DAN TIAN PRACTICE: CHANG SI GONG
DAN TIAN PRACTICE: CHANG SI GONG An ordinary body moves through its extremities. To push a door, the shoulder contracts and the arm extends; the torso may or may not follow, the pelvis does nothing, and the feet simply go along with it. This mechanism is effective for everyday movements and has no shortcomings as long as nothing else is required of it. It has two shortcomings as soon as more is demanded of it. The first is loss of efficiency. The force produced locally by a single segment cannot exceed what that segment is capable of producing. A single arm produces what an arm produces. A whole body engaged in the same movement produces something else, and this difference is not of an athletic nature: it is organisational. It cannot be achieved by building up the arm’s muscle strength. The second is wear and tear. A body that moves via its extremities overloads the distal joints and leaves the proximal joints inactive. Over a few decades, this produces precisely the clinical picture we are familiar with: painful shoulders, weak lower backs, stiff hips, and a core that has ceased to be mobile without anyone realising it, because nothing in everyday life requires it to be so. The training described here tackles both issues simultaneously, through a single approach: restoring the body’s centre to its role as the driving force, and the periphery to its role as the transmission system. This is a complete reversal of the usual organisation of movement, which is why it cannot be achieved in a matter of weeks. In the tradition from which it originates, it is known as ‘silk reeling’, or chan si gong. This name describes its outward form. What it actually works on is simpler to explain: the centre, and the way in which what the centre does is transmitted to the hands and feet. The most functional location of the Dan Tian is not a point but an axis. The tradition describes it using two reference points facing each other: a point on the anterior abdominal wall, at the level of the navel or slightly below, and a point on the posterior wall, between the second and third lumbar vertebrae. The centre lies between the two. This dual location is not redundant: it defines a horizontal anteroposterior axis, around which rotation in the sagittal plane becomes conceivable. A single point would only allow rotation around a vertical axis. Three clarifications immediately dispel the most common misunderstandings. The centre is not an organ. It does not correspond to any isolatable anatomical structure, and attempting to locate it more precisely is a waste of time. The centre is not a reservoir. The image of an energy reservoir that can be filled suggests that it exists independently of posture, which is not what the most precise tradition states. The centre is a structural effect. This is the crucial point, and it is stated unambiguously: when all parts of the body are in their proper place, the core of the centre forms naturally; if a single part is not in the correct position, its formation is prevented. A raised shoulder, a blocked groin or a misaligned coccyx are enough to prevent it from existing. This formulation has an immediate and liberating practical consequence: there is no work on the centre independent of work on alignment. One does not cultivate the centre in isolation, as one might train a muscle. One establishes a structure, and the centre emerges as its inherent property. This is a strictly anti-mystical position, and it stems from within the tradition itself. Once formed, the centre functions in both directions. It is produced by the coordination of all the parts, and in turn drives the whole body, a single movement thereby producing many. The centre does only one thing: it rotates. It rotates in three ways. The first is rotation about the vertical axis. The pelvis and lower abdomen pivot to the left and right, like a key in a lock. This is the most accessible method and the one most often practised. The second is rotation in the sagittal plane. The pelvis tilts forwards and backwards around the anteroposterior axis described above, as if a wheel were turning inside the abdomen. This mode is more difficult to isolate and is more easily confused with a movement of the lumbar spine, which it is not. The third is a combination of the two. The centre then describes a circle, followed by a spiral. It is from this third mode that the rest of the training derives. The range of these rotations is very small: a few centimetres at most, and much less for an advanced practitioner. The difficulty is never the range; it lies in producing the movement exactly where it is required, without the shoulders or the spine generating it in place of the pelvis. Three forms of movement are possible between two points, and the choice of the third is not arbitrary. The straight line is the form of raw intention. It goes from start to finish by the shortest route. It is effective, and it is perfectly predictable. The circle is the form of return. It is complete and goes nowhere. The spiral combines the two: it turns and it progresses; it returns without returning to the same point. It is the only one of the three that allows one to move forward whilst retaining the ability to withdraw. This preference has a mechanical justification, a tactical justification and a philosophical justification, and it is best to distinguish between them. The mechanical justification rests on three basic and sound points. A force applied at a distance from an axis produces a torque, not a simple translational movement. A body pushing in a straight line from the shoulder applies a force. The same body, transmitting the same force via a rotation of the pelvis, applies a torque, the lever arm of which is the distance between the axis and
SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE
SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE Science breaks down Taoist practice into measurable active components, tests their effects against control conditions, and seeks mechanisms compatible with known biology. The concept of qi, understood as a substance or energy circulating through meridians, has never been shown to have a measurable physical counterpart; despite decades of instrumental attempts, none of these research programmes has produced replicable results meeting metrological standards. By contrast, the subjective phenomena that practitioners describe using the vocabulary of qi (diffuse warmth, tingling, a sensation of flow, abdominal fullness, heaviness in the hands) are, in fact, perfectly real as perceptual events, and contemporary science possesses a robust conceptual framework to explain them: peripheral vasodilation of autonomic origin, discharges from cutaneous and deep mechanoreceptors and thermoreceptors, attentional amplification of interoceptive signals, motor and sensory imagery phenomena, and the brain’s predictive inferences regarding the body’s states. For scientific analysis, a session of Nei Gong or qi gong is not a monolithic entity but a combination of components, each of which has its own experimental literature. Six such components can be distinguished. The first component is low- to moderate-intensity physical exercise. The dynamic forms of Nei Dan engage the body at a typical intensity of 2 to 4 metabolic equivalents (METs), equivalent to a slow to moderate walk, with a working heart rate of between 40 and 60 per cent of cardiac reserve. This modest but genuine level of exercise is sufficient to trigger some of the classic adaptations associated with physical activity: improved endothelial function, enhanced insulin sensitivity, maintenance of muscle mass and