Q: Thank you for your recent essay with the great photo about the 1-leg standing in Yi Quan on TCGS blog . It seems very promising. I know you said it is simple, and we should just do it. However, would you be willing to explain just a litle more about the expected effect of this practice on our energy shell?
A: OK, I will explain a little more about the internal aspect of this. In my book 5G Tai Chi, I wrote about what I call the MUX unit of your body. MUX stands for 'Muladhara Unit eXtension'. It is the entire assembly of your lower abdomen, hips, pelvis, and femoral juncture. This is like the engine of internal energy accumulation and activation, corresponding to the 'A' component of the ARC energy circuit which is covered in all of my books.
The MUX as a unitary component (as presented in 5G book) can be thought of like the engine in a car. The engine is the power unit, then other pieces hookup to it for transmitting the forces to the most immediate deployment (axles to tires to road). We can also look inside the engine at its subcomponents, one of which is the "Engine Block" (see pic above). This is the structural framework of the engine, from which all the other sub-components hook into and hang off of. Similarly, there's a sub-component of the MUX that will be specifically and strongly felt, activated, and connected energeticaly via that Yiquan Single Leg Standing drill.
The MUX component that is equivalent to the Engine Block, and which is activated and energized by that Single Leg Standing is basically the rear wall of the pelvis. That is essentially your sacrum, but also the back walls of the ilium. Basically its the rear lower part of the MUX. I will call that the MUX-Block or Plate. Keep in mind that the MUX is an energetic component, not your physical anatomy, though it is closely aligned and interpenetrated with your physical pelvis, hips, and lower abdomen guts.
So anyway, if you stand in that Yiquan One Leg long enough (by the calendar, not so much by the clock) and persistently enough, eventually you will feel the very powerful energetic linkage between your both arms (in the configuration of the drill) and your MUX-Block or Plate. You don't need to force this - it will pretty much happen by itself over time. Keep your arms in that configuration, correctly, but without excess tension especially in your shoulders. You need to keep some slice of mental focus on your relaxed but well shaped arms in order to maintain your balance on one leg. That's essential. But the rest of your mental focus can be on just feeling all your torso at first and then focus on the energy infusion of the MUX-Block. That will connect energetically to your arms. Once the connection is fully established you'll feel a gigantic infusion of the internal flow into your arms from that area. Then later, you'll realize that you can trigger and use this amped flow in any of your more general cultivation. The power will naturally express itself in the practice of Xingyi, Tai Chi, Ba Gua etc.