Chris Ray's Internal Arts dispatch

Lazarus 2: Neil's story

Later, on the evening of the third day I bumped into Neil who had an amazing story to tell about his experience of the retreat

About ten years ago Neil had a very nasty car accident on the motorway in which his shoulder had been quite severely damaged.

The shoulder joint had pulled out of shape - the ball had parted company from the socket – with the result that his shoulders were now asymmetrical.

The left shoulder was ½ inch lower than the right and he had twice had operations in which the metal pins had been inserted to hold the shoulder together. He had been advised by the doctor to have it pinned yet again as it would occasionally, without warning, just fall out of kilter resulting in expensive surgery.

When it goes out of kilter then Neil has a bad time because it's very painful – the problem with the shoulder also pulls the rest of the body out of balance and on a bad day Neil feels as if he's auditioning for the part of Quasimodo.

In order to keep the shoulder strong he goes to the gym but the problem is, if he overdoes it on the gym, then it just makes things worse.

In other words, at best it's a pain in the arse and at worst, it hurts like…er, buggery….hmmm, perhaps I should move onto another metaphor at this point

Lets get on with the story about Neil's remarkable experience – in order to do so, however, I'm going to have to introduce Dan, who is also implicated….

Dan's bit

I have been studying the Wu Style Tai Chi short form with Chris for just under a year, having been introduced to Real Taoism by a friend who studies Ba Gua with Chris.

This is my first retreat, and I was attracted to the week in Scotland mainly due to the spinal Chi Gung work. My main reason for starting Tai Chi in the first place was to help ease a lower back problem, which had developed into Sciatica.

On day three of the Retreat I gave Neil a Chi Nae Tsang (Internal Chi) massage, with Neil duly returning the favour.

Dan's experience

I felt wonderful afterwards – as if an enormous amount of pent up energy had suddenly been released within me. Neil was able to identify an area deep below my abdominal muscles, to the left of my navel, that was extremely knotted-up. I found that having this particular area massaged helped relieve a great deal of tension in my back, as well as loosening up my stomach and pelvis area – something I was unaware had ever been tight and knotted.

Neil's story in which Dan plays the Nazarene to Neil's Lazarus!

What was even more amazing was the effect that the massage had on Neil.

When I massaged Neil there had been a really noticeable difference between the height of his left and right shoulders. During the massage, in which I was working on his lower abdomen, he felt a strong pull in his shoulder area. Just to make sure he wasn't imagining it, I massaged the area again and, sure enough, he felt the effect again in his shoulder.

At the time we didn't know what to make of it but afterwards I remembered what Chris had said about fascia in the body being like a web which connected different parts of the body under the skin in a way that's invisible to the eye.

The next day he asked me to take a look at his shoulders, and to be honest it was almost miraclulous, because shoulders are almost symmetrical again (perhaps a difference in height now of 1/2 centimetre).

Goodbye to the Osteopath!

Neil had been going to the osteopath once a month to keep the shoulder stable and during problem periods once or twice.

When Neil gets home he is going to discontinue the services of the osteopath, which was costing him a pretty penny, and introduce his partner to the art of Taoist massage that he learned on the retreat in order to keep his shoulders in tip top condition.

I buttonholed to a few people on the retreat to find out a bit more about them and why they chose to come here.

Johnny Walker is in his late twenties. He lives in Manchester. This is his story.

RealTaoism: So what's your background?

Johnny: I studied karate for 11 years or so.  Then I discovered Wing Tsun.  Loving what I saw I got further and further into the training to the point where I decided to teach it professionally.  Four years down the line I now run my own school in Manchester.

RealTaoism: And what is your interest in chi gung and the internal arts?

Johnny: I came across Chi Gung almost by accident about a year ago and was blown away by it's potential.  It seems an ideal companion to Wing Tsun and I'm really beginning to feel the difference in my training as my internal awareness and co-ordination grows. 

I'm discovering tension deep inside by body that I never knew existed and as it begins to soften and dissolve the difference is amazing.  My whole body just feels better and better.  We seem to get so used to tension and holding and the pain that it causes that we forget just how good we can feel!


RealTaoism: How do you find working with Chris?

Johnny: Chris is a fantastic teacher.  He seems to have the rare talent of not only having great skills and understanding himself, but also the ability to convey this simply and directly to his students.

RealTaoism: What was it about this retreat in particular that attracted you?

