SHUANG ZHONG, DOUBLE WEIGHTEDNESS," http://www.amicale-yangjia-michuan-tjq. ... n/node/571:
Claudy Jeanmougin on January 2013 wrote:The classic Taiji Quan texts speak about “double weightedness” (雙 重: shuang zhong). What
does this expression mean to you? What do you think about Peter Ralston’s position on this
question? (Mr. Ralston’s text will be published in issue #73). These are the questions we asked a number of Taiji Quan teachers and practitioners. We would like to thank the six people who responded. We hope that there will be further reflection on this subject, as double weightedness remains something of a mystery.
— Claudy Jeanmougin.
Serge Dreyer
Comments on Peter Ralston’s text.
I find Ralston’s book interesting approach even if it can be bit too intellectual and esoteric, sometimes leading to contradictions, such as recognizing the uncertainties concerning the origin of Taiji Quan and in the same sentence claiming to offer a “historical perspective”.
In describing the idea of effortless power, he beats around the bush, such a discussion turns out, as it does for all of us, to be unable to capture a real ity which one must try to experience directly. And that, for all we know, is as far as any of us can go.
In the passage which Claudy asked us to comment upon, references to neuroscience (the opposition of the reptilian brain and the cerebral cortex) are not developed1(1) and simply reproduce a number of other known oppositions (conditioning vs reflex, etc.).
I recognize, as he does, that many martial artists stand on both legs and are not necessarily in a position of weakness, I’m thinking in particular of wrestlers. There is no reason to think they would be at a disadvantage in a battle against someone who practices Taiji Quan(2). All martial arts competitors know, or at least it seems me they should know, the arbitrary nature of comparisons between different martial arts styles. Ultimately, the winner of any given match will eventually lose. And in some situations positioning onself on both legs might just be useful, without necessarily becoming a systematic approach.
My perpective on the idea of ‘double weightedness’
First of all, my experience is limited to Tui Shou, because I don’t consider myself to be sufficiently experienced in combat to offer an opinion on the subject. I think that it is also possible to find double weightedness in the arms. This can happen if, while pushing with one arm, for example, the other arm remains too tense, thus reducing the effectiveness of the technique. We can notice this problem in the ‘jab’ movement, from the first section of our form (photos 27 and 28)(3); if after blocking a blow, the left arm remains too tense as the right arm begins it’s action, I would say the two arms are double weighted.
It also seems to me that the idea of double weightedness has a mental as well as a physical aspect, and that it also involves the adversary/partner. One only has to look at competitors in mixed martial arts to see that their two legged stances do not keep them from being extremely mobile. Furthermore, I have noticed that the defeats I have experienced in Tui Shou (competitions and challenges) involved adversaries/partners who, despite being double weighted, were still very effective.
My experience in tui shou has shown me that when one of my pushes has been blocked or absorbed by my adversary/partner, and my mind refuses to accept this difficulty, my body and my mind become too heavy respectively. In such a case, the intelligence of my body, or if you prefer, my body’s familiarity with Tui Shou, is no longer enough to solicit a change of posture from my mind, which is thus unable to send the appropriate instructions for my body to follow. It is not unlike the paralizing fear of a car bearing down on you, which leaves you frozen in the middle of the road.
Perhaps the inventor(s) of Taiji Quan had noticed that in moments of extreme danger, when we loose our calm, we tend to put our weight on both feet and to hold both arms out stiff. This double weighted posture may actually be a conditioned response to fear (from man’s reptilian brain?), which practicioners of Taiji Quan must learn to overcome in order to find the fluidity of movement necessary in transforming such a situation. All of this is obviously just a limited point of view, which I will not venture beyond.
________
1) Different schools of neuroscience offer diverging opinions. According to Dossiers pour la Science, (#76, July-September 2012, p.32) “Mitocondria are tiny organisms which produce energy and are passed along only through the mother”, but for one specialists I know, this energy is electrical in nature…
2) I would just like to reiterate my position that it is the quality of the individual which is the determining factor and not the particular style he practices. In the Nanjing national martial arts tournament of 1929, there were no Taiji Quan practitioners on the podium in any of the categories. The tournament Peter mentions, which I also attended, was called
a “world championship” mainly for political reasons, and did not include competitors from mainland China. This takes nothing away from Peter Ralston’s remarkable performance, but I don’t agree with the conclusions he draws from it.
3) Wang, Yen-nien. “Yang Family Hidden Tradition of Taiji Quan, Illustrated and Explained” Vol. 1. Taipei, Taiwan: Hsin Hwa Publishing Co., Inc., 1988.
