1 Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong

MODULE 1 Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong

BRUCE FRANTZIS

Copyright© 201 0 Bruce Frantzis All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval syste transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recordi1 otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Energy Arts, Inc., P.O. Box 99, Fairfax, CA 94978-0099 The following trademarks are used under license by Energy Arts, Inc., from Bruce Frantzis: Fri Energy Arts® system, Mastery Without Mystery®, Longevity Breathing® program, Opening the E1 Gates ofYour Body™ Qigong, Marriage of Heaven and Earth™ Qigong, Bend the Bow™ Spinal Qi~ Spiraling Energy Body™ Qigong, Gods Playing in the Clouds™ Qigong, Living Taoism™ Collectio1 Rev Workout™ HeartChi,™ Bagua Mastery Program,™ Bagua Dynamic Stepping System,™ Bagua nal Warm-up Method,™ and Bagua Body Unification Method.™

Editing: Heather Hale, Bill Ryan and Richard Tau binger Interior Design: Heather Hale Cover Design: Thomas Herington Photo and Illustration Editing: Mountain Livingston and Thomas Herington Photographs by: Eric Peters, Bill Walters, Caroline Frantzis, Richard Marks and Catherine Helms Illustrations: Michael McKee and Kurt Schulten Image Alteration: Lisa Petty, GiriVibe, Inc., Patrick Hewlett and Jodie Smith Models: Bill Ryan, Keith Harrington, Don Miller and Paul Cavel Printed in the United States of America PLEASE NOTE: The practice of Taoist energy arts and meditative arts may carry risks. The inform in this text is not in any way intended as a substitute for medical, mental or emotional counseling a licensed physician or healthcare provider. The reader should consult a professional before unde ing any martial arts, movement, meditative arts, health or exercise program to reduce the chan injury or any other harm that may result from pursuing or trying any technique discussed in this Any physical or other distress experienced during or after any exercise should not be ignorec should be brought to the attention of a healthcare professional. The creators and publishers o text disclaim any liabilities for loss in connection with following any of the practices described i1 text, and implementation is at the discretion, decision and risk of the reader.

Table of Contents Section 1: Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong .................................... 5

Section 2: What You'll Learn in the Bagua Mastery Program ......................... 9 Foundational Neigong for Bagua ......................... 10 Relaxation ................................................................... 11 Taoist Breathing (Neigong Component #1) ........... 11 Breathing Level 1: The Simple Story ................................... 11 Breathing Level 2: The More Complete Story ................... 12 Breathing Level 3: The Bigger Picture ................................ 12 Breath and Movement ........................................................... 13

Basic Body Alignments (Neigong Component #4) ........................................ 13 Avoid Incorrect Alignments ................................................. 16

Turning the Arms (Neigong Component #9) ........ 17 Turning the Hips (Neigong Component #9) ......... 17 Best Practices ......................................................................... 18

Conscious, Relaxed Intent ....................................... 20 Twisting the Arms and Legs (Neigong Component #9) ....................................... 20

Section 3: What Intermediate Practitioners Will Learn ........................ 23 The Interplay of Opening-Closing and Lengthening (Neigong Component #7) ...... 24 Opening-Closing ...................................................... 24 Lengthening .......................................................................... 26

Twisting and Spiraling (Neigong Component #9) ...................................... 34 Twisting ...................................................................... 34

Spiraling ..................................................................... 35 Physical Tissue Motions of Spiraling in Conjunction with Twisting ..................................... 37

Turn from the Central Channel (Neigong Component #13) ..................................... 37 Ideal Goals for Turning ............................................ 38

Heart-Mind (Neigong Components #15-#16) ...... 40 Reverse Breathing (Neigong Component #1) ....................................... 41 Important Practice Points ....................................... .41

Moving In and Out from Your Core (Neigong Component #14) .....................................................42 Connected Pressure ................................................. 43

Create an Elastic Body and Mind .......................... 44

Section 1 Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong Bagua is derived from and is a part of the neigong or "internal skill" tradition of Taoist meditation. Beginning thousands of years ago, Taoists delved deeply within themselves during meditation and discovered and learned how to work with the chi flows within their body-mind-spirit. The Taoist science of how these energy flows work is called the "Taoist sixteen neigong

system:' Bagua was developed from the sixteen neigong with the

purpose of embodying the Eight Universal Energies of the I Ching. Conversely, all the other Taoist arts-qigong, tai chi and hsing-i-are external forms infused with neigong (internal power). The sixteen components refer to the major subjects within the system, which are: 1. Breathing methods,fromthesimpletothecomplex.Thegoa l is to coordinate the expansions and contractions of the belly with every anatomical part and energetic function within your body and external aura.

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Bagua Mastery Program

2. Moving chi along the general direction of the various ascending, descending and lateral connecting channels within the body. The whole process includes methods to help you feel your chi so that you can move it smoothly in the general direction to where it will work most efficiently. Part of this is concerned with how to transform or dissolve and release the various kinds of energy that flows within specified channels. 3. Moving chi in specific ways through all the main and secondary acupuncture channels, energy gates and points, as well as the multitude of tiny interconnecting channels that cause specific functions to occur. 4. Precise body alignments that prevent the flow of chi from being either

blocked or dissipated. 5. Dissolving, releasing and resolving all blockages of the physical, emotional and spiritual sides of oneself. 6. Bending and stretching the body's soft tissues in a general direction from the inside out and the outside in, and along the body's surfaces associated with the yin and yang acupuncture channels. 7. Opening and closing methods (pulsing). Opening means to expand, grow larger or flow outward and emanate like a sun. Closing means to condense and get smaller in an inward direction, like the gravity flow of a black hole. Closing carries no connotation of tension, contraction or force in the movement, only continuous inward flow toward a point of origination. Opening and closing actions can occur within any of the body's soft or hard tissues as well as anywhere within the body's subtle energy anatomy (channels, points, aura, etc.). 8. Working with the energies of the external aura to connect the body with mental states; and make connections between the body, the aura and the rest of the psychic and spiritual energies that exist within the universe. 9. Amplifying the circles and spirals of energy inside the body that have been dormant and amplifying and controlling the flow of the currents that are already operating well. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

