myself to slow down a bit. To quote a comment by Rick Matz:

“Speed” is quite often an illusion.

After reading Zen Habits: 5 Powerful Reasons to Drive Slower, I was reminded of a time after my Sat morning zhan zhuang, taiji and tea session. Both myself and another follow taiji enthusiast left the parking lot at roughly the same time, but I came out slightly ahead. I was driving my normal 10-15 mph above speed limit and making good time until I hit a red light. As I looked in the rear view mirror, I saw him behind me smiling. When the light hit green, I sped up switched lanes and passed a couple of cars. He was way behind me. A couple of road lights later, he pulls up beside me and waves to me.

The worst part is I know he does not speed. He drives the speed limit and instead of stopping abruptly, he tries to coast to stop. Ever since this time, I’ve reevaluated my need to drive fast. Now, at most, I drive 5 mph above speed limit. In addition, I don’t worry about people passing me or cutting me off. I let other drivers in.  This drives my wife nuts! She calls me ‘old man driving’, but I tell her this is the way I drive. I am noticeably much calmer and relaxed amongst all the crazy road-raged drivers.

This got me thinking about taiji. How many times during the form is our mind already on the next move? I remember some of my first form corrections were to ‘finish the move’. I didn’t quite understand this initially, but basically I was mentally moving on to the next move before the completion of my current move. From his perspective, I did not complete the intention of my form.

From a chen perspective, form postures tend incorporate the following mental intention: qi at dantien, qi at back, qi at shoulder, qi at elbow, qi at hand, qi at waist, qi at dantien. Often times, I would get to the ‘qi at hand’ and move onto the next move.  This resulted in a slight break of the silken thread, if you know what I mean.

So, how do you drive? Do you feel your driving style has any relation to your taiji?

Wow.. this morning, I ran across the following passage on Cook Ding’s Kitchen: Zanshin, or “Remaining Mind”:

When body, breath, speech and mind are broken from each other and scattered in concept and strategy, then no true action can reveal itself. There is only hesitation, or trying to push oneself past hesitation. This is the mind of hope and fear, which arises because one is trying to live in some other moment, instead of in the moment that arises now. One is comparing, planning, or trying to maintain an illusion of control in the midst of a reality which is completely beyond control.

A lot of what we do in taiji is trying to tie together the body, breath and mind. How can we do this? 

In my own training, I’ve taken a layered approach. In practicing zhan zhuang, I can work on linking the breath and mind.  In silk reeling or simple movement exercises I slowly add in the body. Hopefully, over time, we can have them all connect.

Wow.. doing zhan zhuang for the past couple of days after not doing ANYTHING for about 2 weeks has really taken it’s toll on my body. Just standing in wuji, I could really feel the tension in my right wrist, the same wrist that has been giving me pain during work. From the advice of a fellow coworker, I went out and bought myself a heavy duty stress ball to squeeze during the day. It seems to help as it allows blood to circulate, but I still feel some pain. Just hope I’m not getting carpal tunnel!

I also felt quite a bit of tension in my upper back around my lower shoulder blades. I tried to visualize a “melting” effect in conjunction with a sinking thought in that area, which seemed to help. In addition, I felt some slight tension in the knees which leads me to believe the energy is getting locked and not going to the ground. I was in a very high stance too, nothing too low, just a slight bend in the knees.

As I moved from wuji to the universal post posture in which the hands are in front of you like you’re hugging a tree, I could really feel the tension in the triceps area. I lowered my hands down to about abdomen level and things felt better.

I’m a bit shocked at how much tension I’ve built up just over two weeks! This is not a long time, but I guess enough to really take my training back a bit. This time, I want to try and do it relaxed and without tension intead of through force and fight the pain like I did last time.

During the drive into work this morning, I listened to a Podcast by Steve Pavlina titled, Beyond Religion. He made some very interesting points regarding the idea of embracing conflicting ideas:

I want to challenge the idea that you must make your religious and spiritual beliefs a part of your identity (ex. “I am a Catholic” or “I am an atheist”). I think that when you weave any philosophical, religious, or spiritual framework into your identity, you severely limit yourself, becoming like a computer that runs only one piece of software.

