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Everyday Jiulong Bagua

May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A Jiulong student, Brian Cain, shares some of his insights from his Jiulong practice.

I’ve been meaning to write a short piece about this for quite some time. I’ve just never gotten around to doing it except for now. As I write this, a powerful thunderstorm is sweeping its way at 55mph through the northern half of the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex.

Down where I’m at, about 15-20 miles south, we’re not getting much other than high winds and the evidence of a cold front coming through. Today I went to the grocery store and gathered a few things. On the way out, as I walked through the large sliding glass double doors, I was met with those high winds. Instantly I solidified my core and sunk down into the ground, grocery bags in tow, and strolled (as the immortal man) through the parking lot as I was met with this moderate yet constant resistance all the way to the car. It was yet another reminder that Baguazhang, at least our Nine Dragon art as I know it to this point, is everywhere.

There is always an opportunity to practice. There is always an opportunity to engage be it externally or internally. For me, today, it was fortunately both. The resistance of those high winds forced me to fill and engage the Ridgepole as I continued on. For anyone else, it can be something as simple as practicing deep diaphragm breathing while sitting in a car seat. It could be “practice filling” while walking past unknown persons in a store, a parking lot, or a public venue. It could be standing in Song, relaxed yet focused, while standing in a line at the bank or practicing ever-forward momentum with the Water Dragon, while being complicit to the rule of the Night Swallow, when making turns. A million things come to mind. The point here is that we are not constricted by learned and repetitive forms meant for very narrow situations but rather more the essence of certain basic principles that, when strictly adhered to, can reinforce our training at any moment or in any given event or circumstance.

We don’t have to be “Baguazhang people” while we’re at a private practice session at home, or in a study group, or even at The Gompa; we can be the Dragon anywhere, anytime, and any place. While I by no means have authority in this group, I can’t help but recommend to people that are serious about learning, especially those that are brand new, that you practice this wonderful martial art 110% by integrating those foundational principles (quiet sitting, breathing, standing, walking, Ba step, Night Swallow, sense memory and internal force resistance, and non-differentiation vs. localization just to name a few.) anywhere you can, right where you are. The rewards are worth it.

Brian Cain

 

 

Filed Under: Lessons

Strength Training for Internal Arts

February 11, 2011 By

Rick KrausmanOur man in Ohio, Shizi Rick Krausman offers an excellent lesson in weight training for internal artists. This is a topic that is almost never discussed due to the prevailing notion that strengthening muscles is to be avoided in internal martial arts. This is simply incorrect since it requires muscles to move the body at all. So here is the beginning of Shizi Krausman’s series of articles on the correct way to start a strengthening program.

I have allowed a time for the members that wanted to….to work on and structure the first exercise in the series…”DEADLIFT”. By now it should have done a substantial amount of strength gain for you and I would like to continue the series if I may.

Many times our Sifu says …”there is nothing wrong with being strong” and I wholeheartedly agree with that premise. Functional strength is a good thing to have when or if you have the opportunity to face someone bigger, faster, stronger than you. It is at that oh sh## moment that you wish you were at least 2x stronger than you are and had worked at providing yourself with the tools to remediate behaviors of an aggressor when the negotiations have failed. Strength is a commodity that you may as an individual decide how much is enough whenever you choose. Just keep in mind that the masters who came before me…worked for a living. they pulled stuff, they lifted stuff, they carried stuff, they threw stuff..usually heavy stuff. this also occurred on a daily basis, kinda brings the idea of over training to a halt does it not?

While the Deadlift is a whole body exercise sometime we forget that the next exercise in the series: The Squat is not just a leg exercise. it too is a whole body exercise as well, however it must be done in the manner that is the most conducive for success…and longevity of the knee and hip joints. We also must understand that in order for the Squat to be a whole body exercise it must be performed with a whole lotta weight, in a full range of motion, QUICK.

Squat

We must understand the background of weightlifting in general and realize that the lifts of today ar but mere pieces of the original strongman lifts or Olympic style lifts from yesteryear. The lifters believed that if one is to exercise properly or more specifically train properly there should be a minimum of apparatus used. A bar, plates, you…and courage…that is all. Thus most squat techniques are flawed from the get go because once the plates are loaded onto the bar, which is normally way more than you can CLEAN (next series exercise)the dilemma is how do you get the bar on your shoulders??No racks, no supports no uprights…how does one hoist the bar onto ones shoulders to begin the squat in the first place??? Answer: load the bar, go to one end of it and lift it to a vertical position. Then put the bar on your shoulders(think leaning temple here) and sit down gradually into a FULL SQUAT(meaning catchers position) while you receive the bar and it’s weight on to you. Now, imagine the strength building that has taken place prior to being able to perform the ADDRESS TO THE SQUAT LIFT. The other oddity not seen everywhere, is that normally the squat is performed from the up position(think stand) and then sink down and then stand up. however in times of yore…the squat started in the DOWN position…to UP…to DOWN. For any of our members that squat…starting down forces you to lift lighter cause you cant get a boost off the bounce at the bottom of the lift to start up. This is WAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY difficult…to say the least.

