Pulsing the Joints of the Body in Qigong, Tai Chi & Bagua
This article is Part 2; see Part 1 on Essential Neigong Exercises.
Pulsing is a naturally occurring phenomenon replicated time and again throughout the universe as an essential aspect of every living organism, including human beings. Pulsing (also known as “opening and closing”) is little more than a synchronised, alternating rhythm of expanding and condensing energy.
- Paul Cavel Teaches Pulsing in Qigong
In terms of qigong, tai chi and bagua, the concept of pulsing is simple: You want your entire body and its energy to pulse as one coherent whole throughout your form (set, style or palm change). The theory is relatively easy to understand, but in practice there are many layers to pulsing that require patience and dedication to achieve. Fundamentally, pulsing can become a means by which you work through all the body’s primary systems and subsystems to restore balance and connection in the totality of your being.
If you look at a healthy baby, there are two very obvious currents that run through its soft, supple and vibrant body: spirals and pulsations. Spirals can be directed by soft tissue work whilst pulsations are initially directed by opening and closing the body’s joints and cavities.
However, it does not stop there. Eventually, you can pulse everything in your body, including your internal organs, glands, soft tissues and subtle energy anatomy. The joints are typically the easiest place to start for most people. You simply look to increase and decrease the space between the bones in an alternating rhythm.
Pulsing to Contact Your Chi
At this level, a tangible sense of the pulse in the joints has many generalized health benefits, including:
- Releases the nerves.
- Fosters a sense of relaxation by expelling surface-level and deeply bound tension.
- Stretches open the ligaments and thereby engages synovial fluid (lubricating fluid between the joints).
- Becomes a means by which you can contact the energy of the joints that governs your physical body.
- Serves as a gateway for initiating the pulse with your mind’s intent and taking the pulse deeper into your body.
As with all neigong (system of 16 internal power components for health and vitality), initially you seek to manipulate the physical body and with regular, dedicated practice, you can eventually gain access to the energy that powers it.
Pulsing is a highly effective intermediate neigong component as a technique for going through the physical body to contact your energy via your fluids. Activation of the fluids is the critical link, which helps you make the jump to accessing and directing your chi within your qigong, tai chi or bagua practice.
In the Water method practices that originated from China 4,000+ years ago, we use a process of “ice to water, water to gas” for dissolving blocked energy. Ice to water, water to gas can also serve as a metaphor to access ever-more subtle layers of your being from:
- Solid—your physical bones and flesh; to
- Liquid—bodily fluids, which in the case of pulsing the joints would be synovial fluid; to
- Gas—whereby you gain access to the chi that powers you as a living organism.
How to Learn Pulsing
There is really only one way to learn how to pulse: Have a well-trained practitioner put their hands on your body and manipulate it to create a pulse at such a gross level that you can easily recognise it. Then, over time, you seek to replicate that experience in your own body.
You can do all sorts of mental gymnastics and visualising, but it will get you no closer to actualising the pulse than thinking about food can provide nourishment and feed your hunger.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve taught the subject of pulsing and, often times find that even students who have some knowledge and experience with the pulse are stumped for words when I activate a gentle yet strong pulse throughout their body (or in some localised region). The reason is that any mental construct or anything you could imagine at all is no substitute for real experience. Pulsing techniques are done at a subtle level as with all chi practices.
However, once you have the experience, you can tangibly tune into and feel the body’s natural openings and closings and amplify them. With diligent practice and live training, almost anyone has the ability to gain some faculty in pulsing.
Why Bother to Pulse?
You might think, “Well, if pulsing is already happening, why do I need to work on it so much?!”
As we age, suffer from injury or illness, have accidents or just pile on daily stress and tension that locks in our systems, the body slowly closes down. Over time, accumulated stress has a way of growing and multiplying as the layers of tension intertwine. Stress is a primary cause of this negative downward spiral and a culprit of premature aging.
Adding insult to injury, as we age, the percentage of bodily fluids we produce relative to our body mass decreases. This in turn reduces flexibility and optimal functioning of the joints, making the body brittle.
Pulsing is a way of reversing these processes. Anyone who has had a body part pulsed or can activate the process themselves knows that it immediately goes to releasing stress and tension. Within a few moments, many people are visibly less tense and, for example, have a softer facial expression. The pulse also activates fluid production, thereby creating a nice cushion for the joints. This is what gives adept internal martial artists that incredible springy quality and keeps them from being injured in sparring exercises.
If you can maintain pulsing in your qigong, tai chi and bagua practice, then this repeated stimulation can have a long-term positive effect. For example, the joints become more supple and flexible, which prevents injury and strain that become more common as we age. Additionally, releasing daily stress and tension stops it from getting lodged in our system and connecting to other blocked places that amplify pain and discomfort.
So establishing a regular practice routine that includes pulsing creates a positive feedback loop, helping to stave off the decline often associated with the aging process. Tuning in to the natural opening and closing that is a part of our essential makeup fosters peace of mind and helps us to become present.
Pulsing in Qigong, Tai Chi & Bagua for Beginners
In the beginning, pulsing the joints is usually easiest in the wrists, hands and fingers. Developing your capacity to pulse these joints provides a contact point from which you can build your understanding and skill level. Then, you can progress to the ankles, feet, elbows, knees, shoulders, hips, and eventually all the joints of the body including: the pelvis, ribcage, spine and plates of the skull. When you achieve this level of pulsing, you can get your entire skeleton to pulse, which creates a synergy that is quite impossible to perceive or imagine without direct experience.
Once you can activate your outer frame as one whole, you then work towards going deeper into balancing, integrating and upgrading your entire system. At the level of pulsing the joints, the results can be quite profound, but from the perspective of neigong your vehicle is only in first gear.
Pulsing is an evolving neigong technique that morphs and changes in application as you develop your body and the ability to directly influence your energy. I’ll look at the next layer, pulsing the cavities, in my next blog.
Happy pulsing,
Paul
Read Part 3: Pulsing the Cavities
© 2011 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.
Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.
