Yiquan – Power of the Mind

by Karel Koskuba

Most styles of Taijiquan incorporate one or several forms of Zhan

Zhuang (Pole Standing) in their training. These standing exercises
are often presented as the one most important aspect of the training
(to begin with, anyway), yet not always enough information is
available to students apart from the usual advice to ‘relax’, ‘keep
everything open’ and ‘keep standing’. So why are they so
important and how should they be practised? Sometimes they are
presented as a form of standing meditation, sometimes as an
isometric standing exercise, sometimes even as a character-
building exercise! Is there a difference in training for those
interested in martial arts and those interested in health only?

In this article I will describe Zhan Zhuang training as it happens in

Yiquan (more about Yiquan later). In Yiquan, Zhang Zhuang has
been promoted to play a pivotal role from the most basic training
all the way through to the most advanced training. Progress
through the Zhan Zhuang training steps is methodical and detailed.
I hope that by the time you have finished reading the article, all the
above questions will be answered.

Before I start describing Zhang Zhuang, I think we should

establish some common ground in terms of what is the final result
of such training. Let’s say your teacher is a great master of internal
martial arts. When you try to push him, he is like a rock – you
can’t budge him. When he tries to push you, his body feels like
steel - you can’t stop him. At other times his body feels like cotton
– and you still can’t stop him! Let’s call these three feats a Rock
Body, a Steel Body and a Cotton Body, respectively. In any of
these feats it feels as if he is using great strength and yet when you
try to imitate what he does, you are told not to use strength. If it is
not strength, what does he use? The usual answer of ‘qi’ or ‘jin’
refers to concepts from a different culture. I shall make an attempt
at explaining it using more familiar concepts. By the way, your
teacher can do other things than the ones I have mentioned but I
shall limit my description to those that can be trained using Zhang
Zhuang.

Whole-body Strength

The above three feats of Rock Body, Steel Body and Cotton Body
are all expression of what is called whole-body strength. To
understand what the whole-body strength is, let’s look at body
musculature. There are two kinds of skeletal muscles: those that
are involved in movement, so called motor muscles or mobilisers,
and those that stabilise the body, so called postural muscles or
stabilisers. The mobilisers are, on the whole, of the fast-twitch
variety; they can contract and relax in a short interval but they get
tired quickly. The stabilisers are of the slow-twitch variety; they do
not get tired easily but, on the other hand, are quite slow. They are
situated deeper in the body than the mobilisers.

The above division into the two kinds of muscles is a somewhat

simplified view for the sake of clearer explanation. In reality, there
are stabilisers, mobilisers and muscles that act in both roles. We
can pretend that any ‘composite’ muscle is split into a stabiliser
and a mobiliser by extracting the appropriate type of muscle fibres
(slow-twitch and fast-twitch respectively) into each of them. The
functionality of the body would remain unchanged.

We have very little, if any, conscious control of the stabilisers. But

stabilisers have two properties that are very useful. First, given
their position with respect to joints, they can make the body
structure really strong. Second, most of them are designed to
stabilise/balance our body against outside force (usually the force
of gravity). We can use both of these properties to our advantage.
Strong Structure

Let’s look at the first point. When discussing muscle strength, there
is a distinction made between a static and a dynamic strength.
Static strength, when the muscle is locked in position, is greater
than dynamic strength, when the muscle is expanding or
contracting. Locking the body in a very strong static position may
be interesting but is not very useful. Especially if any push just
topples the whole structure over! This is where the second point
comes in.

Dynamic Structure

Let’s imagine you are standing on a steep hill, with one foot higher
than the other and you are supporting a fairly heavy weight sliding
at you from above. Suppose that you support it from underneath,
with your arms above your head. You would naturally try to let the
weight pass through your body into the rear foot, using the front
leg to stabilise yourself against the hill. If the weight were to
wobble, you would just adjust your arms and body underneath to
keep the weight passing to the rear foot. It would not require any
(significant) mental effort and, unless the wobble took the weight
too far from your base, not any (significant) extra physical effort.
Your stabilisers would perform any adjustments needed
automatically, with the mobilisers acting in unison.

Now let’s tilt the hill so that the ground underneath becomes
horizontal and the weight you were supporting is now represented
by a push from someone in front of you. There will be two likely
changes to your behaviour. First, you would have to adjust your
posture because gravity now acts in a vertical direction. Second
(and here I am asking you to pretend you are a beginner again,
before you had all that extensive training), because your stabilisers
now act in a different direction from the push, you will use your
mobilisers to resist the push. In order to stop the push, you will
start pushing back with the same force. If your adversary starts
changing the direction of his push, there will be nothing automatic
in your response! So if you could somehow get your body to act as
if the push was a result of a force of gravity, you could relax and
let your automatic responses neutralise the push for you. My first
Taijiquan teacher told us once to "make gravity your friend".
Unfortunately, I had no idea what he was talking about at that
time!

What is Zhan Zhuang


Zhan Zhuang is often translated as Pole Standing. It is a name that
refers to a number of stance practices in which the body is kept
essentially still and mostly upright, though there are some stances
where the spine is not vertical. The purpose of these exercises is to
become aware of the stabilisers and then gain some measure of
control over them.

The first task is to feel how the body acts against gravity. The best
way to do that is to stand and feel (observe), in other words - Zhan
Zhuang. There are a number of positions to produce different
effects on the body but the most popular one is to stand with arms
as if embracing a large ball in front of the chest. To isolate the
stabilisers, you must relax the mobilisers. Unfortunately, the
mobilisers will interfere, as most people, it seems, from a fairly
early age will start (mis)using mobilisers to take on the task of
stabilising the body. Because you can’t really feel the stabilisers,
you must try to relax all muscles. As far as your perception is
concerned, mobilisers are all the muscles you are aware of. That is,
by the way, why my teacher (and yours probably, too) used to say
"do not use any muscles". So the first task really is re-educating
the body to use the stabilisers. The next one is to try to integrate
body’s movement to use stabilisers against any resistance that is
encountered, as if acting against gravity. This will give you the
basis of whole-body strength. As the Taiji classics say, "essential
hardness comes from essential softness". Eventually, your arms
and body will become very heavy to the touch. Further training
will be needed to be able to use the body in a natural way and
especially to integrate the mobilisers and fascia (connective fibrous
tissue) in issuing of strength (fali or fajing) but that is not the role
of Zhan Zhuang any more.

Less is More

To set up a regime for Zhan Zhuang practice, I would recommend
the following procedure. To start with, no more than five or ten
seconds should be spent on the practice; but the practice should be
performed every day without fail. There are three reasons for this
seemingly ridiculous length of training. One is that it is very
difficult, for an untrained person, to keep concentrating for any
length of time on something as mundane as standing - and you do
not want to stand just for the sake of standing. The second one
is that, to start with, the most important goal to achieve is to get
into a habit of standing; to achieve the rhythm of daily practice. It
is far easier to do that if the practice is short. Lastly, it is quite
likely, as I said above, that you may be using the wrong kind of
muscles at the beginning. The last thing you want is to train
yourself to hold the posture with the mobilisers. You may have
heard of people suffering agony in standing practices of this nature
who eventually made the breakthrough into a relaxed stance. Well,
it is one way to achieve the same goal but it is rather wasteful on
resources and quite painful. As I said, mobilisers tire quite quickly,
and then they hurt. Getting them out of the way can be done either
by just standing until they give up and stabilisers take over or by
trying to relax by carefully monitoring the state of the body and
inducing relaxation by the use of mental images.

