Tues./Wed. Oct. 11,12: "2 becomes 1", wow. So, just as Sifu has said many times, the 13 points eventually are effects. Getting everything down (meat, etc.) and keeping breathing at the perineum, or at least not allowing anything above the diaphragm and keeping substanitality at mingmen/dantian creates a change in the body. I had both my fiance and brother push on me the last couple of days. As soon as contact is made you go somewhere inside the body, it's like right in the center of all the "stuff", between all the meat and fascia and cavities, etc., and that's where you "are", and the body is as if it just simply "surrounds" you. I can feel it all around me, just hanging or hovering there, and I'm in the middle of it. As they apply more and more force it comes into that space and if I can "feel it" anywhere in my body then that means that part of the body isn't right, so all it takes is this minor adjustment on the inside, just slight re-arranging and it falls through further down, these movements aren't probably even visible. And the adjustments keep going down until that force is at the contact point at the bottom of the foot, or feet. Then you notice that the 13 points are all there, they just went there, and you're extremely comfortable. Then all there is is the contact point at the bottom of the foot, and the contact point with the partner and they are one in the same all of the sudden, like a direct line between them as the body is gone. Anything you do at the foot comes about at the contact point with the partner. No matter how much force they put on me, nothing happened, I remained completely stationary and still and even became more comfortable, and the spot right between the dantian and mingmen, seemed equidistant from both, was significant as well. All it took was for me to decide (and I think this is where I, qi, and li comes in although I wasnt' good enough to pinpoint each level of the process) to bounce them and they were bounced. It wasn't much of any kind of physical movement either, I just placed a certain kind of attention at the contact point on the bottom of the foot and there they went, up and out. As I went along with my brother, I was getting to where I could put him anywhere from 8 to 12 feet back peddling and it was like I wasn't even doing anything, just "thinking" to send him, but a little more involved I think, or less I'm not sure. My fiance, as usual, got tired of doing it with me and decided she was going to simply make a stiff arm posture and just bounce into my chest over and over. So each time she came in I just tried to find that line from foot to where she was hitting me, and I tried to zero in on that route, and once I got it I waited for the next hit and as soon as she made contact I did "the thing" and it popped her up and back off her feet. She flipped out and grabbed her arm and said "what the @#$%, get that stuff out of my arm!" She said it was weird and gross feeling and she quit pushing with me.
Now, the key is to find this place without having someone placing force on me I believe. Which is much harder to do, especially for any significant amount of time. BUT, all it takes is "Attention, Attention, Attention". It requires a ton of concentration and awareness of the whole body really, all the time, especially in movement. I've done a lot of different distance learning and without sounding like a kiss ass I want to say that everything we need comes straight out of Sifu's mouth. I jsut wish I was smart enough to get it and understand it as he's saying it, as it would save tons of time and effort. Everything, from the concepts to the feelings to the qualities, it's all there. If I were able to jsut simply do what he's saying I'd be much further along by now, I can't figure out though how to have it as it's being presented, it usually takes a lot of work and trial and error before I really "get it". Most of the other training systems I've tried will leave something out here or there, or the info isn't complete, or they're taking you the long way around or can't quite articulate what they're trying to get across. Sifu only seems to say what "it is". It's like this... and that's how it is, exactly. I think I get the most after having the class and going back time and again over the vids, that's when the learning is taking place the most. Anyway, it's been a good couple of days and Sifu says not to attach to these feelings good or bad, but when the things he teaches come about in my body it feels really really good, and hard to let go of.