Form without form, intention without intention

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

Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby cloudz on Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:52 am

Yeung wrote:From "Yi Quan Lun" By Wang Xiangzhai

On the Philosophical Basis of Yiquan As for the philosophical basis
of Yiquan, I don’t want to use more pen and ink, but only put forward in the form of philosophical propositions, comparing with each other, it is not difficult to see the true face of Yiquan.
1. Zhuangzi said that "things are not things." It means that even if matter becomes matter, it is not matter. Yiquan advocates that all power is a collection of spirits. It can also be said that the force is not the force. In other words, what makes power a power is not power, but the spirit and the mind. This is the essence of Yiquan so it is called Yiquan.
2. Lao Tzu said: "Do nothing without doing nothing." Yiquan advocates that "doing is also doing nothing", and "movement that does not move is the movement that regenerates." The so-called "wuwei" and "non-moving" Yiquan are piling gong, and the so-called "youwei" and "moving" are trial and exert force. Yiquan attaches great importance to pile power, so it is also the meaning of "doing nothing". In the past, some people donated Yiquan as "ancient Taoism's static power", which is not a derogatory term.
Third, Lao Tzu said "the movement of the anti-Tao". Yiquan advocates that "there are two forces, and two can make one", that is, the unity of opposites between force and reaction. The so-called "contradictions must be unified."
The four Buddhist Zen sects say: "All dharmas are empty, that is the reality", and they say: "If you don't think about good, don't think about evil, I will return the face of my parents when they were not born." The face of my parents when they were not born is "emptiness" Ye, nothing”. Yiquan advocates that "all powers are produced by the expansion of Hunyuan's empty oil and selflessness." Therefore, it teaches people to "see the emptiness for practicality and use it in the emptiness."
Fifth, Zen also said: "There is no way to be without attachment." Yiquan also advocates that "one law does not stand, and there is no attachment to break the attachment." In combat, "I have neither the command nor the opponent." Not only is the use of resistance force to be obsessive, but also the use of tricks is obsessive. To break the attachment with non-attachment, break attachment without attachment.
6. Ming scholar Wang Shouren put forward the theory of "to conscience", while Yiquan advocates the theory of "playing innate ability". Wang Shouren said: "If the water is running wet, the fire will be dry."



Thanks for sharing this, always did like Wang XZ.. Bruce Lee totally ripped him off, of course. Wang was really the one ahead of his time and the first to speak out regards the 'classical mess'. Bruce's father practiced Yiquan from what I recall as well as some Taiji.
Last edited by cloudz on Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby marvin8 on Mon Aug 29, 2022 8:28 am

At 41:48 of an interview, James Bishop (author of Bruce Lee: Dynamic Becoming) says, Bruce plagiarized and made up the story about going on a boat and punching water.

Bruce Lee wrote:Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless...


Excerpt from "Q & A’s with Master Ma Yueliang:"

Patrick Kelly on wrote:Patrick Kelly: What is Peng Jin and is it better to maintain a little in the arms for example to prevent people from coming in?

Master Ma Yueliang: People misunderstand Peng (掤). There is another slightly different characture (棚) with the same sound, which means structure or framework. People often incorrectly think this is what is meant by Peng. If you base your Taiji on this incorrect meaning of Peng as structure then the whole of your Taiji will be incorrect.

Peng Jin is over the whole body and it is used to measure the strength and direction of the partners force. But it is incorrect to offer any resistance. It should be so light that the weight of a feather will make it move. It can be described like water which will, with no intention of its own, support equally the weight of a floating leaf or the weight of a floating ship.

Then he added in English: "Peng Jin is sensitivity".


cloudz wrote:
HotSoup wrote:I bet that explaining why his tricks don’t work on outsiders would take some more sophisticated philosophical explanations :D Thanks, had a good ,laugh watching this!

the reactions were ridiculous to be fair, was thinking to comment then saw yours :)

A demonstration with an audience member's honest reactions.

Fight Commentary Breakdowns
Jul 13, 2022

We have Wu Style Tai Chi Master Sun Jian Guo showing off some tai chi extravagance when a random stranger challenges him. Let's see if this Tai Chi master can do his push hands awesomeness on a non-compliant partner. Note, this is Wu third tone, not Wu second tone. The two styles of Tai Chi are often confused. Either way, enjoy the spectacle and the unintendted humor.