The length of the standing should be governed by your attention

span. When the concentration is weakening and other thoughts
start to impinge on your mind, make a brief attempt to come back
to the practice but if it fails, end the training for the day (or the
time being). This way, your concentration will gradually improve
with the standing in a natural way. The process is quite simple. As
you keep standing, gradually areas of the body that you were not
aware of will come within your awareness. As it happens, you will
have more of the body to observe, and thus your standing can be
longer, without you getting bored. So, if on your first day you
exhaust your observation in five seconds, stop after five seconds.
After six months you may be occupied with your body even after
five or ten minutes. This is the easiest, and I believe the quickest,
route to success. Standing in Zhan Zhuang and watching television
is better than sitting and watching television – but it shouldn’t be
thought of as replacing the standing where you concentrate on the
body.

Using the Mind


There are two kinds of mental images that you can employ. The
first type is used to create a tranquil state in your mind, which, in
turn, will promote relaxation of your body. For example, imagine
yourself standing in a beautiful garden. You can see pretty flowers
and trees all around you. You can smell the flower’s scent on a soft
breeze. You can hear birds singing in the trees. There are few white
clouds in the blue sky. Or you may prefer to picture a scene by the
sea, with the white surf breaking on the beach. Any image that will
make you as peaceful and happy as possible. You owe it to your
training!

The second type is used to induce some kinaesthetic feeling to

guide the body. Some people get it naturally, others will have to
have it explained in some fashion (difficult to generalise in an
article) or will have to experiment before they can understand/
reproduce it. I will give an example below.

When creating images or concentrating on the body, there should

be no mental ‘effort’. The feeling created should be more like
observing something rather than striving for something.

Embracing Posture

As an example a health stance, I will describe Cheng Bao Zhan
Zhuang. The purpose of the images used here is still only to
promote relaxation – thus any similar images will do.

Stand in a comfortable stance with your feet about shoulder-width.

Keep your body upright by imagining that you head is suspended
from above. Relax your spine by slightly bending the knees and
feel as if you are lowering yourself onto a high stool. Keep you
whole body soft. Create an image of a garden or other peaceful
image as described above. Try to express the tranquil feeling in
your face and body. Eyes can be open, half-open or closed.
Breathing is soft, quiet, and preferably through the nose. Slowly
lift your arms in front of you in a position of embracing a ball,
hands at about shoulder-height and shoulder-width apart. Keep you
fingers slightly bent and the palms slightly stretched.

Feel you whole body supported: you are sitting on a balloon; there
is another balloon between your knees; your elbows are resting on
soft pillows; your head is suspended by a thread; there are cotton
pads between your fingers; etc.

With practice, you will be able to achieve a very relaxed feeling.

When that happens, you can move on to the next step, creating
kinaesthetic images.

Up to now, your elbows were resting on soft pillows, keeping your

shoulders relaxed. Now imagine that your elbows are touching
balloons floating on water. Your task is to keep the balloons under
your elbows. If you lift your elbows, the balloons will be free to
float away. If you press a little more, they will be pressed into the
water and pop out to float away again. The big ball you are
embracing is very fragile and filled with helium - if you press a
little more, it will burst, if you press a little less, it will float away.
The feeling created is that of sticking very lightly to a ball but
making sure not to let it slip from your embrace. You must not get
into an anxious state - you know these are just images. The
purpose of this type of images is not to become skilful in creating
them but in exploring how the body feeling changes and thus
gradually becoming aware of the inside body structure (stabilisers)
and body’s unity. You can start slowly swaying forward and back.
Keep your body balanced and experience the movement as a
passive movement; for example as if standing in a slowly flowing
river that keeps changing its direction.

‘Primordial Void’ Posture


As an example of a combat stance, I will describe Hun Yuan
Zhang Zhuang. The previous Zhang Zhuang training was
designed to increase awareness of the stabilisers. The purpose of
these are more advanced exercises is to get the stabilisers under
control. This is done by very small and careful movements so that
we do not ‘wake up’ our mobilisers. In Wang Xiangzhai’s (founder
of Yiquan) words: "All sorts of strengths originate in the void and
nothingness, which can only be felt gradually by the tiny edges and
corners of the body". Again, mental images are used to help the
body do "the right thing". Beginning of this training is done still in
Zhan Zhuang, the rest in later training.

Starting from the Embracing Posture described above, transfer the

weight onto your right leg and shift the left foot forward, lifting the
heel off the ground. Put about a quarter to a third of your weight
onto the front foot. Move your left hand a bit up and forward.
Create the ‘garden’ (or similar) image as in the previous posture.
Keep a very soft and relaxed body structure and create a
kinaesthetic image of exerting a great deal of strength. For
example, imagine that you are embracing a tree and try to pull it
up. After a little while, try pushing it down. Try to uproot it by
pushing with the whole body forwards, then by pulling with the
whole body backwards. Do not imagine that you are actually
succeeding in any of these tasks. The tree is big and just won’t
budge. During your practice, you stay relaxed and nearly still with
perhaps just very small movement. Little by little you will get a
feeling of control.

Weight Training

So how about strengthening one’s body using weight training? As I
said above, the only muscles that we are normally aware of are the
mobilisers. When we decide to move, we immediately use the
mobilisers. In fact, as was noted, we often use the mobilisers
instead of stabilisers. So what muscles are we likely to strengthen
and build up when we lift weights? Working on strengthening
mobilisers when you try to use stabilisers is not going to help with
your progress. It is usually the strongest looking person who starts
to shake first when attempting Zhan Zhuang for the first time.
Having big and strong muscles is not bad in itself, even in Internal
Martial Arts. The problem is that normally weight training
reinforces the habit of using mobilisers. This is contrary to what
we try to achieve with the Zhan Zhuang training. So your first
priority should be to establish control over stabilisers. After such
control is established, you can start using weights, if you so desire.
But you should be careful to use mobilisers for movement and
stabilisers for handling the weights.

Is Zhan Zhuang Training Necessary?


Not really. Some people can achieve all of the feats attributed to
your imaginary teacher above without any standing practice. What
they probably do is to train a lot of slow moving exercises (either
forms or silk-reeling type drills). The key to their practice is again
to relax all the mobilisers (which, as far as they are concerned, are
all the muscles) and to imagine they are moving against some
slight resistance (for example as if moving in water). Little by little
the stabilisers will start being involved in a similar manner as I
discussed above. Sometimes they can ‘cheat’ by practising the
form as a series of static postures. The idea is the same as Zhan
Zhuang but they are training the stabilisers in the postures used in
the form.

