Connective tissue work, training the infamous fasciae, fills entire books in both conventional and yogic training circles. The reason is simple. The stronger, and more pliable, your connective tissue is, the more power you can issue and run through the body. This is true if you are an NFL lineman or a hermetic magician.
No matter if you are talking the plyometric system of training pioneered by the Soviets or the jibengung of traditional martial arts training this material receives lots of attention on a number of levels.
A practitioner’s connective tissue essentially acts like the power cables in the walls of a building. Here though, we are talking about a living material that can be grown, honed and built upon.
A good source of this training is in the Master course, FYI: Master Course (perseusarcaneacademy.com)
The Kabalistic letters, the primary energies and the planetary energies run via specific bands of connective tissue within the body. Most people quickly tire when working with a given force for the first several sessions as they literally need to grow new tissue to enhance their ability to do this. Much like running a mile for the first time this is trying, but with practice becomes much quicker and easier in terms of perceived exertion.
As the primary transmission route in the body, training the connective tissue tends to reinforce the health as well. It is noted for making sick men healthy, weak men strong and generating a very potent detoxification effect in those with poor lifestyle habits. What is not so well understood is the role of the physical-astral matrix and the astral-mental matrix in all of this.
Both of these are energetically refined forms of connective, and fasciae, tissue. They act to transmit power back and forth from the mental realm into the astral into the physical. This is why frequent training of the connective tissue via the electric, and magnetic, exercises are so important toward the ability of a practitioner to work their art.
It is also why practitioner who do this kind of work are frequently described as forces of nature on a physical level. Socrates running naked through snow drifts, Musashi’s fashioning a wooden sword out an oar before slaughtering a whole school of rivals and similar events are all a result of this.
It is also why people who fail to perform this training largely engage in astral projection and achieve little else outside “energy healing” and delusion.
Traditional jibengung, if you can find someone who will teach you, is a very effective tool for developing this. Unfortunately, finding someone who actually knows this and is willing to teach is difficult.
Luckily, other methods abound that are available. The first of which is Olympic weightlifting. By performing this a practitioner will rapidly build their connective tissue and ability to issue whole body power. Combining this with the practice of the electric and magnetic currents will open up their energetic potential as well.
The “monk walk” performed by many of the meditative orders out there is frequently their only physical training method, but if performed correctly works well. This is where you see the renunciates moving in super slow motion across a courtyard. Generally speaking, they are training astral energy when doing this.
All of these are bottom-up training methods and should receive priority in the early years of a practitioner’s development.
The planetary meditations, particularly gold body development utilizing the sun sphere, are a top-down method. While this often referred to as a fusion of the mental, astral and physical matrices, what is happening is the physical-astral and astral-mental matrix grow and expand until they merge with the mental, astral and physical matrices.
For some interesting commentary on how all of this fits into your martial art check this post out: Body Training Basics: The Yoga of Strength – SixtySkills