Like most things in life, I tend to always relate things back to martial arts, and more specifically, taiji. Do I consider myself a “chen practitioner” or a “yang practitioner”? Lately, I’ve been identifying myself as primarily a chen practitioner, which is true based on my practices, but at the same time, I do not exclude myself from being a yang practitioner. Moreover, do I follow the teachings of Chen Xiaowang or Chen Zhenglei? In this regard, I follow the ideas of both.

Steve made an interesting parallel about using the tools inside a box, but not being trapped inside the box. This is something that I often do on a day to day basis. I look for tools and principles in both styles. I often find things in chen that shed light on my yang and vice versa. In addition, I generally scan the internet for articles and posts on anything related to taiji. Even reading about Sun style or Wu style has helped in my taiji developmeint, so I think ultimately, I consider myself a practitioner of taiji.

I subscribe to the idea that taiji has core principles but different interpretations of those core principles, hence the development of the 5 main taiji styles. Sort of like the idea that there are many paths to the top of the mountain, but once at the top, we all see the same moon philosophy.

Is there only “one true path”? I don’t think so, and I don’t believe Steve thinks so either. By narrowing oneself to just one true path, we shut the doors on others. Just like the idea that I have had many taiji instructors and I’ve have learned something from each and every one of them. Just like on a mountain, I can easily decide to take another path up, but in doing so, I may go thru some rocky terrain or try to find a path that’s less travelled, but ultimately, I learn something in each and every step I take along the path.

Shang Lee wrote an interesting post about how to tell others about taiji. This is something I’ve encountered and thought about a couple of times myself and wanted to expand a bit on it here as it’s more than a couple of sentences.

What I generally do is to tell people the are many reasons for practicing taiji, whether it be for health, meditative (spiritual), or martial reasons (in that order). This way, I don’t scare people away with the martial stuff off the bat but to focus on the health aspect (most common reason and understanding of taiji) and talk about how it helps to lower blood pressure, decrease stress, increase balance and can be a pretty good leg workout!

This is usually enough to “plant the seed” and let it germinate for a bit before they come back for more. If they are still interested, then I generally bring up the meditative aspects of the art and how it helps with awareness and mindfulness in movement. How it can be thought of as “moving meditation” or a way to get in touch with oneself. If the person is really into the meditative aspects, I’ll usually go into how I feel taiji is like 30% physical and 70% mental and describe the following scale:

• Zazen: 5% physical, 95% mental
• Zhan Zhuang: 15% physical, 85% mental
• Taiji: 30% physical, 70% mental
• Yoga: 50% physical, 50% mental

I then generally go over how I feel the hardest things to do are those that are the “most mental” due to the concept of the monkey mind and ways to tempt this. It can be done gradually and start with something a bit more physical and transition to something more mental upon comfort level. This is not to say that one practice is higher level than the other, but it serves different goals, and as such, they are different vehicles for the various goals.
Then I get into the martial chatter. But then again, this all depends on the type of person I’m talking with and their own levels of experience and I try to approach as such (upaya - buddhist term roughly translated as skill in means or teaching at various levels of understanding). This is generally the hardest part to describe and explain, especially if the person is from an external martial arts training background as the common preconception of taiji is for health.

But if it get here, I generally ask if they subscribe to the notion that the amount of power one can generate is directly proportional to one’s ability to relax? If not, I describe it in terms of physics and acceleration and perhaps even plot things out on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most “tense”) and how a route of 2-10 would generate more power than a route of 8-10.

If they’re still with me, I then start to bring up the sensitivity aspect of it and how taiji trains that. I may even show a slight demonstration on the effectiveness of sensitivity and maybe show an application of grasps swallows tail to demonstrate the concepts.

Whoa.. that was a bit more long winded than I had expected but this is the route I follow

Kat mentions an interesting little trick to assist in her training outside, that is, to remove her glasses! That’s quite a novel idea and something I would perhaps try, but I don’t wear glasses! In Kat’s post, I mentioned that I like to align myself to a tree and face that when I begin. For some reason, that helps me get in the correct frame of mind.

