Training both Chen style and Yang style

[Steve James]

Question: if someone practices/learns Chen and Yang (and Wu, Sun, Fu, bagua, xingyi, shuai jiao, etc), does someone separate them when he or she gets into a sudden fight? Many people have studied several styles, do they have to choose -when it comes down to it? Or, will their reaction be the product of everything they've studied?

Imo, it's not like owning seven cars and only drive one at a time. If someone has incorporated the material they've learned, it's hard to see how they won't express it when under stress.

[Bao]

but I think that is just part of it. In terms of function the body has to be lightly stretched.

Agree that connected tai chi body has something to do with stretching of the body.

In the Chen style requirements listed above is - relax/loosen the shoulders, sink the elbows. That connects the hands, wrists, and elbows to the torso. There's also bend the knees and loosen/relax the hips, relax the buttocks and round the crotch, and lightly press up the top of the head; these all create a light stretch through the body.

But I am not sure that this sums up how or what creates the sort of stretching.

I would personally rather describe it as a combination of opening the joints and twisting the body. Left - right, back - forth, up down. Moving while keeping contradictory directions of forces while opening up the joints, stretching them. This creates a whole body type twisting that makes the whole body twist and stretch in different directions. In Chen style, this is called silk reeling. Yang style does not have any name and it is often less pronounced. All IMA has this, Xing yi, Bagua, Liuhe bafa, Yiquan, Tai Chi, all of these styles have the same. But the emphasis and ways of practicing differs.

But I would agree that "There's also bend the knees and loosen/relax the hips, relax the buttocks and round the crotch, and lightly press up the top of the head" is also a key to this, at least in tai chi chuan. Because keeping the body posture straight and aligned makes this stretching and twisting of the body more pronounced.

Imaging twisting a wet towel to get rid of the water. If you really want the water to go away, you need to stretch the towel while twisting. The more you stretch the two ends, to keep the towel stretched, the better and more pronounced twisting action, the harder you can twist the towel. But if you keep it relaxed, then you won't be able to twist it.

The same in Tai Chi. If you want to stretch and twist the body, or having silk reeling body movement, you need to sink the strength from your whole body down into the ground while remaining straight and internally raise at the same time. If you can feel how you keep the straightness and polarity of your posture, the stretching and twisting of the body will be stronger, feel more pronounced.

(A consequence of course, if you are so uncontrolled in your relaxation that you go limp, then you cannot develop this kind of movement, and no real "tai chi strength" or Tai Chi Jin.)

Question: if someone practices/learns Chen and Yang (and Wu, Sun, Fu, bagua, xingyi, shuai jiao, etc), does someone separate them when he or she gets into a sudden fight? Many people have studied several styles, do they have to choose -when it comes down to it? Or, will their reaction be the product of everything they've studied?

Imo, it's not like owning seven cars and only drive one at a time. If someone has incorporated the material they've learned, it's hard to see how they won't express it when under stress.

Personally I think the arts will easily color each other. It's hard to keep it separated. In a fight you have no time to think. If you have studied a lot of shuaijiao or Xingyi the last week, you will probably easily get into a shuaijiao or a Xingyi mind-set. I don't think this is something you can really control, things tend to happen too fast. You will just react.

This was more or less the reason why I gave up bagua and xingyi (by then I had already studied them about 15 and 10 years alongside my Tai Chi). But I found my best strength, or jin, in my tai chi, so I didn't want my tai chi to get coloured by the other two. I wanted to focus on my Tai Chi only and let it continue to develop alone. But my other practice has still been valuable, and I learned a lot about Tai Chi by studying other IMA. ...If that makes sense...

[wayne hansen]

That’s what Shen fa is about
As you train so u react
If you train in several ways you have no predominate Shen Fa
It is muddied not refined
It is like trying to ride two horses going two ways at differing speeds
Jing is like a Damascus blade folded beaten and forged until it is razor sharp

[Trip]

So if I move my palm and my waist at the same time, can I therefore say I am practicing Sung Lu Tang's method?

