Going into the Nuts and Bolts of Zhan Zhuang

After many years of people asking me to, some great people are helping me put together a book of these essays. Helping me get organized! Not my best skill! Ha! They told me I need a bit of how-to for the Zhan Zhuang. I don’t want the book to be an instructional manual, rather a collection of essays on radical inner alchemy, but I’m attempting to do a little.

Let me first say that to do these Internal Alchemy practices, we of course need a teacher. We can’t learn it from books. I teach five classes a week online. And it is good to meet in person when possible. It is good to find a teacher you resonate with. Zhan Zhuang is only a part of this whole process. It is one tool to get into this transformation process. Other tools are Qigong and seated meditation, which are not a part of this essay. There is a necessary transmission aspect which involves energetic osmosis and entrains our whole system. That must be done with a teacher. That said, here are some nuts and bolts of Zhan Zhuang, specifically the posture Hugging the Tree.

After spending time in Wuji, maybe ten minutes, we move on to other postures such as posture number two, hugging the tree.

Some body orientation to remember:

Release all of the joints of the body.

Like a piece of cloth, anywhere in the body that is gripping, we will put a little bit of slack in the fascia of the body. Any hard edge is released.

The bubbling well (Yong Quan point), behind the pad of the foot is a very important point to be aware of. Like a portal, it will begin to open over time. Let the whole foot be on the ground. Do not collapse the arch or stand on the outer blade of the foot.

Release the ankles.

The knees are bent.

The pelvic floor (Huiyin point), should be awake but not clenched hard. Dynamic, slightly lifted without force. It is an important diaphragm of the body to mobilize along the central channel

The lower body is full, and natural being pulled into the center of the earth. This is naturally happening. We don’t need to try to force this to happen

This is lower body work. We are developing the lower body.

The knees are bent, soft.

The pelvis is neutral. If it were a fish bowl, it would not pour forward or back, or to the sides. It is fluid. With the lower body sinking, it will feel like the sacrum in being puled downward, but without force

Where the thighs meet the pelvis there is a place called the Kua. Opening the kua is a decade long project, but it is necessary and doable. We must soften through the kua as we begin to organize the body. instead of gripping around the glutes, we find the kua and this gives us the ability to release and be stable without our normal gripping in space for stability. This will be a long project.

The lower dantien, or Tanden in Japanese, is the main focus we need to cultivate. This is where the internal alchemy will develop over time. Two or three centers below the navel in the center of the belly. It might be helpful to imagine a little golden egg in there to start. Don’t have a hard idea of the tanden, as it will continually change. Also, don’t hold your attention there rigidly or pin your awareness there, excluding all other simulation in the body or phenomena, as that will be like living in a small cave. It will never have room to develop nor will we develop the ability to function in daily life from there. Rather to be wide open in our focus, while putting out awareness in the tanden. This will take decades to master, and it is worth mastering

The upper body is floating. There is space in between the vertebrae. the organs are relaxed, the heart is released, Behind the heart is released.

The spine is released. Be careful, as we are overactive in our focus in the upper body.

The base of the skill is spacious, slightly lifted. Don’t force it. Buoyant.

The tongue naturally lays along the roof of the mouth. This is just good natural tongue position. In fact, a baby who was breastfeed will naturally have their tongue laying there. Don’t force in any way, which will lock up the face and neck. The tongue on the roof of the mouth is similar to the pelvic floor being dynamic. The two are like circuits of a battery, connected. The pelvic floor and the tongue on the roof of the mouth, gentle, connected, not forced.

The eyes should be open and soft, pick a spot on the horizon and gently stare at it. Like we are standing on the beach watching the sunset, there is no need to five at it or chase it or penetrate it. Just soft and expansive. Do not try to do anything special with the eyes. But keep them gently on that spot. Often our awareness is scattered, and we look around further enforcing that scattering. Only when we are able to stabilize the gaze will we realize that there is so much going on internally that I missed with my scattered focus jumping around looking for something to grasp.

The baihui point, near the fontanelle point, the soft spot on a baby’s head, on top of the head, is expansive, like a hook is gently pulling it up. This will naturally create space at the base of the skull. The upper body is being pulled up to the heavens and the lower body is being magnetized into the center of the earth. This must be digested. When someone has a deep breakthrough experience, their whole body is transformed, and this pulling up to the heavens and being magnetized to the center of the earth will be much more apparent.

Going into Hugging the tree:

We begin by sitting down more in our stance, like we are sitting down on a yoga ball or a bar stool. We do not lean onto our toes or onto our heels, but straight down. We soften through the kua. We are not leaning forward or back. If I look down I can see my toes. This will all feel odd at first as we begin to organize the body in a new way.

We bring the hands up from Wuji to hugging the tree. Our hands should be about the height of the heart. Really they bubble up from the ground on the buoyancy of the process.

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It should look like we are hugging tree. Not like we are holding a big ice cube. Not like a big leggo. The post should look natural, strong, balanced. Relaxing wherever we are gripping. Engaged fully with what is happening, while completely relaxing. This will be very foreign to most of us for a while, as we don’t understand focus and we don’t understand relaxing.

