Yi Chuan Qigong 1: The Integral Synthesis of Tai Chi, Xing Yi, and Bagua

Description

Welcome everybody to your next step in series of the Bodymind Healing Qigong Curricula. If you’ve been following my recommended curricula pathway, you finished The Bodymind Healing Qigong Extended Short Form and/or the 25 week series on “Bodymind Healing Qigong: Embodying Cross-Cultural Wisdom Traditions,” where we wove together the Bodymind Healing Qigong set with various ancient cross cultural wisdom  traditions. After that you experienced the 19 week training in Tai Chi Chuan: Four Dimensions of Purpose. In those videos, and in this one, I start with the caveat and disclaimer that though I’ve been classically trained in these traditions, I am not representing that I am transmitting them exactly as my esteemed sifus, such as Master Ha, did. I’m taking the liberty to add to those traditions from my research, writings and training in cross cultural wisdom traditions.

Therefore in addition to learning about the traditional methods of practicing these Chinese Internal Arts you will learn:

• • Creative, mythopoetic, and Imaginal interpretations of movement
  • A Postmodern* perspective which, 1.) Honors every element of classical training, but ads the personal meanings that come from our practice, and 2.)  A pluralistic perspective which incorporates associations from wider Cross-cultural wisdom traditions which may not be part of classical Chinese Internal Arts teaching. (Mayer, 2012)
  • A perspective which looks at the practice of the Chinese Internal Arts as traditions of “postural initiation,” which includes: self-healing, spiritual unfoldment, self-defense and changing one’s life stance psychologically.

Overview: “ A Next Step in the Integral Chuan Curricula: Xing YI Quan”

As you all know, and can see from the “Integral Chuan “symbol on my shirt. Master Fong Ha’s center, where I trained for 40 years, was called The Integral Chuan Institute. The Integral Chuan includes Qigong,  Tai Chi Chuan, Xing Yi Quan, and Bagua Zhang (Note: Spellings can vary due to Pin YI and Wade Guiles translation styles) and the synthesis of those three traditions is called Yi Chuan Qigong. So you can see on my shirt in the middle, the symbol, the familiar Tai Chi Yin-Yang symbol of the Dao, and then Xing Yi is the box around that, and then Bagua is the circle around both. The acronym for the Integral Chuan Institute, which is below the symbol, is, ”ICI,” which in French means to be here or to be present. So when you’re practicing Tai Chi you’re  trained to be present as you learn to roll with the vicissitudes of life and embody all that Integral Chuan is — finding balance and your central equilibrium in the midst of the the ups and downs, yin and yang of life. The secret to Integral Chuan training which you learned in the last video series  is  based upon deriving Tai Chi from wuji; and thus we start each class with Standing Meditation,  Wuij  and Yi Chuan Qigong.

Why are we starting “ The Next Steps in the Integral Chuan Curricula, with Yi Chuan Qigong?

In this ten video Integral Chuan series, before  viewing the videos on Xing Yi and Bagua, it can be helpful  to see the synthesis of these traditions that Grandmaster Wang Xiangzhai passed down to master Han Xingyuan and to my Sifu Master Fong Ha. Grandmaster Wang, after being a sickly child, travelled around China and learned from the greatest masters in China. He developed the Yi Chuan as a synthesis of the essence of the three internal martial arts wanting to penetrate and actualize the essence of the Chinese marital arts. He became one of the most renowned grandmasters in China  He and his students used these methods for healing and treated people in many of China’s hospitals.

Master Ha brought back those teachings to his students in the US. One year he said he met a Grandmaster who would change his practice forever. He met Grandmaster Han and then in the mid 1970s he started to teach his internal arts differently, emphasizing each posture as a form of Standing Meditation Qigong. The following two summers he brought Grandmaster Han to the US to train his students. I was gratefully part of that group. Master Ha called his institute, which was meant to share this perspective with the public, “the Integral Chuan Institute (ICI).” “ICI” in french means simply “to be here and present.” So I wanted you to experience the tradition in the order I learned it so that when you approach Xing Yi and Bagua you’ll bring the essence of the practices (Yi Chuan)to your next integral chuan practices.

In the following videos you will experience some of the treasures I received from those trainings with Master Ha and other masters. However, what you see in my videos should not be interpreted as a direct transmission of those transmissions, instead I adapt those teaching to fit with my background as one who is devoted to integrating my background as a psychologist with cross-cultural spiritual traditions and the Chinese Internal Arts .