Johnny: I really enjoy training on retreats.  The intensity of training for several consecutive days seems really magnify the effect when compared the same amount of practice spread over a long period. 

There is time to go into much greater detail than a single day or weekend workshop plus there is the time to practice it; so hopefully the knowledge and training will really get a chance to imprint onto my nervous system and take hold at a really deep level.

The peaceful, relaxed atmosphere at and around Samye Ling has a powerful effect.  Just being here, you can feel any background stress melting away and this again reinforces the training we're doing.

RealTaoism: And what do you feel you've gained from the spinal work on the retreat?

Johnny: Working on the spine has been particularly fascinating.  Gaining conscious control over its movement opens up all sorts of potential.   It's like there's been a giant area of numbness in my body that's slowly woken up.  After just a few days I can already feel the effect when walking around and I'm really excited about integrating this into my Wing Tsun.

---

At breakfast this morning everyone talks about how unacccustomed they are to sleeping so soundly. Deep sleep, the curious absence of alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are taking their toll.

People are entering into a curious altered state - it's called relaxation apparently.

Some are even smiling!

As I walk into the breakfast room people are sharing their dreams - strangely, there are a number of motifs which seem to be recurring: there is a lost child in a number of the dreams.

Perhaps these synchronicities are a function of working so closely together in such a confned environment without distractions.

We have been working on loosening up and becoming more aware of the spine over the last few days and this morning, following some preliminary warm-up exercises, Chris demonstrates the 'internal organ massage' the function of which is to loosen up the stomach muscles and fascia which constrict the free movement of the internal organs - this in turn frees up the muscles and fascia around the back which inhibit free movement of the lower spine.

The internal organ massage involves getting quite intimate with the midriff area (kneading and feeling for knots between the lower rib cage and the groin area) and I'm probably not the only one wondering how this it's going to feel having someone knead my guts like a big lump of dough and who is going to be on the receiving end of my - far from expert - ministrations.

Of course, the fact of the matter is far less disconcerting than the anticipation

It s really very relaxing and more than a little shocking to discover just how tight one's stomach muscles are and how this 'landlocks' your guts and constricts their movement.

I asked Chris what benefits does the internal organ masage deliver and is anything else out there that compares?

Chris: There are some types of abdominal massage out there as well as visceral manipulation.

To be honest when I studied western massage, they skipped over the abdomen so quickly and superficially that  you would feel like a pervert for even wondering if the abdomen and pelvis were suitable areas for consideration. They massaged everyhting else but conveniently glossed over the centre of the human body. 

It seemed that it was a taboo area and that to massage there was dangerous. There are a few cautions when working in this area of the body, not the least of which being the location: close to the sexual organs.

The whole premise of all the so called internal arts including chi gung is to access what is the most important area in terms of body and organ function and your health. Your movements  must impact on this area of your body for you to progress in overall body awareness.Your chi gung or Tai Chi practice must have the effect of  loosening the organs and fascia. This is done gently and methodically. 

A lot of exercise works the abdominal area, but the key is to make sure that it releases  internal restriction. Internal organ massage is a great supplement to chi gung practice.

________________________________________________________________

just in case you were wondering what 'spinal chi gung' looks like, here are some photographs of retreatants caught in the act:

 

Johnnie & Lisa going through spinal chi gung

and here is the internal organ massage in action. massage is used as a preparation to augment spinal movement by loosening up the abdominal area. Kneading the soft tissue with a spiralling motion releases layers of  tension which are binding fascia, muscle and organs together and the resulting release of abdominal tension aids spinal movement.( Fascia is the connective tissue that envelopes muscle and organs) 

Retreatants were taught the technique and practised it upon one another - they reported that they could feel tension which often resonated from the abdominal area reaching up through to the neck, chest and head.

This kind of hands on feedback helps to give patricipants a clear experiential understanding  of how the fascia of the body is an interconnected structure like a spiders web of connective tissues that reatches out all over the body like an invisible under skin . Knots of tension form in one part of the web, causeing snags which pull the web out of shape so that tension felt in one place can be a displacement from a seemingly unconnected area. 

Preparing for the evening meal,

more reports from retreatants in the morning!

 

 

  

Today is Monday, the second full day of the retreat. We didn't post Saturday night because many of us had been through punishing six or seven hour train journeys from London to get here and we were cream-crackered and hit the sack hard.

