My new manga-format graphc training manual INFUSION has a heap of internal drills, one of which is from Xinyiliuhe by way of Master Qian Zhaohong. I discuss and illustrate all the crucial details in the book, but some people asked for a quick & dirty visual reference, so here is the most basic stage of it.
Key thing: It's hard to tell from visual inspection, but the key to the beginner phase of this is to check that you're able to achieve the full arm motion strictly VIA BODY DYNAMIC ALONE. That is, for one early phase of this training, you need to confirm that you are able to achieve the full arm motions USING YOUR BODY ONLY as the power source for all motion. As though your arms are just ropes, with no intrinsic tension, no muscles, no ability to power themselves. So if your BODY doesn't supply the power and motion, your arms will stop dead in their tracks. Yes, here it is - this is the dreaded, feared and much mocked "noodle" mode of work, LMAO! Noodliing is not at all the final point of internal work, but it is an exploratory stage which you must undergo in order to understand yourself better.
It's not super hard at all, but at first you may be surprised as you begin to feel how much you really WANT to use the arms own muscles, tension, and structure to achieve the motions and shapes. But if you stick with it for a few minutes, you'll begin to realize that you can do it all STRICTLY by means of your legs and your waist turns, and shifts of body weight.
This phase is strictly a checkpoint, and an exploration, it will help you understand how tense you are in your arms and shoulders. Even people who've done a lot of Qi Gong or other Tai Chi, because most such systems are so extremely arm centric, it will take you a minute or two to teach yourself how to DROP ALL THAT arm and shoulder tension.
The video above is only one EARLY PHASE of this drill. It's a good initial EXPLORATION - however it's not the entire final point of the drill. Because when you do it in this floppy mode you are also losing something. Most people will have to withdraw their MIND in order to achieve the necessary total withdrawal of tension and muscle engagement. That's not right either. [-mind] is as bad as [+tension]. That's why the phase shown in the drill above is only the preliminary. Having understand and minimized/eliminated extraneous arm and shoulder engagement and tension, we then must RESTORE YOUR MIND to the gameboard.
In the INFUSION book, I explain how to restore your mind to the work using a kind of 'prop' object, and I also teach a final, purely energetic, 'checkpoint' stage. But you can BEGIN to 'restore mind' (only AFTER going pure noodle for a while!) by beginning in pure noodle mode, then very very slightly extending your fingertips. Mostly mental, just very slightly engage just your fingertips with your mind, as you continue powering the macro/gross movement as above, with body and legs only. Feel that mind power then begin to surge through your arms as you continue with the motion. But don't rush into the fingertip infusion before you really understand and can perform the full-on pure noodle mode.
So there's more to it than shown in the clip above, the rabbit hole goes ever deeper. But since my friends were kind enough to film this little demo clip at a small teaching event this past summer, I though I'd put it out there for whoever may have picked up INFUSION but wondering how (this stage of) the drill ought to look and feel.
I'm planning to attempt for a big summer teaching event somewhere in Oregon this coming summer where I'll go over TONS of nuances, details and extensions of both the INFUSION work and a bunch of 'new' work that will be out by then as INFUSION Vol. 2.