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What should I be looking for in I-Chuan standing?

One’s understanding of the goals of I-Chuan training should develop and deepen

over time. Such progress is possible, hoever, onl! if one has an initial idea of the aims

of training. Without a conception " hoever sketch! " of those aims, one’s training can

easil! begin to drift ithout direction. I ould like in the folloing remarks to touch on

hat I consider si# basic elements of correct standing practice. $he student must learn to

%. &alance his or her skeletal support

'. &alance his or her muscular activit!

(. Increase his or her muscular output

). Coordinate the mental, muscular, and skeletal aspects of movement

*. +earn to use I mind/intention0 in breathing and muscular coordination

1. &alance sung and gian i.e., learn to ork ithout creating tension0 in both mind

and bod!

+et us e#amine each of these in order.

%/ &alance skeletal support.

$he first ke! to I-Chuan standing is to learn ho to perfect the support provided

b! one’s skeleton. If the skeleton is even slightl! out of proper alignment, the student cane#pect ver! little health or martial arts benefit from training. $he most basic aspects of

skeletal alignment concern the proper position of the head, neck, shoulders, chest, loer

back, hips, knees, and feet. One centimeter off the correct position ill lead one miles

aa! from one’s training goals.

One can describe the proper position of the skeleton, and photographs of it are

available. &ut onl! hands-on guidance b! a knoledgeable instructor can teach the

student him- or herself ho to adopt the correct stance. &ook learning is fine, but a book

can never correct !our attempts to cop! the postures presented there. With these

limitations in mind, hoever, e can give a general sense of ho to balance one’s

skeleton support.

$he neck should sta! in an upright position, as though one ere carr!ing a heav!

ob2ect on top of one’s head. One should take care never either to drop the ob2ect or to let

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it simpl! rest on one’s head. $he muscles of the neck must be constantl! active in order

to do the ork of carr!ing the ob2ect, not 2ust supporting it. 3uscles that are merel!

holding something and muscles that are lifting are doing to different kinds of ork4

onl! the latter is relevant here.

$he shoulders should e#tend outard from the spine, as though one ere giving

someone a big elcoming hug.

$he chest should be doing e#actl! hat it does hen one gives such a hug5

neither arched outard nor shrinking aa! from the person !ou are hugging.

6s the head pulls upard, the loer back should at the same time be e#tended

don and outard, as though pressing into the all behind !ou.

$he activit! of the hips should mirror that of the shoulders, as though !ou ere

hugging someone ith !our pelvis. Since the bones of the pelvis are not themselves

fle#ible, hat this means is that the hip 2oints should e#pand forard and aa! from their

sockets.

$he knees must ala!s point in the same direction as the feet. In other ords, the

knees and the toes should point in the same direction. $ake care not to let the feet

planate, thereb! letting the knees collapse toard one another.

7roper usage of the feet is especiall! important. 8ou should never let the bod!

rest as dead eight on the feet. 9o matter ho lo or high the stance !ou adopt, the feet

should ala!s be bearing the bod! up and forard. :o not rest the eight of the bod! on

the feet, but rather let the feet lift up and carr! the rest of the bod!. 6 lo stance that

collapses the spine onto the hips, knees and ankles damages the 2oints and contributes

nothing to one’s training. In an! posture !ou choose, !ou should ala!s feel that !ou are

read! to leap up and forard. If !ou ould have first to read2ust !our posture in order to

 2ump up like this, !ou can be sure !our standing is incorrect.

$hese are 2ust the basic points of skeletal support in I-Chuan standing. ;urther

training develops the support of each 2oint in the bod!, don to the individual 2oints of

the fingers and toes. &ut ithout a basic understanding of the basics, these further steps

ill be impossible, and the results of one’s training ill be ne#t to nil.

'/ &alance muscular activit!.

'

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$he skeleton supports the bod!4 the muscles produce poer energ! or chi0. If

!our muscles are eak, !our poer ill be eak. Without proper skeletal support, usage

of the muscles becomes inefficient. $hus, hile certainl! not sufficient for training the

muscles, a properl! organiather the instruction means

that one must learn to let the muscles move the skeleton, rather than the other a!

around. 6gain, this is an instruction that re=uires one to use one’s head5 hat, after all, is

the difference beteen letting the muscles move the skeleton and having the skeleton

move the muscles? :id e not 2ust sa! that the latter is impossible? &ut the point as

that the student must learn to ma#imi

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therefore none to its mindless dail! repetition. 6n empt! t’ai chi form ultimatel! drains

one’s energ!. $he dubious benefits of this sort of rela#ation cannot be underestimated.

&ut ho does one ma#imi

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other limb back. $he same is true of movement in an! direction5 it is opposing poer

that creates energ!. $he difficult! here is that this kind of poer and rela#ation do not

mi# easil!. 3uscular ork of this sort tends to create tension. $he student must

therefore learn to ork his or her muscles to their ma#imum hile at the same time

letting go of an! tension this ork generates. With the right instruction, this is a problem

each student can and must solve for him- or herself. I’ve chosen m! ords carefull!

here5 do not ork hard first and then afterard let go of the tension the ork has created.

Instead, do the one hile simultaneousl! doing the other. In I-Chuan training, this is

called sung/gian together. $he e#perienced student does not alternate beteen ork

and rela#ation.

If !ou kno ho properl! to position !our skeleton, !ou can get a rough idea of

hat the training demands here b! holding a moderatel! heav! eight in front of !ou

hile, ithout dropping the eight, rela#ing !our muscles as much as !ou possibl! can.

old, for e#ample, a ten lb. medicine ball about one foot in front of !ou at chest level.

