Springtime. And an unusual opportunity for rumination. A minor injury to my ankle – ligament damage only – and my increased desire to make the most of the long daylight hours and warmer temperatures is thwarted by unexpected immobility. Frustrating…
One of our TCM tutors was saying that at this time of year she saw an increase in the number of people with Liver-related issues like frustration. (Spring being associated with the Liver and the associated pathogenic emotion being anger.)
She qualified this by saying of course she sees people with repressed or unexpressed anger all year round, but there’s a noticeable increase in numbers/severity at this time of year.
Anecdotal, of course – there could be some confirmation bias there. Am I personally aware of an increase in such feelings in the Springtime? Because of my injured ankle I’ve not been able to exercise as I usually would.
But have I found a decreased ability to deal with that frustration due to the season? I can’t honestly say I have (but maybe I’m just repressing it!). I guess it would depend more on whether I had an excessive or deficient Liver – if the organ network is healthy and functional then no, there’s probably going to be no experiential change.
Sure, there’s been a sense of frustration. Of feeling a bit stuck. But I’d call it proportionate rather than dysfunctional. I’ve been a little fuzzy-headed, too. Lacking energy in the mornings. But college has been draining a lot of my concentration. There have been a few deadlines all arriving at once. I’m not stressed but I am a bit burnt out mentally. A bit phlegmy in the back of my throat, too, although there are a few Spring colds going round. Cold breezes and variable temperatures.
With my limited first year student’s knowledge it would be easy to conclude there’s a Spleen imbalance here. Studying Chinese Medicine can turn you into a hypochondriac pretty quickly. But I’ve yet to develop any real analytical skill. My channel palpation is fumbling and insensitive. But the large bruise on my injured ankle is definitely shouting out Blood stagnation in the Bladder channel… no prizes there!
In other ways it’s easy to convince yourself of anything, though. I decided I was Kidney Yin deficient first, then on reflection I became Kidney Yang deficient. Then there were Lung issues. Then Heart. Now Spleen. And with Spring arriving, maybe it’s time for some Liver Yang Rising…!
Hmm, my tongue does seem to be reading deficient, though. And there’s a pronounced central crack indicating Stomach or Spleen. An invasion of Damp…?
Here in the north of England we have a very damp climate (and I worked in a very damp environment for several years). A common dietary recommendation by Chinese Medicine practitioners, when advising someone presenting with signs of “Damp,” is to cut out Damp foods such as bananas.
I was told bananas naturally grow in hot, dry climates, where their Damp properties benefit the local people. But they’re not particularly good for people who live in naturally damp climates like ours.
I nodded sagely and agreed, thinking they grow a lot of bananas in the Caribbean (which I think they did in the late 20th century, but things have changed since then).
When I looked it up, it appears bananas are actually originally native to Southeast Asia – a tropical and very humid and damp part of the world, which kinda seems to blow the theory out of the water…
Saying that, there is a lot of folk wisdom related to eating seasonally and locally. It makes a lot of sense to me to eat in accordance with natural cycles, since we’ve evolved doing so for millennia and it’s only the very recent explosion in world trade, transport and big food companies that allow me to eat a kumquat in December.
It makes me wonder how that affects us internally. Being out of synchrony with the natural rhythms of the world. I’m certainly guilty of ignoring my natural circadian rhythm and going to bed after midnight quite consistently. But how deeply does that affect us?
Do our bodies get enough rest? Do we digest and absorb our food properly? How does this impair our ability to repair cells, build marrow, make blood, detoxify? What about our melatonin levels? And our endocrine system and nervous system? Are we all walking around half-asleep, unaware, subfunctional? And thinking this is normal?!
In some ways we can’t escape the seasons, of course. Despite our night-polluting addiction to artificial light and air- and ocean-polluting addiction to plastics and synthetic fabrics, we’re still at the mercy of daylight and weather. Think about how your movement habits change over the year.
