The clip above is for my tutorial video Dark Fire, on Xingyi staff training basics. I want to explain one amazing feature of this training, that probably isn't clear to even the most ardent devotees of this practice. Not their fault though - it's a seemingly subtle thing that's easy to miss if you aren't looking for it. It's one of those: "If I don't tell you this, you'd practice for a hundred years and never realize it" (Yang Chengfu) fine points. In this case related to Xingyi, but it's also relevant to internal power universals.
So what's up with it. First you have to understand the overall Dark Fire method. I'll have to assume that if you've read this far that you kinda have that under your belt. I can't retype the entire video transcript here with illustrations. But if you've been working with it a while, here's a surprising and amazing fine point.
One of the key training goals of Xingyi is to bring the power through your arms to your forearms to your hands - explicitly. Tangible. Not as a fantasy, an image in your mind, a philosophy, a concept, a theory or any such thing. Something you'll feel just as trangibly though not painfully as grabbing a live high tension electric cable. But the problem is that most training drills don't quite address this "last mile" problem. They work on foundations like generating power up form legs (which is essential) or they emphasize the mental aspect of projecting it through your arms to your hands, which is also essential. But there's a way to supercharge to effect of actually 'forcing' it through to your hands, the 'last mile'. And the focus on hands is not that hands per se are any more important than any other body part. Your entire body needs to be, and will be, super charged through these drills. But the hands are the farthest 'out there' extension. If you can tangibly project to/through your hands, it a way of insuring that everything else is covered and connected.
So. The relation to the Dark Fire Xingyi staff work is simple yet clever. If you've read my book AXE Advanced Xingyi Energetics, you know that the energy target for Santi fundamental stand training is also conveying the energy through your whole body explicitly to the "meat" portions of your hands (that's where you'll feel the power injecting first. Here's the pic of that, from the book, using a doughnut to visually convey that there's kind of a 'ring' of meatier sections of the palm where you'll actually feel the power accumulating:
That should make it really clear where the more packable parts of your hands are, and where the energy will begin filling. So what does that have to do with staff drills? Normally, nothing at all. Because in general in staff training, people grip the pole way to tensely, too hard. But if you do two things, both from Dark Fire:
- Use the pelvic activation protocol taught in the film. Essential.
- Then, grip so lightly that you are just in 'skin contact' all around the pole with your hands - not tensely gripping. Just the bare surface of your skin to the bare surface of the staff. This is explained in the film.
All the relevant parts of your hands are now 'in contact' with something. You won't get it at first, but after a while you'll realize that this light contact makes you tangibly feel the internal power pouring into your hands (via your arms and ultimately fro your whole body) as you stand. With this kind of grip (and the whole protocol to generate the energy) the light grip leverages the staff body as a kind of "response surface" that give you proprioceptive feedback on the energy infusion as it happens. Most people never feel this from staff work because of how tightly they grip, which squashes the inflatable areas of your hands (the doughnut regions, see above). But then when we stand in Santi, until you are very advanced it's also hard to tangibly feel the infusion as your hands are in contact with nothing. There's no "response surface". I can't explain every last nuance here. but this is enough to give you the key working insight.
Feel the power filling your hands, for the first time!