If the movement is coordinated, not connected, I would say no. I suspect you know this; if you watch the video that shows how silk thread is made, when the reel is turned the cocoons move. The cocoons move because they are connected to the reel.

So, we can agree that just moving the palm and waist at the same time is not enough.
That's what I was getting at.

Hey Robert & Graham,
Not trying to interrupt your flow,
just throwing this out there as food for thought.

Your conversation on Silk reeling and connectedness brought a few things to mind.
I think in the beginning of training, connected must be learned.
But...

This IChing comment to mind:

So too the superior man has to arrange and organize the inchoate profusion of such times of beginning, just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted tangle and binds them into skeins. In order to find one’s place in the infinity of being, one must be able both to separate and to unite.

It’s similar to the idea of the man who is only able to practice meditation in a perfect environment.
But others believe you should be able to meditate no matter where you are.

If you can look back again and again into the source of mind, whatever you are doing, not sticking to any image of person or self at all, then this is "turning the light around wherever you are."
This is the finest practice.

Yang’s disciple, Chen Wei Ming had this view:

Chen describes a particular technique that he liked to employ, that of “disassembling” into small parts defensively, and reconnecting offensively. He uses the interesting term fensui (to break into pieces, or to grind into powder) to describe loosening the joints.

Think of an iron pole weighing a thousand pounds. Every bit of it is heavy, but if you are very strong you can lift it up with one grab. Then consider an iron chain weighing only a hundred pounds. Even if you are very strong you cannot lift it up with one grab because it is separated into many sections. Now although it is separated into many sections, they are still connected.
Practicing Taijiquan is similar to this idea.

I think in the beginning of training, connected must be learned.
But, there is danger of getting stuck there and robs some of being unable to deal with unconnected, tense situations.
They simply don’t know what to do when an opponent locks them up and things inevitably get tense. Their Taiji is ineffectual in a fight because they don’t have enough experience dealing with the tense. They are too soft. So, they get ran over.

After you gain experience with "either or, connected not connected, tension but not tense"
then depending on the situation
Sometimes you flow
Sometimes you can create Tension first, then (at the right time) When the opponent responds to that tension you relax & flow and use his response to your advantage

Experienced Taiji players, whether connected or unconnected, tense or calm, soft or hard, flowing or still, Taiji can be effective whatever you are doing.

The Gift of Balance.
You need both firmness, and yielding, connected & unconnected.
Then as you get older and set in your [one] way of doing things,
Your [one] way is inherently flexible.

[windwalker]

what ever one practices it should be burned in, usually through pressure testing...


So that there is nothing left,,,no separation between oneself and it

In some cases its not possible to do other things depending on how deep one has practiced in one way...

Taiji first seeks to understand the self, extending this understanding outside of one's self to others as a feed back helping to understanding the self.

Until there is no longer a "self"

[robert]

Your conversation on Silk reeling and connectedness brought a few things to mind.
I think in the beginning of training, connected must be learned.
But...

This IChing comment to mind:

So too the superior man has to arrange and organize the inchoate profusion of such times of beginning, just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted tangle and binds them into skeins. In order to find one’s place in the infinity of being, one must be able both to separate and to unite.

I agree that connection must be learned, that it must be trained. Bao mentioned that in an earlier post. There are some simple things a person can do that demonstrate connection, but it takes time to be able to stay connected throughout a form, and more so in two person work. Regarding dispersion and unification, this is a common theme. The idea of the body being connected, being unified, and that this is a process is written about in a document that is shared between xingyi and taiji. In the xingyi version it is attributed to Yue Fei. The first part in the xingyi version is Unity.

