Peng

4 days ago4 min read

The concept of 'Peng' is often explained as feeling as though you are balloon being blown up, or a feeling as though you are simultaneously expanding in all directions.

At the same time it is both yielding and supporting; this would be like pushing on an aerobics ball; it gives when you push it, but it also supports you.

Losing Peng

I'm interested in Peng because much of what we encounter in life seems to generate the opposite, and encourages us to collapse.

Prolonged noise, stress of any kind, pressure to conform, tiredness/exhaustion, excess stimulation, in fact excesses of any kind (food, drink, sex, exuberance, anger, sadness etc.) seem to create a degeneration of the body to a greater of lesser extent.

Sounds a bit boring? Maybe, but we're talking about 'excesses' here, not never experiencing anything! As usual, it all comes down to balance.

In other words, these things cause a decrease of Peng, a slight collapsing of the sensory system instead of a robust and energetic sensory system. They cause the aerobics ball to lose its bounce a little.

Peng relies on good structural integrity, relaxation, sinking/softening, and connection of the tissues (fascia). It also employs the concept of 'tensegrity' which does not mean tension within the body, but is about a structure holding itself together through the interdependence of all its parts - see blog on tensegrity:

Key aspects of Peng energy:

1. Buoyancy: Peng is like a balloon filled with air; it allows you to feel light and supported, whilst maintaining your structure.

2. Internal Structure: Peng is about maintaining an open and relaxed posture. Your joints should be relaxed and open, but your body should still feel grounded and connected (see point 6 below).

3. Sensitivity: With Peng energy, you develop a heightened awareness of your own body and the energy around you. This sensitivity enables you to respond effectively to external forces.

4. Flow & Movement: When you embody peng, your movements become more fluid. You can transfer weight smoothly and redirect energy without rigidity.

5. Balance & Stability: Peng helps you maintain balance, allowing you to move freely while staying rooted. This balance is essential for both offensive and defensive techniques in Tai Chi.

6. Song & Grounding: Cultivating Peng involves connecting with the ground. This grounding provides a solid foundation, enhancing your ability to remain stable.

Trying too hard

When you are implementing Peng, you can end up 'trying' to achieve Peng. This is an adjunct to the Zen idea of 'Sitting quietly, doing nothing'.

The conundrum here is that we are not sitting quietly, and we are doing something, and yet still aiming to experience Peng... and if we 'aim' to experience it, we're not there!

A failure on all counts!!!

Using the wrong bits...

When trying to implement Peng, what tends to happen is that people engage their muscles.

How do you have a feeling of body expansion? The obvious (and wrong) thing to do is to stretch out your muscles/arms/legs/back... or whichever bit in which you're aiming to experience Peng.

As soon a you do this, you no longer have Peng. Peng is about the elastic nature of the body's tissues, and is about feeling that elasticity.

So how do you do it?

It again comes down to the concept of relaxation.

In a class recently, someone asked me, "How do I relax my neck?". A very good question, and one that I was unable to answer except by saying... "Stop holding on!".

Not very useful, but unfortunately true.

In reality, I was a little more helpful than that:-

1. Let your shoulders fall away from your ears
2. Relax your tailbone (coccyx & sacrum)
3. Feel as though the space between your ears is widening

... and so on.

But you will notice that none of the above are about your neck as such - they all relate to other parts of your body that are joining in with the neck tension:-

1. When you let go of the shoulders and feel their weight, the neck starts to undo.
2. When you relax your tailbone (in other words the opposite end of the spine), there is a corresponding release at the top of the spine.
3. When you relax between your ears, the top of the spine (approximately at that level) softens.

There's no language for relaxation & Peng

Openness - which is an 'un-doing' or a 'not-doing' (back to Zen again).
Resilience - the elastic quality of Peng, only achievable when you let go
Support - the feeling of 'tensegrity' when everything is mutually supporting ("the whole is greater than the sum of the parts")
Muscular extension - the only way to release/relax muscles. You have to let go of the ends of the muscles; the muscle then lengthens. Any tension contracts muscle.

The whole process is oddly counter-intuitive.

James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.

Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.