Standing practice
Standing practice refers generally to static exercises that evolved from within the martial arts community of China over many centuries. Specifically, the so called internal arts of Tai Chi Chuan , Hsing-I Chuan and Ba Gua Zhang* have been noted for producing highly skilled fighters who developed seemingly superhuman skill, even from men of slight build. (Men like Sun Lu Tang or Wang Zhang Zhai or my teacher Tian Ying Jia). All the above arts give much attention to structural alignments, namely standing practice. They are as important to the internal martial artist as barre work is to the classical dancer in the west. No dancer worth his salt would fail to execute his structural warm up before dancing or rehearsing and in that respect internal artists and dancers have something in common.
Standing practice gives one the felt sense opportunity to re-align and re-integrate physical imbalances of the body as a whole. You could use the term re- balancing but in actuality that would be too simplistic term, balance is in fact one of many elements to standing practice. A structural method is therefore undertaken, and over months and even years your posture is refined to an increasingly higher level of efficiency. This is done first by standing practice and then whilst moving. Although there are books available for standing practice, like in any art, a proficient and experienced teacher is necessary if one is to seriously make headway.
Standing works on releasing locations of acute and chronic tension held at both the superficial and deep layers of soft tissue. This results in subtle changes that at first may not generally perceived, but later become an inspiration to the practitioner as the internal landscape begins to change and the body itself gains freedom of movement and expression.
There are two distinct methods of standing in the marketplace. One method is for general health but usually fails to teach the sinking and storing of energy in the lower abdominal region of the body, the other is for power development and clearly does. In the latter method, the development of an internally strong body encapsulates both the health and power version, and is in my opinion superior in quality. In other words you will get excellent strength as well as health if you learn the more martially influenced standing practices.
The main point of standing practice is to develop your life force. To build up your Qi/ Chi in Chinese (your intrinsic energy) It is important with such practice to become sensitive to whether or not you either unconsciously inhibit or waste your energy. Standing practice can aid in this perception.
* Traditional Ba Gua Zhang focuses less on standing practice and more on the famed circle walking practice
More on standing next week !!!!
