Occupying the opponent's center

[Anderzander]

ahh you're a fake then!


<please excuse the glib humour!>

[This message has been edited by Anderzander (edited 09-19-2006).]

[bamboo leaf]

To bob, and all.


I come here every once in awhile to read some quite interesting postings and compare notes so to speak. Somehow this thread has gotten far away from addressing the original posting. I like this broad among others for the thoughtful and scholarly insights, (sometimes to scholarly for me) but most often informative.

I don’t recall in any postings of people claiming skills or disparaging others lack of same. Only postings showing that some skill sets and understandings are very different depending on skill sets either possessed or exposed to.

I don’t feel it’s a case of making claims rather of voicing an understanding of what one feels one is doing or has achieved. A simple basic skill like fansong (to relax but these days I use the word loosen).its quite hard to really get to the degree that some require in the practice. Many feel that they have achieved it, when really they have not to the degree needed.

It’s a matter of degree until one meets others one who truly have a deep skill. Only then can the reality of it make any sense to what one sees or reads. People including me when meeting some others feeling they had understood and practiced in this way have/had an awaking.

The people having achieved it really don’t care weather others do or not, their skill is theirs. (at lest those that i have met) In this way there is really no idea of proving anything, to those seeking proof. This is not what their practice or mine is about. If they share its from the heart just as weather one post on these boards or not, hopefully.

On the last clip of Master Wang, he says something like : (in taiji use no power, if one uses power then its not taiji. The method is to understand if you are using power or not by self understanding. Once it is understood and you got it, it is very hard to talk about it. There are no words for it but you know it. understand and use the empty, not power, this is taiji.

So we all understand by our own self knowing and compare notes. In this medium this all we can do.

Mondays, hate em but they always manage to come once a week



[This message has been edited by bamboo leaf (edited 09-20-2006).]

[Bob Ashmore]

Anderzander,
Yes. I am. A miserable fake.
Sigh.
Maybe some day...



Bob

[Kalamondin]

Hi All,

I found another neat video demonstrating the principles we talked about here. See the middle for a "no hands" segment that leaves the opponent saying "no thanks" to more, then at the end (about 4:07) there's a neat sequence on adhering energy.

If I goof on the link, search for Ma Yue Liang on Google Video. It's the push hands vid with 5 stars. (yay, Google video!).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8784247348094164056&q=ma+liang&hl=en


Regards,
Kal

[tccstudent_usa]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Kalamondin:
<B>Hi All,

I found another neat video demonstrating the principles we talked about here. See the middle for a "no hands" segment that leaves the opponent saying "no thanks" to more, then at the end (about 4:07) there's a neat sequence on adhering energy.

If I goof on the link, search for Ma Yue Liang on Google Video. It's the push hands vid with 5 stars. (yay, Google video!).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8784247348094164056&q=ma+liang&hl=en

Regards,
Kal</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Imho, I believe that Ma video displays some of the finest skills I have yet to see in any push hands demonstration. Ma was certainly, if not positively one of the very best in our time.

[Bob Ashmore]

Yes, Master Ma is undoubtably one of the best Tui Shou Masters ever. Legendary displays of the use of Tai Chi energies are the norm for him.
Yet...
He is moving. There can be no question here that he is displaying an incredible level of skill. His movements are quite small, refined down to the absolute minimum.
But he is moving.
No where in his Tai Chi Chuan Tui Shou book does Master Ma make claim to be able to do a single one of these things while standing perfectly still.

Bob

[Gu Rou Chen]

We need to distinguish between Internal Motion and External Motion to discuss this.


In the process of going from large expansive frame training to highly integrated, small frame training there is a natural shift from more external motion/less internal activity to less external motion/more internal activity. The Master’s movements are not small they are huge, but they are internal.
The varied reactions of the partner such as in this video clip is a reflection of the Master’s internal changes, even when touching. When a novice with no sensitivity to the Master’s internal activity comes into proximity, he may have no reaction to internal changes until the Master actually touches him, while an experienced player with knowledge of and sensitivity to the Master’s internal activity will experience a clear reaction to such activity, eg. falling forward when running into emptiness, or bouncing back to get out of the way of a giant, fully loaded, spring-like configuration, even before coming into contact. He sees it and gets the hell out of the way, otherwise he’s toast. The novice doesn’t see anything and gets hammered. It’s out of his range of experience.


Jeff

[Bob Ashmore]

Jeff,
I don't have a single problem with that definition. Very clear explanation of internal energy applied to external movement.
His external movements are tiny, barely visible. He's doing most of the work with his mind, controlling his internal energy to be expressed through his external body.
It's beautifuly economic. A fantastic ability. Clearly a high level Master skill set. An ability that truly floors me every time I see it.

But he's still moving.
He's not standing stock still knocking his opponents around with his chi alone, he's moving his arms, his waist, his hips, his knees, his elbows.

Just like everyone else in the world does.
That doesn't make it one bit less impressive.

