Fri. Sept. 23: Last few days trying to get the ease to the point of maintaining breath at perineum. Have done a pretty good job at staying aware enough to keep the ease to have the meat sunk enough to open perineum. Also keeping shoulders dropped over hips, this is usually a problem when using power in exercises such as throwing the hands for fajin training. Watched Sunday's class and followed along, great class that as I've described before has brought a lot together. I was really focusing on allowing the "force" to fall all the way through the body to the feet, that way when going from absorb to project the project would come up through the body from the feet and there would be a solid line while the meat stayed sunk and loose. BUT.... I felt that this was changing the condition on the bottom of the feet. And while it felt better, as in the shoulders could stay dropped, the front dropping down and there was a clear rising up the back, it seemed to be more of a sequence thing that involved only specific parts of the body at once as it came up the body and out of the hands. There was something about it that wasn't unifying, it was more like "things expanding along the way" instead of the yang expanding all at once. So I was having trouble wrapping my head around it. Went to Asheville to meet a practitioner to have some partner time. He showed me a few stretches and things and as I was doing them I was having a difficult time. I noticed that either my feet were heavy or my chest was heavy in everything that we were doing. Then, I just automatically kicked in the training, it just popped up whenever I found myself in a difficult position or in a state of strain or compromise. I just expanded the yang and condensed the yin and everything equaled out, the body got light and comfortable and I was very stable. So when we did partner work (which worked out great for me, I was trying not to impose my own stuff on him and not be disrespectful because he is a Sifu so I just followed whatever he wanted to do) and we did what he called "rolling hands" which turned out to be spinning hands! So right off the bat he was telling me different things like to "root" and a few other things, I was trying to do what he was describing for the sake of it, and I was way off kilter. Then, once again, I just reverted back to our training and got a big expansion on the yang and condensing on the yin and the feet were merely touching, and suprisingly he said "yeah, there you go".lol. My body was moving in a much more dynamic way, and the parts didn't feel so seperated and chronological as they did when I described about earlier in the post.
So today, when doing the class video, trying to make power at first was a little difficult, kept yanking the shoulders and chest. But Sifu mentioned the feet again, and the crown. So I noticed that while I felt I was expanding and condensing well, I was still throwing the body around to make the power. Then I focused on keepign the feet merely touching and the yin and yang had no choice but to balance each other and the power moves had a different quality. They weren't very visibly extraordinary, but I could feel something different on the inside. It was similar to what Sifu was talking about when he was stressing that the word "issue" gives the wrong idea. If I could release enough a "bounce" or "rumble" or "rattle" would wave through the body, adn it would happen all over equally. When I was all shoulders and chest the feeling was more like a jerk or an off balance yank with the head and shoulders flinging out widely. But with the calm the body stayed mroe central and stationary and the "bounce" would happen sort of around it. Putting the concentration on the crown helped to settle the expansion going down the legs and cause the hip roll to be more full and pronounced stabilizing the upper body and allowing the power move to go through it instead of from it.
Patrick