Chen.quest.ion

I’ve been wanting to post about this for some time.  Mostly just sorting out my own thoughts, and inviting comments if anyone feels so inclined.  I had a page or more of notes assembled.  But driving home tonight my thoughts on taiji took on a less analytical cast.  I haven’t had expert instruction, so why play guest lecturer?  All I can offer is my own story and insights for what they’re worth.  I’m tossing out my notes.  I sat down tonight and wrote this out at a go.  It says both less, and more, than I originally planned.  Intuitive leaps can’t replace knowledge, but they may have value.  I hope that this grab-bag is based at some level, upon realities. 

********

Borrow your opponent’s hands and arms.  Whether in actuality, or via intention only.  Do not use your own arms and hands, but rather your torso which is an extension of your legs which is an extension of the ground.

Think of your legs as one, not two.  They are connected through the kua.

The ground is not two, it is one.  But how can it move?  By an earthquake.  That is, shifting and folding which results in shaking.  But the ground is still “one”.

The only thing keeping you and your opponent in juxtaposition, is gravity.  Since this is what unites the two of you, you need to control it.  You control gravity with your knees.  One up, one down, change, yin and yang.  Every time your shin bone departs from or returns to the vertical, your knee is going down.  Or up.  If my opponent’s house sits on land which is suddenly a little higher here, a little lower there, his house will crack and topple.  I will neither support nor rebuild his structure.  My lower is rock; my upper, shifting sands.

OK, this may turn out easier than I thought.  I have now thrown away two or three drafts.  But rather than try to impress the readership, I think I may have actually hit on some real troubles.  Not so much with me – I just need to practice a lot more and finding a teacher would also be a very good move.  But I was just watching Professor Wu Dong performing the Chen 56 Forms (as posted here on Chen.quest.ion).  Pondering the form I’m trying to learn, and watching my favorite exemplar demonstrate it, has made me face a couple of facts:

Short forms such as this are, to a certain extent, composed of snippets of the original long forms which are works of art, masterpieces.  Not only is there abridgement (e.g., “repeated movements have been cut out for brevity”) but there is, I believe, rearrangement… a piecing-together of form elements that packs a lot of movement training into a very short timespan, but has the side-effect of diluting the martial trueness of the movements (to say nothing of the qigong potential).

Now, these modern short forms were created by masters who clearly worked long and hard to do the very best job possible in condensing their art to something that would have teaching and training benefits.  And if not for Chen short forms, it’s quite possible that I personally would have remained a 98% “armchair” martial artist, doing my little kungs as I have for decades, reading about MA for enjoyment occasionally, and watching the same chop-sake movies enjoyed by millions around the world.

Well, enough about that.  Let’s talk forms, and I’ll try to stay focused.  “6 Sealing 4 Closing – right style” comes very early in the set, after “Lazily Tying Coat” and before “Single Whip – left style”.  I spent months of experimenting and researching in getting this very cool form to a point where I could feel reasonably proud of the result; and have continued to hone this form, including some tweaking based upon the Hong Junsheng Practical Method.

“6 Sealing 4 Closing – left style” is the penultimate form in the first section of the Routine.  It comes after “Hidden Hand Punch – left style” and before “Single Whip – right style”.  It presages the visually simple but actually quite challenging forms that come in the second section of the routine, which require improved control of stepping and coordinating big changes in movments and energy.

The Old Frame, original “6/4″ is straightforward, neat, and martial.  The New Frame variant seems aimed (I’m speculating here) at increasing both the teaching potential and the artistic potential of “6/4″.  Maybe the qigong potential also(?).  Well, that’s as may be.  Iteration #2 of this form in my Set is something I knew I wasn’t doing very well, but I was so close to the end of Section 1 that I just forged ahead anyway.  I developed a pretty good way of performing the move, although I felt the martial element was just not there.  Regardless, I moved on to “Wave Hands Like Clouds” in Section II and after several months of effort felt a certain satisfaction there.

I now feel that the Competition “6/4 – left” is good movement training generally speaking, but is, all in all, “Wushu Tai Chi”.  After “Hidden Hand Punch left” you do a wardoff left, then rollback right while making this kind of Wushu-looking 180-degree pivot step, ending up in Cat Stance with both hands held high and well forward.  Through my studies I know what can be done with the hands, application-wise, at that moment.  I am not well practiced in cat stance and that’s been a big problem here, the energy is just not right.  (I do better with Empty Step with the empty foot to the rear.) 

This interim posture (as seen at 3:17 in the Wu Dong video clip) is seen again five forms later in “Cannonballs in Series” (You Lian Zhu Pao).  In fact, it was in looking ahead to “Cannonballs” that I realized something was badly amiss.  Doing this simultaneous wardoff/strike (or feint) with empty foot forward, preparing to shovel step, has “Double Heavy” written all over it unless one is minding substantial and insubstantial very, very nimbly.