As for the second day - the internet café at Samye Ling closed early and we found ourselves out on the courtyard of the café clutching the laptop with only the peacocks for company.

Shame…

Nevertheless, here's the story so far:

The group

The group is composed of a variety of people of different ages from diverse backgrounds though there seems to be a heavy weighting toward two constituencies in particular: media people on the one hand, and people with a background in alternative medicine and complementary therapies, on the other. 

More about the people later on – in fact I have warned them that I will be going amongst them at strategically inopportune (for them, not for me) moments (e.g. tea breaks) in order to get some vox populi.

By now the group is less fragmented, faces have become real people with personalities and stories and there is a furious hubbub at breaks and lunchtime

We thought it would be good to try and convey a sense of what it's like to be here at Samye Ling. I 've got to say that the food, even tho it is vegetarian, is superb and the accommodation is fine – it's eerily reminiscent of a redbrick uni halls of residence though with the added feature of a pair of shrine rooms where the teaching takes place. 

Now…..what is it that we are actually here to learn? I know it says 'Spinal Chi Gung' on the flyer but maybe we can break this down a little. What is Spinal Chi Gung and what is it good for?

Q&A

I asked Chris a few questions so that we could open this esoteric sounding practise up a little:

Q. So what is Spinal Chi gung and why should anyone take the trouble to come here and spend 6 days leaning backwards and then forwards to try and open up their spine?

A. Spinal Chi Gung is a term designating a method of spinal awareness training. For example; if you strip away all the overt motion of Tai Chi Chuan you are left with a series of core motions, energetic patterns if you like, one of these motions produces a wave like energy that streams through your central nervous system and your spine.

This energy permeates the vertebrae, the spinal chord and the fluid that bathes the cord. So I am teaching people how to access the energy of the spine directly and get an experience of its condition.

This kind of skill is inherent in a Tai Chi form. However you cannot find it by accident. You have to be educated about what you can and cannot do with your spine.

Q. Why should anyone try and open up their spine in the first place? 

A. Well, because it makes no sense whatsoever not to, because your quality of life is dependant on how you feel inside, and your insides, that is to say, your organs, all hang off your spine.

So if your spine and back are immobile then this will have an adverse effect on your organs. 

A freely moving spine effects your emotions in a positive way - you feel emotionally capable when your spine and organs achieve increased motility.

An inflexible spine leads to chi and blood stagnation in the body, and in the long run can lead to ill health and various organ and systemic problems. To be accurate, we misuse our spine on a regular basis due to general lack of awareness. 

I just demonstrated to some of the people here on the retreat how you can exercise your spine in public without anyone being aware that you are exercising at all. You do not have to perform impressive gymnastics to gain a healthy spine.  

Think about it for one moment. If you are moving around in your daily activity you are exercising anyway. The key question to ask yourself is - how efficiently is your body holding up under the stresses and strains of your daily routine.

If your body is not holding up well this is because of a lack of awareness - in other words your aren't conscious of the ways in which you are actually abusing your body.  

If you want to feel good, then reclaim your Spine!

Q. You talk about how this teaching is best learned when integrated with a practise, that it's best not taught as a stand alone practise. What do you mean by this?

A. I do not think that spinal work should be taught in isolation. I say this because the movements involved in spinal chi gung, simple though they are, choreographically tap into areas of the body where suppressed and even repressed emotions are stored.

Like suddenly discovering a forgotten and potentially disturbing word file on your home PC.  Once opened, these emotional data reserves may not make very pleasant reading.

So I decided to present this work along with meditation practice to help calm the mind and emotions of the practitioners. This approach works well along with specific standing chi gung postures which help the participants open the leg and pelvic channels.

This then releases any internal pressure or blockages in the lower-back . Without this vital element you could end up moving chi around the spine without safely integrating it with the legs and the ground beneath you.

Back problems are caused most often because a person can no longer ground the chi/ energy of their spines.

What also helps with this course is that we start every day with a moving core body mechanic routine so that the spinal work has a direct and perceptible application in and through the kind of complex movements that inform our daily lives.

Later we will post some more stuff about who's here and how they are coping with the first few days of teaching and practise.

Gotta say this. Nice thing is the silence – once your're asleep you're really asleep. The lights go and out and suddenly it's morning. You wake refreshed feeling like you've really slept – unlike London where you wake feeling as if something has been gently needling you all night to ensure you don't go deeper than REM the whole damn night.