8our chest should be free of tension, the shoulders and elbos lo and aa! from the rib

cage, the hands doing the minimum necessar! not to drop the ball. 9o don’t move@ 6s

!ou stand, the eight of the ball ill soon tire !our muscles. In response, !ou ill be

tempted to increase muscular tension to keep from loering !our arms or dropping the

ball outright. 7robabl! the first thing to go ill be !our chest5 !ou ill ant to tighten

!our shoulders and raise up !our sternum. 8ou must resist the temptation to do so@

Continue rela#ing !our muscles. &ecause !ou are not alloed to tighten !our muscles, as

one group tires, !our bod! ill naturall! recruit other muscle groups to assist in the ork

of holding the ball stead!. Aeep orking and keep letting go of tension. 8ou ill do

these to simultaneousl! as long as !ou resist the temptation to raise up !our chest. $his

is a simple but instructive e#ample of sung/gian together. It is up to !ou to appl! it to the

rest of !our training.

In I-Chuan training, the goal is not to stand as long and as lo as possible. What

matters instead is the =ualit! of the strength one puts into one’s movement. $he strength

one devotes to an! ne training activit! best begins light and then continues steadil! to

heavier ork, from simple to comple#. &egin ith light resistance in a fe directions,

and then graduall! add resistance and directions as !ou go, ala!s making sure to

*

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balance that ork b! letting go of tension !our muscular ork generates. &eginning ith

light resistance and moving steadil! to heavier ork is the best a! to e#ercise both mind

and bod!. 6 useful picture here is start b! draing a light eight bo and then graduall!

increasing the bo’s eight5 five lbs., ten lbs., tent! lbs., fift! lbs., and so on. &egin

ith 2ust one bo aiming an arro forard, for e#ample0, and then move to multiple

bos, graduall! pulling a half a do

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other aspects of I-Chuan training. 6t the outset, it can take =uite some time for a

beginning student to line up mind, muscles, and skeleton in the desired a!s. ere,

again, hoever, the student must learn to practice in a balanced a!. 8ou should not

master one aspect of the training at the e#pense of an! other aspect. +earn to practice all

of them together. 3! remarks on the last to aspects of training must be ver! brief.

*/ +earn to use I mind/intention0 in breathing and muscular coordination.

7roper breathing is essential to an! kind of mental and ph!sical discipline. 6ll

mental and ph!sical activit! needs o#!gen chi0 " generall!, the more the better.

Bnfortunatel!, conscious attempts to control one’s breathing are often disasterousl!

artificial. Bsuall! pointless, hen taken to e#tremes, such efforts can be positivel!

harmful to one’s health. I am therefore reluctant to describe an! such breathing

techni=ues. It is orth pointing out, hoever, hat the aims of breathing in this sort of

training are. 6bove all, one must learn to breathe both naturall! and ith an e!e to

increasing the amount of o#!gen the bod! can process during ork. 6s it is, e tend not

to use o#!gen efficientl!. Indeed, most of hat e e#hale is not carbon dio#ide but

rather simpl! unprocessed o#!gen. $raining in I-Chuan standing should ameliorate this

situation. $he harder one orks one’s muscles, the more o#!gen the! demand. Ideall!,

one’s breathing should support those demands.

Bltimatel!, intention guides movement b! means of the breath. 6gain, the basic

idea here is straightforard5 one tends, for e#ample, to inhale hen preparing for a

movement and to e#hale hen e#ecuting that movement. One must bear in mind,

hoever, m! remarks above about empt! movement. When told to rela# and e#hale,

most people simpl! let their breath go hen e#ecuting a movement in this a!. $he

student training in I-Chuan, hoever, must learn ho to e#hale ithout ceasing to ork.

Consider again the e#ample of holding a medicine ball in front of one’s chest. $he

longer one holds the ball and the more one lets go of the tension generated b! holding it,

the more groups of muscles ill be recruited to keep at it. &ut that means, first, that the

demands the bod! makes for o#!gen ill similarl! increase, and second, that one has to

keep processing that o#!gen even hile e#haling. If one simpl! lets go of one’s breath,

one stops orking and drops the ball. $he task becomes, then, to e#hale and keep

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orking at the same time. Bltimatel!, this means that one is simultaneousl! orking and

letting go of tension b! means of breathing. $hat is to sa!, in the end, it is breathing that

keeps sung/gian orking together. Otherise, one is gian hen inhaling and sung hen

e#haling, one after the other, thereb! defeating the aims of training. $his brings us to the

last of the si# most basic elements of I-Chuan standing.

1/ &alance sung and gian i.e., learn to ork ithout creating tension0 in both mind and

bod!.

$ension in the mind or bod! ill inevitabl! destro! one’s ph!sical activit!. One’s

response to the demands of the environment ill be slo, inhibited, and unnatural. 6n

inactive mind or bod! or one ithout the other0 tends immediatel! to eaken one’s

actions. $hus, hen it is time for the mind and bod! to rela#, the! should rela#4 and

hen one must act, the mind and bod! must immediatel! kick into action ithout a

second thought. $his is the ultimate aim of training. 3ovement should be like touching

a hot stove. 9o one has to think about pulling his or her hand back from a red hot

surface. In that moment, the mind and bod! are one5 there is perfect unit! and activit! of

the to. $he movement aa! from the stove is an automatic but also intelligent response

to the environment. $o train for this sort of unit! throughout one’s life, not onl! must the

bod! be both sung and gian, so too must the mind. $he to must act together as one.

$his is ho one should stand.

-- Dregor! ;ong

7ortland, :ec. 'EE

F