1 Bagua Body Unification Method

BAGUA MASTERY PROGRAM

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MODULE 3 BAGUA Boov UNIFICATION METHOD

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: Overview of Body Unification Exercises ............................. 7 Overview ..................................................................... 7

What to Expect over Time ......................................... 8 Intermediates ........................................................................... 9

Progressive Stages of Bagua and Tai Chi Practice .......................................................... 10 Stage 1..................................................................................... 10 Stage 2 (Intermediates, Phase 1) ........................................ 10 Stage 3 (Intermediates, Phase 2) ......................................... 11 Stage 4 (Intermediates, Phase 3) ......................................... 11 Stage 5 (Meditation) .............................................................. 11

Section 2: Unification Exercise #1The Palm Strike, Phase 1 ....................... 13 Overview .................................................................... 13

Hand Motion: Linear or Circular? ............................ 14 Benefits ........................................................................ 15 Meditation .............................................................................. 15

Phase 1 Instructions ................................................. 17 Basic Alignments ....................................................... 17

Arm and Leg Movements ......................................... 19 Arm Twisting Methods ......................................................... 20

Important Points to Remember ............................. 20

Section 3: Unification Exercise #1Palm Strike, Phases 2-5 (Intermediates) ..................................... 23 Progression of Practice Phases 2-5 ....................... 23 Instructions for Phases 2-4 ..................................... 25 Phase 2: Face Forward and Shift Weight .............. 25 Phase 3: Shift Weight and Turn Your Waist .......... 26 Phase 4: Add the More Difficult Palm Strike to Weight Shift and Waist Turn .............................. 28 Phase 4: Alternate Version ................................................... 30

Important Points to Remember for all Phases .............................................................. 30

Section 4: Unification Exercise #2Drill, Phase 1 ........................................ 31 Overview ................................................................... 31

Benefits ...................................................................... 32 Personal Health ...................................................................... 32 Chi Development ................................................................... 34 Healing .................................................................................... 34 Martial Arts ............................................................................. 35 Meditation .............................................................................. 35

Instructions ............................................................... 36

Version 1: Basic Steps ............................................... 36

Section 5: Unification Exercise #2Drill, Phases 2-5 (Intermediates} •.•..•••••• 39 Progressive Phases of Drill ..................................... 39 Phase 2: Turn Your Waist ........................................ 42 Phase 3: Shift Your Weight and Turn Your Waist ........................................................ 45 Variation 1: One Hand Rises and Descends .......... 47 Variation 2: One Hand Rises while the Other Falls ................................................ 47

Phase 4: Back-weighted Step with Waist Turn ........................................................ 50 Phase 5: Forward and Back-weighted ................. 54 Important Points to Remember ............................. 54

Section 6: Unification Exercise #3Cut, Phase 1 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••...•••••• 57 Overview ................................................................... 57 Learning Progression .............................................. 58 Benefits ....................................................................... 59 Personal Health ...................................................................... 59 Meditation .............................................................................. 59

Instructions ............................................................... 59 Moving between Inside and Outside Cut Positions ............................................... 62

Section 7: Unification Exercise #3Cut, Phases 2-4 (Intermediates) •••••••••••• 65 Phase 2: Stretch to Corners, Bend to Middle ...... 65 Phase 3: Bend to Corners, Stretch to Middle ...... 69 Outward Cut .............................................................. 70 Inward Cut .................................................................. 71

Phase 4: Add Forward Cutting Action .................. 72 From the Outward or Inward Cut to the Midpoint ......................................................... 72 From the Midpoint to the End of the Inward or Outward Cut ............................................ 73 Over Time and with Practice .................................. 73 Important Points to Remember .............................. 74

Appendix 1: Martial Applications ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 77 Body Unification Exercises .................................... 77 Palm Strike ................................................................. 77

Drill ............................................................................. 78 Cut .............................................................................. 81

Section 1 Overview of Body Unification Exercises Overview Many people move their bodies with very little internal cohesion between body parts. Unification exercises are designed to help address this problem. They can also be considered warm-ups since they prepare you to take on the more difficult practices of the internal arts, such as Bagua Circle Walking or tai chi solo forms. The three elementary unification exercises presented in this module firmly connect all parts of the body in a relaxed way. A primary goal of all internal arts training is to release tension, and link all the body's parts into a unified whole. Using a rubber band or rope as an analogy, another goal of these exercises is to significantly increase the elasticity or spring of your body's soft tissues. They remove slack from the soft tissues, but not to the point that they become taut

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© 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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Bagua Mastery Program

and ready to snap like a tight wire. Such tightness would make you more prone to injury. Although these internal connections can eventually be achieved by Walking the Circle, practicing tai chi or a qigong form, they can place an incredible burden on people whose bodies are poorly connected. Starting your practice with unification exercises can significantly reduce that burden. The exercises presented in this document open up key energy channels in the body. They provide a simple and relatively concrete path for your mind to enter into your body. The first two exercises, Palm Strike and Drill, unify the body for all bagua and tai chi vertical and forward-back movements. The arms and hands move vertically up and down, and forward and back in front of you. The third exercise, Cut, unifies all hand and arm actions that move side to side on a horizontal plane of motion. A fourth and intermediate exercise-Roll the Ball, which is presented in Module 10 (available in the fourth installment of the Bagua Mastery Program™)-uni fies the actions ofturning your waist and legs in a revolving spherical manner around the body's centerline. As a lineage holder in both bagua and tai chi, I can tell you that it's well worth the effort to learn and practice these exercises as a gateway to the Taoist vision of internal health, chi development and meditation. They can also serve as preparatory exercises for other martial arts.

What to Expect over Time What follows are instructions for basic and intermediate execution of the first three exercises. They provide a good introduction to get you started, but complete instructions for even one exercise could fill volumes of text. Live


Module 3: Bagua Body Unification Method

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training with a competent instructor is the best way to realize the potential of unification exercises. Each of the exercises consists of two clear parts. In both parts, your hands and arms must become progressively more connected to the inside of your belly and internal organs. • In the first part of each exercise, you will bend your arms and palms inward toward your body. Over time, you should have a clear feeling of a non-straining type of pressure moving from your hands through your arms into and gently compressing your internal organs. • In the second part, your hands or arms stretch or extend. Over time, you should have a clear feeling of a non-straining type of pressure moving from your decompressing internal organs through your arms and into your hands.

Intermediates Regarding the arms: • As your torso, arms and palms shrink, close and retract, you should also have a sense of chi moving backward and downward from your hands, through your arms and simultaneously storing in your lower tantien and/or spine. • Eventually, you should not experience your arm as being separate from the inside of your body, but rather your hand and arm being seamlessly connected to your lower tantien and spine. • In time, when your hands or arms stretch or open, you should have a clear feeling of a physical flow gently expanding and releasing from within your decompressing internal organs. It then moves away from your belly, through your spine into and through your arms and then your hands.


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• You should feel a sense of chi releasing from your lower tantien and spine, which moves upward and outward through your arms into your hands. • Eventually, this should result in the lack of experiencing your arm as being separate from the inside of your body. Your hand and arm will instead feel seamlessly connected to your lower tantien and spine. When you have found these feelings within your arms, spine and torso, then try to find parallel feelings within your legs, spine and torso.

Progressive Stages of Bagua and Tai Chi Practice Traditionally, bagua warm-up and unification exercises, Circle Walking and tai chi practice follow clear and progressive paths of training. Stages 2-4 are for intermediate practitioners who have, by definition, training beyond the initial stage. Stage 5 is Taoist meditation, which can be introduced during earlier stages.

Stage 1 Initially, any exercise or movement is taught and practiced in a general way, in accord with fairly vague instructions. The purpose is for students to get the general shape of the movements without getting bogged down to the point of mistaking the forest for the trees. Metaphorically, the cup is being built, so that later you can fill it with the highly specific internal chi work and more precise details of how the physical movements should ultimately be practiced.

Stage 2 (Intermediates, Phase 1) This stage involves incorporating into your body's physical structure gross external alignments (neigong component #3) as you perform the movements. After this is accomplished, more detailed internal alignments, which are not easily observed, are taught and incorporated into the movements. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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Stage 3 (Intermediates, Phase 2) This stage incorporates opening and closing techniques (neigong component #7): • Internally within your body. • In the overall quality of chi you manifest to power your physical movements. • In the method by which you absorb chi into your body and project it away from you.

