In light of Ben's passing
https://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php ... decdbfd237thought some might be interested in one of his noted students Martian Inn. Happened to meet him many yrs ago as a teenager..
It would be many yrs later that I would find taiji or maybe it found me..
La Honda, California 1983. Left to right: Martin Inn, Ben Lo, Alice and Robert Smith.
The concept of core strength is really incorrect from the point of view of Chinese medicine. Think about this: what happens when you get really stressed and tensed up? Muscles get tense. Having tense muscles all the time, you are practicing your freak-out state, your sympathetic mode, your flight or fight response. Every time you practice muscular tension, you are practicing the flight or fight response.
What does T’ai Chi do differently? It directs us not to use muscles. We try to relax the muscles. Why is this do difficult? Because the instinctive response, particularly to stress and to the outside world, is to tense up rather than to relax. When you have a stress response, you have a strong pulse right above the navel. That’s your inability to sink the chi to below the navel to the dan tien.
And a strong pulse here means that all of your internal organs are out of balance, they’re struggling to keep a balance, but it’s an off-balance dynamic.
Therefore, when you do your T’ai Chi the first thing I’d like you to do, is to think about sinking your chi to your dan tien.
Every movement in the form allows you to practice that sinking aspect. Super important. From squatting single whip to the kicks, whatever, you’re still sinking your chi. And when you do your push hands, that’s a verification of whether you are relaxed or not.
This process of sinking the chi may easily be disrupted by your everyday life. Doing the form is a constant reminder to your body to sink that chi. Just to go through movements has no meaning whatsoever, unless you can sink the chi.
To do this, you have to relax your muscles. Very difficult—because of the external forces impinging upon you to keep your defenses up. Rather than to release.
When you do your T’ai Chi, you’re trying to sink your chi to dan tien, you’re trying to harmonize your internal organs through the movements. By doing that, you’re also raising your immune system. You sleep well, you eat well, and things are happy.
But, if something is out of phase, then the domino effect will affect every internal organ. So you don’t just fix one thing, you fix many things simultaneously, and this goes for even the fact that if you receive an external injury - that will affect the meridians which will affect the internal organs which will affect all the other internal organs. And of course the most difficult thing to do is to control the mind.
http://www.iritaichi.org/posts.htmla little more perspective
February 25, 2015
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TAN TIEN IN T’AI CHI AND CHINESE MEDICINE
One of the most important phrases from the T’ai Chi Classics is, “Sink chi to tan t’ien”.
We talk a lot about the tan t’ien in the martial arts and Chinese Medicine, but little is known of it. The first mention of the tan t’ien is in chapter 8 of the Nan Ching, the Han Dynasty classic of Chinese medicine. It talks about the “space between the kidneys that vibrates”. It didn’t call it the tan t’ien but was later given that name by the Taoist, who were the scientist in ancient China.
There are three tan t’iens. The upper tan t’ien is located between the eye brows and is referred to as the “spiritual tan t’ien”. The second tan t’ien is located in the chest between the nipples and is considered to deal with the emotions.
The third tan t’ien is the lower tan t’ien, which is located in the area below the navel and is considered to be the “true tan t’ien”. The true tan t’ien is linked to the kidneys, the brain, the adrenals and the immune system.
The Han Dynasty Chinese medical practitioners believed that the true tan t’ien was like a map of an inverted head where the nose was represented by the navel, the eyes to the side at ST25, and the brain in the lower abdomen at CV3. Because of these associations, the tan t’ien is further linked to ones longevety, the bones and the building of blood, and ones sexuality and libido.
The first mention of the tan t’ien is in chapter 8 of the Nan Ching, the Han Dynasty classic of Chinese medicine. It talks about the “space between the kidneys that vibrates”. It didn’t call it the tan t’ien but was later given that name by the Taoist, who were the scientist in ancient China.
Interesting to note,,for the learned readers here does this correspond to your understanding of the name ?