In the article on Yi and Zhan Zhuang, we explored how intention, emotions, and imagery are used in training. Here, we now examine the subject from the perspective of neurobiology and physiology.
Imagine a person standing seemingly motionless. No visible tension, no demonstrative movement. And yet, within him everything is in rotation. In his inner perception, his body consists of thousands of spheres. Each sphere is a cell, a vibrating microcosm, organized within a field of flexion and extension, front and back, expansion and gathering. From the outside: stillness. From within: a swarm.
This image is not esoteric decoration but a functional organizational model. It describes a way in which the brain can structure the body. Neurobiologically, the body does not exist as a rigid unit but as an ensemble of multiple parallel representations: body schema, sensorimotor model, visuospatial orientation, and interoceptive awareness. When the practitioner experiences himself as a field of spheres, he reorganizes his body schema. Mental imagery activates motor networks. The premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, parietal cortex, and cerebellum respond to imagined dynamics in much the same way they do to actual movement. Imagination becomes an operator.
Each sphere possesses two poles: an extension side and a flexion side. Physiologically, this corresponds to the continuous co-activation of antagonistic muscle groups. No muscle works in isolation, no joint is free of counter-tension. Tone arises from balance. Even in quiet standing, subtle activity could be measured electromyographically—small oscillations, rhythmic recruitment of motor units. When the practitioner speaks of an inner vibration at ten or twenty hertz, he describes consciously perceived tonic micro-activity. A standing person who is, internally, an oscillating network.
The direction of gaze steers the horizontal orientation of the field. When the focus turns clockwise, the internal system organizes accordingly; counterclockwise, the distribution of polarity shifts. This experience is neurophysiologically grounded: oculomotor function, the vestibular apparatus, and axial muscle tone are closely coupled. Head-direction cells and grid cells in the entorhinal cortex generate an internal spatial map. When the gaze becomes the axis of rotation, orientation systems and postural regulation interlink. Rotation becomes an internal variable of coordination.
Yet the field does not exist in isolation. Space is a medium. The image of water describes a sensory reality: the body is constantly surrounded by pressure, temperature, air movement, and sound. The insular cortex integrates these interoceptive and exteroceptive signals. When the environment is experienced as “water,” sensitivity to minimal stimuli increases. Every touch—even an imagined one—becomes a wave. Muscle spindles, Golgi tendon organs, and cutaneous receptors continuously provide data; the brain generates predictive models of contact and pressure. When real contact occurs, the system does not respond rigidly but like an elastic resonant body. Waves are redirected, amplified, absorbed. The body is not a block—it is a field.
In application, this model condenses. Touch becomes lightning. Extension is the moment of maximal impulse transmission; flexion is immediate decoupling. Biomechanically, this corresponds to an extremely short force-time curve: high rate of force development, rapid recruitment of motor units, immediately followed by inhibitory shutdown. Renshaw cells, supraspinal inhibitory mechanisms, and antagonistic counter-firing ensure abrupt termination of activity. It is precisely this brevity that generates efficiency. No pushing, no holding—an electrical impulse and emptiness.
The spherical field remains constant. Yet its quality is variable. Here Bagua and Yiquan intersect. The structural model—rotation, polarity, water—forms the background. In the foreground is quality. A dragon: spiral, fluid, continuous. A bear: heavy, condensing, grounded. An explosion: abrupt, expanding. A tree: elastic, spring-like. A metallic edge or blade: precise, linear. A whirlwind: rotating, centered.
These images are not poses but cognitive operators. Ideomotor research shows that merely imagining weight, elasticity, or sharpness alters muscle activity. When a movement is thought of as “heavy,” axial co-activation increases. When it is experienced as “cutting,” activity becomes distally focused. The brain works predictively: it simulates force vectors before they arise. The cerebellum calibrates, the basal ganglia sequence, the motor cortex executes. Thus, from a continuous movement, a subjective chain of transformation can emerge: sword – axe – spear. Precision at contact, pull in withdrawal, thrust in extension. A single movement flow, reframed through shifting quality.
At the core lies the conscious shifting of states. The spherical field is the constant; quality is the variable. The five elements appear not as mythology but as categories of functional organization: Metal as directed edge or blade, Wood as elastic structure, Fire as explosive discharge, Water as continuous flow, Earth as condensation and stabilization. Each quality represents a different way of synchronizing neuromuscular networks.
Outwardly, the practitioner may appear still. Inwardly, however, he coordinates antagonistic muscle groups, modulates sensory weighting, alters predictive models, and regulates autonomic activation. A state of efficient alertness emerges—sympathetic readiness without loss of parasympathetic stability. Heartbeat, breathing, muscle tone, and attention are synchronized.
Thus poetic imagery and physiological reality converge. The body as a rotating universe is at the same time a highly organized neural network. Movement as the exchange of polarities is the balance of antagonistic systems. Force as lightning is precisely timed recruitment. And the shifting forms—dragon, bear, metallic edge—are cognitive tools with which the brain reshapes its own motor output.
What remains is neither myth nor mere mechanical movement, but an integrated model:
A person standing outwardly still—
and inwardly organized like a vibrating swarm.
