Martial Arts: Qi Pressure

“Qi pressure”’ is a term made up by the author(s) of this codex to describe a condition of the body. There is no historical precendence for this term, nor was it learnd through the author’s teachers. Qi pressure is necessary for developing power through the internal martial arts.

Threaded through the physical body are long, structures called the “huang”. It runs through muscles, fascia, tendons, and ligaments. It is responsive to 氣 (qi), and inflates the flesh. When developed, this inflation provides an alternate means of moving the physical body – through pressurization, rather than through the contraction of muscles against the skeletal structure.

Internal martial arts the rely on qi pressure for power development do not make sense without it.

This kind of training takes longer, and may not result in better combat effeciveness. Even if someone were to develop greater power, the training takes longer, so it is not as effective for the military, and maybe not even for civilian self-defense.

Without qi pressure, the movements from arts that rely on qi pressure don’t always map to combat methods. They may be too elaborate or too inefficient too work under pressure against an adversary.

However, what this kind of training is effective for is developing a strong enough subtle energy body to power siddhis and magial rituals. You also need a sufficiently strong subtle energy body to support a Mantle, or a Domain, without it collapsing into yourself. Someone unable to support a Mantle or a Domain loses their sense of self and becomes a puppet for the Mantle or Domain.

Development of the subtle body can take multiple lifetimes. However, unlike purely physical body strength, some of that subtle body methods carry forth into future incarnations.

Some people start out with higher qi sensitivity, or even have higher levels of qi. While some of these may be boons, they can also be the result of previous lifetimes of practice.

A soul also needs to exhaust much of their longings and desire for developing ordinary strength, to avoid chasing after shortcuts. It takes a kind of faith to start on this path and keep walking along it. It’s also not bad to explore the limits of the physical body to see how far that goes. Those limits inform the soul about the value of this kind of training.

Six Harmonies

Qi pressure is not achieved by imaginging or intending qi to move somewhere. Instead, the body needs to be sufficiently relaxed, the joints open so that the huang stretches. Attention, rather than intention allows the presence of mind to soak into the area. Without interference, qi starts swelling. The harmonization with intent (yi), and power (jin) follows.

This is known as the Six Harmonies.

We’re also not generating qi, so much as living, thinking, and feeling in a healthy way where our body naturally produces a surplus of qi.

Reisistance Training with Qi Pressure

During the initial stages of training, qi pressure is weak. A practitioner may not even have much qi sensitivity. Furthermore, to develop this, the body has to be sufficiently relaxed in order to allow qi to conduct through the huang. As such, during the initial phases, a practitioner is weaker than someone using resistive training to develop conventional strength through musclular-skeletal activation.

However, it is a misunderstanding that internal power development like this does not use resistive training at all. Once qi pressure is achieved, the internal qi pressure becomes the source of resistance. The next stage of training can proceed.

Once there is qi pressure, we can use some kind of physical action to act upon the inflated huang, This starts reshaping the interior of the body. The specific martial arts have different approaches for this, but one of the common, basic method is to use the natural movement of breathing provide the resistance against the pressure.

This points to a common misunderstanding. We’re not breathing qi or trying to draw it in. The qi is supplied from the surplus of healthy living. Rather, it’s the physical motion of breathing itself that provides the motion and resistance against qi pressure for the initial development.

Beyond breathing, there are other methods:

1. Hard qigong and iron body methods inflate qi and then hit the body part against various surfaces.

2. Xingyiquan uses Santi for the initial breathing method. The five basic fists uses momentum and stopping momentum (in the follow step) to expand and compress the qi pressure when moving in a forward direction.

3. Baguazhang inflates qi pressure in eight cavities while walking in a circle. The centrifigual force acting upon each of the cavities develop the huang. The ninth circle walking posture, incorporates all eight cavities

4. Taijiquan uses a continuous release. By “continuous release”, it does not mean continuously pulsing between wind up and release. There is only “release”. (Note: this is the author’s conjuecture)

5. Baguazhang single palm change and variations twists the huang and changes direction while the body is under qi pressure. Likewise, Chen Taijiquan silk reeling also twists the huang while the body is under qi pressures.

Physical Indicators of Developed Huang

As qi pressure is developed in the Huang, and force is applied to it, the Huang grows. They form ridges in the flesh that appears in the body when qi swells the Huang. This can be felt physically, by other people. These ridges feel like tendons even when they are not really tendons. It is this tendon-like quality that is referenced by the Yi Jin Jing – the Tendon Changing Classic. The musculature is changed into a tendon-like quality by the development of the huang through qi pressure training.