You have to open the body. From the inside.
The muscles need to release. From the inside.
The musculature need to release and align. From the inside. Align with the Earth.
The fascia, the musculature, the skeleton. All needs to be open and aligned, and connected and filled, and that filling will become solidity. Any strength that is out of alignment becomes weakness.
That means no stress. No worry. No anxiety. Deep stability in your embodied consciousness. Open awareness. Deep physical and energetic stability based in the body. In the breath. In the center. In the connection to the earth.
The qigong is for this. The taiji forms are for this. The breathing is for this. You have to breathe deeply and move that breath into every square inch of the body.
Breathe and gather the breath. Breathe and gather the energy. Distribute the energy and breath into every single nook and cranny of the inside of your body. You have to fill and then expand, release, unravel the knots. Stretching the physical isn’t enough. It’s not enough to just “relax”. You have to work through the tension with the energy of your living body.
Understand that the power has to be strong enough to move people. People with power. Weight lifters, fighters. Strong people. Your posture has to have the strength and buoyancy to move them. But you can’t fill your posture unless you open it. And you can’t open it unless you release it. So you have to release and open and fill your posture. And then you have to move that fullness with a power that can move powerful people.
You open the container and then fill it. Like a very strong, very flexible container filled with water to high density. Water has the quality of pliability and evenness. It fills in everywhere, it is even everywhere. It goes down and fills up. It is denser at the bottom. Water at high pressure can cut diamond.
But the first thing is to open and then fill the body. To cultivate a consciousness that fills that body. To be aware and intentional with your body in every moment.
In order to open the body, you must apply focused, clear, energized power in a consistent, ongoing way. A way that kneads, opens, turns, rotates, undulates the inside of the body continuously. The outside doesn’t have to move. Often the external movement takes away from the internal power. This is why you “don’t move”. If you move the sides of a glass, it will break. This is why you stand in stillness, in the shape of a post. This is why we stand in the horse stance.
Because the moment isn’t dead. The moment is alive. And the practices are alive. The moment isn’t static. It’s not a “thing”. It’s not an “end”. There is no “thing”. There is no place to get to. All things are in a state of flux. The state must be maintained. And releasing is like this. Peng is like this. Your life force is like this. You have to attend to it. And deepen it. And ignore the voices that tell you otherwise, and draw you back out into the world. This is what it means to practice internal arts.
