TABBY CAT Gamespace

Backoff

Sometimes, because I only bump people a little in push-hands practice, just jolt their balance gently so they have to take a small step, they assume that's the limit of the real Tai Chi power. ahahaha! Nothing further from the truth.

The reason I just bump people a little here and there is because people can get hurt. If you've never seriously injured somebody in sparring or some martial arts context, you don't know the feeling. It's absolutely horrible. Specially when there's blood all over the floor, body down and out, EMT's have been 911'ed - it's just horrible. But that was back in my Kung Fu days. You'd think Tai Chi would allow one to really rip loose. If you got it flaunt it!

But not so. The real Tai Chi power is much more potentially destructive. No, I'm not saying the real Tai Chi power will explode an attaacker's internal organs or any of that Ninja bullshit. I'm talking something a lot more prosaic.

Ever since the time, years back, at one of my teacher's seminars when I without even realizing it blasted a large agressive guy pinwheeling backwards over 20 feet into and through sealed fire doors out onto his butt in the parking lot, resulting in triggering the alarm and mandatory facility evacuation by fire fighters, I've learned to err on the side of absolute gentility.

The whole topic has been best summarized by some random person, below:

"From my experience as a lawyer, the most permanently damaging or fatal, situation in real life comes not as a result of any pressure point or exotic maneuver. The worst nightmare is simply is a bouncer/drunk/nitwit punching someone who is rendered unconscious and then falls, striking his head on the pavement. I have had 3 clients victimized in that fashion with catastrophic results. And another 2 beaten by police with flashlights and then falling unconscious and striking the back of their head on the ground. When the victim does not die outright, they lead the rest of their a shell of their former selves."

- from my 'Quotes' file on www.zmq37.com

Of course, he's talking raw street stuff. Nevertheless, random falling can be horrifically dangerous. Falling in an uncontrolled way can be incredibly dangerous regardless of what person or art triggered that fall. In Aikido with mats and students trained to fall and basically launching themselves into choreographed, controlled rolls, it's safe enough. And in ordinary Tai Chi push hands it would be safe enough. But if you can really trigger a partner's tension, I can't stress it strongly enough, you got to really really back off. Just play with little nudges, here and there, so they can learn to feel the energy and their own tension, that will be plenty enough.

 

White Flag

I will go down with this ship

And I won't put my hands up - and surrender

There will be no white flag above my door

I'm in love

And always will be.

- Dido 'White Flag'

* * *

 

Everywhere I see the same thing - surrender. Hey, I love martial sports. MMA, UFC, K1, boxing, even Olympic judo - they are beautiful, superb examples of ideal fitness, pure warrior heart and guts, mental acuity and physical true grit. Absolute true love. So don't get me wrong.

At the same time, at root I know it, they do not transcend the physical. And that to me is the only meaningful goal. Others will differ. Fine. I'm talking about me here, me me me.

These martial sports have come to dominate everything, all thinking on the subject. So what do I mean by physical? After all, I know as well as anyone that boxing is hugely a mental and emotional/psychological (not to say psycho :) game. But what I mean is: 

The strong beat the weak, the fast beat the slow, the big beat the small

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Now you are gonna trot me out so-and-so was small and he beat such-and-such who's bigger/stronger/faster. Yeah sure but those things don't affect the mindset. The mindset is physical in the sense I've defined. This physicality has crept into everything, even people who should know better when they talk about Tai Chi for example, lard up the discussion with physical tinsel like structure, tendons, tissues, joints, angles, spine (as a mechanical component), technique... on it goes.

But that ain't it. That's not what Tai Chi really is. You can say who is this fuck, Tabbycat, to be the one to define Tai Chi for the rest of us? Nobody, cause it's not me defining Tai Chi that way, it's people like Yang Chengfu, Chen Weiming, Zheng Manqing. That's what they've said and what they've meant. Tai Chi is a thing of transcendant (not tactical) mind and non-physical energy.