It is always the case that what disperses will have its way of reintegrating, what separates will have its way of rejoining.
So it is in the world. There are four compass directions, then eight, then too many to keep track of, but each has its place [meaning every specific angle of direction can be more conveniently generalized into the area it belongs within the basic compass points]. Things are numerous, then innumerable, then a haze of meaningless detail, but all things have their basic sources [by which they can be more understandably grouped and classified under].
Everything is distributed from a single source to which everything ultimately and inevitably returns. The content of martial arts is very complex, but really the endless variations consolidate into matters of merely posture and energy, and even though there is a variety of postures, there is only one energy.
This single energy goes from head to foot, inwardly filling your organs and tissues, outwardly covering your muscles and skin, and from your five senses to your many bones, all are joined together to link into one [“a single thread”]. If smashed against, it does not leave a gap. If crashed into, it does not break apart.
When your upper body is about to move, your lower body naturally goes along with the movement. When your lower body is about to move, your upper body naturally takes charge of the movement. Once your upper body and lower body are in motion, your middle section attacks. When your middle section moving, your upper body and lower work in harmony.
Inside and out are linked together. Front and back are relying on each other. When we talk of linking into one, this is what is meant. But it is crucial that you do not force it to happen or try to sneak up on it, for that will not make it work.
When the moment comes for stillness, be silent and calm, staying put as stable as a mountain, then when the moment comes for movement, be like thunder or an avalanche, expressing as fast as lightning. When still, all parts are still, inside and out, above and below, and without any part feeling out of place. When moving, all parts are moving, left or right, forward or back, and without any part pulling the posture off course. Truly it is like water as it fills in downward, too much to be resisted, or like a cannon going off, too fast for you to cover your ears.
There is no contrivance of pondering, nor any worrying over doubts, for truly it will happen in its own time, achieved without your attaining. Yet how could such an effect happen without a cause? To get any benefit means the energy has to be built up day after day, and that means working at it for a long time for that to begin to happen. As for the wise teaching of the “single thread” [Lun Yu, 4.15 & 15.3], you must be patient and hear it many times until it is deeply ingrained, and then you will finally realize. Do not abandon the work of “broadening your knowledge to gain understanding” [from the “Da Xue”, chapter 42 of the Book of Rites], and therefore be aware that it is not a matter of difficulty or ease, just a process of doing your best.
You must not skip steps or rush through it, but go step by step and in the right order. That being the case, your senses, bones, limbs, and sections will link up naturally, above and below, inside and out, smoothly connecting. Thereby the dispersed are reintegrated, the separated rejoined, and all your limbs and bones returned to being a single energy.

I think that's a pretty good piece of prose.

[GrahamB]

Robert,

I love that classic!

I think the idea that it is "shared" between Taijiquan and Xing Yi is stretching it a bit, as its really a document associated with Xing Yi. There have been attempts to co-opt it as a Taijiquan document by changing the name to "Taijiquan" and the name of the author, but I'm not buying it.

I see you've gone for the Brennan translation of the-xingyi-manual-of-li-jianqiu

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... i-jianqiu/

The Yang Jwing-Ming translation is good, too.

https://ymaa.com/articles/2014/12/marsh ... ses-part-1

[cloudz]

About Chen Zhonghua and some of the Chen style silk reeling that's a bit hardcore.. Chen Yu maybe another example, the big guy. I know it as 'winding'. You can find it self evidently in some movements.. but not so externally visible.

Anyway there's another traditional Chinese term that probably describes what they do a bit better for me which is luoxuanjin which means roughly to torque in a screwing motion. Nothing wrong with focusing on specific elements, it's a matter of style. Personally though, for my taste it's taken a bit too far at the detriment of other aspects.

For example some of the dogmatic 'rules' I have heard Zhonghua speak - I saw him break in clips where he was doing applications where he had to move around IIRC against incoming strikes. I think his method is great for standing grappling and the applications he shows there. But not so much where you may want to move and strike from more of a distance.

The truth of these things and any belief really is about what works, in any given environment or framework. I think for many years TCC may have focused on a certain way of interacting due to the cultural limitations of the time(s), so what worked best there got elaborated, evolved and focused on more by some practitioners.

