A report of the first 100 days of Zhang Zhuan
What is Zhang Zhuan?
Zhang Zhuan is a standing meditation that is practiced in all forms of Qigong and Chinese martial arts. Since there are hundreds of Qigong styles there are dozens of ways and postures that you can adopt.
This meditation technique originated from an exercise for horse riders. Riders needed to practice without a horse. Since horses were precious and had to be saved for battle, you could not tire these animals for hours/days. Therefore riders in training stood in the so-called horse stand; with the knees bent and a straight back; as if you were sitting on a horse. This exercise trains your upper legs so that you can clamp your legs to the horse.
Qigong masters started using this horse stand after they discovered that the exercise was a perfect way to learn to relax Ming Men (the area of the lower back). One of the goals you can strive for when practicing Qigong is to open (fully relax) the Ming Men area. This then becomes an energy gate with which you can replenish the prenatal Qi – located in between the kidneys – in such a way that it has a life-extending effect.
In addition, this position keeps your body and mind alert since it is impossible to fall asleep, as often happens during a sitting meditation. In order to be able to stand still for a longer period of time (you start with 5 or 10 minutes and build that up to at least 30 minutes) you have to strengthen your body and learn to cultivate a calm mind.
The posture we assume in Chi Neng Qigong is called ‘Three Centres Merge’ (San Xing Ping Zhang Zhuan). The name refers to the merging of the 3 dantians (energy centres into one – in the lower abdomen, chest and head -. Since Chi Neng Qigong is a medical form of Qigong, the Three Centres Merge is less strainfull and easier to learn than the traditional martial arts versions.
With the right focus, lots of Qi is collected in the lower dantian.
Super Gong
A gong is an exercise that you do every day for 100 days. Below is a report of an initial period of 100 days that I ultimately want to lead to practicing Zhang Zhuan for 1000 hours. An important difference between this, – a super gong – and a regular gong is if you skip a day (or have to), you don’t have to start all over again. The point is that you spend a total of 1000 hours in standing meditation. How long that takes is up to you as long as you practice at least 30 minutes every day.
Qigong masters say: 10 hours of Zhang Zhuan gives a reasonable result, 100 hours of Zhang Zhuan gives a good result and 1000 hours gives a fantastic result.
Brief report of the first 100 days Zhang Zhuan
After completing my first 100 days I have practiced the Three Centres Merge for 50 hours. The results are impressive.
I have really been struggling with this exercise for years. Of course, I faithfully did a gong of the centres merge for my first teacher exam. Then I started with 10 minutes and in the last week I managed to do the exercise for an hour a day. But at the time (2016) the centres merge felt like torture. Physically I eventually succeeded and my mind was calm enough to persevere, but I did the exercise purely on willpower and forgot about the investigative curiosity that is so essential for practicing Qigong.
How different it is now after 100 days of practice. I stopped practicing on will power and started practicing with patience. – You will read in the diary entries how much of a struggle that was!
I never dared to hope I would actually fall in love with this exercise. That I would look forward to the daily practice, to the strength and peace it gives me, to the insights it brings me.
On the physical level:
I have never been as strong as I am now. My legs in particular have developed enormous strength.
Disadvantage: I recently kicked my kitchen door open – it was stuck, my house is old – and the window shattered. Oops!
Advantages: Trembling in the upper legs (thy’s) seized after about two weeks. Now trembling occurs only when I really bend my knees very deeply into the horse stand. I am very curious to see how far I can bend my knees after 1000 hours of Zhang Zhuan.
I can clearly feel the Qi flow running through the channels – meridians – in my legs. Especially on the inside of my thighs where the kidney meridian runs, but also at the back (liver meridian).
I no longer have to spend the first few minutes of the exercise finding the posture. Muscle memory ensures that I automatically get into a good posture. Holding this position for 30 minutes is still difficult. It depends a lot on my emotional balance which still changes a lot day by day.
At the level of mind and spirit:
Willpower is no longer essential to be able to continue the exercise. Now I got used to the exercise, my body hardly protests anymore and that helps, but a sense of calmness comes over me I have never experienced before. It feels like a wave with an increasingly strong undercurrent of quiertness. This calmness is not (yet) constant but flattens the wave a little further.
