Standing Meditation

Wuji standing meditation is the foundation of the martial arts and healing system I teach. “Standing is everything,” my teacher Sana will say, over and over. When we stand we aim to release tension in the body and connect deeply with the earth. Being in tension limits our possible movements– if the arm is full of tension, it can’t punch quickly and efficiently. When we can allow for the release of that tension, not only in the arm but in the entire body, we can open up to the possibility of seemingly effortless, multidirectional, flowing movement.

But before we move, we stand. In standing we’re listening for our cleanest, clearest, alignment between heaven and earth. The depth of our connection with the earth relates directly to how much energy we can allow to flow through us, and therefore how much power we can issue in our martial movement. Standing position is quite specific, so I’d like to list some of the fundamental ways we are aiming to position our bodies in Wuji standing.

Here we go! Feel free to give it a try as you read:

• Bring awareness to the lower dantian, the energetic center below the navel and deep in the body. By allowing our awareness to rest here instead of in our head, we begin the journey of felt embodiment. Standing is all about feeling and allowing, not thinking and doing.

• Feet are hip-width apart and parallel, toes pointed forward, weight even on the feet.

• Ankles are opening in all directions.

• Knees aren’t locked: have soft energy and awareness at the backs of the knees.

• Hips are “sitting in,” as though there’s a little bicycle seat right behind you that you’re sitting on. The lower back opens and the front of the belly closes. The hip flexors open. This “sitting in” position allows for the body to connect deeply into the legs, the feet, the earth.

• We allow the kidney area to be full. This can be the most elusive aspect of standing for newbies– I know it was for me. Before I started practicing standing, I didn’t even realize my back could be full or empty. I knew my stomach could go in and out, but not my back. This is where practicing with a partner can be very helpful. Your partner can place their hand on your back, over your kidneys, and invite your back to meet their hand. Listening for how to fill the kidneys can take some time, but it will make all the difference in the connection between the upper and lower body.

• The sternum rests in to the pelvis. That is, we don’t want the chest up and out, we want it softly rested in and down.

• Arms are resting loosely at the sides of the body. We can change the arm position in standing, but having the arms loose is a nice place to start.

• The chin is rested in to the heart, not jutting out. The throat is soft.

• We imagine the goddess Quan Yin is above us in heaven and is holding a golden thread that attaches to the bai hui point on top of our head. We imagine that our skeleton is dangling from this thread.

• We are listening behind, attending to the space behind us. Often we are so focused on on what is in front of us, what is ahead of us, that we are pulled out of ourselves and into the action. The focus of standing meditation is to be fully present in ourselves and in the present moment. Listening behind increases our awareness in the present.

• Eyes are gazing at the horizon–we allow the horizon to come to us.

• A soft smile is on the face. We allow ourselves to enjoy standing.

How we stand determines how we experience life. Are we leaning forward eagerly when we stand? Are we pulling back and away? Do we shift our weight nervously? Are we trying to appear in control, in charge? Are we in our heads and not even aware of how we’re standing?

When we stand still we can listen in to the messages our bodies are sharing with us. Where are our emotions living in our body? Where are we holding tension? Where are we out of balance? When we can bring awareness to our tension and imbalances, we can begin the journey of letting go of them.

In standing we aim to increase awareness, expand consciousness, and rest into presence. We can practice standing for long stretches at the park or for brief moments in line at the grocery store. We can take what we learn in standing directly into our everyday lives and into our relationships with others. What a nice practice to have in our embodiment and self-awareness toolkit.

Martial Arts Community

The Markstravaganza 2024 Crew

Earlier this week I co-hosted Markstravaganza, a martial arts party in the park to practice with my old training buddies, the Marks. One of the Marks, Dr. Mark, moved to California years ago, so we don’t see him very often. Back in the day, he was one of the people I trained with the most in Mo Duk Pai kung fu — he and I had a similar voracious hunger for training, so we ran stairs and did sprints and punished ourselves with endless burpees for the sake of self-improvement. He was also my ride to class for many years, and he would drive us there in his black BMW convertible–almost always with the top up, even on sunny days.

Once Dr. Mark and I got to brown belt, Lawyer Mark started training with us too. He was a little ahead of us in the ranking, and we loved training with him. Soon the three of us were training together every Friday morning. The three of us would go to our martial arts school, the Academy of Kung Fu, and have the place to ourselves. I would put on music and we’d warm up, then we’d jump into whatever we wanted to work on. We sometimes practiced forms or curriculum, but more often we would practice partner exercises: push hands, multi-mans, knife defense drills. And then we’d always do some sort of terribly brutal CrossFit workout at the end.

The Marks & I circa 2013. We are always game to take a silly photo together.

I loved those Friday mornings. Since those practices existed outside of the structure of regular class, we had the freedom to explore what interested us. We would check in with each other to see if anyone wanted to work on anything in particular, and then we’d follow whatever curiosity or interest someone proposed. None of us was in charge, and I have to say, we did a great job of sharing leadership, working together, and keeping the spirit of play alive.