"雙重
The Question ofDouble Weightednees," http://www.amicale-yangjia-michuan-tjq. ... n/node/572:
Peter Ralston on May 2013 wrote:ALL serious students of Tʼai Chi are exposed to the principle called double weightiness, and yet few of us have any clear understanding of what itʼs really all about. Itʼs possible that this principle has more to offer than first meets the eye. But to get at this “more” we need to consider it from a new perspective.
Looking at how and why the term was created in the first place gives us some clues as to its meaning. Applying some common sense, and a little basic physics and neurology provides even more information. For myself, I can personally contribute decades of in depth experimentation and investigation. Using these tools we can come up with a pretty solid idea of what this principle might be.
Although there are no completely solid accounts about the beginnings of Tʼai Chi, a brief historical look is appropriate to begin our investigation.
The idea of being double-weighted originated with a man who many historians identify as the first known Tʼai Chi master, Wang Chung Yueh. Accounts that we have are inconsistent, but suffice it to say that Master Wang appears many years after the founder of Tʼai Chi — who may have been Chang San Feng. Most accounts state that it was Master Wang Chung Yueh who first delivered Tʼai Chi to the Chen family. Itʼs said that Wang demonstrated such superiority over the pugilists of their village that the Chens wisely entreated him to stay and teach.
Upon his departure from the Chens, Wang left a manual describing his art. Toward the end of the manual he makes mention of a central fault found in martial practice that is often translated as “double-weightiness”. In the Appendix of my book The Art of Effortless Power (1991), I chose from nine different translations of the Tʼai Chi Classics those particular translations that were significantly different from one another. I did this so the reader could better see them as translations of something difficult to convey in English. Here are two translations of the very same Chinese characters from one of the lines in Wangʼs manual where this fault was mentioned.
The reason why a person can still be subdued, even after years of practice, is because he has not been made to realize the fault of “double-weightiness”.
(Lee Translation)
It has often been the case that one who has practiced boxing for several years but who has not mastered the correct principle is usually beaten by his opponent. His divided attention is to blame.
(Kuo Translation)
You can see that the phrase double-weightiness isnʼt in the second translation, here itʼs presented as divided attention. That two terms for the same issue have such diverse translations points to the likelihood that there is simply no English equivalent for the distinction that Wang was really making. When we factor in that even in his own time and culture he was communicating something that no one grasped, itʼs not surprising that we are left with such different translations of the same Chinese characters. Yet, when itʼs translated as “double weighted”, people commonly assume it refers to standing equally on two feet. On the surface this seems logical, and many Tʼai Chi teachers have passed on that viewpoint. But is that what Wang was actually pointing to?
The closer one looks at the issue, the more it seems unlikely that the fault Wang spoke of was merely weight distribution. How hard is it to stop standing on two feet? Most of us can learn to do it within seconds, and can train to do it regularly very quickly. There are reasons not to stand on two feet equally. It restricts mobility and limits pelvic rotation and center movement. Since we canʼt shift our weight forward or back our use of the center is severely restricted. So standing equally on two feet isnʼt a good idea. But is this all Wang was referring to?
Wang was saying that even after years of training, this “fault” is the reason someone can still be beaten. Do you think that could possibly be standing on two feet? One reason we would hesitate to assert this is that there are plenty of martial artists who regularly distribute weight equally on both feet, but they canʼt necessarily be beaten just because of it — even by those who donʼt. But mostly, if these students of Wangʼs lost only because they kept standing on two feet for years on end, they would have to be the slowest learners ever! I propose that Wang was actually referring to something far more challenging, and certainly less simplistic than just standing equally on two feet. What might we ourselves find difficult to change even after years of practice?
A good candidate would be something counterintuitive. If bracing up on two legs is difficult to avoid, we need to know why. We brace up to meet a force, or engage a weight, or deal with opposition. This is because we habitually counter strength with strength. We can see that this would be difficult to stop since it is the most automatic response used by almost everyone when fighting. Unless we actually engage in a real martial competition of some kind, it is easy to suppose that we could simply stop using strength if we believe we should. But this is just a thought, which neglects the fact that the brain and nervous system of our bodies have been programmed since childhood to do otherwise.
Investigating the matter, we find that any time we use strength — which is every time we try to move a heavy object, struggle with a significant force, or meet with some resistance to our actions — we always brace up. We also tend to lean our bodyʼs weight in order to counter any weight or resistance we run into. Simply observe any “push hands” competition and you will see these activities obviously taking place. If you study this, youʼll find that whenever people try to apply or receive a force, they always use strength, brace up, and lean.