I now see that I need to go back and seriously refine the way I change yin and yang in this move, or it will remain quite hollow (even if outwardly smooth and steady).  Thanks to the wonderful book Chen Style Taijiquan with Feng Zhiquiang and Chen Xiaowang, I have a lot of good insights into “6 Sealing 4 Closing”, both the internal aspects and martial application aspects.  And I’m now more aware of how this classic Chen form has been altered, all the way up to the version I practice, which teaches a lot of movement but honestly isn’t something I would care to test in combat.  These are issues that I’ll have to work out – or move beyond – if I wish to progress.  Which ties in to the very strong pull I feel towards the Chen Practical Method.  If we watch Chen Zhonghua demonstrating “6/4″ we see martial capability personified.  Not to crush the opponent; but to control and resolve, calmly and efficiently.  His esthetics are expressed through his method and goal rather than as broad, graceful movements that look beautiful and impressive.

If anyone has read this far, I am grateful for your time.  I’m not soliciting free instruction, but any comments are welcome of course.  And if anyone has information on just what the Chinese mean by Liu Feng Si Bi, (other than “60 + 40 = 100 percent”) I and perhaps many other people would be most interested.  What is “close” in this context?  What is “seal”?  What is the distinction, which seems rather minimal in english?  (Certainly evokes a sense of finality though!)  P.S. Actually there’s a good discussion of this over at Chenwired, “form names”.  When Hong Junsheng’s exposition on form names is translated into english, I’ll be happy to take that as the final word!

After some initial doubts, I’ve been having a ball with the Chen.quest.ion blog ever since a good soul encouraged me to go ahead and try it, last summer.  Some pretty experienced taiji practitioners have even helped with their comments, and have been gracious when I commented on their blogs.  Makes me realize that staying away from taiji classes has two big downsides: missing out on [what would hopefully be] good instruction; and missing out [very likely] on meeting some cool taiji friends face-to-face (and hand-to-hand).  Well, 2007 is still young, so we’ll see what CQ will do about this.

Three posts I’ve been pondering, coming up as time permits:

TROUBLESHOOTING “6 SEALINGS, 4 CLOSINGS – LEFT STYLE”.  After spending 5 years working on Chen forms I really ought to have something to say about them, especially about difficulties still in progress.

MY MIND CREATES THE ONE POINT.  If this was yet one more allusive excursion on Taiji Principles by struggling student Chenquestion, I think I’d put it off for a few weeks so I don’t get tempted to write about Empty Force.  But I’ve already got this one drafted in longhand and feel like there’s some content worth going with.

UP AND DOWN OF KNEES.  An important concept & method in the Hong Junsheng – Chen Zhonghua line.  I’m not qualified to explain this branch of Chen Taijiquan but I have been considering this bit about the knees.

I tend to talk a lot so let me take this chance to quiet down and say thanks for visiting the Chenquestion blog.

I went over to the the Chenwired Forum, I wanted to see what new threads were in place (as well as the “dreaded thread” that Formosa Neijia had described).  Found some good stuff as usual, including the topic “Fall and Split” which is of interest to me even though (or, precisely because) I haven’t made it to “Drop Into the Splits” (or even “Dragon on the Ground”) in my routine yet.

The Chenwired site administrator brought up a really good point that I’ve been tempted to write a post about, but more or less chickened out and put off for a future day.  He just dived right in, however.  To quote: 
>>>lets face it, we westeners have a disadvantge of not learning to squat from birth and losing that flexibilty in our lower limbs that chinese have.
>>>From squating on the toilet to sitting down on your ankles to reading the newspaper to sitting down on the little benches that look like they belong in a friggin’ doll house….

I’ve spent some time in Asia and know precisely what he’s talking about.  My exercise guru Matt Furey has also talked about this issue, what we might call the Squat Deficit in the West.  I’ve done manual labor for years so I had to at least try to get Good Squat when lifting things.  The first time I tried “squat down and take a break” in Asia I found that it felt good and I liked it.  When the time came for me to try Chen and Zhan Zhuang postures, I was in pretty good shape to make the attempt.  (However I learned the hard way that being able to squat good does not bulletproof you against taiji practice injuries!)

I do have some history of back troubles and I believe squatting deep has helped this problem.  By squatting deep I mean squatting on the heels, as in, sit-down-without-a-seat. 

I noticed something funny a long time ago… many Americans never seem to squat at all, but bend down from the waist to pick something up or whatever.  I wondered why, since it’s pretty well known that this is a bad position to lift anything, whether dropped car keys, or a heavier object.  My theory is that in the West it’s considered undignified to squat.  That could be seen as logical.  But is it dignified to stick your rear end up in the air?  Being health and exercise minded, I knew which one to choose for myself.  Besides as I mentioned – unless one is just too stiff – squatting feels good.  If it didn’t feel good, I assume the only solution is to start doing it anyway.  Well, I see my cat outside squatting on the windowsill, so I’d better go and let my little teacher in now!

I found a great discussion of “Proprioception & Concious Movement” (read: intention) over at the Yang Family Tai Chi site (see blogroll link).  Almost had me ready to write another post on Intention, with new poetic allusions.  But a little voice inside me said, aw, enough already!

However it got my mind going and I had an interesting thought about Stillness which I’ll try to put succinctly.