Stage 4 (Intermediates, Phase 3) This stage incorporates all the remaining methods and techniques of the sixteen neigong, including the most advanced levels into the warm-up, Circle Walking or tai chi practice upon which you focus.

Stage 5 (Meditation) This stage incorporates all the meditation techniques of Taoism one by one equally across all the methods from warm-ups to the Single Palm Change to tai chi's solo forms as is appropriate to the student's background. These methods may vary depending upon the specific Taoist spiritual tradition to which one belongs-either Fire or Water.


Section 2 Unification Exercise #1: The Palm Strike, Phase 1 Overview There are five phases or versions of the Palm Strike exercise. Phase 1 is presented in this section, which involves your weight beginning and remaining evenly distributed on both of your feet. Your feet are parallel to each other. Phases 2-5 are intermediate-level practices and will be discussed in the next section. In these phases, additional elements are added, such as weight shifts and turning the waist. All versions of the Palm Strike help unify the body for bagua and tai chi movements where the arms and hands move vertically up and down and/or forward and back. The coordination of the hands moving on upward and downward planes together with the palms rotating in Phase 1 solidifies the coordination and body unification needed in the following phases. 13


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A


B

c

D

E

F

G

Figure 3.2.1 Phase 1: Palm Strike

Hand Motion: Linear or Circular? The hand motions ofthe Palm Strike (in any phase) may be practiced in two ways: • Essentially linear. Done in this way, you move your hands in a straight line forward and back, but with a very gentle arcing motion, so your motion is essentially circular although not obviously. This is the best method for learning the basic arm motions. • Clearly circular. Done in this way, you move your hands using a clear rising circular motion with a large and unambiguous upward and downward arc. This is the best method for manifesting the essential bagua chi method of"shrink and grow" and integrating it in your body.



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Benefits For personal health, the straight line hand movements especially strengthen your liver, lungs, heart and spine. The upward curving motions particularly benefit your intestines (and thereby, digestion) and kidneys, and strengthen your diaphragm and thereby breathing in general. If you are a healer, the more straight line hand movements increase the energetic sensitivity and strength of your hands as well as your ability to absorb and project chi from your palms and fingers. The curving method clearly helps develop a distinct awareness of rising and falling chi in the body.

Meditation The Palm Strike can be applied to meditation practice. The primary goal of the straight line movement is essentially to pop open your mind (although it also works on the psychic functions of the liver). So, as your palms retract, you focus on your awareness going deeply into your mind; as your hands go out, your mind lets go and expands. This alternation causes your awareness and spirit to move from being sluggish to more present. Instead of the mind having a general lack of internal space, it moves toward the experience of internally having unlimited open space. Done in an upward curving fashion, the Palm Strike is an intermediate opening and closing method of meditation. • As your palms extend and rise, you move out from the depth of your mind or central channel, through the inside of your body and outward to the boundary of your etheric body in all directions. This develops a sense of your mind going outside of your physical skin into your etheric body and beyond. This expansion of your conscious awareness (i.e. your mind) should happen not just to the front of you, but to the side and behind you as well. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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• As your palms descend and return to your mid-abdomen, bring your awareness from the edges of your etheric body to deep within the core of your mind, and if possible your central channel. By constantly having your mind alternate between going out towards your etheric body and coming deeper into your mind's core, your mind can more easily take stock of and recognize all the places where it naturally freezes. By repetitively doing the Palm Strike exercise over and over again and recognizing these stuck points, you can activate your mind's ability to create spaciousness and free movement inside itself. You thereby prevent yourself from becoming stuck. As the internal sense of your mind becomes significantly less compressed it becomes easier for your awareness to inhabit your etheric body.

Figure 3.2.2 Beginning/Final Position Either of these two positions could be the beginning or final position.



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Phase 1 Instructions Three key elements throughout the Palm Strike exercise should be kept in mind: 1. Maintain the connection of your palm and arms to your spine through your shoulders. 2. Your hips, torso and shoulders should face directly forward and not to the side. 3. Practice slowly at first to link your body into a single unit. Afterwards practice only as fast as the speed that allows you to maintain the maximum internal connection between all parts of your body. Build up to moving at faster speeds only very gradually.

Basic Alignments

Figure 3.2.3 Key Alignments of the Palm Strike Exercise

© 2010 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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The following basic alignments should be maintained. The letters below correspend to the letters in illustration 3.2.3 on the previous page.

A. Stand with your feet pointing forward, somewhere between the width of your hips and shoulders, depending upon which width gives you the greatest sense of comfort and stability. Ideally, your feet should be parallel. However, don't fret if one or both of your feet splays out slightly as it might give you a greater sense of your feet and legs being connected to the ground. With practice and when your body allows it, your feet will gradually move closer and eventually end up being parallel.

Figure 3.2.4

B. Your weight should pass through the middle ofthe arches of your feet and finish at the bubbling well points (Figure 3.2.4). C. The bottom of your crotch should be rounded-neither leg collapses

· inward or puts pressure on your knees.

D. Both elbows are bent. E. Keep your midriff (located on your sides between the bottom of your ribs and your hips) open and notcollapsed.This last action serves two important functions. First, it raises your chest off your solar plexus and diaphragm, which improves the anatomical basis of good breathing. Second, it opens up the spaces between the vertebrae of your middle spine and keeps them from being compressed.

F. The palm of one arm is placed either at the side of your hip or midriff. The palm faces forward, fingers pointing down.

G. Ideally, the other palm is located on your centerline, somewhere around your upper chest. The upper palm also faces forward, but the fingers point up.



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A

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Figure 3.2.5 Basic Hand Movements Hand movements are divided into two clear parts: Upper palm retracts to the midpoint (A-D); and the opposite palm extends into a Palm Strike (0-G).

Arm and Leg Movements 1. Figure 3.2.5A-G: Through the entire Palm Strike movement, both palms rotate at the same sp~ed and in direct coordination with each other. Your fingers continuously rotate from facing vertically upward to vertically downward and then back upward again. One arm rises and extends forward as the other falls and retracts. 2. Figure 3.2.50: In moving from the Palm Strike to the midpoint, sit in your kwa. Both palms simultaneously turn to arrive near the body's centerline in the middle of the abdomen. 3. Figure 3.2.5A-G: The forward palm moves back toward the torso and the elbow bends halfway. The palm at the hip moves forward and the elbow unbends halfway.


G

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4. Figure 3.2.5A-D: As your palms come together, decrease the space in the crooks of your elbows and twist your leg muscles inward. 5. Figure 3.2.50-G: In moving from the midpoint to the Palm Strike, rise out of your kwa. The lower and upper palms finish reversing their original positions. What was the lower palm rises to in front of your chest and what was the upper palm descends to your hip. Twist your leg muscles outward. 6. Figure 3.2.5G: At the end of the Palm Strike, the upper palm is on your body's centerline in front of your chest with your fingers facing upward. Your elbow should be partially bent with the tip facing toward the ground. The shoulder should be relaxed, firmly connecting your arm to your spine. The lower palm arrives at the side of the hip or midriff as the elbow bends yet more and its fingers point toward the ground. For beginners, it's best if you apply regular Taoist breathing throughout the movements. Just remember to breathe in a relaxed manner.

Arm Twisting Methods There are two ways to twist the arms. • In the first method, you rotate/twist both arms inward to the midpoint and outward from the midpoint to the Palm Strike. • In the second method, the retracting palm rotates/twists inward throughout the movement while the extending arm rotates/twists outward.

Important Points to Remember • Be sure to keep your four points aligned and don't contract the neck, chest or shoulder's nest areas, which can be challenging. • Maintain the connection of your palm and arms to your spine through your shoulders. • Your hips, torso and shoulders should face directly forward and not to the side. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


• Practice slowly at first to link your body into a single unit. Later, you can practice as fast as you can while maintaining maximum internal connection between all parts of your body. Build up to moving at faster speeds only very gradually.

SAFETY NOTE:

In unification exercises and all bagua and tai chi tech-

niques, nurture your body by being especially careful to protect your knees.

