Unbroken Circularity

[wayne hansen]

My mistake there I got two threads mixed up
I was referring to the clip with origami and the guy trying to cling onto his upper arm

[Giles]

No problem, Wayne.

[origami_itto]

My mistake there I got two threads mixed up
I was referring to the clip with origami and the guy trying to cling onto his upper arm

Dude was SO clingy. One of those every time you throw him out he wants to try to hang his whole body weight on your arm and take you with.

It's not the best example, sure, it's just what I have here available. I'm not shoving against his strength there, just finding where it wants to go. I'm mostly passive.

I'm at the point with folks like that where I'm just going to let them go or take a follow step and let gravity do it's thing. I'm starting to get that thing you said about energy.

That attitude just kills me, like this.

[twocircles13]

So far nobody seems to understand what I meant, although windwalker almost got it for a second a few posts ago. So I will give two examples. One of inside to outside and one of outside to inside.

Stand in the Michaelangelo pose. Bend your arm at the elbow -- try to only move on the elbow. Is this a whole body internal movement?

If you say the answer is no, then the question becomes why not?

That is to say, not "why not" for the obvious, external reason -- but why didn't you make it a whole body internal movement? Can you make it a whole body internal movement but only "move" on the elbow?

Example two; any circular silk reeling exercise. This is intended to be some kind of whole body circular motion. But is it, really? Can you willingly make it noncircular and nonwholebody but give the impression that you are doing it? What is more likely, obvioulsy, is you are not doing it properly, and there will be some kind of qi blockage affecting your movement... But, if not, could you sabotage it intentionally?

A to B or B to A, in the middle is a harmonization of qi inside the body which justifies the movement -- if you want there to be.

I’ve tried responding twice before, and they keep getting lost in the ether.

BLUF, After quite bit of thought, nothing helpful. I don’t really understand your questions or even the thread from which you quoted..

[Giles]

So far nobody seems to understand what I meant, although windwalker almost got it for a second a few posts ago. So I will give two examples. One of inside to outside and one of outside to inside.

Stand in the Michaelangelo pose. Bend your arm at the elbow -- try to only move on the elbow. Is this a whole body internal movement?

If you say the answer is no, then the question becomes why not?

That is to say, not "why not" for the obvious, external reason -- but why didn't you make it a whole body internal movement? Can you make it a whole body internal movement but only "move" on the elbow?

I dunno what the pose is, but no matter where my arm is: if in my mind I isolate or 'disconnect' my arm from the rest of my body and then move only the elbow - then this results in a certain sensation and I might call it "external". Of course I feel the rest of my body, it's still alive and doing its stuff, but with respect to the bending of the elbow it's kind of "out to lunch". Then if I do what from the outside, to a casual observer, would seem like the same movement but I connect/engage the rest of my body - down through the feet, up through the crown and all around - then the sensation is very different. Now I can feel things (gently, subtly) shifting, meshing through my body, although I think only a very experienced observer would be able to tell the difference. I don't try to move explicitly through my body, the connection just feels different if I let it happen. Calling this an "internal" movement seems reasonable to me. It doesn't mean I can then send a grown man flying with a flick of the finger, but generally speaking I might generate a different force and achieve different results using this "internal" connection in a whole range of movements.

[Appledog]

I dunno what the pose is, but no matter where my arm is: if in my mind I isolate or 'disconnect' my arm from the rest of my body and then move only the elbow - then this results in a certain sensation and I might call it "external". Of course I feel the rest of my body, it's still alive and doing its stuff, but with respect to the bending of the elbow it's kind of "out to lunch". Then if I do what from the outside, to a casual observer, would seem like the same movement but I connect/engage the rest of my body - down through the feet, up through the crown and all around - then the sensation is very different. Now I can feel things (gently, subtly) shifting, meshing through my body, although I think only a very experienced observer would be able to tell the difference. I don't try to move explicitly through my body, the connection just feels different if I let it happen. Calling this an "internal" movement seems reasonable to me. It doesn't mean I can then send a grown man flying with a flick of the finger, but generally speaking I might generate a different force and achieve different results using this "internal" connection in a whole range of movements.

Yeah I think we are on the same page with this one, or similar. You call it meshing. Meshing connects the broken parts of the circle. @twocircles13 I hope this helps answer your question. But if not, for what it's worth, I'm just trying to come up with an alternate explanation. This is not anything really new or special.