I have gone through deep emotional valleys as a result of this exercise. I am well on my way to embracing all old pain and letting it go. Letting go without judgment. Everything may be there, sometimes even had to be be there, if only for the benefit of this process. Think of the wise words of the Buddha: What has meditation brought me? Nothing! I have only lost things through it: fear, stress, restlessness, anger…
The most beautiful thing that this exercise brings is almost indescribable. You direct all your senses inward; you only hear your breathing, your heart beat and sometimes even your blood circulation. You feel all the processes in your body so well that you can almost see them; your digestion, again the blood circulation, and the minute signals from your nervous system. These are only short moments as when they happen it gives me like a wow moment and that makes me lose it. I have to get used to it I suppose. It holds a promise for later.
The feeling of connectedness with everything in the universe. I still have to cultivate the connection with all of humanity a bit further, I think. But feeling that I am in direct contact with a primal force gives me confidence, strength and above all zest for life.
Disadvantage: when I am pulled into an emotion by circumstances I experience that as very intense. I have certainly not become more stress-resistant; on the contrary. Small stress points that you experience, for example, the mandatory dealing with authorities; feel as completely unnecessary and very unwanted distractions. However, I do learn to recognize these emotions, I thank them for their warning and I let them go a bit more easily. My impatience runs very deep and it will take a lot of practice before I can remain calm about everything.
Below a couple of entries in the diary:
Tuesday, March 22, 2022 Day 1
I finally got around to starting with a super gong; the 1000 hour Zhang Zhuan. I choose to do the ‘San Xin Ping Zhang Zhuan’ or the Three Centers Merge. The effect of the exercises is similar, the centers merge seems a bit heavier for the legs at first glance and at the same time a bit lighter for the arms. With centers merge you point your toes inwards and lean more heavily on your upper leg and your hands hold a Qi ball in front of your navel.
With the original Zhang Zhuan the feet are in a straight line but you hold your hands at chest height as if you are hugging a tree and that is heavier for the arms. Since my arms have become quite strong after the Chen Chi and Chen Bi gongs, I felt it was now my legs’ turn to be trained.
Day 3
If you are familiar with how the Zhang Zhuan and Centres Merge work, you know that it’s not about strengthening muscles. The challenge in this exercise is learning to calm and train ‘the monkee mind’. By this the Chinese mean the tendency of your mind to jump from one thought to another. Li Hongshi writes in his book; ‘bring home your heart’ that the monkee mind tries to kidnap you. It leads you away from your focus and before you know it you are thinking about shopping lists or other trivialities.
My personal monkee mind turned out to be a tough bugger. My monkee mind seemed to do everything it could to get me to stop the session before the 30 minutes were up. It is as slippery as an eel; it quickly distracts me, but distracting thoughts are easily recognisable. So the attention shifted to more important matters; ideas for teaching come up and of course they seem important at that moment. And if that didn’t work, my lesson ideas would come up with inspiration for one of my yet-to-be-written books.
But I was quick to see through the little rascal and came up with a few tricks to keep him in check. I sometimes gave in to him with the thought of count your blessings; inspiration is worth a lot to me, so I let it in, trusting that I can remember really good ideas. With that, I seemed to have knocked a weapon out of the monkee mind’s hands.
Day 5
Occasionally it helps is to train harder, increase the challenge and push the boundaries of physical ability. The mind can hardly wander when your body has to perform at the top of its ability.
Day 7
The first few days were very tough and it takes a lot of effort to keep going. The muscles in my upper legs in particular have to endure a lot and start protesting violently after a few minutes. To stay focused, I direct my attention alternately to the Qi gates in the order we use in level 3. So I started at Bai Hui (crown), then to Yong Quan (ball of the foot), Ming Men (lower back), Zhangmen and Ju Men (two points on the left and right side) and end at Du Qi (navel) and try to keep my attention there. I repeat as soon as I notice that I am wandering. I try everything to stay focused, but it is becoming so tense that it seems to distract me even more.
