Giles wrote:Appledog wrote: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.