Moving Energy in the Body

I was terrible at physics at school.
Looking back at it, I’m not sure why, as these days I find it fascinating.
However, although Mr. Grenville couldn’t make Boyle’s Law and Charles’ Law very exciting prospects, he did manage to enthuse me with Ripple Tanks.
Those of you old enough to remember the days when physics was an incredibly ‘dry’ subject, when the education system apparently did everything it could to remove the subject from reality, might remember Ripple Tanks.
I seem to remember that, amongst other things, they were meant to teach how sound waves reacted with matter.
I mention Ripple Tanks because the rippling, or apparent transfer of energy from one end of the tank to the other is precisely what happens in the transfer of energy through the arms and legs when doing tai chi.

Try this…
Hold your arm out to the side of you, parallel to the ground.  First, try lowering it back to your side as though it’s a stick.  This is how not to lower your arm!

Next, without lowering your hand (leave it exactly where it is), breathe in, and then focus on breathing out gently but firmly.  You might feel your shoulder start to sink.  Give your shoulder a bit of help by consciously sinking it, and notice how the elbow also sinks and rotates forwards slightly.

Try it again, but as soon as the elbow starts to sink, feel the weight of your forearm and start to lower it also, but leave the fingertips in the same position.  To do this you need to let your wrist bend.  Notice any sensations in your fingertips whilst keeping on lowering the arm.

If you’re doing it correctly, your awareness will sequentially pass down the arm from shoulder to fingertips via the individual joints, and it will feel a little as though the lowering of the arm is initiated by a very slight closing of the armpit.

The action is therefore like a wave passing down through the major joints of the arm, one after the other; a transference of energy from one end of the ripple tank to the other. You could also bring the metacarpo-phalangeal joints (the joints where the palms connect to the fingers) into the equation, if you wanted.

Where can you use this concept?
Every time you lower an arm in tai chi and qigong.

The most obvious tai chi movement where this happens in almost any Form?
The lowering of the arms in ‘Raise and Lower Hands’ at the start of many tai chi forms.

Why use it?
It connects the upper limbs to the body during movement and causes the movement to come from the centre of the body.

Why not just lower the arm like a stick?
The muscles involved in lowering your arm (adduction) are the Coracobrachialis and Pectoralis Major on the front of the body, and the Latissimus Dorsi and Teres Major on the back of the body (& Subscapularis).  Activating the muscles from the core, as above, means that the fascia connecting the body to the arms is also activated, and because of this the muscles become coordinated in their action and are no longer acting independently.  It is this coordination that increases their strength beyond the total strength of the individual muscles.

Why don’t we use this all the time?
We often do, but often without analysing it.
For example, if you were going to take part in a tug of war, and it was only you against, say, 6 other people, when you took hold of that rope you’d automatically work from the core and connect the body correctly.  You’d instinctively do it and know how to do it.  Likewise if you tried to push a broken-down car up a slight hill, you’d do the same.   We tend to use the ability when in extremis, but not when movements are soft and gentle … We don’t bother because we can get away with it.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
You can also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are also many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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Opening Joints & Connecting The Body

When pushing or pulling an object, we usually tighten muscles automatically.
If you want to push something heavy, you compress, or ‘get ready’, or ‘gird your loins’, or ‘wind up’.  In effect you tighten up, squeezing the body and limbs, and, temporarily compact yourself.
If you want to pull something heavy, even though the act of pulling with your arms would theoretically pull the joints open, you do exactly the same but with different sets of muscles involved – in fact completely opposite-side-of-the-body ones to when you are pushing.
This means that you over-tense certain groups of muscles.

Spread the effort
For example, if you are pushing a heavy object, there is an inclination to tense the shoulders and the upper arms and often the neck.
Although you might successfully push whatever it is that you are pushing, it’s at the expense of excess muscular tension in specific areas of the body.
The ‘knack’ is to involve all the muscle groups required to do that task simultaneously.

When you tense a muscle, the ends of that muscle (origin & insertion) contract – in other words, the muscle gets shorter.
Not only that, the muscle stagnates and goes into a mild form of atrophy; it moves into a locked state and parts of it cease to function – pliability is lost in its contraction.
As an example, if you are pushing something, you attach yourself to that object, lock the upper body into it (wrists, arms, shoulders, possibly neck and upper back), and then you push off your rear leg; the only ‘mobile’ parts of you remaining are therefore the legs.
It’s almost as though you lock your body to the object being pushed so that the body almost becomes a part of the object, and then you operate the lower part of the body to do the push.
If you are not relaxed in the lumbar area of the spine (approx. waist and below), you are more likely to hurt your back.