Module 7: Bagup and the Sixteen Neigong

10. Learning to move chi to any part of the body at will (especially to the internal organs, glands and spots within the brain and spinal cord). This includes absorbing or projecting chi from all body parts at will. 11. Awakening and controlling all the energies of the spine and what they connect to. This includes the vertebrae, cerebrospinal fluid, brain, spinal cord and all the nerves within the body. 12. Awakening and using the body's left and right energy channels. 13. Awakening and using the body's central energy channel, which controls all the others. 14. Developing the capacities and all the uses of the body's lower tantien, the main energetic center that directly affects all physical functions, one's sense of fear, insecurity and death and one's sense of being stable and grounded. 15. Developing the capacities and all the uses of the middle and upper tantiens, and the higher human spiritual centers. The middle tantien (heart center) governs all relationships. It is intimately tied to all our most subtle emotions and intuitions and is considered the source of consciousness within the body. The upper tantien, located within the brain, is critical to longevity because of its ability to activate the pituitary and pineal glands (master glands). It is also responsible for well-functioning thought processes and psychic capacities. 16.1ntegrating and connecting each of the previous fifteen components into one, unified energy. Permanent integration is different from a temporary buzz or having a lot of energy that generates strong experiences but ultimately goes nowhere. If number sixteen is lacking, it is difficult to absorb and integrate the good qualities ofthe other fifteen in a stable and comfortable manner that allows the practitioner to use them effortlessly to maximum effect-such as while resting or sleeping.

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Each of these components or subjects has immense depth, and all but the more superficial aspects have been kept relatively secret for millennia. Each one of the components could legitimately merit one or more very large books. Within any one component, there may be hundreds and even thousands of techniques for developing chi. Each of the components is organically related to and overlaps with each of the others. Together they comprise a continuous circle of knowledge. As with any circle, there is no definitive starting point for beginning your studies of neigong nor is there a definitive endpoint. Instead, you study neigong by going around and around the circle of sixteen. Each time you go around, you hopefully spiral ever deeper into more fulfilling and beneficial levels within each individual component and within the neigong system as a whole.


Section 2 What You'll Learn in the Bagua Mastery Program In the past, I've tried to teach the sixteen neigong simultaneously with the external movements of bagua and tai chi. My experience, however, has been that the complexity of the physical movements inhibits attention to the internal energies. So, within the Bagua Mastery Program,™ initially when you learn a bagua technique, you will receive instruction on: • The physical movements. • The essential foundational aspects of the sixteen neigong within those movements. Once you gain proficiency at this level, you can continue studying neigong and then go back and begin learning the intermediate levels of practice, which are discussed in the next section.

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Foundational Neigong for Bagua The foundational neigong principles and practices described in this section are best begun as early as possible. Therefore, some initial instruction is provided below and further elaboration is presented in various ways throughout the modules. For each bagua practice you learn-e.g. straight-line walking, warm-up exercises or the Single Palm Change-you first want to familiarize yourself with its gross movements. But after this initial period, start considering the internals. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to implement these principles, especially as they get progressively more complex. I, along with many of my more experienced instructors, teach many neigong practices within Longevity Breathing® and Energy Gates Qigong. It is highly recommended that you seek out instruction in these subjects as a complement to the instruction provided herein. The better the instruction you receive and the more you practice, the easier it will be to implement these principles and techniques into your bagua form. There are the seven essential practice ingredients in bagua for beginning practitioners: •

Relaxation

•

Taoist Longevity Breathing

•

Basic body alignments

•

Turning the arms

•

Turning the hips and waist

•

Conscious, relaxed intent

•

Twisting the legs and arms.


Module 1: Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong

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Relaxation All of your muscles and nerves must be relaxed when practicing any qigong, bagua or tai chi technique. Under no circumstances should the body's muscles or nerves be deliberately tensed or forced. Many erroneously think they must tense their body to produce yang internal energy. The power of the mind must not be pushed to exercise its force of will. It often physically shows up as involuntarily tensing of the back of the eyes and tightening of the jaw. Relaxing the mind will eventually result in consciously relaxing the brain-a new and challenging task for many beginners. Becoming relaxed is paramount in all Taoist practices.

Taoist Breathing (Neigong Component #1) Classically, bagua only used Taoist methods of whole-body breathing. With all Taoist breathing methods, the chest is deliberately not expanded. This is the opposite of what is practiced in Hatha yoga, gymnastics and more common Western breathing techniques. Taoist breathing has two basic methods: regular and reverse breathing. After the beginning (learning) stage, bagua classically was intended to only be practiced with reverse breathing, which will be explained in Section 3. Regular Taoist breathing was considered a preliminary rather than main event. Most people, however, must first learn how to do regular breathing well in order to do reverse breathing without risk of injury.

Breathing Level 1: The Simple Story Healthy breathing emphasizes movement of the diaphragm. It is the physical downward and upward movement of the diaphragm that enables air to enter and leave the lungs, respectively. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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Initially, you practice engaging your diaphragm and deep belly breathing. Each inhale and exhale deliberately moves and massages your internal organs. Regular Taoist breathing expands your belly on the inhale and condenses your belly on the exhale.

Breathing Level 2: The More Complete Story Breathing with your belly means a bit more than its obvious implications. Initially, with each breath, you expand and release your entire belly from the top of your pubic hair to your diaphragm (solar plexus), including the sides and back of your belly. This activates your liver and spleen as well as the back of your belly (abdomen), where your lower back muscles and kidneys are located. Your body's anatomy physically moves in all the appropriate places as the expanding and condensing coordinates with your inhales and exhales. In regular Taoist breathing, as you inhale, your belly and other anatomical parts of your body (muscles, ligaments and internal organs) expand or open. When you exhale, your belly and other anatomical parts of your body simultaneously shrink, condense or close. (In reverse breathing, the opening and shrinking patterns are the exact opposite.)

Breathing Level 3: The Bigger Picture Taoist regular breathing also involves breathing into and with the back of your lungs without the front of your chest moving. This techniques directly massages your heart and is particularly emphasized. It is a unique feature of Taoist breathing that is not found in other breathing systems. Your breath should reach the very top of your lungs, which people normally don't do unless they are well-trained in these methods. Lao Tse writes in the Tao Te Ching, "The wise man breathes from his heels:' A partial meaning of this statement refers to coordinating the physical breath with



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breathing chi into and out of several parts of your body simultaneously, including: • The internal organs. • The feet through the legs and hips. • The crown of the head. • The spine, which activates and wakes up your whole spinal system, brain and central nervous system.

Breath and Movement Initially, your physical movements should not be consciously synchronized to your inhales and exhales. It is okay if it naturally happens, but not if you consciously engineer it by using effort or conscious will. It can have potentially negative emotional consequences. For the sufficiently inexperienced, conscious linkage of bagua physical movements with the breath can potentially and dangerously over stimulate or suppress your emotional energy.

