Meditation and taijiquan

[everything]

my friend's son will go d1 or possibly pro in baseball. he has hit top ten in the usa for his age group in 55m w/o ever running track. it's possible "intent" is in his training (running or sometimes stealing bases). baseball seems to me to be an intensely mental sport overall, relative to other team sports. so much "standing" and anticipating before you act explosively. so much instant decision making after the "standing".

[everything]

getting back somewhat on topic. research seems to indicate the brain is modified by meditation - more gray matter associated with self-control, focus. More myelin for faster firing neurons. More gamma waves (waves associated with intense focus). Benefits for MA or sports or anything else seem obvious. All good.

But for "IMA" - presumably the topic of the board - it's just one circle in the venn diagram. zhan zhuang and form seems easier and better to have the above, the neigong, the matching of those to "external shape". xing yi says to hold san ti. it makes sense. even with quick experimentation, it seems almost self-evident. this is probably (without the qigong aspect) where it's counter-intuitive but moving slowly (but super, meditatively mindfully) at a physical skill (such as MA, sports, or music performance) seems to help the technical skill/smoothness at speed. everyone here would surely attest to that, even with no interest in neigong aspects. if you're not doing the skill at full speed, you may still be laying down the myelin and stronger/faster neural pattern and strengthening the general and specific focus needed for that pattern.

[Taste of Death]

Interesting in that you used a Chinese word to express "intent" A word that is already used and expressed in English...

One would wonder if you also use the concepts of "Qi" and other aspects for things that are not expressed in English or have no English equivalents.

Having met some practitioners " yiquan", what I've read about it,
it seems a little different approach than what was expressed, and was used by my teacher and his group in Beijing.


thanks for the reply

happy new year...

If I use 'yi', people ask if I meant 'intent'. If I use 'intent', they ask if I meant 'yi'. Then they want me to define the terms and then proceed to correct me.

To muddy the waters further: In yiquan we have no intention of doing anything. We let our bodies respond to force. But we do use intent. If someone grabs my arm, my intention is to move as if they are not there. I reach for the apple on the tree branch as if they are not holding my arm. If I focus on them instead of my intent, I cannot move my arm.

[windwalker]

If I use 'yi', people ask if I meant 'intent'. If I use 'intent', they ask if I meant 'yi'.
Then they want me to define the terms and then proceed to correct me.

To muddy the waters further: In yiquan we have no intention of doing anything. We let our bodies respond to force. But we do use intent. If someone grabs my arm, my intention is to move as if they are not there. I reach for the apple on the tree branch as if they are not holding my arm. If I focus on them instead of my intent, I cannot move my arm.

Don't know who the "people" would be. I asked the question.

Your practice, usage, and idea of "it" seem to be different.....

In my practice 意 "Yi"

Has nothing to do with moving anything....
one among some other, what seem to be differences...


not much to say on it...

It's different.

Cheers

[marvin8]

Was watching this video with his view on tensegrity, meditation in movement, pull/push, etc.

NTUMA台大武學
Oct 31, 2021

Join us and support our quest for the real Chinese Martial Arts!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UvqmzOISwA

[Taste of Death]

I can see the possibility of internal use in sports, but whether it would help players win is another matter. For most, it would probably not be an efficient use of their time.

"Bruce Lee of NFL Teaches Martial Arts"
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20040923&slug=hawk23

The article is from 2004. Ronnie Lott had a bagua teacher that would beat him with sticks and whatnot when he was in a plank position but I don't know how much internal training he did if any.

The real Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
https://www.sportscasting.com/how-kareem-abdul-jabbar-used-what-he-learned-under-bruce-lee-on-and-off-the-basketball-court/

Martial arts training's given me a foundation for conditioning, flexibility, patience, focus, dedication. And those carry over to my basketball career. Off the court, I'm more focused, patient, and understanding. - Robert Parish

[everything]

sun lutang on merging his MA and seated meditation and qigong over a period of time that perhaps is the best answer for OP's question. better than we could give. better than any modern teacher could likely give.