More on Sun here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p8J7r3hkxk&t=0s
Another person from his lineage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqzAtS4hmuw&t=0s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1cu3B8qQ-w
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby cloudz on Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:17 pm

yea.. I mean come on, that's how it is. It's kind of amazing that these guys expect those things to work when people don't play along. It's not that the training has no value, the problem is how it's taken out of context and confused with any kind of realism - for want of a better term.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby johnwang on Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:28 pm

cloudz wrote:these guys expect those things to work when people don't play along.

This also prove that this kind of skill has no combat value. Why does anyone want to spend his lifetime trying to develop such useless skill?

What's wrong just to develop a simple punch on the head (instead of a push on the chest)?
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby windwalker on Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:59 pm

It seems the thread is off topic,,,
not "my" intention in posting a clip of what people often write about,
but some how lose their minds when what is written about is shown :o

johnwang wrote:
cloudz wrote:these guys expect those things to work when people don't play along.

This also prove that this kind of skill has no combat value.

Why does anyone want to spend his lifetime trying to develop such useless skill?

for some people maybe the skill is not useless.
they might find it useful


What's wrong just to develop a simple punch on the head (instead of a push on the chest)?


Nothing

Can you or some of the others do what the teacher does or demos?

Would a person interested in understanding this come to you or some of the others to learn how to do something that
you either can't do, don't practice to do, or is not in your practice

Why would they :-\

As far as proof

It doesn't "prove" anything...

It shows an interaction in a demo,
for some confirming their inner bias...


Training,

Some thoughts on training using another skill set,
maybe more understandable for some :-\

As to training, I have a couple of things to say:

This kind of thing takes a long (long) time to develop. First you have to find that force, then you have to cultivate/develop it. So you have to ask yourself about your motivations, and if your motivation is enough to carry you through the years of focused work to acquire this ability.

What part of you feels the need to have this ability?

Do you have a need to break bricks or kill horses?

What is that need about?



Trying to do that while you are in the middle of a fight can be even more of a challenge, by the way.

So that's another issue.

But it helps to have a teacher, not because they can point you directly to where you need to go, but because they can provide the "skillful means" needed to open you to the possibility of such grace.


Other than that...the training is quite simple. You simply hit your phone book or your rice-filled bag with the palm of your hand, and wait, and breath, and sink your breath, and try to feel something other than your own effort coming through your hand.

Then you stick your hand in your medicine and go home... and do it again tomorrow, for the next ten or fifteen years.


https://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php ... 670f90fd4b

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUkSdvEwKMc
Last edited by windwalker on Mon Aug 29, 2022 8:51 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby cloudz on Tue Aug 30, 2022 1:49 am

johnwang wrote:
cloudz wrote:these guys expect those things to work when people don't play along.

This also prove that this kind of skill has no combat value. Why does anyone want to spend his lifetime trying to develop such useless skill?

What's wrong just to develop a simple punch on the head (instead of a push on the chest)?



I tend to agree more than I disagree.
you need to have good basics before you go and refine.
learn to strike and wrestle.

even then these kind of skills are a high refinement of a very narrow moment of engagement and can't truly represent the 'only way'.
the techniques often shown are not directly useful for any kind of serious combat situation.

It' more art than fighting - I don't mind a bit of that, but these kind of skills are not that hard to develop and they aren't that useful in of themselves.
Context, that's all it really is. It can teach certain things that must then be carried over.

Also, it's really a training method of discharging power using a body. like using a punchbag. force and issuing method can be refined. Liang De Hua explained it well in the clips posted in the taiji jin thread. Again I have to say context. As a traditional training method, and something I've engaged myself, I wouldnt throw the baby out with the bathwater.

the problem here is they are repeatedly focused on becoming a thing unto themselves, I find it a problem, and I'm not alone, clearly.
Last edited by cloudz on Tue Aug 30, 2022 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby cloudz on Tue Aug 30, 2022 1:58 am

windwalker wrote:It seems the thread is off topic,,,
not "my" intention in posting a clip of what people often write about,
but some how lose their minds when what is written about is shown :o

johnwang wrote:
cloudz wrote:these guys expect those things to work when people don't play along.

This also prove that this kind of skill has no combat value.

Why does anyone want to spend his lifetime trying to develop such useless skill?

for some people maybe the skill is not useless.
they might find it useful


What's wrong just to develop a simple punch on the head (instead of a push on the chest)?


