6 direction force

[AllanF]

Are jibengong and foundation conditioning like tendon-strengthening sets taught with six-direction training in mind?

Nice pictures Tom.

I also practice that first picture and i use it more for the "he jin" (integrating force) discussed in the article above.

Integration force in your arms and legs results in the coordination of your upper and lower body. A simple way to practice integration force is to
use three specific points on your arm and a corresponding set of three points on your opposite leg. The three points on your arm are: the
Jianjing point on your shoulder; the Quchi point on your elbow; and the Lao Gong point on your hand. The three coordinating points on your
opposite-side leg are: the Huantiao point on your hip; the Yanglingquan point on your knee; and the Yongquan point on your foot.

In response to your question, i think the answer is a resounding yes! But many teachers don't explain the importance of this and many students aren't interested in doing such "boring" work, so i would guess many teachers don't bother telling them how important it is etc etc.

jjy5016: Zheng li is an other essential part of this and as the article says once you have become good at focusing in one direction you then move on to opposites, eventually all directions.

Since we are on the subject and seem to be having a constructive conversation (on RSF perish the thought ) if you or anyone else has articles about Zhengli, He jin or 6 direction force perhaps we can collect them here for reference/discussion?

[jjy5016]

Unfortunately there seems to be little or no articles in English that I can remember on the subject. I've only had a couple of teachers even mention opposite force.
My yiquan teacher drilled the theory into us.

From experience one has to get zheng li down properly to really appreciate the how and why of it. Unlike what Lu wrote our practice involved physically stretching in opposite directions during zhan zhuang practice and when moving. It was absolutely more than just physical and mental awareness. It became more mental after a long period but the physical aspect was always present.

[GrahamB]

Do you mean 6 directions not '8 energies' here? As I understand it you don't apply all 8 at once - (although every movement should have Peng) - so for example you don't apply 'Shoulder' when doing the movement Push, for example. It's not cut and dried since virtually all movements seem to have some Split, but I've never heard that all 8 should be done at once, all the time.

Well it's something I have posted a number of times over the years here. Must have missed those threads I guess.

Also, funny you should make a special exception for pengs since another thing I have argued in the past is that the obsession with peng as deserving some sort of special place among the 8 methods...is wrong.

But back on the other point about all 8; it's definitely part of why you need to practice so incredibly slow sometimes. Trying to find just 2 or 3 can be trying, let alone all 8. I've found that often what's needed is to change your perspective on the motion, literally not figuratively. As in which side is facing "front". The "lu" portion of "swallows tail" is peng if you view it from the opposite direction. It's cai and lie in terms of how you hold the arm. A 90 degree change of perspective and you can fine ji on what would normally be considered the "rear" arm. Kao can be found in the weight shift and applied early on in the motion if you turn it around 180 degrees. An is in what would be the "front" hand if you are seeing it in the "normal" way.

Maintaining all these different awarenesses at the same time can be challenging in the same way 6 directional force is.

Sorry, there are a lot of posts here - I can't keep track of them all.

Having read your post a few times now I can see where you're coming from, however, while intellectually you may have a different slant on it, I don't think that in application what we are talking about is different at all.

I say we should have Peng all the time, you say we should have all 8 all the time, right?

So, we're both agreed that there should be Peng all the time, wether you like it or not.

Now the way I see it personally there are only two primordial energies in Tai Chi - Peng and Lu (or a Yang force and Yin force, if you like, hence the name of the art) - the other 6 are just different ways of mixing/using/harmonising the two in different amounts and in different ways. A lot of the postures use more than one of them, and they are only ever made up of Peng and Lu, so you could look at it as all 8 being used at once, I just don't think that's helpful to using it and leads to an overly analytical approach.

It's a very academic way to look at it - in application you just do it, no need to worry or over analyse about what mixture of yin and yang you are using. What's more important is following the strategy of the art - listen, stick, yield, neutralise, attack. The rest flows from that.

I already know you won't agree. That's ok

[AllanF]

Unfortunately there seems to be little or no articles in English that I can remember on the subject. I've only had a couple of teachers even mention opposite force.
My yiquan teacher drilled the theory into us.

From experience one has to get zheng li down properly to really appreciate the how and why of it. Unlike what Lu wrote our practice involved physically stretching in opposite directions during zhan zhuang practice and when moving. It was absolutely more than just physical and mental awareness. It became more mental after a long period but the physical aspect was always present.

I have found a couple of things on "Zhengli", but and it is a BIG BUT, i am not an yiquan guy so i'm not sure how good they are at explaining what is going on. However i will present them here for the interest/discussion of those wanting to know more.

http://tukylam.freeoda.com/opposite_tension.html

http://mysite.verizon.net/reswv21m/site ... gforce.pdf

http://www.yiquannet.com/en/dongtai/Sho ... icleID=135

The last one it should note i couldn't access from China, so no idea if it is relevant or not.

[jjy5016]

I wrote back and forth with Tu Ky Lam for a while discussing one of his articles on yiquan. When I asked him about certain advanced practices that are in yiquan he didn't know about them and the conversations came to an abrupt end.

J.P. Lau writes well but claims things in his piece that I strongly disagree with.

[NoSword]

http://tukylam.freeoda.com/opposite_tension.html

During training, we should not concentrate too much on our body, but should think of our environment instead because thinking of our body can make us tense. We should keep calm even if the mountain collapses in front of us.

QFT

[jjy5016]

I learned this drill from Qian during his first visits to the US. This video is from a thread that's currently in the Videos section here at RSF.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHzJsm4H ... r_embedded

Master Qian was the second teacher I met who spoke about opposite force. He did not speak of it as a visualization of points or an idea about force.

His exact instruction was that there had to be opposite force in the forward elbow and the rear knee.

Six directions force is another way of saying 3 dimensional or omnidirectional force. It is having the same force at every point on one's body that the old writings speak of.

[Daniel]

Edited for brevity.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[dacheng]

http://www.yiquannet.com/en/dongtai/Sho ... icleID=135
The last one it should note i couldn't access from China, so no idea if it is relevant or not.

This is one of notes/sketches written by Yao Zongxun. Shortly before he passed away, being in hospital, he told Ao Shipeng, Bo Jiacong and his son Yao Chengguang to collect any of short notes he made which they would find in his house (very often on small pieces on paper) and put them together. This was mainly done by Bo Jiacong.

Generally the concept of liu mian li (six surfaces force) is very basic in Yao's teaching. At beginning of training it is kind of presenting the idea of hunyuan li in a bit simplified way - working with six basic directions, while later moving to the idea of liu mian ba fang li (six surfaces eight directions force), which simply means all directions. Balancing forces in simple situations (like zhan zhuang), then in movement, in interaction with partner and with opponent.