Tag Archives: yiquan

Counting Breaths in Zhan Zhuang

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Up until recently, I was mainly ‘the observer’ during my zhan zhuang sessions, that is, merely observing and witnessing any arises thoughts without attachment. However, this has become increasingly more difficult as a lot of changes are happening right now in my home life.  For example, we are preparing for a move out of our current home into another house. Sometimes during zhan zhuang, I would think about a task that must be completed and then would think of another associated task, then another; until, I would finally realize that my mind has been running around like a mad man.  This would often result in not being very relaxed and feeling a bit agitated at the end of the session.

Previously, I used to practice breath counting and would work my way up to 100 without losing focus.  Lately, I have modified things a bit and now do sets of 25 breaths.  How does breath counting work? Here’s a nice summary:

We begin working on ourselves by counting the breath, counting each inhalation and each exhalation, beginning with one and counting up to ten. When you get to ten, come back to one and start all over. The only agreement that you make with yourself in this process is that if your mind begins to wander – if you become aware that what you’re doing is chasing thoughts – you will look at the thought, acknowledge it, and then deliberately and consciously let it go and begin the count again at one.

Source: Zen Mountain Monastery – Zen Meditation Techniques

Easy, eh? The key practice about this one is to start back at 1 if the mind drifts away from the counting. I can honestly say during my last standing session, I did not start over once!  Right now, I am employing this technique in 3 zhan zhuang postures: (1) wuji, (2) universal post, (3) hold the belly. Over time, I will incorporate all 8 yiquan postures, but 3 works well for me now.

The really cool thing I noticed instantly about the breath counting is that it really brought to my attention some tension spots on my body.  I carry quite a bit of tension in a small spot about the size of a tennis ball in the back side of my right shoulder and right lower back.  Additionally, I felt quite a bit of tension in my right wrist.  A lot of these make sense for me as I sit and work at a computer a majority of the day and I am right handed :)

Another cool thing is that after I finished the 3 postures, 25 minutes had passed! Instead of using a timer or a clock to gauge my training, I use my own body.  I am sure that over time, this may extend even longer as my breathing deepens.

Being Effortless With Fong Ha

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So many years have passed where I just barely missed the opportunity to train with Fong Ha. This year, fate must have been working because were finally got a chance to connect.  Fong outlined the following sections for practice:

  • Cultivation
  • Manifestation
  • Utilization/Verification

Cultivation

Be Mindful. Do it effortlessly.

Mindfulness is defined as ‘an awareness of one’s thoughts, actions or motivations’ [via wikipedia].  When we stand in zhan zhuang, are we comfortable? Are we exerting too much effort?  Is our breathing calm, are we in harmony?

The three gems of qigong: (1) Harmonize the body,  (2) Harmonize the breath and (3) Harmonize the mind.

Each day of the workshop began with roughly 1 hour of cultivation time, aka silence time. On the second day, we were treated with a second session of silent cultivation time… :)   This time can either be spent sitting or standing, whichever one prefers. Each session starts with the three harmonies listed above: body, breath, and mind.

While sitting, if you feel the inclination to stand, then stand :)   The eight postures of yiquan were covered as well as some hands on corrections by Fong.  I was actually surprised at some of the corrections as my elbows were raised more than I had normally done or my forearm was adjusted at a slightly different angle than I had normally practiced.  Once adjusted into position, it was up to my internal training discipline to harmonize the posture :)

Throughout the workshop, there was a strong emphasis on internal training and self awareness. Internal training is how we feel. Do we feel calm and comfortable? Do we feel good and full of energy? If not, adjust accordingly.  Self awareness is believing that our body is inherently capable of adjusting itself into equilibrium, we just have to quiet our mind enough so that we can listen.

Other cultivation activities included the 8 Piece Brocade (Ba Duan Jin), Yi Jin Jing, and the Taiji Ruler.  Each day ALWAYS began with ALL of these activities.

