Constant, re-occurring injury often means I can’t “fish”. I cannot carry out the normal functions of an activity. Rather that let the time go to waste one naturally does other things. But within those “other things” it is quite clear to me that thought, visualisation and creation are just the sort of “things” that can be worked on by another part of the brain.
I can be quite happily be gardening and thinking of the cosmos at the same time. So to with simply walking from one place to another. Within those few moments the time can be used to work on, in my case, gait analysis.
Earlier in the year I carried out a month of Somatic observation. More properly called Neigong within TCQ. Internal skill is its direct translation and has its counterparts in other modalities; commonly referred to as inward gazing. If one is to believe the internet and more latterly, social media then this skill is something that anyone can do within 5 minutes. I challenge that. I was first introduced to the concept in 1999 on a trip to Nepal. I had been a keen practitioner of Yoga for a number of years, stretching back to the 1980’s, mostly as an exotic means of stretching for climbing, without exploring it too deeply. Zen was more my bag, in those days. Curiously it was the same trip during which I read and contemplated the Dao de Jing. Just like that very book, the concepts are simple but need to be lived and not studied to understand them. The closer one gets to the source of a modality - an Ashram in Katmandu, for instance, the clearer and simpler the picture. Thereafter continued, dedicated practice and contemplation are required rather than further academic study. It is a living thing. In the case of the Dao de Jing, overstudy produces complications and rabbit holes. One simply strays from the path into the “Slough of Despond”.
So it is with many of the Internal Arts, as they are often called. Playing with the mind in this way can produce undesirable results that can express themselves in many ways. Qi deviation (the official term of the Government of China), Qigong deviation or Qigong-induced psychosis are some of the Western terms that appear in clinical and academic contexts. In Chinese the term is: Zouhuorumo, (走火入魔) an excess of Heat rising through the body to the head and translates as “catching fire and entering the demon” - a perfect metaphor. For those wanting to explore Neigong more deeply please refer to the works of Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. Having practiced this skill in different ways over many years I am still subject to this, as is any practitioner. I cannot lie: the experiment wore me out and has taken the best part of six weeks to fully recover. Yet the experience was supremely valuable and reinstated the low level observances that used to be my norm when mountaineering hard. A kick start, if you like.
It also got me thinking about how, if possible I could “outsource” this process in some way. Whilst Neigong is an internal practice, it requires on alignment or moving toward alignment to work well - better alignment allows more nuance. This in turn requires outside third-party observation. The concept of the Sifu or the Master enters here. Even after many years I would hesitate to describe myself as a master of anything. That might be for others to judge, but it doesn’t get away from the need for an independent lens; even if the ultimate viewer is just myself.
It has been my intention to film myself practicing TCQ. Rather than simply letting it stand as a visual record in the project, it begs itself to be analysed. How then, do I do this if I don’t have daily access to a master? - Paul, for instance.
A thought had occurred when contemplating my gait as I mentioned earlier, that there must be online tools for this purpose. I came across one such, I won’t name it directly as it becomes clear as to why not. Billed as a tool for physiotherapists and coaches, it allows the user to upload videos of an activity and analyse three relative angles between joints. It is expensive and very simple. On discussing the relative merits and the wisdom of spending on this type of thing with Claude, we hit upon the idea of creating our own tool. The first iteration is dead simple: two videos that can be compared and some code that allows the angles between the joints along the bones to be calculated just as with the commercial offering. Simple, clean and easy to construct with HTML and Java. Whilst this is useful I think I am looking for something with more depth. Something that allows greater relational analysis. I feel that while collecting fitness metrics is all well and good in as far as it goes and is pretty standard and that personal observation and the logging of the somatic experience can be written about and from which improvement can be deduced, it leaves something on the table. Visual recording and representation is at the core of this. Being able to analyse movement in depth in this way allows for deeper engagement. It covers the parts that might easily be missed.
Claude and I are going to work on this over the next few weeks and I hope to have a true working model that allows a range of analyses and that can be used for different disciplines. I have a ready made pool of talent across a range of these disciplines that I can call upon through my Cohort to test and refine.
*TCQ - Tai Chi Qigong