It has been awhile. The primary reason is because I introspect amidst my training routine. I don’t find it necessary to document everything I go through. There are some that are comfortable doing this but I have never found it satisfying.
So! What is new?
I found the “key” to unlocking the internal system.
Firstly, know a couple of things:
1) There are predominately 4 gates in the body that must be “opened” before energy can begin to be used. These are the 2 upper gates – shoulder connecting to chest. And the 2 lower gates: torso connecting to legs. I picked this up from taiji (tai chi) but it is accurate.
The energy stays in the chest/ torso region. The gates are unlocked by relaxing. However there are 3 ways of relaxing (though they are boil down to one method in the end).
a) holistic relaxation: focus on something to let the body hang. I usually say a point in the spine or the shoulders or the elbow region. The rest of the body will relax if attention is concentrated in one thing.
b) localized relaxation: this method is accessing a local portion of the body – leg or arm – and trying to relax it by focusing on it. This is the most useless type of relaxing because it is not a constant method of relaxing.
c) sinking relaxation: this is what the tai chi guys usually do. This method consists of standing and then relaxing downwards so that the muscle is used as little as possible. This is also fairly long. But it is a very consistent method. If you continue this consistently, you will get relaxed by loosening the muscles. This method also builds “lines” or pathways from the top down. This allows for energy to pass in particular patterns: side to side or top to bottom and vice-versa.
2) Intention is the sharpener. Once you relax enough, you want to hone the intention so that only a slight amount of energy is used. You want to refine this further and further. Taiji says there are different types of energies. So its always a pursuit of a subtler kind.
The “key” is actually two-fold. One is the act of doing it. The other is maintaining it. If you don’t maintain it, it serves no purpose! It simply won’t be applicable.
Sink the elbow. This is the key. When you sink the elbow properly, the shoulder moves very naturally, very smoothly. Then you build that feeling and spread it over the arms, chest, back and legs. The legs are the hardest because you have to maintain balance while minimizing muscular usage. If you are perfectly balanced and lose even a bit of balance and begin moving back and forth, you will engage the muscles. Then it won’t feel as good as when you previously had it. Kicking requires a good balance. And good balance requires the ability to minimize muscle usage even when swaying (or not swaying) or changing positions on the same leg.
This “key” took quite awhile for me to get. I actually got it in passing. But I have found that it is the fastest way for a beginner to get to a state of intermediate or expert from the internal perspective. It requires good training and persistence to mentally maintain the condition even amidst high speed and force training.
Deeper levels then follow. They are along the path of relaxing deeper and deeper so that the body connects to itself.
This is all very interesting and good. It is worth pursuing! I hope that the hiatus of months is made up by this one post!