words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby kenneth fish on Sun Sep 13, 2015 8:20 pm

Excellent post.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Friedrich Nietzsche
User avatar
kenneth fish
Great Old One
 
Posts: 2518
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 5:19 pm

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby Bob on Sun Sep 13, 2015 8:24 pm

Interesting post - in baji heng ha breathing/sounding is employed and in pi gua - yi ya sounding is used.
Bob
Great Old One
 
Posts: 3726
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 4:28 am
Location: Akron, Ohio

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby chenyaolong on Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:02 am

At the risk of being pedantic.... I'm curious how these sounds would differ in different dialects, or in middle-Chinese (as it says they originate from 13th century). The point of the sounds if I understand correctly is how the different sounds would create different vibrations or something similar inside the body, just like how Yoga practitioners will use Om chanting. So if the sound, say, Xu, affects the body in a certain way, it surely has to be pronounced perfectly, with lips tightened and the sound coming from the front of the mouth. Whereas a dialect like Cantonese is more from the throat, and the sound of that character would be totally different, hence, the effect would be different.
chenyaolong
Wuji
 
Posts: 534
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 7:42 pm
Location: Perth, Australia

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby Steve Rowe on Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:10 am

I've always used an internal and variable 'growl', sometimes silent, to create the feel and mindset that I need. I also use a Tibetan chant as a 'metronome' when I want my students to use a continuous, smooth, spiraling movement in the YCF form before I add in the martial fa geng in the Long Boxing.
Last edited by Steve Rowe on Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
If you see someone without a smile - give 'em one of yours...
User avatar
Steve Rowe
Wuji
 
Posts: 1670
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:09 pm
Location: Chatham Kent UK

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby 100kilos on Mon Sep 14, 2015 8:09 am

I remember Meeks having a topic about words of power. Hope he chimes in from his perspective.
User avatar
100kilos
Anjing
 
Posts: 128
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 6:30 pm

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby edededed on Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:03 pm

I know that bagua and xingyi have a lot of "secret sounds" ("leisheng" thunder voice in xingyiquan) - but the whole "Chinese is a really bad language to accurately record sounds" thing does make me wonder...

- Were the Chinese characters updated later on, if the phonetic sounds linked to the original glyphs changed? (My guess: probably not)
- Were the sounds for the Chinese characters properly preserved? (My guess: again, probably not)
- Did the sounds then change over time? (My guess: probably yes? Although the sounds of taiji, bagua, and xingyi seem a bit similar - so maybe the sounds are good, and the glyphs were just assigned to them later.)
User avatar
edededed
Great Old One
 
Posts: 4122
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 12:21 am

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby Doc Stier on Mon Sep 14, 2015 7:25 pm

Additionally, the Five Element Phases have specific musical key note tones which represent the core vibrational energy present within all things and all phenomena in varying frequencies. These basic musical key notes can be intoned while executing techniques corresponding to each of the individual Element Phases in order to amplify the energy of any form or technique. The proper pitch of these tones can be learned and intoned by anyone to produce the correct vibrational energy frequency, with no need to use special words or mantras of any kind, with no problems regarding the proper pronunciation of such words and, therefore, with no vague issues regarding any particular language or dialect whatsoever. -shrug-
Last edited by Doc Stier on Mon Sep 14, 2015 7:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"First in the Mind and then in the Body."
User avatar
Doc Stier
Great Old One
 
Posts: 5694
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:04 pm
Location: Woodcreek, TX

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby edededed on Mon Sep 14, 2015 8:39 pm

You might need to carry a tuning fork around just to be sure, though! ;D
User avatar
edededed
Great Old One
 
Posts: 4122
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 12:21 am

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby wayne hansen on Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:09 pm

And people here give master Mizner a bad time
Reminds me of the majik circle club in balmain Sydney in the 70's
They trained at midnight naked except for purple robes
Had a different mantra and colour visulisation for each direction
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
wayne hansen
Wuji
 
Posts: 5665
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:52 pm

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby willywrong on Mon Sep 14, 2015 10:17 pm

[quote="Tom"]WARNING: ABSTRACT HERMENEUTICS AHEAD.

A long time ago on another forum, a gent who goes by the RSF nom-de-forum of Wong Yuen Ming wrote a post describing the sounds used in certain older lines of taijiquan relating to Yang Luchan's art. The sounds correspond to the xiao tian and hou tian (pre-Heaven and post-Heaven) arrangements of the bagua trigrams. It is an interesting analysis and one I had not seen before.