control, and moderate osteogenic stimulation through weight-bearing. The second component is slow movement under continuous attentional control. Slowness is not merely a reduction in speed: it alters the neurophysiological nature of the movement. A movement performed at a very reduced speed can no longer rely on pre-programmed ballistic motor patterns; it requires closed-loop control, with constant integration of proprioceptive feedback (neuromuscular spindles, Golgi tendon organs, capsular and cutaneous receptors) and continuous corrections via the cerebellocortical loops and the basal ganglia. It is precisely this control mechanism that makes slow movement an intensive proprioceptive training exercise, the effects of which are evident in the documented improvement in balance and postural stability. The third component is deliberately slowed, deep and abdominal breathing, typically maintained at between four and eight cycles per minute in a trained practitioner, compared with twelve to sixteen during spontaneous rest. As we shall see, this is the component whose physiology is best characterised, with robust and reproducible effects on the baroreflex and heart rate variability. The fourth component is attentional regulation: sustained attention focused on bodily sensations, the path of the breath, or conventional bodily regions (the lower dantian, the region below the navel, in traditional terminology). This component directly links Nei Dan and nei gong to the family of attentional and meditative practices, the neuroimaging correlates of which are now well described. The fifth component is mental, motor and sensory attention: the practitioner perceives pathways, flows and expansions. Motor imagery, however, activates a large proportion of the sensorimotor networks involved in actual execution (premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, parietal cortex, cerebellum), and imagery of heat or flow can objectively modulate cutaneous microcirculation via the autonomic nervous system, as demonstrated by studies on thermal biofeedback and research into Tummo meditation. Finally, the sixth component is contextual and psychosocial: ritualisation, a calm setting, the perceived expertise of the teacher, group practice, and the coherence of the traditional explanatory framework. These factors, far from being mere ‘noise’, are powerful and measurable modulators of therapeutic effects, acting via the now well-mapped pathways of the placebo effect and expectations (activation of endogenous opioid and dopaminergic systems, descending modulation of nociception by the periaqueductal grey matter). The entire methodological challenge of research into Nei Dan lies in this composite nature: clinical trials most often compare the complete practice with a waiting list, standard care or a conventional exercise, meaning that it is rarely possible to attribute the overall effect to a single component. Mechanistic studies, on the other hand, isolate the components (breathing alone, attention alone, movement alone) and enable the puzzle to be pieced together. It is this dual perspective that structures the remainder of the text. If one were to identify the physiological core of qigong, it would be slow breathing. The literature on slow-paced breathing constitutes one of the most robust bodies of evidence in all mind-body research, and its conclusions are directly applicable since breath control is explicitly central to the practice (the word ‘gong’ refers to ‘qi’, whose primary meaning is ‘breath’). In adults at rest, the spontaneous respiratory rate is around twelve to sixteen cycles per minute. When it is deliberately reduced to around six cycles per minute (i.e. a cycle of ten seconds, a frequency of 0.1 Hz), the cardiovascular system enters a specific state known as resonance. Two oscillators then superimpose: respiratory sinus arrhythmia, that is, the acceleration of the heart rate during inhalation and its deceleration during exhalation, mediated by the phase modulation of vagal tone at the sinus node; and the Mayer wave, a spontaneous oscillation in blood pressure with a period of approximately ten seconds, linked to the delay in the sympathetic baroreflex loop. At 0.1 Hz, these two oscillations come into phase and add together: the amplitude of the heart rate oscillations is then at its maximum, heart rate variability (HRV) reaches values far higher than during spontaneous rest, and the baroreflex gain—the sensitivity with which the carotid and aortic baroreceptors correct blood pressure beat by beat—is transiently increased. The mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are well understood. Deep inspiration lowers intrathoracic pressure, increases venous return and stretches the pulmonary mechanoreceptors; the pulmonary inflation reflex (the Hering–Breuer reflex and afferents from slow-adapting stretch receptors, travelling via the vagus nerve to the solitary tract nucleus) transiently inhibits cardiac vagal tone, resulting in an inspiratory acceleration. During exhalation—particularly if it is prolonged, and Nei Dan practices systematically prolong exhalation—vagal tone is restored and becomes dominant:
HELPING SAVING THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
HELPING SAVING THE WORLD OF TOMORROW The essay ‘We’re Not Going to Make It’ took stock of the inconsistencies of our times: water dropped from the sky onto wildfires whilst villages drink from water tankers, arsonist firefighters, climate summits attended by private jet, influencers held up as role models by the powerful, television news programmes that prioritise Auvergne baguettes over world wars, the organised waste of abundance, and those absurd deaths on the edge of cliffs, mobile phone in hand. It concluded with a diagnosis: contemporary stupidity is not a lack of intelligence, it is a lack of presence. And with a thesis: only the evolution of human consciousness can offer a way out. But we still need to explain how. Here is a summary for those who do not practise; for those who have personal training, you are already doing the work! A thesis without a method is merely another opinion, and our age has no shortage of those. The aim of this study is therefore practical: to examine, one by one, the personal disciplines that the Taoist tradition has been proposing for centuries, and to show how each one addresses, step by step, a specific inconsistency in the contemporary world. For this is what distinguishes Taoism from so many forms of wisdom that have become mere slogans: it does not ask us first and foremost to believe; it asks us to practise. It does not offer a doctrine to be defended, but a discipline to be followed—a discipline of the body, the breath and the mind—of which transformed consciousness is the result, not the prerequisite. One might object that it is strange to look to ancient China for remedies to ills that did not exist at the time: Laozi knew neither social media, nor Canadair aircraft, nor mussel-eating contests. That is true, and it is precisely what makes his account so valuable. The Taoists observed the human mind before it was ‘equipped’, and what they described—restlessness, greed, the need to impress, the fear of emptiness, and the headlong rush forward—is exactly what contemporary technology has industrialised. The machines have changed; the heart that drives them remains the same. That is why practices designed to soothe this heart remain, today, as relevant as ever: they do not tackle the symptoms, which vary over the centuries, but the root cause, which has not changed. A word on method, finally. The practices presented here are personal: they require neither a temple, nor