What makes Bengquan different to a straight punch?

[johnwang]

I think what is Important depends on the situation. It changes.

I'm not sure *any* of this is really "important".

The Midterms are what's really important

Why do you train Beng Chuan for? You want to develop a striking skill that can be used to knock down your opponent. But how do your know the quality of your Beng Chuan?

[windwalker]

Bengquan, done barehand, is simply an adaptation of spear thrusting to barehand striking. It's not a modification of any other method.

Should we simply say that there is only

- good Beng Chuan that you can use it to knock your opponent down.
- bad Beng Chuan that you can't use it to knock your opponent down.

Everything else is not that important.

Everything takes its own particular form before it can function. The function of a thing is intangible, but the effect produced is there.

- good Beng Chuan that you can use it to knock your opponent down.


Function arises out of form; therefore, the intangible function is the servant of the form, which is concrete. A wheel one foot in diameter can cover thousands of miles; this is form in function [i.e. the functioning of form].

"- bad Beng Chuan that you can't use it to knock your opponent down." ..


Those who are skillful in making use of function do not find the effect in form (but in the function itself). .

http://www.baihepai.com/pak-hok-pai-lio ... %E7%BB%8F/

http://www.baihepai.com/pak-hok-pai-lio ... -siu-jong/

[Bao]

- You can use hip throw to throw your opponent down 1000 times.
- You can't use your Beng Chuan to knock your opponent down 1000 times.

One day when you are 80 years old, you will still be proud about your hip throw (because you have make it work on the mat over 1000 times). Should you feel proud about your Beng Chuan (because you have not make it work in the ring even once)?

All striking art have this problem.

A hip throw is not automatically a finishing move.
A strike is not automatically a finishing move.

It’s the same. If you win a match you can be proud. How can you be proud If your throws or punches doesn’t make you win?

If you know how to throw you still need a strong punch if you want to make sure that you can always finish someone. A punching style does not necessarily need throwing knowledge. But throwing arts need a good punch.

[Bao]

Why do you train Beng Chuan for? You want to develop a striking skill that can be used to knock down your opponent. But how do your know the quality of your Beng Chuan?

Not just by striking in the air, that’s for sure. It should be practiced on bags and preferably on a good protection with a receiver at the other end who can measure the quality of your punch.

[GrahamB]

Why do you train Beng Chuan for? You want to develop a striking skill that can be used to knock down your opponent. But how do your know the quality of your Beng Chuan?

Not just by striking in the air, that’s for sure. It should be practiced on bags and preferably on a good protection with a receiver at the other end who can measure the quality of your punch.

Personally, I don't believe you will ever learn how to get the feel of a good bengquan by punching a pad. The fist doesn't 'stick' on a pad like it does on a body.

It sounds a bit like macho nonsense, but our teacher would never let us use pads - we had to punch each other in the body. That was what he learned in China. The body reacts differently to a pad. Sure - we didn't go 100%, but enough that it hurt. So long as you stand in a good SanTi you can absorb a lot of the force (teaches you about 'iron body' style stuff). You can also give verbal feedback on how it felt, which is important.

Sure, nobody liked doing it, but it did get results.

These days I prefer grappling (Also note, I've had much, much worse injuries from doing grappling than I ever got from Xingyi).

[GrahamB]

This is Jon, who I think represents what our teacher taught the best of the people I know.

It's Pao, and just a (as always Horse-flavoured) tap, but you can see the idea of "displacing" that I was talking about.

[Bao]

Not just by striking in the air, that’s for sure. It should be practiced on bags and preferably on a good protection with a receiver at the other end who can measure the quality of your punch.

Personally, I don't believe you will ever learn how to get the feel of a good bengquan by punching a pad. The fist doesn't 'stick' on a pad like it does on a body.

However you can really learn the precision needed is ok. I like heavy, sturdy bags and good kicking protections. The problem is that there can be a very small difference of body use between a real good penetrating punch and something so so. This difference is not something you learn by punching in air. You need to learn how to feel it by understanding the difference of how releasing a good punch felt inside your own body and how a not so good punch felt. IME, It’s extremely easy to fool yourself that you do things more perfect than they really are. For a punch as beng, the coordination of your body parts must be fine-tuned. It’s very hard to understand this by yourself and it’s very easy to lose if you don’t practice to keep your movements fine-tuned and well coordinated. You do this best by getting repeated response from someone else who understand the precision needed better than you. Before you really understand the precision and it becomes second nature, something you do within thinking, well, then it’s very easy to lose it and very easy to attain bad habits by continuing to practice it wrong.

