Body of the 'Cooked Shrimp' 5/17/2011

'Qi leads the body, the intent leads qi, and the intent follows the

spirit.' This axiom has guided many practitioners of internal martial

arts over the past 100 years. The focus on qi(气-vital energy),

however, has overshadowed many of the fundamental requirements of

training the body: the body has prerequisites which has to be

accomplished before it is able to be lead by qi. More importantly,

following qi is not the final stage of internal practice, nor is it the

beginning. 

            Body alignment is the first phase of practice for several significant

reasons, yet all based at the external level. The three external

harmonies(外三合- wai san he)- shoulders, hips, and ankles- must not

only be conditioned for connectivity(the simultaneous movement of the

three, resulting in the sequential following of the elbows, hands, knees

and feet) but also have the ability to sink and rise with each other.

Therefore, other body methods such as twisting, coiling, bursting, and

reeling are reliant on the mastery of the external harmonies.

 

Developing the habit of allowing the harmonies to guide the other

joints of the body, through sinking and rising, are vital to the

application of internal energy. When the external harmonies are chaotic,

the body compromises its center of gravity; and as a result, looses full

connection with the earth. Thus, when arriving at internal energy

practice, static energy will be hindered, and the above mentioned body

methods become superficial; resulting in 'waving the arms' or if trained

for martial techniques 'muscle strength'. 

When practiced correctly, however, in addition to joint connectivity

and maintaining the body's center of gravity, one should also develop

root. Contrary to common belief- circulating qi, meditation, and

relieving stress- are not the goal for standing exercises in arts that

are 'quan(拳-boxing). These arts(Taji 'quan', Xingyi 'quan',

Bagua'quan(zhang)') have the fundamental goal of developing root,

FIRST. 

  Rooting is an internal technique: the ability to sink the body's

weight through the feet and into the earth should not be confused with

'grounding'. 

Grounding is the ability to disperse the body's weight at the feet, and

is commonly found among external boxing schools. To further understand

the difference, objects such as light poles and trees have a physical

form that extend beneath the ground, making them unmovable objects. They

have to be 'uprooted' to be moved.Things such as refrigerators or file

cabinets are objects that are unmoved because of their physical form-

their weight. However, these objects can be moved, with the appropriate

amount of force. The importance of rooting is establishing static

energy, leading to the enabling of the dantian.

 

When static energy is established, the body is separated into two

parts; the upper and lower. The lower is represented by the hips down to

the earth; and the upper from the hips up to neck. Static energy, like

all other martial energies, require the blending of hard and soft. The

lower part of the body is hard, rooted into the earth. The upper part of

the body is hard as well: the back is stretched by static energy from

the earth, making all three harmonies static from the ground up. The

two; static energy and a hard body; is a combination of the soft wrapped

in the hard; yin hidden within yang. 

Enabling the dantian is made possible only by the expansion of static

energy over the back. Without an externally hard back(yang), internal

energy(yin) from the dantian cannot fill and expand the abdomen. In

order for static energy to rest over the back, it relies on the

expansion of the tendons in the back. Any change in these tendons will

release static energy resting there. When the abdomen begins to expand,

static energy *CAN BE drawn into the dantian; enabling the dantian to

store energy.(*storing energy into the dantian is not an automatic

process and should not be confused with the process of qi) 

            The gathering of static energy into the dantian creates a process

called 'stringing the bows' among many internal martial art circles. As

static energy is gathered into the dantian, the lower back expands

outward, causing the tailbone to dip inwards, and the shoulders roll

forward. The tendons in the back remain expanded due to a 'pulling' of

the dantian. However, this expansion in the back is now due to the

stored energy in the dantian, which is 'pulling two of the harmonies

forward; whereas, before, static energy generated at the root caused the

expansion.  Essentially the back has relaxed but becomes subject to the

stored energy in the dantian. 

 

The dantian also has focalized that energy into potential energy, with

the intent of distributing it outward from the body. 

The process has also changed the distribution of yin and yang(hard and

soft energy) in the lower and upper parts of the body. The lower remains

yang and the upper is now yin: the lower being hard wrapping the soft by

a rooted stance transferring static energy back and forth through the

legs to the earth; and the upper being soft wrapping the hard through

the storing of static energy in the dantian, which relaxes the upper

part of the body. 

 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

            The body of the cooked shrimp is a concept which was adapted from my

time training in the art of the Jook Lum Temple, southern praying mantis

boxing. The art's combined concepts of internal and external methods

resulted in a humped back, tucked tailbone, and statically charged

footwork. The cooked shrimp concept was explained to represent a body

which encompassed yin and yang, hard and soft energies. Through my

studies of tai chi chuan and hsing-i chuan, I've come to a further

understanding of the cooked shrimp body; the wrapping of hard and soft

energy.  As the external structure of the cooked shrimp represents the

martial body-internally and externally- as explained in this article;

the process of the body wrapping qi, qi wrapping the intent, and the

intent wrapping the spirit is the same as shrimp meat wrapped in its

shell, the meat wrapping the heat, and the heat changing and shaping the

entire body of the shrimp as the internal process. Without the

cooking-martial practice- the body cannot encompass the external and

internal: the ability to change and shape from within, resulting in a

structurally strong body on the outside.