The Muscle and Tendon Transformation and Tensegrity Process.
The Muscle Tendon Transforming Yi Jin Jing 易筋經 practice is, in my understanding, much older than writing.
Even older than language…
This is because this system of training and restoring your body begins by imitating an instinctual animal reflex. A reflex you need to engage in minimally, or get sick.
A reflex, as it turns out, that can be maximized for its potential to improve health and longevity – in many ways!
This reflex is called Pandiculation, which is an animal-like form of stretching, toning, and regulating all of your connective tissues, while improving your reflexes, balance, and longevity. Most animals do this 50 times a day. Or they will start getting stiff and prepare metabolically for a hibernation of some form.
As they say, “Move it or lose an essential part of your potential for fitness, vitality, or longevity.”
It is like yawning strenuously with your muscles and membranes. Yawning at the same time enhances the benefit of balancing your breath gases.
One of the first Chinese terms used to describe a conscious embodiment practice is Dao Yin 導引.
There are a few ways to translate that term, but within the characters is an implied experience of interacting with sensation, thought, and emotion, while incrementally moving your limbs, joints, and spine (Dao 導).
There is also the implication of feeling the bow-like elasticity of your tissues while also feeling into and releasing any bowstring-like lines of tension (Yin 引).
Said another way,Dao Yin 導引. is a highly developed sense of Embodied Awareness – and a regular and progressive practice of enhancing the benefit or this evolutionary birthright of healthy visceral animal aliveness.
It is believed, by most scholars, that the modern Muscle/Tendon Transformation Process (Yi Jin Jing) approach to embodied awareness and refinement began in earnest about 1500 years ago at the Shaolin Monastery. Others have the understanding that this approach to Dao Yin goes back as far as long Winters, generations near the same water supply, or even times of famine.
Either way, the many past generations of practitioners have evolved one of the most profound forms of physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation, through the restoration of all elastic and contractile capacity of your muscles, membranes, and meridians (called tensegrity).
I will come back to the muscle and tendon aspects shortly.
I have found that a short chat about a world-famous ancient text often adds a few dimensions to the larger meaning of the process and purpose of the Muscle Tendon Transformation practice.
As always, the Chinese Characters tell the whole story.
The Meaning of Yi Jin Jing – 易筋經
Let’s look at the characters for the classic book on change, life, the universe, and patterns of reality that suggest divination may be possible – the Yi Jing 易經.
The character for Yì 易 describes the always changing and also predictable positions of the Sun in the Sky, along with the permanent cut that is left by a knife (and the dripping blood). There is a subtle implication about living with what is erratic, what is predictable, and knowing what to avoid. It is often translated as change, transformation, transmutation, easy, and amiable (negotiate more to avoid conflict).
Yì 易 is one the foundational aspect of existence in early Chinese culture and Wisdom Traditions. Be aware of your surrounding, learn from your mistakes, and you may be able to have a glimpse of fate.
If nothing else, a confident way to move forward – because change is constant!
The Book of Changes Yi Jing 易經, is confident that there is a way see into the pattern, to or divine a path. A way to both follow and guide the ever constant transformation of being alive.
易
Yì
Yi also describes any transformation that is being evaluated for its efficacy.
The character for Jīng 經 can mean a classic book, scripture, or scholarly work.
Jing can also mean the strands in a cloth or blanket, that make up the warp and weft.An old way of recording stories and treaties.
This aspect is implied more strongly with the term Jing Luo 經絡, which is used to describe or indicate the tissue component of Acupuncture Meridians.
Jing can be used to describe the network of creeks within a given landscape. In a similar way, the term Jing Mai 經脈 describes the network of arteries and veins that keep getting smaller and smaller until they reach all of your cells. That included about 100,000km (60,000 miles) of vascular tissue, which is connective tissue, and is an implicit part of Yi Jin Jing training.
Jing also implies the underlying structural framework of reality, especially gravitational and magnetic fields, your Heart Torus.
經
Jīng
Basically the structure and nature of the ‘fabric’ of Space-Time.
This may be why Jing is used in the title of the Book of Changes and Universal Transformations (Yi Jing). If you can discern the patterns in the fabric, or the geometry of the Universe, you are both connected with Da fffo (creation), and potentially able to choose your future wisely.
Chinese is subtle, and the early Daoists loved using layered meaning, and ‘double entendre’ terms about the nature of reality.
One other way to conceive of Jing as meridians, or channels, is to see them as aspects of your conscious interface with the world. In this sense, channels do not mean good irrigation, they mean something akin to contexts of relating and getting needs met.