The monastery grounds at Samye Ling

Our blog reporter Steve Fitzpatrick

After a hard days Chi Gung its off to the cafe for refreshments

After arriving in Scotland the weather has graciously favoured us. Everyone has settled into their single rooms. We reviewed what we are going to be studying over the next few days . That being,  meditation on a fixed object of attention and  meditation on no fixed object of attention. This then can develop ones awareness whilst performing Standing Chi Gung postures. Over the next few days the aim is to help everyone integrate this awreness to be able to manilpulate and the Chi/ Energy of the spinal column

Stay tuned !

 

First days of training in Shanghai. Ward off posture

 

      Form practice

As you can see we practiced indoors in the hotel room where our sessions were conducted. The maids were pretty cheesed off when we trained in the mornings as they had to wait until we were finsished, sometimes they made our beds up in strange ways as a warning.

 

---

Now we are back, we hope to get more info up including a diary of pics which turned out to be an uphill struggle in Shanghai. Also my retreat in Scotland is going to blogged not by me but by someone on the retreat. This should be an interesting exercise in how the training in Shanghai effects the approach to Spinal chi gung practice, standing and meditation! stay tuned as we are not finished yet !

Well, we have finished the second part of the middle frame, and yesterday we arranged a lunch for Master Tian and his family as a goodbye. We are still baffled by their willingness to show us their family secrets and we will respect their wishes for not showing openly the information. We have guidelines as to what we can show others. We wish that we could ask more detailed questions but that will have to wait for now. Translation being what it is.

The whole of the Mao era has left its mark on people and they don't seem to want to go into detail. But the history is facinating.

Whilst people in China are quite understandably trying to catch up with the West, we are here trying to understand their past and experience where this art of Tai Chi came from and what its raison d'etre is. We would like to transplant some old knowledge in the West as an antidote to the stress and materialism that invades our lives at home. 

I asked Master Tian about his thoughts on Chi Gung and if he had any friends who were practitioners, but he had not. The Tain' s practice is Tai Chi. He did say that doctors generally do not understand Chi Gung or how it works. He also says that Tai Chi is Chi Gung. This ties in with the thoughts of many maters that Tai Chi is an advanced form of Chi Gung.

He did point out also that Standing practice is a foundation stage in Tai Chi Chuan and that is superceded by form practice. Moving Tai Chi is better than static, otherwise your chi can become stagnant, this seemed to be his point. From my experience here, the foundation nei gung practices they have deepen the opening of the body that structural standing chi gung starts. I always have held the view that standing practice alone is not enough regardless of the many people that write to the contrary. It is a ridiculous concept that is held by some,  that you can fight/ defend yourself through standing practice alone.

xie xie, mingtian Chris

Chinese people........seem to have a capacity to restrain their emotions (years of thought policing, no doubt). Certainly in public they do not freak out with rage or indignation even when they get bumped clean off the pavement by other people. There are some 200 million Chinese people within this region alone, and an estimated 16-20 million of them gravitate to the immediate Shanghai metropolitan area. We contemplate as we move around this city, how many of the older people in their fifties were Red Guards and what they must feel now that capitalist values reign supreme here. Nothing lasts, things always change.

The former rejection of things old or traditional seems to still hold and possibly means that hardly a thing of the past will survive in this city apart from some of the old colonial buildings of French, English and German origin. The old Shanghai at the north end of the city is, as I am writing this, being demolished for more skycrapers and high rise apartments. We've taken some photos to document it.

Oh No! Yoga and Pilates Classes in Shanghai..........  Ol Joe Pilates must be turning in his grave. The media favorites have surfaced here. I think it goes something a little like this ...... Yoga has a base of narcissism running through its core that appeals mainly to a narcissistically conditioned public. The reason why the public are very aware of these systems is due to the abundance of copy given in the newspapers and magazines, always accompanied by sexy images -  the crotch forward postures of attractive young women, or men with a bulge the size of hamstead heath in gravity defying power postures. Those systems get the copy because of the photo appeal and the fact that many famous people have practiced or are practicing. You never hear the real stories. I have had two narcissistic yoga devotees come to try out Chi Gung because they had damaged their bodies so badly from Yoga practice that they thought chi gung would help them out until they could get back to their Yoga abuse sessions. I can quite categorically say that the amount of emotional and phyical tension pulsating from their systems was a serious impediment to the class as a whole and they could not even handle standing still and relaxing for more than 60 seconds. - and before you say anything... I practiced yoga seriously for 3 years and used to teach pilates before anyone other than pro-dancers knew that it was not a vegetable. Yoga attracts (amongst others), people who are on a mission to reinforce their self image, not realising that the emotional tension they carry gets driven deeper into their nervous system.

