Iron Shirt Chi Kung Read online

  Acknowledgments

  I thank foremost those Taoist Masters who were kind enough to share their knowledge with me, never imagining it would eventually be taught to Westerners. I acknowledge special thanks to Roberta Prada and Roderick Kettlewell for encouraging the production of this book, for their input on the original manuscript, and for their editing regarding technical procedures.

  I thank the many contributors essential to this book’s final form: Susan Davidson, editor at Inner Traditions/Destiny Books, for her many contributions to clarifying the text; the artist, Juan Li, for many hours spent drawing, making illustrations of the body’s internal functions; Terry Goss for his chapter on the relationships between breath and structural alignment, which helps tremendously in understanding the practice of Iron Shirt; Larry Short for sharing some of the Tibetan Nui Kung Exercises; Michael Brosnahan for helping to clarify the technical points of structure; Dr. Michael Posner for sharing his view of chiropractic and Iron Shirt; and Gunther Weil, Ph.D., Rylin Malone, and many of my students for their feedback.

  For their assistance in producing the original edition of this book, I thank Jo Ann Cutreria, our secretary, for making so many contacts and working endlessly; Daniel Bobek for long hours at the computer; John-Robert Zielinski for setting up the new computer system and for his interview of Michael Winn; Valerie Meszaros for editing the book, organizing, typing, and revising it on the computer, and proofreading; Helen Stites for proofreading; Adam Sacks, our computer consultant, who assisted in solving computer problems as they arose during the final stages of production; Michael Winn for general editing, and Cathy Umphress for design and paste ups. Special thanks are extended to David Miller for overseeing design and production of the original edition and to Felix Morrow for his valuable advice and help in editing and producing this book and for agreeing to be the original publisher of Universal Tao Publications.

  Without my son, Max, the book would have been academic; for his gifts, my gratitude and love.

  Contents

  Cover Image

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Putting Iron Shirt Chi Kung into Practice

  Chapter 1 Iron Shirt Chi Kung and the Universal Tao

  IRON SHIRT CHI KUNG, AN ANCIENT KUNG FU PRACTICE

  CREATING CHI PRESSURE WITH IRON SHIRT BREATHING

  WHY PUT ON YOUR IRON SHIRT?

  SUMMARY OF THE BENEFITS OF IRON SHIRT CHI KUNG TRAINING

  Chapter 2 Preparations for Iron Shirt Chi Kung

  ABDOMINAL BREATHING AND REVERSE BREATHING (ENERGIZER BREATHING)

  THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PELVIC AND UROGENITAL DIAPHRAGMS

  THE IRON SHIRT PACKING PROCESS

  CHI CIRCULATION AND THE MICROCOSMIC ORBIT

  THE MICROCOSMIC ORBIT

  PERINEUM POWER

  Chapter 3 Principles and Practices for Iron Shirt Structural Alignment and Chi Circulation