Your Zhan Zhuang (or other standing exercises) may be different

in some aspects. As I said at the beginning, what I have described
is a Yiquan system of Zhan Zhuang exercises and I hope that it will
give you some ideas that will help to improve your Zhan Zhuang
practice. Let’s have a brief look at Yiquan to see how the Zhan
Zhuang training progresses further.

What is Yiquan

Yiquan (pronounced ee-chwen), sometimes called Dachengquan
(see later about that), is a fairly new martial art – it was created in
the 1920s by Wang Xiangzhai (1885-1963). Wang Xiangzhai
sought out the best martial artists of his time on his quest to
discover the ‘essence of boxing’. He then created his new art by
dropping, over a period of time, anything that he came to consider
as non-essential or that could be replaced by something that gave
better or quicker results. Gradually, the mental aspects came to
dominate all parts of the training. To emphasise the importance of
mind, both in training and its use, he decided to call his art Yiquan
- ‘Yi’ means ‘mind’ or ‘intent’ and ‘quan’ means ‘fist’ or ‘boxing’.
The name was probably arrived at by dropping ‘Xing’ (form or
shape) from ‘Xingyiquan’, probably the most influential of the arts
that went into creating Yiquan (though Baguazhang, with its
footwork and Taijiquan with its neutralising and pushing hands are
not far behind). Eventually, he came to see Yiquan not as a martial
art or a system of health exercises but as a "path to the truth" and a
way to gain "absolute freedom". On the way, however, he had
plenty of opportunities to test its value as a martial art. He
considered all schools of martial arts to be defective and "taking
the students further away from the goal". He made no attempt to
keep his views to himself and when he moved to Beijing, in the
late 1930s, Wang Xiangzhai issued a public challenge to his
fellows martial artists to "exchange ideas and learn from each
other". In view of his public comments, there was no shortage of
challengers. Any challenger had to defeat one of Wang Xiangzhai’s
top four students first but none succeeded. The four students were
Han Xingqiao, Hong Lianshun, Yao Zongxun (Wang
Xiangzhai’s eventual successor) and Zhou Ziyan. Yiquan quickly
gained a reputation for its combat effectiveness (and later on for its
health benefits).

At this time, Wang Xiangzhai abandoned the name Yiquan as he

felt that having a name bound the art to its image. His students and
the public, in view of its successes, started to call the art
Dachengquan (Great Achievement Boxing) and Wang Xiangzhai,
after some initial resistance, accepted the name. However, he later
reverted to using the name Yiquan again, as he felt that it fitted the
art better.

Yiquan Training

The complete training consists of seven steps:

Zhan Zhuang (Pole Standing) - described above.

Shi Li (Testing of Strength) - simple exercises for learning how to

keep the whole-body connection and whole-body strength whilst
moving (this stage is equivalent to practising forms in other
Internal Martial Arts) – in other words, learning how to integrate
mobilisers and stabilisers in movement.
Mo Ca Bu (Friction Step) - learning how to keep the whole-body
connection and whole-body strength whilst stepping.

Fa Li (Release of Power) - learning how to ‘release’ power (fa-jin

training). How to release in any direction and with any part of the
body.

Tui Shou (Pushing Hands) - this stage is similar to Taijiquan’s

Pushing Hands. Also can be viewed as the previous three stages
with a partner. Also called Dance of Death ( - just a joke!).

Shi Sheng (Testing of Voice) - learning to augment power and

integrate the centre of the body in a more natural way using
breathing musculature.

Ji Ji Fa (Combat Practice) - fixed and free sparring drills and

sparring.

At all stages of training, students must try to follow the most

important principle – Use mind, not strength (yong yi bu yong li).
This principle was clearly seen in the description of the various
stages of Zhan Zhuang training above.

Yiquan for health


Most posture and musculo-skeletal problems seem to be caused by
the misuse of mobilisers that are usurping the role of stabilisers.
Due to their low endurance characteristics, they cannot do the job
adequately. Thus it is no use to tell people who slump to ‘straighten
up’. They will naturally use their mobilisers to lift their posture
with the inevitable result that the muscles will get tired and hurt
and so they will slump again. To do any kind of conscious
movement, it is only natural to use mobilisers. This is where Zhan
Zhuang training of Yiquan can help. It is ideally suited for
correcting all kinds of problems stemming from the imbalance
between stabilisers and mobilisers. And I think the training gives
quicker results when compared to other therapies, like the
Alexander technique and the Feldenkreis method (and is probably
less expensive, too).

There are other benefits stemming from the emphasis on

tranquillity and very slow and careful movements. It obviously
helps with any stress-related problems, and problems with co-
ordination and balance. It is an excellent method of regulating
one’s metabolism and sleep pattern. The list could go on but the
space is limited!

After the Shi Li training, students are taught (if that is the right
word in this context) Health Dance in which they link different
exercises in a spontaneous manner.

The Traditional View


I’ll try to translate the vocabulary used in this article to a more
traditional one often used in Taijiquan and other Internal Martial
Arts so that you can cross-check the ideas presented here with your
own training.

What I have been describing is how to gain control over muscles

that we are not even aware of. Clearly, any movement using
stabilisers must seem powered by something else than muscles. In
Chinese culture, qi is a cause of movement so it is not surprising
that the kind of movement I’ve been describing would be attributed
to qi. We have seen how this ‘qi’ is trained by the mind
(awareness) and activated by the mind. Sometimes ‘bone
breathing’ or ‘bone squeezing’ methods are used to ‘congeal qi into
bones’. This is just another way of gaining awareness of the deep
muscular structures. Awareness of the stabilisers is felt like a
tightness round the bones. Due to the structure of slow-twitch
fibres, deliberate use of stabilisers produces more heat than is
usual. This can be felt and it is different from a similar, but smaller,
effect in the skin brought about by relaxation. Both of these effects,
but especially the heat produced deeper in the body, are often taken
as a sign of increased ‘qi’ flow.

Conclusion

Zhan Zhuang is the first step in acquiring Internal Power. The
emphasis should be on relaxing all muscles and feeling how the
body balances against gravity. Slow, very subtle movements can be
felt under the guide of kinaesthetic visualisation (movement in
stillness). Later on, when learning to move, the body’s structure
should always be supported by stabilisers, producing the feeling of
standing at any point in the movement (stillness in movement).

Whilst I have supported my ideas with quotes, I would like to say

that as far as I know, the people I have quoted did not use any
explanation referring to stabilisers and mobilisers. That part is my
own explanation and should not be treated as the ‘official’ view.
This is a slightly modified version of an article that first appeared in the US T'ai Chi magazine, Vol 25
No. 3.