Later, with experience and using your own best judgment, you can naturally let the linkages with the breath happen of their own accord. You'll only nudge them a little every once in a while. If in doubt about whether you might be overextending yourself, take it easy and wait for instruction from a competent teacher to provide you with personal feedback.

Basic Body Alignments (Neigong Component #4) There are many fundamentals of body alignments that should be followed when practicing any aspect of bagua or in any other Taoist energy arts. Classic Taoist body alignment principles are practiced more or less in similar fashion regardless of format including:


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• Taoist chi practices for health and stress relief. • Internal martial arts, including all variations of bagua, tai chi, hsing-i and liu he ba fa (combination forms). • Neigong, qigong and meditation methods can be practiced while standing, moving, sitting, lying down or in relationship to others.

Figure 1.2.1 Fundamental Bagua Alignments

These fundamental alignments (Figure 1.2.1) apply to all bagua applications for medical, martial art or meditation practices. They are: • The neck is straight, so the weight of the head is gently lifted off the spine and the neck's highest vertebrae. ideally, this is aided by the head being energetically and gently pulled upward from the energy center in your aura to above your head.



• The spine is straight. • Significantly, the tailbone is gently tucked under and slightly forward rather than only perpendicular to the ground as in tai chi. • The chest does not stick out. • The midriff (between the top of the hip and the lowest rib) is lifted. • Knees are always slightly bent. • The shoulders, back and buttocks are rounded horizontally forward. • The rounding of the back allows the chest to spread and round horizontally toward the shoulders. This allows the chest to reach its normal, full-size without causing any internal compression. This in turn allows your natural breathing to massage the heart to an extent greater than a normal puffed out chest position. • The chi of the chest is sunk and the chest is rounded vertically in a relaxed, but not collapsed manner. You should not go to the point of collapsing the chest onto the diaphragm and solar plexus, which would weaken your breathing and close down this important energetic center. The relaxation and rounding of the chest allows the spine to straighten and the head to lift to their fullest natural extension possible without tension. • The abdomen is relaxed, so you can fully breathe with your belly, diaphragm and kidneys, and over time, your chi can sink and store in your lower tantien. • Keep your perineum relaxed and open by rounding your croutch. Be sure not to squeeze or close your perineum with your thighs as you align your lower body. Doing so will block the chi from your legs from fully connecting to your spine. • The kwa or inguinal crease is folded or shrunk. This gives the appearance that you are sitting on an invisible chair or what the Chinese call "sitting in a sedan chair:' © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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• Lastly, when on the ground, the feet are flat on the ground and firmly rooted.

Avoid Incorrect Alignments Incorrect alignments can be corrected. My best advice is to seek a well-qualified, competent instructor's help in a live training situation, so they can give you necessary personal corrections. The aura above your head should not be so energetically weak that it comes too close to the top of the head. If so, the energy in your body must be gradually increased. Often a weak aura results when your head is scrunched onto your neck. This causes the neck vertebrae to compress more and more over time and the occipital junction (occiput, at the base of the back of the skull) to close down, which weakens or blocks energy flow upward and downward. Other common misalignments are: • The kwa or inguinal crease is pushed out rather than sunk or folded. • The shoulders, back and buttocks arch backward. • The chest is puffed out. • The midriff is collapsed. • The abdomen is tense and sucked in. • The spine is overly curved. • The thighs are collapsed. • The perineum is closed. • The knees are locked. • The arch of the foot or area behind the Achilles heel is collapsed.



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Turning the Arms (Neigong Component #9) Turning (rotating), twisting and spiraling the soft tissues of the body are three stages in the process of awakening the spiraling energy currents of the body. Each stage sets the necessary foundation upon which the next stage builds and expands. The practices of turning and twisting are explained and explored in detail in an accompanying Module 1 document, Bagua Skills: Twisting. In the initial stages of bagua practice, focus on continuously rotating or turning the outer muscles of your arms whenever you move them. Rotating or turning a hand simply requires that you turn a palm over from up to down. However, to get the idea of how this is applied properly in bagua, you must begin with proper alignments. Therefore, with your elbow bent, turn your palm continuously between up and down. Ideally, this turning rotation of the arm would begin from the shoulder blades, move through the upper arms and forearms, and finish turning at your palm and fingers.

Turning the Hips (Neigong Component #9) Whenever you turn your torso in bagua-whether in the warm-up and body unification exercises, Circle Walking while changing direction or the Single Palm Change-there are bad and good ways to turn. Ideally, you turn from your hips and waist. (The best practice for intermediates is to allow your turning to originate from your central channel to drive the turning of your hips and waist.)



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The worst practices for turning are: • The turning of your body originating and being centered in your chest, shoulders, neck or head, or any combination thereof. • Not turning your torso or hips, but rather your head and arms. Both of these will result in having the weight of your upper body concentrate within your spine and/or knees, which basically tears them apart.

Best Practices See Figure 1.2.2. Several points are essential. •

Make sure that your hips and torso turn while maintaining your four points. This ensures your torso is stable and that it rests stably on your hips, so that when your waist turns, your hips turn and vice-versa. The turning of the torso is best achieved by having your kwa (inguinal crease), hips and body's centerline gel into one unit and using that unit to generate and control the smooth turning of your torso. • The body's centerline begins from the crown of your head and descends on a straight line downward passing through your nose, throat notch, heart center, belly button and lower tantien, and finishes at your perineum. When turning incorrectly, many practitioners begin by turning only their head, which disconnects them from their body's centerline. Avoid this and keep the connection between the centerline of your head and the centerline of your torso as strong and stable as possible. • As with the turning of your arms the turning of your hips in the beginning stages ideally comes from turning the outer muscles of your waist, hips and legs. Developing this capacity can go



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Figure 1.2.2 Keep Your Four Points Aligned

through natural progressive phases. In the beginning, it is best to turn your hips and torso and let that turning stimulate and cause the muscles of the legs to turn. Later, when your legs have gotten very stable and your leg muscles are very relaxed, you can turn the muscles along your legs and hips to stimulate and cause your hips and torso to turn. This is especially useful by the time you practice holding arm postures while Circle Walking. In the Single Palm Change (SPC), you should go with your intuition and freely mix and match between the previous options.


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If the alignments of the centerline of your head, neck and torso and the four points are kept together, the weight of your torso will stay inside your torso, on top of your hips and legs, and will not as easily end up excessively pressurizing the anatomical structures of your lower body.

