Five bows

[Yury Snisarenko]

Greetings all


I'm trying to translate Wu Yu-Xiang's phrase about five bows.
"Yi1 shen1 wu3 gong1 bei4 xu4 fa1£¬fu1 gai4 dui4 tun1 zi3 xi4 yan2"

The first part of the phrase means "Five bows of the body ready to store and issue."
The second part of the phrase is not clear for me. Can anyone explain its meaning to me? I'll also appreciate any info about use of five bows in Yang style.

Thank you

Yury

[Louis Swaim]

Greetings Yury,

This is the last stanza of a song I've seen, but I'm curious where you've seen it attributed to Wu Yuxiang. I've seen it in Gu Liuxin's Taijiquan Shu, but he doesn't identify the author, merely calling it "Ge" 'a song.' I can't seem to find it among collections of Wu Yuxiang's writings. Can you tell me more about your source?

You have the first part about right: "As one body, the five bows are prepared to store and issue." As for the second part, the first four characters should be read as a list. They are four specialized taiji terms. Fu ·ó means "to spread," or "to disperse" one's own energy. Gai Éw means "to cover" the opponent's energy. Dui Œ¦ means "to counter" the opponent"s movements in a focused way. Tun ÍÌ means "to swallow," or to absorb the attack of the opponent. The last three characters mean "to carefully investigate." So: "Carefully investigate the arts of spread, cover, counter, and swallow."

Wu Yuxiang devoted another short text to explaining these four terms, called the Four Character Secret Formula.

Take care,
Louis




[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 05-22-2004).]

[Yury Snisarenko]

Louis, thank you very much for explaining about four specialized taiji terms (and kindly correcting my English). In my view you translation is precise! Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming in his book Taijiquan Theory attributed this phrase to Wu Yu-Xiang (page 145). I wasn't satisfied by his translation. Also there's no comment about these four terms and therefore I asked the question. Now I understand their meaning in principle (but not enough to use them in my practice . I believe TUN is the analogy to JIE JIN (receiving jin) mentioned by Zheng Manqing in his Thirteen Treatises: "I followed Professor Yang for seven years and only one jin was difficult to learn. It was jie jin. If your achievement reaches this level, then you do not have to worry about the other kinds of jin." (Benjamin Lo translation, p. 204).

friendly,

Yury

[psalchemist]

Greetings Louis, Yuri, all.

<<Tun ÍÌ means "to swallow," or to absorb the attack of the opponent.>>Louis

<<I believe TUN is the analogy to JIE JIN (receiving jin) mentioned by Zheng Manqing in his Thirteen Treatises>> Yuri

Interesting discussion.


I was wondering if there was any correlation between the expression TUN, here, and the TUNA (breathing excercises/Qigong methods)..Absorbtion being the similar thought...???

Thank you,
Best regards,
Psalchemist.

[This message has been edited by psalchemist (edited 05-22-2004).]

[Louis Swaim]

Hi Yury,

Yang Jwing-ming also translates the song in his book, _Tai Chi Secrets of the Wu & Li Styles_ (YMAA, 2001, pp. 17-19), and there he also attributes it to Wu Yuxiang. In a footnote, he notes his source as the Gu Liuxin book I mentioned, but as I said, Gu does not mention who the author of the song was, so far as I can ascertain.

Can anyone else corroborate Wu Yuxiang as the author of this poem? It consists of four lines, each a pair of seven character phrases. The style and terminology certainly is compatible with other known Wu Yuxiang writings, but it doesn’t appear among the Wu Yuxiang writings in _Taijiquanpu_, for example.

In any case, Yury, it is an interesting document!

Take care,
Louis

[Louis Swaim]

Hi Psalchemist,

No, there’s no correlation of terms here; they are different phonemes, and different characters. Tu4 na4 is an old daoist term (pre “qigong”) for breathing regimens meaning “expel the old, receive the new.”

Take care,
Louis


[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 05-22-2004).]

[psalchemist]

Greetings Louis,

Thank you for your explanation/translation of Tu4 na4.

I was expecting a two-word translation...

"expel the old, receive the new."
Very interesting to know that.

Thank you,
Best regards,
Psalchemist.

[Hans-Peter]

Greetings Louis,

sorry for the late reply. Do you think that in Li Yi Yu's thinking
Fu means peng
gai means an
Dui means ji
tun means lu?

Best regards
Hans-Peter

[DavidJ]

Greetings Hans-Peter,

PMFJI.

You wrote, in part >
Fu means peng
gai means an
Dui means ji
tun means lu?

I think I see what you mean, and I agree. That's very astute.

Regards,

David J

[psalchemist]

.

[This message has been edited by psalchemist (edited 06-29-2004).]