Listen if you want to bust Tai Chi down to all that physical/structural crap, or into the red-headed stepchild of that physicality which is performance obsession, then why do we need Tai Chi at all? We don't. There's plenty of practices that are way better looking, better for fitness, better for fighting (the first 40 years anyway ahahaha). If you are going to castrate Tai Chi in this modern way, then go the rest of the way and just stick the knife to the heart and be done with it. There's much better stuff out there.

Real Tai Chi perfect embodies one, and only one, but absolutely revolutionary shocking earth-shattering idea that potentially upends all of our human DNA-controlled animal drives for violence and strength. The idea that the soft truly defeats the hard. Four ounces can neutralize a thousand pounds. This is radical, revolutionary, amazing if you take it seriously instead of pasting it up as a Hollywood sound set and then getting all physical soon as the camera's off. 

So, taking nothing away from my pure admiration for all martial athletes, I'll assert Tai Chi as something radically distinct even til I'm the last person on earth doing so. Tai Chi is the ultimate art project.

 

WTF?

So now people write me asking, if I say Tai Chi isn't a striking art, then what is it?

Some people would give the shallow answer that it's a grappling art. In fact, the ever more popular Chen style  largely boils down to a kind of primitive standup grappling practice.

And before you even ask it, no, real Tai Chi isn't even a pushing art either. Because push at the end of the day is yet another physical modality, that is susceptible in principle of having more than four ounces applied.

So those isn't the answers at all. Real Tai Chi is neither a striking nor grappling nor a pushing art - I'd call it a contact art. In shallower arts, the means by which the practitioner establishes contact with an opponent are paramount. Striking is different from grappling etc. In real Tai Chi none of that matters. Real Tai Chi is in a higher dimensionality where what's needed is merely to establish contact (I'm leaving stuff like lingkongjing out of this discussion for now).

And I'm not talking here about badass 'full contact' in the sense of hitting like Mike Tyson. Don't mean that at all. Didn't I just get through saying TC is not a striking art? I'm just talking about touch that's all. In real Tai Chi a simple touch is the only delivery mechanism needed. If you ever see so-called Tai Chi or Ki masters using any degree of mechanical leverage, momentum, struggle for physical position, anything like that, it isn't real Tai Chi.

Just as an unsheated live eletric wire will zap your ass no matter particular shape (coiled, straight, curvy, hairpin, etc.) it may happen to be in when you touch it, Tai Chi is the same. Only contact is needed to transfer the energy shock, it doesn't have to be a particular body or method of contact.That's real Tai Chi. Simple, it's a contact art.

To believe it's a striking art due to some fist shapes in the Tai Chi form is extremely shallow thought betraying gross misunderstanding, as though you saw a stone temple pillar in the shape of a monster or dwarf in an Indian temple and concluded that such a dwarf actually existed and was holding up the roof. Not true in the least.

It's true that attributes trained from Tai Chi can be usefully applied to any variety of other types of arts, from grappling to striking a Tai Chi trained body (if it was real serious and correct Tai Chi) can enhance grappling, striking and other standard martial arts skills. But real Tai Chi per se is way beyond all of that.

Don't try to limit it!

 

 

 

How to approach push-hands

Push hands is a controlled, artificial attribute drill for developing and understanding internal power. I'm not going to get into the whole debate about whether push hands training has any combative value, and if so, what kind of ruleset is most appropriate or realistic, etc. all that is out-of-scope for this essay. Here, I'm going to assume a simple traditional framework of fixed step unbalancing practice, where the goal is to exploit the partner's tension to make him lose his balance and be forced to take at least one small step or else fall over.

What's the best way to approach it? There are two distinct situations what need to be distinguished clearly:

(1) Your internal power and relaxation levels are notably superior to your partner's.

(2) Your internal power and relaxation levels are substantially equal or inferior to your partner's.