I tend towards more strenuous exercise in the Spring and Summer. More sweat-inducing. Longer runs. More time outdoors. There’s definitely a natural urge to get outside enjoy the long sunlight hours and better weather while it lasts. Only mad dogs and Englishmen…
In winter I tend to be a bit more hibernatory, but still do plenty. Just not so much outdoors, and more restorative than exerting – yoga, stretching, foam rolling, Qi Gong, tai chi…
I wonder how this works for people who live in places like California, where there aren’t distinctive seasons in the same sense that we have in the UK? I imagine my body would be very confused for quite a while if it were suddenly Summer nearly every day.
I think exercise really helps with mental acuity and emotional wellbeing. Looking at some research just on walking I found this list of benefits.
Take a deep breath: improved metabolism, mood, longevity, cancer risk, cardiovascular function, strength, flexibility, mobility, fascial health, balance, detoxification, capacity to manufacture hormones and enzymes, memory function, immunity, hypertension, cortisol and cholesterol levels, reduced fatigue, stress, pain, reliance on medication, sleep quality, bone density, cognitive function, digestion and peristalsis, lung capacity, lung health, stamina, overall quality of life, emotional health, and tendency to make healthy life choices.
Okay. Take another breath.
Anyway, I think we know a lot of this intuitively. You can feel your own better functioning for engaging in exercise. You’re lighter, happier, more supple… You feel… at ease with yourself and everything around you. Unless you overdo it, of course.
I haven’t always been exactly a fitness fanatic but I’ve always had a physically active job. So experiencing “sofa-living” for a short while with this ligament damage has given me an insight into the kind of listless outlook some people arrive at when they don’t move their bodies enough.
Some guys I know eat takeaway most days and look at me like I’m mad when I say I’m going for a run! The very notions of exercise and vegetables seem to cause them anguish! They reason their way out of it. Even though, to me, it seems apparent they’ve just acclimatised to fat, sugar and lethargy.
They’ve been duped by their own dopamine receptors. And their rationality has conspired against them. I don’t say this from a position of haughty high-mindedness. I used to smoke. A lot. And it seemed perfectly normal and reasonable. Now it seems insane. It’s amazing, our self-justifying capacity for finding reasons not to be healthy, not to relinquish our comfortable habits and rituals. So it seems plain to me. I can discern their internal narrative working so hard telling us not to move. So much mental energy squandered on a determination not to be energetic.
And I kind of get it. Kind of. I don’t see any great appeal in going to a gym and pumping iron until I collapse. And that’s our common perception of what exercise is. Masochism. Pain. Punishment. And all that pectoral nurturing might bring strength, might send some lovely endorphins flying round, but it also brings stiffness, joint strain and spinal issues, unless you really know what you’re doing. I don’t want to generate tightness in my tissues. You can see the tension in some of those muscle dudes. Not to mention the narcissism…
No, relaxation is the key. And I don’t mean flaccidity. There has to be some tension available, but it needs to be measured, appropriate. You need to be able to switch it on and off. They teach you that in Wing Chun. 100% power. Then 100% relaxation. Leave some tension there and you’re giving your opponent something to use against you.
Same in Xingyiquan. Strike like a whip. Soft, soft, soft, then bam. The mechanics are different, but the principle is fundamentally the same. In Baguazhang it’s an image of a twisted rope. Soft, pliable, but strong and capable of torsional power. And in Taijiquan the metaphor I’ve heard most often is a hose pipe. Inflate the body with a circulating pressure. It’s all soft power. But that doesn’t mean it’s soft.
I’m not against circuit training or weights. It’s important to be strong. But not at the expense of flexibility and mobility. I do a bit of body weight stuff but nothing too intense. I think one of the great things about things like tai chi and bagua is that they’re fun and they make you feel good. That simple, yes. It’s an intrinsically satisfying way to move. It combines grace and power.
Think of a prowling tiger. Such finesse, such softness, such suppleness, precision and containment, but at the same time such raw strength, speed and savagery, only a split second away. Relax, relax, relax, then go!