This reminds me of the time when I first started to do zhan zhuang. I admit that I had, and could still have (which I probably do), quite the monkey mind! I’d often find myself roaming around thinking about what I needed to do tomorrow or the next day which is not really good. In addition, I also felt quite a bit of physical pain during my standing practices which included pain in the shoulders, thighs, wrists, etc etc.

I adopted a little trick so I could “get my time in” as the goal was to do at least 20 minutes of zhan zhuang in every session. What I did was to watch TV while doing my standing meditation. Well.. I guess I can’t really call it meditation as I was just basically “standing” and trying to force my way through the pain. While this approach is generally not recommended, it worked for me as I come from the “horse stance till you drop” school of thought. Slowly, after I was able to get through the 20 mins without resulting in extreme pain, I started to shift things. I turned around and didn’t face the tv, then I replaced the TV with music and then now I don’t use anything in the background.

This actually now reminds me of TT Liang and his idea of practicing taiji to music to assist in calming the monkey mind. While the music kind of bug me when I trained in this fashion, it wasn’t due to the music per se, but the fact that each move had a specific number of beats to perform. For instance, Raise hands was done in 2 beats while single whip was like 6. Sometimes I feel like I want to do the Raise hand in 6 beats or want to do the form slower or faster.. this is just the way I felt but I do like his idea of ways to tame the monkey mind.

Note, these are just examples of some of the tricks that I’ve used and I feel they have helped me. I’d love to hear more about some tricks that other’s have used to aid in their training.

[edit] Wanted to include a link to The Five Fundamentals of the Mind I ran across.

It’s been over 18 months since I’ve had any real formal instruction and by formal I mean either via class or instructor. Has my training changed? Yes. Have I trained less? Yes. Have I lost focus? Yes. Do I feel bad about my training time being less? Yes. Overall, training by yourself is HARD. Without the regular classes and wanting to “show you you’ve learned” to someone or feeling “I’ve excelled X amount over ppl”, etc etc, the motivation for self training is really quite a difficult battle.

A friend of mine once told me that when things get more internal and more mental, we face the toughest opponent of all, ourselves. This is similar to the writings on those that do zazen or seated meditation in the zen tradition. Meditation reveals the true nature of oneself and few can withstand this revelation. Maybe the revelation is telling you that you place too much emphasis on teachers or books and not enough on yourself. Maybe the revelation is telling you that you seek too much external validation to feed the ego. Maybe the revelation is telling you that you truly don’t want to do what you think you value.

To quote a blog entry, Martial Views - Solitude :

“…undergoing shugyo (austere training) alone, with no one else to motivate you… can temper your spirit like nothing else can. And there’s no warrior ritual more traditional than solitary shugyo.”

Many of us unconciously appraise ourselves and our abilities based upon how others perceive us, including and especially authority figures, such as a teacher. Without a perspective that comes from without, we must rely on self-referral. This is a potent and meaningful way to live.

I believe the true test is not what we think or dwell upon, but what we do. What do you do? In the face of the toughest opponent, o you give up, run away, or stay and fight?

One of the main reasons I began training in taiji was due to injuries. Like most young guys who do taiji (at least most that I know of), generally start due to knee pains. I can’t say that I’ve pampered my body as I did a lot of TKD as a kid. All that snap kicking in the air had to do wonders for my knees. Then to top things off, I did A LOT of wushu and with all the jumping and flying acrobatic stuff with ultra low stances, that was not good for my knees either.

So.. when I first started taiji, my main goal was to hopefully rebuild some of my knee issues and that it did. While I don’t think it was all mainly due to taiji as I did a lot of zhan zhuang at the time too. I think a conjunction of the two is what helped me. I no longer felt the intense shooting pains or the occasional incidents where my knee would just go out on me. I do sometimes still feel pain, especially when the weather changes.