a distant master, nor a retreat on a mountain top. They find their place in an ordinary day, a chair, a breath, a walk, a meal, a screen that is switched off. It is their modesty that is their strength. The world will not be saved by a grand gesture; it might, perhaps, be saved by millions of tiny, mindful gestures. Water, once again, works no differently with stone. Before we begin the practices, three concepts, for we can only practise well what we understand. The first is the Tao itself, the Way: not a god, not a law, but the natural course of things, the way the world unfolds when nothing forces it. It cannot be defined; ‘the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao’, warns the first chapter of the Dao De Jing, but it can be observed everywhere: in the water that flows downwards, in the tree that grows, in the season that comes. In this light, contemporary incoherence takes on a simple definition: anything that claims to free itself from the course of things is incoherent. Watering golf greens in the midst of a drought, air-conditioning a planet we are warming, storing water where it evaporates: these are all declarations of war on reality, and reality, as everyone can see, always wins in the end. The second concept is ziran, which is translated as natural spontaneity: that which is ‘so of itself’. Every being, every situation has its own inherent nature, its own way of being that needs no correction to be perfect. A pine tree does not try to be a willow. Our age is a machine for tearing beings away from their ziran: the teenage girl must look like a social media filter, the minister must look like an influencer, the tomato must look like a ‘calibre’, and everyone exhausts themselves trying to become the image of what they are not. The Taoist practitioner takes the opposite path: they unlearn, they shed, they let the masks fall away until they rediscover what tradition calls the ‘original face’. The third concept is wu wei, ‘non-action’, which, it must be reiterated, is not inaction but the refusal to act against. In the Zhuangzi, Ding the butcher cuts up oxen for nineteen years without wearing out his blade, because he never cuts through the bone: he glides through the gaps, following the natural lines of the animal. His knife, he says, ‘has no thickness’. This is the model of right action: effective because it does not force the issue. Almost everything listed in the inventory of inconsistencies is like a knife striking bone—action that wears itself out against the nature of things and which always calls for further action to repair the damage it has caused. The practices that follow are, at heart, all part of one and the same school: that of the interstice. The first practice is the simplest and the most radical: sitting. Tradition calls it zuowang, ‘sitting in oblivion’, after the passage in the Zhuangzi where the disciple Yen Houei announces to a stunned Confucius that he has made progress:he has forgotten the rites, then the music, and then he has ‘sat in oblivion’—oblivion of the body, oblivion of knowledge, union with that which permeates all things. It would be wrong to see this as a mystical feat reserved for hermits. The gesture is within the reach of anyone who has a chair or a cushion: to sit, motionless, with a straight back, and do nothing. Add nothing.
THE PRODUCTIVITY OF NOT DOING
THE PRODUCTIVITY OF NOT DOING The feeling that ‘my life no longer belongs to me’ has become a common experience in the modern world. Work encroaches on private life, obligations pile up, social media imposes its own rhythms, and our attention seems constantly captured by mechanisms designed to prevent inner peace. This sensation is not merely psychological; it is also structural, as today’s digital environments foster cognitive overload, fragmented attention and hyper-availability. From a Taoist perspective, this crisis is not merely a matter of time management. It touches on the relationship between the human being, their breath, their centre, and the way in which they yield to or resist the forces of dispersion. The question is therefore not merely: ‘How can I manage my tasks more effectively?’, but, more profoundly: ‘How can I remain true to the Way when the modern world is organised to dissipate my presence?’ The Taoist tradition does not offer a formula for serene productivity. Rather, it proposes a shift in perspective: to stop believing that living means responding to every demand, and to relearn how to inhabit reality in accordance with the rhythms of the body, the breath, nature and simplicity. In a world where attention has become an economic resource, remaining true to the Way also means protecting an inner space that technical and social logic tends to encroach upon. The feeling of disempowerment often stems from a disconnect between the life one actually lives and the life one has inwardly chosen. Many work tirelessly, respond to messages constantly, switch between multiple information channels and end their days with the impression of having been in constant motion without ever truly being present in a single action. Recent studies and analyses on digital overload describe this phenomenon precisely: attention is fragmented by notifications, apparent multitasking and the pressure to be instantaneous. This fragmentation is not trivial. It impairs the quality of sleep, intensifies anxiety, reinforces the feeling of never doing enough and diminishes the capacity for deep thought. The brain shifts from one stream of activity to another without any real rest, resulting in a general sense of fatigue and a diminished sense of personal continuity. Under these conditions, the individual does not merely waste time; they lose the opportunity to experience their own life as a unified whole. The world of work exacerbates this dynamic. The digitalisation of work promises flexibility and speed, but it also generates a growing information overload, an encroachment of work into the private sphere, and a culture of constant reactivity. When response times come to be valued more highly than the quality of attention, the individual ends up living at the pace of external demands rather than from an inner centre. In Taoist terms, one might say that such a life leads to a loss of one’s root. Human beings no longer inhabit the calm centre from which right action springs; they react ceaselessly to peripheral impulses. The more they exhaust themselves in keeping up with this pace, the more difficult it becomes to discern what is a genuine necessity and what is merely socially induced agitation. Digital technology is not merely a neutral tool. Several contemporary analyses show that it shapes a mental environment characterised by constant interruption, information overload and competition for attention. Social media do not merely demand time; they impose forms of comparison, emotional stimulation and psychological availability that profoundly alter the way we perceive ourselves. This context gives rise to a major paradox. The more tools people have to save time, the more they feel they are short of it. The more connected they are, the more they may experience isolation, distraction or information overload. The reason is not a mystery: the continuous flow of information prevents the periods of reflection necessary for thought, sensation and reconnection with oneself. From a Taoist perspective, attention is not merely a cognitive function. It also relates to the quality of one’s breath, the harmony between the inner and outer worlds, and the ability not to be swept away by the ten thousand things. When a practitioner allows themselves to be constantly swept up in the digital whirlwind, it