INTERMEDIATES: OPEN AND CLOSE When practicing arm twisting method 7: From the beginning position to the midpoint, shrink and close the joints and cavities of both arms and the midriff, kwa and belly to bring energy inward to the lower tantien. From the midpoint to the Palm Strike, open the kwa, belly, midriff and the joints and cavities of both arms to send your energy outward from the lower tantien, through the inside of your body and spine to your palms. When practicing arm twisting method 2: On the side of the retracting arm, shrink and close your arm joints, shoulder cavity, kwa, midriff and belly to bring energy inward from your palm, through the inside of your body to your lower tantien. Grow and open everything on the side of the extending arm to send energy from your lower tantien, outward through the inside of your body to your kwa, spine, arm and palm. When opening-closing in either method, be sure to open-close your midriff on .each side of your body, the area between the bottom of . - tt· ,J#Wtfw ?~,:~,, W' the ribcage and hips. This action ensures thafyour chest does not compress your solar plexus and opens the lumbar vertebrae to maximize the power your body generates. When you close your midriff, "' .:c.4':' ;. }, do it slightly and not to the point of completely closing it down. Use either the methods of regular or reverse breathing while expanding or shrinking your belly to power your movements. In regular breathing, exhale to the midpoint and inhale from the midpoint to the finish. In reverse breathing, inhale to the midpoint and exhale to the Palm Strike position. ,~-~ ~


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SKIP AHEAD Section 3 is only for intermediate practitioners. Skip ahead to Section 4 unless you can perform all of the instructions in this section reasonably well.

Section 3 Unification Exercise #1: Palm Strike, Phases 2-5 Intermediates Progression of Practice Phases 2-5 Phase 1 was presented in the preceding section. The following phases are only for intermediate practitioners.

Phase 2: After stabilizing Phase 1, repeat the same hand movements coordinated with shifting your weight in a wider stance, but don't turn the waist. This enables you to derive the movement of your hands from the driving force of the legs. This and the next phase's method of shifting weight in coordination with the Palm Strikes are especially germane for martial artists and athletes.

23 © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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Phase 3: Add to Phase 2 by turning the waist in the same direction you shift weight. The legs move the waist and the waist moves the hands until all three sufficiently link to become one indivisible action with each amplifying the chi-power of the other. At this point, you should internally let the force of the legs driving the weight shift turn your waist. Your hand movements derive from the movement of chi inside your legs rather than the gross physical movement of externally shifting your weight. Phase 4: After the obvious external movement of your legs

and waist has gone internal (invisibly), add and incorporate all the internal chi methods and components of the sixteen neigong. Begin with opening and closing the belly coordinated to your breathing. Also add the more difficult Palm Strike method. Phase 5: After each level of basic chi practices are

stabilized, the final phase is to incorporate all related chi

Figure 3.3.1

methods of the sixteen neigong as specifically done in meditation. Many of these methods go beyond what is in the basic chi practices themselves, or what is found in the higher levels of bagua or tai chi as fighting internal martial arts. These methods derive from the meditation methods of monastic bagua, which specifically implement the methods of Taoist meditation according to the teachings of the I Ching, using Circle Walking, bagua energy postures, the Single Palm Change and sitting meditation.



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Instructions for Phases 2-4 As you learn each phase, begin with slow motions (but not super slow) to link your body into a single unit before you gradually increase the speed to medium (but not super fast).

Phase 2: Face Forward and Shift Weight In Phase 2, face forward and shift your weight. Slightly widen your stance. 1. The hand methods of Version 2 are exactly the same as Version 1, but the weight shift is done with a wider stance. 2. Keep the four points aligned as you shift your weight completely from side to side while still facing directly forward and not turning your waist to either side. 3. As in Version 1, coordinate the movement of your palm strikes so your arms become parallel to each

Figure 3.3.2

other as they arrive in the middle of your weight shift and forward-backward hand movements. 4. The Palm Strike completes when your weight has fully shifted to one side (Figure 3.3.2). 5. Shift your weight completely from the weighted to the opposite un-weighted leg by pushing off from the original weighted leg. 6. Close the kwa on your weighted side and open it on your un-weighted side.

Figure 3.3.3

7. Finish with the Palm Strike and your weight fully on one leg, torso facing forward and to neither side (Figure 3.3.3). © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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Phase 3: Shift Weight and Turn Your Waist In Version 3, you shift your weight and turn your waist.

Figure 3 .3.4 Palm Strike: Beginning of Version 3 1. With your weight on one leg, face forward and have your open hands at your sides with palms up. 2. Begin shifting your weight and turning your waist toward the leg to which you are shifting. Also begin to do a Palm Strike with the hand from which your waist is turning away. 3. When you reach the midpoint of your weight shift, then move both palms as usual in coordination with your complete weight shift and waist turn, so both move in tandem and finish simultaneously.



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Figure 3.3.5 Both Hands Reach the Final Position Simultaneously 4. Add waist turning to Version 2 weight shifting. 5. Your extend ing leg powers both the weight shift and waist turn. Shift your weight back and forth, from side to side and alternate your waist turning toward the direction to which you shift weight. 6. Hand motions and weight shifts remain exactly the same as in Versions 1 and 2.

A

B

c Figure 3.3 .6 Palm Strike: Phase 3


D

E

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Phase 4: Add the More Difficult Palm Strike to Weight Shift and Waist Turn

A

B

c

Figure 3.3.7 Palm Strike: Version 4 This variation involves a weight shift, waist turn and a more difficult version of the Palm Strike. Practicing this more difficult and high-value version will prepare you to do the arm reversal movements in the Single Palm Change. This is especially true for the Heaven and Water palm versions. It can also help you better learn the coiling movements of Chen style tai chi. Before practicing this variation, you must have significantly opened your body from practicing the earlier versions. 1. At the midpoint of the movement, your forearms will touch rather than not touching as in earlier phases (Figure 3.3.78).



A

B

c

Figure 3.3.8 Palm Strike, Version 4: More Difficult Option 2. At the first point of contact with your forearms, your rising palm faces upward and the fingers are just forward of the tip of your upper arm's elbow. Next, you move that palm a bit further sideways across your body, and rotate it until your thumb faces up vertically (Figure 3.3.8A). Your upper palm also rotates to a thumb-up position. At this point, shrink and close everything you can and twist your arms further, so your palms rotate upward (Figure 3.3.8 B). 3. Then, as you shift and turn to either side and do a Palm Strike, grow and open whatever you can. Both forearms now twist against each other as the lower palm rises to do a Palm Strike and the upper palm descends to the side of your hip (Figure 3.3.8C).

© 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved .

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Phase 4: Alternate Version 1. Establish a steady and smooth shifting of weight and twisting of your arms and legs. You should arrive at the middle of your weight shift at the same time your palms have arrived at the midpoint-palm position. See Figure

3.3.8. 2. At first, make sure your midriff area stays open and does not collapse. Then, from this open position, close your midriff to the midpoint of the movement and open it from the midpoint to the completion of the movement. 3. During the entire movement, the retracting arm should twist inwardly. Close your joints, kwa and other body cavities on this side of your body. 4. Likewise, the extending striking palm should twist outwardly. Open your joints, kwa and other body cavities on this side of your body.

Important Points to Remember for all Phases • Be sure to keep your four points aligned and don't contract the neck, chest or shoulder's nest areas. • Use either the methods of regular or reverse breathing while expanding or shrinking your belly to power your movements. • Maintain the connection of your palm and arms to your spine through your shoulders. • Practice slowly at first to link your body into a single unit. Later, you can practice as fast as you can while maintaining maximum internal connection between all parts of your body. Build up to moving at faster speeds only very gradually.


Section 4 Unification Exercise #2: Drill, Phase 1 Overview The Drill unification exercise strongly trains the body's rising and falling currents of energy. Equally, it is a fundamental method for enabling chi to absorb into and emanate from the lower tantien, spine and left, right and central channels. Drill is done with a more projecting intent and yang (rather than yin) internal strength. This unification exercise and its many variations may be done using only one hand at a time or both hands simultaneously. In this text, only the one-handed version is presented with illustrations since it's sufficient to warm up the body for the Single Palm Change. The second version that uses both hands is explained without illustrations.

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A

A

B

c

D

E

Figure 3.4.1 Drill, Phase 1 with the Left Hand and No Waist Turn

Benefits The value of Drill is multifold in terms of balancing the body's various natural processes while practicing qigong, bagua or tai chi.

