The notion of a narrowly focused line of tension within an otherwise relaxed body defines Mastery (in the I.M.A.)
It determines whether a practitioner can: Using only a “light touch,” can knock out, or injure an opponent
Effortlessly control an attacker
Open the doorway to higher level skills such as generating a magnetic field that can influence and weaken an opponent
Chang Naizhou (苌乃周).Chang’s mid 1700s training manual is a blend of traditional Taoist meditation, alchemy, and martial arts, which Professor Douglas Wile describes as a “fully mature synthesis of martial arts with military strategy, medicine and meditation.”
The Chang manuscript details how to train one’s internalenergy for martial arts purposes. It includes what Wile calls a heterodox description of the way qi responds to body movement (i.e., moving forward when the body arches backward, and reserved when moving forward [ii]), along with a description of how to “issue qi;” a three-step process of concentrating, withdrawing, and then releasing qi, training the qi by combining softness with hardness, and
the importance of focusing the body’s energy to a single point.