The reason I bring this all up, is after reading an interview with Feng Zhiqiang titled, Like the Body of a Dragon, I really started to reevaluate my goals. He laid out the following points:

The points that got me are the gentle better than slower and higher better than lower. To me, that kind of goes against what I’ve been learning or what I want to do with chen taijiquan. One of the things that got me interested in chen was all the fajing, but is all that fajing good for you? There’s been a lot of discussion regarding the potential negative effects on the brain with all the fajing due to the shaking or reverb of the head. Also, if there is no target, then your body absorbs the hit (similar to snap kicking in the air). Feng Also mentions the negative impact of stamping and jumping on the body and knees.

I believe what FZQ mentions is much better for one’s health. It’s kinda interesting to note the change in focus of most master’s over time. Early on, it’s all about the martial but then towards the end, it becomes much more meditative and introspective. Just look at O-Sensei of Aikido or even Chen Xiaowang with his emphasis on zhan zhaung, chansigong and fansong. I think Feng may have taken the chen to the extreme and it appears almost more yang like in nature due to it’s emphasis on the yin. Maybe the yin is where it’s at.. perhaps that’s the key to all of this…

I have noticed that over time, I have modified my own chen form. I do the form higher when I feel knee pains, but then I feel bad for not going as low. I do dramatically slow down my fajin until I feel “warmed up” but is that the point of taiji? While I do realize in modern society there is little need for the martial training but I still like the martial aspect. However, how often have I worked on or practiced the martial aspect? Very little.. if any, mostly in the context of push hands, but to me, that’s not really martial training, as it’s more sensitivity training and body conditioning, which could kinda be martial, I guess.

My own training has changed in that it’s much more personal now. I do 99% of my training and learning on my own. I do read books and forums and such, but most of my time is with myself and my own corrections. It’s almost gotten a bit more meditative in nature. This is one of the reasons why I find myself hopping from chen to yang. I can easily get in the meditative state when I do the yang and I’ve often mentioned that I feel more connected with the yang.. this is causing me to consider why.. what is the reason for my training? I guess I’m trying to decide if I should just pick a path and focus on it instead of doing 2 paths half-assed. If the goal is martial then train the martial, but what to do if the goal is yin? hmm…

Wow.. it’s been a couple of days since I’ve done standing!! ugh!! The nights have been quite busy as of late with the son teething and such. Hopefully we’ll get over this without too much more stress. So far things are coming along ok and he’s a trooper for sticking in there.

Last night, did a full 15 min set of standing! This is awesome b/c before I had sitting to the mix. When I inquired about some of the differences between sitting and standing, one of my buddies said that sitting focusing on the microcosmic orbit, the qi circulation between the head and lower spine while standing focuses on the macrocosmic orbit, getting the qi to flow out to the extremities. Also, I’ve been told that sitting focuses more on mental/spiritual while standing is more physical/mental in nature. I would like to try and do both but at this time, if I can only do 15 mins, I’d like to focus on one of them and I’ve set my mind on focusing on the standing zhanzhuang.

I felt a lot of blockages in my body last night and it was nutty. I really felt the block in the right hip and I was feeling a lot of tension in the upper back and the forearms. I was a bit shocked by the whole forearm thing but it was cool. I felt a couple of itches but decided not to scratch as

Let the itch be there. Experience it as vividly as you can. If your attention has left the object of your meditation, put it back, without trying to block out the itch, or make it go away. If you refrain from scratching once, and just notice the itch, without trying to make it go away, you have just done something with your experience that is profoundly different.
source: How to be Uncomfortable

While I didn’t feel anything profoundly different, it was a mental accomplishment to not scratch my itch. The weird part is I started feeling itches in other places and started feeling nagging notions of “touch me, itch me, move me” from my body. All you qi blockages don’t know what’s coming to ya!

I then worked on some standing double handed silk reeling. This felt *really* good after the standing session. I was really feeling the flow and was really focusing on being relaxed and aware of my body. I started to feel some tension in the back leg during the movements but adjusted a bit to loosen things up. If I recall correctly, the back foot is supposed to point out about 45 degrees, not 90 degrees. Hard to hold the 45 degree pointing as it felt as if my back leg was turned in too much. Perhaps my hips weren’t loose enough to hold the posture.