Without further ado, here is the post:


One secret sound did I learn and Its so secret even I can't hear it. ;) ;D
willywrong

 

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby Bao on Tue Sep 15, 2015 12:23 am

The sounds correspond to the xiao tian and hou tian (pre-Heaven and post-Heaven) arrangements of the bagua trigrams. It is an interesting analysis and one I had not seen before.


... Never seen different arrangements of sounds like this. Though I suspect that much of the knowledge is kept away from mass teaching, I can't really understand why there should be different arrangements in yang tai chi. Tai chi is not about arranging things in xiantian or houtian. Everything in tai chi is about xiantian. There's no houtian practice in (what most people today define as) tai chi. So, I suspect that the houtian arrangement must be in relationship to external training that essentially is not tai chi but maybe practiced in conjunction or together with tai chi, maybe as strength and foundation practice. ...
Last edited by Bao on Tue Sep 15, 2015 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thoughts on Tai Chi (My Tai Chi blog)
- Storms make oaks take deeper root. -George Herbert
- To affect the quality of the day, is the highest of all arts! -Walden Thoreau
Bao
Great Old One
 
Posts: 9008
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 12:46 pm
Location: High up north

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby meeks on Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:50 am

chenyaolong wrote:At the risk of being pedantic.... I'm curious how these sounds would differ in different dialects, or in middle-Chinese (as it says they originate from 13th century). The point of the sounds if I understand correctly is how the different sounds would create different vibrations or something similar inside the body, just like how Yoga practitioners will use Om chanting. So if the sound, say, Xu, affects the body in a certain way, it surely has to be pronounced perfectly, with lips tightened and the sound coming from the front of the mouth. Whereas a dialect like Cantonese is more from the throat, and the sound of that character would be totally different, hence, the effect would be different.


I learned a few of these for some of the hard qi gong that Yang Guotai taught me. The easiest one to use as an example is 'xu'. Normally in Chinese 'xu' is pronounced similar to 'shu' in English. In an effort to get the correct vibration though, you must add a slight 'zzz' in the underlying sound mixed in with the 'shu' sound...
"sssssshhuuuuuuuu
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

would be one sound, both lines 'pronounced' simultaneously.

Yang Guotai would put your hands on his back and resonate the sound to show you how it makes his body resonate. Then he'd put his hands on my lower back and have me practise the sound until I managed to get the natural vibration of the sound to resonate from within me (resonating your 'bell'). Without his hands on guidance there's a slim to nil chance I would have ever managed to do it correctly.

So to add to your statement (which I agree with) - yes - the effect WOULD be different, MUST be pronounced perfectly despite one's varying dialect background.

*edit: there is no chinese character that I'm aware of for this type of sound -it isn't a word in Chinese per se, just a specific sound...
Last edited by meeks on Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
"The power of Christ compels you!" *spank*
now with ADDED SMOOTHOSITY! ;D
User avatar
meeks
Administrator
 
Posts: 3646
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 12:27 pm
Location: Great Lakes, IL

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby Yuen-Ming on Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:50 am

That's archeology at its best, Tom!

What can I say in my defense .... maybe asking to speak to my lawyer? :)

YM
User avatar
Yuen-Ming
Huajing
 
Posts: 435
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 4:59 am

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby Doc Stier on Tue Sep 15, 2015 8:36 am

edededed wrote:You might need to carry a tuning fork around just to be sure, though! ;D


Actually, you would technically need five different tuning forks, or...simply memorize the five tones as I did. Just saying! ;)
"First in the Mind and then in the Body."
User avatar
Doc Stier
Great Old One
 
Posts: 5694
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:04 pm
Location: Woodcreek, TX

Re: words/sounds in Yang taijiquan practice

Postby LaoDan on Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:30 am

I suspect that none of the possible variations (different dialects, changes in pronunciation over time, different sound associations due to differing arrangements of the trigrams, lack of perfect pitch, etc.) matter. I would think that it is the expectation or belief that causes the effect rather than the specifics of the ‘trigger’.

This is similar to what is known as the placebo effect, where real effects are observed, but they are caused by something mental rather than the expected physical trigger. This placebo effect is significant enough that scientists need to carefully design controls in their experiments to account for the effect.

If you have a strong expectation or belief in the associations between certain sounds and certain results, then there is potentially a significant chance that the expected results will happen regardless of whether or not the practice is ‘correct’ (as long as you think that it is correct).

On the other hand, sounds have been implicated in several studies as effecting fetuses in the womb, or animal behavior, and since they do not have an awareness of the experiment or the theory behind the sounds, it is possible that there is a real effect from sounds. I am unaware, however, of any definitive studies.
LaoDan
Wuji
 
Posts: 624
Joined: Mon May 17, 2010 11:51 am

Next

Return to Xingyiquan - Baguazhang - Taijiquan

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 39 guests