Phases

More than ever, I'm convinced from my own experience about something I've suspected for a long time: we have phases. There are in our lives times in which our very approach to being and living is drastically more active, energetic, and vigorous. At those times, our lives are in a phase that is primarily yang. There are other times in our lives in which every endeavor seems a tremendous effort, particularly physical endeavors, where inexplicably, it seems, we sleep too late and then yearn for more sleep and the very idea of working out seems dreadful, preferring a nap that according to our programmed idea of "eight hours per night" we shouldn't need at all. At those times, our lives are primarily in a yin phase. We must live with both phases, and they are inescapable realities. In the West, we often try to ignore, repress, or push through the yin phases, wondering why our lives, efforts, and, particularly, workouts suddenly don't have the vigor that they had just weeks ago, attributing it to any number of causes. "Sometimes we're up, and sometimes we're down," might be the best explanation of all, especially if we notice that the changes are cyclical.

I've found myself lately in a very yin phase. My desire to train has slackened tremendously. Some aspects of my workouts have suffered, and yet the intellectual components of learning and developing in Yin Style Baguazhang have seemed to increase tenfold. I feel pulled to review the video material, taking it a step further to document and study carefully the requirements and patterns revealed therein, and I stare at my driveway thinking of doing strikes with tremendous disdain. I've only managed about 3000 of them in the last week, and the sessions were all forced, my power feeling like it had waned slightly; my will to continue diminished. I can feel it now, typing up this post... the desire to explore the art with my mind and to put my thoughts down is full. This afternoon, I stared out into the hazy heat, gazing at my circle with guilt for the lack of attention I've given it in the past week and flooded with exactly the opposite feeling that this post is giving me: dread. Faced with the reality of my training, though, I thought: an hour a day... not quite... not even close, though I did manage to turn most of the days. I thought about the near-90 heat, intense humidity (thanks to the remnants of a tropical storm moving this way and it being the Dirty South), and the mosquitoes, and I almost talked myself out of it.

After arguing with myself, I forced myself out onto the circle that I missed yesterday. Our study group was made fully official by the International Yin Style folks yesterday, and I had planned to celebrate with an hour or so on the circle and maybe a thousand or more strikes. I didn't even turn yesterday, though. Deciding that I should put in at least 45 minutes, not feeling up to the hour, I got on to turn. I finished my first go-around in each direction at 42 minutes, maintaining a good feeling the whole time and a fullness I hadn't felt in days. My desire to nap evaporated, and I figured doing just three more minutes was silly. Once more voyage each way got me over my hour, with three whole extra minutes on my little timer, and I felt great, very glad I had done it.

Now I realize that part of life is different phases, and that during yin phases, training is more difficult. I'm willing to bet that doing strikes wouldn't have gone nearly as well, though static postures earlier in the day had been quite successful. Forms feel good when the power is kept low, but doing them hard just doesn't feel right. Perhaps part of training in an art like Yin Style is learning to recognize the phases of our lives and adapt our training to them accordingly, asking what is natural of our bodies at the appropriate times instead of blindly trying to force ourselves into a rigid mold that bucks against those cyclic changes. Still, many of the exercises of Yin Style are performed well in yin or yang phases, like turning, and the different aspects of the practice in the different phases can and should be explored -- through practice. The different phases, though, do not permit laziness, however.

An old saying is "between two and five, the training is real," where the two refer to yin and and the five the five phases/transitions/elements/states of traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy. That saying indicates to me that learning about the phases of the body in terms of both yin and yang is part of training Yin Style and a critical part of development. I can only wonder and hope about what revelations and realizations will come about concerning the five with further effort.

Perhaps with attention and through diligent training, I will continue in this way until I can feel the yin within the yang, and vice-versa, with the phases of my life and continually adapt my life to those subtle influences, which is likely a stepping stone to "the five." I look forward to such a day and am thrilled that Yin Style may offer such self-knowledge.