  CONDENSING AND CIRCULATING CHI: “WRAPPING” CHI AT THE BODY’S POWER POINTS

  IRCULATING THE CHI: “WRAPPING” AND “PACKING” IN IRON SHIRT CHI KUNG

  BONE BREATHING

  MUSCLES AND THE EMOTIONS

  Chapter 4 The Importance of Rooting

  PRINCIPLES OF IRON SHIRT ROOTING

  BUILDING ROOTEDNESS

  COLLECTING CHI ENERGY AFTER PRACTICE

  Chapter 5 The Iron Shirt Chi Kung Postures

  HOLDING THE GOLDEN URN

  GOLDEN TURTLE AND WATER BUFFALO

  GOLDEN PHOENIX WASHES ITS FEATHERS

  IRON BRIDGE

  IRON BAR

  Chapter 6 Structural Alignment and Taoist Yoga

  APPLYING STRUCTURAL ALIGNMENT PRINCIPLES TO IRON SHIRT CHI KUNG PRACTICE

  RELAXATION TIPS

  STRUCTURAL TRAINING AGAINST A WALL

  HEAD AND NECK ALIGNMENT AS THE BASIS FOR SPINAL ELONGATION AND UPRIGHT STRUCTURE

  FEELING AND USING THE PSOAS MUSCLES

  SHOULDER WIDENING

  BALANCING THE CURVES OF THE SPINE

  STRENGTHENING THE BUTTOCKS AND LOWER LEGS

  Chapter 7 Iron Shirt Body Construction

  IRON SHIRT AND CHIROPRACTIC

  FASCIA: PROTECTOR OF OUR VITAL ORGANS

  CLEANSING THE MARROW/ CHANGING THE TENDONS

  HARMONY OF FASCIA, TENDONS, AND CHI

  MUSCLE-TENDON MERIDIANS

  Chapter 8 Developing a Daily Practice

  Resources

  Footnotes

  The Universal Tao System and Training Center

  THE UNIVERSAL TAO SYSTEM

  THE UNIVERSAL TAO TRAINING CENTER

  About the Author

  About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company

  Copyright & Permissions

  Putting Iron Shirt Chi Kung into Practice

  The practices described in this book have been used successfully for thousands of years by Taoists trained by personal instruction. Readers should not undertake these practices without receiving personal instruction from a certified instructor of the Universal Tao, because some of these practices, if done improperly, may cause injury or result in health problems. This book is intended to supplement individual training by a Universal Tao instructor and to serve as a reference guide for Universal Tao practices. Anyone who undertakes these practices on the basis of this book alone does so entirely at his or her own risk. Universal Tao instructors can be located at our websites: www.universal-tao.com or www.taoinstructors.org.

  The practices of Iron Shirt Chi Kung are very powerful and therefore very effective. To ensure that you carry them out properly, prepare yourself first by learning the Microcosmic Orbit Meditation, the Inner Smile, and the Six Healing Sounds. These will enable you to identify and eliminate energy blockages that may occur in your Iron Shirt practice during the learning stages. Also, practice the preliminary exercises until you are proficient at them and comfortable with them. This will give you the conditioning you need to proceed comfortably to the Iron Shirt Chi Kung postures.

  The meditations, practices, and techniques described herein are not intended to be used as an alternative or substitute for professional medical treatment and care. If a reader is suffering from a mental or emotional disorder, he or she should consult with an appropriate professional health care practitioner or therapist. Such problems should be corrected before one starts training.

  This book does not attempt to give any medical diagnosis, treatment, prescription, or remedial recommendation in relation to any human disease, ailment, suffering, or physical condition whatsoever.

  Chinese medicine and Chi Kung emphasize balancing and strengthening the body so that it can heal itself. The meditations, internal exercises, and martial arts of the Universal Tao are basic approaches to this end. Follow the instructions for each exercise carefully. Also pay special attention to the warnings and suggestions. People who have high blood pressure, heart disease, or a generally weak condition should proceed cautiously, having received prior consent from a qualified medical practitioner. People with venereal disease should not attempt any practices involving sexual energy until they are free of the condition.

  The Universal Tao and its staff and instructors cannot be responsible for the consequences of any practice or misuse of the information in this book. If the reader undertakes any exercise without strictly following the instructions, notes, and warnings, the responsibility must lie solely with the reader.

  1

  Iron Shirt Chi Kung and the Universal Tao

  In addition to the more popularly known martial arts disciplines of Kung Fu and Tai Chi, the Universal Tao System includes practices for vibrant health, the development of a state of mindfulness, and the management of vital energy—one’s chi. The martial arts aspect of this training, the practice of Ir
on Shirt Chi Kung, develops a highly refined spiritual awareness.

  The goal of the Universal Tao System is to keep our bodies in good condition on the physical plane in order to build and store chi energy for use at the higher level of the spiritual plane. The aim of the human spirit in the spiritual plane is to develop the immortal fetus. This is accomplished in two stages. The first stage is concerned with overcoming reincarnation; the second and final stage concerns educating the immortal fetus toward becoming a full-grown immortal spirit.

  Iron Shirt is one of the most important exercises to master on the physical plane. Through Iron Shirt practice the student learns rooted-ness to Mother Earth energy, a phenomenon intrinsic to the spiritual plane (fig. 1.1). We can compare the rootedness of the physical body to a control tower, vital to the travel of a space shuttle (fig. 1.2). To boost the shuttle—the spirit—into space, the control tower on Earth requires a booster rocket—in this case the soul, or energy body—which is guided by an inner compass and computer—the pineal gland. The control tower, in the form of the physical body developed during the practice of Iron Shirt, becomes a storage place for fuel—that fuel being our chi (life-force energy) and our creative, or sexual, energy.

