GrahamB wrote:Yes, Beng Chuan would be moving the dantien sideways not really rotating it in a circle
Thanks.
I'd disagree that opening and closing the torso is the very basis of 'internal' movement (to paraphrase you, hopefully not incorrectly).
Interesting. See below.
I'd say that 'basic jin' is the basics. Get somebody to push into your structure and bounce them back, but directing their force to the ground, so that they are effectively pushing themselves back off the ground. Your body will automatically form a jin path if you can keep your structure good and stay 'song' - relaxed.
If you push against a wall, you will "effectively" push yourself off the wall. If you push on a human who has "automatically formed a "jin path" to the ground" you "effectively push yourself back off the ground". What is the difference between the human creating the "jin path to the ground" and the wall? In both cases, you are pushing on something that is functioning as a static, non-moving rigid structure. Put the guy pushing in a light-less room, and he can't tell the difference between pushing himself off of a wall or a human who has a "jin path to the ground".
Other than one being inanimate and the other animate and organizing its structure to become sufficiently rigid in the direction of the force (and moment) what's the difference? Do we call what the wall does as also automatically forming a "jin path" to the ground? Does it become "jin" because a human organizes his "stuff" to emulate the structure of a wall?
I understand that this is intended to be an introductory exercise for the development of certain basic concepts and abilities and one has to start somewhere. The next step in the progression is that one starts to apply this to a force that is changing direction, so that one moves the "jin path" around to always maintain a path between the point of contact and the ground. The body is then a semi-rigid conduit in which one end is always on the ground and the other end at the point of application of the opponent's force. This, by the way, is exactly the same as the 90's material.
Where do you go from there: what's the next step in that progression? Or is that the basis for the entire art of Taijiquan, moving the conduit around?
This is what Yi Quan people (in particular) show a lot of.
I don't practice Yi Quan. Any practitioners who can comment on their practice, particularly if they engage in this practice?
For 'basic jin' to work on a basic level there's no need to open and close much of anything.
Okay. To use your example, above, you are standing there and someone starts pushing on you. You "automatically form a "jin path" to the ground" but the person pushing doesn't push themselves away, but, they have applied a force to you. For simplicity of discussion, assume the applied force is constant and unchanging in direction. Just standing there like a wall (i.e. statically, with a jin path to the ground") now what? If you decide to move, rather than just stand there all day, theory has it - same as Mike teaches - that movement occurs through opening and closing of
something. No opening, no closing, no movement. Opening and closing is
how one moves. Check your notes. Mike teaches that. The opening and closing can be as large or as small as you like.
Opening and closing helps store and release even more power, so my understand is that you get into that when you want to do the 'full banana' of a faijin.
If you don't want "full banana" fa jin, where does the "half-banana" fa jin come from? What is its source or mechanism? Is the 1/2 version a different set of physical mechanics than the full?
I'm not going to go too far down that rabbit hole since Mike can't be here to rebut my comments - I'll end up being discussed on Facebook, like last time.
6:58 reminds me of a two-person exercise that I learned from Sam Masich, also back in the '90's. The exercise illustrates "dependence". Stand facing your partner. Extend your arms in front of you so that your palms are in contact with your partner's palms. Now step back, while maintaining the palm-to-palm contact. Step back far enough that both of you are leaning inward significantly. Not bent forward at the waist, but the whole body leaning towards each other. In this position, both of you are completely dependent on the other. If one of you suddenly disappeared, the other would fall forward. If you move your hands around, your partner cannot stop you from doing so and his hands move with yours. He has no choice. Ditto if he moves his hands, you have no choice but to follow. You are codependent.
Next, while maintaining palm-to-palm contact, YOU step forward so that you are entirely upright, while your partner remains leaning heavily. As before, as you move your hands around, he cannot help but follow your hand movement. However, if he attempts to move his hands, you can very easily stop him, just by not allowing yours to be moved. If your partner suddenly disappeared, you would be left standing there. If YOU suddenly disappeared, your partner would fall. The movement of his arms and hands and his balance is entirely dependent on you, while you have no dependancy on him.
What one can learn from this very simple exercise is that you don't want to be codependent. Worse still is to be dependent upon your partner/opponent. Best is to have your partner/opponent's movement and balance dependent on you while you are free to move and are entirely independent of him - "I know my opponent but he does not know me". One can go further and examine what physical actions result in each of the three situations, but I'll leave that for others.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out what, if any, relevance that has to what's shown at 6:58.