These two situations call for radically different mindsets and treatments. But before we get to that we need to ask: how can you tell at the outset what your skill situation is relative to a (new) partner? It's very easy, but first you need to have at least passing familiarity with the four basic energy modes of push hands: Fire, Water, Earth, Air. These are fully detailed in my essay Ten Tenets of Taiji Training, point number 8: Push Hands).

For the present discussion, the diagnostic phase of intial push hands session, the key mode is Fire - if when  you first touch any part of his body you can instantly rebound him back a step with a touch, your level is superior to his in the sense that matters for this essay, situation (1). If he either yields or roots you, or rebounds you back from your light touch, his level is superior to yours - situation (2). If you have any doubts about the outcome of the Fire Test, your level is equal or inferior to his, situation (2). If you feel you need to repeat the test to be really sure what happened, again your level is equal or inferior to his, situation (2).

Now that we know where we stand, how does your approach to the two situations differ? If it's situation (2), your level is equal or inferior to your partner's, then you need to be in kitchen sink mode - throw anything and everything you have at him. Now, this is easy to misunderstand. Yes, I'm saying go hog wild (within your agreed ruleset of course) to move him out, but does that necessarily mean you have to invariantly use every single ounce of physical strength you possess at every moment of the session? Absolutely not! What it means is, you try everything to the absolute fullest of your mental and physical ability.

So sure, use every ounce of your physical strength frequently and fully, but also try totally relaxing, even collapsing on some exchanges. As for technique, use every technique you can think of, also try pushing yourself beyond technique and be totally natural and spontaneous. Try really caring about the outcome, try being totally indifferent to the outcome. Be tricky and tactical, be simple and stupid, be fast, be slow, try following him, try dominating him - just try everything and anything to the fullest of your physical and mental ability. Try adhering to the Classic's push hands advice, try throwing it all away. Try doing what I'm saying here, try ignoring what I'm saying here. Situation (2) calls for throwing the kitchen sink at him! (er, within your ruleset of course).

But do not parody this situation (2) advice by turning into a purely Physicalized Tazmanian Devil (PTD). That means just using your fullest physical strength to try to get him out on every exchange. Being a PTD is certainly a part of your appraoch to situation (2), but not the entire game. The real game is variation, try anything and see what sticks, that's how you can learn in situation (2).

These days, my teacher rarely if ever engages in a sustained session of freestyle push, but back in the day (1980's) for years I attended class every evening and I was blessed with frequent sustained sessions of free work with my teacher, often up to an hour at a time. Obviously I was in situation (2) on all those occasions. The first few times, I would try be all limp and soft and exquisitely Taichi pure as I imagined the Classics require. Of course this gave no result, but the interesting thing is that at those times my teacher would scold me, saying "You need to try everything to move me! Be soft, hard, fast, slow - only by trying it all will your body be really convinced that there's only one real Taiji way."

Of course it's true that the end state of correct application of internal power is total relaxation, but you need to earn it by playing real over a huge range of variation for a long time. Otherwise you'll never know your full potential. In situation (2) you will and should feel you have become a broken thermostat that never quite sets to the right temperature, but you need to dial low sometimes, high other times, undershoot and overshoot... only by knowing the full range of wrongness can you begin to crystallize that Taiji sweetspot in your body and mind. It's a Goldilocks thing.

Over time your skill will improve and your internal power will develop so that you'll more and more often find yourself in situation (1) - always checked intitially and confirmed by the result of the Fire Test described above. When you find yourself in situation (1), working with an partner at a lower level, you change your mindset completely. It's a totally different ballgame. In this situation, you must try to become the perfect embodiment of absolute Tai Chi purity. You don't violate the highest classic teachings by so much as a nanometer (then it will hit home to you how high that standard is and how frequently you're tempted to step over that line, or how often you step over it without even knowing it). You feel your partner's level and set yourself just above it, I mean one nanometer above it. You use 5% or less of your power. You yield to the point of giving him a good chance to knock you back if he can recognize it. If you are still too dominant, you stand straight up instead of a braced posture, or work with one hand while he uses both, or stand on one leg, etc. You handicap yourself. This way both you and he can have an extended and productive session where you both learn.

