F̷a̷j̷i̷n̷ Bao Fali in Xingyiquan

[Doc Stier]

Point being that I can almost guarantee that what you, and others on this forum, call Fajin, is not the same as what is shown in all the videos I have linked on this thread.

Sho yo right. Of course not. As always, I am deeply moved by your profound sense of modesty and humility in lecturing us on the finer points of detail regarding these arts.

[D_Glenn]

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[Doc Stier]

If only you knew what I thought you thought I thought. LoL

[D_Glenn]

If only you knew what I thought you thought I thought.

That’s a great koan. I plugged it into google translate and I got this. It sounds really soothing when you click on the audio. I think I am going to use it when I do my Buddhist meditation.

要是你知道我怎麼想你怎麼想我怎麼想就好了

Yàoshi nǐ zhīdào wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng wǒ zěnme xiǎng jiù hǎole

Thanks Doc

[Doc Stier]

Hahaha! Nice. U da man.

[D_Glenn]

Well it's not precisely the same thing.

The pieces of the body are perhaps moving in similar ways but they are motivated differently.

The abdomen is used to coordinate the limbs, but it doesn't "issue" force. The whole body is involved in "storing" energy 蓄勁 (Xù jìn) and "releasing" force 發勁 (Fā jìn).

When we talk about "li" we're talking about the direct force a muscle is capable of exerting through contraction in isolation or in combination with other muscles.

Our "Li" is just one force among many that is present. Intelligently preserving that force and combining it with the other forces and energies at our disposal is what creates the "jin" that we express.

So "issuing" as it were, is a matter of, at a basic level, shifting the weight from one leg to another and sinking and letting that force move down to the ground, back up through the legs, THROUGH the lumbar region.

In the lumbar, we're naturally tracking the force coming up, like a flag in the breeze. It's not generating it, it's following it and not getting in the way. Moving in the same way you describe, but passively.

Since we're not using the muscles in that region to create the energy, we're able to use them to direct the energy. We get a lot more energy out of our legs than we do out of our lower back.

The fingers are connected to each other across the back and down into the waist so the energy naturally tracks those tendon paths.

By using the mind to "direct" the energy (regulate tension between antagonistic muscles to guide it to a path of least resistance) the arms express the spiral waveforms directly, preserving that energy until we release it as force.

I've got more to say about it but will save it for a blog.

What you’re describing can work in conjunction with the FaLi. Depending on your age, marital status, or dating life, you have probably done the exact same tucking the tailbone and rounding the back, thousands of times. It takes little to no effort. You are not even aware that muscles are working while doing it. It doesn’t require any strength. It’s completely ‘Fansong’ and effortless.

Now, using that exact same movement, in the midst of any martial movement that you do, in any position, you can learn and train your ability to do this movement one time, with the same effortless and cold, crisp and fast movement, in order to quickly jolt or bump your abdomen. Which through a lot of practice will get the flesh and skin to travel along with your regular Fajin (or TiFang as I would name it) that you are describing above. This probably doesn’t sound like it would make much difference but after a few months you will begin to feel like your attacks (strikes, pushes, throws…) are increasing in power. And they are because you are recruiting the parts of your body that are normally unmovable. There’s a lot of mass and momentum in the flesh of your body, and it’s not just the flesh. A relaxed muscle also counts as flesh because it’s like a gel and it’s just hanging on your bones. It will make your martial art so much more rewarding and enjoyable to practice. Because the feeling that you get when everything is moving in harmony- flesh, muscle and bone all moving in unison. Feels like real power.

[D_Glenn]

The Tai Chi Notebook is back!

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show ... nn-e2ih0m4

Timestamps:

44.02: Zhan Zhuang: Standing pillar practice

46.55: Chen style FaJin methods and their purpose

Bringing this into this thread because what he talks about at these time stamps is really relevant to things being discussed here. Like Dan Shi (practicing single movements over and over, or looping them as he calls it). Doing single strikes, or combos while standing in a fixed stance and not moving your feet etc. He even gives a great definition of Dou Jin ( Trembling Power) in that you don’t want to create it, it should be natural, but at the same time you don’t want to stop it because you would prevent it from being able to Tou Jin (penetrate).
Here’s an example of some of the Fixed step FaLi practice:

[wayne hansen]

The shaking of the head dosent worry u

[D_Glenn]

The shaking of the head dosent worry u

Not at all. It might’ve bothered me 27 years ago when I started if I didn’t have a teacher who was 78 years old and had been doing it for 60 plus years, and his senior student who had been doing it for almost 30 years. And who’s 70 now and has been doing it every day for almost 55 years. I think CXW was in his 60s when I met him. All of them remind me of this enlightened Zen Buddhist priest I met years ago. He runs a local church and after the English language ceremony he has an hour where he would debate people about religion or whatever they wanted to talk about. The Fali movement is again, a natural one, that all men do on a periodic basis for the better part of their lives. But the Daoists harnessed that into sitting and standing moving meditation practices where the mechanism is called “Hong Shui Boyang” and it’s used to nourish the brain by moving the marrow (CSF).

***
Like Nabil mentions, FaLi is how you test your connections (Chansijin). Watching CIMA people move, without even executing any FaLi, I can tell whether they can Fali, or cannot Fali, just by looking at the quality of their Chansijin. Is it still just at the level of a Spider’s single silk strand that can be easily broken or has it been refined into Gangsijin (steel cable power). The difference is night and day. No Fali = No Chansijin.

[wayne hansen]

I was not talking about it from a brain damage point of view
It was more excess unfocused energy that concerned me

[D_Glenn]

I was not talking about it from a brain damage point of view
It was more excess unfocused energy that concerned me

Ah okay. I can’t speak for Xingyi or Chen Taiji but in Yin Style Bagua we try to close off Da Zhui point (below C7 vertebrae) and channel the wave/ power out into our collar bones and really focus it into the arm. This is done by ‘Lifting the crown of the head’ to stretch the Cervical vertebrae up, and then ‘tuck the chin’. This can happen only for a split second right as the tailbone is tucking, so that your head is freely able to move around and observe when you aren’t executing a Fali. It’s also important to have the tip of your tongue always pressing up into the soft palate and keep your mouth closed, but not clenched shut.

[wayne hansen]

That is the point I was making

[Appledog]

If only you knew what I thought you thought I thought.

That’s a great koan. I plugged it into google translate and I got this. It sounds really soothing when you click on the audio. I think I am going to use it when I do my Buddhist meditation.

要是你知道我怎麼想你怎麼想我怎麼想就好了

Yàoshi nǐ zhīdào wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng wǒ zěnme xiǎng jiù hǎole

Thanks Doc

This is good, but you can just use '...wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng...'.

[D_Glenn]

This is good, but you can just use '...wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng wǒ zěnme xiǎng nǐ zěnme xiǎng...'.

That’s okay but I athink you need a ‘but’ to break it into three’s, and then you could flip it: I thought, you thought, I thought, but you thought, I thought, you thought. But,… Then repeat