Personal Health In the normal course of a day, your physical body performs a multitude of up and down vertical motions during which your internal organs rise and fall, muscles extend and retract, and fluids are affected in various ways. If these vertical physical actions become unbalanced (and therefore do not operate smoothly), they can have subtle yet direct correlations to negative emotions. Negative emotions can be yin, where sadness and generally being down are



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A

F

G

H

Figure 3.4.1 (con't) Drill, Phase 1 with the Left Hand and No Waist Turn examples, or yang, where anger and being hyper are examples. Yin/Yang emotions can naturally become irritated, disturbed or unbalanced because they are directly connected to and can be influenced by correlated disturbed vertical physical flows. In reverse fashion, disturbed flows can also make the body prone to physical disease or injury. So, if these vertical flows are made smooth, ill health problems and stress-related emotions are intrinsically more likely to become balanced and disappear. Drill enables your tissues to more easily turn or twist from left to right. So, for example, if you raise your hand and you turn it either up or down, you will get a slight or large amount of rotation or twisting around the muscles into your arm. Over time, a function of Drill is to get this turning to transfer into your legs, and even more importantly, inside and between your internal organs.


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Chi Development The main function of Drill is to bring your body's constant sense of rising and falling energy fully online. So, when your hand goes up, your chi rises from your feet to the crown of your head and fingers. When your hand goes down, your chi descends from the top of your head and inward from your fingers to your torso and finally your feet.

Healing You can adapt Drill to many hands-on techniques that are based upon twisting and spiraling of physical tissues or energetic pathways in the body. As the Palm Strike, Drill can dramatically enhance a bodyworker's ability to bring energy directly into the palm, back of the hand and fingers. This enables the healer's chi to penetrate below the skin deeply into a client's/patient's body exceptionally

well

and

with minimum effort. It also increases sensitivity to heal any place in the body, including the muscles, fascia, bones and visceral organs. The energetic strength engendered to bring up chi from the feet and not only to the fingertips, but also past the boundary of the etheric body, gives the practitionerthea bilityto actually project energy sufficiently outofthei rfi ngers. (The intermediate level ofthe basic Drill unification exercise is derived from the sixteen neigong.) This gives the healer the ability to realistically trace the line of a specific pulse to its related internal organs. This allows the healer to obtain a diagnosis or directly cause an immediate energetic rebalancing of the organ itself as a prelude to the appropriate Chinese medical intervention, which the diagnosis indicates is required for healing. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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When in China, I constantly heard of many people who practiced these unification exercises-including bodyworkers, acupuncturists and herbalists-that claimed they were incredibly valuable aids in their learning curve for acquiring the sensitivity to feel a body or take pulses well. The sheer volume of chi that floods their fingertips directly translated into the ability to feel what was on the other end. That is they could then feel inside someone else's body, whether pulses, physical tissues or chi.

Martial Arts Drill is probably the most common exercise shown in bagua books because of its importance to martial arts applications (see Appendix 1 on p. 77).

Meditation Drill can engender an extremely regular rhythm within the mind and spirit because it regulates and balances the body's up and down energy currents. So the mind can become quite capable of generating a great amount of motion and yet simultaneously be quite still. Metaphorically, your mind and spirit become like a cylinder that turns around a thin thread running through its center. So, although you may have an incredible volume of physical and mental movement, the thread in the cylinder's center remains very, very still. This is regardless of the speed at which chi moves or your mind processes information inside the cylinder. Eventually, all the turning, twisting and potential spiraling of chi within your physical movement, body and chi activates the thread of stillness at the center. This thread can give you access to your body's central channel of energy where it concentrates in your torso, neck and head and the bone marrow of your limbs. In terms of meditation, Drill inculcates stillness within movement and movement within stillness, a fundamental principle permeating all of Taoism and Buddhism.


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Instructions Version 1: Basic Steps Beginning Position (Figure 3.4.2A): Begin with your feet parallel and torso facing forward. Your hands are at your hips, palms face down with your arms well bent. 1. One hand rises and drills and moves toward your centerline (B).

2. The rising hand moves in an arc forward from your hip and across your body to arrive at the centerline of your body (C). As this occurs, your arm extends forward about halfway of the total distance.

3. Gradually, the hand fully extends and moves up the centerline of your body to arrive with your fingertips at a height between the bottom o~your throat and the top of your head (D-E).

4. Your arms and legs twist outward and your armpits slightly open in coordination with your arm extending.

5. Gradually, rise out of and open both sides of your kwa until fully open at the end of your hand rising.

A

8

c

D

Figure 3.4.2 © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

E


6. Twist your legs outward in proportion to the speed of the rising hand. Evenly rotate/twist your arm outward from your shoulder to your fingertips.

7 Your hand descends and turns over to face palm down. In reverse order, it exactly retraces the path it took to rise up.

8. Your upper hand moves down your centerline to the middle of your abdomen (E-G).

9. Next, it leaves your body's centerline to return to the side of your hip, palm facing down (G-1).

10. Your arm gradually bends and twists inward. 11. Your arms twist inward and armpits slightly close in coordination with your arm bending and retracting.

12. Gradually, sit in and close both sides of your kwa as your hand descends to your hip.

13. Twist your legs inward as your hand descends. Twist your legs inward in proportion to the speed of the falling hand.

14. Repeat the exercise with the opposite hand. Chi should sink downward from your elbow with a sense of internal strength.

H Figure 3.4.2 (con't) © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

37

38


HOW HIGH SHOULD YOUR HAND GO? How high your hands go depends on how much your body wants to stretch according to the seventy percent rule. Factors to consider include your general state of flexibility or the need to accommodate a physico/limitation derived from illness or injury. Only have your looser arm go as high as your less flexible arm. Only move your less flexible arm to the place where you can connect to the maximum extent-rather than disconnect-that arm and its hand to the inside of your body, especially your spine, internal organs and lower ,~:.~ tantien. 1:•~;1: z '1=~~


Section 5 Unification Exercise #2: Drill, Phases 2-5 Intermediates Progressive Phases of Drill Although the hand motions remain the same as in Phase 1, the leg movements ofthis exercise can be done in five progressively more difficult ways. Each phase demands increasingly greater bodily coordination:

1. This phase is presented in the previous section. In Phase 1, you face forward, keeping your weight evenly distributed between both legs without shifting weight or turning your waist.

Figure 3.5.1 39 © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

40


2 Turn at the waist from left to right, keeping your weight evenly distributed between your legs (Figure 3.5.2). 3. With feet wider apart than in Phase 2, the rising. and falling of a single hand (Figure 3.5.3) or both hands (Figure 3.5.4) is coordinated with the shifting of your weight and the turning of your waist. If you move only one hand, it rises as you turn to one direction and falls as you shift weight and turn to the other side. If you use both hands, one rises as the opposite falls. 4. Your weight is on one leg with the other extended forward

Figure 3.5.2

and turning your waist (Figure 3.5.5).

A

c

8

D

Figure 3.5.3 Drill, Phase 3: Shift Weight and Turn Your Body, Single Hand Variation During this series of photos, Bruce's feet are always on the same line. Notice that Figures A and Dare basically shot from straight ahead while Figures Band Care shot at 30- and 60-degree angles, respectively. The different angles are meant to best show the position of the hands and waist turns.



41

Figure 3.5.4 Drill, Phase 3: Shift Weight and Turn Your Body, Double Hand Variation

Ultimately, this version is the most central to the Single Palm Change and becomes particularly important once you can coordinate your hand movements. The first three phases will help you achieve the necessary hand coordination. 5. While shifting weight back and forth between your front and rear legs (Figure 3.5.6), this method uses both hands to drill simultaneously. One goes up and the other goes down as you alternate turning your waist left and right on each leg. This more difficult way of practicing Drill is mostly of value to those interested in the martial arts tradition.

Figure 3.5.5

Figure 3.5.6


42


'

I (

\ \_

·t

I

'L_j

(

\

@

A

B

c

D

E

F

Figures 3.5.7 Drill, Phase 2: Waist Turns The complete rising and falling of the right hand.

Phase 2: Turn Your Waist This is variation is essentially the same as Phase 1 with a few additions, which are geared toward opening up the body's horizontal channels, also called "collateral meridians:' These meridians go around the body like belts at different heights and connect the vertical acupuncture meridians to each other. Activating these collateral meridians helps to energize your internal organs. 1. Coordinate the turning of your waist with the rising of your hand in such a way that your waist moves your hand and not vice-versa.



G

H

J

43

K

Figures 3.5.7 (can't) Drill, Phase 2: Waist Turns The complete rising and falling of the right hand.

