14 ErLongXiZhu 二龍戲珠

Double Dragons Play with the Pearl

"Double Dragons Play with the Pearl is fundamentally playing with the Qi."
-- Master Wu

There's something glorious about this movement, ascending, peristaltic, it feels like contact juggling. It's grand, it's sweeping, it's joyous, playful, ambitious, ecstatic.

When practicing the full form, some movements seem to transition between the preceding and following movements. It's awkward to repeat them because it would require a reset to the start position.

Others are repeated. Often, I'll find I need more time with these movements and will do extra repetitions. 5 instead of 3.

I tend to do this a lot for ErLongXiZhu.

So, the preceding movement, YunXingYuShi is described in the text in explicitly sexual terms, which I have had difficulty connecting with.

This movement feels obviously sexy to me -- its shape is like a grand caress. It's voluptuous, orgasmic. Ejaculatory, even.

"From a Chinese shamanic perspective, the pearl represents the storage of all the dragon’s power and magic. If the dragon loses its pearl, it will lose all its power and will be unable to make rain or transformations."
-- Master Wu

Note again rain's sexual symbolism, described in the text for preceding movement.

ErLongXiZhu has one of the strongest Tarot associations for me, which I talk about here.