Musing On Standing
Of all the practices an internal arts practitioner ought to undertake is standing practice or Zhan Zhuang (Z-Z). In contrast to form practice, Z-Z encourages stillness and aims to produce more with less. By less, I mean external movement such as when practicing form or Qi Gong.
Zhan Zhuang training is similar in some ways to the process of editing one’s writing. It starts out with the assumption that what one has written is going to be re-done so much that the end product may not resemble the original draft; it takes a serious critical approach to one’s posture. Here, posture not only represents the physical expression of the practice, it includes attitudes which evolved from self-delusion; distorted images of self often reinforced by accolades from the uninitiated, and, perhaps worse of all, sculpturing without a model.
Standing practice defines for us the ancient saying of “eating bitter”. It is a solo practice. The only spectators are demons who dance around the fire of our burning feet, feast on a smoldering ego, quench their thirst on our sweat while fading in and out of a smoke filled mind.
Welcome to the ritual!
Zhan Zhuang training is similar in some ways to the process of editing one’s writing. It starts out with the assumption that what one has written is going to be re-done so much that the end product may not resemble the original draft; it takes a serious critical approach to one’s posture. Here, posture not only represents the physical expression of the practice, it includes attitudes which evolved from self-delusion; distorted images of self often reinforced by accolades from the uninitiated, and, perhaps worse of all, sculpturing without a model.
Standing practice defines for us the ancient saying of “eating bitter”. It is a solo practice. The only spectators are demons who dance around the fire of our burning feet, feast on a smoldering ego, quench their thirst on our sweat while fading in and out of a smoke filled mind.
Welcome to the ritual!