If you’ve read the blog ‘Shoulder Alignment: The Mechanics (1)’, and played around with it, and particularly if you’ve noticed that things have changed (or need to change), you will discover that it’s a bit of a journey to break those old habits and actually apply the changes to everything in everyday life, including the way that you use your arms in both tai chi and qigong. You’ll find more about this alignment on YouTube.
Using the arms
I know that we can take our arms behind our backs, but, by and large, we use the arms in front of our bodies in nearly everything we do as we’re always reaching for something. As a result, we can end up pulling the head of the humerus forward slightly out of the socket with the risk of not letting it return to its usual resting place. (The picture mainly shows the head of the humerus as seen from the front of the body. The ribs are removed, and you can see the shoulder blade at the back).
Implications
In martial arts, if you are either pushing something, or something is pushing against your arms/hands, you need the force of the push (in whatever direction it is travelling) to pass through the body to the rear leg.
If you have in effect ‘disconnected’ the head of the humerus from the shoulder socket, even slightly, the force of the push (the energy of the push) cannot travel smoothly down to your Dantian and then down to the rear foot. The pipeline has a gap in it, and in tai chi and qigong terms, you are ‘leaking’ qi (chi, or, strictly speaking… ch’i). You’ll find another video about this on YouTube.
Plumbing
For some people, it can be helpful to think of the body as a plumbing system in a house, or even in a city. You could consider the main pumping station as your Dantian (Hara, Core, Centre), and the torso and limbs as the pipelines going out to the various parts of the house/city. The last thing you want is a leak in the system – i.e. you need a ‘closed system’.
Tension
Any tensed muscle, i.e. any muscle that is working harder than any other muscle, can cause an energetic leak. This is because a tensed muscle is a partially (or completely) stagnated muscle, where the fibres have become contracted and condensed, thereby not allowing a flow of both blood and energy to pass through them. To go back to the plumbing analogy, the pipeline has become furred up!
The shoulder & the humerus
As soon as you pull your arms forward out of the socket even slightly, the muscles at the front of the socket are contracting in order to make that action take place. At the same time, the ones at the back of the head of the humerus are being forced to stretch.
Your upper pipeline is ‘leaking’.
___________________________________________________ James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online. Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month. There is also learn both tai chi & qigong through a monthly subscription, and there are many free videos on YouTube.
CONTACT: http://www.taiji.co.uk https://www.qigonghealth.co.uk Email: taijiandqigong@gmail.com Phone: 07836-710281 ___________________________________________________
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