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Been reading up again on WND (Western Non-Duality theory, neo-advaita). Latest book to cross the transom is: Conversations on Non-Duality: Twenty-Six Awakenings Eleanora Gilbert (ed.).

Here we have text transcripts of live interviews (most available as youtube video) conducted within the past couple years or so with twenty six "awakeners". That means people who (say they) have realized the final truth that there is not agent, no person, no individual actor or decider, nobody home, nobody to take delivery of all the petty concerns, schemes, fears, plans, ambitions, regrets, etc. that still plague those among you who erroneously believe you are in the driver's seat of your own life.

You don't exist and neither do these twenty six interviewees. Of course, your character may be said to exist, but just as a bundle of arbitrary and somewhat comical surperficial personality quirks and random meaningless preferences. But there need be no more drama attached to any of that personal trivia.

Most of these Awakeners are middle-class, middle-aged, reasonably well educated Anglo/Caucasian people. They have mostly done years (most often decades in fact) of more conventional (if that's the word) spiritual searching. Things like TM and Tibetan Buddhism and various forms of Western psycho0-therapy come up often in their backgrounds. Now as they age it seems they basically got tired of running around to expensive seminars and India retreats and have decided simply to declare victory and go home.

That is sometimes an event but more often a two-step process. Step 1 is awakening, Step 2 is liberation. Awakening is when your personal sense of agentive self first disappears. At that preliminary stage, the world felt kind of empty, sterile, cold, and flat to many of these people. They had personally disappeared and there was nothing else out there to replace themselves with, if you can follow that. A number of the interviewees refer to this awakening phase as despair. But even in the mre awakening phase there was an appealing feeling of unity, cold though that comfort may have been.

In the liberation phase, usually a few weeks to a few months subsequent to awakening, they got a liberation, which is the more joyful sense of that same featureless unity because while there were still no longer any individual objects or people, there was then a sense of incipient fullness that just somehow felt better than the awakening phase. Not every interviewee breaks it down this 2-step way but many do, either explicity or implicitly.

Note they would jump all over me for writing things like "They got a liberation", not only cause the grammer's questionable but because there was no longer any they (he or she) person to get anything. There's just a character, a kind of puppet-like cardboard cutout figure of who they once imagined themselves to be. Basically it's another Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake for a new century...

But I don't mean to sound hard on them, as clearly they are onto to something with this. The descriptions of the (non)experience are so consistent and emphatic that I figure where there's smoke there's fire. So I'm fully convinced they see beyond me on this, and I plan to get me some of that. 

So I have no beef with these people at all. But I still feel that the whole picture, as presented in books like this, is a tad ... unagressive if you will. I mean, it's fine for your sense of yourself as an agentive individual to fizzle out like this and be replaced with a tepid sort of unitary bathwater, but it still allows the flow of events and other (pseudo) agents around you to control you.

Now these WND awakeners would say that's all there is anyway - whether you're awakened or not,  there's no way around the endless meaningless flow of uncontrollable pseudo-events. But I figure why not set my sights higher. Just to take one example, if there's any way to avoid (having the feeling that you have been) reincarnated, as postulated in classical Buddhism, that's gotta be something worth aiming for.

I mean, where would we be today if Columbus had just accepted that the Earth is flat and there's nowhere to go? (if you are a First Nations person don't answer that!)

Had a great time playing 合気上げ・手上げ　(aiki-age, pron. 'aye key ah gay' / te-age, pron. 'tay ah gay') the other day with my pal K. K is a pro MMA fighter here, young Japanese guy who I met some years ago through boxing. Point being in addition to being a nice guy he's a lot physically stronger and fitter and younger than me, not to mention all his ring experience, so a perfect partner for playing aiki age.