Manifestation

Fong gave a great analogy relating to cooking about fire and a pan.  Consider cultivation as the fire and our body/mind as the pan.  With these two basic ingredients, we can cook an unlimited amount of dishes (chinese, italian, steak, etc). Likewise, manifestation can take the form of yang taiji, yiquan, karate, etc.

A yiquan exercise called Shi li is basically moving, but without stepping. Are we able to maintain the body integration and central equilibrium when we move our upper body?  An example would be to rotate ‘the ball’ in the standard zhan zhuang posture in various elliptical paths (ie, over-under, expand-contract, etc).

Moca bu builds upon shi li but includes stepping footwork. The basic idea of moca bu is that we should be able to stop at ANY given point and still have our own central equilibrium. This includes forward and backward stepping patterns. Generally this is done with one of the 8 yiquan postures, but over time can incorporate some of the shi li work with the moca bu stepping.

Again, all manifestation builds upon cultivation.

Utilization/Verification

Utilization and verification combines everything learned in the cultivation and manifestation sections. This section primarily consists of various 2-person partner exercises.  An example exercise would be to allow the body to internally harmonize oncoming forces (ie, person pushing on my shoulder).  Additionally, the standard taiji push hand patterns can be used or the yiquan sensing hands activity can be used.

3 additional principles were introduced that relate to this section:

  1. Don’t lean on others and don’t let others lean on you
  2. No collision
  3. No separation

Don’t lean on others basically means to not give up your own central equilibrium. Don’t let others lean on you basically means do not allow others to affect your central equilibrium. Simple, right? ;)   If we lean against a wall, we are giving the wall our central equilibrium. If the wall is taken away, we fall. So care must be taken not to lean on others.

If someone leans on us and we fight back, that is using force and results in collision.  The goal so practice is to be effortless … So basically, we do not allow others to lean on us and we do not use force, hence no collision.  Practically speaking, if someone pushes my chest and I fight back, that is collision. If someone pushes my chest and I either step back or turn away to not allow the person to push me (aka lean on me) then I am not in conflict with the person, I am not using effort and I maintain my own central equilibrium.

Note, that when I touch someone, I am touching their central equilibrium. As long as I am in contact, I can feel the other person’s central equilibrium, hence no separation.  The tricky part is the idea of no separation applies to BOTH parties in the exercise.

Overall I had a great time and I am glad I attended the workshop.  What I really enjoyed was getting exposed to another perspective of taiji.  We have all read about being relaxed and using no force, but what does this really mean?  I am grateful for the opportunity to learn what this means, but I am even more grateful of being able to *feel* what this means from a kind and generous person like Fong Ha.  I would highly recommend his books and DVDs or even better, his workshops for anyone interested in learning more!

Getting a Second Opinion in Zhan Zhuang

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Last night as I was in the zhan zhuang ‘embrace the tree’ posture, my wife walks over to me and turns her head a bit sideways. She then proceeds to correct my hand positioning. First, she adjusted my left hand as it was sticking out farther than my right. Then she adjusts my right hand a bit higher and finally, she taps me on my left shoulder. Wow.. what an eye opener.

After my standing correction a couple of years back from Chen Xiaowang, I was mainly focusing on aligning my center line, that is making sure the line formed by my nose and belly button where centered between my feet. Amazing how I was unable to note that my hands were not aligned correctly. Luckily my wife did note that my centerline was fine and my back was fine.. whew.

There is a chart in The Way of Energy that lists some sensations and things that can happen during one’s zhan zhuang. One of them is one hand being higher than the other.. yup, that’s me. Another one that I had a while back was some shaking. This was probably about 5 years ago, but I remember after a standing session one of my classmates noted that my hands were shaking. I told him I did not realize it since I had not felt the shaking and I was doing zhan zhuang with my eyes closed. Eventually, the shaking surpassed and now I just stand funny.. :)

Stand like Sitting on a Chair

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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.