Further investigation reveals why. Consider a baby just learning to stand. He is mastering balance but hasnʼt yet mastered applying a force to a large object. Heʼs excited about his new power of mobility and so waddles over to push on his toddler sister. Whatʼs going to happen the second he applies force? Heʼs going to land right on his diaper! Why? Because his use of strength pushes his own weight just as much as it does hers, so he knocks himself to the floor. Undeterred, however, he tries again and again until he finally learns to brace up his chubby little legs and lean into his sisterʼs weight. Making this shift counters the push-back he will receive from using strength, and in this way he succeeds in pushing her over while remaining upright.
So it goes with all of us. Every time we use strength to move an external object of any significant weight or groundedness, we immediately put our balance in jeopardy, just like the baby. This is an indelible matter of physics. Yet we have trained our bodies and nervous systems to counter the expansion that occurs when we use strength. Bracing the legs and leaning against the force offers us a rigid platform from which we can shove or yank and affect anotherʼs weight while
not losing our own balance. But this still puts our balance in jeopardy, increases tension, and greatly restricts our fluidity. Since weʼve been doing this from childhood, it is engrained and difficult to change. If we want to change this deep seated programming, we need to understand a little about how our bodies function in this domain.
Our brains are extremely complex, but in general we can divide them into the cerebral cortex, often referred to as grey matter, and the “reptilian” or more primal part of the brain. Itʼs the reptilian brain as well as the white matter that controls pretty much everything that goes on with the body except thinking. Our highly developed cerebral cortex set us apart from the other creatures of the world, and we are quite proud of our ability to think, reason, and formulate abstract ideas and imaginary possibilities.
Yet we may be underestimating the essential role played by our reptilian brain in the domain of mastery. Have you ever tried to catch a fly? Even if the fly insists on sitting on the edge of your cup as you repeatedly swish it away, it evades you with skill and often lands again on your cup. Do you have that degree of ability?
Have you ever seen a fly crash land? No? Neither have I. They are not only hard to catch but make perfect and exact landings almost anywhere. Any human who could perform so skillfully would be considered a master, wouldnʼt he? The point is that the fly has such a small brain itʼs hard to find, and none of it is cerebral cortex! This means all of that skill comes from the inconspicuous white matter, which, when it comes to skill, puts our “superior” grey matter to shame. We often fail to notice that the reptilian brain, the non-thinking part of our brains, contains far more skill and “intelligence” than we realize, and that it dominates our every bodily function. If we are going to accomplish anything close to the skill of a common house fly, it is the non-thinking part of the brain that needs to be transformed. In order to avoid putting our balance in jeopardy and freezing our bodies in rigidity — in other words, remain constantly balanced and relaxed even under pressure — we need to make a fundamental shift in our nervous system. Such a deep alteration is a challenging affair, and Wangʼs students could have easily practiced for years attempting this transformation and still failed to give up their habitual use of strength.
Consider that this “fault” is brought about by our nervous systemʼs automatic and often unconscious use of strength in reaction to encountering anotherʼs weight, force, or resistance. Although standing equally on both feet should be avoided, the difficulty in transforming our habitual and reactive use of strength is a much more likely candidate for what Wang was communicating. The domain weʼre talking about isnʼt found in our solo practice, it is one
involving interaction and is integral to becoming truly skillful at Tʼai Chi. Iʼve looked into this matter myself for many decades, and I have engaged every kind of martial artist without loss since I was a teenager. Many of you knew of my reputation even before I became the first non-Asian to win the full- contact World martial arts tournament held in China in 1978. Yet you probably didnʼt know that the reason the International Tʼai Chi gathering, held close by that same week, claimed me as a “Tʼai Chi” fighter during the 5 days of the tournament, was that I refrained from responding in kind when my opponents used strength. Itʼs been more than thirty years since then and I have only confirmed this choice over and over again throughout this time.
At age 60, I want to share with you that there is a way around this “fault”. It isnʼt a quick fix since, as I stated above, it demands a fundamental shift in our neurological system. If we arenʼt going to use muscular strength then obviously we need to find another source of power. This new power canʼt depend on how much we weigh or how strong we are, and must be consistent with keeping our balance in our own feet throughout its use without bracing up. Such is the nature of what I call “effortless power”. Effortless power uses an “intrinsic” strength inherent in the body, which allows us to avoid the use of muscular strength, bracing up, and the loss of balance. In short, we avoid Wangʼs fault. The use of effortless power, however, is not something that can be picked up overnight. But merely pondering the dynamics that must be involved to do so is enough to suggest that the principle called “double weightiness” isnʼt what it seems at first. Set aside any beliefs you have on the matter, and look into it for yourself. A more thorough investigation can contribute a great deal to your studies, even if all it does is to invite you to question beyond what you take for granted. Such an open perspective will enhance your practice no matter where your search takes you.
