windwalker wrote:
Have you ever heard of or seen this word used outside of a taiji concept. If one is relaxed and connected does that mean they have pung jin or is there something more
Peng is taiji terminology although when I first started learning IMA it was being discussed online and as I started to meet martial artists from China I asked a couple bagua guys about it and, of course, they knew what it was and said it was important to learn. I don't know if there is a term for it in bagua, but if people understand it it is written about in the Liang Zhenpu bagua songs. In fact in the first song.
Hollow the chest, suspend the crown, and sink the waist,
Swing the step, join the knees, and grasp the ground firmly,
Sink the shoulders and drop the elbow to extend the forward palm,
The eyes watch between the thumb and index finger.
And in Song 24
Strong force is released from tendons and bone,
Firmness from the bones is channeled by the tendons,
The big tendon of the heel connects to the spine and head,
Extend the power by using the follow step.
In xinyi I think it is referred to as six sided power and in yiquan it is called contradictory power.
I think being relaxed and connected is a minimalist description and is constrained by the examples provided and is directed to an audience who is interested in IMAs. You would have to be shown what relaxed and connected means by a good instructor and contrary to what some videos on youtube say it is not a trick that you can learn in a few minutes. It takes years to learn how to relax and to connect. If you look at the examples the people are moving and if you start to talk about how to use jin you could write a book.
windwalker wrote:I think pung jin would be better translated as expanding power, I am not aware of it having a direction
I would agree about the core skill, but if you are talking about the 8 jin - an jin is down and out so if peng is out or expanding what is the difference between an jin and peng jin?