  Fig. 1.1. Iron Shirt practice teaches rootedness to Mother Earth.

  In our Iron Shirt body our fuel awaits transformation into another kind of energy: spiritual energy. Yet we must maintain our foundation, our rootedness to the Earth, so that as we learn to travel to the immortal realms we are able to return to Earth and refuel our bodies (fig. 1.3). From there we can resume our travel to our destination until, eventually, we are able to discard the earthly base entirely.

  Fig. 1.2. Launching the spiritual body through rooting to the Earth

  Fig. 1.3. Rootedness

  IRON SHIRT CHI KUNG, AN ANCIENT KUNG FU PRACTICE

  Kung Fu was practiced in China long before the advent of firearms. During the Bolin Period, approximately 1000 BC, training in the various spiritual/martial arts was quite intense. It is said that at the time one-tenth of the population of China was involved in some sort of Kung Fu training.

  Training began in very early youth. The student first worked to develop internal power, or inner strength through organ exercises, an endeavor that could take as long as ten years. In ancient times internal power was cultivated until it could be felt flowing out of the hands. With weights tied to the legs, the practitioner ran and jumped in prescribed ways for over three hours a day until, eventually, he could jump easily to great heights while at the same time further developing his internal power. Only after these exercises were mastered were actual fighting techniques taught.

  Iron Shirt Chi Kung, a method of Kung Fu, was taught as a protective training, one that provided internal power through the practice of external techniques. The Iron Shirt practitioner was protected against the effects of blows to his vital organs and glands, the primary places where life-force energy, or chi, is produced. Being on the receiving end of internal power in martial arts can be compared to being struck by a steel rod as opposed to one that is made of soft plastic. The Chi Kung practitioner of old practiced one punch for years until he could feel the power go out of the lower part of his hand while the rest of his body seemed as though made of steel.

  There were many other benefits as well—internal power improved general health and is thought to have maintained youthfulness. The development of internal power also helped to perfect mental faculties, enabling the practitioner to have knowledge of many things. One reads that during the Bolin Period there were eight “immortals” who spent most of their lives in the practice of internal power and developed extraordinary abilities as a result. They could predict the future and see into the past. They are said to have been capable of space travel and of clairvoyance and clairaudience. It is also said that during that period many people had at least some such powers, a result of widespread Kung Fu practice.

  With the invention of gunpowder and the subsequent development of firearms, men no longer felt the need to spend a decade or more of their lives learning skills that suddenly seemed impractical and unnecessary. With firearms as weapons a man could now defend himself, or at the least cause great damage, while standing at a great distance from his enemy.

  Contact fighting became a thing of the past, and much knowledge that was useful to humanity was lost with it. Today, however, as people begin to recognize the depersonalizing and unhealthy effects of technology, there has been a revival of interest in the simpler ways of life. Thus Kung Fu, a means of perfecting the inner self, is once again in the limelight.

  CREATING CHI PRESSURE WITH IRON SHIRT BREATHING

  The word kung means discipline. The word chi refers to the energy derived from breathing the oxygen (20 percent) and the inert nitrogen (78 percent) of the air. Chi also refers to the subtle vital energy of Earth, nature, and the universe.

  Chi Kung is the practice of breathing to increase chi pressure in the body. Chi breathing is coordinated with breathing the air in and out of the physical body; with practice the practitioner becomes sensitive to the chi and learns to work with it. Chi Kung can be thought of as internal aerobics. Chi, in the form of an aerobic energy involving air, steam, and pressure, presses out and circulates to protect the internal body. We can compare the internal pressure created by Chi Kung to the force of air in a tire that is sufficient to keep the tire inflated and to maintain a cushion between the car and the road (fig. 1.4).