becomes difficult for them to preserve the functional emptiness from which clarity can emerge. The issue is therefore as much spiritual as it is psychological. To lose one’s attention is not merely to lose efficiency; it is to lose the possibility of remaining in touch with the Way. In contemporary environments, safeguarding one’s attention becomes a form of gentle asceticism: not withdrawing from the world out of contempt, but refusing to allow restlessness to become the norm of consciousness. Faced with this situation, fidelity to the Way does not primarily consist of abandoning everything. Taoism does not teach spectacular rebellion or dramatic rupture as a universal solution. It teaches, more subtly, the art of rediscovering the right balance—that is to say, the way of inhabiting circumstances without allowing oneself to be entirely shaped by them. The principle of Wu Wei is often misunderstood. It signifies neither passivity nor lazy abandonment, but rather action that is unforced and in harmony with the profound nature of things. In the modern context, this may mean consciously ceasing to fuel the mechanisms that scatter the mind: responding more slowly, reducing unnecessary gestures, renouncing the overconsumption of information, and simplifying non-essential obligations. Remaining true to the Way also means asking oneself from what inner place the action is carried out. The same professional activity can be experienced as enslavement or as service, depending on whether one acts under the tyranny of image, fear and lack, or from a more stable foundation. Here, Taoism invites us to shift the focus from control to harmony: what matters is not to master everything, but not to lose oneself in what must be endured. This fidelity is not merely a moral concept. It involves practical work on how to breathe, walk, listen, eat, speak and accept one’s limits. Without these embodied practices, fidelity to the Way risks
WHAT I REPEAT WITHOUT REALISING IT
WHAT I REPEAT WITHOUT REALISING IT There is one question which, when we dare to ask it sincerely, shakes the image we have of ourselves: what am I repeating without realising it? We like to believe that our choices are fresh, that every relationship is a blank page, that every failure is an isolated incident. Yet, if we take the time to look at our lives as one might look at a riverbed, we discover recurring meanders, familiar curves, eddies that always reform in the same places. The same argument with different faces. The same giving up just as success is within reach. The same anger that flares up in the face of the same kind of silence. Taoism does not speak of ‘repetitive patterns’ as modern psychology would. But it speaks of them differently, and perhaps more profoundly: it speaks of well-trodden paths, of breathing patterns, of currents in which we allow ourselves to be carried along without even realising we are floating. The Tao Te Ching reminds us that ‘to know others is wisdom; to know oneself is enlightenment’. This editorial is an invitation to that very enlightenment: not a blinding light, but the soft glow of a lantern held up to the hidden corners of one’s own life. Let us observe water, the master of every Taoist practitioner. Water does not decide its own path: it follows the slope, it conforms to the hollow already formed. And with every passage, the water carves the channel a little deeper, making the next passage even more likely. This is how rivers are born: not by decision, but by repetition. Our lives work in the same way. Every emotional reaction, every relational choice, every way of fleeing or confronting something carves a channel within our being. The first time, it may have been an appropriate response to a real situation: a child who remains silent to avoid a parent’s anger is demonstrating a form of survival intelligence. But the water continues to flow along that channel long after the landscape has changed. The adult still remains silent, in the presence of people who no longer threaten them, in situations where their voice would be welcome. The rut is invisible precisely because it has become our inner landscape. We cannot see the riverbed when we are the river.Here, an essential caveat: in the Taoist view, repetition is not a moral failing. The whole of nature functions through cycles and returns. The seasons return, the moon repeats its phases, the breath inhales and exhales endlessly. The problem is never repetition itself: it is unconscious repetition—the kind that leads us to mistake a well-trodden path for the only possible route. The practitioner therefore does not seek to blame themselves. They seek to see. And seeing, in the Taoist tradition, is often enough to bring about transformation, for what is seen ceases to operate in the shadows. Look at your past relationships – romantic, friendly, professional. Is there a role you always end up playing? The saviour who wears himself out, the invisible one waiting to be guessed at, the strong one on whom everything rests, the one who flees before being left? Taoism teaches us that yin calls to yang and yang calls to yin. If I always present myself as the one who gives, I will inevitably attract those who take – not through bad luck, but by the very law of complementarity. The relationship dynamic is not something that simply happens to us: it is a dance in which, without realising it, we take the first steps. The question to ask ourselves whenever a relationship ends badly is not ‘why do I always end up with this sort of person?’, but rather: ‘what space am I leaving open, which always attracts this sort of person to come and fill it?’ We believe we are choosing. But how many of our choices are merely disguised reflexes? Those who have learnt that desire is dangerous will always choose the path of caution, and call it wisdom. Those who have learnt that stability is a prison will always choose to break away, and call it freedom. The Taoist sage tells the story of the butcher Ting, whose knife never goes blunt because he follows the empty spaces between the joints of the ox. Ting does not force anything: he sees the true structure of what lies before him. Our unconscious choices do the opposite: they do not see the present situation; they see the past situation through it, and they always cut in the same place, where the knife wears down and breaks. A truly free choice is rare. It requires that we have first recognised the automatic choice that stood ready to be made in our place. Repeated failures deserve special attention, for they are the most insistent messengers. Failing once is an event. Failing three times in the same way is a lesson waiting to be learnt. Look at the precise moment when things take a turn for the worse. Is it always at the start, when you have to take a chance? Always in the middle, when enthusiasm wanes? Is it always at the end, on the threshold of success, as if succeeding were more frightening than failing? The Tao Te Ching observes that ‘people often fail just as they are about to succeed; if one pays as much attention to the end as to the beginning, there is no failure’. This focus on the end requires us to recognise our usual breaking point – that crossroads where, project after project, we always take the same exit. Finally, there are the reactions: those impulses so swift that they precede any reflection. The anger that flares up at a harmless remark. The icy withdrawal in the face of a request for intimacy. The immediate justification at the slightest reproach. These reactions are the oldest of our patterns. They inhabit the body before they inhabit the mind: the jaw clenching, the breath
The Reality of Combat!
