Crossing the Great River to Avoid Being Double Weighted

by Bobb Maio

Clang! Bang! SSSSSSS, Mian bao zai nar? She de! She de! (Kitchen sounds)

"Lower! Legs straight with floor. Head up. Shoulders down. Stay," yells the tall Chinese man with Elvis-like pompadour in front of me.

"What does this have to do with fighting?" I wonder while standing in a horse stance with legs shaking.

And so started my martial arts journey in the back of a kitchen in a Chinese restaurant. In over forty years there have been many starts, stops, detours and dead ends. That first attempt lasted about two weeks before my sixteen-year-old mind became frustrated and bored with mabou or deep horse stance. It would take another thirty years before I would start to discover the true meanings of the principles of the internal arts. I often wonder what direction my martial arts would have taken if today's methods of instruction and training had been used then rather than the traditional methods used for training at the time. Today the cross-cultural training problems of the past are beginning to disappear as more westerners are starting to reach skill levels of eastern practitioners and are able to transmit these complex ideas in a more familiar way.

This article will help to clear up some of the misconceptions of what is a very confusing but simple subject, the principle of being double weighted. My hope is that it will also help some of you to avoid the wasted time and effort that many of us have gone through in becoming martial artists.

First, what double weighted is not: that is putting an equal amount of weight on each foot as in a horse stance. This erroneous example has been around for a long time. It comes from reading classic writings of the internal arts and not having someone knowledgeable to explain its meaning. This is actually split weighting. You have spilt your weight between your feet. Even if you do add the weight or force of an opponent pushing equally on both sides, his weight gets split.

Double weighted is when you have most of your weight and the weight or force of your opponent on one foot. Your goal is to avoid being double weighted, and it is what the classic writings of both Baguazhang and Taichichuan advise. You cannot train a negative very effectively so in Jiulong Baguazhang we train what we call Crossing the Great River. This principle applies not only to the internal arts but to all modes of physical movement.

Structure
Several things have to come into play for this training. I will cover the basics of them for you.

"Head up" ? Raise your head up so as to begin to align the vertebrae while also stretching the trapezius muscles so that there is no kink either forward or back nor any twisting to the sides. We accomplish this by using the image of the head being pulled up by a string that is attached at the Baihui or the point where the skull plates intersect. The image of a line going straight up from the tops of the ears and meeting at the top of the skull while the chin is slightly tucked can also be used.

"Coccyx tucked" ? This can be accomplished by thinking of the huiyin or perineum and pulling up into the center of the body. An alternative way to work this position is to gain control of the lower back muscles and push out towards the rear allowing the lower spine to move into its proper position. By combining "Head up" and "Coccyx tucked" we take and stack each of the vertebrae so that there is maximum even contact between each of them, thereby allowing full transference of energy up and down the spine.

"Sink the chest" ? This is simply relaxing all of the muscles of the chest and back so that the rest of the structure comes into alignment. You cannot pull the chest in with any tension; just allow it to relax and feel a little concave while the back feels a little convex, again unstressed.

"Shoulders down" ? This allows the complex shoulder structure to set in its most secure position which brings all the energy of the arms to the spine. The proper positioning of the trapizius muscles into their unstressed lateral position is also necessary. The imagery that we use for this is simply a weight hanging from the outside of the deltoid. The shoulder must always stay in this settled position.

"Elbows down" ? This applies when we are expressing energy with the hands. It brings the energy down into the elbows like an energy sink, which in turn pulls down on the shoulder structure completing the connection to the spine. Energy can also be expressed with the elbows as long as the shoulders stay down in their proper position. The image of a weight being attached at the elbow joint can be used. It is important that the elbow not be twisted in or out to any great degree for this to be effective.

All the previous positions must be done without any straining of the muscles while maintaining a strict upright posture. Photos or video can help us in this area since what we feel is an appropriate position many times is not. Reviewing pictures or video can quickly show us our errors in structure and advance our training more rapidly in this area.

As we move down to the legs we become not only concerned with structure but also with producing energy. The hands express energy, the torso transfers energy and the legs and hips create energy is the simplest way to think about how everything works together.

The knees are simple hinge joints. They have no other movement other than to fold and unfold. Any stretching or movement in the lateral direction (as in knee circles) is physiologically wrong. We use the image of a ball between our knees or shaping our legs like a bell to maintain the proper knee to foot alignment. They also need to stay in an unlocked or bent position at all times. This allows for energy to be expressed or received while maintaining stability.

The feet need to be solidly in contact with the ground. Just behind the ball of the big toe, just behind the ball of the small toe and just in front of the heel pad ? all of these need to feel as if they are being pulled into the ground. Instability of the feet disperses your energy. There can be no full expression without these three points of intention. The feet also need to be within forty-five degrees of the direction you are moving or expressing in. If the feet are turned out more than this, you do not fully activate all the quadriceps muscles which are the major muscle group you use to move your body forward. This will cause you to use less than optimal power in your strikes or pushes.