Nothing

Can you or some of the others do what the teacher does or demos?

Would a person interested in understanding this come to you or some of the others to learn how to do something that
you either can't do, don't practice to do, or is not in your practice

Why would they :-\

As far as proof

It doesn't "prove" anything...

It shows an interaction in a demo,
for some confirming their inner bias...


Training,

Some thoughts on training using another skill set,
maybe more understandable for some :-\

As to training, I have a couple of things to say:

This kind of thing takes a long (long) time to develop. First you have to find that force, then you have to cultivate/develop it. So you have to ask yourself about your motivations, and if your motivation is enough to carry you through the years of focused work to acquire this ability.

What part of you feels the need to have this ability?

Do you have a need to break bricks or kill horses?

What is that need about?



Trying to do that while you are in the middle of a fight can be even more of a challenge, by the way.

So that's another issue.

But it helps to have a teacher, not because they can point you directly to where you need to go, but because they can provide the "skillful means" needed to open you to the possibility of such grace.


Other than that...the training is quite simple. You simply hit your phone book or your rice-filled bag with the palm of your hand, and wait, and breath, and sink your breath, and try to feel something other than your own effort coming through your hand.

Then you stick your hand in your medicine and go home... and do it again tomorrow, for the next ten or fifteen years.


https://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php ... 670f90fd4b

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUkSdvEwKMc


dude, I really don't know where to begin with you anymore. You post way way too much of this stuff.
This place has much less posters than when I was posting before and it had already started to wain a bit.
I don't think it's really a coincidence.

Anyone coming here will be put off by this - serious martial artists who want to talk about, well, serious things... are going to be put off by the same stuff, the same discussion. the same same old shit basically. It's boring!

I went through this in a fairly large scale way when you first came back around years back. In the end we became friends and that's great.
There's nothing wrong with respecting other people and what they like and so on. some tolerance is a good thing.
It's just too much bro, it's evangelical.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby Michael Babin on Tue Aug 30, 2022 8:00 am

In the end, long-term training goals are important and Windwalker makes good points about training for the sake of training and not criticizing stuff that you can't do or don't want to do.

On the other hand, in taiji some of those long-term goals have little relevance to fighting or self-defense and will seem silly to those who haven't experienced sensitivity training in this way or don't see the point of it.

I can do some of things that have been shown in various videos and when I demonstrated to groups of beginners in the past; it was obvious they thought the skills "special" or mysterious... even when I showed them how it was done from a more boring, physical point of view. Maybe the ancient Greek philosopher, Demosthenes, was right when he wrote: ""A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." Who doesn't like the thought of a little magic in our lives?

With my own students, I only taught them the skills I can do to show them how easily they could be defeated by someone who wasn't compliant or "played by the rules". Such skills are small but interesting parts of the taiji whole in self-defense terms and only work when part of a comprehensive package of martial skills and experience.

In the end, I still teach my few remaining training partners to be 'sensitive' in the ways I know about because it can be fun, plus I'm an old fart and can't take being kicked, punched or thrown the way I could even 20 years ago.

Maybe that's why so many older teachers focus on such material?
My Website [with a link to my Youtube Channel] https://sites.google.com/view/mbtaiji/home
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby windwalker on Tue Aug 30, 2022 8:26 am

Must not be boring, must not be boring. ;D


Maybe that's why so many older teachers focus on such material?


Or maybe it takes awhile for people to reach a point were they understand the following ..

汪永泉授楊式太極拳語錄及拳照
Wang Yongquan Writings on Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan
Translated by google translate :)


]一般理解,所謂勁兒,是把本身的神、意、氣集中到一點上,再把這個點運用到某個姿勢上
去。經過長期的鍛煉以後,就會逐漸擴大增長起來,變成一種力。這種力是經過鍛煉取得的,
是後天之拙力。這種力形式大、動量滯、變換遲、動的去路直,在技擊方面用起來,因身形動
作大,運動量較強,因此影響內氣的波動,易於浮躁。這近於長拳的練法和要求。

"] It is generally understood that the so-called jin is to concentrate one's own spirit, mind, and energy on one point, and then apply this point to a certain posture.

After long-term exercise, it will gradually expand and grow, becoming a kind of force. This kind of power is acquired through training, and it is an acquired clumsy power.
This kind of force has a large form, sluggish momentum, slow transformation, and straight movement.
It is used in martial arts.