Bob

[Gu Rou Chen]

Jeff

Related to this is Chen Yanlin. Taijiquan Dao, Jian, Gan, Sanshou Hebian: Shanghai Shudian. p. 58-59.


Língkōng Jìn


This type of energy is extraordiarily profound, bordering on the mysterious. People who witness this don’t believe it. In actuality though, it is just a kind of effect upon the consciousness. When high level masters use this energy, all they have to do is shout ‘HA’ and the opponent’s two feet will leave the ground and they will jump back. This is because the consciousness of the person being bounced has already been enticed by the master and they cannot resist. This being the case, the person being affected such, must first understand the energies of adhering and sticking. He moves back from (his own) feeling (of these energy changes in the master). Without his first having a familiarity with these energies it will be ineffective.

Jeff

[bamboo leaf]

deleted, thought it detracted from the gen thread.

leaf



[This message has been edited by bamboo leaf (edited 09-26-2006).]

[Louis Swaim]

Greetings Jeff,

Thanks for the translation of Chen Yanlin’s passage on lingkong jin.

For those interested, Stuart Olson’s book, The Intrinsic Energies of T’ai Chi Ch’uan has a translation of this on pp. 175-176. Jeff’s rendering is, in my opinion, a superior effort. The term lingkong is itself a tough one to translate. It has been used in contexts other than taiji, including meanings of “soaring,” “flying high,” “towering,” and even for “guessing.” The term “kongjin” sometimes translated “empty force” is an abbreviation of “lingkong jin.” To my mind, “empty force” sounds like nonsense. In any case, it doesn’t have anything to do with force, but with awareness and perception. My friend Jan Diepersloot has some very helpful remarks on this issue in his book, _The Tao of Yiquan_. He characterizes kongjin as “a game of perception, not force.” (p. 203)

I mentioned that I’m working on a translation of an interview with Wu Tunan in which he talks about lingkong. I’m hoping to post it soon.

Take care,
Louis

[Kalamondin]

Hi Everyone,

You know, I'm still wondering what it's like to be on the receiving end of this sort of thing. I was talking to a friend who specializes in energy healing and after he watched the video, he was concerned about the potential for "blowing out" the energy field (creating holes or tears) and/or bringing up any repressed traumatic material bound in the energy field. I realize this isn't anything we generally talk about here, but I'm still wondering what the effect is on the receiver's general chi balance, health, and disposition.

Has anyone been on the receiving end?

My sense of it is that, like pushing normally, a master who is capable of this is also capable of finely gauging the ability to tolerate this kind of energy and adjust the "push" accordingly. In all the videos I've looked at, there's still a quality of gentleness on the part of the master delivering the demonstration.

I have been on the receiving end of my teacher demonstrating how to "send energy out" (fa jing) with Push or Press and though I certainly went flying up and out, there was never any sensation of harm or pain or intrusion. And although it was clear he knew exactly where my center was at all times, it didn't feel like he was trying to occupy it.

Anyway, I feel like I'm jumping the gun a bit, I expect this doesn't come up for most until much farther into their practice. I suspect part of it is that the body just needs time to refine chi so that it's smooth and without much stagnancy or deficiency. If I could have kept things flowing smoothly and not gotten blocked up, I might have been in less of a pickle.

So, are there health risks to the chi flow? What might I expect to see in the future?

Thanks,
Kal

[bamboo leaf]

(What might I expect to see in the future?)
depends on where your future leads you, you might reject it all and find something else.
you might embreace it to the point where there is nothing else, and not find it. or you might just contine to practice and what ever comes will come when you are ready.

(Has anyone been on the receiving end?)

I have. My own feelings where of being sick to the point of feeling like I wanted to throw up. I mentioned that to some of the other students who laughed and said yes they felt the same.

[This message has been edited by bamboo leaf (edited 09-28-2006).]

[Yuri Snisarenko]

Jeff, thank you for the rendering, it helped me to understand the original text a lot! That sentence with the passive was hard grammatically for me.

I am wondering - could the second part of this passage be rendered in the following way:

"Suppose the person who is a receiving side already knows jins of sticking and adhering. Then when the opposite side does that exhale of "ha" (i.e. issues), he immediately will feel it and retreat. So the attacker won't be able "to plant seeds and get fruits".

?

[This message has been edited by Yuri Snisarenko (edited 09-28-2006).]

[Yuri Snisarenko]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Louis Swaim:

To my mind, “empty force” sounds like nonsense. In any case, it doesn’t have anything to do with force, but with awareness and perception. My friend Jan Diepersloot has some very helpful remarks on this issue in his book, _The Tao of Yiquan_. He characterizes kongjin as “a game of perception, not force.” (p. 203)

</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Louis,
I see your point and basically agree with you, but there is another point to keep in mind – about a flame of a candle that can't play such a game (I hope you have read that piece in Chen's book till the end.)



[This message has been edited by Yuri Snisarenko (edited 09-28-2006).]