Yiquan – Power of the Mind

by Karel Koskuba

In the June 2001 issue of this magazine I described the first step of
Yiquan training - Zhan Zhuang (Pole Standing). The purpose of
Zhan Zhuang exercises is to develop whole-body connection and
eventually whole-body strength. In this article I would like to
describe the next two steps, Shili (testing of strength) and Mocabu
(friction step). The purpose of Shili exercises is to try out, to test,
this whole-body strength during movement. Mocabu training is
designed to help us to learn how to keep this whole-body
connection when we are stepping. Eventually Shili and Mocabu are
combined into one exercise - Shili with steps. These two stages in
Yiquan training are closely related and so it makes sense to
describe them together.

What is Yiquan

Yiquan (pronounced yee-chuan) is both an excellent martial art and
a very effective system of health cultivation. It is designed in such
a way that you can progress in clearly defined steps. First you learn
how to unify your body to acquire whole-body strength. You
combine this whole-body strength with skills for handling
opponents, which develops Internal Power. This can then be
applied to fighting applications.

There are stages in Yiquan training that parallel Taijiquan and other
Internal Martial Arts, but since Yiquan is simpler, these stages are
perhaps more clearly defined. The first requirement is to integrate
the whole body to achieve whole-body strength (this was the
subject of the previous article mentioned above). Next the student
has to learn how to move with this kind of strength in a fixed
stance and with steps (this is the subject of this article). After
moving solo, the student learns how to use it in interaction with an
opponent - Pushing Hands. The next step is to learn how to issue
power in a single instant - explosive power training. As a
supplementary training to the issuing of strength, breath control is
learned. Lastly, for those interested in fighting, there are combat
training drills and sparring.

The complete training consists of seven steps:

Zhan Zhuang - standing exercises, designed to relax and

(Pole integrate the whole body, used for building
Standing) whole-body strength (this includes Moli -
Sensing of Strength)
 Shili (Testing - simple exercises for learning how to keep the
of Strength) whole-body connection and whole-body
strength whilst moving (this stage is equivalent
to practising forms in other Internal Martial
Arts)
Mocabu - learning how to keep the whole-body
(Friction Step) connection and whole-body strength whilst
stepping
Fali (Release - learning how to 'release' power (fa-jin
of Power) training). How to release in any direction and
with any part of the body
Tui Shou - this stage is similar to Taijiquan's Pushing
(Pushing Hands. Also can be viewed as the previous
Hands) three stages with a partner
Shi Sheng - learning to augment power and integrate the
(Testing of centre of the body in a more natural way using
Voice) breathing
Ji Ji Fa
(Combat - fixed and free sparring drills and sparring.
Practice)

At all stages of training, students must try to follow the most

important principle - Use mind, not strength (yong yi bu yong li).
Physical effort is used only during explosive power training.

Using the Mind

The actual training is done with the help of mental images to coax
the body to start working using the right principles.

There are two kinds of mental images that are used. The first type
is used to create a tranquil state in our mind that, in turn, will
promote relaxation of our body. For example, imagine yourself
standing in a beautiful garden with pretty flowers and trees all
around you, with birds singing in the trees and white clouds
drifting across a blue sky. Any other suitable image can be used.
The second type is used to induce some kinaesthetic feeling to
promote the emergence of internal connections in the body and to
guide our body in movement. For example, in Zhan Zhuang you
try to create a feeling of having your whole body supported - your
elbows are resting on soft pillows; your head is suspended by a
thread; there are cotton pads between your fingers; etc. In training
movement, you should try to induce a kinaesthetic feeling as if you
were moving against some resistance. This type of feeling should
first be experienced in Zhan Zhuang, especially in the Moli
(sensing strength) type of exercises (described in the overview of
Zhan Zhuang below). The Hun Yuan Zhuang described in the
previous article was an example of this type.

I should mention that when creating images or concentrating on the

body, there should be no mental 'effort'. The feeling created should
be more like observing something rather than striving for
something. Too much mental effort is like too much physical effort
- it would make us tense.

A Brief overview of Zhan Zhuang


Zhan Zhuang exercises are divided into two categories:

health postures
combat postures
The health postures represent the first training step. Their role is to
relax the body and develop whole-body connection. This means
that a movement in any part of the body can be felt to propagate
through the whole body in a natural fashion. Most of these postures
are held whilst standing in a shoulder-width stance with an upright
spine (see Embracing Posture in 'Kai He Shili' section below). In
addition to standing postures, there are also sitting and lying down
postures.

The combat postures are held with most (and sometimes all) of the
weight on one leg. These are more advanced exercises used to
develop whole-body power. At this stage, students learn and
practise what is called Moli (Sensing of Strength) which are very
small movements guided by the mind. The 'sensing' is done by
very small and careful 'movements' of the whole body. I put
quotation marks round the word 'movements' because in reality
there may not be any movement! But yet the body is not
completely still. What happens is that as we form an intention to
move and as we get ready to move, there will be some muscular
activity associated with stabilising our body in such a way so as to
enable the movement to take place. Normally this muscular
activity is not noticed as it gets subsumed in the sensations of the
actual move that normally takes place. With some short training
and whilst paying careful attention, we can sense it as a subtle
sensation deeper in the body. When we detect this 'inner' activity
and just before we would actually move, we stop short of any
visible movements. We cannot say that we are still as there is some
activity taking place but neither we can say that we are moving. I'll
call this type of activity 'almost-moving'. When we 'extend' this
almost-movement into visible movement, we have Shili.

Shili

Having developed the whole body connection when standing, we

need to be able to keep this connection when moving. This is not a
trivial task. As I mentioned in the previous article, the whole-body
connection is developed with the help of our stabiliser muscles.
But as soon as we move, we use mobilisers and the whole-body
unity is lost. The Shili exercises are simple exercises designed to
teach us how to maintain the whole-body connection and whole-
body strength whilst moving. Slow, relaxed and flowing movement
is used, quite similar to the quality of movement used in practising
a Taijiquan form. Initially, the movements are performed in six
directions - forward and back, up and down, left and right. Later on
these directions are combined to produce movements in any
direction.

As examples of Shili exercises, I will describe Kai He Shili - Open

and Close Strength Testing, and Zheng Pi Shili - Vertical Cutting
Strength Testing.

Kai He Shili

The directions practised in this exercise are Left and Right.

Start by standing in Embracing Posture, that is to say a shoulder-

width stance with your arms in front of you in a position of
embracing a large ball, hands at about shoulder-height and
shoulder-width apart. Keep you fingers slightly bent and the palms
slightly stretched. Imagine a number of elastic bands joining your
arms together. Slowly open your arms, feeling the resistance of the
imagined elastic bands against your movement. Imagine that your
arms are connected through the body so that when you open the
arms, the chest opens at the same time. Do not bring your shoulder
blades together during the opening phase but keep the back wide.
During the closing phase of this exercise, imagine that in place of
the elastic bands you have now springs that keep your arms apart.
Slowly bring your arms together, feeling the resistance of the
imagined springs. Your chest and back should again be involved in
the closing action. In fact rather than opening and closing your
arms, feel that you are opening and closing your whole body of
which arms are just the visible manifestation.

