Chi - Yin and Yang

To understand more about energy(or chi) we need to grasp the concept of yin and yang. These 2 words are the basis of flow and how to build it, slow it, change its course and shape it. Yin and Yang are complimentary opposites of quality and of quantity. They express how energy is manifesting itself at a given moment. The Chinese look at all of life in terms of these opposites and strive to keep them in an acceptable equilibrium. In the course of life we experience this phenomenon as 'ups and downs'. Things may be going along well for a year and suddenly for the next 10 months things go badly. Then something turns around and all is well for another 10 months and so the cycle goes. Some of life can be controlled while some things cannot. Let's say we launch out to work harder but we then work so hard we do harm to oursevles. Working more but not so much that it harms us is ideal but our egos get so enmeshed in what we need to correct that we overcorrect.....until it's too late.
The image this brings to mind for me is a cycle, a wave, a vibration, a whirling dance which, if kept in check, can go on indefinitely to maintain ease and wholesomeness. The Chinese believe that too much build-up makes too much energy accumulation and so a release(or breakdown) is inevitable. Likewise, when breakdown wastes and expends so much energy, there will be such a vacuum of emptiness that somehow energy will rush into it, filling it and re-building it, and so the cycle continues. If either the accumulation or evacuation of energy continues ad infinitum, the indivdual will snap and cease to exist. It cannot sustain in a state of so much or so little.
Some examples to help you grasp the symbolism of Yin and Yang are as follows:

YIN/ YANG

in/ out
small/ big
black/ white
closed/ open
quiet/ loud
cold/ hot

The interesting thing about Yin and Yang is that in order to have one you need the other! Also, the terms are relative and not absolutes. Yang feeds off Yin until Yin needs to feed off Yang to make more Yin!!! A little thought about this and you will easily see how motion is created through this interplay between Yin and Yang.
One example of how we can use this concept in riding is in the use of breath in the halt transitions. Apart from other aspects involving posture, fine muscular movements and energy exchange which will be discussed at another time, simply by inhaling we can assist the horse in coming to a halt. Inhaling is a Yin activity, whereas exhaling is Yang. We would then exhale when moving off from a halt into motion.
Thinking of the halt this way brings new light to the quality of energy a good halt might possess....ready, filled, poised for action....YIN. The halt seems motionless but is filled with invisible motion....a stirring, whirling, mixing, building of energy! Hold your breath in a halt and you stifle that energy so when it is needed it cannot flow forth.