THE REALITY OF COMBAT! In martial arts, we readily talk about technique, power, strategy, style, lineage, transmission and discipline. We talk about forms honed over centuries, throws executed with millimetre precision, strikes that pierce through, and roots that run deep into the ground. We talk about all this with passion, with seriousness, and sometimes with devotion. And yet, a more brutal, simpler, more unsettling question almost always remains in the shadows: what does the body actually do in the very first second of a sudden attack? This question changes everything. It forces the practitioner to step out of the fantasy of a clean, prepared, symmetrical, ritualised fight. It tears them away from the well-lit tatami, the cooperative partner, the agreed distance. It places them face to face with real violence: the kind that takes you by surprise, that intimidates, that comes too close, too fast, accompanied by noise, fear, confusion, emotion, and sometimes without any discernible warning. Let’s take a concrete example. A man is leaving a supermarket, his arms laden with bags. He is thinking about his shopping list, his car park, his dinner. A figure looms up on his left, a voice shouts something incomprehensible, a hand grabs his shoulder. What is happening in his body at that precise moment? Not in his ideal as a practitioner. Not in the memory of his twenty years of training. In his real body, taken by surprise, overwhelmed, out of sync. This is the focus of this editorial. Not the beauty of the movement, but the truth of the moment. Not what we know how to do, but what we actually do when we no longer know anything. Certain contemporary approaches to self-defence have had the merit of bringing this question back to the fore: starting from the natural startle reflex, the spontaneous protective reaction, and building upon that, rather than against it. This shift in perspective deserves to be explored in depth, for it concerns all practitioners, from beginner to master, from boxer to tai chi practitioner, from judoka to aikido practitioner. A practitioner may know hundreds of techniques yet prove incapable of acting when the moment actually arrives. Every honest teacher has observed this at some point, sometimes to their own cost. It is not a matter of moral weakness, nor of a lack of practice. It is a widespread and well-documented physiological phenomenon: fear alters the body’s state. Fear alters breathing, which becomes shallow, high-pitched and laboured. It narrows vision, which focuses on the threat at the expense of peripheral vision: this is known as tunnel vision. It affects muscle tone: the shoulders rise, the neck stiffens, and the hands clench or tremble. It distorts the perception of time: some describe an unreal slowdown, others an incomprehensible acceleration. It impairs fine motor skills: fingers that could once fasten a belt are now unable to dial a telephone number. It disrupts hearing: witnesses to attacks report hearing nothing, or hearing only their own heartbeat. It can induce a state of shock – that frozen immobility where the body seems disconnected from the will. It can also produce the opposite: a disorderly rush, with movements that are too big, too early, too confused. Many techniques are based on a calm, responsive, warmed-up body that knows what is about to happen. The partner attacks with their right arm because the exercise calls for it.The distance is right because the teacher has set it. The floor is level, the lighting is good, nobody is shouting. But a real attack almost never begins under these conditions. It begins in surprise, humiliation, incomprehension, verbal tension, the fatigue of the end of the day, a confined space, or the act of protecting a child holding your hand. The serious practitioner must therefore ask themselves: does my art only work when I am prepared, or also when I am taken by surprise? The difference between these two answers is exactly the difference between practice and ability. In many schools, flinching is seen as a weakness. The implicit ideal is that of the impassive warrior: nothing surprises him, nothing makes him bat an eyelid; he sees everything coming. This is a beautiful image. It is also, for the most part, a fiction. Even the most seasoned fighters flinch when an object suddenly appears in their peripheral vision, when a door slams behind them, or when a hand touches their shoulder in the dark. Flinching is not a failure of training: it is an archaic neurological programme, faster than thought, older than any school of thought. Let us observe what this programme does. When danger arrives too quickly, the body spontaneously seeks to protect what is vital: the head, the eyes, the throat, the brain, and balance. The hands rise towards the face, the shoulders hunch to shield the neck, the torso leans forward or recoils, the eyes narrow, and the breath catches for a moment. Anyone can test this: throw a light ball at someone’s face without warning, and you will see this bodily response appear, identical in champions and beginners alike, in adults and children. The intelligent question is therefore not: how can we suppress the startle response? It is: what should we do with it? Two approaches are available in training. The first approach involves suppressing the instinct: building an ideal technical response on top of it, in the hope that, through repeated practice, the technique will replace the reflex. This approach has a serious flaw. Under intense stress, when genuinely taken by surprise, the nervous system reverts to its oldest and simplest programmes. The technique that has been learnt, if it contradicts the spontaneous movement, risks disappearing at precisely the moment it is needed most. The result is a practitioner with two bodies: a ‘demonstration’ body and a ‘survival’ body, which are unaware of one another. The second approach consists of channelling instinct: starting from the movement the body already produces, and shaping it. If, when taken by surprise, the hands rise, then
“What cannot be grasped from the front”
“What cannot be grasped from the front” When a Western practitioner first takes up Taoist exercises, one question almost always arises: why does the master never speak directly about my problem? I come feeling anxious, and I am asked to visualise a mountain. I come feeling angry, and I am made to work on the suppleness of my tendons. I come feeling sad, and I am invited to breathe through my skin. On the surface, there seems to be no connection between the exercise and the difficulty that has brought me here. This apparent inconsistency is neither negligence nor mere folklore. It lies at the very heart of a millennia-old method, the precision of which often eludes modern thought because the latter has become accustomed to addressing problems through their content: naming, analysing, explaining, recounting. The Taoist tradition proceeds differently. It does not address what the problem ‘says’, but the way in which it is embodied. It does not seek to undo the knot by pulling on it, but to alter the tension of the threads surrounding it, until it unravels of its own accord. This editorial aims to explore this logic of indirect transformation in depth, setting out its foundations, mechanisms, applications and implications, so that we may understand why an exercise that appears to have nothing to do with the problem nevertheless acts upon its root cause. The first break with ordinary thinking consists in ceasing to regard a deep-seated problem as a mental object. Fear, anger, sadness, a blockage, trauma, confusion or exhaustion do not reside solely in the head. They constitute a complete organisation of the being: a particular muscular tension, a quality of breathing, an inner posture, a way of perceiving the