point, rather than the highest level requirements. Students who are willing to start at the fundamental levels will progress in the correct direction. After all, the tallest peak can only be conquered by starting at the very base of the mountain, and then climbing diligently, step by step, to the higher plateaus. The key is to begin at the beginning; high level short cuts can only lead to dead ends.
Each of these basic principles relates to the body, and how it must be used within kung-fu movements.
Head
The head must be held straight, and the neck relaxed. Do not allow an intense focus and serious attitude to tighten your neck or unconsciously push your head forward. Imagine an object resting on top of your head that must not fall off. It should be light like a piece of paper, leaf, or feather-small but always present. It should feel as if something in the sky were slowly pulling up on your hair, gently but firmly helping to keep your head straight. Every hair is pulled, from the back of the neck to the top of the skull. The overall feeling is somewhat like a puppet, whose head is being lifted by strings manipulated from above.
The head must be held straight, and the neck relaxed.
Eyes
The eyelids should be normal and relaxed. The eyes should not be tense or bugged out. The gaze should not be lowered, even while you focus inward to get the feeling of sinking the qi. The mind, not the eyes, is responsible for maintaining inner awareness and feeling. The eyes should be set like middle C, the center of the piano keyboard. The eyes follow the movement, turning left, right, up, or down, but only in conjunction with the head as it turns.
Nose
Breathing should be slow, even, gentle-the less noticeable, the better.
The breath flows only through the nostrils, not the mouth. Breathing should be slow, even, gentle-the less noticeable, the better. However, you should feel an inner physical sensation of expansion throughout the face and internal passageways-from the nostrils, up the nose, into the entire face, and extending down into the chin and throat. This feeling of expansion should continue throughout the inhalation and exhalation.
Mouth
The lips should always stay closed but without tension. The teeth should always maintain contact but without tension. The tongue should touch the roof of the mouth just behind the front teeth and stay there at all times. Let the saliva accumulate until it has to be swallowed. Never spit it out. Swallow slowly, or ingest the saliva with several small swallows.
Shoulders
You must learn to sink the shoulders. They must be carried without tension, rather than pulled high in the manner of a soldier at attention. The first step is to achieve relaxation within the mind. Then place attention on preventing the shoulders from rising. After these steps are accomplished, you can begin to generate a sinking feeling in the shoulders. Do not try to fabricate the feeling by angling the spine, bending the shoulders forward, and sticking the neck out.
Back
Kung-fu requires ba bei. Ba means to yank or pull but it also means stretch and straighten up. Bei means the back. The entire spine—including the areas behind and in front of it-must be held straight. A straight spine is equivalent to a clean, white piece of paper totally available to receive writing or drawing. A common misinterpretation of the ba bei rule is to extend the spine upward while bending, head stretched out, and chest caved in. Under these circumstances, no matter how hard you try, any words you write will be unreadable because they have filled the clean, white sheet of paper with scribbles.
Ba can also be interpreted as alert. Tin ba means to straighten up physically. Jin ba means to remain alert and sensitive to inner feelings. The implication is that during any movement, the spinal column must be straightened both in front and back. This concept is fundamental and incontrovertible. Any movement or posture that contradicts this principle, contradicts the entire constitution.
Chest
One of kung-fu’s rules is han xiong. Han means containing something or capacity; xiong means chest. Han can also be interpreted as “swallow” or “inward” in the Chinese language, and thus many practitioners misinterpret the term to mean bending the spine. This posture is another violation of the kung-fu constitution and may cause damage to the lungs.
In fact, han xiong does not mean to stick out the chest and hyperextend the back, a posture required by many Western body disciplines. This raises the qi too high, and brings tension into the chest and related areas including the stomach and shoulders. Basically, you should stay relaxed and refrain from pushing out your chest.
Later in the training, han xiong will lead to a deeper interpretation. Han xiong also means empty space, like the inside of an envelope or box. Because the chest is at the front of the body, quite naturally it gets lots of attention, and movement, in daily life. However, kung-fu asks you to keep the chest empty. Let the back lead and the chest follow.
Stomach
You should start with an calm stomach. Don’t use power, and don’t tighten up. Keep the stomach soft like a suede leather bag. During movements, the stomach should not be self-motivated or independent but, just like the chest, be led by the back and waist. This will make it possible to send qi down to the center of the abdominal area, the dantian.
Only after enough qi has accumulated in the dantian—like money in a bank-will practitioners feel solidity, strength, heat, desire, or will in the dantian. That feeling must come from the inside out. At the same time, the stomach should remain relaxed.
An awareness should now be developing that the back is controlling the chan si Jin twisting movements. The waist, which is in charge of horizontal twisting chan si Jin movement, cooperates with the back. First, the waist must stay totally relaxed so it can be available for any movement. Second, it must stay level, not tipped over or off balance.
The waist could be called the joint that links the upper with the lower body. If it moves incorrectly, then the human body will be split into two pieces and lose its integrity. Incorrect practice will totally destroy all of one’s good intentions and efforts.
Hips
The hips provide the major support for the waist. They must be relaxed and balanced. Normally they don’t have a large degree of motion. However, quite often they are the leaders or vanguard of the waist’s movement. The hips are very important for shrinking and expanding the body. Sometimes merely shifting the hips without taking any steps can change your body’s position.
The palms should not be stretched out but held in a naturally open, relaxed manner
Buttocks
The buttocks must follow the spine’s direction from the very top down to the tip of the tail bone, maintaining a 90-degree angle to the ground. The buttocks should not stick out, but at the same. time it should not be overemphasized by tucking under or intentionally pushing the hips forward. Incorrect positioning creates tension and bothers the tail bone, tipping it forward, off-center from the plane of the spine. Correct positioning for the buttocks is smooth, straight, and 90-degrees to the ground.
Rectum
In Chinese martial arts, the term ming dang means to close the inner groin and buttocks area. Dang