When comfortable with this exercise, it should be done in the

'combat' stance. This is somewhat similar to a 'cat' stance found in
other martial arts: the weight is mostly on the back leg with the
front foot about a foot and a half in front of the rear foot and the
front heel raised off the floor. The weight is shifted forward during
the closing phase until the weight distribution is 50:50 and shifted
back during the opening phase. Even though the main directions
practised are still Left and Right, in fact all six directions are now
present. When closing the arms, they also go forward and slightly
down. When opening, the arms go also back and slightly up. The
forward and back direction is just a natural consequence of
opening and closing movement. The up and down movement is a
result of the way the weight is transferred forward and back. When
transferring weight, the front knee is kept still. This results in the
body rising when going forward and sinking when going
backward. The arms, during the opening and closing movements,
are kept at the same level in relation to the ground. Thus they move
up and down relative to the body. Even though all the six
directions are present, the feeling of moving against resistance is
applied only to the movement in the left-right direction.

Zheng Pi Shili

The main directions practised in this exercise are Up and Down.

Start by standing in 'combat stance' (see picture 1) with about 70%

of your weight on the back foot and the front heel off the ground.
Your arms should be in front of your body, hands vertical and quite
close to each other, fingers pointing forward. Imagine a number of
elastic bands joining your arms together. Slowly transfer your
weight forward and turn your body towards your front foot as you
lower the front heel down and lift the rear heel up. At the same
time lower your rear arm and lift the front arm, feeling the
resistance of the imagined elastic bands against your movement
(see picture 2). Imagine that your arms are connected through the
body so that when you open the arms up and down, there is a
feeling of vertical stretching across your body. Do not tilt your
body forward, nor back. Slowly reverse the movements to get back
to the starting position (picture 1) and smoothly carry on lifting the
rear arm and lowering the front arm whilst turning the body away
from the front foot (see picture 3). Again feel the resistance of the
imagined elastic bands against your movement. Slowly return to
the starting position and repeat the whole cycle several times.

When we perform the Shili exercises, even though we feel that we

use effort against the imagined resistance, no muscle tension
should be used. The mental focus on overcoming the resistance
will slowly start having an effect on the 'inner' muscles of the body
that we could feel in Zhan Zhuang. It is best to practise slowly and
carefully and the length of practice should be in accordance with
your ability to concentrate on the kinaesthetic feeling. There is
very little point in just slowly waving your arms whilst your mind
is on other things.

Mocabu

Having learned how to move with the upper body, the next step is
to extend this skill to moving while stepping. Mocabu (friction
step) exercises are designed to do just that. These again are very
simple exercises with a strong mental component. The legs should
move from the centre of the body. This is achieved by practising
stepping whilst creating an image of pushing the legs and feet
against some resistance, for example as if pushing legs through
mud. Another useful image is that of carrying some fairly heavy
object on top of the moving foot.

Mocabu is really Shili for legs. It is, however, more difficult than
Shili: we are less aware of our legs and feet than we are of our
arms and hands. Because we are so used to moving our legs
automatically, we have to pay extra attention that we do not slip
into this habit during practice. All the movements should be done
very slowly and deliberately - this adds another complication, that
of keeping balance on one leg whilst the other is performing
exercises.

Circling

The first exercise is rolling an imaginary pencil forward and back
along the floor. The moving foot should be close to the ground,
without actually touching it. You may find that you keep loosing
balance quite often at the beginning. It is not much of a problem -
the sense of balance will quickly improve with regular practice. To
help yourself keep balance better, you can have your arms
extended to the sides imagining that your hands are resting on
some support (see pictures 4 and 5). After some practice, when the
movement gets comfortable, try to feel the resistance of the
(imagined) mud on your leg and the sensation of weight on your
foot. The sensation of moving against resistance will probably take
longer to achieve in your legs than it took in your arms. When you
can feel the resistance, start moving the foot in a circle using the
same quality of movement.

Stepping

The next exercise is stepping, both forward and backward. As
above for the circling, the stepping is done slowly and carefully.
After some practice, the stepping is gradually speeded up and
eventually can be done quite fast.

Start by standing in 'combat stance' with about 70% of your weight

on the back foot and the front heel off the ground. Your arms
extended to the sides as in 'Circling' above. First, transfer your
weight forward till the weight is evenly distributed on each leg.
During this phase of stepping, the front knee should not move -
that means that your body will go up. Lower your front heel and
your body and keep transferring the weight forward till all the
weight is on the front leg (the front knee now moves forward). Lift
your rear foot off the ground and move it in an arc in, forward and
out (see pictures 6, 7 and 8). The front toes are placed on the
ground and about 30% of the weight is shifted onto the front leg.
This constitutes one step.

When stepping backwards, transfer all the weight onto the back leg
and lift the front toes off the ground (the heel was already up). The
foot moves in an arc: in, back and out (see pictures 8, 7 and 6).
Place the rear foot on the ground, transfer to it half of your weight
and lift your front heel. During this phase your rear leg should not
really bend and thus your body will go up. Keeping your front
knee still, transfer weight back till about 70% of the weight is on
the back leg. During this phase your body will go down. This
constitutes one step.

Keeping Balance

The supporting foot should be kept flat throughout the exercises. It
is quite likely that at the beginning, as you fight to keep your
balance, the foot will wobble and thus sometime part of your foot
will loose contact with the ground. With practice, your balance will
get better and you will be able to keep the foot flat all the time.
Also make sure that your toes lightly grip the ground. The ankles
will get strengthened considerably during the practice and the
resulting stability will be greatly appreciated when practising kicks
later on.

This kind of stepping practice is quite similar to the stepping

practice in Baguazhang.

Shili with steps

Eventually both Shili and Mocabu exercises are combined and

practised together. This practice is functionally equivalent to form
practice in Taijiquan. Of course, as far as the movements are
concerned, the Yiquan practice is far simpler. Because of its
simplicity, it is easier to get the correct feeling. Whilst practising
complex movements, it is quite easy to get distracted by the
complexities of the moves and often the focus of practice becomes
nice looking shape of the body and smoothly executed movements.
That is why the movements in Yiquan, and especially at this stage
are kept very simple. Later on, different Shili exercises can be
combined to create more complex movements.

When practising Shili with steps, at first the arm and leg
movements are kept separate - when stepping, the arms do not
move, when moving arms, the stance is fixed. Later the movements
of arms and legs are done simultaneously.

Shili and Moli

During Shili (strength testing) practice, it is important to keep

practising associated Zhan Zhuang exercises, especially the Moli
(strength sensing) variety. The task of the Moli stances is to
practice gradually extending the inner activity of 'almost-
movement' across the whole body. Eventually it should feel as if
there is a flow of movement inside the body. This 'flow' is then
used to guide the actual physical movement in the Shili exercises.
The increased neuro-muscular co-ordination gained during Shili
practice will improve the quality of the Moli practice. In this way,
these two practices mutually reinforce each other. Eventually the
distinction between them will all but disappear. That is why Zhan
Zhuang is considered a still variation of Shili and Shili is
considered a moving variation of Zhan Zhuang.