And everything goes together. The whole body, perfectly coordinated and smoothly integrated. And the mind, too – that focused attention and clarity of intention. The predator’s entire being synchronised towards its target. And after? Relax, relax, relax. Why waste any more energy? Eat now. Replenish.
But as modern human beings, we don’t relax. We don’t know how to. Or we’re not aware that we’re not. We’re never 100% on. But we’re never 100% off either. There’s always that bit of tension remaining. That niggling thought. That unexpressed emotion. That ingrained over-engagement in sensory stimuli.
When it comes to martial arts, it’s not a means to an end. We’re not out to become killers. It’s self-mastery we’re training, really, I think. “De.” Physiologically, it’s good for your immunity and nervous health. Mentally, it’s good for your self-worth and emotional stability. It encourages a lightness of being. Balanced with a sense of grounding. Mr Miyagi knew it, certainly!
And then, on a less noble level, there’s pure enjoyment. You do it for its own sake. For the pleasure of it. It’s something you want to do instead of something you feel you ought to do. I never have to force myself to train. It’s just a part of being. (Except when I’m limping around with a sore ankle feeling sorry for myself, that is.)
I wonder how we got to this point where exercise is so widely perceived as a hard, boring chore? When we’re kids most of us love running round and moving in different ways. How do we lose that?
Why are activities like parkour and trail running still so niche? Isn’t that just normal? Natural? Why has the “getting 10 miles up on Strava” mentality superseded running just for the sheer pleasure of it?
Is it our tendency as adults to be goal-oriented? To treat our bodies like machines to be serviced? Do we just forget how to be playful? That’s a common enough statement, but then you see plenty of middle aged guys (and women) playing for hours on games consoles, so does that really hold up?
How did we end up in a place where we sit for interminable hours and then go kill ourselves at the gym as punishment? So many of us are existing at two unhealthy extremes rather than finding a healthy moderation.
Chinese Yang Sheng practices advocate not exhausting the body and stopping when you get to the point of a sheen of sweat. They view exhausting the body as being as harmful as not exercising.
There’s been an increasing trend in the last few years for super-high intensity HIIT sessions where you go all out for just a few minutes.
My instinct is that this sounds really destructive, but there seems to be a lot of scientific evidence backing up its benefits. Maybe if those studies looked at people over a longer term they might start to see some detriments to this kind of exercise?
I’m not sure, but it seems like these high intensity interval fanatics are missing the point. Exercise shouldn’t be something we do to get over with as efficiently as possible so we can go back to our box sets and social media accounts. It should be something we want to do. Not even that, in fact. It should be something we just do, because that’s how we naturally are as functioning bodies.
We seem to have reached a point of total separation from our bodies. We resist them. We torture them. We’re ashamed of them. We push them. We use them. We think of them as other. Here’s me, my mind. And over there, my body.
Chinese Medicine and internal martial arts teach us we are our bodies. Body and mind are integrated. They’re inseparable. We literally store our emotions in our flesh. Our consciousness permeates our being. And our bodies express our minds.
When the body is healthy, the mind can be healthy. When the mind is pure, the body is vital. It literally opens up. Everything flows. And never more so than in the Spring. Gone the pooling slumber of Winter. Here is the new vitality, the fresh life of the new year.
It’s interesting I think that my swollen, bruised ankle is viewed as Stagnation in TCM terms. That our Western solutions of cold and rest are the polar opposite of Chinese medical advice. Cold and rest lead the further stagnancy. Longer recovery. A return to Winter. An unnatural reversal. A source of inner frustration and a feeling of standing against the flow.
So it’s time I take my own advice, get up out of this sofa and get my body moving. Get the blood flowing. Get the Qi moving. Lend some momentum to my ruminating mind. Spring is the season of tendon and sinew, and of kindness, too. Let’s be kind to ourselves, then, and get our sinews moving…
The Azure Dragon 