Monday 19 February 2024

Where Is My Weapon?


槍扎一條線,棍掃一大片
The spear binds a line, the staff sweeps a large area1.

劍走青,刀走黑
The sword goes green, the sabre black2.

青龍偃月刀:劈、砍、撩、掛、斬、抹、截、攔、挑、刺
Green dragon crescent moon sabre: hack, slash, lift up, hang, chop, strike out, intercept, block, pick, stab.



Since pretty early in history, martial arts circles in China were linked to a lot of practices, from the pure battlefield ones to hunting (the bow), physical strength (weight lifting with the famous tripod cauldron), spiritual search (lots of martial arts have such a claim. Let’s also remember that among the six arts taught by Confucius two were the chariot and the bow), ceremonial (dance3 and the bow), competitive (tripod cauldron lifting, wrestling and, again, the bow), protection (militias and escorts) and so on… In times of constant war or great insecurity, almost everybody knew how to handle a weapon, in times of peace, some martial practices became pure entertainment4, in times of unrest some practices were constricted to the elite, in times of peace sometimes the establishment looked down on martial skills5.

Friday 10 November 2023

Iron Breath


治身:天門,謂鼻孔開,謂喘息闔,謂1
Cultivating the body: the Heavenly Door, called opening the nostrils, called closing gasping and resting2, which is called exhaling and inhaling3.

天門亢,擤鼻,旡
The Heavenly Door is haughty, blowing one’s nose, to choke4.




Iron training and its main breathing technique, empty breathing, are exercises less and less witnessed in internal practices. They target the capacity to tense all and any part of the body while relaxing and stretching. They use an old type of respiration, sometimes linked to Taoist practices, which consist of taking a long exhalation to empty as much as possible, not only the lungs but the stomach and the whole trunk for the least, and keep at all costs this state while inhaling. 

Thursday 19 October 2023

Pillars and the Bamboo


練拳無樁步,房屋無立柱
Training boxing without the pillar steps, a house without stud.

練拳不溜腿,終究冒失鬼
Training boxing without kicking1, this is imprudent after all.

要知拳精髓,首由站樁起
To know the quintessence of boxing, it starts from standing the pillars.

壓而不溜不中用,溜而不壓如牛
Pressing but not smoothing2 is useless, smoothing but not pressing stupid as a bull.

練功不站樁,等於瞎晃蕩
Training skills without standing the pillars, it is as rocking aimlessly

拳以椿爲根,椿以拳顯神
Boxing has the pillars for roots, the pillars have boxing to manifest the spirit.



For a lot of martists and Qigong aficionados, 站樁 means holding a stance, often as long as possible. This is actually more an interpretation than a real translation, 站, meaning to stand (on one’s feet) or to halt as far as training is concerned, and 樁 pillar or stud. Hence, holding a posture is surely only one of the numerous training 站樁 refers to. Furthermore, this practice is often confused with rooting2 while it is actually, first of all, balance which is sought.

Saturday 23 September 2023

Where Do The Vapours Go?


清陽發腠理,濁陰走五臟
The pure Masculin spurts out in the lineaments, the turbid Feminine penetrates the five organs1.

筋骨之強弱,肌肉之堅脆,皮膚之厚薄,腠理之疏密,各不同
The strength or weakness of the fascias and bones, the sturdiness of brittleness of the flesh and the muscles, the thickness or thinness of the skin, the sparsity or density of the lineaments, each according to its own2.

腠者,是三焦通會元真之處,為血氣所注。理者,是皮膚臟府之文理也
The lineaments, it is where the triple burner harmonise the true original, where the blood and the vapours pour. The vein lines, it is the pattern of the skin and the internal organs3.

其流溢之氣,内溉臟腑,外濡腠理
When the vapours are overflowing, inside it irrigates the internal organs, outside it moistens the lineaments4.




There is a trinity in the internal practices called 氣,理,血, vapours, veins and blood. It is helping in the other riddle, 氣隨血行, vapours circulate following the blood. Indeed, as the blood nourishes the body circulating through its vessels, the vapours should do the same through an alike type of vessel to provide for, at least, one’s vitality and spirit. Hence, 理 in its meaning of vein is placed at the centre of this trinity to stress on the similarity of the blood and the vapours circulatory systems. To decipher this riddle, one can look at the term 腠理, lineaments, used in Chinese Traditional Medicine.

Tuesday 12 September 2023

Sign Of Times

 

Since modern weaponry and technology appeared, old practices coming from Asia, some still refer as martial arts, have entered a more or less slow decay a few centuries ago, surviving by spreading in more and more diluted versions in the civilian world. It’s neither a shame nor good, it’s just the way it goes for anything in this world ruled by time.

Thursday 23 February 2023

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Directing Breath To Emptiness

 

得胎息者,能不以鼻口噓吸1
Who obtains the fetal breathing can, without his/her nose or mouth, slowly breathe out and in.

食氣者必謂吹呴呼吸,吐故納新也2
Who nourishes himself/herself from vapours has to be called the blowing and yawning breathing, spitting out the stale and receiving the fresh.

其息深深。真人之息以踵,眾人之息以喉3
Their breathing came deep and silently. The breathing of the true man comes from his heels, while men generally breathe from their throats. 

鼻息無聲神氣守4
Soundless breathing through the nose, guarding vapours and spirit




Breathing is a much more complex subject than it seems. It encompasses multiple exercises coming from various and sometimes quite different, if not opposite, traditions. The general term breathing, therefore, can refer to the lungs main function, a cutaneous possibility, an organ-related capacity, a directional practice and so on… Goals are also numerous, from relaxation to waking, from heating to cooling, from posture to movement, from Berzek to emptiness, etc., a myriad of exercises so that one can easily get lost and most of the time ends up practising a mix of now and again actually incompatible ones.

Monday 30 January 2023

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Bar, Book and Pendulum


練長使短
Training in length, using short

練重使輕
Training heavy, using light




Most of the devices used in the search of verticality usually target the backbone, a stronger stretch or a better vertically. Two examples can be given, the use of chin-bar like tools for stretching and the book and pendulum-like ones for verticality.

Monday 16 January 2023

Flat Stomach Improved Vitality, Reaching Higher


天門亢
The gate to the Heavenly Palace is haughty
 
 
 
 
Old practices based on change were very adaptive, a thing which is almost lost in today's mass teaching, posture, routines and exercises being quite standardised and always to be repeated the same way regardless of the different body shape and transformation. Before, they were considered to be tools that one could modify, not only according to its body, mind and level of understanding, but also simply to what kind of objective one would look for.

Tuesday 3 January 2023

The Swallowed Third Foot

  

龜縮頸,耕牛之力
The turtle retracts its neck, the strength of the ploughing cattle.

氣隨糞行
Vapours follow excrement.

五常,全寓性1
The five constant virtues, all residing in the sex.


Sex remains taboo for some, a power to be mastered for others and often a laughing matter for everybody. Still, old practices aimed to fully understand any and every part of one’s body, nothing was left untrained. Since it used to be a verbal transmission between a teacher and his student, the taboo nature of the topic was actually not a big issue. This is a bit different if it has to be written down and the present post will be as short as possible, most of this kind of teaching should be kept as a timely transmission from teacher to student.