Conscious, Relaxed Intent A basic principle of neigong states that intent moves chi, which motivates and enables physical movement. In both bagua and tai chi, the deliberate use of conscious, relaxed intent becomes the source of your movements. You do not rely on conscious or unconscious muscular reflexes no matter how well-trained and finely honed. Intent is of two kinds: the ordinary intellectual type or the extraordinary kind of the Heart-Mind to be explained in Section 3. All forms of intent ultimately derive either from ordinary intent or the Heart-Mind. Ordinary intent is partial. It is derived from the part of our brain or mind that we use to manipulate symbols or for logic and mathematics. It is the part of us we use to activate force of will. In the early stages of learning bagua, try to become aware of and then refine your ordinary intent. The intent you should use in bagua and tai chi should always be relaxed, fluid and continuous and not tense, forced or intermittent-reg ardless of being employed for longer or shorter times.

Twisting the Arms and Legs (Neigong Compon ent #9) As noted in the discussion on turning the arms, turning (rotating), twisting and spiraling the soft tissues of the body are three stages of the process of awakening the spiraling energy currents ofthe body. Each stage sets the necessary foundation upon which the next stage builds and expands.



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While it is important for beginners to start with turning or rotating the muscles of the arms and hips and legs, twisting the soft tissues is also an essential foundational bagua neigong practice. See Bagua Skills: Twisting. Then, as you are presented with new bagua practices in the upcoming modules, you can first learn them using the technique of turning the soft tissues of your arms and legs when you are directed to twist them. Then, you can advance to twisting when you feel you have the capacity to do so. You will find that the instructions for the warm-up exercises in this module and the unification exercises in Module 3 contain instructions for twisting your tissues, but the instructions for straight-line walking and Circle Walking in the first several modules do not. That is because it is best for you to first explore turning and then twisting your tissues within the simpler warm-up and unification exercises. After you have gained some experience with turning and twisting, instructions will be given in later modules to begin incorporating twisting into your straightline walking and Circle Walking practices.


Section 3 What Intermediate Practitioners Will Learn Intermediate-level practitioners will receive instruction on: • Lengthening (neigong component #7) • Opening and closing (neigong component #7) • Twisting and spiraling (neigong component #9) • Turning from the central channel (neigong component #13) • Heart-Mind (neigong components #15-#16) • Reverse breathing (neigong component #1) • Moving in and out from your core (neigong component #14). For each bagua practice presented in the modules, the neigong tecniques most appropriate for that practice will be discussed.

23 © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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The Interplay of Opening-Closing and Lengthening (Neigong Component #7) Lengthening and opening-dosing are a matched pair. The intermediate instructions included in this program are the chi techniques of openingclosing and lengthening that are basic to all chi practices. It is the seamless combination and integration of these two neigong practices that enables the shrink-grow methods of bagua and small frame tai chi to fully manifest. The specific ways in which opening-dosing is practiced includes all bodily joints and cavities. Lengthening must be practiced in direct coordination with all of the soft tissues as they relate to the body's yin and yang acupuncture surfaces. Both are taught within my Marriage of Heaven and Earth core qigong program, which I encourage you to study in order to learn the specific techniques that will be referred to in these modules.

To learn these techniques, see the Energy Arts Website, www.energyarts.com, and locate a Level2 Heaven and Earth Qigong Instructor near you.

Opening-Closing The I Ching places great emphasis on the essential actions of opening and closing. Opening (kai in Chinese) means to expand outward from a point toward a periphery. Closing (he in Chinese) means to collect or condense inward from the edges of a periphery into a point. Opening-dosing is the essential middle ground between what can be called the beginning and advanced methods of bagua and tai chi. Without opening-dosing, the beginning practices cannot reach their full potential. In all advanced chi practices, opening-dosing is the bedrock foundation.



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Opening-closing (also open-close) occurs not only within physical tissues, but also within each of your eight energy bodies. Experientially, comprehending the qualities of opening-closing is mandatory within the tenets of Taoist meditation to understand the underlying nature that molds the matrix of manifestation. This is what causes all yin and yang qualities to change into each other. Health and martial internal power can be accessed through a detailed and methodical learning process, which begins with opening-closing the energy of all joints and bodily cavities. This process requires that you directly open-close (expand and condense) all of the joints and cavities of the body on demand. This must be achieved purely through intent alone without using muscular effort or external movement. Later, the same is physically achieved with the vertebrae of the spine, bones of the pelvis and plates of the skull. Although this initially may seem difficult for many to even believe or accept, masters and genuine advanced practitioners of Taoist qigong and internal martial arts can easily demonstrate these capabilities on demand. It's possible for many people to develop this ability with proper instruction and practice. Over the centuries in China, opening-dosing has been successfully taught and demonstrated by tens of thousands of people using Taoist qigong exercises that are specifically designed for this purpose. In all bagua traditions, whether doing mud or heel-toe walking practiced in a straight line or in a circle, all parts ideally involve coordinating opening-closing of the space within all of the joints of the body in each and every step. Initially, Circle Walking is practiced at a very slow pace, only just slightly faster than the slow motion typically used in tai chi practice. This is meant to synchronize the opening-closing of the joints with each step. Ultimately, it is very important that with each step, the joints, kwa, entire abdomen, other bodily cavities and spinal vertebrae also simultaneously open-close in a synchronized manner.


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In relationship to opening-closing, there are basically two different ways lengthening is done: vertical and center to periphery.

Lengthening Until the1970s-1980s, stretches of any sophistication were not commonly a part of Western exercise programs. Fortunately, this idea has finally penetrated the standard Western paradigm as it did in the Orient millennia ago. Systems with which the West is familiar, such as dance, gymnastics, external martial arts (for example, Shoalin kung fu, karate, taekwondo) and Hatha yoga study, systemize and expand the fine details to take stretching to exceedingly high levels. Ordinary stretching is based on using weight or some type of leverage pressure to pull muscle fibers apart, sometimes tensing the muscles and then letting them go to get a better stretch-sometimes not. Ordinary stretching often involves a kind of internal struggle inside the practitioner's body until the muscle fibers "submit" and stretch, usually with significant discomfort or outright pain. As a secondary (rather than a direct or primary) effect after the stretch is over, your body and mind may relax. They may not. The spring of the stretches associated with the ligaments may increase. Or they may not. The Difference between Lengthening and Ordinary Stretching

The stretching methodology of the exercises mentioned above significantly contrast to the Taoist lengthening methodology, which is present in the internal martial arts (bagua, tai chi and hsing-i), qigong and Taoist yoga. Using a distinctly different approach, lengthening is based on relaxation and let-go rather than force and control. It is a yin rather than a yang way to stretch. A Three-part Learning Progression

Stage 1: Lengthening is not based on primarily stretching muscle fibers, which normally happens as a secondary effect. Instead, its primary methodology is based on consciously releasing the nerves to enable muscles to naturally release and stretch without effort. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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First, the nerves are completely relaxed. This must be done before any attempt is made to stretch the muscles and make them longer. Only after the nerves are released should the body's muscles be asked to stretch as far as they can (within your seventy percent). This must only be to the point where the relaxation response is fully active and not beyond, where the relaxation response diminishes. If any signals of tension enter the nerves, thereby creating even only a minor sense of body resistance, stop. The initial Taoist methods of lengthening

are commonly learned

in

conjunction with the bending and stretching of the arms and legs. At no point during lengthening are the muscle fibers of the body pushed, either physically or with mental force.