Conclusion

Shili and Mocabu are quite similar in concept. In both cases,

movement is created against an imagined resistance. The feeling of
resistance that is cultivated in Moli and Shili exercises will, with
continued practice, get stronger but with further practice it will
eventually get lighter again until it disappears altogether leaving
the body very light.

The Shili and Mocabu exercises, especially at the beginning, are

very simple and thus it is important to take care not to give to the
temptation of going from one exercise to the next one too soon. At
the beginning it is not easy to judge when to progress to the next
exercise and when just keep practising. Later, it becomes quite
obvious - when everything starts to fall apart, you'll know that you
went too fast! Just go back, for a time, to the more basic exercises.
This article first appeared in the US T'ai Chi magazine, Vol 26 No. 1.
Zhan Zhuang - foundation of Internal
Martial Arts
by Karel Koskuba
Most Internal Martial Arts use some form of standing practice as
foundation training (and Taijiquan is no exception in this regard).
These standing exercises are usually called Zhan Zhuang (pole
standing); sometimes they are called 'standing Qigong'. I think it's
fair to say that most students are baffled by them. They are
supposed to be good for you but most students find them difficult
to understand, boring and painful. Yet they are supposed to relax
you and help you to 'accumulate Qi'.
In this article I shall try to outline my theory that should explain,
from western perspective, why these exercises are so important
both for Internal Martial Arts and Qigong, how this western view
correlates with the traditional Qi view and give training advice on
how to practice them. In writing this article I have drawn upon my
experience from Taijiquan, Yiquan and information from medical
postural rehabilitation research and sports science.
Before I start, I would like to establish some facts about how we
use our body that I will use in my explanation.
Posture, Movement and Balance
We generally think of posture and movement as being separate -
we are either still or we move. Movement and posture place
different demands on our muscles and so it is not surprising that
our muscles reflect this. For example, those muscles used mainly
for posture have a high content of slow-twitch fibres whereas the
muscles used mainly for movement have a high content of fast
twitch fibres. But not only are muscles different from each other,
one muscle can be quite different in different functions. For
example a muscle when used in a postural (stabilising or tonic)
function will act differently from the same muscle when used for
movement (mobilising or phasic function). So for ease of
explanation, let me pretend that each muscle is really two muscles
- a postural one and a phasic one (sometimes called stabilisers and
mobilisers). As a further simplification, when I say a muscle, what
I will mean is the muscle with all the various sensors associated
with it plus its controlling mechanism within the Central Nervous
System. So please keep it in mind when I talk about muscles
'feeling this' or 'doing that'.

What is important about postural muscles from our perspective is

the fact that they react against the force of gravity and that they act
outside of our volition - we cannot normally control postural
muscles directly, only indirectly - through intent. For example
when we ride a bicycle, we keep our balance by the use of postural
muscles. Our intent is not to fall down but we do not consciously
control their operation in the way we can control voluntary
movement. Conscious control would be too slow - before we could
react, we would fall down. This is in fact what happens when we
start learning to ride a bicycle - we start by using phasic muscles
and through trial and error the postural muscles take over and we
'find our balance'.

Our postural muscles are not only used in holding a posture or in

balancing as was mentioned above, but during movement, too. If
we think of movement as a transition between postures, we can see
that postural muscles are active all the time. But what is the
relevance of postural muscles to Taijiquan?

Effortless and Natural

If someone pushes against you and you do not want to be pushed
off balance, the chances are that you will resist using strength. If
this happens, you are using phasic muscles. But it will be different
if someone pushes down on your shoulders. In this situation you do
not push back up - you just absorb the push effortlessly into your
posture. So in the first example if, instead of phasic muscles, you
were to use postural muscles to absorb the push into your posture,
you would use far less effort. You could then also use the
'balancing' ability of postural muscles to effortlessly counteract any
sudden change of direction. In other words, as the Taiji Classics
say: "when he doesn't move, you don't move; when he moves,
you've already moved". So using postural muscles in this way
would make Pushing Hands a far more enjoyable experience!

Where the Mind Goes, the Qi Follows

The parallels between Qi and the use of postural muscles should be
becoming a bit clearer now. When I use intent (Yi) to guide my
postural muscles to lift my arms, I do not feel any effort - it is as if
my arms are being lifted by invisible threads. When I use postural
muscles to absorb or neutralise a push, I don't feel any effort and
my body reacts automatically to produce a balanced outcome for
me. And when you start using postural muscles, you develop a
feedback through subtle sensations such as heat, ache, flow and
others. All these are properties of Qi. If we describe (human) Qi as
'those processes of the body/mind that are outside conscious
control' than we would cover most aspects.

Qi originates in the Dantian

When you make any movement, before the movement begins there
is a short delay during which the body prepares by stabilising your
lumbar spine using deep abdominal postural muscles. Normally
you will not feel this 'preparation', but it is there and as your
awareness increases you can feel it. As we said in the above
paragraph, usage of postural muscles equates to usage of Qi. Thus
any movement is preceded by activation of your Qi in your
Dantian (think of it loosely as the lower abdomen).

Your body will not move till it is properly stabilised. This is

important for fast moves, especially explosive fa-jin. The delay
produced by stabilisation of your lumbar spine makes you slower.
This does not matter very much for slow movements. But when
you want to move fast, you do want to move fast! There is a way to
eliminate or at least minimise this delay by holding your body in a
posture where your postural muscles are already engaged.

Song
The posture just described is what is called Song (loose, relaxed) in
Taiji Classics. What is important in this posture is that everything
that can be supported by postural muscles, is indeed so supported.
Your body feels light (you can't feel postural muscles) and poised
for action, perfectly balanced. You could even say that (quoting
Taiji Classics again) "a feather cannot be added to the body nor a
fly alight without setting you in motion".

Whole Body Movement

If you stand on one leg and observe for a time what you do to keep
upright, you may notice that the adjustment to your posture can
happen anywhere from your ankles all the way to your head. That's
because postural muscles co-ordinate across the whole body. When
you use postural muscles, rather than phasic muscles, you will
naturally produce whole body movement.

Postural Dysfunctions
From what you've read so far, you can see that training postural
muscles is quite important. But there are still other reasons to be
concerned about them. Due to our fairly recent transition (in
evolutionary timescale) into upright posture, the postural function
related to this upright posture is not yet securely embedded into
our neuro-muscular system and can be easily disrupted. It seems
the 'new' postural muscles need the input that they get from
functioning as postural muscles (i.e. balancing against gravity) to
remind them that they are postural muscles. For example if they
are held in a fixed position for a long time, they may start to forget
their proper role. Our lifestyle unfortunately encourages this
(school, office, computers,...). And there are still other ways for
things to go wrong. Sometimes phasic muscles can take over the
postural role because we did not 'let go' of them at the end of a
move and so they may start holding part of our posture. As the
posture muscles weaken through inactivity, the phasic muscles'
postural role will be strengthened. Or we may strengthen a phasic
muscle too much during training and it may start taking over the
postural function within its domain.