We were kung fu explorers, looking to learn more just by loosening up, playing, trying things. Personally, I was looking for moments of kung fu magic. Magic to me meant those moments when my body moved without me thinking, when some deep internal instinct in me would come out and do the perfect offensive or defensive move without conscious thought. When the art would express through me instead of me doing the art.

I found many moments of kung fu magic on those mornings with the Marks. They were always just as excited about those moments as I was. The attitude was, “Wow, that was cool, let’s try to do it again!” We became better martial artists together because of those mornings. Our teacher, Sifu Kyle, said to me, “Those practices you are doing on Friday mornings, they’re making a difference in your training. It’s great that you’re doing that.” I loved hearing that my teacher noticed we were getting better.

We kept those trainings going for a while, perhaps a year or two. They ended when I was about six months pregnant with my son. I stopped training in Mo Duk Pai soon after that– the sleep deprivation that came along with having a new baby sapped my energy, and the heavy contact level at our school was no longer safe for my wobbly postpartum body. The Marks continued to train and both earned their black belts, then their second degree black belts. I felt sad to leave Mo Duk Pai, but I ended up finding a new teacher and system that was a better fit for me. My new system is full of internal arts magic and safer for my body–no heavy contact. But my new system is small and the practitioners are spread out– our teacher lives a ten-hour drive away and I see her in person once a year.

Fast-forward to now, my son is ten years old. Over those ten years I’ve often felt lost as a martial artist. For many years I didn’t have the community of a traditional school to support me. I felt a bit like a ronin, a wanderer, a lost martial soul. I sought new community but couldn’t find one where I fit in. But then the loveliest thing happened. I reconnected with an old Mo Duk Pai training buddy, Sifu Michael, who is now a black belt with his own school. He invited me to teach in his school, and I’m now back in the Mo Duk Pai fold. Even though I no longer train in that art, my Mo Duk Pai friendships have persisted. The years of training bound us together deeply.

And so this year’s Markstravaganza felt a bit like a homecoming for me. The Marks and a bunch of our kung fu friends and I gathered once again in the spirit of friendship, play, and martial exploration. One Mark led a drill, I shared practices from my new art, and the other Mark, along with our other wonderful training buddies, took it all in. I felt a sense of belonging with this group that I haven’t felt in a long time. It turns out, even though I felt martially lost for a long time, I never lost my kung fu friends. They are around, and when we get back together, we once again have the opportunity to create kung fu magic together. I am so grateful for our friendship and community.

My Thoughts on the Musical “Hamilton”

A quick caveat: I’m not a big fan of musicals. I like Cabaret, aka the best-musical-ever, and I like Hair, aka the second-best-musical-ever. Other than that, I’m generally not a fan.

In the musical Hamilton, I really liked the character Lafayette. I was like, “Who is this French guy who is named after that street in Detroit? I like him!”

I was really disappointed he wasn’t in the second act.

The Partner/Opponent: Paradox in Push Hands

My friend Katja and I demonstrate my favorite beginning push hands posture

I’ve liked fighting since I was a kid. Not real fighting, and not watching sport fighting, but wrestling with my little brother. I loved the energy of it— getting mad at each other, getting riled up, then yelling at each other, the grappling, the slapping each other, but not so hard that we’d actually hurt the other person or they’d tell our parents. If our parents found out, we might get in trouble, so we’d try to keep our play fighting mostly civil. 

I teach push hands now, which is martial arts play fighting. I realized after class last week that a big piece of push hands is teaching people how to fight civilly. In push hands, two people touch in with each other, usually forearm to forearm, and feel into each other’s body and energy. The goal in push hands is usually to uproot your partner/opponent, but depending on how your play push hands, it could also be to hit them and avoid getting hit.

When we first begin learning push hands, there’s no martial intent, no hitting. We just practice holding our body in the proper posture, touching in with our partner, sticking to our partner, then moving around while stuck. One person leads, one follows, then they switch roles. Once students are comfortable with that, then both people lead and follow at the same time. Or you could think of it as no one is leading or following. When I first suggest to students that they try this, their heads kind of explode. It’s delightful to witness.

And it’s one of the many paradoxes that push hands invites us to explore: how do we lead and follow at the same time? How do we move if no one is leading or following? 

The answer, as I see it, is that in the beginning, someone is kind of leading. If it’s you, try to stop leading for a while. Follow the movement, let the movement lead the next movement. If you and your partner can do this together harmoniously, it will feel as though no one is leading or following. It will feel like a flow state. That flow state is embodying paradox: no one is leading the movement and yet we are still moving. And it feels so lovely, there’s a lightness and joy to it. It’s what I hope to experience every time I touch in with someone.

Keep in mind, though, that martial push hands isn’t dancing, so while it is harmonious, it is also combative. We are pitted against our partner; we are trying to uproot them and hit them. And yet we are also aiming for harmony with them. Another paradox, hooray!