Afterwards, worked on the first section of the chen laojia yilu set. I was really focusing on emphasizing the “empty step” in the form, that is stepping out into any posture but not shift weight right away. This is quite hard to do, especially if you try to keep a low stance so I bumped up my stance a bit so I could work on this aspect. The goal is to be able to pull your foot back at any point in the form. Do not over commit the step, step like a cat. I tend to keep the imagery of checking ice before stepping. In addition, I was focusing on really distinguishing the weight transitions. For instance, during the push in six sealings four closings I used to keep some weight on my left foot that was up in a “cat” stance. However after some corrections and such I’ve been trying to keep a full 100% weight on the right foot and keep the left foot on the tip toe. Before I would rest the left foot on the balls of my feet but now it’s nothing but tip toe. Quite hard to do and still maintain a centered weight distribution without shifting over to compensate.

Whoa… great to find another who is also venturing on the path of meditation and blogging about it! [via] I can totally relate to the whole

“I wanted to fidget and stand up. I really, really wanted to stop.”

This brought back such vivid memories of my first encounter of sitting mediation at a local zen center. I’m still enduring and I’m pushing through and many times I feel like I want to stop. I guess the thing that helps me is I have variety in my routine. I take up to 4 various postures during my meditation with three of them being standing.

You have the basic sitting zazen type posture, then you have the wuji standing posture where the hands are at the sides of your body. Next there’s the slight variation on that where the arms make a circular type of shape near your dantien, then you have the universal post posture where you hands are at about heart height and make a round shape.. hard to describe them all with words but check out “Warriors of Stillness” or the “Way of Energy” books for a lot more details on the postures.

I believe this is one way I “cheat” by alternating stances and postures. When I start to get restless, I just change postures, change shapes and then I focus on trying to relax different parts of my body.

I’ve encountered the whole “better to sleep if feel tired” thing before but I guess I just don’t learn my lesson. The zhan zhuang was pretty good last night and not too many issues there. The use of PocketDoan has really helped out dramatically as my attention isn’t focused on time anymore. However, when I started during the sitting session I was good for like 5 mins and then just wanted to sleep.

I know I should be sleeping but if I do, then I won’t get any training time in. Maybe I should bump out the zazen at night and focus on the zhan zhuang, silk reeling form combo I did before. I’m not exactly sure how, but lately I’ve been cutting back on the silk reeling and forms practice to focus on meditation. I hit my 10 hrs of meditation point last night and I’m hyped! That’s 10% of my way through!!!

I need to get back into the groove like before where I did standing/training well before bed instead of cutting things so close now. It’s hard when last night’s drive home took 2.5 hrs as opposed to the 1 hr due to the weather!

During last night’s sitting session, I started to experience a lot of pain in my right kua. At first, I was just trying to hold the posture, but I think over time, I’m using my legs to try and hold my body upright which could be causing a lot of tension in my kua region. The pain got so bad that I had to stop about 10 mins into the session! I walked around a bit, stretched and then tried it again. This time I only lasted about 10 mins before it hit me again.

I’m starting to wonder if it’s perhaps due to my makeshift cusion which consists of a folded up pillow and a blanket. I’ve actually been eyeballing a meditation set called the Mountain Seat Zafu and Zabuton Set but it’s quite pricey at $185. Are all meditation related supplies this pricey?

Note that I started to wonder about the cushion during my sitting session.. not a good thing as my mind is still wandering around trying to find things to cling to. I’ve even modified my sitting position to face the wall, very similar to my first 20 sitting session at a local zen center. I have to admit, this was quite possibly one of the most grueling 20 mins I ever encountered in my life as my back hurt, my legs hurt, my ankles hurt and my mind was going nuts. I felt like I needed to jump up and shake my body around or something…

Speaking of mind, Tyson Williams wrote about the perfection of concentration which couldn’t have come at a better time. One of the things that continually enters my mind is the difference between calm abiding meditation (samatha) and insight meditation (vipassana). I know some buddhist traditions, especially the tibetan lines really emphasize that true enlightment can only be obtained within the practice of vipassana. I do understand the logic as the goal of this is to gain insight into the true nature and reality of whatever, but in my own understanding of zen traditions, the main focus is samatha and the intent is that samatha is enlightenment in and of itself. What then, is the role of vipassana within the zen tradition?