All this has implications for our strength. When pushing something
whilst standing on a slippery surface, we cannot generate much
strength. In order to use force effectively, we need a stable base.
This applies within our body, too. If our postural muscles are weak
or not working properly, our phasic muscles will not develop their
maximum strength. This means that often we can use only a
fraction of our potential strength.

It affects our speed, too. If we can't produce enough strength due to

weak postural muscles, our speed will suffer. If we use phasic
muscles to act as postural muscles, they will not be very effective
when we try to use them for movement.

As a result of all this, the majority of us do not use our core

postural muscles properly. More than 95% of all musculo-skeletal
problems can be attributed to the imbalance between postural and
phasic muscles. And it's not only musculo-skeletal problems. As
the research in this area is still fairly new, I'm sure the importance
of postural re-education will grow steadily.

Having, I hope, established the case for postural training, let's have
a look at it in detail. I will present Yiquan's approach to Zhan
Zhuang training. Yiquan (pronounced yee-chuan) is an internal
martial art with main principles and stages of training quite similar
to those of Taijiquan and, with the exception of Zhan Zhuang, quite
a lot simpler. Zhan Zhuang in Yiquan, on the other hand, is more
detailed and it is the main training tool all the way from beginner
to the most advanced level. I will describe several health postures
and one combat posture but there are sitting postures, lying down
postures (very popular with students!), one-legged postures,
slanted postures, etc. However, the ones I describe here are
sufficient for the purpose of illustrating the method of practice.

Standing - Zhan Zhuang

General Points
Any worry or anxiety impedes our learning progress. So the first
task is to create a calm and happy mental state and it is important
to keep it throughout all training. This is a skill, like any other and
will improve with training. So create some image that will make
your mind tranquil and happy. In doing so, engage as many senses
as possible. For example, imagine yourself in a beautiful garden.
You can see pretty flowers and trees all around you. You can smell
the flowers' scent on a soft breeze. You can feel the soft breeze on
your skin. You can hear birds singing in the trees. There are few
white clouds in the blue sky. Or you may prefer to picture a scene
by the sea, with the white surf breaking on the beach. Any image
that will make you as peaceful and happy as possible. Try to
express the tranquil feeling in your face and body.
The next step is to relax the whole body. We shall use mental
images again, this time directed towards relaxing specific areas of
the body. Try to create kinaesthetic images (sensations in the body)
rather than visual images.

Health Postures
Stand with your feet about the width of your shoulders apart, feet
parallel or toes pointing slightly out, whichever is more
comfortable. Bend your knees slightly so that you can relax the
lower back. Feel the whole body soft and balanced. Feel that your
head is held as if suspended from above by a string attached to the
crown of the head. The neck will then be relaxed and free from any
tension. The spine, and especially the coccyx, should hang down -
an image of reaching down with your bottom, as if about to sit on a
high stool, can help with this. Eyes can be either open or closed,
mouth nearly open (but not quite), breathing softly and quietly,
preferably through the nose. Feeling calm and happy.

After a period of settling down, start observing how your body

keeps the balance. Gradually you will become aware of small
movements of your body. At the beginning, you are likely to feel
the whole body sway a little and get automatically corrected into a
balanced position. Try not to control these movements but imagine
standing in (warm) water and feel your body swaying as if moved
by slow waves. Feel the whole body swaying as one unit - do not
move your arms independently of the body. Some people, because
they think their body should be still in standing postures, try to
keep the body motionless. That is a mistake - the body should be as
soft and relaxed as possible.

The emphasis should be on relaxing all (phasic) muscles and

feeling how the body balances against gravity. Slow, very subtle
movements can be felt and these are used and controlled, first in a
passive manner, later actively, using kinaesthetic visualisation.
The role of the Health Postures is to relax the body and develop
whole-body connection. This means that a movement in any part
of the body can be felt to propagate through the whole body in a
natural fashion. The process is characterised by gradually
becoming aware of the internal structure of the body and then
gaining some measure of control over it.

Empty Posture (Wu Ji Zhuang)

Observe the General Points and then the
Master Chen Xiaowang
description in Health Postures above. Let
correcting Wuji posture
of Kathy Webb your arms hang by the sides.
Embracing Posture (Ping Bu Cheng Bao Zhuang)
 Start in the Empty Posture as described above.
When you have sttled down and feel calm, lift
your arms slowly in front of you in a shape of
embracing a big balloon in front of your chest.
The hands should be in front of your shoulders,
with the palms facing you and the fingers of
both hands pointing at each other. Keep your
fingers open and imagine small cotton pads
placed between fingers, supporting them in their
open position. Your hands are soft and slightly
curved. Feel your elbows resting on soft
pillows.

With practice, you will be able to achieve a

very relaxed feeling. When that happens, you
can move on to the next step, creating
Karel Koskuba in kinaesthetic images.
Cheng Bao
Zhuang Up to now, your elbows were as if resting on
soft pillows, keeping your shoulders relaxed.
Now imagine that your elbows are touching
balloons floating on water. Your task is to keep
the balloons under your elbows. If you lift your
elbows, the balloons will be free to float away.
If you press a little more, they will be pressed
into the water and pop out to float away again.
Imagine that the big balloon you are embracing
is very fragile and filled with helium - if you
press a little more, it will burst, if you press a
little less, it will float away. The feeling created
is that of sticking very lightly to the balloon but
making sure not to let it slip from your
embrace. The purpose of these types of images
is not to become skilful in creating them but in
exploring how the body feeling changes and
Covering Posture (Ping Bu Fu An Zhuang)

From the Embracing Posture, keeping your elbows still, slowly
lower your forearms and turn your hands palms down. The arms
should be horizontal, with fingers of each hand pointing inwards at
around 45 degrees angle. Feel as if your arms and hands are resting
on a plank of wood that is floating on water. Feel the plank floating
on water away from you and follow that motion with your body.
There should not be any change of your arms in relation to your
body. Then feel the plank floating towards you and again follow
the motion. All other points remain the same.

Combat Postures
Practice of Combat Postures is the first step in acquiring Internal
Power. Their role is to make the Combat Stance (see immediately
below) seem as natural as possible, strengthen legs and create a
connection between them, and start using the whole-body
connection to 'sense strength' in the body (see 'Almost-Movement'
below).

Combat Stance
Stand with your heels about fist-width apart, toes pointing slightly
out. Transfer your weight onto your right leg and shift the left foot
forward, in the direction the foot is pointing and lift the front heel
off the ground. Put about a quarter to a third of your weight onto
the front foot. Keep a slight push from the front foot into the back
one and vice versa. Each of your knees should point in the same
direction as the respective foot. Feel as if there is an elastic band
between the front toes and your forehead and between the front
knee and the opposite hip. At all times feel that you are holding
these elastic bands slightly stretched. The body should be held as
described for the Health Postures. Eyes should be open, looking
into distance.