Balance and health are created and maintained as long as you have enough openness, access, information, and experience through each channel or meridian.
Your meridians can also, humorously, be seen as TV channels.
What if each of us needs to spend enough of our lives interacting with the world as if we were on the the sports channel, or the news channel, the nature channel, the instinct intimacy channel, the belonging channel, the self-evaluation channel, or the spiritual awareness channel. As long as your meridian ‘antennas’ are working, and you get enough time and experience with each channel, your growth as a person will continue in a balanced way.
This brings us back to your connective tissue.
The more toned and pliable (transformed and restored – Yi 易) the ‘fabric’ of your body is, and each meridian/channel is, perhaps the more authentically and completely you can experience your existence. As well, if the warp and weft (Jing 經) of your meridians and fascia are optimized, your Qi flow and Qi capacity (volume) will also improve and increase.
The character for Jīn 筋 describes the function, nature, and ‘bamboo-like’ makeup of all of your contractile tissues, connective tissues, muscles, tendons, ligaments, your fascia, myofascial layers, as well as your interstitial filaments. Your fascia alone makes up 20% of your body weight. Your Jin is understood to be an expression of your Jing 精 (Essence) from your Kidneys and through your Liver.
This Liver Jing, from a scientific perspective, would be mostly made of your ability to create collagen and the stem cells in your interstitium – or the fluid that fills the space between the billions of threads of fascia that connect all of the membranes of your body.
This ancient and holistic longevity practice is usually described as a transformation of your muscles and tendons. This is because the Yi Jin Jing process will make you very strong, and very fast, without building massive muscles. In the West, most people who seek out this skill are martial artists who want to become as strong, fast, and as dangerous as the monks from the famous Shaolin Monastery.
That is how I initially learned this system 38 years ago. At first, it was all about strength, speed, and power!
Almost ten years later, I was shown a much more subtle and complete approach to this practice, that I came to understand the potential for longevity, coherence, and a conscious and Universal connection.
If you want to get stronger and almost certainly live longer, the Yi Jin Jing asks you to commit some time and resources to Yi 易 (guiding the transformation process), returning your Jin 筋 (connective tissues) to their natural capacity and form, as an expression of the pure fabric of your body Jing 經, and potentially the fabric of Reality.
As a longevity practice, this approach to Qi Gong practice is very effective, simply because the number one indicator of a long life is retaining lean muscle mass.
As a spiritual practice, cultivating refined and open channels, or ‘meridian antennas,’ is a very potent doorway into a more Universal and innately present experience of consciousness.
Why Three Years?
It takes at least three years to learn this complete system of practice.
It takes the rest of your very long life to master all of the inner cultivation practices, while benefiting from a life of vitality, fitness, fertility/virility, and longevity.
Each of the three years involves a specific transformation process (Yì 易).
In the first year, you learn the practice. That includes three Qi Gong/DaoYin forms, two of which are very easy to learn on the outside, the inner work and theory, self massage and kettle bell routines, and isometric versions of many standard gym exercises to help you learn your muscle anatomy.
The first year transforms your Jīn 筋 (muscles, membranes, fascia, tendons, and the fexible part of your bones) into a denser, more pliable, responsive, sensitive, and faster healing expression of most of your body’s tissues.
Most practitioners gain some muscle mass (how much is up to your goals), a lot of muscle definition, and about 10 lbs or 5 kg of body weight. All of that weight (a gain in usable Jing 精 – Essence) is hidden within much denser collagen strands and filaments as well as the rejuvenating collagen precursors. It takes a few months for your body to remember how to generate a massive increase in collagen precursor like Stem Cells, Hyaluronic Acid, Fibroblasts, and Osteoblasts, but when that starts to happen, you will probably feel five years younger.
If you can commit four hours a week, for one year, you can experience these benefits and cultivate them for the rest of your life.
The second year focuses on refining and maximizing your collagen precursor while also cultivating a deeper form of interactive awareness called Yi Nian. In the Shaolin monastery, one motivation for the Muscle/Tendon practice is to be able to meditate for more hours every day, hopefully for an additional decade or two.
Year Two asks you to relearn all of the forms and exercises through the advanced refinement process called Four Layers of Dao Yin (Qi Gong).
Each layer, or level of practice takes you into more subtle interactions with your Qi 氣(energy/aliveness), your Jin 筋(connective tissues), your bones and skeletal structure Gu 骨, and the warrior monk capacity of Yi Nian 意念.
