Dantian rotation from static position

[everything]

First question, have you have any success in projecting/bouncing someone out by only rotation the dan tian? ie from a static position with no other movments except from the dantian, no arms no leg compression etc.

nope. have had it done to me.

Secondly how do you train this?

have only had any success training the horizontal you mentioned. for lack of a better description, there is a feeling of "qi" that goes around this circle.

some lesser success going up the spine and down the front but this feeling is more vague.

stronger feeling of just "sinking qi to dantian".

Thridly in regards to breathing what breathing do you employ and how do you train it?

very relaxed natural breathing and very relaxed "reverse" breathing. I don't have *any* sense of any rotation in the abdomen area, though. I assume I haven't worked enough on the above...

[bailewen]

...but this isn't done with reverse breathing (does that make it forward breathing or reverse reverse? ) .

The full name of "reverse breathing" is "reverse dan tien breathing".

There is:
chest breathing
belly breathing
dan tian breathing
reverse dan tian breathing
skin breathing
natal breathing (through the umbilical cord)

Generally for martial arts we only talk about dan tian and reverse dan tian breathing because chest breathing is just wrong and belly breathing is good but just a midway step between chest and dan tian. Skin and natal breathing are fairly esoteric concepts so we tend to ignore them in martial arts but not so much in Daoist cultivation. From the context it is obvious that "Reverse" means "reverse dan tian" and the opposite is simply "dan tian brathing".

I ain't got much to say on so called dan-tian rotation. Not sure what the hell it even is...although I was "accused" of doing it once. All sorts of shenfa that seem impossible to me without reverse dantian breathing.

[Adam S]

Allan:

Does Chen Taiji do reverse breathing?
According to Chen Xiaowang, no. He has stated publically that one of the things that makes Taiji unusual among MA is that it does NOT have a specific breathing method. This had been my exp until about three years ago, when I asked his younger brother Chen Xiaoxing.

As I was not sure if the interpreter would be up to it, I drew a diagram on a whiteboard with two figures, each with a chubby tum and large arrows showing direction of breath - and asked him whether he did normal (ie ab expands when inhaling) or reverse (ab contracts on inhale) breathing.

He stated reverse.

AFAIK, however, he has not taught this explicitly. I subsequently asked my teacher about this, as he did not teach reverse breathing. He said he knew about reverse breathing, but did not do it, as it was "too hard."

Very interesting Andy

I knew CXW didn't emphasize it but to flat out say No it doesn't have a specific breathing method......


Zhu Tiancai absolutely emphasizes it

Possibly CZK did but CZP didn't? but that's pure speculation by myself

[charles]

... that is exactly what a teacher would say who wants their students to stay beginner for a long time...

I agree entirely with what Bao said.

If you practice daily and have been with your teacher for more than a few years, if he hasn't taught these basics I'd suggest that you ought to look beyond your current teacher. These ARE basics without which one is pretty much just doing choreography. Knowing and being able to do a thing isn't the same as effectively teaching it to your students so that they too can do it. Standing, with or without visualization, can be used as a prerequisite training method, but learning to move a specific way involves moving. At minimum, to progress, the standing should be paired with movement of some sort that focuses on what you are trying to achieve.

A few examples/sources that I like for learning how to move include CXW's introductory chan si gong material, FZQ's older Hun Yuan qigong material and his chan si gong material as seen in old footage such as that of Zhang Xuexin.

[Daniel]

The dantian rotation-material is something that should preferably be gone into only after a long period of time. The practitioner has to build up his system first, and then learn to stabilize and build-up the lower dantian before starting to move it around.

Well, Daniel, speaking from my more cynical side; that is exactly what a teacher would say who wants their students to stay beginner for a long time...

Yes, there are teachers who extort their students through playing games with fake information. Are you suggesting I am one of them?

On one hand I agree. You must understand how to generate your movements from your center (instead of from your limbs) before your center (dan tian) can become an active part of your movement.

On the other hand, generating your movement from your center is one of the most important basic principles of IMA. Any kind of practice that can learn you to feel and understand the use of your dan tian, can be of important use even for a beginner.

To advance in your style, you must always practice both basic stuff as well as things that are to advanced for your own level. So I can not really see anything wrong in trying this kind of exercise in the early stages.