Another thing I really enjoy about the tibetan traditions is the emphasis on compassion and equinamity. I think they even have meditations that focus on compassion. I don’t recall this type of thing within the zen tradition, but it could be my ignorance too.

Slowly trudging along like the turtle I am, persistent yet slow.. The zhanzhuang session went really smooth last night as I incorporated a new tool. I was having difficulty determining the length of time I was standing and ran across a link for PocketDoan which is AWESOME! I’m planning to modify my zhanzhuang session a bit to include a 1 minute intro and exit with three 5-minute sessions in between. At the end of each session is a little chime and when I hear it I change my hand postures. This is quite nice and I really like it.

After the zhanzhuang, I stretched and did some single handed silk reeling. That felt pretty good and I wanted to play around a bit more with the meditation stuff so I sat down for a 15 session of zazen. This one didn’t go quite as smoothly as my previous zazen session as I started to feel some tension in my mid-right-back, kua region and ankles. I adjusted my postures a bit but I think it’s just my body adjusting to the position. I know when I first tried zazen way back when I encountered similar pains but never really worked through them. I think perhaps I need to add more height to my makeshift cushion (folded up pillow and blanket).

After that I worked on some forms training. Basically alternated between yang and chen and did the first section of the long form. The first rep was holding the postures for both styles then I went through them again with a more continuous flow. I’m still feeling a lot more connected and feel as if I’m doing whole body movement with the yang as opposed to the chen. I’m really starting to wonder if that’s the “eternal teacher” (to quote a buddy of mine) trying to tell me something…

Fong Ha has his “100 hrs” goal in that he encourages everyone to do at least 100 hrs of meditation, whether that be seated or standing. I’ve never really gotten into the seated part before, but last night my feet started to hurt with about 4 minutes left in the session so I decided to sit down. I found some blankets near me and sat on top of them in a crossed legged position. I glanced at the clock and began the sitting meditation. The next time I glanced the clock, close to 10 mins had passed! I was a bit shocked and surprised as time really doesn’t fly that quickly in standing meditation as it did in seated with little to no effort.

Hit the 6 hr mark for my zhanzhuang practice. That means only have 94 more hours to go! As of late, the standing has been getting easier to manage as the mind does not chatter as much anymore. However, I’m starting to physically feel like my body is off balance. More specifically, the right side of my body is higher than my left side! Weird, eh? I recall reading in Way of Energy that after some time weird sensations can be felt and one of them is this physical imbalance.

I’ve also been playing around with the way I do the chen form. I’ve had instruction from 2 camps.. well actually 3 if you really count the nitty gritty. My first instruction came via the Ren Guangyi camp, my second instruction came via the Chen Xiaowang camp and finally I had some instruction via the Chen Zhenglei camp. True, while all three are considered “chen village” chen taiji, they have their unique differences.

Last night I was working on my posture and alignment at the end phases of the posture. Generally I have to self-correct the posture at the end as my hips may move a bit too far. Another correction is sometimes my hips don’t turn enough too. I noticed that if I do things like how I was shown via the CZL line, I have far less self-corrections to perform on myself. Another interesting note is I feel the form flows much smoother if I do things “his” way. Currently just playing around with these kind of feelings but it’s definintely something to note as I’ve always enjoyed the flavor of Chen Zhenglei.

I’ve often read of the different types of meditational practices out there and was quite curious about them but just haven’t really made the time to give them a try. I tried to do seated meditation (zazen) before but that slowly started creeping back as now for meditational work, I mainly do zhanzhaung or the standing variant. Tho… blah blah blah.. that has become less often as of late.

With all the chores and things to do at home, ti’s difficult to make time to do zhanzhuang. I’ve tried to add it to my lunch workout but I think I’m still caught up or too cautious to be doing zhanzhuang in the universal post posture in public for long periods of time. I can do wuji no problem but I become a bit too self-judgemental when I try to do the universal post right now in public. Perhaps, that’s even more reason for me to work myself through it.