A tree bends and waves with the wind.  But, when the wind is still (i.e., no wind) the tree is still as well.  Aside from growth and internal processes, stillness can be seen as the tree’s inherent state.  It has a shape-of-stillness, which we see every time we look at the tree when the wind is not disturbing the tree’s shape.

It’s a little different for humans, we are not sessile organisms.  We tend to move.  But taijiquan, standing post exercise, and such, would have us train Stillness as our basic state, to be deviated from if necessary.  “Do nothing extra”, etc.

So just as the tree has a Stillness that is always inherent, even when the tree is moving; so ought we to wear Stillness as our garb and our Form, even when we feel we must move.  How to train this quality is an interesting road that a tree cannot and need not walk; but we can… and we will?        

Besides trying to imagine how to turn my mind into a flying hand – a fairly lofty goal – I feel like I am finally getting somewhere with the concept of Centerline.  This is something that I havn’t spent much “think-time” on in the past.  But it may be that if one is moving relatively correctly, the centerline basically begins to start forming of itself.

Mostly I see this coming out during my work.  When standing in place, but shifting my leg bow to perform work, I now am aware of my centerline shifting, rather than “weight” so much. 

When stepping forward or backward, I am aware of changing right side for left; or left for right.  If my right side moves forward, there is a corresponding movement backward, of my left side.  This oscillating hinges on Centerline.

I believe there is a specific and powerful Chen Style silk-reeling element, not necessarily to what I’m doing, but potentially in these kinds of positional shifts.  I’m hoping that will become a possibility for me at some future time.

Just some further thoughts.  About the manner in which yi should lead qi.  I would say that the primary thing is that yi should lead.  Should go first.  The rest, to paraphrase Albert Einstein, are details.  The devil’s in the details but that’s what study and training are for.

My Yi, my Mind, my Intention, needs to reach out ahead of all else.  Like a hand reaching for a door.  This might seem like a bad metaphor because a hand travels propelled by an arm.  But I’m speaking of taiji theory and method, where the hand actually leads the arm out. 

Yi equates to a hand reaching out.  I won’t try to say that Qi is the arm, it’s more complex than that.  Well, just as an arm is vastly more complex than simply a semisolid tube of flesh.  Mind goes first.  (Certainly, “my mind is going” as I try not to confuse myself while writing this!)

When I reach out towards the door, my intention is to open the door.  I don’t think about “how”; I know just how and in what way I intend to open this particular door at this particular time.

(Truth be told, I do now think about how to open doors… in a more taiji way if possible.  But that’s another story.)

Comments welcome! 

Wow!  Just found a terrific quotation from a modern warrior of legendary stature, over at the InsideAwake blog: http://insideawake.blogspot.com/ .  Among other goodies.

 I think I’m discovering why there aren’t more articles about “using taiji in everyday life” even though that’s something a lot of us think about.  It’s hard enough to write clearly about taiji (plenty of potential for confusion and other pitfalls) and when you toss in what isn’t taiji, per se, then try to link the two, you get… difficulties.

Anyway, Martial Development (see blogroll link) commented on my previous post; I answered, tossing in a silly little rhyme (yi-qi-li) which might or might not make sense, but at best is an inside joke.  Martial Development responded with a great point:

>>>Should yi lead qi like a child pulling a wagon, or like a general guiding his troops?

My reply was a bit of a shrug; and asking if there were any “scholars” out there.  This morning I realized I surely ought to have a better answer.  I remembered that the Scholars have spoken already, and most of us have a volume or two on the bookshelf which ought to be pulled out and re-read occasionally, when questions arise and also to consider in light of recent experience.

My conclusion: I shouldn’t have raised these issues without including Shen.  Whether in taiji, or in daily life.  My feeling is that “a general leading his troops” is the correct way to view the concept.  But sometimes the troops are on the battlefield, some times they’re on the parade ground.  On the battlefield they might be fighting, or simply maneuvering; on the parade ground; they are drilling – training – but that can have various flavors as well. 

But the primary quality that I would assign is a workmanlike attitude.  A soldier should possess fighting spirit, that’s undeniable.  But taiji assigns a very high value to craft.  My general doesn’t want to lose, but he’s a principled leader who hates waste, and esteems hard work.  He prefers harmony to glory; or perhaps, finds his glory in seeking harmony.  I’m not sure how well I addressed the original question, but I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead!

Well, my previous post didn’t turn out as coherent as I’d hoped.  But flashes of insight are just flashes, and how do you describe a flash?  “It was bright.”  The big question is what happens after the flash fades; an afterimage, then… nothing?  Better to try and write something down.  I believe these are sometimes known as “affirmations”….

I have to ask myself how my “everday energy emphasis” seems to be shaping up as the days go by.  This turned out to be a very good question.  I had to wonder if I was just spinning words that had little reflection in reality.  My fruitful conclusion was that the ancients had a way of being mindful of their life-energies on an ongoing basis.  It’s known as “following the breath”.  Perhaps I can’t really improve on this simple but powerful chunk of age-old wisdom.  But I can try to follow it, “everday”.   If this is coming back full circle, then it was worth the detour.