I was thinking and experimenting the other day. I noticed that there are two ways to move your Yi/Chi around your body. One is by intense concentration, kind of forceful and pushy in nature. The other is via relaxation, in the sense that you relax the place where you put your intention it accumulates in the area, this way feels soft and relaxing. I guess in a sense both are polar opposites to each other. I would think the relaxed method of Yi/Chi is preferable to the forceful one. I’m thinking along the lines that the forceful way expends energy and in a sense is counter productive. Whereas the relaxed method accumulates energy and promotes effortlessness. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Yi is quite bullying. Exorting your will over others and all that. All is fair in love and war though I suppose. Relaxation is the way to go I say. It's not being floppy, lazy or even passive. Just try to fight without any muscular tension.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, sort of. The thing is though, that both methods can be done while being muscularly relaxed, but only the relaxed method promotes the Yi/Chi to sink down and produce a sung feeling in the body. Whereas the forceful method just pushes the sensation of Yi/Chi around the body, and I think/feel that it also produces the opposite of sung and sinking, i.e. a rising feeling. I also figure since in IMA’s, or more like in Taiji, it is important to sink the Yi/Chi to the dantien and be sung, the relaxed method is more useful. Though the other, forceful method must have its uses too. Now this is gonna be a bit weird, so bear with me, maybe its just lack of sleep. I’ve been thinking about the eight trigrams and their relation to the 8 internal energies used in Tai Chi. I’m thinking that the two aforementioned methods of Yi direction are the primary forces like Yin/Yang, or maybe even more like Kan and Li. In the sense that the relaxed method is like Kan/Water, soft, nurturing, and flows down, whereas the Li/Fire method is forceful, consuming and rises. So if these two are the extremes, then all the other energies must lie somewhere in between. However, not too sure about this as Kan and Li comparison as these are part of the 8 trigrams, maybe it should be just Yin and Yang. For example if we take something like Peng, an outward expansive feeling, I’m thinking its energy is more likened to the forceful expansive type of energy. Anyway, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Would be interesting to see how the 8 energies are paired with the 8 trigrams, if indeed there is any classical writings on these topics.
Force is never productive in internal qi work, whether that be for fighting or purely for health. Hard inner attention tends to just fill you with tension and can screw your mind up too. "Relaxed attention" is the way to go for qi movement and development. "Be water, my friend" - Bruce Lee Nothing wrong with a hard needle of yi going outwards when you need it tho (just save it for hitting other people, not turning it on yourself) - developing that requires sung equal and opposite to the hardness of your needle tho, so as Master Brido says: Get soft first, but don't be Mr Floppy lol Peace :Angel: Now I've posted on this subject I'm guessing there'll be a troll invasion and flame war shortly...
Defiantly so, I’ve been playing around with the forceful intention the past few days, and it definitely produces tension and aggression in your body. During me guinea pigging myself I noticed that prolonged use of forceful intention produces tension in the body. This is not the same sort of tension as when you flex a muscle but, more like tension without a flexing, a tension born of intention without the overt muscular control, if that makes sense. Yeah, had a similar thought in the sense that since stillness is the forerunner of movement, and the better on is at stillness the better one is in movement. In the same sense relaxed intention is the beginning forceful intention, thus if you practice the relaxed method you are also developing the forceful. As Zendogs sig use to say “a strong grip is one that knows how to let go”, or something like that. Indeed, I was hesitant to start this topic due to this. But hey, we can always just ignore them, and if they get too close, rot their organs with our chi balls.
I don't get what you mean by forceful intention. Are you meaning looking to dictate action rather than reaction - waiting for movement? (stillness defeats motion perhaps). Just what I have in my head is what I would akin to Shen - violent thought I am interperating forceful intention as, but I don't think I am correct. When your mind/spirit/shen is in a state of agitation and agression, I find your body follows. Look at someone who's really super ****ed - hunched sholders, clenched jaws and fists. You should keep you mind calm and collected to allow your body to be 'sung'. I digress however, and don't think that is what you are talking about.
When I say intention, I am referring to Yi, as in your focus point, minds eye.. if you know what I mean… like if you focus on the tip of your finger, that point is what I mean by intention. Not intention as in an objective, i.e. honourable intention. Does that make sense? In the same sense, the way you operate your focus point can be either forced/focused or relaxed/calm.
Was in my garden having a snout earlier on today contemplating the topic of this thread. Looking at a tree I got an idea. Before a tree can begin to grow, leaf and come to fruition, it must first grow downwards and establish a firm root, and as it grows upwards it must also strengthen its root. Then I looked back at some of the Chi Gung practices I’m familiar with and I realized that some of them cannot be done without a somewhat forceful intention. Specifically, when one brings Yi/Chi up the body one must use a somewhat forceful intention, whereas the relaxed intention only really works in a downward manner. Then I figured before one begins practices that require you to bring Yi/Chi up the body, one must first make the body sung, and develop a root, i.e. ground the energy/have a root. This will in turn release/relax the persons structure sufficiently enough to operate an upward/forceful Yi/Chi current. Furthermore, in my experience the practices that generate the greatest effects fastest, to some extent require an upward Yi/Chi movement. Also, I think once one is prepared to deal with an upward current, by establish a good downward current, every time one uses the upward current one must again balance this out with a downward current, as not to overload ones structure. Similarly, I know of a very simple chi gung exercise to relieve high blood pressure and hypertension, it works by the individual using their intention to create a similar feeling to water pouring from your crown down and out of your feet/bubbling well points. This process is an obvious downward current, and I would guess that an upward current in an unprepared structure would have the effect of bringing about hypertension and raising the blood pressure. This also fall in line, IMO with what Taiji Butterfly said: ^^^ As mentioned earlier, a forceful intention produces an upward moving current. On top of this, I also checked out B. K. Frantzis’s book “Opening the Energy Gates of the Body”, in which he states a similar methodology. He likens the downward current to insulating and preparing the circuit/wires and the upward current as putting a charge through the wires/circuit. He further states that in his experience the downward current is trained 4 times as much as the upward current, this is in order to prevent burnout. So I guess, both types of intention are needed for proper internal training, they are like yin and yang and must be balanced. Though I figure, one should still strive to be as relaxed as possible when using an upward/forceful intention, but I guess this in part due to the readiness of ones structure.