What you’ll get from this Yi Chuan Video:

• • A historical, cross cultural, and imaginal view of the Yi Chuan Qigong.

A. Do the historical roots to the Yi Chuan go back to the Bodhisattva Warrior tradition of Buddhism?
B. Viewing Yi Chuan Qigong as a cross-cultural tradition of “postural initiation.”

1. 1. 1. 1. In Mahayana Buddhism using postures to work through ”kleshas” ( mental obstacles or afflictions that cause suffering and  spiritual progress.  The five primary klesha’s are ignorance (avidya), egoism (asmita), attachment (raga), aversion (dvesha) and fear of death (abhinivesha).
         2. Chinese Internal Alchemy uses postures to open “rivers of chi,” practice Self-cultivation, and heal imbalances.
         3. In somatic psychology using postures to change one’s life stance psychologically.

• Pre Practice warm ups from Bodymind Healing Qigong
• The importance of “intention” (Yi) in all forms of internal arts. Using intention to activate your parasympathetic nervous system for healing.
• Learn the esoteric meaning of “Chuan” (“Exoteric” meaning of Chuan in English is “fist”)
• Shape-shifting and changing your life stance though Yi Chuan Qigong.
• Synthesizing differed traditions of Standing Meditation: Wuji Qigong, and Yi Chuan Qigong.
• The integral synthesizing the self-defense and psycho-spiritual dimensions of Yi Chuan.
• Integrating the perspective of Four Dimensions of Purpose with  Yi Chuan Qigong: Self-healing, spiritual unfoldment, self-defense, and changing one’s life stance psychologically.
• Specific  instructions for Yi Chuan: Positions 1 through 4.
• Cultivating the Sphere of the Body in Yi Chuan: Mechanics and esoteric energetic cultivation methods. For example, balancing the opposites of “expansion and contraction/gathering” a key to cultivating “the Golden Ball.”
• Using postures to heal life issues: Fear of dogs, etc.
• Yi Chuan Walking Meditation.
• The Animal Movements of Yi Chuan Qigong. Examples of Yi Chuan 12 Hands Practice: Wrapping Snakes.
• Doing “no thing:” The “no -force” school. Empty Force. What is “Fajing?” The explosive power of
  the ball of chi.
• Develop a deeper understanding of intention and form, enhancing overall well-being and spiritual growth.
• Teaching story: The initiates’ transformation: Finding the Yi Chuan hidden in everyday life. Learning to sacralize and embody the movements of the internal arts, and making each posture a healing pathway.

• The continuum of the terms “integrative” to “integral” (Walsh, 2006) goes from:

A.   Accommodation by forcing novel ideas into preformed conceptual categories thereby expanding those categories.

B.     Mutual enrichment, both theoretical and therapeutic becomes increasingly systematic.

C.      Processes of mutual enrichment and integration lead to and are conducted within an increasingly comprehensive, coherent, and holistic conceptual framework adequate to both traditions.

Thus the “  The Integral Chuan” amalgamates Tai Chi, Xing Yi, Bagua, Yi Chuan and Qigong into a holistic framework which embodies the essence of all the  systems. Standing Meditation Qigong, as Master Wang Xiangzhai and Master Ha transmitted it, is the center post around which all systems rotate. Or, in the language of age-old wisdom traditions, Standing Meditation and Yi Chuan Qigong transform the systems of Tai Chi, Xing Yi,  and Bagua into an integral system of “postural initiation.” When one practices any one of these systems the essence of all other Chuan systems are contained

Reference: Walsh, R., & Shapiro, S. (2006). The meeting of meditative disciplines and Western psychology. American Psychologist, 61(3), 227-239.

** The word “Chuan” ( or in Pin Yin it’s “Quan”) is usually translated to mean “fist.” So the various systems of Chuan are exoterically about the uses of “the fist.” But one day when I was meditating on the word I realized that the esoteric meaning of a fist is taking the five fingers, five elements and grasping them into a whole. Thus a practitioner of the Chuan is one who seeks to  hold the five healing elements in their grasp (fire, earth, metal, water, wood) and make them whole. See Mayer, M. , “Qigong and Behavioral Medicine: An Integral Approach to Chronic Pain,” Qi Magazine: The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health, 1996.