[cloudz]

I think we've just agreed that coordinated is not necessarily connected, but how does connected work in your view? What is the mechanism that connects a hand movement to a waist movement?

In terms of substance, I'd say the soft tissue of the body. The Chinese use the character 筋, jin, which is translated as muscle/tendon or sinew. Fascia is popular, but I think that is just part of it. In terms of function the body has to be lightly stretched. In the Chen style requirements listed above is - relax/loosen the shoulders, sink the elbows. That connects the hands, wrists, and elbows to the torso. There's also bend the knees and loosen/relax the hips, relax the buttocks and round the crotch, and lightly press up the top of the head; these all create a light stretch through the body.

At a seminar April 7, 2016 YZD said -

Do not apply brute force. Brute force is stiff force. Force must be refined and skillful like a steel needle hidden in cotton. The strength is there, but not presented openly. It is implied in posture. There must be a quality of vibrancy, as opposed to listlessness.

This involves stretching out; the motion opens out. The secret is seen in the palm which is stretched out with the fingers bent but slightly open. The palm is both stretched and at the same time, relaxed. Beginners are usually either too relaxed or too stiff. This influences strength through the whole arm.

This quality (of being stretched and relaxed) permeates the whole body. This is so important – because this principle should be applied to wrist, forearm, shoulder…whole body! All shapes should have internal power, stretching power, stretching out. Eg. In Single Whip there is power channeled into the hooked fingers. (note: full flexion!)

Movements should be soft and even, but filled with internal stretching power. ...

I think it's interesting that this idea is captured in creating silk thread, in the reeling/drawing/pulling/spinning silk analogy. If there is slack in the silk when you turn the reel the cocoons won't move, the reel must be turned until all the slack is taken up in the silk. Once the slack is out of the silk then the reel and the cocoons are connected.

yep.. taking up or removing the slack is a great way to characterize pulling silk; though you have to add, moving the body in a way as to not break that thread (connection). it focuses on the continuity and uniformity of that state. It is part of the sum, another part is chan si. so not one and the same 'silk reeling'. the pulling and the reeling are stand alone elements but combine - must combine ultimately in the totality of the form(s)..

if you break things down to single forms, it's much more evident which are better or more suited to different trained forces..(jins)

A simple move like parry and punch for example from Yang style has little to no silk reeling that really matters, but should contain pulling silk. There's some rotation in the waist is all - you can't really describe the movement as one of chansi gong - not a trained force that it should be, should become. Where as cloud hands is another story entirely.

[cloudz]

That’s what Shen fa is about
As you train so u react
If you train in several ways you have no predominate Shen Fa
It is muddied not refined
It is like trying to ride two horses going two ways at differing speeds
Jing is like a Damascus blade folded beaten and forged until it is razor sharp

So Sun Lu Tang was muddled not refined in his body method according to Wayne Hansen
good to know

Wang Xianzhai, looked at many styles and boiled down essentials even more so for himself over the years..
There are so many examples around..

you continually miss the point.

If you train in different ways you refine and train your body method to one, you don't keep several.
The important body methods of certain arts are in essence the same. Chinese martial arts are one family
the three sisters even more..

Taiji, even more.

Chinese wrestling; that can combine with any TCMA..
Western Boxing, no problem - there is no fixed body method there.
Some arts are different enough it won't matter - they compliment each other.

In the modern era that could be Muay thai and BJJ

In TCMA Bagua was combined with the practitioners existing style; Cheng Tinghua
It went perfectly with Chinese wrestling.

Historically Hsingyi and Bagua cross trained, cross pollinated a lot.

It takes time and learning should be a progression. But that view is very backwards frankly and shown to be wrong by many TCMA practitioners over the years. Very very common to go and study a few different styles in fact, which doesn't mean you won't major or focus on a few/ boil them into what you do, boil your method down to what you favour etc.

