Structure, striking with the palm, and the applications the eighteen movements are built from.
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十八羅漢掌 · The curriculum
What is
trained.
Eighteen movements, each one a door rather than a step. The framework is simple; what the movements contain is the work of years.
Four faces
One body of training
The four faces below are not four modules. They are one system seen from four angles, and the curriculum moves between them within a single session rather than treating them as stages to be completed in turn.
This is what is meant by calling Lohan a complete system of cultivation: the conditioning prepares the structure, the structure makes the martial work possible, the martial work reveals what the dǎoyǐn was opening, and the whole of it produces a body that can sit still. Remove any one face and the others stop working properly.
Martial method
Dǎoyǐn 導引
Guiding and stretching: opening the joints and the channels through movement.
Yǎngshēng 養生
Nourishing life — the maintenance work that keeps the rest of it sustainable.
Seated practice
Stillness training, which the moving work is preparation for as much as the reverse.
Jīng · Qì · Shén 精 · 氣 · 神
The curriculum is ordered by the three treasures, and taught in that order.
-
Jīng 精
Body and essence — structure, strength, mobility, conditioning and the embodied foundations everything else rests on.
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Qì 氣
Breath, release, vitality, whole-body connection, and the refined forces 勁 that the internal arts share.
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Shén 神
Mind, awareness, stillness and meditation — within movement, within standing, and finally in sitting.
What is trained
- Standing practice and foundational exercises
- Dǎoyǐn, opening and mobility work
- The eighteen Lohan movements
- Silk-reeling and spiralling movement
- Breathing exercises
- Self-massage and patting methods
- Strength and conditioning
- Partner exercises and martial applications
- Meditation and body-awareness practice
How it is taught
Students are encouraged to investigate rather than simply believe. We start with structure and movement, then refine relaxation, connection, breath, internal skill and awareness. More elaborate explanations only become useful when the physical foundations can actually be felt and reproduced.
A movement may begin as mobility or conditioning, then reveal whole-body connection, martial use, breath coordination and subtler forms of awareness. Nothing is finished and left behind — the first palm is still being worked years later.