TREE TIME CHI KUNG #1

Plant blindness: we are nothing like plants. That is precisely why we can learn so much from them. A chi kung inspired by plants and trees.

Jul 03, 2024

The following text of this post has been translated from Dutch to English with DeepL. It will be manually edited and streamlined soon.

Without much effort, you recognise yourself in an animal. Just like you: two eyes and two ears, and a mouth that wants to eat. Arms and legs, legs, wings, fins: one continuous evolutionary family relationship. And then there is that remarkable common animal restlessness. We animals are always looking for it in movement. When danger approaches, the animal runs away. Smelling a tasty snack or a tasty conspecific, it sneaks closer. The solution to both missing what is nice, and avoiding what is uncomfortable, is in moving in space. If you don't find what you are looking for here, then move over there. If you find something there you don't like, you move elsewhere again. Kinship between you and the other animal is certainly in this shared un-rootedness.

How different are plants. Anchored in the place where they once sprouted as seeds, they cannot avoid or obtain by moving. They will have to find a solution for every challenge they face, and on the spot. An unthinkable task for any animal, member of the brotherhood of restlessness. Biologist Stefano Mancuso, author of, among others 'The Revolutionary Genius of Plants’ write:

Whereas animals react to changes in their surroundings by moving to avoid those changes, plants respond to the constantly changing environment by adapting to meet it.

Renowned French botanical illustrator Francis Hallé tells in an interview: ....

When I entered the Sorbonne in Paris, I was not really interested in plants, but rather animals, indeed like 99 percent of students, by the way. Today. I like animals, but I can't take them seriously because they move all the time. …. For me, trees are much more beautiful than animals. Animals are dirty, noisy, and when they die, they smell awful. When a tree dies, it doesn't smell bad because its molecules contain less sulfur. I wonder if our initial relationship to trees is aesthetic rather the scientific. When we come across a beautiful tree, it is an extraordinary thing. ….

An Agroforest in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon Island. Drawing by Francis Hallé

TOTEM TREE

Humans mirroring themselves in animals are soon tempted into anthropomorphism. A small cuddly dog, yet direct descendant of the dreaded wolf, is given a cute jacket and trousers. And in the raised beak corner of a greying Donald Duck, the illustrator draws white teeth. Or the mirror game leads to zoomorphism, where humans can be caught with some envy of the vital wild animal. That still possesses awesome powers, speed and fearsome teeth and jaws, all of which man has just largely traded for civilisation. The animal as icon, as totem. The Hague, my hometown, has a stork as its proud urban totem. Neighbouring village Scheveningen, two herrings. The orange football squad emulate the lazy African lion or lioness. As a runner, I would take an antelope as a totem. As a swimmer, definitely a sea lion (guaranteed Olympic swimming success for any participating marine mammal). As a thief, a magpie. And as a weightlifter, I would learn from a working elephant in the Asian forest.

Martial arts traditions observed the animal kingdom. The martial animal totems therefore come in many guises. The grenadier's bear cap, the lion on the knight's shield, Bruce Lee's praying mantis and General Yu Fei's Eagle Claw. Tiger, crane, leopard, snake and dragon in southern styles. The twelve Hsing I Chuan animals. The 'bear step' and the 'snake step' in I Chuan. But aren't we missing something? For the martial artist, animals certainly possess enviable qualities. Traits you can imagine, imitate and perhaps one day call your own. But aren't there plants that can serve us as teachers and inspirations?

GREEN CHEMICALS

Plants are tied to the location of their original germination. Incapable of animal hunting, running and fleeing, they developed an unfathomable array of self-defence mechanisms. Often without anything particularly noticeable on the outside, they face off against aggressive gnawers, drillers, grazers and other unwanted but unavoidable intruders. After several centuries of modern science, we have only explored and understood a fraction of the chemical warfare (and chemical seduction techniques) of the plant kingdom. Who said plants just stand there and don't know about martial arts? Not to mention spines and thorns, bark and resin.