Stage 2: In this stage, you learn to consciously activate, strengthen and balance the chi naturally moving through your body's acupuncture meridians toward (via your yin meridians) and away from (via your yang meridians) your lower tantien (see Figure 1.4.1 ). To do this, your body must be sufficiently relaxed and either be able to feel your chi (ideal) or at least have the sense of nerve flow moving within your body. Only then can you lengthen your bodily tissues in coordination with the moving of your chi, either toward or away from the lower tantien. When you can lengthen this way, you will be able to: • Activate the body surfaces and all the soft tissues within them, where your yin and yang meridians flow-without any external physical movement whatsoever. • Activate the soft tissues and nerve flow within a yang or yin body surface while leaving its corresponding opposite yin or yang body surface essentially passive. This allows the chi in the yin or yang meridian to flow most powerfully through the tissues along its pathway. (This method is different from the more common method of stretching by contracting one muscle while releasing another.)


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Y;mg

A

B Figure 1.4.1 Yin and Yang Meridians

The shaded areas are the body's yin acupuncture meridian surfaces (A) while the white areas are the body's yang acupuncture meridian surfaces (B).

Although this type of lengthening may sound impossible to pull off, again it most definitely is possible. However, it can only be done if a deep baseline of muscular and nerve relaxation and sensitivity is developed to support it. This lengthening technique causes chi to flow within related acupuncture meridians in a most unusual way. If yang meridians are stimulated, related yin meridians are dramatically less so and vice-versa. During practice, this metaphorically induces a strong regular alternating current to flow within your acupuncture meridian system using lengthening, and thereby causes whole body chi circulation to increase. This constant inward-outward alternation works like a turbine. When the turbine wheel spins, the first half of each turn (lasting a second or less) drives the chi more strongly through the yang meridians. In the cycle's second half, chi is immediately driven more strongly through the yin meridians and vice-versa. Movement in each half of the cycle creates the internal force needed to yet more strongly drive the chi in the cycle's other half in a continuous, fluid and © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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unbroken rhythm (instead of in stop-and-start motions). So, like a turbine spinning, the longer it spins, the greater the tendency for it to spin faster and faster unless something interferes with or controls it (like governors in a machine). This is one of many reasons all Taoist practices emphasize continuity of physical movement.

LENGTHENING ALONG THE YANG MERIDIANS To get an idea of how the turbine analogy works, try this sequence of instructions: 1. Put both arms out in front of you, thumbs facing vertically upwards. 2. Just for ease of understanding, lock the elbows of both arms (something which is never done in bagua or tai chi as it violates basic rules of body alignments). 3. From your shoulder blades extend your arms fully forward and keep them there without bending your arm. 4. On the yang (outside) surface ofyour arm, from shoulder to your fingertips, use your intent to interface with and either activate its chi (ideal), or at least activate a feeling in your body's nerves to


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>> Now have your partner place their palms on both sides of your arm. If you are activating a wave in the manner of this method, your partner will feel clear movement on the outside yang side of your arm and nothing on the inside (yin side) of your arm. Conversely, if you haven't quite got it, your partner will fee/little or nothing on the outside (yang ,side) of your upper and lower arm, palm and fingers. In this case keep practicing within seventypercent of your current a bit v ...."'"""''-

Stage 3: This stage is unique to Taoist chi arts. In this advanced practice, you will learn how to lengthen all parts of the body simultaneously as an integrated whole. In sequential stretching, only a single part or multiple parts lengthen while others are neglected. So, to lengthen as an integrated unit, you will gradually expand the total number of yin and yang body surfaces that you deliberately engage. Initially, work only on the area of your yin and yang body surfaces where you can get access to the protective chi of your body (called wei chi in Chinese medicine). It lies not far beneath your skin. After your awareness opens sufficiently, you'll gain greater access to the inside of your body and the sense of moving chi through your wei chi. Then, in three more stages and depths inside your body, you can repeat the process until you are internally moving all of the soft tissues on your body's yin and yang surfaces all the way to the bone. As you penetrate each deeper layer, more surface layers above it normally become active, alive and pumping chi through them. You might find you can move their soft tissues more strongly and precisely with significantly less focused effort. Eventually, it will become effortless. Lengthening of the physical tissues must now be driven by lengthening and moving the chi more strongly within your body's left, right and central energy channels (neigong components #12-13).



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As the chi lengthens, it must carry absolutely no iota of a sense of physical force with it. This lack of force enables the body's deepest anatomical substructures to unfold like a flower and creates the last bits of natural, possible and useful space between them. The lack of force also mitigates potential imbalances in these terribly important micro-spaces. Bagua and tai chi practitioners usually progressively establish lengthening in their body by gradually going from one depth to another. At each depth, they usually: 1. Lengthen the top of their body through their arms, neck and chest areas. 2. Slowly lengthen in their midsection. 3. Carefully lengthen in their pelvis. 4. Lengthen in their legs and finally their feet. After they activate each progressive section of the body, the lengthening continues and joins seamlessly with the body parts previously activated. Then, they begin to work at the next depth within their bodies

IMPORTANT TERMS Taoist qigong, bagua and tai chi traditionally use certain technical terms all of which are interrelated. They partially but not fully mirror each other to varying degrees. Often they are used interchangeably to describe different faces of the same phenomena: • Opening-closing • Shrinking-growing • Bending-stretching • Lengthening To be more*precise, however, open-close is a subdivision or aspect of the more e'rimary overarching internal principle of shrinking-growing. Lengthening is a subdivision of open-close. Bend-stretch is


