Holding Up Heaven--davideferro.com/Flickr

Holding Up Heaven

The thirteen postures chi kung system is very simple -- fitting it into modern life isn't. I suppose that in the old days Qi Gong practice was equally inconvenient, with only a few people thinking this was important enough to become obsessed with it, and a few others living such a luxurious life that they had plenty of time to play with the ideas.

The same situations apply today and I've had a little of both of those circumstances in past years, the obsession that drives you to learn in spite of obstacles and the luxury of a poverty that gave me plenty of time to do pointless things. Now my life is more normal, I'm productively self-employed, and unless I work and fill my time with productive efforts I don't make a living.

So the problem becomes how to fit something into my day that according to the old experts takes a minimum of an hour a day of practice to make any reasonable progress. Jeez, I already have to get out and run three times a week just to stay ahead in my cardio training. Now I have to find time for this, too.

Fortunately there are ways to begin which precede even the thirteen postures methods, and right now I'm fitting that in as I feel like it--not every day, but often enough to see some improvement from session to session, and hopefully as things get better I'll feel more like doing the rest of it.

Follow up:

Yang Jwing-Ming's training system starts with one posture. Most martial artists know it as horse stance. In Tai Chi, leg strength is very important. At least it is if you want to learn the combat forms--a lot of Tai Chi today is not focused towards that, and I'm interested in the ancient form of it rather than the kind without teeth. Spending five minutes in a deep horse stance with the hands poised just over the knees is the minimum Yang requires for beginning actual training. It's not an easy thing to do.

Adding the arm posture from one of the old Yi Jin Jing movements to this makes it a lot tougher. Arms arced overhead, palms turned toward the sky, fingertips pointing towards each other--do that in a horse stance for five minutes and you'll feel you've accomplished something.

That's as far as I can recommend any beginner should go. But, some years ago I became interested in the old Tai Chi system of training with light weights. Now I add that to these basic stances. What I'm doing at present is trying to hold this Holding Up Heaven stance, the raised hands and the deeper horse stance leg posture Yang recommends, for five minutes with a twenty five pound weight between my palms.

I use a dumbbell, one of the cast iron fixed weights with hexagonal ends, so I will not recommend that anyone try this themselves. If you drop the weight you could get hurt badly. Might drop on your head, might drop on your foot, so don't try this at home. Five minutes becomes a long time--this exercise possibly does not make you immortal, but it does make five minutes feel like forever. The dumbbell shape mimics the shape of the old Tai Chi Ruler, a much lighter wooden training device. Starting out with one of those makes a lot more sense.

Why do it? It generates the energy you need for the strange things, the things I like to do. It generates that energy quickly. Do this regularly and things happen. These old systems taught that the energy behind supernatural events can be generated physically, by doing specific difficult things. This is one of them.
Timing the practice is important. A clock timer that doesn't tick is less infuriating than one that does. Watching a display quietly roll down towards zero can be frustrating and anything but helpful. Timers are good when they release you from torture, but seeing how long you have left doesn't help much. Set a quiet timer for a countdown of five minutes and put it somewhere out of your line of sight.

What does seem helpful during the exercise is the older system of counting the breath. Many of the old Shaolin exercises used 49 repetitions as the optimum number. There's some esoteric significance but it also serves as a practical goal and a healthful limit. In the Holding Up Heaven stance, counting your breathing helps pass the time. Breath deeply and slowly as you practice and see how far you get. Forty nine is just about five minutes for me, when I have a decent practice session. If I'm struggling, my breathing gets faster towards the last of it and I finish sooner.

Might not be a totally traditional approach, but it's something. Anybody can spare five minutes. Right?