the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

That "all who are practicing taiji in their way are my kung fu brothers" was a surprisingly positive and heartwarming takeaway that I think more people need to work on embodying.

Tai chi classics
We must distinguish the substantial from the insubstantial

达摩西来一字无，全凭心意用功夫；若要纸上寻佛法，笔尖蘸干洞庭湖

Bohdidharma came from the west with not one word of chinese
All his studies were based on xinyi
if you seek to understand the essence of Buddhism in paper
your brush tip may have to make dry Lake Dong Ting


Lake Dong Ting
Northern Hunan
Approx Area: 2500 square km
Coastline Perimeter: 800 km approx

I always look at difficult terms by evaluating results. If you inflated or enlarged or aimed your frame to ward off an attack, or even spiraled it a bit, must have been that was okay. But if you got punched you did not ward off, whatever you thought you were doing.

I solve linguistic problems the easy way. In Hawaii, they have the same word for "hello" and "goodbye." How do you tell the difference? If you say "aloha" to a Hawaiian and he walks away, you said goodbye. QED.

Found an old link I had totally forgot about with a whole lot of quotes and resources. I like these quotes:


Zhang Yijun in his book where he quotes his teacher Li Yaxuan:

“ "Peng Jing is after long periods of sincere practice of Taijiquan and push hands, resulting in a type of sung (no tension) yet not sung, soft but carring in it hard, active but sunk and heavy, elastic and pliable type of jing, which includes sticking (nien), neutralising (hua), bouyant (fu), trapping (kun) usage type of jing, also called internal jing (neijing)". Also we have from myrid schools and students who hold "Taiji is peng jing, movement goes spiraling (luo xuan)" as the central maxim.”

Quoted from an interview with Yang Zhen Duo (son of Yang Cheng Fu) in T'ai Chi Magazine, vol 19. No. 5.:

"Normally, when we talk about peng( ward off)," Yang said, "we are not talking about the ward off in the the form .. the left ward off and right ward off. Peng is to intentionally let go and make the body loose so the body is connected. The inner feeling is that it is like there is a metal spring in the body. This is ward off"...

......

From: http://www.itcca.it/peterlim/pjcf.htm

.......

So for the old Yang masters at least, when they spoke about Pengjin, they didn’t mean a certain movement or a direction of force.

Bao wrote:Zhang Yijun in his book where he quotes his teacher Li Yaxuan:

Peng Jing is ... also called internal jing (neijing).

Quoted from an interview with Yang Zhen Duo (son of Yang Cheng Fu) in T'ai Chi Magazine, vol 19. No. 5....

So for the old Yang masters at least, when they spoke about Pengjin, they didn’t mean a certain movement or a direction of force.

If memory serves me correctly, in that article he specifically makes a distinction between two different things called "Peng" or "Peng Jin". One is the "quality" of the body, the other is a movement. What you/Lim quoted takes it out of context of the rest of the article.

Yes. There is no reason that "it" can't be both noun and verb, or a description of a quality, an application, the application of a quality or the quality of the application.

charles wrote:If memory serves me correctly, in that article he specifically makes a distinction between two different things called "Peng" or "Peng Jin". One is the "quality" of the body, the other is a movement. What you/Lim quoted takes it out of context of the rest of the article.

I quoted two different articles stating the same thing.
Yang Shenduo said: “Normally, when we talk about peng( ward off)," Yang said, "we are not talking about the ward off in the the form .. the left ward off and right ward off.” So he says it not even implicit that there is another Peng, he says it explicit that there is another Peng, i.e. the movements in the form. So I don’t understand what you are asking about.

When you do squats correctly, your legs have peng, when you do push ups correctly your arms have peng. Meaning, your limbs have strength and that strength remains elastic because of the correct orientation of the limbs towards the resistance. The issue is that, without dedicated training, this length wise orientation of the limbs towards the resistance cannot be maintained under diverse and difficult circumstances. When I read the stories of the old masters, what I am most struck by is the emphasis placed on jibengong, on basic exercise to strengthen your strength, to develop your peng energy. Toss a heavy sand bag around in the air for a few years and then see if that doesn't give you a concrete experience of peng.

rojcewiczj wrote:When you do squats correctly, your legs have peng, when you do push ups correctly your arms have peng. Meaning, your limbs have strength and that strength remains elastic because of the correct orientation of the limbs towards the resistance. ...the emphasis placed on jibengong, on basic exercise to strengthen your strength, to develop your peng energy. Toss a heavy sand bag around in the air for a few years and then see if that doesn't give you a concrete experience of peng.

What you describe is not pengjin. Pengjin is not any kind of strength you can build through strength training. Pengjin is very much the opposite. It’s a rather consequence of song, relaxing. Peng is what keeps the structure in place and prevents your body from collapsing. To understand Peng, you need to first be able to relax better than just relax. You need to build up a deep relaxation skill through correct practice.

Steve James wrote:Yes. There is no reason that "it" can't be both noun and verb, or a description of a quality, an application, the application of a quality or the quality of the application.

Douglas Adams was wrong. The answer to the Ultimate Question isn't "42"; it is "penguin". I mean "pengjin".

Dmitri wrote:Don't you people forget: there was, and is, and probably will always/ever be, only one man in the Universe who does "real taiji", -- and he doesn't even "do taiji", at that! His name shall not be spoken here, because it's like saying "Voldemort"... Oops.

Isn't that the same man who said, quoting chen Fake, that Chansi jin is the one jin in which all jins are present, so why is everyone so fixated on peng jin
I have to sort of agree with this statement anyway and I think what charles mentioned in the link below thread is very apt to the discussion and Bao also alluded to this with his opening/closing statement some posts back, imo

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25920&p=440737&hilit=chen+fake+silk+reeling+peng&sid=0a618c3de6d45a0b510109664a464ed6#p440737

Yang style almost never mentions chansijin. Otoh, unlike peng, there's no chansi posture.

To get past these issues, some people started arguing that "neijin" was the basic thing. (Not 42 ).

Steve James wrote:Yang style almost never mentions chansijin. Otoh, unlike peng, there's no chansi posture.

To get past these issues, some people started arguing that "neijin" was the basic thing. (Not 42 ).

well whatever style of taichi you do it's all dependent on the body method you use imo. I suppose styles like most of the chen variants try to incorporate the full body set of biomechanics from rotation, translation, expansion/contraction, opening/closing etc. Others don't aim quite so high. As for the thread OP I would have to agree with Chen Xiowang's take on it.

amor wrote:

Dmitri wrote:Don't you people forget: there was, and is, and probably will always/ever be, only one man in the Universe who does "real taiji", -- and he doesn't even "do taiji", at that! His name shall not be spoken here, because it's like saying "Voldemort"... Oops.

Isn't that the same man who said, quoting chen Fake, that Chansi jin is the one jin in which all jins are present, so why is everyone so fixated on peng jin
I have to sort of agree with this statement anyway and I think what charles mentioned in the link below thread is very apt to the discussion and Bao also alluded to this with his opening/closing statement some posts back, imo

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25920&p=440737&hilit=chen+fake+silk+reeling+peng&sid=0a618c3de6d45a0b510109664a464ed6#p440737

Nope that wasn't to whom I was referring. It was a reference to many years ago anyway, I haven't followed since so maybe the old song had changed, who knows. Doesn't really matter (to me) at all, was just poking fun and feeling "nostalgic" (not really).