>>

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>>another neigong component that is also a subdivision of shrinking-growing. All Taoist-derived chi schools, especially qigong, bagua and tai chi, commonly use the terms open-close, bendstretch and lengthening. However, the bagua schools also include the terms "shrink" and "grow." If we take a ball and condense its insides and thereby reduce its outer external surface area the ball can be said to shrink. Conversely, if we increase the space inside the ball so its external surface area expands and increases, it can be said to grow. In shrink-grow, all of the qualities of open -close are present plus other factors. For example, in shrink-grow, externally the ball's size or the amount of air space your physical movements occupy rhythmically increases and decreases. At the same time, energetically the chi of your etheric body draws toward your physical skin (closes or shrinks) or expands away from it into space (opens or grows). The term open-close is most commonly used if the shrinking and growing occurs only non-visibly inside the internal anatomical and energetic structures of the physical body (i.e., inside the ball), but has minimal external markers. Whereas if the process of shrinking and growing simultaneously occurs both internally and externally, the term shrink-grow is more technically appropriate. If the shrink-grow aspect being considered primarily relates to the extension and retraction of the arms and legs toward and away from the torso, the technical term bend (retraction) and stretch (extension) is more technically appropriate. From the perspective of purely physical stretching, this type of movement is the ideal mechanism in bagua and tai chi for stretching the physical tissues o ~Jbe arms, ~~pecially a~tpe bend-s.tretch movement of the arms

and legs causes the muscles and soft tissues of the entire back to stretch. Lengthening is more subtle. It is directly linked:to the bod"ft'S internal chi movements and is often done as the physi(:al actions at bendstretch occur. Lengthening is often referred to as opening- >> ·~

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closing of the body's soft tissues. Likewise, from an internal chi perspective, it always must occur as the body shrinks-grows. Internal lengthening is virtually invisible to an untrained eye. It is the way that one can, using pure intent alone, invisibly move the body's soft tissues in the same direction and along the same body surfaces as the body's yin and yang acupuncture meridian surfaces. This then directly activates chi flow through those meridians. For example, when inward lengthening occurs in the legsregardless whether the leg bends or stretches-the tangible movement of the soft tissues on the inside of the leg begins on the inside edge of the foot. It travels upward to the knee and continues to the top of the inside of the thigh as it tracks the body's yin meridians. Its opposite movement of yang lengthening begins on the side of the hip, travels down the outside of the thigh, past the knee to the outside edge of the foot as it tracks the yang meridian chi flow. I teach the internal techniques of lengthening as do my Level 2 Marriage of Heaven and Earth Qigong Instructors. The more common, traditional and regular slow-motion styles of tai chi, such as the Yang or Wu, or styles that have not lost the internal chi work, are primarily based on externally tiny or invisible but internally fully present opening-closing action. This is in contrast to the more dramatic and obvious shrinking-growi ng of bagua. Most people who observe someone practicing the more common and regular slow-motion styles of tai chi, usually only see a slighf"shrinking and growing as the practitioner's arms continuously come closer together and separate. Conversely, if you closely look at a master demonstrate a form from the original Chen style of tai chi, animal styles of hsing-i or bagua, , jt is quite visible to see dramatic shrinking-gr:qwing. This is especially true when observing how the size of the master's external · physictJ:,, ~shaP;(~and the energy of th,~!! ethe(lf/ield ~~.em to "rhythmically a'iternate between growing (opening or expanding) . and shrinking (closing or consl,ensing}simu/~aneously-externally ·· > · , >

~'·.

' '~' '%IF

*Jili::mF~

© 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved .

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>> I generally uses the term open-close to emphasize what a student should do internally. In general, to prevent distortions I use shrink-grow much less. Although it is intellectually invaluable to comprehend tf'l~. difference between the open-c/o~g and shrin~ grow methods of practice, to accurately implement the practice methods requires continutous monitoirng bya competentteacher. Watching a supporting text or video alone won't cutit. By only reading or hearing the words, there is a tendency for students t~ exaggerate either the shrink ~~gro~~.,~ ~~~ do them in an unbalanced way. For example, mayb§;, thgy'll1grow,quitg a lot while :'"> ::-:~~'':j '?}# :) ,~, \, shrinkin rJJdlttl ' .)1, '"

Jj;.l\ '

Twisting and Spiraling (Neigong Component #9) Twisting For an introduction to turning (rotating) and twisting, see the accompanying document, Bagua Skills: Twisting. One way to look at the difference between twisting and rotation is by whether the feeling of movement is primarily on the outside surface of the body or within the deeper inside tissues. For example, in your arm if you feel the elbow or shoulder joint move, but not the inside tissues nearby, that's rotation . Twisting penetrates progressively more deeply into all of the soft tissues between the skin and bone, so they feel like they are being wrung as you might a rubber band or towel. The deeper the twist goes toward (but definitely not into) the bone, the stronger the sensation.



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SAFETY NOTE:

Twisting into the bone is never practiced in bagua, tai chi, or hsing-i. Remember to only twist soft tissues and not inside the bones or joints themselves, either when twisting or spiraling. Never twist deeper into your waist or legs than you can do easily with your arms. In fact, going deeper than superficial twisting is best done only under the guidance of a master or well-trained instructor.

Spiraling Chi travels through the human body in spirals not straight lines. Spiraling is how circularity universally manifests as spirals seamlessly join and continue the motion between two independent circles. The spirals of chi that exist within you power and connect to each other through bodily structures, such as the center of the joints, spinal vertebrae, internal organs and glands. The technique of spiraling exponentially escalates twisting. All Taoist energy arts use spiraling as their central advanced technique for how the arms, legs and waist twist and rotate. This is equally true for qigong and all internal martial arts, although they may use different names to describe the same phenomena. For example, in Chen style tai chi it's called "coiling" or "twisting silk" (chan sz jin in Chinese); in the Yang and Wu styles of tai chi it's called "turning power" (juan jin); and in bagua and hsing-i it's called "drilling power" (luo shuen jin). Some basic assumptions that govern all Taoist chi practices will help you to better understand spiraling. Spiraling of chi begins from multiple centers deep within the body. From there, it connects moving through the layers of the body to other energies that bring it to the body's periphery. It returns from the periphery to its centers of origination in unending cycles.


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Three examples: • From either your heart or lower tantien. • From around your bones and left and right channels of energy (neigong component #12). • From around your central channel of energy (neigong component #13) and bone marrow. As the spiral moves, so do the physical structures. They both come into being at the level of matter and the quantum field. Spiraling generates the body's ability to physically move, either in terms of micro-anatomical movements (e.g., internal organs, glands and blood vessels) or gross physical, motor movement, such as Walking the Circle. When you practice spiraling techniques, you are essentially trying to tie into and awaken the naturally occurring energy spirals already moving in your body. There are other examples in nature of spiraling. At the subatomic level, two protons always circle each other effectively creating spiraling energy. Internal organs have a tiny (which can be perceived by trained human touch), selfgenerated natural spiraling motion called "motility" by visceral osteopaths. The DNA helix is essentially a spiral. When babies first learn how to move, they do so with spiraling motions. While lying down, they spiral as they shift side to side. When they begin to crawl, they do not move their hands in a linear fashion, one hand in front of the other, but by rotating, spiraling and twisting their arms and legs to propel them forward. Chi constantly spirals up from the Earth and down from the heavens. The question is not if it's happening, but whether an individual can use (or borrow) the natural spiraling energies of the universe to enhance the functioning of their own body, mind and spiritual essence.


