SNAKE: Heart Center Drill - Part 1

Warning: This post is only for those who are truly geeking out on this stuff.

If you’ve read the book Bare Metal Minimality, as I presume you have if you’re reading this, you’ll have seen the Tai Chi-based drill in there: ‘Snake Creeps Down’. This is an extremely powerful advanced drill, but I guess it’s also problematic in some ways, as witness this reader feedback on it:

Q: You have the Tai Chi drill there, the crouching snake pose. Although I’m fit enough to run marathons, lift weights, and not out of shape, still this one’s a challenge to me. I feel my groin muscles start to tear and my knee’s like it’s going to explode. Plus I can’t keep my heel down anyway. I’m not up to really do this one fully. Is there any milder alternative version of it that yields whatever the effect of it is supposed to be?

A: You make a good point. This is the most physically challenging drill of the 12 in the book. I don’t want anybody to overstrain or get injured, or even set themselves up for chronic injury later on, by overexerting on this. There is an alternative, but it’s not a surface thing, not just a milder form of the same external dynamic. That would be pointless. Remember we are first, last, and always energy-centric here.

But before you give up on this Snake thing and move to the alternative (in next post, Part 2), first let me explain more deeply what actually is the specific energetic purpose of this Snake Down drill. I’ve formulated it differently from the normal Tai Chi form practice (because in BMM, I’m presenting it as

1. stand-alone, not embedded in full form

2. bilateral, in-situ practice

3. shift back and forth between right-heavy / left-heavy

Now let’s explore the specific energetic purpose and effect of this drill in detail. Remember I’ll offer a completely different alternative drill for working the same effect, in Part 2 of this mini-series (coming soon).