There is a lot of value in doing meditation and I KNOW that I need to do more of it. With all the daily stresses and things we face, I know a lot of us could use the calm down time. It’s just way easier to do the form than it is to stand. It’s just way easier to do double handed silk reeling than to do single handed. It’s just way easier to do single handed silk reeling than stand.. ultimately, the hardest thing to do is the most simplest, the one the requires the most mental work and the least physical. I started thinking about this more after running across Biology News Net: Meditation skills of Buddhist monks yield clues to brain’s regulation of attention, where researchers found evidence that the skills developed by Tibetan Buddhist monks in their practice of a certain type of meditation can strongly influence their experience of a phenomenon, termed “perceptual rivalry,” that deals with attention and consciousness. Based on the article, it appears the “single pointed” meditation is the one that does the trick, and is it surprising that for me, it’s one of the hardest forms of meditation. The goal to stop that mental chatter, to calm the monkey mind. I think it was a smart idea of TT Liang to incorporate music in his practice to calm the mind, but ultimately, I think that needs to stop. Music used as a stepping stone to slowly phase the approach. Reminds me of how I used to watch TV while doing zhanzhuang b/c I couldn’t do it otherwise. Then I would just listen to music, now I don’t use any stimuli and just try to be with myself.

Yesterday as I was doing some zhanzhuang in the living room while she was watching TV, she asks me, “are you supposed to be shaking when doing that”? I told her the answer is no, but I think a lot of the shaking (which I didn’t notice) is due to the qi blockages in my body, or at least that’s what I understanding of them is.

I’m really quite amazed at how much tension I’ve accumlulated in such a short period of time. It’s only been about 5 1/2 months since the last time I regularly practiced… wow.. didn’t realize it’s been that long b/c it doesn’t feel like it has been. I’m slowly starting to get the hang of the new life style with work and the baby and really trying to find time to squeeze in as much practice as I can, anytime that I can.

Currently, I’ve been noticing a lot more tension in my hip region and it really takes a conscious effort to relax the hips and let the weight sink into my thighs. But then again, since I’ve been kinda out of it, my thighs aren’t as strong as they used to be so I’m compensating by tensing my hips! I’m still really amazed at the amount of tension I can feel in my upper back. I used to be able to get the arms close to shoulder height and still remain pretty relaxed, but now I can only get them about as high as solar plexis height and I feel them tensing up with my shoulders. I didn’t notice any shaking in the arms but I don’t doubt that it’s happening. I’m currently doing ZZ with my eyes closed at the moment as I need to really concentrate on trying to relax my mind.

Just taking it one session at a time

Been having some issues with my zhanzhuang (ZZ) practice lately. The problem is that sometimes I feel sleepy and whenn I stand, if I close my eyes, I feel as if I will almost fall asleep and then fall over! When I first started ZZ, I initially trained with a lower postures but eyes opened. This was pretty hard since it was the “sink/swim” type of school. Then when I moved to my new school, most of the people train in a very high standing posture with their eyes closed. At first, this seemed strange to me and I would sometimes feel off-balance if I closed my eyes but then I started incorporating the closed eyes training for a couple of weeks.

So now.. when I try to open the eyes and then relax, my eyes start to want to close and I just want to fall asleep! I think it might have something to do with myself not getting enough sleep lately and I hope it’s not the case that I just got used to doing ZZ with closed eyes. I’ve read that closed eyes is ok for health training but for martial training, one should keep the eyes open. Anyhow, found a nice excerpt regarding falling asleep during meditation:

In some of these postures, a person will fall asleep if he or she is too tired, but if that is the case, it is perhaps better for the person to sleep, and get caught up on sleep rather than fighting sleep, and trying to tough it out by meditating through it. — source: On pain during meditation

So.. I guess it’s best that I just not fight my body and sleep when I feel tired and eat when I feel hungry. Plus, I think it might be a good idea if I get more sleep at night too