"Double-weightiness," http://www.amicale-yangjia-michuan-tjq. ... n/node/572:
Dan Docherty on May 2013 wrote:THIS highly important concept is mentioned in the Canon of Tai Chi Chuan.
“With double-weightiness there is a hindrance; you can often see people who have practiced their skills for several years who cannot change and turn. This leads them to being entirely ruled by others. They are not even aware they have this sickness of double-weightiness. If we wish to be free from this sickness, we must know Yin and Yang.
When adherence is simply moving and when moving is simply adherence, When Yin does not depart from Yang; when Yang does not depart from Yin; when Yin and Yang serve one another, then we can say we understand force.
After we understand force, the more we train, the more expert we become.”
Many Tai Chi instructors completely understand double-weightiness, believing it to be where there is an equal amount of weight on each foot, something they themselves do every time they begin and end their Tai Chi forms. Some even talk of single-weightiness, a nonentity.
"Shuang zhong, the double weight," http://www.amicale-yangjia-michuan-tjq. ... n/node/572:
Claudy Jeanmougin on February 2013 wrote:I ALREADY expressed myself on this subject in one of my articles, but it was simply about one of its application in the execution of the shape of our style.
Now, it is necessary to be more explicit because of the debate I caused. I won’t say anything about Peter Ralston’s statements to which I leave the full responsibility of his papers which the reading seems to me a bit complicated.
I will stick to Classiques du Taiji quan and only to it. Thus let’s resume the terms of the concerned texts and Sabine’s translation to which I always relied for her precision and her requirements on the linguistic level. Shuang zhong is a concept which the meaning is given by the use of examples of errors. If we commit the fault of Shuang zhong, it’s because:
–we are unable to transform the movements,
–we didn’t understand the applications of the yin and
the yang,
–we are not straight as a plumb line,
–we didn’t make a support on one side (we didn’t
empty one side).
The hua transformation is the art to make change the yin in yang and vice versa. For this transformation to happen, it is necessary to release, to obtain the emptiness, which is essential for the transformation. here, we have a reference to the Zhan-nian-lian-sui principle, which applies perfectly the laws of the yin/yang in the practice of Tuishou (see the article written on the subject in one of the bulletins). This reference finds itself in the explanation of what we should do to avoid Shuang zhong: “To avoid it, it is necessary to understand the yin yang, to adhere is to dodge, to dodge is to adhere”, that is, to avoid Shuang zhong, you have to apply the principle of Zhan-nian-lian-sui.
The plumb line sends us back to the vertical axis, all around of which everything organizes, of which the transformation through the pelvis. Concerning the “support on one side”, it makes reference to the alternation emptiness/full which is nothing else than one of the multiple variants of the yin/yang. Indeed, it is necessary to specify what is the emptiness and the full by avoiding the use of the only term of energy or Qi. It will be necessary to specify if it is an emptiness of a yin or a yang, or a full of a yin or a yang. In our practice, we often use the terms of emptiness and full to indicate on what foot the body mass is concerned. And we reserve the terms of yin and yang to indicate the transformations which take place at the level of the alternative jest of hands. But in both cases, we use a shortcut. Best would be to consider emptiness and full as yin or yang.
I thus propose for Shuang zhong, the following definition: Shuang zhong results from the incapacity to make emptiness so that takes place the transformations yin/yang and emptiness/full. From this definition, we can indicate the most frequent errors: Shuang zhong results from the incapacity to make emptiness so that takes place the transformations yin/yang and emptiness/full. From this definition, we can indicate the most frequent errors:
In the execution of the shape:
–default of mobilization of the pelvis for the gestural
expression and the changes of support;
–dissociation high/low in the jest of the mutations
yin/yang at the level of hands and legs;
–dissociation right/left in the jest of the mutations
yin/yang at the level of hands and legs;
In the practice of Tuishou:
–weight of the body distributed on two feet,
–all the resistances against the pushes,
–not application of Zhan-lian-nian-sui,
–absence of release and not creation of the emptiness,
In the daily life and the practise of Taiji quan:
–mental resistance (excess of yang)
–absence of hearing (excess of yang),
–ect.
We could continue the list to enlighten better the meaning of Shuang zhong, but I humbly have to admit that this expression is very difficult to translate. I shall thus continue to use Double weight as rough translation by well specifying that it is not only about body mass, but about a concept which highlights all the laws of transformation.
If we make the error of Shuang zhong, it is because we don’t transform (the error is to be looked for in the waist according to the Classiques.) If we don’t transform it is because we don’t apply the laws of the yin/yang. If we don’t apply the laws of the yin/yang it is because we are unable to make the emptiness necessary for the realization of the transformation yin/yang and vice versa. And we can so continue to recite the principles contained in the Classiques. If the expression is difficult to translate, its application is even more difficult ...