In my own push hands practice, I’ve recently been playing with letting my martial intention lead me. My intention is that I will strike or uproot my partner when the opportunity arises. “Intention without attachment,” is one of my teacher Master Shanti’s catchphrases. To me this means that my martial intention doesn’t have any moves or timeframe attached to it—I’m not intending to punch my partner in the gut right now, that’s attachment to a particular timing and technique. Rather, I’m simply intending to strike or uproot them at some point in our time together. If the opening arises, my martial intention might invite me to punch my partner in the gut. But in this case I don’t “do” the punch, the punch moves me. Often, when a technique “moves me” and it lands on my partner successfully, I feel a sense of surprise and delight and having been moved. This feeling of letting go, of non-doing, is the heart of what I’m aiming for in my push hands practice. It’s allowing the art to be expressed through me rather than by me.

But to do this, I seem to need a partner/opponent who I can flow with, who will go along with the give and take and is open to experiencing non-doing. I like thinking about the complexity of the partner/opponent relationship. The partner aspect of the relationship calls us to establish trust, understanding, and to make agreements about how we will engage martially (contact level, what targets are on/off limits, what injuries we might be dealing with.) The opponent aspect of the relationship calls for us to strike or uproot our partner if the opportunity arises. It asks us to take the shot on the other person, to take the opportunity to “win” the round if we can.

The ego can get very attached to winning. I’ve experienced plenty of push hands rounds where our egos have been fired up and we’re trying to smash each other. Sometimes the smashing is consensual and very fun, sometimes it’s full of anger and very triggering. Understanding where my partner and I are emotionally is an important aspect of the engagement. I can’t be so nice that I’m not trying to hit them at all, but I can’t be so ruthless that I want to hurt them. They are my partner, after all, and I want to take care of them so we can practice together another day. Still, if I don’t take my shots, I’m not being the best opponent I can be, and my partner doesn’t get the chance to learn how to deal with my strikes. As my former teacher Sifu Kyle would say about our push hands opponents, “You’ve gotta love ’em enough to hit ’em.”

One aspect that can add civility to a push hands engagement is calling out our partner’s points. Calling out the opponent’s points is something I learned in my Mo Duk Pai training. If my partner scores on me, I can say, “good job,” or make a gesture that shows I know they scored. This adds a level of humility to the engagement, and turns my partner’s success into our success. Maybe I’m not the one who scored the point, but as a team, we created a situation where someone scored successfully. That’s a win for both of us and for our relationship.

To me this is the magic of the partner/opponent relationship: when we have our agreements in place and our flow established, we can create lovely martial moments that surprise and delight us both. We can allow the art to move us instead of “doing” the art. We can create a space where we can both grow and deepen our art, and, in a larger sense, a space in which we can understand more about ourselves, the other person, and how we are in relationship.

What a gift it is to have good partner/opponents in our lives.

MLK/My Dad/Work

Today is my dad’s birthday, and today is also Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. When people would point out to my dad that he shared his birthday with MLK, he would say, “Yup! Good people were born on this day!” He would smile, and this would elicit a smile from the person who brought it up.

I’m wondering how to honor my dad today, and how to honor MLK Day. The answer that comes to me is “Work.” Work was my dad’s favorite. As a kid, I often felt like my dad liked his work more than he liked me, his daughter. My dad died of Alzheimer’s in 2020, but ten years before his death, I started a business partnership with a friend, and my dad and I bonded over business talk. He had been a quality control consultant for machine shops throughout the midwest, and he loved working with the employees of those companies to come up with ways to make their businesses more efficient.

Work was also at the core of Dr. King’s ethic. In school growing up, we would learn about Dr. King’s work each year around this time. We would watch films about the Civil Rights movement, read books, create art, talk about the bus boycotts, sing “We Shall Overcome” at school assembles, listen to recordings or recitations of the “I Have a Dream Speech.” Dr. King’s life was one of marching, protesting, preaching, leading, boycotting, working.

These days my work is mothering, practicing, writing and teaching. Mothering my kids and teaching them about the ways the world is unjust, and encouraging them to make it more just. Writing my experiences, my heart, my thoughts, my dreams. Teaching martial arts and self-defense. Teaching how to stand up for ourselves, how to protect ourselves, how to express ourselves, how to fight for ourselves. At the core of that is learning how to value ourselves enough to fight for ourselves in the first place. And then, how to fight as peacefully as possible.

Many of the best martial artists I know are pacifists, and that is because we know how much fighting hurts. Fighting is glamorized in the movies: people fight, fall down, and get back up. But anyone who has really been punched in the face knows, it hurts. It takes you out for a while. It rings your bell. After getting punched in the face you don’t continue forward as though nothing happened.

My previous kung fu teacher would say, “Contact changes everything.” That phrase encapsulates the reality of violence. Violence, war, can seem courageous and righteous, but at its core, it is pain. Hurt. Destruction. Death.

So how do we keep fighting peacefully? Here is where we look to the example of Dr. Martin Luther King. We illuminate the problems in our culture. Then we call them out, we resist, we fight. We protest. We strike. We make art. We share. We sing. We speak. We write. We dance. We imagine. We dream.