The second thing that must be addressed is really HOW TO SQUAT…this question is answered for you by a trip to the playground, a daycare, Sunday school class that has iddy bitty people in it…say up to 4 years of age. Watch the kids pick stuff up off the ground. They squat to do so…and squat so low ..that their behind is almost on the ground to do so. This is the NATURAL way to perform this exercise. Stopping at 90 degrees, box squats, partial squats are not conducive to full body power over the full range of motion. Lay mans terms…behid to floor to start the lift, stand up, behind to floor to end the lift. Simple….not EASY.As adults we have the miles of life on us and it takes a while to get the knees working in full range of motion precluding injury, genetics etc.

This will then venture the question forward…IS THIS SAFE?? Answer….YES..provided you train up to it. Olympic style weightlifters squat as many as 6x a week…behind to floor..and have the lowest injury rate in Olympic sports specific to knees. I do not say that you should squat this often unless you are an elite lifter and going for GOLD..I merely point out that you can squat safely in this manner..if you train to do so and have no pre-existing injuries to prevent it.

How to do it

Ok..without a bar, plates, but some courage…open a door in you house that has a door knob on both sides, Stand to the edge of the now open door, place both hands on the door knobs,,,,that is the upper position. Now with your feet/legs get close to the door with a foot on either side of the door..place your feet so that as you bend your knees…the knee moves towards the toe…now hold on to the knobs, head up..squat down to the catcher position but stay as upright as you possibly can(you can use shoes with heels for this to elevate the heel some). once you have hit the down position(which in reality is the start)..rather than merely stand up..think that you are pushing the floor down and you become upright. Tricky part comes in now…instead of dropping the your body down and catching it at the bottom…I would ask that you PULL yourself down with your legs. First do the drop and catch…then the PULL down..and you will quickly see the difference in the quality of the motion. Simple…and you can use the door knobs as a spotter until you adjust to this range of motion. If you feel pain in anyway that is odd for you…stop, if you have pre existing conditions stop and consult you care giver before trying this.

Next installment…Squat variations (split squat, front squat, overhead squat, dumbell squats…oh my)

Thaks for the listen

R.C. Krausman

Shizi JBZ,Capt. PKC

Filed Under: Lessons

Qi and Hypnosis – Part 1

January 6, 2011 By

Why do some Chinese Daoist teachers, Tibetan Lamas and East Indian sages in countries where the average age is 49 live active productive lives twice that long without illness and are still as active physically, mentally and sexually at 85 as they were at 35.” The Chinese Daoists, the people who wrote the book on longevity and disease free living say it is the mind that generates most illness especially, in adolescents and adults.

Pathogenic factors only serve to create illness when the body itself is not in harmony with the mind. The way we learn to use the mind to organize our patterns of body energies is the difference between health and disease. An ancient Chinese medical text “The Yellow Emperors Classic of Internal Medicine” published two thousand years ago contains a chapter entitled “Natural Truth in Ancient Times,” it appears that the subject of Qi is mentioned in this rhetorical question from that text.

When one is completely free of wishes or ambition, he will really get the genuine vital energy. When one concentrates his mind internally, how can disease attack him?

This idea seems to illustrate Dr. Painter’s point that “all is mind” (Quantum Physics) and that all illness and all healing begin and end with the direction and amplitude of the thoughts we generate. This is the foundation of my Psycho-Soma Mobius Principle that states simply that the mind / spirit, which is housed in the body, creates the body itself. The two are so inextricably linked to be almost indistinguishable from each other. What happens in the body affects the mind and what happens in the mind affects the body. As long as we are alive the two flow in an endless loop.

As the Daoist sage Lao Zi said, “So long as we possess a physical body there will be misfortune.”

The process of Qi-gong is more than just performing a series of movements. The mind must also be involved and there must be a certain level of positive expectations as to the outcome or the results of the exercises for the methods to function correctly.

For Qigong to be truly effective, one must learn to use the mind to elicit what Harvard’s Dr. Herbert Benson has called a relaxation response. This process can be thought of as a type of meditation training in which the following criteria have to be achieved to begin creating a “healing response.”

1. Relax the external muscles.

2. Calm the mind of distracting thoughts.

3. Begin to relax inwardly the internal muscles and organs

One thing that also is clear from psychological studies of meditators suffering from emotional disorders is that straight mediation does not always solve emotional problems. It can often drive them deeper by making the mind stronger so it is numbed to the pain.

Chinese Daoist concepts seem to deal with this by transforming the energy from emotions that they believe are stored in specific organs into positive energy and using this to increase the overall Qi level of the body. This is most often accomplished by specific visualization exercise in which the mind (Yi) is used to guide the Qi energy to a specific point or lead it along a certain pathway.

The reason that standard quiet sitting meditation does not do this is that it is not bringing forth a modality for the discharge of negative emotional energy stored in various tissues and organs of the body in a compete form. It is merely allowing the mind to become still and quiet. Thus, meditation is only the first step. The mind’s distracting static can be dampened in mediation but no long stored emotional energies are discharged from their collection points.