Opening the joints
What we need to do when pushing or pulling, is to allow the joints to ‘open’ as we do the action.  This is obvious in the arms during a pull – after all, you are pulling the joints open, but less obvious in a push which is more likely to contract the joints.

In a push (for example) it is more efficient to involve every muscle that is used in that push simultaneously, but with NO tension anywhere.
So when pushing, this uses:-

• the top of the foot (dorsum of foot),
• the back of the calf (gastrocnemius),
• the front of the thigh (quads),
• the lower back (below the ribs),
• the chest,
• the triceps,
• the back(s) of the hand(s).

As soon as only one muscle is contracted, that part stagnates; in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medical) terms, the flow of Qi is restricted in that area, and in fact the contraction reduces the flow of blood and lymph.

What to do about it?
Don’t let the joints compress, thereby allowing the ends of the muscles to remain flexible.  When you keep the joints ‘open’, the muscles can no longer shrink, contract, or stagnate.  Therefore, that ‘line’ of musculature from foot to hand stays liquid, mobile, and flexible.
All of a sudden you are no longer using individual muscles; the ‘fascia’ of the body – the net-like ‘stocking’ that encompasses groups of muscles (see previous blog for more description of fascia), comes into play, and the push starts to come from a different part of your body.

Exercise in how to ‘open’ a joint
The only way to stop the two sides of a joint pulling together, is to relax and soften that area; it is only muscular tension that is going to draw the two sides together.  You can try this out by putting your palms on a wall at home and act as though you are trying to push the wall over.

Tai Chi & Qigong
When you start to apply this ‘opening of the joints’ to tai chi and qigong, movement becomes an entirely different game.
Because the body is opening energetically, your blood flows better, the energy moves through the body, your posture improves (it has to because poor posture means there is tension in certain parts of the body), you feel lighter, even your coordination improves (because poor coordination implies inconsistencies in the simultaneous flow of energy equally around the body), and the movements become effortless and easy.  You know that you’re getting it ‘right’!

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
You can also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are also many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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Controlling Energy From The Feet

These days I’m not so interested in the ‘Forms’ (sets of movements) of Tai Chi.  I’m more interested in the way in which we generate and use our energy which can be applied to those Forms.
Perhaps the reason that I can say that though is because I have learnt a lot of Forms!
This doesn’t mean that I don’t teach Tai Chi Forms – I do; you need to be comfortable with some kind of sequence of movements so that you can practise all the other skills within Tai Chi.

Currently I’m interested in the controlling of energy – the way that movement on the foot generates a rising energy or creates a sinking energy.
The principle is simple and works like this:
When your body weight is more on your heel than on the ball of your foot, your energy sinks.
When your body weight is more on the ball of your foot than on your heel, your energy rises.

Walking
When you think about the way you walk, it’s very obvious:
Putting the heel down: You place your heel ahead of you to step forwards, putting your weight on it, and your body mass settles into the ground, initially through that heel.  As your weight transfers from one foot to the other, you release the rear foot in order to bring it forward so as to take your next step.
Moving on to the ball of the foot: As you bring the rear leg beyond the standing leg (the one with the weight on it), your body mass moves forward and your weight moves over the ball of the foot which has your weight on it; in effect, you drive your energy upwards for the next step.

Energy rises and falls
Although the body will produce a tiny bit of up/down movement, we aren’t talking about the body bobbing up and down here like a cork on the sea.  We’re talking about an energetic up/down action…
You drive downwards into the ground as you place the foot ahead of you, but that downward drive generates the next energetic lift as you transfer the weight over the toes.  The ‘lift’ is ‘energetic’ – in TCM terminology it is Yang – active movement.  The energetic settling into the heel is Yin, energy subsiding/compressing.

The effects
This has a major impact on the way in which we do not only Tai Chi or Qigong but any sport or activity that involves movement.
In whatever we do, we want our actions to be effortless, and if we begin to be aware of the use of the foot, it means that any rising energy should be generated from the ball of the foot.
To apply this in Tai Chi, think of the first movement of many Tai Chi Forms:-
1) you raise the hands, and 2) you lower the hands.
1) Energy rises and 2) energy falls.
1) The weight is on the balls of the feet and then 2) on the heels.
N.B. This does NOT mean that, when the weight is more on the heels, the balls of the feet come off the ground (or visa versa) – this is absolutely NOT the case.  This is all about triggering different sets of muscle groups, so you only need enough pressure to do the job.

