UJI

urces

By Marvin Smalheiser

The translator for this interview with Cai Song Fang was Fang Ha of Berkeley, CA, who teaches in the San Francisco Bay area. Jan Diepersloot, who also teaches in the Bay area and is a a student of Cai and Pong Ha; assisted in explaining Cai's ideas.

A practitioner of Wuji qigong for more than 43 y~ars, Cai Song Fang of Shanghai describes his quiet standing meditation ~ a .harvesting of internal energy and as a secret transmission used by Yang Cheng-fu to achieve breakthroughs in his mar-

tial art skills. --..

Cai practices Wuji qigong, which is basically standing in proper alignment in the posture T'ai Chi Ch'uan practitioners. assume before begin .. ning their movements ..

It is intended to increase qi (ch'i) for health and martial arts bv center-

..

ing energy in the dantian, or lower

abdomen. The Wuji standing medita-

,

tion increases the qi, or internal energy

whic_Jt graduaJ1y expands throughout the ~:body, according to Cai.

Wuji, represents the idea of the unitary concept,. or uncarved block, in Taoism, It is what Yin and Yang come from ..

Wuji meditation is also a method of equalizing tension and heightening inner awareness, according to Cai, who is reported to have exceptional push hands skills even though he never studied more than a few movements from the Yang style,

The secret to practicing Wuji qigong, Cai said, is relaxed standing with inner adjustments while keeping awareness in the dantian, one of the key energy centers in the body.

"When you stand you cultivate your qi and when the volume of qi begins to increase and you get more qi, then you can use it. The secret is to just stand there," said Cai (pronounced Choy), a 65-year-old retired textile engineer from Shanghai.

In the process, he said, the practitioner accumulates an experiential knowledge as the qi grows and this produces more energy, agility and

14

• •

--~-~ an hour or an until they have hours of practi "Then you .And your body

Ha said!"

The beginn ·-'~iCl feel too much i

~·I depending on _-"..__" or abi li ty,

Externally, e practice involves keeping three ints in line .. They are the bahui a puncture point at the top of the h ...... IIwI._ .. the huiyin point at the bottom 0 the torso between. the anus and th genitals, and a point midway I erally between the

bubbling well puncture points at

the bottom of e h foot.

"You adjust our position in the Wuji stance an internally maintain awareness in th dantian," Ha said.

"That is all the et there is when

you stand, But yo do not stand for three minutes. You an see how we stand. We stand fo relatively quite a

long time,' The standing, i said, should be .:

natural, relaxed an not forced. }._

Fong Ha said t, "First you must

be quiet. When yo mind is quiet, t then you will be ab e to relax .. Relaxation is not j doing anything.

When your min is crowded .and not

~----..

.... _ ; .. .. .. ;,: ... : calmed down, y cannot relax .

. '. : ..... :' .' "In Chinese, e word sung

... ',. ;'. means to let go. etting go is basi-

. .. .. ..

,;,j,,\,:;jf~'~" cally the Chines direct translation

... -::·::':,··:::X:~.:~.< of fangsung, let . The mind must "'J~~'t;! be quiet. This is he first prerequisite '~~~,~<jj to letting go.

. ., .r, -, ."j";.-

':--.~~;~- "Fangsung is a way to teach

your body how let go .. Otherwise,

~'"Sj.~

~;-~ to go to sleep is let go. You hold

the structure and let go in the structure. So ] call it ualizing tension.

~ This means m g the tension even

throughout the dy, It means mak-

ing tension less d less in muscles and mind," Ha <P d.i'Reducing tension in just one rt is not good' enough."

He said the ind must be calm and silent and th body must not move, And brea ... ng must be even,

"These three ings seem to be the prerequisite r relaxation,

i,o-

Cai Song Fang in the Wuji qigong posture. greater awareness of the gravitational

field the individual works with,

It also involves a lot of standing, Fong Ha, who has brought Cai to the U .S. several times during the past 17 years, said Cai recommends standing two hours a day, which can be broken into shorter segments during the day. They recommend that beginners stand

-- -"1 t f

!

f

.

t

r

ur an a half a day ccumuJated 100

ill know its worth. ill know," Fang

..

, he said, may not the beginning,

or her background

Cai with students ln a Berkeley, CA, class.

"When you Stand, there is going to be some tension, just to stand .. But you maintain everything in the center. That means every part of your body can let go to a certain extent.

"In the beginning," Fa said, . "people pay too much attention with the mind to all the details and the classic writings, Then your body is not experiencing it. But when you stand, the qi begins to emanate and accumulate and the body will start to fill out like a bal .. loon."

He said the principles for standing are the same as for T'ai Chi: sink the qi, raise the spirit, loosen the shoulders, sink the elbows, etc.

