Energy like a pendulum

 Have you ever done pendulum work? Pretty much anything that is attached by a metal chain (metal conducts energy the best) can be used.  You hold it still between your fingers and you can let your thoughts move it.  You can use it to answer questions you ask too. The reason I bring this up, is that it’s my thoughts or intentions that make the pendulum move, not the physical act of moving it; and I thought about how this applies to the energy moving in my Kung Fu.

We talked a lot about stances and what direction the energy goes in.  We talked about how changing the stance can change the direction of energy.  Then I thought why can’t I just change the direction of energy by changing my intention without changing the physical stance.  The short answer is yes I can. I can make inward energy go outward, however ***!  Even though I can manipulate energy through thought/intention alone did not mean that it supported my physical body.  Inward energy for the stance I was in felt solid, grounded, stable.  Outward energy with the same stance felt ungrounded and unstable even without changing anything else.  Then imagining that outward energy and then adjusting the stance to compensate for that shift in directional energy made it feel good again.

This brought up an interesting query for me.  How much of what we do is intention versus how much is our physical alignment?  Our thoughts/intentions will manipulate our physical alignment, true, but we also need good physical alignment to support the flow of energy.  Bit of a paradigm there.  It’s my thoughts that move my body, however my body also needs to support those thoughts.

Then there’s how my forms/actions manipulate my emotions and vice versa.  For the most part I would say I typically feel calm while performing with an underlying tension.  I can change that depending on my intentions, if there’s certain music playing, or even by the style I’m using.  So much manipulation just by thought; but also so much manipulation by my physical movement.