2. During the rising part of the movement (Figure 3.5.7 A-F), turn your waist. Also turn/twist your legs and arms outward. Use both to create an energetic flow that rises up from your foot, moves through your legs, activates your lower tantien, internal organs and spine, and sends a steady upward wave of chi to your fingertips. 3. Let the rising current of energy power the turning/twisting of your waist and your rising hand. This causes internal strength to flow into your forearm and fingertips.


44


4. Use the rising current to help lengthen your waist and release a strong yet relaxed expansion of your internal organs and abdominal muscles. 5. When you are able to perform more advanced intermediate-level instructions, let the chi rise up either your spine-or better yet, your central channel-and open everything you can as your body grows. Also, turn/twist the legs and hands in opposite directions with the legs twisting inward when the hands twist outward. 6. During the descending part of the movement (Figure 3.5.7G-K): • Turn your waist back to where it began and twist your arms and legs inward. • Use your intent to encourage a descending energetic wave from your hands and head through your torso, pelvis, legs and feet into the earth. • Power your falling hand by the turning/twisting of your waist. Move your arm, hand and fingers first down your centerline to the middle of your abdomen, and from there away from your centerline to the side of your hip. • Slightly bend your fingers and turn your forearm to generate pulling or gripping power in your hand. • Abiding by the 70 percent rule, compress your waist and gently pressurize your internal organs and abdominal muscles. • For a higher level of intermediate practice, twist the legs and hands in opposite directions with the legs twisting outward and the hands twisting inward. • Create an energetic flow that descends from your head, spine and fingertips, moves through your arms, and compresses and settles into your lower tantien, internal organs and spine. The energetic flow then moves down through your feet. • Your chi should also descend down the centerline of your body in front of your spine-or better yet, your central channel.



45

7. After the descending wave of chi from your head and fingertips reaches your feet, continue it into the earth. (Ideally, this downward wave into the earth will naturally generate a rising wave that you can use to power the next cycle of upward movement.) In Phase 2 and later phases, you position the hand that is still in space (unmoving) in such a way that you "anchor" your moving hand. There are three progressively more difficult methods that gradually stretch the inside of your body more and more. • Keep your unmoving hand's wrist straight and let your fingers project chi toward the ground. • Press your unmoving hand's palm downward to project chi to the ground. Do not lock your wrist. • Position your unmoving hand behind you, so the back of your hand touches the vertebrae just behind your lower tantien. This is the height on your spine where the energy gate known as mingmen, or "the door of life" is located. (The corresponding acupuncture point known by the same name is located a little higher on your body.)

Phase 3: Shift Your Weight and Turn Your Waist Phase 3 has two variations that incorporate wider stances, weight shifting and waist turning. In the first variation, one hand moves; in the second, both hands move. For more information about how to place your feet wider, shift weight and turn your waist, see the revised edition of Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body.


46


PHASE 3 OF DRILL DIFFERS FROM CLOUD HANDS Phase 3 of Drill with both arms moving is very similar to the movement known as Cloud Hands that is practiced in various qigong and tai chi styles. However, there are several main differences, including: • The motion of Drill as specific to bagua is done with a more tightly elliptical and less rounded angle of the arms than in Cloud Hands. • The bottom hand moves with a more vertical rather than with a more horizontally rounded motion. • Ideally, the upper elbow and hand in Drill finish directly on the body's centerline rather than at a forty-five-degree angle, as often practiced in Cloud Hands. • Drill is practiced with more projected intent and yang strength than is Cloud Hands.