This relates to ‘Fascia’
Fascia is also known as ‘connective tissue’ and is the tissue that connects different muscle groups in the body.
It is not muscle in itself; it is a net-like stretchy substance that contains groups of muscles – rather like a string bag that can expand as you fill it.
If you’ve ever jointed a chicken, you will have come across membranous tissue between the muscles in the chicken; it is stretchy and remarkably strong, often separating muscles or groups of muscles.  This is the chicken’s fascia.

Thomas M. Myers, in his book ‘Anatomical Trains’, refers to these lines of connective tissue as ‘trains’.  (The image shows an example of some fascial trains from his book).
When we settle into the heels, a different fascial train (line of fascia) is triggered to that which is triggered when we settle into the balls of the feet.  In other words different muscle groups, falling within that fascial train, are activated.

Applying this to exercising
The point here though is that when we move (e.g. in Tai Chi), we want to activate the entire fascial train in one go, rather than individual muscles.
When involving the fascial train, it is a very good example of “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”; in other words, the power generated when the whole fascial train is activated far exceeds that of the individual muscles.

‘Effortless’
I used the word ‘effortless’ above; when we work from the level of connective tissue, movement becomes effortless.  It’s as though every part of the body is interacting with every other part precisely as it is meant to.   All parts are supporting each other and the collective (and connective) whole is working harmoniously.

Western & Eastern Medicine
This makes me think of the major difference between Western and Eastern medicine.  I’m aware that this is a generalisation, but in Western medicine, if a part of you ‘goes wrong’, the doctor will immediately focus on the malfunctioning part.
In Eastern medicine, the doctor will look at the supporting structures and the relationship between all the organs, and why the body has moved out of harmony.

As soon as you start watching the action of the feet, walking becomes a rather slow process!

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
You can also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are also many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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‘Full’ & ‘Empty’

‘Full’ & ‘Empty’
When we walk, we need to create ‘full’ and ’empty’ in the legs.  Most of the time we do it without thinking; it just happens.  But in both tai chi and in qigong, this is very much a conscious process involving good timing as well as being in exactly the right place at the right time.

What’s it All About?
When you are about to step, consciously place all of your weight on to one foot, not only feeling the foot being pressed into the ground, but also dropping the body mass into the foot. You can bend the knee as little or as much as you like, but ‘dropping the body mass’ is not achieved by bending the knee as such; it is a feeling inside you.

The Body Mass
This means that you need to feel the weight of your own body passing downwards through the supporting leg.
This ‘weight’ is everything from your shoulders downwards, but doesn’t include the neck and head, and strangely also doesn’t include much of the spine.  So you release the shoulders, feeling their weight; the arms, the upper body (chest), and in particular the pelvis (hips) all need to settle into the leg on to which you are putting your weight.

What Happens to Your Neck?
As you press your weight on to your left or right foot in order to step, feel gravity (your body weight) passing downwards into the stepping foot.  As it does so, let your neck soften and ‘undo’; in other words, the muscles in the neck release and therefore lengthen, and in effect, the neck gets minutely longer.
If you are able to let this happen (you can’t exactly make it happen), you will start to notice that the lengthening isn’t confined to the neck; the entire spine, from the top vertebrae inside your head (roughly between your ears) to the top of the pelvis (5th lumbar) becomes involved.
It’s as though the spine takes on a springy quality – which is exactly what it should be… your suspension.

The Builder’s Bucket Effect.
It is this pressing down which releases the ‘up’ on the other side of the body, i.e. the foot with which you intend to step.
Many actions that you do have a ‘rotational’ aspect to them; this isn’t unlike Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion where ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’.
At its most basic level, a rocket has to exert a downward force to achieve an upward lift, and when we operate one side of our body, we often counterbalance with a release on the other side.
An example of this is walking; in order to move we put the pressure on one side of the body and the other side is released.  The key when doing tai chi or qigong is to be aware of this taking place.  Once you are aware of this happening, you gain more control over your movements.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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Using Your Legs.

Making Movement Easier
Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t have knee joints.
I’m not entirely sure that I’m right about this, but judging from the way that he moves, there’s a pretty good chance that I’ve remembered correctly!
I seem to remember that the monster moves by rocking from side to side, his centre of gravity shifting from one hip to the other (at least he did in the old Boris Karloff films). The only time his centre of gravity is central is when he’s standing still.

Having knees makes all the difference. Not only can you stabilise the centre, but you can also move it up and down – it’s no longer confined to the horizontal plane.  This is the key to elegant and effortless movement.