For this, we must engage the use of specialized mental exercises involving in some cases physical movements but in all cases, the use of visualizations and imagination to produced subtle internal feelings and changes in the internal systems.

………..watch for parts 2 & 3

© IAM Company 2010

Filed Under: Lessons, Qi Series

Qi and Hypnosis–Part 2

December 19, 2010 By

Once we start talking about using the imagination or the mind to visualize or create specific responses we are entering the realm of mesmerism / hypnosis / autosuggestion / self-hypnosis / self-talk or any of a number of other names. Those who still hold to the misguided idea that hypnosis is some type of trance where one person controls another would do well to read more modern literature on neuroscience and the workings of the brain and mind.

You are hypnotized daily by radio, television commercials, news commentators or your peers. Anytime you listen to someone who purports and idea and you buy into and believe that idea you are working with hypnosis. You buy a special brand of soap, diet food, natural foods etc based on something you read, saw or heard and you bought into the idea that it was good for you. This happened because you choose to believe this thing, person, or product was beneficial to you in some way. Your mind recorded it as a truth and you moved to make it happen.

Just in the same way you can get a cold or the flu by thinking, “I get sick every year.” That thought turns the brain on to lower your immune system and allow the bacteria or virus to invade your system. Of course, it is a bit more complex than this simple explanation but it is the basis of how and why you get ill, succeed or fail in many endeavors in life or have certain belief systems.

Today science is learning more and more about the mind and its mysterious influence over the body. We are learning more each year. Science is slow to make progress in these areas. Western science must see everything in concrete terms and be able to examine a process in minute detail.

In the East where the traditions of mental healing began, no such approach is taken. If a method works, it is accepted as valid because of the outcome not the process. Practitioners of a method will strive to improve the method until it is more powerful and effective but they seldom question why something works.

After over thirty years of observing, studying and researching various Qi- gong methods and systems Dr. Painter says he is more convinced that ever that it is what and how we think or rather how and what we imagine that has the greatest influence on our health or lack thereof.

Because many people have a problem with the word “hypnosis” he chooses to use the term guided imagery when discussing concepts of Vitapathic healing (Qi-gong) as this term seems to fit the processes used in Chinese and Tibetan methodology. Guided imagery is a simple process in which we can train ourselves to use pictures in our mind to turn on and increase your body’s natural healing potential and maintain it at peak efficiency.

It is very clear to see is we make comparative studies of eastern cultures and their healing methods that guided imagery is at the heart of all the healing traditions of the East and early shamanistic health systems. It is safe and very powerful if used correctly.

In one of the earliest know texts on Qigong theory written by Master Wei, Boyang, titled Can Tong Qi (Akinness of the Three) around 142 AD the master of Daoist energy development says, “In the end whatever you call it, it is not more than the mind (Yi and Xin), intention and attitude and the breath being together as one. It is simply the Yin and the Yang influenced internally with their spirit and energy entwined.”

Even earlier the founder or Daoist thought, Lao, Zi author of the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), is reputed to have authored a previous work which was burned and later banned in China (today it is available again and in wide circulation). This was The Treatise of the Exalted One, On Response and Retribution written some possibly around 549 B.C. in this work the opening lines are: ‘The exalted One says: Curses and blessings do not come through the gates, but man himself invites their arrival. Good and evil is like shadow following object…”

Both of these passages would seem to imply that what we think and “invite in” to the mind becomes the progenitors of our success or failure, happiness or success. This message is not new it is repeated over and over again in culture after culture. Yet in the pursuit of Qigong, somehow the message has gotten lost in the forest of numberless exercises, breathing practices and ritualized dances all attempting to get the Qi flowing in the right way at the right time.

What seems to be lost in all of this is the fact that the mind rules the body and the body houses the Qi, which seems to be exactly what master Wei and master Lao Zi were trying to tell us. The best way to activate this powerful mechanism of the mind to take dominion over the body and the Qi is through visualization training and that can be called guided imagery. As Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name, a rose by any other would still smell as sweet.”

…………watch for part 3

Filed Under: Lessons, Qi Series

Jiulong Health Qigong Methods Outlined

December 10, 2010 By

It is known that the Li family trained two specific types of Qigong. One was for health, longevity, and spiritual development, and the other was used solely for martial development. Both methods of training are accompanied by strong activation of the mind intent (Yi) to lead and a!ect changes in the human body and control of the emotional attitudes (Xin).

Both practices begin with Quiet Sitting (Jingzuo) a method of meditation and proceeds to standing forms (Zhan Zhuang), and later moving forms. Before these practices of standing and moving can be fully realized, it is first necessary to use Jingzuo to quieting our minds. The true warrior as well as the sage has a mind as tranquil as a pond perfectly reflecting the moon at midnight. This is why all training for the self-defense or spiritual attainment begins with Quiet Sitting as the base.

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