A

~~~~

/rite mal

'~-;.~

B

c

Figure 3.5.8 Drill Phase 3: One-handed Variation Legs are wider than in Phase 1: Beginning position (A); Drill motion as done with weight shifting and waist turning (B-C).


I


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Variation 1: One Hand Rises and Descends Beginning Position: Your waist is turned to the right, and your weight is fully on your outside (right) leg. 1. Your unmoving (left) hand may assume one of two positions. One, the back of your hand is behind your back and rests on your spine, ideally just behind your lower tantien. Or, two, it remains palm down at your hip. 2. The hand, waist and other actions are the same as in Phase 2. Only now you will shift your weight by pushing off from the weighted leg and turning your waist fully from one side to the other (Figure 3.5.88-C) Be sure to maintain your four points as you turn. Over months of practice, your legs should progressively get wider and hips lower as

A

your body stretches out and you become internally more coordinated. Remember the 70 percent rule.

Variation 2: One Hand Rises while the Other Falls Variation 2 has the same weight shifts, waist turns and hand movements as Variation 1 only now both hands will move simultaneously-as one rises the other falls (3.5.8A-C). 1. Complete the upward movement of Variation 1. Move your weight, so it is on the leg toward which you have turned. Put your unmoving hand beside your hip with your palm turned down.


48


A

c

8

D

Figure 3.5.9 Variation 2: One Hand Rises while the Other Falls Both hands simultaneously rise and fall in coordinated and opposite directions to each other.

2. Shift your weight and turn your waist toward your other leg. Lower your upper hand and in direct coordination with the downward movement, drill upward with your other hand. When you have finished your weight shift and waist turn, your upper and lower hands will have reversed positions.

3. As you continue to shift your weight and turn your waist from side to side in coordinated opposite fashion, one hand will rise as the other falls. Your hands now move like two objects attached to the opposite ends of a pulley. So as one object (hand) rises, it causes the other object (hand) to fall in proportionate speed to the other.



E

F

G

Figure 3.5.9 (con't) Variation 2: One Hand Rises while the Other Falls Both hands simultaneously rise and fall in coordinated and opposite directions to each other.

4. As your hands rise and fall, shift weight and turn your waist. 5. When you reach the midpoint of your weight shift and waist turn, face the front with both palms facing each other on either side of your centerlineat the height of the middle of your abdomen (Figure 3.5.9 D). 6. At the end of your weight shift and waist turn, your rising palm faces your body's centerline. At a minimum, your fingertips should reach your chin. Your falling palm is at the side of your hip, facing the ground (Figure 3.5.9A and G). 7. As you continuously shift between right and left, establish a smooth and steady weight shifting and turning/twisting (or in time, spiraling) of the arms.

©

201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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50


TWO WAYS YOUR HANDS RISE AND FALL Initially, it is easier to close your entire body while moving to the middle and to open when you move to the sides. Eventually, however, the upward moving hand goes forward and upward as the joints and kwa on the same side of the body open; the descending hand moves downward and backward as the joints and kwa on the same side of the body close. Like a pulley system,. the strength of your descending hand causes your ascending hand to rise. In the easier version, you breathe out to the middle position and in to the side positions, if you are practicing regular Taoist breathing. If practicing reverse breathing, do the opposite. In the more advanced version, you pick a handwith which to coordinate your breathing. With regular breathing, you breathe out as that hand rises and breathe in as it falls. For reverse breathing,

.

..~:.~

do the opposite. l~W

Phase 4: Back-weighted Step with Waist Turn One of the primary steps of straight-line walking and Circle Walking is a backweighted step. Here, you fully sit on your back leg with as close to one-hundred percent of your weight on it as you can with no strain or muscular strength. Your other foot is in front of you with your front knee somewhat bent-although not fully straightened or locked under any circumstances. In this phase of Drill, put your body in the same position, which continuously activates the soft-tissue twisting and rising and falling of energy necessary to Walk the Circle well. Once you can do this version of Drill, you can dispense with practicing the earlier versions and concentrate on Phase 4 and ultimately Phase 5.



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Beginning Position: • Your front (right) foot is well in front of the rear (left) leg with your right foot either flat on the ground or your heel raised with the ball of the foot on the ground. Keep it this way for the entire warm-up (Figure 3.5. 70). • Put as much of your weight on your rear leg as you can without any strain, muscular strength or tension. Keep it this way for the entire unification exercise. • As you become more internally coordinated and stretched, your hips should go lower and your front leg extends farther forward from your rear leg.

Figure 3.5.1 0

• Your waist is turned to the right with both sides of your kwa closed. • Your right hand begins at the side of your right hip, palm facing down. • Your left hand begins and stays at your hip for the entire exercise, or rests on your lower spine as in previous phases. • Ideally, all of your joints and cavities are closed and your spine is slightly bowed. • You may either look forward (best option) or down if that enables you to feel the closing actions of your body better.


52

G


F

E

D

c

B

Figure 3.5.11 Drill Upward: Back-weighted Step with Waist Turn

1. Drill upward with your right arm and hand. • Rise up out of and open your kwa on both sides as you simultaneously open all of your joints, cavities, belly and other body cavities, and gently extend your spine. • Twist your legs inward to slightly straighten them. Twist your arm outward. • Let your legs slightly straighten, but not to the point of locking. • Opening and twisting actions should be the source of your hand propelling upward. • Allow your chi to rise up from the bottom of your feet to the crown of your head and your fingertips, as in previous phases. • Initially, your waist turns to face directly forward rather than to either side. Get the advice of a competent instructor or master as to when to turn further as there are many subtle points involved in turning (including safety procedures). © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

A


~'

1P

J~'

53

c

~ F

E

c

D

8

Figure 3.5.12 Drill Downward: Back-weighted Step with Waist Turn • Keep your four points aligned. • As your right arm gradually extends, the palm and fingers will perform all of the same turning actions as in Versions 1-3. • The center of your palm will finish on your centerline, palm directly facing your body between your throat and top of your head. 2. Move your body and arm down. • Sit in your kwa, turn your waist to the right, and twist your arm in and your legs out. Close both sides of your kwa and all of your joints, cavities and belly, and gently bow your spine. • Bring your chi down from the crown of your head and your fingertips to the bottom of your feet, and if possible below, as in previous phases. • During this sinking movement, be sure to continuously bend your arm, relax your shoulder and keep your elbow tip as perpendicular to the floor as possible. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

A

54


Phase 5: Forward and Back-weighted This version uses both hands to drill simultaneously, one up and one down, as you shift back and forth between your front and rear leg, and alternately turn your waist left and right once on each leg. This method simply expands on Versions 3 and 4. Its primary function is to link the primary twisting, turning, rising and falling actions of Drill through all four of your limbs. As in Phase 3, Variation 2, use both hands moving up and down rather than a single hand. Your stance is basically the same as Version 4, and your back-weighted movements will be similar to those of

Figure

3 . 5 .13

Version 4. In this version, your weight shifts between your rear and forward leg rather than only being on the rear leg. This weight shift is similar to what is done in straight-line walking and Circle Walking. Version 5 is more germane to those practicing bagua as a fighting martial art and generally less applicable for those primarily interested in bagua for health and meditation. Ultimately, only

Figure 3.5.14

live instruction by a competent bagua instructor can realistically fill in all the minute nuances involved with this method.

Important Points to Remember During this entire exercise and all its phases, several points should be maintained: • Ideally, the tips of your elbows should face perpendicular to the floor, so that your arm gently extends away from your spine. • Your shoulders should be relaxed.



• Evenly rotate/twist your arm out or in from your shoulder to your fingertips. • When your hands move either up or down, they should remain on your body's centerline and not drift off to either side. • Eventually, your goal is to have your forearm and elbow fully on your centerline when your arm is raised, which enables the natural internal strength of your entire arm to lift your hand up and pull your hand down. This action more easily and naturally activates the body's micro-cosmic orbit energy circulation and central channel of energy.


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Section 6 Unification Exercise #3: Cut, Phase 1 Overview The Cut unification exercise sets the foundation for all of the horizontal waist and arm movements of bagua and tai chi. The name of the movement comes from the appearance of your arm or hand seeming to cut or chop though something. When your waist turns and your arms move horizontally, your goal is to unify your body and stabilize the interconnections within it. When turning the waist side to side and moving the arms into various bagua energy postures, many practitioners disconnect their arms from their torso-physically and energetically. This unification exercise seeks to resolve this problem as your weight from a fixed stance shifts one-hundred percent between your legs.


58


Cut only concentrates on one arm at a time. Ideally, the physical pressure and chi power should smoothly flow in both directions between the edge of your hand and fingers into the muscles of your torso and internal organs. Commonly, however, the chi and continuity of the movement between the hands and torso becomes severed and disconnected. Your practice should seek to Figure 3.6.1

remove and

re!;olve this

discontinuity.

Cut, Both Sides The exercise involves alternating from side to side and practicing inward and outward cuts.

Learning Progression Like all bagua and tai chi techniques, Cut has various progressive levels that go from the simple to the more complex. Each new level builds on the previous one and becomes progressively more powerful and useful. Likewise, each new level performs more functions and adds more value for the same practice time. Phase 1 focuses on your external body structure and alignments. The next three phases are intermediate stages, which initially focus on joining unified external whole body movement to the internal movements of your joints and internal organs. This eventually extends to include all of the energy channels inside your body and your etheric field and more.



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As each new level becomes stable within your body, it turns into becoming only a preparation for the next level, which then becomes the only Cut exercise you must practice. As such, the four phases of Cut unify the body in progressive stages.

Benefits Personal Health Cut can strengthen your legs and internal organs; activate the body's collateral acupuncture meridians; and stretch the muscles and ligaments of the neck and shoulders, thereby relieving upper back, neck and shoulder pain. To learn about Cut's benefits for martial artists in Appendix 1, p. 77.

