Beginners Class: Transcript of San Gee teaching Standing Chi Kung.
Topics: How to stand correctly; Doing Nothing; The Energy field of the Earth; Your body is an energy transforming machine; Accumulating Energy; Storing Energy; Generating Energy; Directing Energy; Standing in the form; When to practice Standing

Standing is a very fundamental exercise. One of the simplest and one of the deepest. Overall, it's the most effective exercise for internal development: foundational to nearly all the martial arts. This is Nei Gung (not Chi Kung) i.e. internal development.

You really have to do nothing. You are aligning your body to the energy field of the Earth. You're not just standing here, you are being supported and propelled by a number of forces, including gravity. Gravity is a balance between centripetal and centrifugal forces (a yin-yang). We're literally walking around and swimming in the energy field of the Earth. This has been used for meditation for thousands of years in Chi Kung, in Medicine, in Herbal Treatments. Your body is an energy transforming machine in many different ways. In a lot of ways our body is transforming external energy and generating internal energy. We use it up in activity as much as we are generating it. One way to increase your longevity is to use less energy. You notice how sometimes you feel like you just have to get up and say something ,or do something? Now you know why it is!

So you can learn to store the energy by not using it so much. Gather the energy. The bones are designed to align with the gravity field. Mystically the sign of the cross is also the sign for Chi Kung. Receptive (vertical) and Transmitive (horizontal). Because all our energy translates into a horizontal plane..

If you hold your arm out - feel the weight of your arm? When you align your bones correctly, the force goes thru the bones. That generates an electrical force. When you bend a bone it generates electricity (through the 'piezo electric' effect) and your bones will strengthen because of that. While Standing, you are not doing it muscularly, you are just letting gravity flow through your bones. Try to just stand and feel gravity flowing through your bones.

It's very simple and also very complex. You learn gradually, step by step. You'll notice (as in Rolfing and Postural Integration) that you have to use your muscles. So it's a science of how to optimize your energy flow. You can develop energy and power beyond anything you can imagine. You are accumulating energy. For that energy to flow, your body must be aligned and your arms relaxed.

Standing will also very powerfully take you into a state of meditation. To go into meditation all your upper centers have to open. If you are standing correctly they will all open in a balanced way from the bottom up. rather than opening higher centers first causing you trouble.

Knees in line with toes, weight in center of foot and your back should be straight, arms relaxed, no chin sticking out. Then pull your sacrum down like a monkey pulling your tail. Pull DOWN, not under. If you're standing right, you feel the chi loads into your legs. You will feel it like strain. It's not strain. You feel the muscular tension which is in the way of you relaxing. It's not muscle, just correct alignment. When your body is in that position it creates a relaxed pull all the way through your body like a strong bow. Once you get into the correct position, you can just relax. You'll feel like you want to stop, but that's what we want to do: burn out the muscular tension.

Keep your spine straight.

Once you pull down, stay straight. Feel your legs and let go of any tension in your legs. If it feels like your belly is sticking out, it means you are not pulling your sacrum down. This will give you better results, quicker than anything else. Over decades it will work for you.

Open your hands half way. Open a little bit under your arms. Keep your eyes level, empty, open. Let your eyes be like a window onto an empty room. Let the vision come into your eyes rather than look out at things.

Also, try not to blank out or hypnotize yourself.

Make small adjustments to make the energy flow better if necessary, but otherwise stay still.

Tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth.

By not moving, speaking, and thinking, we are gathering the energy. We're not even actively looking or listening, just simple GATHERING the energy.

...(students stand in the first position for a few minutes)...

Now turn your hands palm in, and up to mouth height. Extend not too far out so you are straining; not too close in so it's oppressive. Let the weight shift a little more into the front part of your foot. Imagine the energy passing between your fingertips from one hand to the other.

...(standing in the second position - arms up, before moving to the third position)...

Now bring your hands into crane's bill (at the back, touching the kidneys with the wrists). A more relaxed stance. Collect energy in your kidneys. It's a good place to collect energy (unlike chest or stomach or genitals or head). If you are old, it may be good to collect energy into lower front points, otherwise the kidneys is a good place to hold the energy.

To finish, use backwards cycling to restore normal circulation into your legs - also to pull the energy back up into your kidneys.

Feel any difference (from 10 minutes)? Yes? Feel more grounded; more awake; warm? Feet are BIG (says a student)!

It's a very powerful exercise - we'll use this. It's really the most effective for Chi development. The only way you'll get more chi is from direct transmission, but that's a more temporary thing, so this is still the most powerful way.

You can think of any position of the form just like standing. It's from the standing that you learn correct balance. [Understanding] chi circulation is the way to understand it. The circulation is in the form, the structure. So it's really that those positions are optimizing your chi flow. Gradually, you'll learn what those principles are in your body. Once you learn, you just won't violate those principles. When you are practicing the form you can just stop and stand there for a while. Every movement has a yin and yang point so you can stop at the yang point and feel if it's really generating energy. A floppy form may be okay for relaxing, but it is no good for generating or directing energy.

You have to DIRECT the energy. If you don't direct it, there's no energy. Just like your mind: if you don't direct it, there's just a big mess!

You want everything aligned. Very precisely and very intentionally, directing the energy, just like a wave in motion. The whole wave moves together. Feel like a wave as you do Tai Chi. You actually generate an energy wave when you move. Watch the effect when I push someone: they flow a little later like they are riding a wave.. (San Gee demonstrates a push, and people see how the student almost stops going backwards, but then mysteriously re-gathers momentum, like a new wave of energy is following on behind the initial push) Try doing the form with the feeling of a wave as you are doing it.

When you step [in the form], feel it really ground. Even while moving forward and backwards feel the whole weight focused through that foot as if anchored to the ocean floor.

So practice standing. You can even practice while sitting! You can just sit straight up as if you were standing: it will still circulate your energy. If you do that throughout the day, you'll find your energy feels much much better. You'll feel rejuvenated.

Don't watch TV while you're standing. But it's okay to stand while your watching TV! (everyone laughs) Laughing is good for your chi...