Component: Earth

The River Steps (a.k.a. Ladder Stepping) provides a method to study the transition of your weight between the insubstantial and substantial legs.

Stand in Wuji Posture. Keep your arms at your sides and bend the knees slightly. Maintain this height throughout the exercise.

You use your hands all day, yet pay little attention to what they are doing. Studies that map parts of the human body to brain function draw pictures of the body that represent the relative size of each body part to brain function. These pictures show the hands huge compared to the rest of the body, with one hand being larger than the other.

Bringing your hands into your conscious awareness is the point of this exercise.

Until you can breathe deeply and slowly, it will be impossible for you to coordinate the internal and external harmonies required for mindfulness martial art practice.

A good way to start breath practice is in the Bear Posture. Instead of holding your hands out to your sides, put the left hand on your lower abdomen and the right hand on your chest.

I designed this posture to let the stress of the day go, and I refer to it often. My grandfather was the first to introduce me to this posture. His doctor recommended it to ease his back pain. I found it many books promising pain relief since then. The idea is to release the tension in your lower back.

Find a chair, bed, foot stool, anything that is about the height of your knees and wide enough for your legs to lie on. In this example, I use a chair.

Lie on your back, with your arms extended at your sides, and put your feet onto the chair. Slide your bottom next to the chair so that you form two 90-degree angles: one from your knees to your thighs, and the second from your thighs to your hips and back.

When you assume this posture, there may be a large arch in your lower back. The psoas major muscle could form this by contracting to manage some disfunction in your posture. Ideally, you would remain on the floor until your back flattens, but this is a relaxing posture, and it is not doing anything to strengthen your shoulders, hips, legs, or lower back. Try not to stay in the Bear for more than 15 minutes at a time. Trust me.

San Ti Shi, or the Three Body Posture, combines the lessons of Wuji Standing Meditation and Universal Post and integrates martial intent. In this posture, we divide the body into three sections that are further divided into three more sections. The primary division is the head, the hands, and the feet. We divide the head section into the head, the spine, and the waist. The hand section is divided into the hands, the elbows, and the shoulders. And finally, we divide the feet section into the feet, the knees, and the hips.

In the diagram, notice how each of the primary sections is linked through the shoulders and hips.

Anatomy of the Trinity Posture

All martial arts have a Trinity Posture. The basics are always the same: one leg back with more weight on it and the front leg ready to move into another position. One hand back and on-guard from incoming attacks while the other stretches forward to feel out the opponent.

Teachers of the Xingyiquan martial art often ask their students to stand in Trinity Posture for hours before they practice any movements. Some schools don’t even discuss the form. The teachers just let you stand around until you figure it out.

If you have been practicing the Wuji Posture, Holding the Moon Posture, and Universal Post with the supplemental exercises, you are light years ahead of most students.

Since proper breathing is essential to Trinity Posture practice, study the Deep Breathing lesson with your Trinity Posture practice. Proper breathing is long, silent, and deep.

The Universal Post or Yin Yang Standing Posture introduces the idea of movement into your standing practice. By shifting the weight onto one leg and letting the other leg hang empty in space, you are training the body how it will feel to move without moving. This idea of stillness and motion coexisting relates to the Yin and Yang theory. The Universal Post lets you practice this coexistence without moving. Later, you will practice this coexistence while moving.

Yin and Yang in the Universal Post Standing Mediation

Remember, the concept of Yin and Yang is as ancient as Chinese philosophy. The origin story said there was a primordial chaos (Wuji) out of which an egg was born. When the egg split, the heavy yolk sank to become the Earth (Yin), while the light egg white rose to become the Heavens (Yang).

Two lines represent Yin and Yang. Yang is a solid line that represents brightness, lightness, masculinity, and the tendency to move upwards. Yin is a broken line that represents darkness, heaviness, femininity, and the tendency to move downwards.

Holding the Moon is a traditional posture for most Chinese internal martial arts. If you practice Holding the Moon before you are aware of your shoulder and hip alignment, however, you can reinforce bad posture. Therefore, a good way to learn the posture is lying on the floor.

Holdign the Moon Posture done on the floor

Lie down on the floor with your feet hip width apart, your arms extended to your sides, and your toes pointing to the ceiling. Pull your feet up by bending your knees until your feet are flat on the floor. Raise your arms up from the sides, bending them at the elbows, until your shoulders start to rise off the floor. Gravity should pull the elbows and hands down so it looks like you are holding a large ball on your chest. Hold this position for up to five minutes.