Meditation Spiritually, this exercise's purpose is to clear unconscious mini space-outs in the mind, so you can maintain sufficient relaxed awareness necessary to remain present in each moment. At a minimum, Cut can help you remedy mini spaceouts by making you aware of when you unconsciously and internally disconnect. By paying attention as your arm cuts through the air, it becomes very possible to see micro-second by micro-second if and how, moment by moment, you can remain present. Initially, when cutting outward, many practitioners project outward into the future and are therefore oblivious to the present. When they cut inward, their minds often fold inside themselves into a murky, turbid unawareness of the current moment, which disconnects them from their external environment. So Cut trains you to become very conscious of gaps in your mind.


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Instructions Outside Cut-Final Position: • Your palm is down. • The weight finishes fully on your outside leg. • Your weighted leg and cutting arm are on the same side of your body. • Your forward or cutting arm is extended to 50 percent of its full potential extension to a straightened position. • Ideally, the palm of your cut hand is on your body's centerline (Figure 3.6.2), but no further sideways than your shoulder's nest (Figure 3.6.7).

Figure 3.6.2 Final Position: Outside Cut

• The back of your non-cutting hand rests on your lower spine, behind your lower tantien.

Inside Cut-Final Position: • Your palm is up. • The weight finishes fully on your inside leg. • Your weighted leg and cutting arm are on opposite sides of your body. • Your forward or cutting arm is extended to 50 percent of its full potential extension to a straightened position. • Ideally, the palm of your cut hand is on your body's centerline. • The back of your non-cutting hand rests on your lower spine, behind your lower tantien.

Figure 3.6.3 Final Position: Inside Cut



VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL KWA FOLDS Either side of your kwa can fold and unfold both vertically and horizontally. Horizontal kwa folding and "unfolding" or stretching is used to turn the waist from side to side, usually with one side folding as the other unfolds or stretches. Vertical kwa folds move your torso forward and down toward your legs, and are usually followed by vertical unfolds to move your torso up and back again. An example is the Forward Spine Stretch warm-up introduced in Module 7. Kwa folds are usually taught as an introduction to the full sixteen neigong method of opening and closing the kwa. Vertical kwa folds and stretches are usually used when the body goes up and down, such as while squatting or bending forward. Horizontal kwa folds are more common when the body turns side to side, as in the various phases of the Cut exercise or during medium to very large waist turns in qigong, bagua and tai chi. Folding the kwa primarily affects the illiopsosas and adductor muscles. The illiopsosas is like an elastic, springy rubber band that can be folded or compressed and released (stretched) vertically up or down, or horizontally sideways. It can also move toward or away from either its top or bottom, or fold and stretch from center to periphery-either vertically, horizontally or both simultaneously.

Figure 3.6.4 llliopsosas and Adductor Musicles

/'The practice of opening and closing the kwa·:is a more advanced and fuller practice, which involves omni-directional growing (expanding) and shrinking (condensing) from deep within both sides of your kwa. This method primarily focuses on a center-to-periphery movement of chi within the energy gates located on either side of the kwa, or a compression and release of bodily fluids located in


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62


>> A closing and opening of the energy gates or fluids in the kwa can strongly influence the illiopsoas and a~ductor muscles to move in a manner like a kwa fold and unfold. A closing of the kwa causes both a vertical and horizontal kwa folding to activate. An opening of the kwa stimulates both a vertical and horizontal kwa stretching

.

,~:.~

and unfoldmg. I~{~]J: ...':! :.'7

Kwa folds and opening and closing of the kwa are part of the Marriage of Heaven and

Earth Qigong.

Moving between Inside and Outside Cut Positions

Figure 3.6 Move between Inside and Outside Cut Positions

© 201 0 Bruce Frantzis- AII Rights Reserved.


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To move between the inside and outside Cut positions: 1. Shift your weight from side to side. 2. Turn your waist by horizontally folding the side of your kwa to which you are moving and unfolding the side of your kwa from which you are moving away. 3. Let your arm move in a rounded curving motion, driven by the actions of your legs and torso. 4. As you move from an outward to inward Cut, gradually and continuously rotate/twist your arm so that your palm turns from facing up to down. 5. As an alternative to #3-4 above, you may find it helpful in the early stages to not rotate or twist your arm as you move from side to side. You can either keep your palm up or down. Then, when your sense is that your legs, waist, spine and arm gel as a unified whole, you can rotate/twist your arm. 6. Maintain your arm extended to 50 percent offull extension as you inwardly and outwardly Cut left and right. Do not bend or stretch your arm. 7. As you move back and forth, project your intention into the edge of your cutting palm in a yang manner, as if you were cutting something with it. 8. As you move, your elbow tip faces perpendicular to the ground or as close as possible while keeping your shoulders down. In this phase, your goal is to not move your arm independently in space, but only as a joined connected extension of your legs, waist and spine. This is a step toward making whole body movement possible, which is a central governing principle upon which all bagua and tai chi movements are based. Do a cycle of outward and inward Cuts a minimum of five to ten times with one arm and repeat with the opposite arm.


Section 7 Unification Exercise #3: Cut, Phases 2-4 Intermediates

Phase 2: Stretch to Corners, Bend to Middle Now that the previous phase has connected your arm to your torso and legs, next add extending your arm to seventy to eighty percent of full extension on inward and outward Cuts. Bend your arm to fifty percent as you shift weight to face forward at the midpoint (weighted fifty-fifty), as you appropriately twist your arms and rotate your palms to seventy percent. Finish completely to one side.


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Beginning Position (not shown): Your waist faces directly forward at the midpoint. Ideally, your palm is positioned on your centerline along with your forearm: the palm is up if you wish to do begin with an outside Cut; the palm is down if you wish to do begin with an inside Cut. Your arm is 50 percent bent with both armpits half closed.

A

B

Figure 3.7.1 Cut: Stretch to Corners 1. Do a right outward Cut by pushing off your left leg, turning your waist outward and keeping your four points aligned. Upon finishing, your right arm should be 70 percent extended, elbow still bent, straight out and directly in front of your torso's centerline (Figure 3.7.1 A). • Only extend your arm 70-80 percent. Avoid the tendency to fully straighten and lock your elbow. Your cutting arm is driven by your waist and legs. • Twist your arm outward, so that your palm turns to face down as you extend your arm. • As your body shifts and turns, open your kwa and joints while projecting chi out from the edge of your palm. © 2010 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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• The edge of the palm remains more or less on your centerline (Figure 3.7.1 A), but under no circumstances goes wider than your shoulder's nest (Figure 3.7.1 B). • Twist your arms and legs outward. Your cutting arm is driven by your waist and legs.

2. Turn and shift weight to the left and begin an inward Cut. • Move to the midpoint, shrink, close your kwa and joints, and bend your arm to 50 percent. • Rotate your hand to halfway at the midpoint where your thumb is more or less pointing upward, and absorb chi into your palm and fingers. • Twist your arm and legs inward. Figure 3.7.2

3. Complete the inward Cut to the left.

Inward Cut

• Turn your waist and shift your weight completely to the opposite side while rotating your arm, so your palm finishes facing upward. • Extend your arm to 70 percent, grow and open your joints and kwa, and project energy from the edge of your palm. Ideally, your cutting palm should finish on your centerline and not beyond it. • Continue to twist your arm inward while twisting your legs outward. 4. Change direction again and practice an outward Cut in two similar stages.

Figure 3.7.3 Outward Cut

5. Continuously repeat outward and inward Cuts with each done in two stages. Ideally, the edge of your palm remains more or less on your centerline, but under no circumstances goes wider than your shoulder's nest.


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Between the end of either an inward or outward Cut to the next movement's midpoint: • Shrink your body. • Close your kwa and joints, and anything else you can. • Twist your legs inward. • Bend your arm to 50 percent. • Absorb chi into your fingers and the edge of your palm. • Rotate your hand halfway (more or less) to where your thumb points up. Between the midpoint and the inward or outward Cut's end: • Grow your body. • Extend the bend in your arm from 50 to 70 percent. • Open your kwa and joints. • Twist your legs outward. • Your palm rotates to finish facing down or up and you project chi into your fingers and the edge of your palm. Do a cycle of outward and inward Cuts a minimum of five to ten times with one arm and then repeat with the opposite arm. Take your time to integrate this phase of practice before moving forward to the next phase, which can take anywhere from days to months. You want the opening-closing and twisting actions of your waist and legs to cause your arm to extend and retract, and fully energize the edge of your palm-both when absorbing and projecting chi.



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Phase 3: Bend to Corners, Stretch to Middle In this phase, your cutting arm will finish to the sides for an inward or outward cut with a fifty-percent extension. Your arm will stretch to a seventy-percent extension at the midpoint of your side-to-side movement.

A

8 Figure 3 .7.4

Bending and Extending A) 50-percent Bend B) 70-percent Extension



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Beginning and Midpoint Positions: • Your weight is evenly distributed between your feet your right arm is extended 70 percent and your right thumb points up on your body's centerline (ideally, along with your forearm). Your elbow tip is perpendicular to the ground. • Your body grows as your joints and kwa open. • Your arm twists inward and absorbs chi into it. • Ideally, your right leg twists outward and your left twists inward. • Alternately, if this is overly challenging, both legs can twist outward at the midpoint position and inward when you shift weight to the side.

Outward Cut 1. Turn your waist and shift your weight to the right by pushing your left leg into the ground. 2. Bend your arm to 50 percent.

3. Add and mesh inside your movement a seamless arc of your arm and hand with a distinct sideward Cut.

4. Twist your arm and hand outward to finish with the palm facing down.

5. Depending on your degree of control, the rotating palm's edge might end up initially finishing in front of your shoulder's nest, or ideally in front of your centerline.

Figure 3.7.5

6. Although mostly facing sideways, your elbow tip

Outward Cut

should still sink strongly toward the ground. So, while twisting your arm muscles outwardly, add a bit more twist in the upper arm than in the lower, which·makes your elbow tip face downward. © 201 0 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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This method of Cut is used by martial artists to train pulling actions with the thumb and edge of an open palm.