Because of the large body shape and strong movement, it affects the fluctuation of internal qi and is easy to be impetuous.
This is close to the practice and requirements of Changquan.



初練太極拳的人覺得太極拳的練法與上面的練法相似,其實不然。如果按照太極拳的理論要求
,經過一段時間的鍛煉,逐漸把理論與姿勢結合起來,就會很明顯地感覺出來,上面的練法和
要求是與太極拳不同的。練習太極拳的要求,是把本身的神、意、氣化合歸一,融合在一起,
形成一種輕靈圓活之勁兒。這種勁兒是以氣、意混之為主。它的本質是氣,對它的要求是空、
虛、散,而不是集聚的。這就是太極勁兒,又叫做先天勁兒。

"People who are new to Taijiquan think that the practice of Taijiquan is similar to the above practice, but it is not.

If you follow the theoretical requirements of Taijiquan, after a period of training, and gradually combine the theory with posture, you will clearly feel that the above practice methods and requirements are different from Taijiquan.

The requirement of practicing Taijiquan is to unify and integrate one's own spirit, mind and qi into one, forming a kind of light, round and lively energy.

This kind of energy is mainly based on the mixture of qi and meaning. Its essence is qi, and its requirements are emptiness, emptiness, and dispersal, rather than gathering.

This is Tai Chi Jin, also known as Innate Jin."



My posting reflects my own path in finding the above to be true, for "me".
for others it may not be.....

It does take awhile....and also quite different.

Spent 10yrs learning directly from my last taiji teacher abandoning everything else to follow this path,
finding my own

Another 10yrs after learning from him to start to figure it out gaining some small skill.... :)
not so easy....

Gorge, might be correct,,,I should be more circumspect in sharing thoughts...
sometimes forgetting that others don't have the same interest



cheers :)
Last edited by windwalker on Tue Aug 30, 2022 2:30 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby windwalker on Tue Aug 30, 2022 9:08 am

With my own students, I only taught them the skills I can do to show them how easily they could be defeated by someone who wasn't compliant or "played by the rules". Such skills are small but interesting parts of the taiji whole in self-defense terms and only work when part of a comprehensive package of martial skills and experience.


Read this quite often

Compliant, rules, ect

If the main strategy of taiji is to

Stick, adhere, join and follow

What would one expect to “see “that would not look like it was compliant.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby Quigga on Tue Aug 30, 2022 9:12 am

Dragon plays in water, guard the Qi at lower dantian, empty and purify the heart (loosening the heart as a muscle is far from easy), open and nourish the mind

I'm almost over the point where I constantly curse ever having found Tai Chi and instead be in acceptance of the way things are
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby Appledog on Thu Sep 01, 2022 7:38 am

I think for the most part tai chi has become lost in America. It's not that nobody knows it -- maybe some of the top masters and their direct students, but no one else.

There are a LOT of people who go through the motions tho. It's a very sick animal.
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby wayne hansen on Thu Sep 01, 2022 12:51 pm

It’s not just the states
The worst stuff comes from Asia
There are some good teachers around but they think
What is the point
The good students have gone to other arts
People are running seminars directed to those who wish to be inside the doors of self deception and guru adoration
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby windwalker on Thu Sep 01, 2022 1:15 pm

Appledog wrote:I think for the most part tai chi has become lost in America. It's not that nobody knows it -- maybe some of the top masters and their direct students, but no one else.

There are a LOT of people who go through the motions tho. It's a very sick animal.


wayne hansen wrote:

It’s not just the states
The worst stuff comes from Asia
There are some good teachers around but they think
What is the point
The good students have gone to other arts
People are running seminars directed to those who wish to be inside the doors of self deception and guru adoration


;D

no need to be so modest :)

All those people somehow don't know what they'er doing or looking for...

Good to know there are those according to their "writing " who know
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Re: Form without form, intention without intention

Postby wayne hansen on Thu Sep 01, 2022 6:44 pm

I thought the idea of these forums was to express your opinion
I might have got it wrong
Being a bit slow I was lucky enough to run into good teachers who helped with my shortcomings thus making it my responsibility to pass on what they have imparted
Sorry if it dosent fit in with your understanding
However I am not really writing for you
To go further really I am only writing for me and those further up my line
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
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