A common pitfall among many practitioners is the (over)emphasis put upon the practice while neglecting the closing/retaining routine. Most treat the “closing posture” as a dispensable ritual. They often fail to realise that these last moments of every posture and each routine are precisely what determine the advancement of one’s skill.
Yang Luchan is credited to have said, “Practising boxing is like gathering sand; retaining is like building a dam.” This means that the vital energy and internal strength mobilised during practice must be “retained” within the body through specific methods; otherwise, it’s like a thermos flask without a lid—the heat dissipates very quickly.
During a set of form movements, the muscles alternate rapidly between tension and relaxation, capillaries dilate, and vital energy and blood circulate swiftly through the meridians. Abruptly stopping is like slamming the brakes on a speeding car, which can cause reversed vital energy and blood to accumulate in the joints, causing aches and injury after practice. Conversely, failure to stop is like a runaway car that will invariably run out of fuel.
There is a widely recognised principle in the martial arts world: “three years to practise boxing 三年練拳, ten years to learn to retain the skill 十年收功.” It means that the forms and techniques can be quickly learned, but whether the cultivated energy and strength can be internalised and made one’s own depends entirely on the skill of the closing routine i.e. the retaining process. Many martial artists who had been strong in their youth but suffered from a body full of ailments in old age often faltered precisely because they never realised the art of “retaining the energy.”
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