Although the practices are similar, this year, the focus shifts from tissue transformation towards a process called Bone Marrow Purification (Xi Sui Jing 洗髓經). In year one, you restore your collagen systems birthright of capacity, strength, agility, and tissue density. This initial process also invigorates your healing and growth hormones (DHEA, Osteocalcin, and Human Growth Hormone (HGH), generates abundant beneficial immune cells and your life restoring stem cells. At first, these resources are used to rebuild your muscles, tendons, and bones.
All of these Gel-like ‘pre-tissue’ substances are examples of Jing 精 – Essence).
In the second year, the focus shifts from the tissue body towards the ‘Gel’ or Jing/Essence Body. This will also ask that you follow the seasonal dietary and lifestyle (Yang Sheng) guidance, as well as cultivate a deep mediation (Chan/Zen or Nei Gong) practice. You will also have the opportunity to rejuvenate your skin and appearance. For some, this can be a vanity project, for others it is simply restoring the practical aspect of Ming 命– your Aliveness Potential and Wholehearted Mortality.
The third year invites you to explore your Shen Ming 神明 – Spiritual Radiance.
Collagen and the Gel like substances that are preparing to become collagen, are know to be Non-Newtonian structures (become hard on impact and soft with gentle pressure) that also conduct and store energy from pressure as light. This phenomena is called Piezoelectricity.
After two years of going on a deep dive into the depths of optimizing your physical potential, Embodied Awareness, Mental Coherence, and Interactive Capacity (Yi Nian), it is time to get into even subtler levels of this practice.
In year three, you can cultivate Xin (Heart and Mind) and Shen (Spirit and Consciousness), by becoming your Gel Body or Jing Body, opening and restore your Meridians and Dan Tian, and applying the most advanced principles of practice to Regenerate and Reignite your Light Body.
A person who has completed year one has restored their tissue body (Jing and Jin)
Completing year two restores your actively available Jing as collagen precursors, your Gel Body. This Gel, on the level of physics, behaves differently (Non-Newtonian Fluid) to sudden or intense changes in pressure.
In their solid and activated form, these Gels store energy as light, which changes many other properties and potentials of your physical body.
And, both, from a physics perspective and a Spiritual perspective, you are now measurably improving your body’s ability heal, circulate blood, nutrients, and Qi, conduct bio-electricity, restore your bio-magnetic field (Heart Torus), and become measurably radiant (emit normal and health EMF) during times of practice.
After many years of practice I can attest and confirm that these are all tangible and life changing experiences.
This is hard work, not Wooo, Wooo!
After three years, you will have a complete system of physical exercise, conscious embodiment, vitality and longevity practice, breathwork, meditation, and an initiation into Nei Gong – Daoist Inner Cultivation.
Dr. Michael Smith
(Teacher of Shaolin Qi Gong and Daoist Inner Cultivation)
My name is Michael Smith. I am a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as a Martial Arts, and Qi Gong teacher. I am also an Author, Speaker, Podcaster, and Professor; focusing on the combination of Ancient and Modern Healing methods to support patients with Autoimmune conditions, Complex Trauma, and Addiction.
I first encountered Qi Gong over 47 years ago and began studying with lineage-holding masters 39 years ago.
I have had the honor of supporting Qi Gong enthusiasts and teachers for the last 33 years.
I am and always will be fascinated with the Shaolin Yi Jin Jing (Muscle Tendon Change) process. The short term and very long term benefits are almost unbelievable. Given my medical background, I have come to teach this practice in its classical approach, while also augmenting the process in a few small ways with the advancements of modern medical physiology and physics.
Believe it or not, this practice can change your body and physiology down to to energy holding structures with the molecules that make up your pre-structural and post structural tissues.
Ger ready to see unbelievable changes in your Embodied Awareness, as well as your speed, power, and stillness!
One Year Yi Jin Jing Lineage Apprenticeship
April 9, 2025
Shaolin Strength and Longevity Qi Gong (Yi Jin Jing)
Learn the skills, practices, and principles of the complete Yi Jin Jing system.
$2247
$1497
The Yi Jin Jing practice can improve many aspects of your life!
Each of the Eight Bridges (above) can support your personal health and your ability to support others.
If you are a clinician, therapist, teacher, or another kind of health care professional or coach, or an experienced Qi Gong or Martial Arts practitioner, this 8-month journey of improving the strength, tone, and elasticity of all of your connective tissue will give you some unique and ancient resources. For the rest of your life.
Join this rare opportunity to learn authentic Shaolin Qi Gong and expand your horizons, on the inside and out.