Please tand in a natural setting. In a forest or park, your backyard. Don't close your eyes completely, but give them a rest, stand with eyes squinted. Instead of standing, you can of course sit. Focus your attention on what smell enters your nose. At first you may smell little, perhaps just your own skin or sweat, or your clothes. But soon you will become aware of smells you didn't notice before. Pick up scents that air currents or wind carry with them, faint or strong. When you look at an object, you perceive reflective light: a visual touch through the light waves messenger. But the smell you breathe in through your nose is an essential part of that other. A fleeting part that detached itself. In French, you call it 'essence'; the smell as the essential. Take ten minutes to fully identify with the world of smell. Breathe in your surroundings.
What can bring us close to chemical world of plants is navigating and orienting through the nose. Like plants, we live in a world of smell, although that is a forgotten reality for most of us. Scents are immediate, instinctive, unrelenting, and full of memory. Much of the sea of scent we live in is of plant origin. A dizzying pallet. When a plant cannot travel a distance because of rooting, to bring and take, there is always the wind. It carries the scents of the plant to vertes and brings the scents of others to it. The lack of a nose in no way prevents the plant from perceiving scents.

COLLECTIVE RESILIENCE

Parallel to martial development, the martial practitioner explores health and the art of living long. And to whom might you turn for inspiration? The vast majority of animals are already elderly or deceased when a healthy oak or beech tree is only in its adolescence. The age of most animals is dwarfed by the age of many plants. It is a true miracle that a starfish can grow a new arm after losing one. Doesn't that seem convenient to you? But a random tree loses branches throughout its life, and after a short time, they are all replaced by new ones again. Whereas an animal has life functions concentrated in specific organs, the plant is modularly built. All parts are replaceable and renewable. Even if the storm or a fire has destroyed the above-ground tree, the invisible root part is alive and kicking. And lo and behold, after a short time the new shoots appear. In US Utah, Pando is growing. Not one tree, but a forest of more than 40 hectares of ratchet poplar. All 40,000 trunks share the same root system, and while the single trunk is born and dies, Pando as a whole is ancient, 14,000 years. Isn't that a great example of collective resilience?

The practice is simple. Find a suitable environment: a quiet corner in a city park, a balcony overlooking a tree, the dunes, your living room with plants in the windowsill, a forest. Stand upright, with your arms along your body (called wu chi zhuang). Your hands on your back, your hands at your sides, or both hands on your belly are other good options. Relax your knees, relax your gaze. Look at the greenery freely. In our usual dealings with our bodies, our senses - especially our eyes - get a lot of attention. The hands also get a disproportionate share of our attention. Consciousness also focuses directly on places where strong sensations appear: heat or cold, pressure, itching and pain. Some parts of the body get little, others a lot. All too often under the credo: the rich get richer, the poor poorer.

Now take the tree or plant you perceive as a role model. It is modular, it is proportionally developed. All the leaves share equally in burdens and pleasures. Even under the ground, where we cannot see, the proportions are egalitarian and all the root tips simultaneously make their way evenly through the earth. Of course, there are obstacles to perfect radial growth symmetry: lack or excess of water, a rock, a severed branch, a column of gnawing caterpillars. Yet, the essential vitality of the tree, manifesting itself in each of its parts simultaneously, is what every martial practitioner wishes to master.

Through the practice of standing chi kung, the original egalitarian and radial organisation is slowly awakened. Experiencing the sensation of vitality in the fingertips and in the soles of the feet is certainly a good start. Then chi sensation in the thighs and abdomen. Then in the face, in the senses, and gradually the whole body. But the adventure of mirroring in the modular plant or tree continues. The zhan zhuang practice also opens access to previously neglected and forgotten body zones, the personal terra incognitas. Step by step, the whole body is reconnected by the mind, through the breath. According to the image of a healthy developed tree. The I Chuan tradition speaks of their yuan li: accumulated strength. Collective resilience.

PLANT BLINDNESS

Someone asks you to look at a picture. With a green opulence on it, a beautiful park or forest. And in that greenery is a small tea pavilion. A nice little scene to see, but not very special. You think. That same person then asks you: what do you see in this picture? You don't think for long and say: I see a tea pavilion. Thereby disregarding the overwhelming green opulence. This remarkable phenomenon is called 'plant blindness' or in English 'plant blindness'. Botanical greenery as decorative wallpaper. For those who live in the wilderness, green is not threatening, not dangerous. Green does not bite, does not jump out of an ambush, and does not rush after you to jibe at you. Green forms the neutrality of shelter. It does not intrude and gives the eyes rest. Visual muzak from our wild ancestors.