"But you don 't have to do that intentionally, It will unfold. Basically, the practice will dissipate tensions. If you stand for five minutes and feel too much tension,

then take a break, As you continue

to stand, you will notice that your anger and stress will slowly dissipate."

Cai learned the rudiments of Wuji qigong in 1953 from a friend while he was in college. The friend was a student of a man who studied with Yang Cheng .. fu.

r Since then, Cai has practiced without interruption and began to feel the benefits in 1958 while working on a farm during a period when intellectual people in China had to go to rural areas and learn from farmers.

Then he realized that Wuji qigong helped him. He said he experimented by teaching a farmer to do the standing and the farmer healed himself of

. an ailment.

Later Cai was able to heal a farmer using his energy by laying his hand on the farmer. The farmer, in his 60s, couldn't raise his hands above his shoulders, After some 20 treatments of sending qi to the farmer, the farmer was totally cured ..

Later Cai said that he felt that using his own energy to heal drained his resources, so he felt it was belter to teach others to cultivate qi as he cultivated it himself, So far, he said, he has taught about 90,000 people in China, including many people who were healed of diseases.

Cai said that one student in Canada, a woman in her 70s·, had

. .

Cai pushes hands with 'a student. many illnesses, including heart disease, .rheumatism, and old injuries. She tried all kinds of medicines and qigong without success. In 1993, Cai went to Toronto, Canada, and she met Cai and began to practice Wuji qigong everyday. He told her to stand for two hours a day, breaking it tip into segments to take into account her age and frailty ..

After she had stood for about 40 accumulated hours, over a period of one and a half months, he said the healing began to take place, After nine

.... • .. r-'

months, he sai to reverse and said all the ill

Standing t good results, can be done 1 45 minutes at not practical.

'l.A lot of p

or practice T' tremendously understanding in the art. It is Cai said.

The marti

, the sickness began fter 1 1/2 years, Cai sses were cured .. hours a day will get i said. The standing

t •

minutes at a time or

time if two hours is

pie who are healthy Chi Ch' uan get

d results and

f what they are doing most inevitable,"

Cai in a classic standing meditation posture.

benefit, Cai said, comes from th accumulation of qi, "which is the urce of all power, all energy. Then u add 0·0 your T'ai Chi Ch' uan te nique or basic execution such as d off, press and push and you ve improved your martial art ski .

"All good artial arts," he said,

"must also be for the body

first, The body is what expresses the

art."

He said the d· ............ ~ ... h. .. -~- between zhao zhuang, w standing medi tati do zhan zhuang other standing p zhao zhuang is t zhao zhuang,'

Holding the up as if embrac-

ing a baIlor simi arm postures in

zhan zhuang use up a lot more energy compared to the uji posture where the hands are at e side, Cai said,

''The Wuji s nee," Cai said, "only

em phasizes one ce of I Chuan (a .

basic standing ditative discipline) .. I

Chuan has the ji stance but they

don't ernphasiz it that much."

Cai said that in reality, all T' ai Chi Ch'uan posture should include the Wuji stance, ali ing the three points, inner quiet, cent ring the mind in the dantian, relaxed ody, etc.

"In order to the complete T' ai

. Chi Ch'uan, yo have to do the Wuji stance and. also ltivate the Wuji to get the qi."

Ha said that why Cai's Wuji stance comes fr m Yang Cheng-fu, "It is not unique an separate. He just emphasizes that art."

Maintaining e centerline is important for i. He doesn't talk about fajing (ex losive use of energy) but maintaining e center line of the

body .. He feels jing is not necessary.

h also involves

0, is that people who and do a lot of

lures. "The Wuji ~ basic stance of)..all

15

Jan Diepersloot said that when Cai throws people away, he is not really using his own en1!rgy. He ~s using whatever energy he IS getting from the opponent to throw them back.

Fong Ha said that when d~ing. push hands, Cai uses qi to mamtam his centerline so an opponent can't take advantage of it.

"What he does is to maintain the centerline with the manipulation of qi and the manipulation of the pos~ ture in such a way that he can stabilize his center at any particular momenta

"So whatever energy is exerted by the opponent, he will ~se it to bounce him away or to slip the energy and push in another direction, He does not discharge internal energy outside toward the oppo .. nent,"

Ha said that Cai's structural alignment spontaneously manifests itself according to how he maintains his center line. That, basically, is the essence of the whole art.

Sinking the hips and raising the spine; he said, is part of creating !he centerline" It is the means to mampulate and to control the centerline.

-Learning to create the centerline and adjust it, Ha said, may not co~e to someone early. "But your body will sooner or later get the idea because you want to stand up straight. It is the inborn ability of finding equilibrium.

h " Of course, it helps to have a teac er,

Ha said that according to Cai, Yang Cheng-fu had not in the beginning

But when his father died, Yang Cheng-fu was advised that h is father emphasized certain thi ngs that he wanted Yang Cheng-fu to pr~ctice more. When the time came when Yang Chengfu decided that he really wanted to excel, he had to practice what his.

father transmitted, which was Wuji qigong.