world, a heartbeat, a tightening of the abdomen, a narrowing of the gaze, a habit of the nervous system. The body of the fearful person is not the same as that of the hot-tempered person. The anxious person breathes shallowly and rapidly into their chest; their weight shifts upwards, their pelvis stiffens, and their shoulders rise imperceptibly. The hot-tempered person tenses their tendons, clenches their jaws and compresses their right side. The sad person closes off their chest, lets their sternum sag and dims the radiance of their skin. These descriptions are not metaphors: they describe real, observable patterns, repeated thousands of times a day, which ultimately form the physical foundation of the emotion. From this perspective, a persistent problem is not a mental event that drags on: it is a structure that persists. The body, the breath and attention have organised themselves around it, just as a landscape is carved out around a river. As long as the riverbed remains, the water will return to it. One can discuss the water endlessly; it is the riverbed that must be transformed. Why not tackle the problem directly, by naming it, analysing it, fighting it? Because the mind that would like to wage this battle is precisely the one that is caught up in the problem. It goes round in circles with the same story, the same emotions, the same reactions. It knows the problem by heart, recounts it skilfully, comments on it endlessly, and yet nothing changes. Worse still: a head-on attack risks reinforcing the problem’s identity. By constantly saying ‘my fear’, ‘my anger’, ‘my block’, ‘my wound’, we solidify what was merely a process. The problem becomes a possession, a territory, almost a proper name. The struggle gives it importance; importance gives it energy; and energy gives it longevity. Those who battle their insomnia feed it with their struggle; those who fight their anxiety provide it with a faithful adversary every night. The Taoist tradition has long observed this paradox. It has derived a strategic principle from it that is found both in the internal arts and in the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching: that which resists hardens; that which yields transforms. One does not straighten the water; one alters the slope. One does not force the lock; one seeks the key. The most apt image for understanding this method is that of the gardener. If a plant is growing poorly, no sensible gardener pulls at its leaves to correct it. Instead, they adjust the light, the water, the soil, the air, the exposure and the season. Then the plant transforms of its own accord, without any effort directed against it, simply because the conditions for its growth have changed. Taoist exercises work in exactly the same way. They do not target the problem; they alter the environment in which the problem exists: the breath, attention, circulation, relaxation, verticality, the relationship with emptiness, and the relationship between the Heart and the Kidney, between the Liver and the Spleen, and between the bones, tendons, organs and skin. Every aspect of the internal environment is a condition for the problem’s existence. Change enough of these conditions, and the problem, deprived of its ecosystem, can no longer persist in its former form. This is an internal ecology. The symptom is not an enemy to be vanquished but the expression of an unbalanced environment. The task is not to eradicate, but to rebalance, to nourish, to soften, to open up, to ground. And when the environment regains its vitality, what was growing crookedly straightens itself out without ever having been touched directly. This brings us to the question of imagery, which so baffles the rational mind. Letting light flow, sensing a mountain, breathing like a tortoise, imagining water flowing down, fire subsiding, wood growing, metal cutting, emptiness opening up: what is the point of these visualisations, if not therapeutic poetry? This is where we must be precise. In the Taoist tradition, the image is not mere decoration. It is a practical tool, in the most concrete sense of the term. It fulfils four simultaneous functions: it gives the body a direction, the breath a quality, intention a form, and the mind an indirect path to reorganise itself. Why does this work? Because the image
Guī Xī Fǎ: The Turtle Breathing Method
Guī Xī Fǎ: The Turtle Breathing Method In the ancient Taoist arts, it is said that the tortoise knows the secret of long life because it breathes sparingly, moves slowly and keeps its energy deep within itself. Its breath is neither agitated, scattered nor noisy. It is hidden, restrained, silent, almost invisible. The tortoise does not struggle against time: it conserves it. It does not waste its breath: it conserves it. It does not seek external strength: it cultivates inner depth. ‘Turtle Breathing’ thus refers to a secret and subtle practice, inspired by the ancient Taoist way, in which one learns to slow down, suspend and internalise the breath in order to transform one’s relationship with the body, the mind and vital energy. It is not merely a breathing technique, nor is it a performance exercise. It is a method of deep listening, an art of remaining calm when the need to breathe arises, and training to stay present at the heart of discomfort without tensing up, without panicking, and without losing clarity. In this practice, the breath becomes a gateway. At first, one believes one is working with air, the lungs and the ability to hold one’s breath. Then, little by little, one discovers that the essence lies elsewhere. What one encounters when one holds one’s breath is fear, impatience, tension, the desire to control, and the urge to flee from discomfort. Turtle Breathing reveals how the nervous system reacts under pressure. It shows how the mind becomes agitated when the body sends an emergency signal. It teaches us not to respond immediately with fear, but with presence. In the Taoist tradition, the tortoise is a symbol of stability, longevity, protection and a return to the centre. Its shell evokes the union of heaven and earth; its belly close to the ground recalls being rooted; its slowness expresses mastery of inner time. Practising the Turtle’s Breath therefore means learning to retreat into one’s own energetic shell, to close the doors to distraction, to conserve one’s breath, to soothe the fire of the mind and to allow the body to rediscover an intelligence older than ordinary will. This secret breathing technique does not involve forcing oneself to hold one’s breath or seeking to set a record. On the contrary, it requires gentleness, caution, patience and great inner precision. The practitioner first learns to calm the breath, then to calm the body, and then to calm the mind. Only then does the suspension become possible. Respiratory silence is no longer a constraint: it becomes a space. Within this space, tensions are revealed, automatic responses are undone, and another form of calm emerges, deeper than mere rest. Turtle Breathing is therefore a path of transformation. It trains the body to tolerate intensity better, the mind not to panic, and the energy not to disperse. It teaches that one can remain alive, conscious and stable even when the breath momentarily withdraws. It recalls a fundamental idea of Taoism: true strength lies not in constant expansion, but in the ability to return to the root, to maintain one’s centre, to preserve the Jing, to calm the Qi and to allow the Shen to become clear. Those who practise it correctly discover that breathing less does not mean lacking vitality. On the contrary, it can become a way of living life more fully. Less external movement, more inner presence. Less wasted breath, more energy conserved. Less reaction, more awareness. This is the mystery of the tortoise: