wayne hansen wrote:For a start it wasn't 4 oz that is just a western approximation of the Chinese measurement
The 4 oz is on the receivers side on hitting you are meant to add the attackers thousand pounds to your 4 oz
As was quoted from CTH on another thread
To leave anything out makes you a cripple
Never heard that one before Niall but it says it all
A chinese unit of measurement that approximates 4oz the point is?
Taiji sometimes referred to as moving with awareness
In trying to move with awareness the most common mistakes for many are those of
colliding with, or running away from the point of contact.
The point of the 4oz was a way to define a starting point for contact ie to "light or to heavy"
and convey that the contact was not based on using ones own force or frame. .
Depending on teacher, school, method and focus, one should be able to
feel and experience what happens if one tries to apply or use more force.
What should happen at this point is that one should come to some
understanding of why its not a good idea to use more force and start to develop
through the practice what this means.
For some the amount of contact used is defined as skin, hair, and air.
One can only feel ones own force.
One problem is understanding how much force one is using.
Its never about how much force the other uses since all that one can feel is ones own.
Don't want to feel force, don't use it and don't allow it to be used on oneself.
How this is done is really what much of the training is about, which the idea of 4oz
helps to convey and use.
Understanding moving with awareness is about subordinating the body to the dictates of the mind.
The mind is ruler, the body follows. This means that ones body has to be in pretty good shape to be able to follow
the perceptions of the mind in real time, and use this as a way of engaging with others.
It does not mean someone who is weak to start off with can use this idea and expect to survive an encounter,
or that slow practice automatically conveys some type of understanding that enables a person to
deal with an encounter if thats what ones practice is based on.
"dealing with encounters"
History shows the yang family members starting with the founder and his sons were quite nimble, fast,
and had an unusual skill set for their time. The practices very physically demanding.
Their boxing style known as touch or soft boxing before being called taiji.
All of which means that one has to go through some very demanding training insuring that things like axis,
6 harmonis, and the many other points of practice have to be well defined through ability
and usage.
The aspect of "leaving anything out" only pertains to ones
own line, school or training that others would acknowledge
coming from those lines, or schools..
a good thread, echoeing some of my own findings
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26252that speaks to this.
It might be interesting to understand what line, teacher or school
started to use the idea of 4oz...Its not something I've read about
in other styles of taiji chen, wu, sun ect.