the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

D_Glenn wrote:
Baguazhang has 2 distinct ways of using the martial arts. The way that is common to other martial arts of the world is called 'Chuan Zhang' (Penetrating Palms), and this system was the first thing taught to new students in order to quickly give them some fighting skills, but it doesn't have any Internal body-mechanics, so that if the student, for whatever reason or another didn't work out, or wasn't a good person, then they would be kicked out of the school and still not know anything of value.

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Perhaps consider Segs' advice here, brother D. Your habit of speaking about bagua in such an equivocal way has drawn many comments over the years. I don't think it takes much effort to add a qualification, and neither do plenty of others it seems.

I always love reading your posts, and find your lineage's theories fascinating. But I think you do yourself a disservice with the absolutist tone.

I generally don't say "in my opinion" before I say something. Who the heck else's opinion would it be?

Qualifying a post with the addition of an 'imo' is simply a good way to avoid having others view your comments as arrogantly authoritative or intended to be absolutely the final word on the topic being discussed, imo.

klonk wrote:I generally don't say "in my opinion" before I say something. Who the heck else's opinion would it be?

There's a difference between discussing technicalities and principle, and history.. imo.

Of course if you say "in WC it should be done like this" one can see that this is your opinion.

But if you say "WC was taught like this 100 years ago" as Doc says, it come across as an authoritative statement about historical occurrence.

It has been mentioned several times, by different people, that the way D presents the MBZ lineage's account of BGZ history as an orthodox, accepted history could be offensive to some.

Particularly the frequent comments on other lineage's Bagua consisting of "the xxx animal system taught in bagua" - with the clear implication that only HJBs lineage has the complete system, not to mention the explicit contradiction of the lineage in question's version of history.

I don't have a dog in this fight, and I really do enjoy reading D's posts (ironically, particularly the ones discussing bagua's history). It just seemed like a perfect example of what Shawn was talking about in the other thread

I'll say it sometimes if the matter is particularly contentious or people are acting butt-hurt. But in general it is useless waste of electrons to say:

In my opinion it hurts to be hit in the head by a boxer. In my opinion you should keep your guard up and your feet mobile. In my opinion you will need less aspirin it you do this. IMHO, YMMV.

klonk wrote:In my opinion it hurts to be hit in the head by a boxer.

English has a lot of redundancy. For example, when you said,

- "I did yesterday ..." that "yesterday" already mean past tense. You don't need to use "did" to indicate it's pass tense.
- "IMO, it ..." that since you type those words from your keyboard, to put "IMO" it's also meaningless.

Sometime I think "humble" and "no self-confidence" are hard to be distinguished. When I say that I'm a left wing liberal, if that offends some right wing conservative, that's their problem and not mine.

For a long period of time, I just ask questions. I let people to draw their own conclusions. Soon I just tired of putting one "?" after another "?"

The best words ever written on English style are Professor Strunk's: "Avoid unnecessary words."

But "did" is a requirement of the language. You have to have a verb. Sorry. If you think the English language is a hardship for Chinese, I've got news for you.

Of course we need verb. But to me,

- I met him yesterday (English grammar).
- I meet him yesterday (Chinese grammar).

should be the same.

If the "past tense" doesn't exist, I believe people will get used to it. We can still use "yesterday", "before", "many days ago", ... to indicate that it happened in the past.

If we reverse the words

- cargo (go by car),
- shipment (moved by ship),

people may even feel more comfortable with it.

Chinese grammar in English. I will have to think about that. Examples I have heard do not embolden be to try more of the same.

Okay, if you want a really good laugh, ask me to say something in Chinese.

dspyrido wrote:

D_Glenn wrote:What article, the ycgf one?

Yes. Namely the distinction of jin - wei (being external) vs. nei (being internal) jin. This quote probably summarizes the gap:

The main disadvantage of nei jin is that, although you can use it to move people easily, it is not powerful enough in itself to be truly destructive

I like consider that when something is correctly "internally powered" it takes advantage of the deeper structures found in the body. This done right means that applied force with the right supporting structure can be hidden, hard to see, changing & devastating. It is the sort of thing that makes people wonder - what happened? Why did the opponent fall down? Whereas the article clearly states anything to do with the following are external.

duan jin – breaking force, chuang jin –ramming force, cun jin – one inch force, leng jin – cold force, dou jin – shaking force, and chong jin – charging force, etc.

So sure I can stick, adhere, absorb but these are impossible to really apply against very strong, heavy opponents without again having tapped into the use of deeper structures of the body.

It is this distinction that I did not agree with. If you have the right connecting structures which are really only attuned by great awareness you use it to punch, follow, pin, throw, adhere etc.

I can't speak for the article, as only the author- Zhang Yun, could really debate what he wrote.

But, my brain is still fuzzy from last night, but I think some of the things you have problems with, were, IMO, cleared up in the 2nd and 3rd page of the article.

Ok no need to shout (or maybe there is a big need as we are not listening). I completely agree with this statement. The mechanics trained in proper ima are focused on supporting combat concepts of the jins:

haha, yeah the shouting isn't meant for you, just more of a reinforcement for the previous posts.


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klonk wrote:I generally don't say "in my opinion" before I say something. Who the heck else's opinion would it be?

[***** DISCLAIMER ***** The following text and post is the sole opinion of forum member D_Glenn. It is not intended to be the opinion, or represent views and/ or theories of anyone other than forum member D_Glenn. ***** END OF DISCLAIMER *****]

+1

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fwiw, I agree with Segs.

I've never had any friction with Glen (that I am aware of anyways ) but yeah, a couple qualifiers here and there would be appropriate.

As to klonks comment, yes, that's the same as I was taught in middle school. Never say, "In my opinion" but this is a discussion board, not a research paper. In polite conversatoin, when just asserting big claims that totally beg the question, we say things like, "IMHO" or "In my experience" or "according to what I was taught" etc.

So...whatever. Take it for what it's worth. Virtually none of these esoteric bagua or, even worse, broad generalizations about "bolang jin" or "fanlang jin" are even in the remote vicinity of broad consensus. They are just the teachings of one particular tradition. So yeah, it can definitely come off as kind of pretentious and arrogant to just spout that stuff out as if it was settled fact.

bailewen wrote:... even worse, broad generalizations about "bolang jin" or "fanlang jin" are even in the remote vicinity of broad consensus. They are just the teachings of one particular tradition. So yeah, it can definitely come off as kind of pretentious and arrogant to just spout that stuff out as if it was settled fact.

It would be nice for people to discuss what they know about 'bolang jin' and 'fanlang jin'.

Numerous Private Messages between me and some other more experienced RSF members have confirmed a lot of what I wrote about previously esoteric things, BLJ and FLJ, in particular, have gotten me the most PMs, but I'm always asked to leave their names out and don't mention that they agreed with me, when I post on the forum. So I have to respect this. And I try to just post tidbits and spread out the information. I also PM them and ask if I can quote something they wrote, but without any quotations, so that any backlash will still fall on my head.

There's a lot going on behind the screen, and what I write is usually not really just from one school, but a sort of collaboration of schools. But I'm more than happy to be the sole scapegoat, as I've grown accustomed to it.
And it's still just hidden in plain sight, since I'm just some cocksure asshole on an internet forum.


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Hahaha, D_Glenn!

I don't care what anybody says, man, I really kinda like you.

Glen,

And I find the topic interesting enough and your "theories" worth discussing. Even with the context you have added though, that just makes a "school of thought" and still a long way from "fact".

Change you posting style...or not. It's not big deal to me. I'm just saying that I see where Segs is coming from. His criticism is really not that far out of left field is all.