No one says that you should ”sink the qi” except for some highly commercial teachers today. Traditionally no one have ever said it. Not Yang masters, Wu masters or Sun masters. No one. The classics states “The qi sinks, the spirit rises”. You don’t don’t “sink the qi”. If you relax your body, calm your mind and let the strength and breath sink, then the qi will sink regardless what you want. The “qi sinks”, means that you feel grounded and that your breath is deep. And your “spirit rises” means that your mind becomes clear and feel alert. If you become good at controlling yourself you should be able do all of this at an instant, i.e. drop your strength/weight as well as breath and empty your mind. This is the only way you can suddenly “sink the qi”.
If you look at hyperactive teachers who claim they demonstrate that they “sink the qi” (as an Italian “Internal” WC guy) amongst other ones you can see immediately just by looking at them that they have no qi to sink and that they have no clue what they are doing. Their point of gravity is high, their breath is high and they show no sense of calmness, no stillness within. So you shouldn’t listen too much about what people say they do, but rather watch closely how they act and behave when they do something. IMHO.
everything wrote: You think it's some weird elaborate metaphor that actually means "fascia"?
Fascia does nothing. You can keep it soft and flexible by keeping movability in your body or you can let it pull itself together, become stiff and hard by losing movability in your body. That’s pretty much how you can use it.
I guess my main answer is qigong and IMA are kind of boring.
Qigong is boring AF, IMA is fun and fascinating. IMO