Day 10
I now use the opening of the energy gates in combination with a kind of mantra: open to the sky, become one with the earth, open to the horizon at the back, to the sides, and then focus on the Qi ball deep in the lower dantian. I chant the heart sound from level 3 when my legs still get too heavy. I know I have to persevere. I do not have any problems with my lower back and that is quite something; the upper legs have the strongest muscles and should be able to handle this. I feel with every session it is going a little better and my willpower seems to be getting stronger; I’m not giving up.
Day 12
I am still not rock solid and move too much. I sway back and forth. That is nice when you are in the basic position but not in the 3 centres merge; you should be firmly grounded and standing straight. I also cannot resist the tendency to stretch my legs every now and then during the session.
Day 14
A special observation: I felt a Qi blockage in my arms for the first time. I have never experienced that before during a centres merge.
Day 16
Legs are getting stronger quickly now and that makes the exercise easier to do. Time seems to pass more quickly. Today, expanding while inhaling and exhaling to the center lower dantian helped me get through the difficult last 10 minutes. However, the mantra seems to lose its power and function. I really had to do my best to perform it completely, I couldn’t do the mantra more than once today. However, the periods of complete calm and focus on the Qi ball seem to last longer and longer.
Day 18
Monkee-mind remains a problem. Today I let it do its thing under the motto of ‘everything is allowed’. A song suddenly popped into my head: ‘trust in me’ by Siouxie and the Banshees. That was really nice for a few minutes until the monkee mind kidnapped me to treatises about the jungle book. Then I tried again to regain focus with the mantra. That went reasonably well but not fantastically.
What was nice is that in the periods that the monkee mind remained under control: a warm glow of Qi was felt from Ying Tang (third eye) radiating to the lower dantian. (behind and below the navel)
Day 19
Mantra still remains a good lifeline to call upon when maintaining focus is no longer possible. Today it also felt as if my body and mind had decided that there was enough Qi present and nothing more needed to be attracted. But I also felt no desire to let go; that didn’t even occur to me.
Day 24
It seems that the upper legs have finally accepted the daily exercise. No protest and I actually feel a light Qi flow in this rather tense area.
Day 28
My legs continue to do well, the disadvantage is that I am now starting to feel tension in my lower back. The question is whether it was already there and now that the pain in the upper legs has decreased, it is more noticeable or whether the tension has shifted. The latter would not be good.
Day 30
In Dr Pang’s books read somewhere that opening Ming Men is accompanied by ‘great discomfort’. This fact helps me to persevere. The lower back occasionally feels painful during the exercise, but fortunately I do not suffer from it permanently, I don’t ache after the exercise. If that were to happen, there would be no other option than to abandon the exercise.
Day 32
I am far too busy adjusting my posture and can no longer surrender to the posture because of the pain in my lower back. Without that surrender, the monkee mind goes berserk and makes it very difficult for me. I realize very well that I am on the wrong track. Yet I remain determined to continue and overcome this hurdle as well. Something has definitely been released in me in that respect; willpower and confidence.
Day 35
Something is happening now that I didn’t expect: I’m starting to look forward to the daily half hour of centres merge. Every now and then I’m afraid that I’m doing spiritual by-passing and I wonder if that’s why I look forward to the half hour. The complete peace attracts me. Daily life has little to offer at the moment. Apart from teaching, everything is going badly; writing my new novel has almost come to a standstill. There are still plenty of older ideas that I could work out, but the evil outside world has me in its grip; the war in Ukraine, the endless nagging of friends and acquaintances who have fallen into the grip of conspiracy thinking – due to the covid epidemic – , the climate crisis etc. etc. Good luck trying to stay calm under all that!
Day 37
I’m increasingly letting my thoughts run free; they’re allowed to be present. I don’t force my monkee-mind to do anything anymore and just let it rage. As a result, moments naturally arise when everything falls silent and I feel that I can cultivate these moments.