Leg Strength
One of the first things that beginners can feel is aching legs; they discover that their legs are weaker than they thought.  I’ve often had people observe that their legs are tired… “and we were hardly moving as well!”
The Chinese attach leg strength to longevity; the stronger the legs – the longer the life.  Whilst this might not always be true, I suspect that there is much to be said for it… the more you sit down, the less you want to move because the legs get weaker and moving becomes more unpleasant, which makes you sit more, and on and on.

Knees and Leg Strength
Knees play a vital role; they not only need to be well supported muscularly, but they also need to be aligned.  Tai Chi and Qigong focus on this alignment with the aim of improving it.
However,  improving the situation also requires the practitioner to work on the alignment even when not doing Tai Chi or Qigong… in fact especially when not practising them.  You have to bring knee awareness into everyday life.

Align and Then the Body Can Relax
Once the legs are stronger and can be relied upon, they can support the rest of the body which sits on top of them.  The upper body can then relax, simply resting on top of the lower structure, and because it is relaxed, it automatically has more flexibility.
We tend to think of our legs as being vertical ‘sticks’, but, as can be seen from the diagram, the thigh bone (the femur) is angled outwards and then sharply inwards to connect to the pelvis, creating a rotational & pivotal point.
If the legs were in a vertical straight line without that outward angle, our leg movements would be massively reduced.

‘Recruiting’ Muscles
When we don’t have a strong lower structure, we start to use the wrong muscles in other parts of the body in order to strengthen those weaker lower muscles.  In Alexander Technique terms, this is known as ‘recruiting’ muscles.
If you start recruiting muscles, the recruited muscles (often in the chest and shoulders) tense up and flexibility in the upper body is therefore reduced.

Understanding this is one thing, but embodying it is another.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
___________________________________________________

Moving the Arms in Taiji, Qigong, & Yoga

Many taiji forms begin with the arms rising ahead of you, something that also applies to many qigong and yoga exercises.

Raising the arms.
Use your back.
The arms need to connect to the body; the action is not one where only the shoulder muscles function.
It’s therefore essential that you involve the ‘S’ bend of your spine (see the previous 2 Blogs). To do so, gently extend the lumbar spine backwards whilst the arms lift.

‘Balancing’ the body.
By doing this, what you are trying to do is to balance the front and back of the body; if something is going forward, something else needs to go backward.  The sensation should be as if blowing up a balloon; the balloon doesn’t only expand forwards, it expands in all directions simultaneously.
[In actual fact, you should feel an upward/downward and a left/right expansion also].

Testing it.
Have someone stand in front of you and loosely hold your wrists.

• When you push your wrists away from you, have the intention of pushing your wrists straight ahead to the skirting board, rather than the intention of lifting them up.
• Your partner should very gently try to stop you from moving your wrists forwards and away from you.
• Get him to push with as much pressure as it takes for you to feel your back becoming involved as you push your arms ahead of you.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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Look at the Spaces in Between

There are so many activities that we do where we spend our time focusing on the limbs.  Tai chi and qigong are but two examples out of hundreds.
The external movements are so ‘visual’, so ‘in your face’; they catch the eye, and we often spend a lot of time emulating them… I certainly did for the first 20 years or more whilst starting to learn tai chi and qigong.

Gradually though, you start to realise that the movements of the arms have no power unless the core of your body is the initiator.  You then realise that the leg which is stepping should behave in exactly the same way – it is driven by the centre of the body.

Nowadays I find it strange that, when I was first learning in the 70s and 80s, no one ever explained this; but maybe I just didn’t hear it… or perhaps they simply didn’t know!

I’m reminded of the Buddhist (or is it Daoist, or Zen, or something I once read by Alan Watts?) idea that the visibility of an object is relative to the spaces in and around it.  The spaces are of equal importance.
In other words, the spaces are quiet places –  they are hiding.  It’s the object that’s ‘in your face’.

So with tai chi and qigong, the centre might be a hive of activity, but it is quiet and not showing itself; it is hiding.  Without it though, there’s nothing worth seeing.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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Shoulder Alignment: The Practicalities (2)

If you’ve read the blog ‘Shoulder Alignment: The Mechanics (1)’, and played around with it, and particularly if you’ve noticed that things have changed (or need to change), you will discover that it’s a bit of a journey to break those old habits and actually apply the changes to everything in everyday life, including the way that you use your arms in both tai chi and qigong.
You’ll find more about this alignment on YouTube.