to live a long life because one does not rush out of oneself. Tortoise Breathing therefore begins as a practice centred on the breath, but gradually becomes an art of profound stability. It teaches us to navigate pressure without losing our centre, to face discomfort without becoming rigid, and to hold our breath without losing awareness. It is a practice of calm, conservation and returning to the centre: an ancient path to understanding how the body, the breath and the mind can once again become a single, silent movement. The theory is based on a simple yet profound idea: the duration of breath-holding is not solely limited by the amount of oxygen available. It is primarily influenced by the way the mind, the nervous system and the body’s reflexes react to internal discomfort. When a person holds their breath, they quickly experience sensations of pressure, urgency, tension, fear or resistance. This is not merely a breathing exercise: it is a direct encounter with the body’s automatic response to stress. The aim, therefore, is not to ‘force’ a longer breath-hold, but to learn to remain clear-headed, calm and present when the body begins to send out alarm signals. Holding one’s breath becomes an internal laboratory: it creates controlled pressure, strong enough to trigger the usual stress responses, yet sufficiently contained for the practitioner to observe, understand and transform them. Most breathing practices use the breath to calm the nervous system: one slows down the inhalation, lengthens the exhalation, and makes the breathing gentle, deep and regular. In this case, the breath remains available as the primary tool for regulation. Conscious breath-holding introduces a particular challenge: the moment stress arises, the practitioner can no longer use their breath to calm themselves, as they are not breathing. They must therefore find another form of calm, deeper than simply slowing the breath. They must stabilise their attention, release unnecessary tension, quiet the mind, accept sensations and remain lucid amidst increasing intensity. This is what makes this approach a distinctive form of meditation. It does not merely seek tranquillity under favourable conditions; it seeks tranquillity at the very heart of a compelling bodily signal. It cultivates the ability to remain centred when the body demands a reaction. Holding one’s breath triggers a gradual build-up of physiological signals. Carbon dioxide levels rise, the urge to breathe arises, the diaphragm may begin to contract, the mind may become agitated, and the body seeks to regain control. This build-up lies at the heart of the method:
Yi Jin Xi Sui Jing
Yi Jin Xi Sui Jing The Yi Jin Jing, generally translated as the ‘Classic of the Transformation of Muscles and Tendons’, can be understood, in contemporary terms, as a progressive method for reconfiguring the musculo-tendinous, fascial, respiratory, postural and nervous systems, rather than simply as a set of stretching exercises. Where tradition speaks of ‘changing the tendons’, ‘loosening the muscles’, ‘circulating the breath’ and ‘strengthening the interior’, scientific vocabulary describes instead an improvement in active mobility, neuromuscular coordination, postural tone, proprioception, diaphragmatic breathing, autonomic regulation and the quality of connective tissues. It remains necessary, however, to exercise constant caution: modern science does not validate all the claims attributed to the Yi Jin Jing, but it does provide sufficient insights to understand why this practice can produce tangible effects on the body’s overall organisation. From this perspective, the Yi Jin Jing cannot be reduced to a simple passive stretch. It involves a methodical interweaving of held postures, slow movements, active stretches, joint rotations, deep breathing, focused attention, gentle contractions, progressive releases and overall body coordination. Whereas conventional stretching primarily alters the perception of range of motion, the Yi Jin Jing offers controlled ranges of motion, guided by the breath, organised around an axis, sustained by intention and accompanied by light but constant muscular activation. From this perspective, it is closer to neuro-myo-fascial training than to a simple flexibility exercise, a view confirmed by recent research which describes it as a traditional method capable of improving flexibility, strength and physical performance, particularly in older adults, although the quality of the evidence varies from one study to another. The term ‘Yi’ in the title refers to the idea of change and transformation, which can be rephrased, in scientific terms, as a process of gradual adaptation of the body-brain system. As the same movement is slowly repeated, the nervous system refines its ability to control muscles, joints and balance; motor circuits become more efficient, the perception of the body’s position in space becomes more precise, and movement becomes more refined, shedding unnecessary compensations. There is nothing magical about this: what tradition presents as transformation stems from neuroplasticity, that is, the nervous system’s ability to reshape its connections through repetition, attention and conscious bodily experience. As for the word ‘Jin’, often translated as ‘muscles and tendons’, it now needs to be broadened: it also encompasses the fasciae, ligaments, joint capsules, aponeuroses, and the entire network of connective tissues and myofascial chains that organise the transmission of forces within the body. The Yi Jin Jing never works on an isolated muscle; when we stretch our arms, open our chest, rotate our spine, or shift our weight down into our legs whilst breathing deeply, it is continuous lines that stretch and readjust, from the feet to the legs, from the pelvis to the spine, from the shoulders to the hands. This view is very close to the modern concept of myofascial chains, where the body is seen as a network of interconnected tissues rather than as a collection of independent segments. Within this network, the fasciae play a central role. These connective tissues envelop, connect and transmit tension between muscles and organs; they contribute to posture, the transmission of force, proprioception and the body’s internal sensitivity. The slow stretches, spiral twists, open postures and the interplay of opposing directions characteristic of the Yi Jin Jing seem particularly suited to fascial physiology, which responds well to progressive stress, multidirectional stretching, variations in pressure and slow movement, all of which are conditions conducive to tissue hydration and the maintenance of their elasticity. Contemporary research on the fascial system also highlights its ability to store and release elastic energy and to contribute to the overall efficiency of movement, which directly illuminates the logic of the ‘tendinous force’ sought in the internal arts. The practice also has a profound effect on proprioception, the ability to sense the body’s position, the angle of the joints, the degree of muscle tension, balance and movement. The Yi Jin Jing constantly prompts implicit questions such as: where are my feet, my centre, my shoulders, my breath, my spine, my hands; am I pulling too hard, am I slumping, am I really breathing? This silent awareness refines the body’s internal map: the more precise the map, the clearer the movement and the less confused or hesitant it becomes. This is one of the reasons why this type of work can support balance and coordination, a fact confirmed by research into traditional Chinese exercises – including the Yi Jin Jing – which highlights positive effects on balance and walking in older people. In terms of strength, the Yi Jin Jing is not like heavy weight training. It strengthens the body through slow