Slightly disagree with last post inthespirit - I think the upward motion of energy can be enabled through softness also. It rises spontaneously once the route is cleared and the ground work established. It shouldn't be forced at all. Am reading Mantak Chia's "Awaken Healing Energy through the Tao" at present which is all about the microcosmic orbit and internal energy work - a good read. Not a big fan of his generally, but this one is good. I'd recommend it as a way into what you're exploring. I've been doing a lot of orbit work for about 20 years and his method is a lot easier and more effective than the stuff I was taught before. Please also do be careful with the guinea-pigging you really can screw up your mental health if you're not careful m8... :Angel: EDIT: Try to remember that although energy has yin and yang, both should be bedded into and travel through a sung body. Force is the antithesis of sung. The effect on an opponent at the "business end" may be soft or hard, but you really don't want that happening internally to yourself imo
Hey Taji Butterfly, You may well be right, I have not done anything with a rising current in around a year, and I never really paid too much attention to what sort of intention I was using at the time, though I have a feeling it may have been forceful, but I also did a lot of downward current work at that time. Also, I haven’t trained much in the past year so will have to see whats up when I get my ass in gear. However, just in case I will defiantly try and use softness more. My guinea pigging in the past few days has defiantly shown the unpleasantness of forcing Yi/Chi upward, I think I will have to dissolve myself back down for a while next few days, head feels a bit full, or maybe I’ll just get ****ed tonight. That Mantak Chia book is quite good, have had it for a while, but I don’t think there were many safety precautions in it. I have another version of the microcosmic orbit, with a few safety exercises, let me know if your interested. Cheers!
I've been leafing through a few books looking for the quote, can't find it yet but I'll post my thought anyway: I've read somewhere that Yang Chengfu said the mind should be on the spirit of vitality and not be on the chi. He said something along the lines that if it is on the chi, one will have no strength. The word shen is commonly translated as spirit of vitality. That gets used in many ways by different authors, but I go with the 'spirit of the method' kind of meaning. I.e 'spirit' as in spunk - doing it like you mean it. In essence, I think this is saying, 'think of your applications, not your breathwork. The breathwork will follow naturally, but if you're huffing and blowing and focusing your mind all round your body, your technique will be poor.' There is also the saying in Taijiquan that from exreme softness comes extreme hardness. So, to answer you I'd have to say that the downward flow is best. This is relaxing and allowing the chi to find it's way down, unforced and naturally. If you force chi around in your body with your mind you will block it, and you will hinder the process of freeing up your meridians. The upward path you were discussing I think is the natural upward peng energy that arises from good alignment (from good relaxation). Also, it is the energy from the feet path of jin - the finding the downward teaches the body the path, and then the jin will use it. It is to do with the release of energy (fa jin) and happens only momentarily while the potential is always there. The paths are already there, written into your skeleton. You find them by standing and relaxing, you find them by moving and relaxing. Then when the body knows them you can use them. (hence Frantzis' 4:1 ratio) Hope this helps.
If that were true then almost everybody would be a qigong master. The quote from YCF was referring to applying, not developing.
Ok, finally tracked down the correct source and quote for what I was on about - I kept skipping over it when scanreading!! Doh! The source is Wu Yuxiang from his Mental Elucidation of the Thirteen Postures, and the quote goes: "Throughout the whole body, the intent is on the spirit of vitality, not on the chi. If it is left on the chi, then there will be stagnation. One who has it on the chi will have no strength. One who does not have it on the chi will attain pure hardness." The use of the word "chi" is one of much debate, as you all know, but as has been said elsewhere, most decent oriental teachers either don't refer to it much at all, or tend to use it to mean breath. My opinion is that when it is used in contexts like the one above, it is as a jargon term for the apprehension of movement - i.e the mind imagines the application (yi), and then 'feels' the jin path (mobilises the chi), which moves the body. Wu Yuxiang begins his Mental Elucidation with, "Use the mind/heart to move the chi. You must cause it to sink soundly, then it can gather into the bones. Use the chi to move the body. You must cause it to accord smoothly, then it can easily follow you mind/heart." What does everyone else here make of that? I'd like to add that focusing inward does have its uses, probably the most valuable of which IMO is to gain refined body awareness and therefore fine control over movement and breathing. Again, I quote Wu Yuxiang: "Move the chi as though through a pearl carved with a zigzag path (nine-bend pearl), reaching everywhere without a hitch."
