expression of the whole body's force

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby Walk the Torque on Sat May 17, 2008 12:48 am

Well yes and no John,

I could hurt someone with a fist full of coins, but that does not make it whole body force.
Last edited by Walk the Torque on Sat May 17, 2008 12:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby Ian on Sat May 17, 2008 2:26 am

mixjourneyman wrote:Do you think [whole body force is] important? Or do you emphasize other qualities?


Do you always need full body power? If I have you on the ground, stick my finger up your nostril and say "if you move, I'll rip it off", you may not want to fight anymore.


Walk the Torque wrote:Well yes and no John,

I could hurt someone with a fist full of coins, but that does not make it whole body force.


What does that say? To me that says it's not always essential to use whole body force.
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby cdobe on Sat May 17, 2008 3:18 am

Walk the Torque wrote:Mix,

There is also another question involved in this query of the expression of power; and that is how we express whole body power. This is very much wrapped up in the method or methods of your generation of power. For instance, if you you were to use the shortening of an arc in say, the arms, thereby condensing the power into a smaller area; this would result in the arms moving in smaller circles and appearing as if the power was not a) being expressed in the extremities and/or b)very strong at all; yet it is.

Another thing to remember is that if you are not in contact with another body when doing your fa jin movements, then you are retaining the power inside your body anyway because it is not being transfered anywhere.

As for being soft; there are a number of reasons for using it in your training. 1) if you practice being really soft, you learn how to guide the force through your body better because you can feel more deeply what you are doing. 2) relaxation aids conductivity 3) it is possible to train near total relaxation with 100% stretch. 4) being soft reduces the risk of adverse effects of 'trapped' force in the body ;)

Having said this though, it is possible to become too soft, and in this case one should HTFU ;D


Good Post John :)
I'ld like to add two additional arguments for softness:
1) The greatest active force of skeletal muscles can be generated from the state of rest. This is a physiological fact. (My physiological knowledge is not in English terms, so I have a hard time expressing myself here) It is a function of the sarcomer length.
2) Increasing your maximal strength has a lot to do with neurological adaptions (especially in the early stages). You can increase your maximal muscle strength without ever tensing a muscle for about 20%. Here's some recent researchhttp://www.psyjournals.com/content/vh41375276335755/?p=52bb1c0a0b404579a14aa8bcd101140a&pi=0

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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby C.J.Wang on Sat May 17, 2008 8:31 am

Since I am most familiar with Bagua, I will just focus on it rather than discussing the other two.

Bagua is about hidden power. You learn how to exert and generate a great amount of force without break in energy and appearant effort - just like in circle walking.

My Bagua teacher likes to use the flexible steel/springy cannon ball analogy when describing the style's unified power. There's really nothing soft and yielding about it. When he hits me with his favorite technique, the single crashing palm (dan zhuang zhang), it feels as if I have ran into a wall and got bounced back. I know exactly how, when, and where he's going to hit, but I still can't deflect, block, or neutralize it.

Yesterday at the park, he sat on the bench and put his palms on my belly while I stood close to him. With his feet off the ground, he still sent me flying with the palm strike.
Last edited by C.J.Wang on Sat May 17, 2008 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby D_Glenn on Sat May 17, 2008 10:16 am

"Yesterday at the park, he sat on the bench and put his palms on my belly while I stood close to him. With his feet off the ground, he still sent me flying with the palm strike."

Nice. That is what bagua is about - getting to the level of the 'Kun' trigram 'qilin' form- all broken lines, power in the individual segments of the body and the ability to strike from a sitting position. Dong Haichuan knocked Yin Fu's front teeth from a sitting position using qilin.
Mixjourneyman, the bagua song 'the yang fire and yin amulet' is seemingly pretty esoteric but it basically describes the lifelong process of stoking the fire (qian trigram -yang) by using force and getting it strongly out to the tips in the beginning and forging/ folding the steel of the body until as a whole it develops into the 'kun' trigram - strength in all its segments and force coming back to the body or withdrawing (fan shen zhang). Basically though the process of withdrawing into the dantian should be there from the beginning though. When hands aren't going out you should be pulling back in- slooow than fast, always gathering more than you disperse.
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby Walk the Torque on Sat May 17, 2008 6:11 pm

cdobe wrote:
Walk the Torque wrote:Mix,

There is also another question involved in this query of the expression of power; and that is how we express whole body power. This is very much wrapped up in the method or methods of your generation of power. For instance, if you you were to use the shortening of an arc in say, the arms, thereby condensing the power into a smaller area; this would result in the arms moving in smaller circles and appearing as if the power was not a) being expressed in the extremities and/or b)very strong at all; yet it is.