16

Cai Song Fang pushes hands with Jan

Diepersloot.

received the transmission from his father until much later, after his father died.

At the time of his father's death, Yang Cheng-fu 's accompIishme~t and skill were not any more outstanding than his peer group. In fact, Cai said, he was told that many of the senior students of Yang Cheng-fu's father were superior in skill to Yang Cheng-fu,

But when his father died, Yang Cheng-fu was advised that his father emphasized certain things that he wanted Yang Cheng-fu to practice more. When the time came when Yang Cheng-fu decided that he really wanted to excel, he had to practice what his father transmitted, which was Wuji

•

qIgong. ..

Within a a short period of time after

his father's death and after his intense study of Wuji qigong, Yang Cheng-fu's skill far exceeded his peer group. And that is why Cai considers Wuji qigong

.. .

a secret transrrnssion.

Cai's Wuji stance practice has remained basically the same outwardly since 1953 although he said it has changed inwardly. Even though he had only one teacher, the person ,:"ho instructed him initially, he said he has followed the principles and grew with them ..

Cai said he studied Yang style T'ai Chi for one month and thought it was too campI icated and gave up the practice.

Fong Ha, who does other I Chuan

standing p~s s, said Cai is. the

only person he knows outside of the I Chuan discip ·ne that developed exceptional ab ity at healing and martial arts wi out practicing something besi es Wuqi qigong.

The basis the healing, Ha

said, is the a mulation of energy ..

Cai said n when he practices,

he becomes m e empty" He reaches a state where h feels his body doesn 't exist, , ere is a feeling of lightness and m the light~ess comes the emp ~ ness. The mind

,.,

becomes more ear.

The beginn r, Cai said, will feel warmth in the ntian after putting the mind there. When they begin to feel the wannt this means the qi is already gatheri g there!"

Subsequently, u will feel the

movement of q which is a mani ... festation of Yin and Yang,"

Cai said his pr ice involves always returning t the Wuji, the one, first principle that xists before Yin a?d Yang. Because of is, he feels there IS

a self-adjusting, f-correcting process

that creates an equ librium.

Fang Ha said by putting your ...

self in a standing sition such as .:

•

Wuji, "You are ac ating your own. ~

automatic maint system. So It

doesn't matter if y u have bad posture, Every single cell i your body will wantto maintain i elf so you can

stand up straight.

"Therefore, it i self-correcting at all times, regardle of your state of

health, regardless the state of

destruction going in your body.

Your body is au atically self-adjust-

ing and self-maim ning. ..

"By simply doi the WUJI stan~e,

you are activating i already. There IS nothing else you h e to do. In my theory, you don't hav to be able to stand in any special way. Just stand up and

already the work is done." .

Cai said, "The y seeks an equi-

Iibriurn,'

Through the eq ilibrium, Fang Ha

said, the mind and y become more

integrated. "Inte __ d means the

awareness comes f m the center and extends to every ex emity of the body.

Then you have inte ration. .

"Integration ca also be talked about as evenly dis ibuted tension, or even as density, as n matter .. So the

body through the ctice of qi opens

••

. .. . ..... ._- - . _. __ .. -_ .. _._.

- - .. .... . -- . -- _. .

p

Fang Ha said that in terms of martial arts, "I have come to the understanding that knowing and developing awareness continues to be far more important than developing self-defense

- technique."

-.

all the meridians and you become more and more integrated ..

"The Chinese word is solid, meaning one, a unity, When you understand the body, you will be able to become a human being. You will understand others through contact and through practice with other persons ..

"That information that you know you acquire in integration will be immediately interpreted through the touch, either by the physical body or by intention and will be extended to the other person.

"Then you can tell if the other person is integrated. I can know where your center is because you become part of me through the contact. So that is

""'(

integration, It is like a constant expan-

sion."

. Fong Ha said that in terms of martial arts, "I have come to the understanding that knowing and developing awareness continues to be far more important than developing self-defense technique.

"Our awareness is there, we just don't know that it is there .. So when we put our mind in the dantian, that is just a method to remind yourself it is there. That is the beginning of it,

,t;We try to bring ourselves to the

point where we realize and recognize our awareness. Putting awareness in the dantian seems to be a traditional and well-used method in different cul-

tures"

"My personal feeling is that it is

because of the relationship of the diaphragm to the umbilical cord. They connect us with the first awareness that we receive sustenance from the mother .. So this awareness is most primal. By focusing the awareness in the dantian it triggers us back to a greater awareness level faster.".

-

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