Realization: external movements are guides for internal

Moves like gathering heavenly qi are external movements to help teach your attention/qi to move through the body internally – ultimately the “move” is entirely internal and there is no external movement – these external movements are just to help you get the feeling and understand how to move internally! This completely changes the way I experience and practice these kinds of moves now.

Example from today: of the five loosening movements the arm swings are about dropping energy abruptly down so that it rushes/bounces back up to fill. The idea is to feel the energy fill the body and extend out through the hands. The idea is to learn how to “pulse” energy like this – dropping to have it fill and expand.

Of course, you are also loosening the shoulders and learning to be more song/loose/relaxed/released ( 松 | Sōng ).

Push hands

Noticed how different it is to have one point of contact instead of two: just making a second point of contact with my hand to their body feels like it stablizes the whole system.