Shifu Chao sometimes uses the analogy of a big bubble to describe a person’s everyday postural tendencies and more often to prescribe specific Zhang Zhuang postures. This is similar to the metaphor in the Tai Chi classics of threading a nine bend pearl.
How it works. Visualize a large bubble around your body, as you move towards the back of the bubble you have to bow forward, and as you move to the front you arch backward it a sort of limbo posture. Directly in the center of the bubble is a straight posture, which is not very common without some type of training. Holding postures at the front of the bubble can reverse bad habits of slouching and vice versa. Being aware of and learning to change the point you bend from, usually lowering it, is the first key.
A basic way to sink your breath and start with peng training is to think of your ming men point (top of the sacrum) pushing you forward into a front of the bubble bend. Don’t bend higher up at your T5 vertebrae which most people are accustomed to doing.
Make the chest, ribs, and indentation below the solar plexus soft, this will let the breath sink down to the floor of the diaphragm below the dan tien. Keep the weight totally on the Yong quan point and to the inside of the foot, lift your heels if you have to. If your weight is distributed correctly your calves will start burning when you begin this posture.