Magical Passes (21 page)

20. The arm makes a small outward circle, from left to right, going up, then down again, and ending with the palm by the waist, facing up (figs. 388a, 388b).

21. Another circle from the front to the back is made. It ends up at the point where it started, with the palm of the hand facing up (fig. 389).

22. The palm is turned to face down (fig. 390).

23. The hand then moves slowly to the front (fig. 391).

24- The wrist is turned so the palm faces the left. With a straight palm, fingers held tightly together, and thumb locked, the hand is raised straight up as if it were a knife (fig. 392).

25. Then it draws a small convex arc to the left, so that the palm flips to face right, and cuts straight down just to the left of the line drawn previously, to the level of the navel (fig. 393).

26. With the hand still facing right, it moves upward and retraces the same line it drew before (fig. 394).

In the preceding three movements, a long oval figure has been drawn.

27. Then the hand cuts down, as if to cut off one-third of the long figure (fig. 395).

28. The palm turns to face right again (fig. 396).

29. It scoops whatever it has cut and has turned into a ball, and splashes it on the front of the right body (figs. 397, 398).

30. The hand is dropped down to the crest of the right hip (fig. 399).

31. The hand rotates as the arm makes a half-circle going from the front (fig. 400) to the back, stopping behind the right shoulder (fig. 401).

32. As if it were a knife going into its sheath, the hand slides over the energy center around the liver and gallbladder (figs. 402, 403).

THE    FIFTH    SERIES The Masculinity Series

Masculinity was the name given to a specific group of magical passes by the shamans who first discovered and used them. Don Juan thought that perhaps it was the oldest name given to any such group of magical passes. This group was practiced originally for generations only by male shaman practitioners, and this discrimination in favor of male shamans was done not out of necessity, but rather for reasons of ritual and to satisfy an original drive for male supremacy. Nevertheless, this drive was soon terminated under the impact of enhanced perception.

The well-established tradition of this group of magical passes being practiced only by men persisted in a pseudo-official way for generations while it was being practiced on the sly by female practitioners as well. The old sorcerers' rationale for including females was that for reasons of strife and social disorder around them, the women needed extra strength and vitality, which they believed was found only in males who practiced this group of magical passes. Therefore, women were allowed to execute the movements as a token of solidarity. In don Juan's time, the division lines between males and females became even more diffused. The secrecy and exclusivity of the old sorcerers was completely shattered, and even the old rationale for allowing women to practice these specific magical passes could not be upheld. Female practitioners performed these magical passes openly.

The value of this group of magical passes - the oldest named group in existence - is its continuity. All of its magical passes were generic from the beginning, and this condition provided the only instance in don Juan's lineage of sorcerers in which a whole party of shaman practitioners, whatever their number may have been, were allowed to move in unison. The number of participants in any parry of sorcerers, through

out the ages, could never have been more than sixteen. Therefore, none of those sorcerers were ever in the position to witness the stupendous energetic contribution of human mass. For them, there existed only the specialized consensus of a few initiates, a consensus which brought in the possibility of idiosyncratic preferences and more isolationism.

The fact that the movements of Tensegrity are practiced in seminars and workshops by hundreds of participants at the same time has given rise, as stated before, to the possibility of experiencing the energetic effects of human mass. Such an energetic effect is twofold: not only are the participants of Tensegrity performing an activity that unites them energetically, but they are also involved in a quest delineated in states of enhanced awareness by the shamans of ancient Mexico: the redeployment of energy. Performing these magical passes in the setting of seminars on Tensegrity is a unique experience. It permits the participants to arrive, pushed or pulled by the magical passes themselves and by the human mass, at energetic conclusions never even alluded to in don Juan's teachings.

