The prompt that made the most difference today was simple. It was as Sam went through three actions or qualities of Zhuangtai:

• Julong (gathering)
• Extend
• Expand

He expressed “expand” as “out through the skin.”

I could suddenly feel what it was like if all of my skin were expressing. “Every pore,” he said. This worked in that moment to express the state.

Foot pointing forward during rotations
Blade foot when going side to side
Start w toes just like fingertips energy – ma gathong is dynamic – tiqie for standing leg
Transitions – still flowing all through them
Arm is just a rope – nothing there – for ti and peng
An – fingers of hand like paintbrush moving down a wall – fingers out and slightly up
When outside force, push, comes: response is just to increase Tiqie
Thinking mind brings the energy up into the chest and shoulders – notice and return to body center

Unfortunately I was only able to attend one day of Andrew Plack’s 3 day Yiquan training this time around. My shoulder, nerve and arm injuries are starting to heal but I wanted to be careful not to overdo it. That said, there were some great tiny insights – little pointers in the right context and in the right moment that can be the key to new experiential ah-ha moments. Some of these notes are very similar to notes I took during his last visit.

Be like a child playing

Let yourself swing your arms too far, too little. Extend too much, too little. Avoid overthinking and let your body play its way to the right place by playing like a child.

Imitation

To try to imitate the trainer is to fail. To not imitate at all is also to fail.

Middle Space

Always the middle space. In this case, I was fiercely focused on ju long, with my arms completely loose – loose with no connection. The only alternative felt like tightening up. What is the middle space between body and muscles completely limp and too tight? Between being tense and relaxed?

Only the Hands

Try putting all intention in the fingertips, and just beyond. Relax shoulders, arms, elbows and let them vanish.

Zhuang Tai vs Ju Long

I still can’t seem to find the characters or pinyin for these words, but they are repeated endlessly in practice. From my very weak understanding so far: Zhuang Tai is the state of effortless readiness. Being like an animal in the wild – the way a squirrel is always alert, ready, can move instantly at any moment. The state we are in when we are about to run and someone says, “ready… set…” and we in the state that second before movement. Ju Long is the movement that is happening at the center, that can be tested by quickly lifting the feet, ready to move at any moment, like a little walking person at your core – “movement in stillness” because this is happening as we appear to be still. With both(?) there is a repeated reminder of going up and down at the center at the same time, or sometimes called “condensing” at the center.

Energy Never Out

The energy during the movements is never “out” – going forward. Example of gesture where we go from bao to tui – it is a continuous flow, and energy goes from bao (hug, drawing in) to extending slighly upwards. Rather it is upwards. How do we ever make contact with another person? By moving our whole body.

Andrew, a student of Master Han, came to visit and taught two classes. As always, these are my quick brain-dump and these notes may be completely inscrutable if you haven’t worked with han shi yi-quan

• No shoulders, no arms, only alive hands
• Attention, focus, look (yi) – a mile away
• Feels effortless when working. “I didn’t do anything”
• Find the body connected feeling, then activate with the 1-2-3… ready to sprint feeling (can use drawing in of feet like light running to activate and get feeling)
• Hands like they are reaching out to pinch or grasp something – but with no arms or shoulders – just the hands grasping feeling
• Really felt it with the arms outstretched and slowly pivoting back and forth around the center – Han, instead of center pole, likes idea of a towel being stretched out and twisted around a center to turn
• With the arm swings, arms don’t go backwards past your comfortable and strong range (so up to center and front, as high as forehead, then back and up roughly the sides of body)

A video of Andrew at work:

A reminder from my i-chuan teacher today that drawing energy towards the center is not the same as drawing towards the dantian. It sounds simple enough – but is yet another profound shift in the experience. Again, this is i-chuan, not taiji, where energy is developed and used slightly differently.

Haven’t been able to get together with my forms teacher for a while due to both of our schedules. Without regular updates I was getting a little off so he had some, er, stern corrections.

• 8 Silk Brocades feet: There are two moves that use horse stance. The rest all use a stance shoulder width apart
• Separate mane: forward hand is like an offering – hand only up to shoulder height blocking where a punch would come – not reaching up to the sky
• When turning left into cloud hands from right side partition horses mane, left hand comes up and strikes/blocks with back of hand side of arm – so back of hand is facing left – and right hand is palm down at waist
• In Plum Blossom 16 form when doing the 180 to the right, bringing weight all the way onto right foot first, with outward pressure on the knee to not have it collapse, before turning.

Today I got some interesting corrections on 8 silk brocades. Now that we are getting into the finer details I think I’m seeing some difference in methodology of the teachers. This is where things get tricky. With different instructors, some (I believe) hold the actual sensations and experience and others are more focused on making the physical form precise. Both have value, but sometimes come into conflict. Corrections:

• On “Shake the head and wiggle the tail” he said it was important not to shift weight, but rather to hold a solid center weight in horse stance and rotate the upper body above and around that. This makes sense, but is a bummer as I was using this as a mindful weight shift exercise.
• On “Draw the bow to shoot the hawk” add more intention on drawing the bow and wrap in the bottom two fingers as well. This makes sense by anyone’s system.
• On “Divide heaven and earth” instead of palm in center of body facing down, hands are on the sides of the body, arms are so extended they are nearly locked, fingers point straight back (overhead) and forward (lowered hand). This is very different from the Daoyin way I have been using this sequence. Looking at ancient diagrams I could see it either way.
• On “Bounce on the toes 7 times” he wanted me to do them really slowly, basically calf raises as a physical exercise. This blew my mind, as I had been show then in a way that made sense to me as a way of learning to drop qi by making a movement like shaking a bag of coins. These are completely different practices. Looking online I see most in agreement with my version – gentle bouncing that lightly shakes the body.
• On “Raise the heavens to activate the triple warmer”, more of a squat (makes sense) but also suggested eyes/head facing forward the entire time. Again, very different. Facing forward (instead of up) at the top actually makes balance at the top a little easier (when up on toes) but feels like less of a full open movement. I’ll see how this changes things over time.

Definitely feeling a little frustrated and confused, and now the endless internet search begins for what are likely a variety of truths as this form has evolved and been handed down for hundreds of years. What were the original intentions of these movements? Are there better ways to use them now? And so goes any technology passed human-to-human over time.