Other more subtle connections need to be made in the body structure, but for the purpose of being double weighted or Crossing the Great River, these are the most relevant.

Testing
When you maintain these structural connections and add the Crossing the Great River principle, you achieve not only maximum force but maximum force in reserve. By this I mean that you can strike with whole body power and then follow it up with another whole body strike without resetting your stance or being double weighted, thus making you less vulnerable to throws and sweeps.

Crossing the Great River to avoid being double weighted can be revealed and tested. Stand in a rear bow stance weighted on the right leg. Raise your left hand. Have your partner press on your left hand while you maintain all the structural principals we have discussed. You will find that his force will go into the ground through your right leg (above). You will not be moved out of your stance. If you switch hands and have your partner push on it, you will find that you lose your stance. Now try the same testing in a forward bow stance with the left leg weighted and the right hand active. You will find that again you are pressed into the ground with a very stable stance. Keep in mind all of these stances will break down if your structure is not also correct.

What you need to keep in mind is that if your partner can push you into the ground and you can maintain this very stable structure you can push him back away from the ground in this very powerful structure. This is what makes this principle so important.

How It Looks
Allow me to take you through an active sequence of expressing energy while using Crossing the Great River.

1. Stand in what we now know as split weighted stance or horse stance. You step forward with the left foot and strike with the left hand just before your left foot touches the ground, maintaining a back weighted stance. Your body does actually move forward a couple inches from being completely back weighted to the impact point which is just before your weight is on your left foot.


2. Now move into a forward bow stance by shifting your weight forward onto your left leg and striking with your right hand. The strike occurs just before the complete weight shift forward.


3. From the forward bow stance you now step with the right foot and strike with the right hand ? again the impact occurring just before the weighting of the right foot and making sure of the forward movement of the body.

Each strike must happen just before the complete weight shift, which allows for whole body power in each strike. You must stay relaxed, adding tension only at moment of impact as the final step in transferring the energy. These are all the same positions you tested previously. This manner of moving allows you to continually strike with whole body power while not becoming double weighted.

The simplest way to remember the principle of Crossing the Great River or to avoid being double weighted is to always strike or push with the hand opposite the weighted leg because the hip on the weighted side is the axis that the body turns on for whole body movement. Apply this to your forms practice and see what it reveals.

A Story
"Uncle Bobb! Uncle Bobb! It really works!" Tracy exclaims at our first class after I return from a week of training.

"What's that, Tracy?" I return.

"Cross the Great River, wedging, intention, everything," she replies.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I was having my nails done at the mall and this great big girl comes in that I didn't even know, and throws a cup of soda in my face, and then she walks out. At first I was too stunned to do anything, then I got really angry and went to find her. I saw her by a car with two other girls. I went up to her and asked her, "What the **** was that soda about?"

She turned and pushed me. She was really big, and it surprised me but it was a really wimpy push. I Crossed the Great River and wedged her spine. She went flying right into her car! It happened in slow motion but it only took a second. It really surprised me. Then her two friends put up their hands and started saying she was sorry and that she mistook me for someone else. Then they jumped in their car and took off. It was wicked cool, but I was shaking after."

The Future
How long does it take your students to be this effective?

How long did it take you?

Tracy has been studying basic principles for six months. She is a single mom, twenty years old, 5'4" tall and one hundred and fifteen pounds with no previous martial arts experience ? in other words, an average new student. Can an average new student taught in the traditional way perform this well under stress? Most of the ones I have seen cannot. Principles have to be taught in a way that can be understood and absorbed. When I refer to principles, I mean the basic idea that techniques are developed from. Once a student is taught a principle and how to develop it, they can confidently create whatever techniques best fit a situation and their physical or mental make-up. We should all take a look at where our martial arts training and teaching is taking us. Tracy is one of a newer generation of students being schooled in principles rather than in the traditional forms and techniques. The Asian masters and teachers have brought us centuries of research, but future advancements and developments need to come from us here in the West. Our curiosity and modern research methods can help us rediscover some of the lost skills of the past and possibly help us uncover previously unknown abilities. The hard work and amazing powers of the old masters and teachers must not be lost. We need to do this not only because of what we can learn about martial arts but also because of what we can learn about the human potential. Avoiding being double weighted with Crossing the Great River is just one example of what we need to clarify, study, define and understand, so that we can take these next steps.

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About Bobb Maio:
Bobb Maio teaches and trains in Jiulong Baguazhang in Nashua, NH. He can be reached at bobb@granitedragon.net. His website is granitedragon.net. All photos were taken by Bobb Maio.