The reason for calling this set of movements Masculinity is its aggressive quality, and because its magical passes are very brisk and forcefully executed, characteristics easily identified with maleness. Don Juan stated that their practice fostered not only a sensation of well-being, but a special sensorial quality, which, if not examined, could easily be confused with strife and aggressiveness. However, if it is carefully scrutinized, it is immediately apparent that it is, rather, an unmistakable sensation of readiness that places the practitioners at a level from which they could strike toward the unknown.

Another reason that the shamans of ancient Mexico called this group of magical passes Masculinity was because the males who practiced it became a special type of practitioner who didn't need to be taken by the hand. They became men who benefited indirectly from everything they did. Ideally, the energy generated by this group of magical passes goes to the centers of vitality themselves, as if every center made an automatic bidding for energy, which goes first to the center that needs it the most.

For don Juan Matus's disciples, this set of magical passes became the most crucial element in their training. Don Juan himself introduced it to them as a common denominator, meaning that he urged them to practice the set unaltered. What lie wanted was to prepare his disciples to withstand the rigors of journeying in the unknown.

196* MAGICAL   PASSES

In Tensegrity, the word Series has been added to the name Masculinity to put it on a par with the other series of Tensegrity. The Masculinity Series is divided into three groups, each consisting of ten magical passes. The goal of the first and second groups of the Masculinity Series is the tuning of tendon energy. Each of these twenty magical passes is short, but extremely focused. Tensegrity practitioners are seriously encouraged, as the shamanistic practitioners of ancient times were, to get the maximum effect from the short movements by aiming to release a jolt of tendon energy every time they execute them.

"But don't you think, don Juan, that every time I release this jolt of energy, I'm actually wasting my tendon energy, and draining it out of me?" I asked him on one occasion.

"You can't drain any energy out of yourself," he said. "The energy that you are seemingly wasting by delivering a jolt to the air is not really being wasted, because it never leaves your boundaries, wherever those boundaries may be. So what you're really doing is delivering a jolt of energy to what the sorcerers of ancient Mexico called our 'crust,' our 'bark.' Those sorcerers stated that energetically, human beings are like luminous balls that have a thick peel around them, like an orange; some of them have something even harder and thicker, like the bark of an old tree."

Don Juan explained carefully that this simile of human beings being like an orange was somehow misleading because the peel or the bark that we have is located inside our boundaries, just as if an orange had its peel inside the orange itself. He said that this bark or peel was the crusted-down energy that had been discarded throughout our lifetime from our vital centers of energy, because of the wear and tear of daily life.

"Is it beneficial to hit this bark, don Juan?" I asked.

"Most beneficial," he said. "Especially if the practitioners aim all their intent at reaching that bark with their blows. If they intend to shatter portions of this crusted-down energy by means of the magical passes, that shattered energy could be absorbed by the vital centers of energy."

The magical passes of the third group of the Masculinity Series are broader, more extensive. What practitioners need in order to execute the ten magical passes of the third group is steadiness of the hands, the legs, and the rest of the body. The aim of this third series, for the shamans of ancient Mexico, was the building of endurance, of stability.

THE   MASCULINITY   SERIES   *  197

Those shamans believed that holding the body steadily in position while executing those long movements gives the practitioners a foothold from which they can stand on their own.

What modem practitioners of Tensegrity have found out through their practice is that the Masculinity Series can be executed only in moderation, in order to avoid overtiring the tendons of the arms and the muscles of the back.

The First Group:

Magical Passes in Which the Hands Are Moved in Unison but Held Separately

1. Fists Above the Shoulders

The hands are held by the sides, clasped into fists, the palms facing up. They are raised then to a point above the head by bending the elbows so the forearms are at a ninety-degree angle with the upper arms. The driving force of this movement is equally divided between the muscles of the arms and the contraction of the muscles of the abdomen. As the fists are

raised and the muscles of the front of the body are tensed, the body leans slightly backward by bending the knees (fig. 404). The arms, with hands fisted, are brought down to the sides of the thighs by straightening the elbows a bit; as the arms move down, the body leans forward, contracting the muscles of the back and the diaphragm (fig. 405).