I've gotten into aiki-age as a way to expand my demo repetoire beyond push hands. Push hands can be a bit hard to relate to for non Tai Chi people, plus the way I do it can be kind of shocking and sometimes perceived rough, even though I always tone it way down to about 5% to 10 % of actual capacity.

But anyway aiki age is something everybody can instantly relate to. Plus, it's deep. To practice it you need a partner who's seriously stronger physically than yourself and also a seriouisly adept martial artist or else, if you work with a normal person, just any old friend or relative, you'll end up just using strength or your body will figure out little pre-movement tricks.

But for the real thing, you need to work with somebody that you can test the following: If I use ordinary physical strength of any degree, and/or any kind of technique or angle change or timing trick, can I raise my hands against this guy? If the answer to that is 'yes' you are working with the wrong person. Find somebody tougher.

So, K is perfect. The answer to the above question, him being as I said half my age, twice my strength and ring experience not to mention 100x my technique inventory - the answer to the above question was NO FUCKING WAY could I raise my hands using any combination of mechanical strength and/or technique. Beside I'm nursing a sore shoulder from over-Ashtangizing myself recently and I don't wanna strain anyhow. But I had to make sure.

SO - then,  lo and behold, I do got the knack of aiki now, so when I did it aiki style - poof! K's toppled over instantly, totally flabergasted. Ahahaha! Truly those moments are the real fun of internal martial arts! Anyway I then worked over a lot of variations, to cement my understanding of how Sagawa was rocking it. It's basically the same thing I normally do in push hands (kuzushi) but with a slight different accent. Like climbing same mountain from the north instead of south face or something. Blast..

I'm often asked about the relation if any between Yi Quan and Tai Chi, especially my own brand of Zheng style. I've answered this before but I'll review.

Basicallly, in a perfect world Yi Quan and Tai Chi are exactly the same thing. They really are, at bottom. Because both have the one single goal of training you to inject your MIND into your BODY. That's the only purpose of these arts. And you could go further and say the same about Xing Yi, Ba Gua and lots of others.

So then, the follw up question comes, why do I emphasize ZMQ Tai Chi so much, when it's no different than Yi Quan or anything else? I'll answer that with a question of my own: Do we live in a a perfect world?

Point being, that while the essence of Yi Quan is designed for that one purpose, in practice it rarely works out that way. Because of the raging hormones of the typical male animal who gets into martial arts in the first place, they wanna get all combative and physical and in your face and everything. That attitude extends into and stains even their (subconcious) approach to their most basic solo work such as standing meditation. Tenses them up. In short they don't understand relaxation (don't feel bad guys, neither does anybody else).

And without that pre-requisite they don't have much of a leg to stand on. They end up all tense and technique-y and structure-y and posture-y and anatomical same as everybody else.

Never theless, the underlying design and intent of Yi Quan is superb if only the later people had been able to really understand the founder's vision. But that never happens does it?

So for practical approach to the real shit, I've found ZMQ37 is best, peerless, bar none.

 

 

 

The Push Hands LIP Game

Invest in loss.

- Professor Zheng Manqing

* * *

Warrior extraordinaire Vladimir Vasiliev teaches a fun little game (this is one among his thousands such, I'm calling it out for a reason). Students A and B face each other on the floor in raise push-up position. At the signal, A and B try, without moving their feet, each to somehow take down the other, by hooking the guy's arm or neck, pushing him over, or plain outlasting him in the position. First one to touch a body part other than hands and feet to the mat "loses".

But really nobody loses because it's just a fucking attribute drill. Got that? Do I have to review yet again the difference between attributes vs fight skills? Jeeeeez. So. I'll assume you have enough brain cells to make the distinction.

(There are many variations of the above pushup game, such as starting side-by-side, etc.)

