Friday, March 3, 2023

Connecting the Qi

Today, my focus was on connecting the qi 气 – the inner breath – with the physical breath through the extensions.

I covered three sets:

1. White Ape Presents a Fruit
2. Dragon and Tiger Join Together
3. Leopard Climbs a Tree

I paid attention to the effort to extend in three directions as well as keeping the movements well-placed and well-timed. and the movements. With each movement, the timing of the movement and the timing of the breathing – breathe in, breathe out, need to become more tightly integrated so that there is less effort needed for each movement; that the physical movement and the physical breath become one.

Then, I paid attention to using that connection to connect and circulate the qi. Moving from the lower tan tian through the body and extending through the lao gong in the palms to the yong quan in the foot.

For White Ape Presents a Fruit, I paid attention the internal turn at the beginning and then to the connections and extensions. I put a focus on the back heel to both push down to drive forward and actively pull in through the movements.

For Dragon and Tiger Join Together, I put the emphasis on the three directions: up through the crown of the head, down through the heel and yong quan on the standing foot, and forward through both palms connected with the extending foot. Again, both the extensions and the returns were active with the goal of opening the centers.

For Leopard Climbs a Tree, I put the emphasis on the same connections as with Dragon and Tiger, but with the added effort to sink lower and extend in good time with a full extension. The sets were slower, to allow for time to consider the placement, timing, and strength as well as to allow time to pay attention to the inner connections.

Thank you for watching.