2. Using a Cutting Tool in Each Hand

The hands are made into fists, with the palms facing each other at the level of the waist (fig. 406). From there, they move in a downward strike to the level of the groin, a foot and a half away from it, always keeping the width of the body as the distance between the fists (fig. 407). Once the fists strike, they are retrieved to the position where they started, by the edge of the rib cage.

3. Polishing a High Table with the Palms of the Hands

The arms are raised to the level of the axillae. The palms of the hands face down. The elbows, acutely bent, protrude sharply behind the back (fig. 408). Both arms are brought briskly forward to the maximum extension, as if the palms were actually polishing a hard surface. The hands are kept at a distance which equals the width of the body (fig. 409). From there, they are retrieved with equal force to the position where the movement began (fig. 408).

4. Tapping Energy with Both Hands

Both arms are raised to the front, at the level of the shoulders. The hands are held in angular fists, meaning that the position of the fingers slants down heavily as they are held against the palm of the hands. The thumbs are held on top of the outer edge of the index fingers (fig. 410). The palms of the hands face each other. A sharp jolt of the wrists makes the fists go down slightly, but with great force. The level of the wrists never changes; in other words, only the hand pivots down on the wrists.

The counter movement is to raise the fists with a jolt without changing the position of the wrists (fig. 411).

This magical pass is, for shamans, one of the best sources for exercising the tendon energy of the arms, because of the number of energy points that exist around the wrists, the backs of the hands, the palms, and the fingers.

5. Jolting Energy

This magical pass is the companion to the preceding one. It begins by raising both arms to the front at the level of the shoulders. The hands are held in angular fists, just as in the preceding magical pass, except that in this one, the palms of the hands are turned to face downward. The fists are moved in toward the body by a jolt of the wrists. Its counterbalancing movement is another jolt of the wrists that sends the fists outward so that the thumbs make a straight line with the rest of the forearm (fig. 412). In order to execute this magical pass, it is required that the muscles of the abdomen are intensely used. It is the action of those muscles which actually directs the jolting of the wrists.

6. Pulling a Rope of Energy

The hands are held in front of the body, at the line that separates the left and the right bodies, as if they were holding a thick rope that hangs from above; the left hand is on top of the right (fig. 413). The magical pass consists in jolting both wrists and making the hands jerk down in a short, powerful movement. As this movement is executed, the muscles of the abdomen contract, and the arms drop down slightly by bending the knees (fig. 414).

Its counterbalancing movement is a jerk of the wrists that jolts the hands upward as the knees and the trunk straighten up a bit (fig. 413).

7. Pushing Down a Pole of Energy

The hands are held to the left of the body, the left hand at the level of the ear, eight or nine inches above the right hand, which is held at the shoulder. They are held as if they were grabbing a thick pole. The palm of the left hand faces the right; and the palm of the right hand faces left. The left hand is the leading hand, by virtue of being on top, and guides the movement (fig. 415). The muscles of the back by the area of the adrenals and the muscles of the abdomen contract, and a powerful push sends both arms downward to the side of the right thigh and the waist, as if they were indeed holding on to a pole (fig. 416). The hands change position there; the right hand moves to a place by the right ear and becomes the leading hand, and the left moves below, by the shoulder, as if the hands were changing poles. The same movements are repeated.

8. Cut ting Energy with One Hand at a Time

The fists arc raised on the sides until they touch the edge of the rib cage; the palms of the fists face each other (fig. 417). Tin- left arm moves

down in a diagonal line to a point two feet away from the thigh (fig. 418); then it is retrieved (fig. 417). The right arm immediately performs the same movements.

9. Using a Plane of Energy

The left hand is raised to the level of the navel and made into a fist; the elbow is bent at a ninety-degree angle and is held close to the rib cage (fig. 419). The right palm moves as if to slam on top of the left fist. The