There is more to the build-up and layering of a style than just the pure techniques, as I am sure you know. Whether the teacher actually knows this is one question, whether he or she is willing to teach it, another: it takes much longer time and lots more patience from the teacher. Here the differences between instructor and teacher become clear; the instructor has not got the same investment in taking responsibility for what they teach as the teacher does.

Everybody teaches what they know. It also depends what they are teaching, and what style, and for what purpose. I stand completely by the text you quoted, and can explain it in extensive detail (and do, to my students). Having people occasionally try things out that are above their current level works fine, as long as they have the discipline to stick to the process anyway and not walk off on that tangent. Skipping the stages completely can also be done, you just waste training-time doing it, take some risks with destabilizing your system, and take some risks building in glass ceilings into your future training progress.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Andy_S]

Adam:

SNIP

I knew CXW didn't

emphasize it but to flat out say No it doesn't have a specific breathing method......

Zhu Tiancai absolutely emphasizes it
SNIP

Well, I have read a quote in an interview from CXW stating this - though it was possible he was mistranslated.

As for ZTC:
News to me. I started off my Chen training at Malaysia Chingwu in '95, and nobody there told me how to breathe, nor did ZTC, on the two occassions when he came up from Singapore to train us. Mind you, I was a beginner at the time.

It seems to me that the issue of breathing - like the issue of application - is a very vexed topic in Chen Taiji. AFAIK, reverse breathing is NOT openly or commonly taught by the village teachers- or at least not from day one. As noted, I asked very specifically about this to get a reply, it was not presented to me.

OTOH, I have not seen ZTC for 15 years, so I don' t know how or what he teaches these days.

OTOH #2: The issue of dantien rotation IS presented in the basic Chen silk reeling exercises, but IME, very few people actually get it - not just in the broad terms of moving from the center, but also power generation, particularly its relation to the spine. So though it is presented, IMHO, it needs to be presented and explained in much more detail for it to be functional.

Whether this is a problem of:
(1) Simply my personal experience;
(2) Students declining to ask questions of the teacher, instead, just doing "monkey see, monkey do"
(3) Teachers themselves being unable to teach the actual mechanics of the art for reason (2) above;
(4) Teachers being unwilling or unable to relate basic motion to function
Or what..

...I dunno.

FYI I am speaking only in Chen terms, here. In the Bagua I have learned (albeit, much shallower than Taiji), the teaching of dantien rotation and breathing methodologies was more functionally related.

[KEND]

The sort of power described initially can be done in several ways
By rib expansion
By a shortened version of dragon back
By rotation of hips
By Tan Tien rotation: this can be done several ways
In LHBF it is combined with hips
In Dai family by reverse vertical rotation of abdomen and thrust
By horizontal rotation of the abdomen
Note: reverse breathing rotates abdomen in opposite direction to reverse vertical rotation and, as was indicated involves more than just pulling in abdomen. It is not necessary to learn reverse breathing to produce jing, in fact it should be used without accompanying breath

[Bao]

Thanks Charles for the input.

Yes, there are teachers who extort their students through playing games with fake information. Are you suggesting I am one of them? ... I stand completely by the text you quoted, and can explain it in extensive detail (and do, to my students). Having people occasionally try things out that are above their current level works fine, as long as they have the discipline to stick to the process anyway and not walk off on that tangent.

No need to become defensive pal. I have no idea about what and how you teach. Then why should I want to attack you?

Everybody teaches what they know.

90% percent of all teachers are not very clear about what they know or how they teach. And many speak about what they don't know about. Or make semi-promises to their students that they can not keep. This is also a general observation, not a personal attack against you.

Skipping the stages completely can also be done, you just waste training-time doing it, take some risks with destabilizing your system, and take some risks building in glass ceilings into your future training progress.

What stages? Every teacher have their own ideas about stages. Learning order is not an absolute thing. Neither is teaching methodology.

If you see making mistakes as something dangerous, you get afraid of development. Everybody make mistakes, teachers and students. But being creative about your practice as a student is allready hard. To many rules and don'ts will just discourage students from learning.

[Daniel]

No need to become defensive pal. I have no idea about what and how you teach. Then why should I want to attack you?

Good. I just wanted to be clear what you were saying. Thank you.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.