Using the arms

I know that we can take our arms behind our backs, but, by and large, we use the arms in front of our bodies in nearly everything we do as we’re always reaching for something.
As a result, we can end up pulling the head of the humerus forward slightly out of the socket with the risk of not letting it return to its usual resting place.
(The picture mainly shows the head of the humerus as seen from the front of the body.  The ribs are removed, and you can see the shoulder blade at the back).

Implications

In martial arts, if you are either pushing something, or something is pushing against your arms/hands, you need the force of the push (in whatever direction it is travelling) to pass through the body to the rear leg.

If you have in effect ‘disconnected’ the head of the humerus from the shoulder socket, even slightly, the force of the push (the energy of the push) cannot travel smoothly down to your Dantian and then down to the rear foot.  The pipeline has a gap in it, and in tai chi and qigong terms, you are ‘leaking’ qi (chi, or, strictly speaking… ch’i).
You’ll find another video about this on YouTube.

Plumbing

For some people, it can be helpful to think of the body as a plumbing system in a house, or even in a city.
You could consider the main pumping station as your Dantian (Hara, Core, Centre), and the torso and limbs as the pipelines going out to the various parts of the house/city.
The last thing you want is a leak in the system – i.e. you need a ‘closed system’.

Tension

Any tensed muscle, i.e. any muscle that is working harder than any other muscle, can cause an energetic leak.
This is because a tensed muscle is a partially (or completely) stagnated muscle, where the fibres have become contracted and condensed, thereby not allowing a flow of both blood and energy to pass through them.
To go back to the plumbing analogy, the pipeline has become furred up!

The shoulder & the humerus

As soon as you pull your arms forward out of the socket even slightly, the muscles at the front of the socket are contracting in order to make that action take place.  At the same time, the ones at the back of the head of the humerus are being forced to stretch.

Your upper pipeline is ‘leaking’.

___________________________________________________
James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
___________________________________________________

How to Lift the Knee Higher in Taiji & Qigong

In both in taiji and in qigong there is often the need to raise the knee, either to kick, or perhaps as an exercise for the pelvis, or perhaps just to take a step.
As in raising your arm efficiently, there is a similar method with the leg.

Try the following…
Whilst standing, lightly place the knuckles of one hand on the small of your back.
By flexing your spine beneath your knuckles, see if you can use your spine to push your knuckles backwards.  You can let your knees bend a little if necessary, but your body shouldn’t lean backwards.
The point of this is explained below.

What happens when you lift your knee?
There are several muscles involved in lifting the leg, but the most important ones are a group of muscles collectively known as the quads (quadriceps, in particular the Rectus Femoris), the Iliacus, and the Psoas (Iliopsoas).  The bulk of the Rectus Femoris lies on the top of the thigh, you can feel it easily; the Iliacus and Psoas are deeper.  By contracting all of these muscles, the thigh/knee will lift.

If all you want to know is which of the main muscles are involved, then they are:

The Rectus Femoris

  ………………and the Iliacus & Iliopsoas:

Attachments & Contraction.
‘Contracting’ a muscle means bringing the two ends (attachments) closer together.  I know that’s obvious, but to use the muscle efficiently it helps if you know roughly where those ends (attachments) are, otherwise there’s a good chance that you’re either using only part of the muscle, or you are unwittingly letting the ‘attachments’ of the muscle (i.e. the bones to which the ends of each muscle attach) collapse or ‘give’, rather than becoming part of the lifting process.

The attachments to think about.
When lifting the knee, we are most concerned with the muscular attachments to the torso; the attachments to the knee (quads) or to the thigh bone (iliac & psoas) pretty much take care of themselves.
If you can feel the following rather than just understand it, it will make a big difference to your taiji and qigong, as you will work more from the centre.

The Rectus Femoris & the Pelvis.
The ‘mechanics’ are that the Rectus Femoris attaches to the side of the Pelvis.
If you shorten (contract/tighten) that muscle, it’s going to pull the lower part of the pelvis forward… [You can see the arrow shaped bone (the sacrum) which is part of the spine and in the middle between the two halves of the pelvis; the tip of the arrow, which points down, moves forwards slightly towards the front of the body  when the bottom of the pelvis is pulled forward, but because it’s a part of the spine, it makes the rest of the spine flex also].  This is good as it makes your pelvis tuck under, exactly as it would do if you were going to sit down.

The attachments of the Iliacus & Psoas.
This is where the exercise that I began with becomes relevant.
The Psoas attaches at the top to the lower spine – the Lumbars, which are the lower part of the ‘S’ bend of your back .