contractions, fine postural control, holding specific positions, working against one’s body weight, and close coordination with breathing. When the arms remain raised, the legs bend gently, the spine lengthens, and the posture is maintained without tension, it is the deep muscles that take over: the stabilising muscles of the back,the deep core, and the musculature around the hips, legs, shoulders and neck. The result is a subtle yet profound strengthening, which focuses less on visible muscle mass and more on the quality of support, joint stability and the ability to maintain a gentle, continuous and sustained tension. Recent analyses of the Yi Jin Jing in older adults support this view, suggesting potential benefits for muscle strength and physical performance, whilst noting that the evidence remains mixed. Tendons, for their part, respond particularly well to progressive, repeated and well-measured stresses. From this perspective, the slow pace of the Yi Jin Jing becomes a protective factor: each posture establishes a moderate but continuous tension, which teaches the tendon to bear the load, to transmit force and to stabilise the joint without being subjected to traumatic jolts. Where traditional terminology refers to ‘making the tendons supple and strong’, modern physiology speaks of connective tissue remodelling, mechanical adaptation and improved force transmission along the myofascial chains. The joints
Internal arts are tough, which is why people have made them Limp
Internal arts are tough, which is why people have made them Limp The Internal Arts, often presented today as gentle practices for health, relaxation or well-being, nevertheless have a far more demanding martial, physical and internal history. Originally, they were not merely a series of slow movements intended to calm the mind or limber up the body. Internal martial arts were a comprehensive method of physical, mental and energetic transformation, aimed at developing profound qualities: grounding, structure, active relaxation, overall coordination, internal power, tactile awareness, emotional stability and martial effectiveness. However, in its most widespread contemporary form, the style has often been simplified, softened, stripped of some of its rigour and sometimes even of its meaning. This evolution responds to a real demand: the majority of practitioners are not necessarily seeking a difficult, long and demanding path. Many wish for an enjoyable, accessible, low-commitment activity, compatible with the modern idea of leisure and well-being. The problem lies not only in this orientation, but in the fact that it is sometimes presented as equivalent to an authentic and complete practice. It therefore becomes necessary to examine this situation with clarity: today’s internal martial arts are often chosen because they are easier, more comfortable and less confrontational. Many prefer to accept a diluted form, sometimes even knowing it to be so, rather than making the efforts essential to the genuine development of internal qualities. Contemporary Taijiquan has not become a comfortable practice by accident. This evolution is the result of a long historical, social, political and pedagogical process. Originally, Taijiquan belonged to the realm of the internal arts, that is to say, the martial arts. It involved deep physical work, combat methods, partner exercises, unarmed forms, weapons, and training in structure, relaxation and internal power. Today, however, the prevailing image of Taijiquan is often that of a slow, gentle, relaxing form of exercise, practised in parks, care homes, wellness centres or health classes. This image is not entirely false, but it is incomplete. Taijiquan does indeed have beneficial effects on balance, coordination and general health. Recent research shows, for example, that practising Tai Chi can improve balance and reduce the risk of falls in older people. A meta-analysis published in BMJ Open indicated a significant reduction in the number of falls among older people practising Tai Chi, whilst a 2023 review also concluded that it is effective in preventing falls and improving balance. The problem, therefore, is not that Taijiquan is used for health purposes. The problem arises when this health-related function becomes the sole aspect retained, to the point of erasing the martial structure, the genuine internal work and the requirement for physical transformation. A key moment in this transformation was the creation of simplified forms intended for the general public. In 1956, the Chinese Sports Commission organised the creation of a simplified 24-movement form, often called the Beijing form or the 24-form. It was designed to be short, accessible and easily teachable to large groups, with the aim of promoting public health and physical education. This form, based mainly on the Yang style, removed or reduced certain more complex aspects in order to allow for widespread dissemination. This initiative had a twofold effect. On the one hand, it enabled millions of people to discover Taijiquan. On the other, it helped to establish the idea that a short, simple, regular form of Taijiquan, without great discomfort or confrontation, could represent the art in its entirety. One of the most common misunderstandings is the belief that slowness alone is sufficient to make a practice internal. Yet a slow movement may be profound, but it may also be empty. The slowness of Taijiquan has value only if it allows for precise control of alignment, connection, active relaxation, weight transfer, the availability of the centre, and the continuity of intention. In many modern classes, slowness has become an aesthetic. We move gently because it looks calm. We round our arms because it looks harmonious. We breathe slowly because it looks meditative. But there is no guarantee that the body is truly connected. There is no guarantee that the legs are bearing weight correctly. There is no guarantee that the spine is alive, that the pelvis is transmitting force, that relaxation is not simply slackness, or that the movements retain a martial purpose. Taijiquan has also changed because the modern public does not, for the most part, seek the same things as the martial practitioners of old. Many people take up Taijiquan to relax, improve their balance, breathe better, reduce stress or resume gentle physical activity. This is a legitimate desire. It explains why UNESCO presents Taijiquan as a traditional physical practice consisting of relaxed, circular movements combined with breathing, and why it is now recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In many clubs, a telling scene can be observed. A group practises a form slowly. The movements are calm, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the students leave feeling a sense of serenity. Then a teacher or a more demanding practitioner suggests a simple test: applying light pressure to the arm during “Peng”, checking whether the posture holds, asking the practitioner to maintain their centre of gravity whilst the partner applies moderate pressure. Very often, the structure collapses immediately. The arm tenses or goes limp. The shoulders rise. The knees lock. The pelvis shifts back. Breathing stops. The practitioner, who felt fluid during the form, discovers they have no functional grounding. At this point, two reactions are possible. The first is to accept the lesson: “I thought I was relaxed, but I’m not. I thought I was stable, but I’m not. I need to work on this.” The second is to reject the test: “That’s not the spirit of Taijiquan. You’re pushing too hard. Here, we’re not looking for a fight. The important thing is to feel good.” This second reaction is common. It shows how comfort protects the illusion. As long as no one tests anything, everyone can believe they are