[edededed]

I think that Yeung is trying to say that bengquan appears to be a modification of the "typical" reverse punch of longfist, Shaolin, etc.

So my article was making the point that this was not the case.

Bengquan, done barehand, is simply an adaptation of spear thrusting to barehand striking. It's not a modification of any other method.

You may be correct - I don't know. I personally don't really see the connection with spearplay that much (if spear, why not saber?), but I could be wrong! (Also, in my experience, the "zha" of lan, na, zha spear basics applied to zuan.)

[Bao]

This is Jon, who I think represents what our teacher taught the best of the people I know.

It's Pao, and just a tap, but you can see the idea of "displacing" that I was talking about.

[img]....[img]

Frankly, I don't see the point of this kind of practice. Might build bad habits but maybe it's good for practicing whole body movement. In the XY I've been taught moving the opponent is considered a mistake. The power taught penetrates very deep and makes the opponent go down, preferably just by one punch.

I personally don't really see the connection with spearplay that much (if spear, why not saber?), but I could be wrong! (Also, in my experience, the "zha" of lan, na, zha spear basics applied to zuan.)

The five fists are virtually the same as five of the most important spear postures/maneuvers.
Zuan = upwards and forward twist block
Pi = Stab (downwards that re-winds the twisting from the zuan block)
Beng = forward thrust
Pao = change from the striking with "the dragon's head" to "the dragon's tail"
Heng = Horizontal block

[GrahamB]

I think that Yeung is trying to say that bengquan appears to be a modification of the "typical" reverse punch of longfist, Shaolin, etc.

So my article was making the point that this was not the case.

Bengquan, done barehand, is simply an adaptation of spear thrusting to barehand striking. It's not a modification of any other method.

You may be correct - I don't know. I personally don't really see the connection with spearplay that much (if spear, why not saber?), but I could be wrong! (Also, in my experience, the "zha" of lan, na, zha spear basics applied to zuan.)

The movements of XingYi should work equally well with any pointed weapon- sword, spear, sabre, etc...

[GrahamB]

Frankly, I don't see the point of this kind of practice. Might build bad habits but maybe it's good for practicing whole body movement. In the XY I've been taught moving the opponent is considered a mistake. The power taught penetrates very deep and makes the opponent go down, preferably just by one punch.

Makes sense - little of what you say ever resonates that much with me - we seem to be coming at things from a very different perspective. Although your point about the limitations of punching the air above is good.

[Yeung]

"and most practitioners follow his improvement in dragging the rear leg forward in the half step reverse straight punch" - reverse straight punch? Are you talking about Karate? I think you're talking about Karate.

"The technique you demonstrated did not fully utilize the power in Bengquan" - I did not demonstrate any techniques in my article.

Sorry, it was the illustration you use that did not fully utilize the power in Bengquan. I think you should have a look at the reverse straight punch as well, and Karate does emphasize the turning of the waist. In Guo Yunshen's technique involved the turning of the hip to drag the rear leg forward as well to utilize maximum muscular power. The evidence is that it is more powerful.

[Bao]

we seem to be coming at things from a very different perspective.

Makes things more interesting that way. Cheers!

In Guo Yunshen's technique involved the turning of the hip to drag the rear leg forward as well to utilize maximum muscular power. The evidence is that it is more powerful.

What evidence?

[Trick]

This is Jon, who I think represents what our teacher taught the best of the people I know.

It's Pao, and just a (as always Horse-flavoured) tap, but you can see the idea of "displacing" that I was talking about.

That way of striking we used to add in our free push-hand practice with my first Taijiquan/YiQuan teacher, it’s a good practice. And that kind of “light” striking is what I usually do when I hit the heavybag too, working more on moving around the bag. Throwing all what I might punches I feel not very useful except for getting a pure physical work out.......But what about your head(I assume it’s you) moving in that gif

[Trick]

In the XY I've been taught moving the opponent is considered a mistake. The power taught penetrates very deep and makes the opponent go down, preferably just by one punch.

Is this what you reach for during sparring ?