We are not over reaching, nor are we uncommitted. Some people are too eager., Others check out. But we find a sweet spot where we can work, where doors can open. If we force, we will lock up. So we are here learning right effort, plain and simple and rubber hits the road. We’ll see how we force in our lives or check out in everything we do. Our system will find necessary natural balance as we put pressure on the body/system through these postures.

The first knuckle on the thumb should be buoyant, like a string is pulling it up to the heavens. It should look like we are hugging a round tree. Don’t let your thumbs be inside of the tree, as that will stress the biceps tendon on the shoulder.

Our hands are not too far apart, and not too close. The middle finger should point at the other middle finger. It should be like we have cotton balls in between the fingers.

Our hands should be alive. Alive but not angry. And not dead fish hands. Alive and full. This fullness is so very important. This fullness is rare in the world of Internal work.

There is something called the Central channel through the body. It extends from the center of the earth up through the body, through the pelvic floor (Huiyin point) through the tanden, through the upper body, through the baihui point to the heavens. We are organizing around that central channel, like a plumb line in carpentry, we organize around it. We relax into it, relax in gravity. This central channel might feel odd at first, and all of our compensations in space will begin to drop away as we organize around this central channel.

Oddly, when we completely release into the ground, we are filled with buoyancy. This must be experienced.

In hugging the tree, we do not control the breath or breathe in any special way. We breathe naturally, and allow the energy to naturally build. We do not try to direct the energy. We are curious about the lower dantien (tanden), but don’t try to pin the energy there. We are wide open in our focus, and deeply curious about the tanden.

We begin with five minutes in hugging the tree. Then we go back to Wuji and see how our whole System (the body, the energy, the mind, the space around us, etc) has begun to open up and reorganize in space.

Slowly we will add time in posture number two, hugging the tree. Do not be a hero and do ten or fifteen minutes to begin. Rather it is good to do five minutes every day, and then five and a half or six minutes when you are ready. Slowly, add time until we can reach twenty minutes. It may take two years to get to it, but with twenty minutes, you will have gone through real cellular change.

We must open up in space three dimensionally. We are like a great mountain, Full, expansive. If someone were to push on our hands or push our back or elbow, they would meet the ground. We have organized ourselves from the ground. Wherever we are gripping we slowly learn to release. Do not make the Zhan Zhuang another tension template to take on, but use it as a creative canvas to explore the possibility of being in space in a new way.

We are in the posture, and at the same time, we are letting go of the posture.

Don’t become wooden in the posture!

Again, we are not controlling our breath.

We are facing what is happening.

The body, the system, will begin to open up from the inside. We are not holding ourselves rigidly, but letting the whole system open up, while in the posture. So there is movement, but it is just not externally expressing much.

We are not obsessing over the body here. We are not hypervigently scanning the body for tension. Rather, let your whole being begin to show you how it is naturally opening up as we are honest, brave, and curious.

A natural inner momentum will begin to occur. This inner momentum will be counterintuitive at first. It will surprise us. The system will begin to open up from the inside with internal movement. The creativity of this work is allowing this to happen, being there fully, facing what comes up, letting the doors open. This will be strange and difficult, uncomfortable at times, and yet we’ll know it is necessary, important, as it develops.

Let the absorption in the internal momentum, the internal movement take over. This is more important than a perfect posture. And then dialogue with the posture as we go along. The friction we create with these ZZ postures opens up the energy of the body. Where we are tense, we are creatively releasing. Like a kinked hose, we are releasing where we are kinked.

The breath, the energy, the body, the environment, will begin to take on new meaning as they coalesce.

The magic of finding a way to fill up the energy is a real creative skill. This requires a type of Kufu, creative problem solving, which we must learn to find in real time every day. There is no formula for this, but it must be discovered continually. This may seem exhausting to think about, but with time our system will naturally begin to find this, and we’ll be drawn into a self reinforcing process further and further into it.

When we become overwhelmed, it is a good idea to take a break. Then come back and work again. Slowly our system will begin to change, grow, the Qi will develop. Our cells will become resilient.

Do not hurt your joints in this work. If you have sharp pain, back off. Our bodies will become strong and supple with time. This long process will be uncomfortable at times, but sharp pain must be avoided.

It is natural to sweat, to shake, to become nauseous in the Zhan Zhuang postures as the energy begins to open up and the system changes. This is blue collar, bread and butter work, and the results are very real. We’ll open up the channels of the body, become healthier, our mind will begin to become clear as our entire being comes into oneness. This is bitter work, taking on this process is not a weekend workshop, but a lifelong process. Real internal alchemy, which Zhan Zhuang is only a part of, is not for the faint of heart. It will make you confront your stuck places, and there will be pain involved. It will take a long time. But it is so worth it, and we’ll begin to see that real cellular change is possible and wanting to happen. A human birth is very precious. We must use it well.

We must practice every day, and the results will begin to develop. There are numerous postures. We don’t need too many postures. But we’ll get to more with time. Whatever challenges we have can be worked with. You can do it.

Thanks for reading. Begin practicing today.

A good beginning set:

Warm up

Wuji- five minutes

Hugging the tree- five minutes

Wuji-five minutes

Cool down

Eight folded brocade at some point during the day.