[origami_itto]

So far nobody seems to understand what I meant, although windwalker almost got it for a second a few posts ago. So I will give two examples. One of inside to outside and one of outside to inside.

Stand in the Michaelangelo pose. Bend your arm at the elbow -- try to only move on the elbow. Is this a whole body internal movement?

If you say the answer is no, then the question becomes why not?

That is to say, not "why not" for the obvious, external reason -- but why didn't you make it a whole body internal movement? Can you make it a whole body internal movement but only "move" on the elbow?

I dunno what the pose is, but no matter where my arm is: if in my mind I isolate or 'disconnect' my arm from the rest of my body and then move only the elbow - then this results in a certain sensation and I might call it "external". Of course I feel the rest of my body, it's still alive and doing its stuff, but with respect to the bending of the elbow it's kind of "out to lunch". Then if I do what from the outside, to a casual observer, would seem like the same movement but I connect/engage the rest of my body - down through the feet, up through the crown and all around - then the sensation is very different. Now I can feel things (gently, subtly) shifting, meshing through my body, although I think only a very experienced observer would be able to tell the difference. I don't try to move explicitly through my body, the connection just feels different if I let it happen. Calling this an "internal" movement seems reasonable to me. It doesn't mean I can then send a grown man flying with a flick of the finger, but generally speaking I might generate a different force and achieve different results using this "internal" connection in a whole range of movements.

I completely missed the original question, too.

Some talk about the jin lu. They have to be set and developed through practice. Then that integration from foot to finger and top of the head can exist.

The difference between the two to me is like if you're just moving your arm/elbow then it's like a machine attached to a structure. Your structure muscles create that base and then the arm muscles push off against that to do their work so they're sort of engaging in parallel play and not really helping each other much. The connection between them is weak and prone to breakage.

Contrast with the entire musculature from foot to finger incorporated through... I dunno, coordination, particular conditioning, smoothing and nourishing the fascia, sinking, opening, whatever it actually is physiologically that makes the actual physical connection actually happen. Maybe all of those and more? Maybe each contributes to the sum total of that incorporation which gets deeper and more enmeshed with time.

So, like, instead of a series of machines with short wires that change angles of pieces, it's one integrated machine with wires that run the length of it. Yi Qi. "Dragon body" "The suit" I dunno what else you want to call it. Feels kind of snake like to me. A friend described his internal ribbons, but it's the joints, too. Open and free.

This is all my own wild theory, please don't blame my teachers.

[cloudz]

Now, Bruce Lee said that the shortest line between points is a straight line -- not a circle. So perhaps we have been doing it wrong all this time. Thoughts?

If you only wrote non joined up hand writing, I wouldn't call that doing it wrong.
BUT.

[everything]

not sure what you mean about the elbow, Appledog, but it makes me think of trying to arm wrestle one of my kids and "elbow" vs. "whole body" and "yi/qi". suffice to say he is >2.5x stronger (measuring by deadlift for a few reps...400+ vs. 150 afaik). he can easily beat me in arm wrestling if I try to "contract bicep". If I try to defend only using the "finger thing" discussed here, just try to do the things Giles and Origami are describing, relax to an extent, and kind of "project" my intent through his entire body, I don't feel much contraction or fatigue and can defend ok for a little while. it won't work for me to win and he can likely override this if he tries hard. but it's kind of a "yi/qi parlor trick" that maybe gets at what you're trying to describe.

[windwalker]

Seems like what is being discussed, open and close

A friend of mine's practice in Singapore...



Tai Chi opening and closing training

[Doc Stier]

Wow! Five pages of comments to debate a simple concept. Impressive!

Unbroken circularity is the result of performing movement patterns in which both hands exclusively describe full circles, s-shaped lines, and/or figures of eight without interruption, break, or pause.

It's really not very difficult to do, if the focused intention to incorporate same in practicing is a consistent training agenda priority.

[everything]

so doing cloud hands for example.

i couldn't quite tell what appledog was trying to say or ask (and apparently neither could anyone else), so maybe that's why it's 5 pages of different comments/topics.

[Doc Stier]

OK, fair enough. Perhaps so. Nonetheless, the thread topic title is 'Unbroken Circularity', which seems pretty straightforward, imo, as described in my previous post.

[everything]

haha yes. i don't know. it seems everyone saw something different in the ink blot.