I don't see how yoga can take off here. For one thing, you can't practice at home as no one here except the hotels and businesses have central heating. You would have to practice in a fur coat in winter. I think the older people exercise here to keep warm. They get up very early to practice outside because there is no room in their tiny apartments and they can also avoid asphyxiation due to smog inhalation.

 Lets hope that some of the wisdom of Taoism resurfaces here and that authentic Tai Chi Chuan as an art, exercise and health system gains an appreciative audience and a following it deserves. Tai Chi, in the media in England I am happy to say has had a good press, even without the crotch opportunities, based solely on the research that is coming to light on the well documented health benefits of Tai Chi. Tai hao le! (Excellent!) 

The weather...

21 degress for 2 days and now it has shot down to 3. It bloody cold here now. The smog here is horrendous, I would not like to be here in the summer. We nearly ran over 3 people today in  the taxi..............

The Yang Tai Chi medium Frame........................ we are now almost through the second part of the medium frame. We did not think we were going to make it. We would have been happy to have got through the first part with the amount of detail we are getting. We are having a good laugh with MasterYao, half in Chinese and half in English, usually when we collapse at some difficult bit of the form.  

til Mingtian! xie xie Ni. Crc

 

The Pudong taken from the Bund

This photograph is dark but if you enlarge it you can possibly make out Master Yao, in a middle frame posture.

 

On Teachers and the real people behind this Trip

I have had many teachers over the years and I have studied and practiced intensively all the information that I have felt was worthy of study, and rejected that which was not helping me progress.  Some of the teachers I have had come with very big reputations and nearly all of them are in print and on video. They all come under criticism because they all have put themselves out and made very often great sacrifices to learn and develop their knowledge. I have been inspired by all of these men. I have experienced their Gong Fu and they all are superb contemporary master practitioners of their arts. These men are Eddie Byrne, my mentor from the age of 13 years of age, whose guidence helped me to beat men 10 years older, both international and national karate figures. Then there was Steve Morris, who the older generation of martial artists will remember as arguably the best karate and mixed martial arts practitioner of his generation, doing what he does best long before the steroid induced MMA's of the modern sport era . Then there is Master BK Frantzis who has to put up with inordinate amounts of grief in chat rooms all over the globe, but who walked the walk and sacrificed much, and can clearly transmit his knowledge and is the real deal. Then there is Master John Ding, a immensly dedicated martial artist and unbelievably powerful Tai Chi master who, again, is maligned by many armchair fantasists. Master Ding is a lovely man. Then there is my weapons master Mike Finn, whose sheer presence and skill is a lesson and a privilidge to witness, yet another real deal. I must mention my dear friend Frank Allen who has been instrumental in helping me fill in blanks of applied Ba Gua, and is great to box with. Do not walk onto this mans left hook!

I must mention my students, friends and close training partners of the past. Steve O'Brien who worked hard as a kickboxing student and sparring partner for many years.  And to Glen Jenkins for being a solid constant inspiration and great friend and sparring partner. And to Al McDowell who now resides in Beijing, the best natural grappler I came across, a great friend . I have too many people to thank and there are more.

I would like thank also my present senior students who are covering my classes. Peter, Damian. Lucy, Ben and the ever patient Lesley in my office who is putting up with all manner of obstacles back in London so that I can be here.

I would like to thank my wife, Sue, and children Cheridane and Jordan for putting up with my continual absence due to my studies. And an extra special thanks to my son Jordan who inspired me through his amazing  fighting spirit, which  he demonstrated at the London International Judo competition in february 2005.

So everyone can clearly see to whom I owe something for this trip.Apologies to anyone who I missed out, you know who you are.   

Oh, then there are my professional dance teachers Chris Gable of  the Royal Ballet and William Louther of the Martha Graham Company, may they rest in peace. And others.

And Steve Fitzpatrick my editor and bodyguard.

And the Academy for voting for me

See you tomorow Chris