Eight Palms Archive
Eight Palm Qigong: Do It
Earth Palms
Hold on…before we get to Earth Palms…let’s feel Earthy Soles. As always, it’s better if you can go barefoot and find some good, grip-worthy soil. Sand will do; maybe you can find a garden or a good lawn. If that’s not the case, because your ground is frozen and your feet are fragile, then push your imagination through your carpeting, through your house foundations, and then: into the Earth.
Coil your feet. Grip the ground, like you’re clawing at it, but gently. Grip just a little more. Grasp the ground with your feet enough so that you must sink into your heels, a little on the outside edges of your feet, and onto the tips of your toes. Center your weight in your heel.
Sink into the Earth.
Feel with your Earth Palms
- Hover your hands, palms down, about shoulder width and cheek bone height.
- Spread your hands, and just a little, grip with your fingertips (like holding two small basketballs).
- Soften your focus and feel: feel the Earth pushing up. It’s radiant. It presses upward (see below).
- Resist the Earth’s pressure. Press down on it.
- Let your whole body sink into your hands, as if you were pushing on a high wall, about to pull yourself up and over it.
- Warm yourself with Earth.
It’s true that the Earth presses up. You can feel it.
There’s some technical science, strange science, and weird ideas about why and how. But you can feel it.
When you feel the Earth, then you know.
Sky Palms
Try this…
- See the Sky: notice its colors; see the sun or stars or moon.
- Hold your palms up. Notice the weight (even in your room) of Sky.
- Soften your focus and imagine: holding it. It—pressing down. Feel it.
- Resist the weight of the Sky. Hold it up…really.
- Lighten up. Relax, and let its weight sink through you.
- Enjoy your Sky.
Why Sky, Not Heaven?
Baguazhang Systems typically revolve around Eight Palms: Heaven, Earth, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Cloud (some prefer Lake or River instead of Cloud). Following my eyes, I see Sky not Heaven.
Why? I can watch Sky from here. Right now.
Heaven requires believing. Heaven conjures mental images. Heaven provokes, for some, imaginary ideals. In my practice and teachings of Baguazhang, I avoid integrating belief systems. I prefer tapping the shoulder of perception. See what I mean?
Baguazhang, solemn sister of Tai Chi Chuan, is well known among internal artists. While she’s whispered about by Tai Chi practitioners and envied by Xingyi-ists, the diversity of her changing palms wraps a serious face around practitioners.
We take our practice seriously, almost religiously, certainly ceremoniously, circling deliberately the center of something. We walk around trees. We slip circles in mud. We step around and around posts and poles, bushes and barrels, and we saunter ‘round and ‘round on circles we find or circles we make on the floor, on the ground, or in the Earth.
We try to act humbly. But we’re so self-centered. Who else stares at themselves so much, so often, with such intensity? We gaze at our palms. We stare at our hands. We look right into those metacarpals, our eyes wisting and wondering right into our center(s). It’s so serious, self-centered circling.
She’s so deadly—Baguazhang with her rising, writhing, falling, coiling, drilling, screwing, turning, twisting—she’s very hot. Consistent play with power and passion turns Qi over into Jing! We learn Dim-Mak and Fa-Jing and we slip past, around, and behind opponents while attacking with multiple deadly blows. Our deadly practice with deadly seriousness provokes grace and beauty. The freedom of grace and power of beauty emboldens passionate practice: quaking Qigong sessions and round after round of form work, circle walking, and palm changing.
It is serious—sometimes too serious.
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