Day 38
The exercise is becoming less and less physically demanding. I can’t completely relax my lower back yet, I keep feeling a nagging tension. But it’s already a lot less srtrained than it was 10 days ago. The biggest progress is in my upper legs; they feel stronger and more flexible and I feel the Qi flow in that area getting stronger and stronger. I can sink deeper and deeper through my knees, although a deep horsestand is still a long way off. When you sink deeper you feel the muscles in your legs and especially your calves playing up again, but now it became a challenge instead of a torment.
Day 39
Today my posture was perfect; good support from the muscles on the thigh and a beautifully relaxed lower back. I also held the posture for at least half of the exercise. Monkee-mind also calmed down a lot more. The second quarter remains difficult; then my head becomes restless and I have to force myself to stay in the posture. I am going to make a sound file that indicates how far the half hour has progressed. That also helped me enormously with the Chen Chi and Chen Bi.
Day 57
I have been going through a deep emotional valley in the past few weeks. It seems I get rid of the positive emotions one needs to dampen (euphoria) go away much easier than the negative ones worries, bad self-image, doubt, feeling incapable, old wounds- . My zest for life disappeared. Things like a chanting session at the Chi neng Qigong institute – where I was showered with compliments for the beautiful sounds I make; fell off me like so much water. These things used to makes me euphoric when I’m in good shape. I was so aware I was drawing too much attention to myself and felt like I was outshining others. So much self-doubt; it ruined everything
Day 63
Fortunately, these negative emotions are finally starting to level off a bit: it is what it is. And I’m still curious about what this path will bring me. I really want to get rid of those doubts about my abilities.
Day 65
I am getting better and better at just observing distracting thoughts and not going with the flow. The desire for the quietness the Centres Merge gives me is still growing.
Day 68
Yesterday I felt this too and today even more strongly: within a day something changed in the strength of my legs. Normally I contract my leg muscles with yin power until I feel like I am standing like a rock. Today and yesterday that is no longer so easy. I have to really go deep before I feel my leg muscles on the inside of the knee to the groin and at the top contract. But as soon as I relax my lower back, I also feel a slight relaxation in my leg muscles and I immediately stand wobbly again. It only works if I use a greater force to keep the muscle groups rigid. Then I have to go so deep that I no longer use yin power, at least that’s how it feels. I can’t hold this power without it becoming too heavy. I do feel a very strong Qi flow in my legs, even in the relaxing phase.
I don’t know if this means something good or bad. I didn’t train for a day yesterday (Saturday 11 June); I was just really lazy. But I can hardly imagine that it’s because of that. I think I just have to get through this phase. I have to investigate whether I should now tighten my legs rigidly and get used to this extra muscle power or get used to standing less rock-solid and floating. The Qi flow feels very nice so I suspect that this is the way to go. We’ll see.
Day 87
Another breakthrough today. The Qi flow is getting stronger again. I did a light stretching exercises this week with my students and the flow of my own Qi is remarkably stronger. I have also finally felt more peace and acceptance in the last few days. I am slowly moving up again.
Day 95
Yesterday I was painfully aware, and certainly not for the first time, that I have a very hard time surrendering to the void, the space. When I concentrate on the Qi ball I do it much too rigidly and I get lost in distracting thoughts much too quickly. With that in mind I first started to relax my mind a bit more and tried to let go of my fear of emptiness and just let everything happen. So no open close movement of the mind but just being in the moment. That helped right away. There were distracting thoughts but they felt less like an escape and I could observe them better without value judgement. This is a good way forward. Tomorrow again!
Day 100
Today I came to the realization that the aversion that the centers merge brings about after a period of training is an inseparable and necessary part of the training. It is a barrier that you have to overcome, or rather smooth out, because Qigong is not a battle that you have to win, but a gentle urge that you cultivate and that ultimately directs you in the right direction.
Day 104
After completing the first 100 days, I took three days of rest. That was a bit longer than I had intended, I was going to rest on Friday and start again on Saturday, but last Saturday nothing worked; body and mind just couldn’t handle it. The 3 days of rest did me a lot of good. Today I was relaxed for almost the entire half hour, my mind was serene and calm for almost the entire half hour, easy to call to order as soon as I got distracting thoughts. Tastes like more! Yummie!
