Secrets of Building Internal Force: 10 Questions to the Grandmaster

[sancrica]

Amazing Again! :-)

Dear Shaolin Wahnam Family,

I want to thank Sifu again for having such an immense generosity. Q & A Series are a treasure for my own personal practice and development. They truly enrich my life in ways that I didn't imagine.

I also want to thank Barry Sifu for starting another amazing thread. :-)

Sifu, I have been very lucky to attend to many of your courses. Because of that, I had the opportunity to learn many ways for building Internal force. In the past St. Valentines Taijiquan Course (108 Yang Pattern Set) I could experience many different ways of building internal force. I name below a list of the ones that I usually practice:

- Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns with Yang Spirit.
- Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns with Chen Spirit.
- Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns really slow.
- Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns at the mind level.
- Performing Tajiquan Set/Patterns exploding force.
- Stances (I usually practice 5-10 minutes maximum).
- Performing Cloud Hands walking through stances.
- Performing Cloud Hands in goat/horse stance.
- Performing Lifting Water in goat/horse stance.

My questions are as follows:

Sifu, may you give me advice for the best routine in my daily practice for building internal force? Which is the safest and the most effective way to do it with all the methods that I usually practice? Should I add/learn any other methods in my repertoire?

Thank you in advance Sifu.

With Love, Care and Shaolin Salute,

Santiago

[DarkCosmoz]

Thank you Sifu Barry for providing this opportunity.

Dear Sigung,

For combat, are there more advantages in training consolidated force than flowing force? This question presumes that the practitioner is already healthy and skillful in changing between consolidated and flowing force.

Thank you,
Stephen

[Jacek Kaleta]

Thank you Sifu Barry for starting this very exciting thread!!

How did I know this topic was coming?

I'm one of those fortunate participants of the recent Fully Alive course on Building Internal Force. That course was definitely a milestone in my Chi Kung journey and I can't recommend it highly enough. I shared more about my experiences here.

It was my first experience of building internal force training and I feel very fortunate that I received direct transmission of both flowing and consolidating force skills at the very beginning.

Dear Sigung

How does development of consolidating force influence flowing force (and vice versa) and what are important practical considerations to ensure these processes are efficient and balanced?

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this privilege of asking you a question.

With Shaolin Salute
Jacek

[Frederick_Chu]

Dear Sisook,

Thank you for opening the question and answer thread for the Secrets of Building Internal Force! I'm definitely keeping my eye on this thread.

Dear Sigung,

Thank you for generously offering to answer questions on internal force. I am certain this thread will become another modern classic and reference about an elusive (and often polarizing) subject.

Two years ago in Florida, you taught Two Finger Shooting Zen where we first emphasized proper form, generated an energy flow, and then consolidated the energy flow into internal force. You also taught Lifting Water where there was no particular instruction for allowing flow or consolidation, we simply did the exercise in a qigong state of mind. From some discussion with other Shaolin Wahnam family members, these two methods are very common in our school.

At the UK Summer Camp in Arundhel, you taught the Baguazhang method of force training, which involved both building force with Baguazhang stances and then letting it flow with Circle Walking. Are there other such internal force training methods or styles of kung fu where the practitioner alternatively builds and then allows force to flow within the same exercise? What are the advantages and disadvantages (if any?) of an exercise that builds and flows within the same exercise, versus an exercise like Two Finger Shooting Zen where first there is flow and then there is consolidation, or versus an exercise the way Lifting Water was taught where there is no particular thought towards flowing or consolidating?

Thank you again!

Sincerely with Shaolin salute,
-Fred Chu

[barrys]

Dear Family and Visitors,

As you know, for the UK Summer Camp 2014, Sifu has put together a program on The Secrets of Building Internal Force to help people understand, experience, and be able to use techniques of developing both flowing and consolidating force. The course is already filling up so it is obviously something that catches people's attention.

We ran a weekend Fully Alive course recently on the same topic and Sifu kindly shared ideas about how to approach it. The results were amazing (the people there might want to share). So with Sifu teaching it, the results will be ... well difficult to come up with a suitable word .

Secrets of Internal Force.jpg

Sifu has kindly offered to answer questions on the topic of Secrets of Building Internal Force.

Family and visitors are invited to ask questions. No question is too basic - basic questions can give the opportunity to reveal and focus on the fundamentals. So, whatever you want to know about building consolidating or flowing force please come forward and ask.

Out of all the submitted questions Sifu will choose 10 and we will post the answers here and on the event website over the coming weeks.

Looking forward to learning a lot from this thread - another possibility to help create a classic.

With metta,

Barry