Greetings all,
DP,
I was initially thrown off by some of your terminology, but ended up liking both posts. I think we have a very similar internal feeling and similar understanding about it, even though we stress different concepts and have different terminology. I also found some of your comments about standing practice useful.
I am having a little difficulty with your understanding about gravity. My understanding is when I am standing on the surface of the earth, I would have had been flew away if I was not pulled by gravity. This seems contradictory to your statement. Am I really pushing up against the ground when standing?
ChiDragon,
I wonder if you may have misunderstood DP’s somewhat casual phrasing. I think in this case, “pushing up against the ground” and “pushing down against the ground” are meant to mean almost the same thing, but just stress different aspects of the action. I think he meant “pushing down against the ground so that our bodies stand up” or “pushing our bodies up by pressing down against the ground.” In both cases, gravity is pulling us down, and we are holding ourselves up. The two action create an equilibrium where we neither jump up nor fall down.
As I interpret it, we want to have both flexors and extensors (muscles used for bending and straightening joints, respectively) always primed for action, even when not in action. To me, this is one of the reasons for not locking (or fully extending) our legs (or arms...). If we are primed for even opposite actions, then we maintain readiness for both yin and yang actions (absorbing/pulling, projecting/pushing, etc.); we do not get stuck in one direction without being able to change to the another.
We may or may not have the same feeling, but I use a different theoretical approach. You seem to stress awareness of opposites and doing two things. For my understanding and the way I teach, it is important for me to stress the oneness of the
taiji in addition to its composition of two aspects and to guard against a feeling of choosing or alternating between two possibilities.
In my mind, Taiji energy is basically about expansion. I pay attention only to expansion and rarely or ever have a feeling of contraction. However, the expansion inherently includes contraction within it. Within yin, there is always yang. As we expand against our soft tissue, our soft tissue pulls back in contraction. By modulating our expansion, we can actually produce contraction in this way. Yin and yang control each other.
As an analogy, consider the ocean floating a ball on its waves. When we say “floating,” we are talking about an action that includes only an upward force. In reality, however, the process of “floating” as it occurs in our daily experience, unlike in outer space, is always a dance between floating and gravity. Without the action of gravity, a ball would not float on the surface of a mass of water. This means that the ocean, merely by changing the energy of its floating action, can make a ball float up or down through the “dance” with gravity.
In my feeling,
deng and
cheng are actually the same force and part of the same
taiji. Both merely involve thrusting against the ground. The difference involves the “dance” with gravity. With deng, thrusting is yang and gravity is yin. The result is a type of issuing energy. With cheng, thrusting is yin and gravity is yang. The result is a type of receiving energy.
I suppose one could say that you should be ready to alternate between
deng and
cheng. This is probably good from a pedagogical standpoint, but to me, it's a little like saying a basketball ball needs to be able to bounce both up and down. While true, it is stating something that is simply part of the nature of a true basketball.
To me, whether a leg should do
deng or
cheng is controlled by the intent (意 yi4), and this is a somewhat different conversation from the fundamental mechanics of
deng or
cheng themselves.
It is also interesting that there is also a spiral potential in our legs (feet rotation towards our little toes), which not only aids in our stability, but also primes us for rotation/counter-rotation, even when “still” or “stationary.” So we can be primed vertically up and down as well as horizontally left and right.
Everyone knows about the "spiraling potential" of the legs as Dpasek has described above; legs "spiraling" outwards towards the little toes. It also goes back the other way as well, but I think we all know that.
This "rounded" crotch/spiraling legs feeling is ubiquitous throughout the major branches.
I am aware of the spiraling the Chen family teaches, but do not know much of anything about that from a Yang family perspective, at least with respect to the legs. To me, rounding the crotch seems a little bit like a different concept. Also, I think of rotation more from the perspective of the waist than of the legs and would be wary of introducing a rotational feeling in my feet, ankles, or knees.
I was puzzled in the last two statements. The latter I can understand by rephrasing it. I would rephrase it as:
Many people just rest on the ground like a chair and do not feel the potential energy in the stillness. For that being said, in the on guard position, the body is in the sung(松) mode. Thus there should not be any force felt. In combat, the body is in the fajin mode, all the kinetic energy should be felt within the body. In the former, I do not quite understand what do you mean by the "still arguably aspects of the underlying equilibrium"? Would you please shed some light on it to enlighten me? Thank you!
A chair interacts with gravity only through rigid geometry. A human can do this as well; however, our geometry on two feet is nowhere near as stable as a chair on four legs. We have three other choices.
If a human is standing and suddenly loses consciousness, their limbs become completely slack or loose and end up in a disorganized heap on the ground. Because of this meaning of loose and relaxed, or of "song" 松, I do not like stressing mere relaxation as an alternative to a rigid structure.
A third possibility for a human is to keep a somewhat rigid structure, but continually make adjustments to stay balanced. In effect, such a person simply creates a succession of rigid geometries to adjust their balance as needed from moment to moment.
The fourth possibility is to use a structure that actually incorporates the force of gravity into its stability, like a roman arch. I cannot come up with an item in daily life that illustrates my meaning in terms of the mechanics of standing, but consider an umbrella. The force of your arm extending the ribs of an umbrella actually gives the right umbrella shape, despite the fact that the fabric of the umbrella is not rigid. In fact, the shape of the umbrella is directly dependent on how much you push on the mechanism. In the same way, the angle of the shins, knees, and thighs in a bow stance can be determined indirectly by how you push against the ground. It is a system that can find different equilibriums depending on the input forces. The energy provides the shape, not a rigid structure.
My point was that many people feel only rigid structure in the placement of their legs that they externally adjust according to what they think is useful. This is different from feeling the relationship between the various forces that can produce a variety of outcomes with only a simple variation in input. When you open an umbrella, you don't have to give much thought as to how hard or how far to push. You just focus on the end result you want and automatically adjust your force depending on your tactile feedback. In the same way, I just focus on generating energy through my legs and automatically adjust all the angles based on my feeling in the bubbling wellspring of both legs. I give no thought to my front knee bending too far or to my rear leg becoming too straight. These results are not normally possible based on the intent and "procedure" I use, just like I normally don't have to worry about opening my umbrella too far or not far enough.
By the way, I should make clear that although we might talk about using both legs to shift weight, we ultimately do not want to do
deng and
cheng simultaneously and to have a feeling of resisting our own energy. It should be sequential. In one sense, it is exactly the same process in the legs that we use during a jump in takeoff and landing, except that neither foot leaves the ground and the pelvis does not change in height. When we jump, we give no thought to how straight our knees are when we leave the ground or how bent they are after landing. The adjustment is natural, based on our intent. For me, this is the same as in shifting weight into a bow stance.
The other thing I should make clear is that in doing form practice, the weight shifts are all pretty much the same, because of the constant speed. During fajin, however, you will automatically adjust the degree to which you bend the front knee and how much you straighten the back knee to accommodate how strong and how short your energy is, in the same way that you automatically adjust how you take off or land on your legs for a jump, depending on the height of the jump.
Take care,
Audi