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.

Physical Tissue Motions of Spiraling 1n Conjunction with Twisting Here, you will learn how to alternately twist the soft tissues around each joint in opposite directions to each other in sequential order. Twisting in opposite directions creates the spiral. For example, if your shoulder tissues twist outward (including those around your shoulder blade and your deltoid and latissima dorsal muscles), those around your elbow simultaneously twist inward. Your upper arm muscles also twist as the tissues around your wrist and palm yet again twist outward with the muscles of your forearm. Vice-versa, if your shoulder tissues twist inward, those around your elbow twist outward and those near your wrist and palm inwards. Remember to only twist soft tissues and not inside the bones or joints themselves.

Turn from the Central Channel (Neigong Component # 13) The best way to originate all waist turning methods in qigong, bagua and tai chi is to originate the motions from the central channel and not purely from the muscles of your waist, hips and legs. The relationship between your central channel and torso is like a cylinder. There are two basic ways of turning a cylinder, i.e. your torso and waist. You can turn the outside of the cylinder's circumference, i.e. the beginning method of turning from your waist, hips and legs. Or, you can turn the cylinder from its central axis, which runs the length of the cylinder in its exact center, i.e. your central channel. Any cylinder (human torso and head) has a top and a bottom and a central core that runs through the exact middle of the cylinder (your central channel).


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Imagine if a thread or tiny rod goes through the middle of the cylinder and is fused into its center. Imagine that this rod also extends out the top and bottom of the cylinder (to your arms and legs). If this thread, line or rod (central channel) is turned, so too must the whole cylinder (torso) follow and turn. The location of your body's central channel of energy goes from your perineum through the crown of your head exactly in the middle of your head, neck and torso in the dead center between the front, back and sides of your body. At first, the turning of the central channel feels more like a rod inside the center of your torso. However, with time and progress, its sensation becomes progressively thinner and lighter. As it becomes thinner the coordination between the turning of your central channel and torso, your limbs also becomes progressively tighter. Eventually, it centers in the bone marrow of your legs and arms. At each stage, you refine the central channel as the source of turning your torso and limbs. This activates the neigong flows in your body in ever-stronger ways with seamless effort.

Ideal Goals for Turning The motto of turning from the central channel is that it must be worked into your practice slowly and gradually following the seventy percent rule to avoid strain. When turning from the central channel, the four points must be aligned. Go back to turning from the waist and hip method if you're not able to maintain the four points. This will ensure that you do not excessively twist or torque the vertebrae of your spine, nor cause excessive pressures and pulls to occur at the base of your neck. You can restrict blood flow to and from your brain if you lose your fourpoints alignments. Part of this central channel cylinder turning is making sure your feet remain stable, still and grounded. They should not wiggle or wobble. If they do, turning from the central channel can cause untoward and potentially destabilizing



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effects to happen inside your internal organs or joints of your lower body. This is so because anatomical connections between your legs, pelvis and internal organs can bind inside your internal organs. If this is the case for you, then turning from the central channel inside your internal organs can negatively pull on all the physical attachments that go into your pelvis and legs. Another aspect of central channel turning is that the smaller the bagua circle walked or the tighter the central channel movement in tai chi, the greater the pressure will be on and in your internal organs. This is good and bad news. • On the upside: If your body can accommodate it, it's ideal as this will cause the fluids and natural motions inside of the internal organs to move about as strongly as possible. The Earth's spiraling energy, moving within the body, will center into and nourish your internal organs quite nicely. • On the downside: If the coordination between your waist turning and central channel are poorly integrated, these two forces can work against each other and thereby pull on the inside of your pelvis, causing pressure to your lower spine. Not good! If you're a healthy genetic specimen, then regardless you may be strong enough to withstand problems. However, if you're not as genetically fit as you think you are, you can go overboard and hurt yourself. This is the problem all athletes have in training. The questions are: How much can I train? Am I overtraining? My heart-felt recommendation is not to throw the dice too often. In more advanced practices that use the Bagua Dragon Body, it becomes possible to turn from the central channel and segment the lower, middle and upper parts of the torso in a way that paradoxically and simultaneously keeps them connected and unified. However, it requires twisting deep within the inside of your abdomen and internal organs, which can be rather fierce. This method is specifically not shown in this text for fear of misunderstanding and someone going off half-cocked and hurting themselves. A competent instructor, ideally a master, should teach you the Bagua Dragon Body in person. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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Heart-Mind (Neigong Components# 15-# 16) All motions of chi in bagua and tai chi should originate in and be directed by the intent of the mind. As discussed in Section 2, in Taoism the level of the mind deeper than ordinary intent is known by many names, including the"Heart-Mind:' The Heart-Mind's intent comes from a much more expanded area of human potential. Although its source is yet unknown to scientists, it is commonly referred to in Eastern traditions by such names as "mind;' "spirit" and "consciousness:' Whether its source is the brain or something else is an ageold debate that has raged for thousands of years. In the East and West, the relationship of matter and spirit has been in question as well as what distinguishes the conscious from the unconscious mind and if the mind continues after death. What can be said is that ordinary intent is partial; the Heart-Mind-if not complete-is definitely a quantum leap beyond ordinary intent. The HeartMind is a powerful door for becoming conscious of what is going on in the unconscious mind. It is the place from which "real time" (as it is called in China's Taoist tradition) or "Fourth time" (as it is called in the Buddhist and Hindu Indian traditions) arises. Real or Fourth time can be thought of from two perspectives: • A sense of time beyond human construction that is not past, present or future, and yet enables a human to function well, taking into account the functionality of time constraints in normal life. • A continuous awareness of timelessness where the pressures of being controlled by time collapse and genuine presence can arise.