Almost-Movement
Observe closely what happens in your body just before you move.
Say you get ready to move but you 'abort' the move just before it
actually happens. If you try it few times, you are quite likely to
notice a certain type of feeling in the part of the body that you were
going to move. At the beginning, it is probably easier to feel it in
your hands or arms, so if you have difficulty with it, choose a hand
movement. Eventually you will be able to feel a sort of 'inner'
activity in your body. What happens is that as you form an
intention to move and as you get ready to move, there will be some
muscular activity associated with stabilising your body in such a
way so as to enable the movement to take place. Normally this
muscular activity is not noticed as it gets subsumed in the
sensations of the actual move that normally takes place. We can't
call it a movement, as there is nothing actually moving yet it is
more than 'not moving' - that's why I call it almost-movement. This
is the basis of 'sensing strength'. In the following Zhan Zhuang
exercise we practise moving or sensing (Moli - sensing strength) in
forward-back direction.

'Primordial Void' Posture (Hun Yuan Zhuang)

 Stand in a Combat Stance and as in the Health
Postures above, create some image in your
mind that will make you calm and happy; keep
it in your mind and your body throughout the
training.

Slowly lift your arms in front of you as in the

Master Yao Embracing Posture described above but this
Chengguang in
time the left hand (assuming the left foot is in
Hun Yuan Zhuang
front) is slightly more forward and up than the
right hand.

Apart from the position of your arms and legs,
the rest should be the same as in the Embracing
Posture (including creation of a calm and
peaceful feeling).
Sensing Strength in a Forward-Back Direction (Qian-Hou Moli)
Keep a very soft and relaxed body structure and create a
kinaesthetic image of exerting a great deal of strength. For
example, imagine that you are embracing a tree and try to uproot it
by pushing with your body forwards. At the same time, imagine
that you are inside another, hollow, tree with your arms and the
back in contact with the tree and you try to uproot that one by
pushing with the back of your arms. Alternate this effort with
'moving' in the opposite direction - pulling the inside tree with your
arms and pushing the outside tree with the back of your body.
Always use the whole body. Do not imagine that you are actually
succeeding in any of these tasks - the trees are too big and just
won't budge. During your practice, you stay relaxed and nearly still
with perhaps just very small movement. Little by little you will get
a feeling of almost-movement.
After a period of practice (say several weeks), slowly work the
following six points into your posture:
lift your foot arches and feel as if your feet are grasping the
 ground
feel your pelvis horizontal and from there a slight lifting of your
perineum
feel your diaphragm horizontal by relaxing down the front bottom
edge of your ribcage which should fill-out your lower back
("relax your chest and raise the back")
feel the top of the chest/bottom of your neck horizontal
feel the bottom of your mouth relaxed and horizontal
feel the top of your head horizontal
These are all important points for re-inforcing the work of your
main postural muscles throughout your body.
Tips for Zhan Zhuang practice
Establish a regular routine
The best way to achieve that is to start with very little but every
day. What is 'very little'? Say 10 seconds - and I do not mean it as a
joke! If you start with 10 seconds, you'll eventually be able to go to
hours with no problem (if you wish).

In Zhan Zhuang you are training your Mind

The best way to train your mind is to practice only when you
concentrate. That's why 10 seconds is probably a good starting
point. As you keep practising, you naturally start to concentrate for
longer and so you practise longer. Even when you can stand for a
long time, if one day you can't concentrate, stop practising. If you
force yourself to stand for a set period, you learn not to
concentrate, the practice becomes boring and soon you would give
up. When you concentrate, it's enjoyable and you progress faster.

Pain is not necessary

Pain is distracting. Remember, you are training your mind - if the
pain in your legs or arms distracts you, you can't concentrate, so
stop practising or change to another posture. If you have pain in
any of your joints, stop practising - you should never feel pain in
your joints. Muscle pain could be OK, but best to check with
someone who would know (for example your teacher).

Get someone to correct your posture

It's a good idea not to worry about your posture at the very
beginning. First you need to relax and settle into the practice. But
fairly soon you should get someone to check your posture,
preferably several times and then from time to time till you can
feel yourself whether it's correct or not. It can save you a lot of
time!

Further Training
Zhan Zhuang is the first step in Yiquan training. For completeness,
I show the whole syllabus with both 'modern' and 'traditional'
explanations.
Yiquan Training - modern (and traditional) explanation
Zhan Zhuang - the Health Stances are primarily for
(Pole Standing) relaxing and retraining the body to use
postural muscles (accumulating Qi). The
Combat Stances are for learning how to
control the postural muscles using intent
(how to use Yi to lead Qi).
Shi Li (Testing of - learning how to move upper body using
Strength) postural muscles (how to use Qi to lead body
or strength) and patterning the body for
subsequent Fa Li training.
Mo Ca Bu
same as Shi Li but for legs.
(Friction Step) -
Fa Li (Release of learning how to 'release' power by using
Power) - phasic muscles supported by postural
muscles (learning how to produce Jin by
combining Qi with physical strength) along
the lines practised at the Shi Li stage and
later based on advanced Zhan Zhuang
training.
Tui Shou this stage is similar to Taijiquan's Pushing
(Pushing Hands) - Hands. Sometimes called Shi Li with a
partner though later fa-jin is also used.
Shi Sheng learning to augment power and integrate the
(Testing of Voice) centre of the body in a more natural way
- using breathing musculature.
Ji Ji Fa (Combat
fixed and free sparring drills and sparring.
Practice) -
If you miss out the Combat Stances, instead of the 'Shi Li' and 'Mo
Ca Bu' stages substitute practice of the Taijiquan Forms(s) and add
weapons training after the 'Tui Shou' stage, you get a Taijiquan
syllabus.

Yiquan for health

Zhan Zhuang training of Yiquan is ideally suited for correcting all
kinds of problems stemming from the imbalance between phasic
muscles and postural muscles, some of which were mentioned
under the 'Postural Dysfunctions' heading above but there are other
benefits that result from Yiquan training. The emphasis on
tranquillity is very beneficial in any stress-related problems; the
training method of slow and careful movements improves
dramatically co-ordination and balance. It is an excellent method
of regulating one's metabolism and sleep pattern. The list could go
on but the space is limited!
Conclusion and Summary
Zhan Zhuang is the first step in acquiring Internal Power. The
emphasis should be on relaxing all muscles and feeling how the
body balances against gravity. Gradually the use of phasic muscles
is eliminated from the postural function of the body. Slow, very
subtle movements can be felt under the guide of kinaesthetic
visualisation (movement in stillness). Later on, when learning to
move using 'intent', the body's structure should always be
supported by postural muscles only, producing the feeling of
standing at any point in the movement (stillness in movement).
This article first appeared in the German Tai Chi and Qigong magazine, autumn 2003.

©Karel Koskuba, 2003