When lifting the leg, you do not want this part of your spine to be pulled forwards (towards the abdomen/front of body); if this happens, you are in effect collapsing one of the main supports. The incorrect use of this muscle is not unlike tying a hammock to an 80 year old oak tree on one side (in this case the lower attachments), and a 2 year old willow on the other (the spinal attachments); the willow will bend, providing no support on that side.

So if the spine is allowed to bend towards the front of the body, the body starts fighting itself. The Rectus Femoris is making the Pelvis do one thing (tuck under with the spine trying to push backwards), and the spine which is attached to the Pelvis (by not very flexible ligaments) is doing another thing (rotating the opposite way – i.e. bottom sticking out backwards).

And practically?
When you sit down, your knee lifts… or to be more precise, you take your chest towards your knees.  What happened to the small of your back, and what did you do with your pelvis? After all, you never sit down with your bottom sticking out; if you did you’d jar your spine.
So when you lift the knee forwards, be conscious of the lower spine gently pushing backwards.

Behave like a horse.
Our buttocks and thighs are no different to the haunches of a horse; in other words, on a horse you think of the whole haunch as being a part of the leg.
In a human, we tend to think of the buttock as being separate to the thigh, whereas in reality, the crease of the buttock defines the shape of the upper part of the leg.
The leg is therefore formed of foot, calf, thigh, and buttock to the top of the pelvis, then around the front of the body to the inguinal groove which divides the thigh from the groin.

One other small point, wearing very high heels, which throw the pelvis and bottom backwards, will make it more difficult to lift the knee high as they throw the pelvis in completely the wrong direction.

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James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
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Suspended by a Silk Thread

You often hear the expression that you should stand in both tai chi and qigong as though you are ‘suspended by a silk thread’.
This is open to misinterpretation, as the implication is that you hold your head very upright. I certainly spent many years doing just that in the name of good posture, and regularly gave myself a headache as a result.

How do you do it?

The first thing about it is that you shouldn’t DO anything; as soon as you TRY to ‘suspend the head by a silk thread’, you instantly start to DO something. Either you pull your neck backwards, or you try to stretch it upwards, or a combination of the two, and some people will even lift their chins or tuck their chins under.

If I were in that position…

The questions that never seems to be asked/answered about this are, if you were literally suspended by a silk thread, how would it feel? What effect would it have on your spine? How do you even begin to imagine how this would feel?
It’s not the natural human condition to be in this position, and if we are in that position, it’s probably bad news, especially if your feet aren’t touching the ground.

However, it helps a little if you’re able to visualise being supported by the head, with the soles of your feet only skimming the ground… or if you’re sitting, with the buttocks only just lightly touching the chair. What would it feel like in your spine?
Imagine that you’re in the same position as the person in the picture, and with your feet hardly touching the floor.

• Your neck would be able to ‘undo’ – in Alexander Technique terms your neck would be able to ‘lengthen’.
• Your spine, with the weight of the pelvis below it, would literally hang from your neck, allowing the gaps between the individual vertebrae to widen.
• The weight of your legs (about 18-20lbs per leg on average) would help to stretch the body out, and the effect of the weight on the iliofemoral joints (where the legs attach to the pelvis) would allow those joints to decompress.
• The combined weight of the pelvis and spine would in particular open out the lumbar vertebrae in your spine (the 5 vertebrae above the sacrum); this is where most people experience ‘back problems’ often due to compression of that area.
• Because of the spine undoing (lengthening), the ribcage would also lengthen, and there would be more space for the upper organs – namely heart and lungs.

All in all, it would feel rather nice. If you’ve ever had Alexander Lessons, you will know a little about this feeling.

The sensation for the pelvis

I have never parachuted, but I imagine that the weight of the lower body pulling downwards from the harness would be a lovely feeling of opening of the lower spine (perhaps stopping rather abruptly when you landed!).
However, I have played around on trapezes as a child, and still remember that feeling of the spine opening as you hung upside down, or hung from your arms.

Mindset

The biggest difficulty is actually putting this into practise because it requires a huge change of mindset. You have to put yourself somewhere where you are not at the moment – in effect you have to change your own reality by “acting as if…”.

In tai chi and qigong terms, this undoing of the torso is putting ‘Song’ into practise.

___________________________________________________
James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.
Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.
There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.

CONTACT:
http://www.taiji.co.uk
https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk
Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com
Phone: 07836-710281
___________________________________________________