Inward Cut 1. As you move back to the midpoint, extend your arm to 70 percent. • Twist your arm inward and rotate your palm halfway. • Twist your legs outward. (In the more advanced option, your left leg twists outward while your right leg twists inward.) • Grow your body and open your joints and kwa. • Project chi out of the edge of your palm. 2. Smoothly shift your weight to the left, turn your waist to the side and finish the inward cut. • Fully shift your weight and turn your waist to the left by smoothly pushing off your right leg. • Your arm bends to 50 pecent. • Twist your arm inward. • Rotate your palm to face up. • Shrink your body and close your joints and kwa. • Twist your legs inward. (In the more advanced option, your left leg twists outward while your right leg twists inward.) • Absorb chi into your fingers and the edge of your palm. • Sink your elbow tip to point perpendicular to the ground, or as close as possible. 3. Change direction and practice an outward Cut in two similar stages. Repeat inward and outward Cuts a minimum of five to ten times. Then, switch arms and do the same with the opposite arm.


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Phase 4: Add Forward Cutting Action Next, you will create a combined forward and sideways palm Cut for both your inward and outward Cuts. Follow all Phase 2 instructions regarding bending the arms to the midpoint and stretching them from the midpoint to the sides. About three-quarters of the way to concluding the horizontal arc of the arm's sideward motion, continue the circular arc of the arm from the armpit and upper arm-but not from the hand. At the motion's end, as your armpit makes its final extension concurrent with the arm's arc, add a forward cutting action into the mix. Practice until both the sideward and forward motions merge. This merging originates from the twisting of the elbow and wrist and infusing energy into the edge of your hand in a forward direction. So the arm still moves sideways, but the hand moves forward like a straight-line tangent off a circle.

From the Outward or Inward Cut to the Midpoint • Your fingers and palm draw chi from beyond your hand through your arm and into your spine and lower tantien. • Your body shrinks as you close all of your joints, cavities and spine. This is the mechanism that enables you to absorb and return chi from your palms and arms to your spine and lower tantien. • Your arm twists inward if you are doing an inside Cut or outward if you are doing a outside Cut. Your palm rotates and your arm bends to 50 percent regardless. • Ideally, the inside leg twists inward and the outside leg twists outward. Alternately, if this is overly challenging, you can twist © 201 0 Bruce

Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.


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both legs inward to the center and outward to either side.

From the Midpoint to the End of the Inward or Outward Cut Add a forward slicing Cut to the circular arc of your arm. • Your lower tantien emanates and projects chi up your spine, through your arm to the bottom of your palm's edge and through it to finish at the top of your little finger, and outward beyond your hand. • Your body grows as you open your, joints, kwa, other cavities and spine. This is the mechanism that enables chi to move from your tantien to your hand and beyond, and which energizes the cutting edge of your palm as you rotate it. • Your arm twists inward if you are doing an inward Cut or outward if you are doing an outward Cut and extends to 70-80 percent. • The straightening leg twists inward and the bending leg twists outward. Repeat your inward and outward Cuts a minimum of five to ten times. Then, switch arms and repeat.

Over Time and with Practice Move toward incrementally turning your waist to ninety degrees or more. • Open your kwa on the side that your leg straightens and close it on the side receiving your weight (onto which you turn). • Have a sense of your chi filling the edge of your palm. • Your elbow tip faces perpendicular to the ground and energetically sinks downward.


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• With outward Cuts, your armpits should slightly open and with inward Cuts they slightly close. • Reverse the opening, closing and twisting twice in each cut, regardless whether turning inward or outward. Start from the side while fully weighted, moving to the midpoint facing directly forward (50-50 weighted). Next, from the center, shift to the side where you are ideally 100-0-percent weighted. Over time, turning can be made more powerful by not allowing your feet to shift position or otherwise move at all. This increases the body's internal compressions dramatically-both closing and condensing and releasing and opening. Go back and review all of the previous instructions and be sure you can practice them well.

Important Points to Remember During all four phases of Cut, inward and outward cutting actions have many points in common. • Ideally, the feet are parallel; slightly wider than your shoulder's width. • Your weight finishes 100 percent on one leg or the other. • The leg shifts and waist transitions through the midpoint to the opposite leg should be smooth, even and gradual. • In the final position, your waist is turned toward your weighted leg. • The cutting palm should finish between the level of your heart and throat, whichever gives you the greatest sense of connection. • Your arm and palm continuously and evenly rotate. • Your armpits never completely close down.



• The inward Cut's palm only goes as far as the body's centerline and not beyond to the opposite side. The outward Cut's palm does not go sideways past your shoulder's nest.


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Appendix 1 Martial Applications Body Unification Exercises Palm Strike In its opening phase, the straight-line, Palm Strike hand movement is more useful for making straight-on strikes, creating vibrating strikes and exploding internal power at minimum distance. Its closing phase is more useful for sticking, controlling, trapping and pulling an opponent's arms closer to you purely by making skin contact with their forearm or wrist (Figure 3A.1 ).

Figure 3A.l Palm Strike 77 © 2010 Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

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When done circularly with a larger upward curving motion (See Section 2), the Palm Strike, in its rising phase, is quite valuable in two ways: it develops the strength and penetrating power of your fingers; and the palm can rip and tear internal organs or break multiple ribs at once. Its retracting motions use the fingers to claw and pull out pieces of anatomy, such as collarbones, nerves surrounding the heart, and ligaments and tendons attached to joints. It also allows the fingertips to grab and pull an opponent without needing to close the hand.

Dri II The Drill exercise is a basic barebones version of bagua's fundamental signature fighting technique. It is equally used defensively and offensively. It is a basic deflection and grab or arm-control technique that is usually followed by a strike or throw with either the same or opposite hand. Among its many martial functions are: • Controlling your body's centerline, a basic feature of most Chinese martial arts. • Easily training the body for basic vertical and horizontal physical rotating (and eventually twisting and spiraling) of the forearms, upper arms and hands. This is a method used in almost every bagua movement and martial application in one form or another. • Giving your body the ability to really express its energetic power right through to your hands and fingertips. • The upward part of Drill is a fundamental attack technique for every kind of upward or diagonal strike existing in martial arts. • The downward part of Drill creates a myriad number of cutting palm edge strikes as well as other downward strikes and throws.



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Although Drill is normally done vertically, its martial applications are not limited to vertical motions. By simply changing the angle that the fingers face and altering the angle of your elbow tip and armpit, your entire arm can Drill at every angle from one-hundred-eighty degrees upward to zero degrees facing the ground.

A

B

c

Figure 3A.2 Drill Using Drill techniques done at angles from zero degrees downward to onehundred-eighty degrees upward, you can metaphorically create ten-thousand (i.e., an infinite variety of) applications in real time. Among the specific martial techniques Drill seeks to develop are: 1. Upward drilling motions that cause an opponent's hand to rise (Figure 3A.2 A) or be thrown up in the air using the pengjin (expansive energy) of your arms (3A.2 C). Although peng jin manifests in your arms, ultimately its source is a direct consequence of developing peng jin in your legs from practice of mud stepping in Circle Walking.


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2. Practice of the upward motion also develops the ability of the fingers to Drill inside an opponent's body in a manner similar to drilling a hole through a piece of wood or stone. If developed sufficiently, the fingers can penetrate flesh, or at minimum knock vertebrae out of place (Figure 3A.2 B), separate ribs, or take an internal organ and twist it radically out of place. If you have sufficient chi, these abilities can be used to cause damage to an opponent, penetrate inside their body and develop the sensitivity and strength to actually move the tissues there with minimum effort. Moreover, if Drill is done with a closed fist instead of the hand open, it can deliver a substantial uppercut.

Figure 3A.3 Downward Drilling Motion The motion of Drill enables or directly creates at least half of the martial movements included in the 64-movement linear and circular bagua forms.

3. Downward drilling motions pull an opponent directly down or to some angle on the side of your body (3A.3). If done with all of the internal power specifics attached to the technique, it can be used to sprain or dislocate vertebrae and snap an opponent's shoulder, neck or spine. This is done in a similar manner to the primary pull down technique (called tsai in Chinese) of tai chi chuan that incorporates a melding of the pressing down and splitting techniques of tai chi (called an and lieh, respectively).



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Cut The movements of the Cut exercise have several basic applications.

1. At its most simplistic level, an outward cutting movement can be used like an impact momentum orientated karate-like chop to crush what it hitswhether the head, throat, neck, ribs, chest, spine or arm of an opponent.

Figure 3A.4 Cut Serves as a Strike 2. While at a more sophisticated level, the inward or outward Cut serves as a strike where it can be used to slice, rend and tear through an opponent's flesh or bone like a knife. The effect is quite different from the shock impact of an impulse momentum orientated karate-like chop.

For more details regarding the difference between impulse momentum strikes and wave or cutting strikes, see The Power of Internal Martial Arts and Chi, Chapter 3.


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Figure 3A.5 Cut Develops Your Ability to Grab and Pull Your Opponent

3. Practice of the Cut exercise can develop your ability to inwardly and horizontally grab and powerfully pull an opponent. This is not just downward as in Drill, but also upward or sideways to either throw or break an opponent's balance while you counter with your opposite hand.

Figure 3A.6



Figure 3A.7 Inward Cut: Bring Your Opponent toward Your Body 2. The inward Cut, toward your centerline, can bring your opponent toward your body.

A

B Figure 3A .8 Inward Cut: Pull Your Opponent Sideways


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3. An inward Cut can pull an opponent outward and sideways (Figure 3A.8 A). As you Cut, you can either grab your opponent's arm or stick to it with the skin of your palm as it faces down, and counter with your opposite hand or foot. 4. Similarly, an outward twisting, turning and cutting movement will pull the opponent away from you and allow you to counter with either your hand or foot (3A.9 B).

A

B Figure 3A.9

Outward Cut: Pull Your Opponent Away from You

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Bruce Frantzis-AII Rights Reserved.

1 Bagua Body Unification Method

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