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... -teachers/

I have practiced boxing arts since my youth. I had heard every teacher say that these boxing arts are Daoist arts. I was doubtful whenever I heard this until I had progressed to training the hidden energy. Hardness and softness had merged into one, movement felt miraculous, and it became spontaneous and natural.
Discussing it with my fellow students, we each knew something about it. However, once I had moved on to training the neutral energy, the quality of discussion about my new internal condition had changed. Those who understood the experience were often less willing to talk about it, and those who knew nothing about it would not stop talking about it. For that reason, I have put pen to paper in order to reveal it to my fellows. For those of you who have passed through to such a condition, by sharing with each other we can mutually achieve perfection.
When I trained to develop the neutral energy, at the finish of each day’s practice of postures I would stand straight and think of my spirit and energy settling. Each time, I felt something down in my root chakra (also called the Yin Jiao acupoint). [Yin Jiao means “where the passive energy is quickened”. This is again still the same place as Hui Yin, meaning similarly “where the passive energy gathers”. There are three names for the same place because of three traditions: in Chinese medicine it is called Hui Yin (“Gathering Place of the Passive”), Daoists named it Yin Jiao (“Passive Quickened”), and Buddhists named it Hai Di (“Under the Sea”).] It was like a plant sprouting, and in the beginning I did not pay it much attention.
In my daily practice, there were times when the sensation would be there, other times when I felt nothing at all. In the course of time, there were occasions when the sensation lasted very long, as well as other times in which there was again no sensation. Gradually, once in the finishing posture and thinking on settling, it seemed like it was there but on the verge of going away. I thought of what the Elixir Book says about seated meditation: “Your true active aspect activates.” I made use of this idea, which to elixirists is a matter of movement within stillness.
Among those who practice seated meditation, there are a great many who understand the idea of seeking movement within stillness. In the case of boxing arts, what is sought is stillness within movement, but I am not sure how that can be communicated. I also thought upon this phrase from the Boxing Classics: “Always the exercise is to be maintained and never allowed to slip away.” I trained every day, never skipping a day.
Eventually in the training, from the moment I was in the finishing posture my whole body went into a condition of emptiness. My true active aspect would also activate, but would be on the verge of going away. Such a state is what Liu Huayang meant by “returning to a sense of the true primordial state”. I became aware of my body’s smallest movement, and I dared not to move at all, for if I moved it would go away.
I thought if I returned to the method in the boxing, it would adjust the situation. My intention within was of sinking naturalness down to my elixir field, while underneath also using an intention of naturalness to lift up my rectum. The idea inside and out was now just like when practicing the boxing. Then the moment my intention focused on my elixir field, the active aspect promptly shrank in upward and resprouted there. My whole body was now pleasantly warm and stayed so continuously. [In short, what Sun had discovered here is the simple but crucial principle that if you are sticking your butt out, your energy will seem to leak away, but if you slightly tuck your tailbone in, you will feel full of power.]
I did not yet know about the principle of rotating the dharma wheel, but it was all going on there within my elixir field, like two things in a state of competing with each other. [A dharma wheel rotation is the active energy moving up the Du meridian in the back and the passive energy moving down the Ren meridian in front, and the elixir field is where the exchange of passive and active takes place.] Then after four or five hours like that, finally they were at peace.
It seemed to me that the cause of such stillness was that from when I was practicing the boxing, the essential breath had remained in my elixir field. Even when I was not practicing, despite even the breathing of conversation, the true breath within was not hindered at all. Indeed I was not trying to deliberately cause such an effect, but there was no moment when it was not so. Zhuangzi said [Zhuangzi, chapter 6]: “An authentic man breathes with his heels.” This is essentially the idea, and this engine of there being breath without my mind being on the breath drove the activity of the active aspect to be absorbed and to smoothly reach to every part of my body.
I thereafter repeated the process as before, again rousing my elixir field, again going through my practice routine of boxing postures. With my inside and outside always a single continuum, I slowly and leisurely practiced, not allowing the slightest bit of unevenness anywhere. As I practiced, within and to my extremities it was harmonious, a continuous emptiness, and then the situation once I was standing in the finishing posture was no different from before.
There were times when I would go through my practice routine and then feel nothing, times when I would go through my routine twice and still feel nothing. But subsequently when there was something happening, I would again lift it to my elixir field and then use the boxing art’s internal breathing to rotate the dharma wheel, my intention focusing on my elixir field.
Breathing mindfully, I rotated the wheel along its course from my tailbone, to my spine, to my head, to my headtop, and then back down, same as in seated meditation practice, back down to my elixir field. At times I could do only two or three rotations and then the feeling would stop, at times only three or four rotations and then the feeling would stop. The degree of my intent was matched in both cases, the amount of rotations I could manage and the amount of boxing practice I had put in.
Later when I was not practicing, whether I was just sitting, standing, or walking, inside I was still using the breathing of the boxing practice. My body while walking could still process it. Later on it happened even when I was sleeping deeply. There would be a sudden stirring within, which immediately woke me. I again used the breathing from practicing the boxing to absorb it. I then slept soundly, and inside there was no movement. Inside and out, my whole body to its extremities suddenly felt like a void. My whole body was as harmoniously contented as if I was taking a bath.
Sometimes when this situation happened in my sleep, I was able in my dream to mindfully breathe and thereby absorb it. After I woke up, I was aware that it had happened and had been dealt with in my dream.
After practicing the boxing, I slept soundly and there was stillness within. Eventually I only had to fall asleep for my inside and out to suddenly slip into a period of emptiness. During the day, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, my limbs also experienced periods of such emptiness, and the sensation within my body was extraordinarily comfortable. Every evening, I practiced the boxing, and then while I was asleep in the night, my body often slipped into a state of emptiness. Although if I did not practice in the evening, the emptiness during sleep would occur less regularly.
Later on I understood that elixirism has an energy which dispels ailments. My own personal experiences and observations of internal and external conditions were that typical human problems become inconsequential, all illnesses are cast off, and vitality is increased. After doing seated meditation in this way and practicing the boxing in this way, I finally understood that boxing arts and elixirism share the same principles.
This has been my personal experience, internal and external, of practicing boxing arts. I have written it down for the purpose of further clarifying for my comrades.

[origami_itto]

Was watching this video with his view on tensegrity, meditation in movement, pull/push, etc.

NTUMA台大武學
Oct 31, 2021

Join us and support our quest for the real Chinese Martial Arts!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UvqmzOISwA

That's fantastic stuff. I can't believe I missed it for a month. Thank you!