  Breathing is the most important aspect of bodily life. We can go without food for months and we can go without water for days, but we can go without air for only a few minutes before we expire. In Iron Shirt Chi Kung we use our breath to maximum advantage. Through breathing exercises we increase our vital energy, strengthen our organs, and promote self-healing by increasing the chi pressure (the pounds per square inch, using our metaphor of an inflated tire) in the organs and cavity of the body. The circulatory system, the lymphatic system, the nervous system, and the endocrine glands become activated and blood, spinal fluid, and hormones flow more easily.

  Fig. 1.4. The internal pressure created by chi can be compared to the cushioning provided by an inflated tire.

  Taoists believe that as fetuses growing in the womb we use Iron Shirt Packing Breathing. Before birth the infant does not use the lungs and nose to breathe. Instead, chi enters the navel through the umbilical cord, then travels down to the perineum, up the sacrum and through the spinal cord to the head and forehead, and then travels down the front of the body from the tongue*1 to the throat, heart, abdomen, and navel centers, where the chi pressure can be used (fig. 1.5). You will recognize the path described here as the path of the Microcosmic Orbit. Moving the chi through the Microcosmic Orbit is a fundamental practice in the Universal Tao system that is described more fully in chapter 2.

  Fig. 1.5. In an unborn infant the chi (life force) enters the navel through the umbilical cord.

  At birth we begin to use lung breathing, generating our own energy rather than utilizing this internal source of energy. In the beginning of our life on Earth our lungs are not strong; the abdomen, being closer to our original source of energy—the navel—has more chi pressure than the lungs. Thus the abdomen assists the lungs with breathing by pulling down on the diaphragm on the inhalation, so that the lower portion of the lungs can fill with air. In this way the lungs use less energy but take in more life force (oxygen).

  As children we continue to use abdominal chi-pressure energy. But we can see the effects of reduced chi pressure that come along with age. In older people the prenatal life force (chi) is drained out of the navel and kidney areas. Gradually chi pressure is lost, creating an energy imbalance: when the pressure is low the fluid flow in the entire system slows down. As a result, at the times when our energy becomes too hot it moves up and creates congestion in the chest and head. Cold energy moves down through the sexual organs and leaks out; we gradually lose chi pressure in that manner too.

  As we age we also begin to lose
the habit of abdominal breathing. The lungs are left to do all the breathing through the chest, which is an inefficient way to breathe. Chest breathing requires using greater energy to expand the rib cage and is only sufficient for filling the upper one-third of the lungs. This method of breathing actually expends more energy than it creates. Scientists have affirmed that, with chest breathing, we use only one-third of our lung capacity for breathing; then, yielding to gravitational pressure, our organs collapse. With abdominal breathing we can expand the amount of pressure exerted on the internal organs and strengthen the organs by voluntarily compressing and releasing them.

  WHY PUT ON YOUR IRON SHIRT?

  Many of the physical changes associated with Kung Fu come through managing the internal organs and endocrine glands. In Kung Fu practice a person’s life force is said to depend primarily upon the endocrine glands and the hormones they produce.

  Consider what happens when a person is deprived of a fully functional endocrine system. For example, a male is radically altered when his testes are eliminated, and more so when this occurs before puberty. The characteristics that result are weak musculature and fat-distribution patterns more common to females. Depending upon the time in life in which a male loses his testes he might also lack secondary male characteristics, such as a deep voice, facial hair, and typical sexual drive. It is well documented that male and female castrates have shortened life spans.

  With Iron Shirt Chi Kung the practitioner is able to increase the flow of hormones produced by the endocrine glands, thus building up the immune system and developing a general sense of well-being. The sexual energy (that is, creative energy) produced by Iron Shirt Chi Kung is another source of chi energy that may later be transformed into spiritual energy.

  Integral to Iron Shirt are exercises that cleanse and strengthen the organs. Strong, detoxified organs are important to living a full and healthy life. Iron Shirt practice will strengthen the organs; help to clean out toxins, waste materials, and sediment in the organs; and convert the fat stored in layers of connective tissue (fascia) into chi energy. The chi is then stored in these connective tissue layers, where it works like a cushion to protect the organs. As previously mentioned, this process can be compared to a tire which, when inflated with air, can sustain tremendous weight. Chi that has been stored in such a way not only protects the body but becomes available for transformation to a higher-quality energy that can nourish the soul and spirit.