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Reverse Breathing (Neigong Component # 1) During reverse breathing, your abdomen closes or shrinks on the inhale and opens or grows on the exhale. This is the opposite of what is practiced in regular breathing, where your abdomen expands (grows or opens) on the inhale and condenses (shrinks or closes) on the exhale. The methods of even basic reverse breathing, however, are far more complex than just directing which way your belly moves with your inhales and exhales. To practice reverse breathing, you must become aware of and be able to control the movement of the soft tissues, joints and cavities of your arms, legs, head, neck and spine as well as your internal organs. As discussed in Section 2, classically bagua was intended to be done with reverse breathing, which included simple to progressively more complete methods. In bagua, regular Taoist breathing was considered the preliminary rather than main event. Reverse breathing has two basic yet complete methods: vertical breathing and center-to-periphery breathing. These are best not introduced or practiced in bagua training until you are well into training energy postures or the Single Palm Change. The two methods of complete reverse breathing will be explained in later modules as appropriate.

Important Practice Points Initially, in bagua, opening-closing of the belly should be practiced until you are capable of reverse breathing effortlessly. It must become hardwired, so that with each inhale your abdomen shrinks and on each exhale it grows. You don't concentrate on the inhale-exhale, but rather the shrinking-growing of the abdomen.


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As noted in Section 2, initially your physical movements should not be consciously synchronized to your inhales and exhales. It is okay if this naturally happens, but not if you consciously engineer it by using effort or conscious will. It can have potentially negative emotional consequences. For the sufficiently inexperienced, conscious linkage of physical movements with the breath can potentially and dangerously over stimulate or suppress your emotional energy. It's fine and in fact recommended to consciously coordinate the mechanical opening-closing of your abdomen with the opening-closing of your joints and bodily cavities.

Moving In and Out from Your Core (Neigong Component# 14) The concept of moving into and out from your core is initially described in the warm-up exercises. However, from the larger perspective of Walking the Circle there are many variations. From an external perspective, moving from your core is about using your stomach, lower back muscles and possibly thigh muscles to move. In bagua and tai chi, moving from your core has a slightly expanded meaning. Although internally it also involves using your abdominal muscles, it includes using your lower tantien to physically and energetically cause internally felt, connected pressures within your body to move you in one of four possible directions: • Center to periphery. The connected pressures originate from your lower tantien and move out to your abdomen, then in sequence to your diaphragm, mid-back, chest, upper back, and from there simultaneously to your neck and crown of the head and out to your arms and fingertips. The pressures also move simultaneously and in coordination with the upper body pressures from your lower tantien downward through your pelvis, thighs and calves and through your feet to your toes. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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• Periphery to center. The connected pressures originate from your hands, feet and the crown of your head and move to the lower tantien in stages-the reverse of those of center to periphery. • Foot to extremities. The connected pressures move from the floor up to the crown of your head and out to your fingertips. • Extremities to feet. The connected pressures move in reverse direction from the crown of your head and fingertips down to the bottom of your feet. This sense of connected pressure, which derives from the sense of fluids moving within your body, is different from how most people normally feel muscles moving. Few people can do it except super athletes who train to feel all their muscles moving at once. The process is similar to how water pressure can move within a balloon.

Connected Pressure Take a balloon and fill it close to the top with water, tie it off and hold its top and bottom steady. Next, squeeze the water in it as your hand gradually inches up the balloon. In this way, you can feel the pressure of the water changing inside the balloon. This pressure change will mimic the feeling of moving from your core in the four previous ways just mentioned and is usually experienced in two basic ways. • As if the inside of your body is a big boa constrictor digesting a meal (the pressure itself) that relentlessly moves through it (from the bottom to the top of the water balloon). • As if giving even the slightest squeeze to the bottom of the balloon you can feel the pressure simultaneously increase within the entire remainder of the balloon. Remember that although this discussion is about squeezing a balloon in order to successfully replicate the feeling inside your body, you can't get this feeling © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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in your body by squeezing and contracting your muscles in a series of separated undulations. Instead, the inside of your body must feel as though it is one connected piece through which the internal water flows in the previous four ways: center to the periphery; periphery to the center; feet to your head and hands; or head and hands to your feet. Initially, your goal with any bagua practice should be to coordinate the continuous moving into and out of your core with any bend-stretch (retractionextension) movements of your arms and legs. Then, something else occurs: After a sufficiently long developmental period, this internal pressure and moving into and out of your core fuses into a continuous, unbroken presence in your conscious mind. Within that continuous, very present and still awareness, the internal movement from your core continues to move in-out. This basic principle incorporates using all functions of your energy channels. It is important to recognize that the flow of chi within every energy channel within you goes in both directions-regardless of the path and direction the chi travels. Signals travel seamlessly in both directions, similar to speaking on a telephone or using wireless devices. Over time, the connecting awareness inside you will easily and seamlessly allow multiple energetic actions simultaneously without strain.

For tai chi practitioners, this ingredient is another of the subtle meanings from an important statement in the Tai Chi Classics about internal power: From posture to posture [movement to movement] the internal energy is unbroken.

Create an Elastic Body and Mind At the most simple level, intermediate bagua and tai chi neigong techniques are ultimately about creating two qualities within a human being's life. Physically, an elastic body enables you to feel completely physically comfortable within your own skin. Likewise, creating an open, clear and awake mind capable of great elasticity at the third through sixth energy bodies (see the Bagua and Tai Chi book for details on the eight energy bodies) is fundamental to how the principles of © 201 0

Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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the I Ching are realistically downloaded into a human being's psyche or inner life. Looking at elasticity from an anatomical perspective, fascia, tendons and ligaments are central to creating a physically elastic body. The human body is not held up by bones, but rather by a series of ligaments, many of which are actually stronger than bones. What basically connects your foot and legs to your pelvis, belly, head, neck and fingertips is either a series of interconnecting ligaments or fascia that connect to other ligaments and fascia. Part of creating an elastic body is getting all the body's fascia to not only move freely and easily, but incredibly elastic like a great rubber band moving (lengthening in and out). This is a quality all babies have and it's incredible to observe. People love to playfully pull their hands, arms and legs and watch them shrink back like a rubber band. All Taoist chi practices seek to recreate this quality inside a human being. Elasticity enables significantly refined movement of the joints, spine and internal organs. The constant pulling and releasing of ligaments inside the body is what causes the natural and healthy movement of internal organs. When combined with physical and energetic twisting and spiraling movements in bagua, this elasticity causes the joints to constantly and smoothly, grow and shrink (open-close) the space and synovial fluid inside the joints. Elasticity positively affects and moves all the associated tissue related to making the joints strong and keeping them flexible. Greater body elasticity also keeps the synovial fluid inside joints moving. When the joints lose elasticity, you can get negative problems, such as: • Arthritis. • Becoming prone to injuries because the joints have lost flexibility or strength. • Ligaments harden, overstretch or get pulled out of alignment. Simply put, all of the problems of aging can be accelerated-even for people as young as their teens-as the body loses its elastic quality. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

1 Bagua and the Sixteen Neigong

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