"Practice the pile skill by starting with stance training, and stance training begins with hip opening."
The night breeze was slightly chilly as Wang Longhu stood on the balcony of his little house, consulting the martial arts encyclopedia he found on his phone.
The words that the white-haired elder told him in the morning had been etched in Wang Longhu's mind. Through some online research, he now had a slight understanding of its principles.
The Three-Body Pose has effects of fitness, mental training, and enhancing body strength. It is said that when practiced to a profound level, it also has the effect of refining essence into energy.
If you are only exercising for fitness, like those elderly men and women Wang Longhu saw in the morning, there's no need to concern yourself with stance training and hip opening.
But if you wish to advance and learn Xingyi Boxing, stance training and hip opening are indispensable steps.
Stance training targets the strength and balance of the waist, legs, and feet, essentially training the lower body. As they say, 'The force of your punch depends on the stability of your stance.' The stance is also the foundation of any martial artist.
Hip opening, on the other hand, is tremendously beneficial for enhancing skills. The hips connect the body and the spine and are known as the 'force of the dragon and tiger,' serving as the core area for internal boxing energy release, which is extremely important.
Those proficient in hip opening can punch as if they're sitting on a bench; their hip flexors shake and release with a sound like a burst, making leg kicks resonate with a unique noise of tendons and bones.
"Hmm, this is interesting," Wang Longhu nodded in appreciation.
Stance training aims at strengthening the lower body, and in the prisoner workout I'm currently doing, squats, vertical leg lifts, and backbends also serve the same purpose.
Whether it's modern workouts or ancient martial arts, they essentially work in the same way.
However, with hip opening, Wang Longhu was at a loss as to how to practice it. His only impression of hip opening was the martial arts coach from Douyin who 'slipped and fell while running in the rain with hip open.'
Should I go on Douyin and direct message them to ask?
After thinking it over, Wang Longhu shook his head and said, "You can't get fat on just one bite. I'll put hip opening aside for now; time is limited, and I don't know Xingyi Boxing. Greed leads to failure. I'll focus on enhancing my basic fitness and improve my Three-Body Pose proficiency. Increasing potential points is more reliable than anything else."
[Name: Wang Longhu]
[Strength: 0.84(+)]
[Constitution: 0.80(+)]
[Spirit: 0.88(+)]
[Skills: Basic Fitness Lv2 (11/200), Three-Body Pose Lv1 (35/100)]
[Potential Points: 0.03]
After practicing the Three-Body Pose all afternoon, Wang Longhu reached a proficiency of 35 points and noticed the pattern for proficiency increase. For a Lv1 skill, if you immerse yourself in practice, you gain about 3-5 points in an hour.
Though the process is exhausting, seeing progress reflected in the growth bar still fills Wang Longhu with satisfaction, reminiscent of playing MMORPG games where you gain experience points to level up.
Putting the potential points into constitution, Wang Longhu planned to visit a city hospital for a check-up once his constitution hit 1, to see if the improvement in constitution would alleviate his cancer.
After putting away his phone, he assumed the Three-Body Pose. Having practiced the pose all afternoon, Wang Longhu felt an increasingly vivid experience.
When doing the Three-Body Pose, his spine felt like it was subtly breathing, with the 26 vertebrae aligned like a set of dominoes, precariously balanced.
A sudden thought struck him, and as he straightened his waist, he found the spine moving like dominoes, vertebrae shifting one after another like a waking dragon.
With the movement, Wang Longhu's entire skeleton responded in kind, resulting in a series of cracking sounds, and his muscles began tensing on their own.
A wave of warmth radiated from his body, making Wang Longhu feel as though he had just finished intense exercise, and he was sweating all over.
When the wave of motion reached the coccyx at the end of the spine, Wang Longhu uncontrollably convulsed.
At that moment, goosebumps rose across his skin, and his hairs stood on end, remaining upright for a long time.
At this moment, the heat and sweat releasing from Wang Longhu's body were like a flood dammed by a gate, forced back inside, leaving him feeling remarkably awake and energized.
This feeling was exactly the same as when the white-haired elder jokingly surprised him in the morning, except that this state lasted even longer.
For humans, goosebumps usually occur as an involuntary reaction to unpleasant or shocking stimuli.
However, this time Wang Longhu's goosebumps resulted entirely from self-control, actively triggered by himself.
The secret lay in pushing the spine's joints while performing the Three-Body Pose.
If this is not accomplished, then the Three-Body Pose is just an ordinary pile skill.
But if achieved, the world will open a mysterious and unexplored treasure door for you.
[Name: Wang Longhu]
[Strength: 0.85]
[Constitution: 0.84]
[Spirit: 0.88]
[Skills: Basic Fitness Lv2 (11/200), Three-Body Pose Lv1 (40/100)]
[Potential Points: 0]
"Power, divine power!" Wang Longhu was startled, his lips trembling in surprise as the realization hit him.
Just after adding potential points, Wang Longhu distinctly remembered his strength was at 0.84 and constitution at 0.83.
But after unwittingly pushing his spine and activating the inner heat, both his strength and constitution instantly rose by 0.01. Although this increment is modest, the effective boost it provides to bodily acclimation is enough to highlight the wonder of the Three-Body Pose.
"The proficiency increased by 5 points at once. If I practice a few more times like this, I should be able to level up quickly," Wang Longhu reined in his inner excitement and reposed the Three-Body Pose, recalling the sensation of shifting his spine's vertebrae to attempt it again.
Yet reality struck him hard; despite his efforts in the following hour, Wang Longhu could not re-enter that wondrous state.
The Three-Body Pose which doesn't heat the body becomes merely an ordinary pile skill, with extremely gradual improvement in proficiency.
"Strange, why can't I achieve it again?" Wang Longhu frowned.
After the first vertebrae adjustment, he couldn't grasp the knack again, which was indeed frustrating.
Luckily, since childhood, Wang Longhu was someone who could persist. Either he wouldn't start something at all, or once he did, he'd follow through to a fruitful end.
If he succeeded the first time, he was sure he could achieve it a second, third time, and beyond.
In the leisurely pace of Dong County, it was now 8:36 PM.
At this moment, some people in the world might be on dates, some might be teaming up in games with friends, and some might secretly surf the web with the lights off, rewarding themselves with quick escapes.
Meanwhile, Wang Longhu stood quietly on his balcony, practicing the Three-Body Pose, his gaze set on the countless lights below the hillside.
Practicing martial arts requires enduring the monotony.