No, take red. A red traffic light. A red neon advertisement. Red Coca-Cola letters. The red battle flag. Adam (Eve's), 'the red one'. The Red Knight. Red voting pencil. Red blood. A red head, an angry head, a blushing head. Bloody hands and red lips. Red, sympathetic excitement. Red haemoglobin versus green chlorophyll, so characteristic of animal and plant respectively. Yet their chemical structure is similar, only the core differs - iron or magnesium. We animals are red and warm. Green is beautiful but alien. It is surprising how little we know about plant and tree (not to mention fungus, insect and micro-life, but about that please another time). Their quiet, seemingly unmoving but incredibly intelligent existence just doesn't strike us.

Stand still, close plants or tress, as described above. Looking at plant or tree: there is no hidden reality, nothing otherworldly, to be discovered. Except miraculous green leaves. On stalks, and branches, eventually connected to a trunk. An old tree in the forest, or a humble houseplant. Take the small risk (of wasting your time) of observing leaves with an uninhibited eye. Look as if you are observing them for the first time, for the very first time. If such a beginner's mind is hard for you to imagine, go to the moving clip of the man seeing colours again for the first time. Observe the translucency of the green leaf. Observe how the leaves are always moving, except during the lull before the storm. See how the leaves fill the space optimally. To connect optimally with the light. And when you want to look even longer in amazement, but your legs get tired, feel free to sit. On a chair, a tree stump, on your squat. Or, if the ground is not too wet, lie down on your back, and contemplate the leaves from their most beautiful side. Chi kung is ultimately not limited by any particular posture or technique. Its essence is open-mindedness.

LIKE A POLE?

Zhan zhuang chi kung in the literal translation means 'standing pole' or 'standing like a stick'. Obvious associations with this lacklustre branding are: 'immobile so boring', 'status quo', 'standing still', 'standing in front of a pole' and 'fit for the elderly'. Otherwise, what inspiration could one derive from following the example of a stick hammered into the ground? However, some authors of martial literature point out that the term zhan zhuang was originally used for a classical training method in the Shao Lin tradition. Monastic practitioners trained while standing, to strengthen balance and strength, on sawn-off tree trunks. More than a semantic blandness: zhan zhuang would then be better translated as "standing òon a stick".

There are no historical sources, as far as I know, that directly associate zhan zhuang chi kung with tree and plant. Sifu Lam Kam-Chuen was the first to popularize stationary chi kung as 'standing like a tree' through his books. And it was professor Jiao Guorui, teaching in Germany, who labelled one of the essential zhan zhuang postures as 'Stehen wie ein Kiefer'. Standing like a pine. Professor Jiao was undoubtedly referring to a straight forest specimen. A direct vertical connection between the supporting earth and the nurturing atmosphere. A worthy totem for the practitioner of the wu chi stance!

Though this excellent initiative, to connect martial practice with plant and tree, is only a first step. When I walk in the North Holland dunes and see a wind-shaped sea pine, it speaks a different language to me than the straight forest pine. A different history, a different Gestalt. It offers me another inspiration, hands me another totem. Forest-pines, sea-pines, young baby-pines. But a pine is also: compressed strength of a still-closed pine cone. The fragrant stickiness of its resin. A lump of ancient amber. A cloud of early spring pollen. The tough grain of pine wood. The amazing docility of its branches in the wind. The often invisible to us ramifications of its root system. Its wild, sweet fragrance. And who knows the delicate taste of young pine needles in the kitchen or as tea? A single pine, a so-called dead pine, often overlooked by plant blindness, offers so much martial inspiration. With some patience and insight, we can indeed mirror the green world. The image of 'standing like a tree', and now even more precisely 'standing like a pine', soon leads to a huge range of reflections and inspired practice. The silent green as a teacher.