Notice how this is a game for attribute development. I doubt that many real fight scenarios will involve precisely this configuration. Since its an attribute thing, you don't have to worry about the guy pulling a knife (oops, actually there is a knife version of this drill but). Or protecting your head or feet, or wearing a plastic faceguard in case your partner is HIV positive and spits on you,  etc. This isn't boxing. Anyway, in a fight, I'm gonna scream and shout, run about, throw things, and generally act feral. Fight has little to do with push hands, so don't act like and amateur, mixing the two up please. Or else just stop reading this post right now as you ain't gonna like it.

Puah hands: A Tai Chi-based cooperative but non-compliant drill to develop attributes of balance, sensitivity, and energy issuance. Plus, to have fun.

With all the above said, I have a fantasy game in mind for push hands. Yeah it's just fantasy so don't rag me with all the usual adversarial bullshit, thanks.

This is the Push Hands LIP (Loss Investment Prize) Game.

First of all, what's the Prize? Well, it involves money (yes as a human your endocrine glands should be secreting now). But only in a small scale playful sense. Keep it fun nothing too serious.

It's a non-symmetrical game, with a designated Defender and Challenger. Basically it involves keeping track of foot movements and paying out according. But there are a lot of details, to wit:

The LIP Game Rules:

1. Challenger can move feet freely - but for setup/offense only (not to save his balance in defense).
2. Defender may not move feet at all, beyond minor comfort adjustment.
3. Every time Challenger is able, via push, or via movement generated from a lock or hold, to "force" Defender  to move one or both foot involuntarily, unbalancing him, that's PLUS ONE point for Challenger.
4. Every time Challenger "forced" to move feet, involuntarily, due to unbalancing by Defender, that's MINUS ONE point for Challenger.
5. After 30 mins or total 50 Challenger points (whichever first) Defender will pay out money equal to 2 USD for every Challenger point. Players reset after every exchange (one or two attempted moves) whether a point is scored or not. If a point was scored or decremented, that is recorded on a paper and next exchange begins from neutral facing Tai Chi bow step position as in normal push hands practice.
6. If Challenger points less than or equal to zero after 30 mins, Defender makes no payment.
7. Points will be written on a sideline paper after every PLUS or MINUS point event. Point only recorded PLUS or MINUS if both Challenger and Defender agree it was a true and clean point.
8. To avoid strength jams, either Defender or Challenger can at any point in an exchange before a point-scoring foot movement is made call "JAM" and then the players reset to neutral start position witih no points added or debited for that exchange.
9. In first pure version of the game, no throws, sweeps, or tackles/shoots allowed, but maybe in enhanced versions later. Arm locks and arm/upper-body oriented submissions only allowed as a setup for getting a foot move, not trying to force a tapout per se.

While at first glance it may look like a weirded up version of a fixed step push hands tournament ruleset, so why bother with this? Ah, but that's because you are blind to some innovative nuances here. First of all, this game is asymmetric. The Defender has to pay out for his losses, s/he cannot "win" anything. Second, the direct use of MONEY helps to keep it psychologically real yet phsycially non-injurious. Third, notice that no ref is required, unlike a tournametn. Two people alone can play this game, and the point agreement rule helps to keep it friendly and peaceful, unlike t he agressive atmosphere of a tournament.

Of course this game won't work if either player is an asshole etc. I take that as a given, that you are starting with quality people (of whatever actual Tai Chi level).

The reason at least this first version is focused on fixed step is that

(a) foot movment gives a pretty clear scoring criterion - again avoiding the need for a ref, and arguments about who did what supported by instant replay. Moving step can have clear scoring if you allow throws and sweeps, but also more complex, dangerous, needs more room, possibly mats, etc. Just doesn't fit the lite spirit of the LIP Game. Also, more importantly,

(b) believe it or not (most people don't), fixed step push hands allows for the development of energetic skills that simply can't be developed any other way. Most people don't understsand its purpose or practice at all.

 

For humans, the answers to only two questions are salient:
(1) Money in the bank?
(2) Gas in the tank?