Another thing to remember is that if you are not in contact with another body when doing your fa jin movements, then you are retaining the power inside your body anyway because it is not being transfered anywhere.

As for being soft; there are a number of reasons for using it in your training. 1) if you practice being really soft, you learn how to guide the force through your body better because you can feel more deeply what you are doing. 2) relaxation aids conductivity 3) it is possible to train near total relaxation with 100% stretch. 4) being soft reduces the risk of adverse effects of 'trapped' force in the body ;)

Having said this though, it is possible to become too soft, and in this case one should HTFU ;D





Good Post John :)
I'ld like to add two additional arguments for softness:
1) The greatest active force of skeletal muscles can be generated from the state of rest. This is a physiological fact. (My physiological knowledge is not in English terms, so I have a hard time expressing myself here) It is a function of the sarcomer length.
2) Increasing your maximal strength has a lot to do with neurological adaptions (especially in the early stages). You can increase your maximal muscle strength without ever tensing a muscle for about 20%. Here's some recent researchhttp://www.psyjournals.com/content/vh41375276335755/?p=52bb1c0a0b404579a14aa8bcd101140a&pi=0

CD


cdobe, just so you know, Walk the torque is not John.

all the best

Conn
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby Mut on Sat May 17, 2008 7:02 pm

I was taught that it in ba gua is not tension that is inherent, but tautness.

To understand the difference, make a fist and squeeze it tight, that is tension.

Now open your hand and extend or reach out with your middle finger until you feel a slight buzz. The muscle tone that results is tautness. The coiling and twisting of the body produces this tautness in ba gua.

A good analogy is a rubber band, you stretch the rubber band in one direction and let it go, it was taught with stored energy and then the energy is released.

So to in ba gua, with coiling and twisting of the waist and body, the muscles and sinew are made taut, and then it is released like the rubber band.

By remembering this principle and applying it to my jibengong, shen fa, even the tien gan practices I was able to understand and build the connections that are used to establish whole body power in every movement.


Thanks Walter! I love talking about rubber bands, Instead of tautness we use the term muscle extension as opposed to contraction, but tautness may be even better term.
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby Walter Joyce on Sat May 17, 2008 7:17 pm

Mut wrote:
Thanks Walter! I love talking about rubber bands, Instead of tautness we use the term muscle extension as opposed to contraction, but tautness may be even better term.


I'm glad that it helped.
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby Kaitain on Sun May 18, 2008 12:49 am

Bar was right on the money for me. The sense of connection of the palm of the hand to the sole of the foot powering it, with the dan tien magnifying it - that's what I'm working with at the moment. There is the obvious path of the rear leg to the lead hand, and then the less obvious path of the front foot to the other hand. Then it all gets silly as I'm working on changing the connections mid flow, which feels like a process of refinement.

I take what I get from that to the heavy bag and focus mitts and try to work with it. Without the bag training I wouldn't be able to hit at all. Without the form training I wouldnt be able to hit anything like as hard unless I spent an awful lot of time just doing bag work. The form trains a bunch of other stuff so I feel it's more efficient.

I agree with John - posture testing shows people very quickly if they have the connections right. Walk in front of someone's brush knee - if they dont move you without adjusting what they're doing, then they haven't got it right. My teacher used to sneak up on me when I was training and get in the way/lean on me/push me, so I got used to being balanced in all directions and being able to move him without knowing he was there. It certainly improved my intent :)
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Re: expression of the whole body's force

Postby cdobe on Sun May 18, 2008 1:01 am

Walk the Torque wrote:cdobe, just so you know, Walk the torque is not John.

all the best

Conn


Conn,
I'm sorry, I confused you with IWalkTheCircle.

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