- Tabby Cat

* * *

I've often said here that YiQuan and the deeper versions of Tai Chi are basically the same thing. Both privilege energetics over dance, conditioning, technique, or all the rest.

The primary difference is merely one of diretionality of focus. Yiquan power (for the few that ever discover it, I mean) is trained omnidirectionally. Every cell is exuding energy in all directions at once. Yes there is a dominant motif (rising, lowering, forward, back, open, close) but all the other directional modalities are always co-present and in almost equal degrees. Furthermore, in no movement is any one body part singled out as most salient (energetically, apart from surface form which I've been trying to tell you all means little, but your materialist minds can't uncoil themselves from your bao-like grip on surface materiality and structure).

Whereas Tai Chi energy always has a vector - a single unified line of focus and application. That's the main difference. But just like the y/y symobl, either could interchange itself with its brother modality on a moment's notice. So this dichotomy means little. Just like everything else.

(This post refers to advanced level of Yiquan vs Tai Chi. For beginners, Yiquan is almost hopeless, as the pre-requisite quality/skill of relaxation is for all practical purposes impossible for a beginner under Yiquan training regime.)

We've all heard that there's a Taoist energy ladder that applies to internal martial arts: ming jing 明劲(obvious energy); an jing 暗劲 (secret energy); and hua jing 化劲 (mysterious energy). But you rarely see a clear or at least a personal testimony as to the difference in the actual lived experience of these.

One common mistake (because for the most part people haven't experienced any of these) is to equate ming jing obvious energy with common physical kinetics, and then assume that any kind of qi experience must be the subsequent stage, that of an jing secret energy.

But that's not it. Ming jing refers to the electrical/hydraulic experience of qi that I've writen about many times before. Ming jing is experienced as hydraulics and/or electrical type of flow and sparky-spiky energy.

At the very lowest end of the ming jing range are the little tinglings and skin-brushing type of energy sensations that any Tom, Dick, or Harry total beginner will feel from 5 minutes or so of common qi gong instruction. But make no mistake about ming jing - even this lowest rung on the energy food chain represents a range, not a point. The low end is what I wrote about but the high end of this range is a sunburst or starburst of electrical-thermal-hydraulic radiation from the dan tian 丹田 (remember that this first energy is correlated to the microcosmis orbit 小周天) that feels like it should put the sluice flow at Hoover dam to shame. Internal plutonium bomb! It's real... obvious. Ya can't mistake it unless you haven't ever turned it on (as most Tai Chi practitioners and even teachers have not).

Far out. So, what's left to be the secret energy? Now that's a horse of another color altogether. secret energy is correlated in the classical texts with changing the sinews. (Note: this does not mean that you need to grab your Grays Anatomy and start pontificating on the muscle and tendon structure of the human body. It refers to a comprehensive energetic process only.) My point here is, what's the actual feeling of that, the personal experience?

Obviously hard to write up, but its a much quieter, much more subtle, and yet far "deeper" feeling experience. The energy pulses inside as multiple thick-feeling layers of some hard-yet-soft element kind of like a very high-end rubbery substance. You feel your tissues are changed into something like a police baton rubber - incredibly hard and yet somehow also soft. Soft, slow, silky, strong. Pulsing and sluicing through the limbs (remember this energy is correlated with the macrocosmis orbit 大周天 stage).

Instead of being experienced as various linked yet distinct parts, all your limbs and joints and tissues are experienced as a single chunk of unified substance. Instead of the hydraulic/electrical/flow type of sparky current feelinlg of the obvious energy, this is a feeling of uniform static pressure like a truck tire at max pressure, both super hard and yet also elastic. The obvious energy is like a wave cresting and breaking on the shore, but the secret energy is like a long, large ocean swell far out, that doesn't break just rolls long, deep, and slow. An incredible, amazing, unearthly feeling. And that again is only the lower-end experience of this middle rung.

The obvious energy is fundamentally a hydraulic experience, while the secret energy is essentially pneumatic.

And that's enough for now.