You yourself have done a number of different styles haven't you, so what gives?
You said recently you were big on Hsingyi.. you've done a number of different tai chi styles/systems going by your posts.
You mentioned the famous Taiwanese school you were 'a part of that train Bagua Hsingyi and Taiji..
The one Lu DeXiu came from - would you say that about him too.
Tang Shou Tao wasn't it - what about the founders of that school.

BIg Wang another famous guy in Taiwan; Bagua, Taiji, Yiquan, Hsingyi

what you're saying, I think applies in a very specific way.. If you try to learn two very different methods at the same time, that's going to be a problem and real progress will be hard, if not impossible. But that's not really what's being spoken about. In the end you can only develop one unified body method, and that's your own.

[cloudz]

So, we can agree that just moving the palm and waist at the same time is not enough.
That's what I was getting at.

Hey Robert & Graham,
Not trying to interrupt your flow,
just throwing this out there as food for thought.

Your conversation on Silk reeling and connectedness brought a few things to mind.
I think in the beginning of training, connected must be learned.
But...

This IChing comment to mind:

So too the superior man has to arrange and organize the inchoate profusion of such times of beginning, just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted tangle and binds them into skeins. In order to find one’s place in the infinity of being, one must be able both to separate and to unite.

It’s similar to the idea of the man who is only able to practice meditation in a perfect environment.
But others believe you should be able to meditate no matter where you are.

If you can look back again and again into the source of mind, whatever you are doing, not sticking to any image of person or self at all, then this is "turning the light around wherever you are."
This is the finest practice.

Yang’s disciple, Chen Wei Ming had this view:

Chen describes a particular technique that he liked to employ, that of “disassembling” into small parts defensively, and reconnecting offensively. He uses the interesting term fensui (to break into pieces, or to grind into powder) to describe loosening the joints.

Think of an iron pole weighing a thousand pounds. Every bit of it is heavy, but if you are very strong you can lift it up with one grab. Then consider an iron chain weighing only a hundred pounds. Even if you are very strong you cannot lift it up with one grab because it is separated into many sections. Now although it is separated into many sections, they are still connected.
Practicing Taijiquan is similar to this idea.

I think in the beginning of training, connected must be learned.
But, there is danger of getting stuck there and robs some of being unable to deal with unconnected, tense situations.
They simply don’t know what to do when an opponent locks them up and things inevitably get tense. Their Taiji is ineffectual in a fight because they don’t have enough experience dealing with the tense. They are too soft. So, they get ran over.

After you gain experience with "either or, connected not connected, tension but not tense"
then depending on the situation
Sometimes you flow
Sometimes you can create Tension first, then (at the right time) When the opponent responds to that tension you relax & flow and use his response to your advantage

Experienced Taiji players, whether connected or unconnected, tense or calm, soft or hard, flowing or still, Taiji can be effective whatever you are doing.

The Gift of Balance.
You need both firmness, and yielding, connected & unconnected.
Then as you get older and set in your [one] way of doing things,
Your [one] way is inherently flexible.

that's very nice, and quite true

like appearing and disappearing
like full and empty

there's lot's of takes on connection (and by extension, disconnection), and related terminology but yes
that's a useful one

sometimes disconnecting is just as useful as connection.

[windwalker]

Reading Wanye's comment

Many in the CMA community teach taiji as an adjunct to the their main style
In doing so they might come to feel either there's not much difference or no difference

Had one of the people training with me, asked about his teacher quite famous

Your teacher teaches "taiji" why are training with me
He said " my teacher teaches taiji, you know taiji"


It's different

In the end they are all expressions of the self, Expressions of an idea, method, or Theory.
Unique to the person and yet the same as the theory expressed.

[yeniseri]

My simplest way of explaining taijiquan and CMA is essentially an outdated concept that few are aware of and it is liuhebafa (I may be harping about this since I mentioned it a few times in the past) ) aka 6 combination, 8 methods, which is more of a method of training as opposed to the current art known by the same name/descriptive. Liuhebafa is not (in my view) a static frame of training but a combiantion of concepts and that means we can incorporate them, in whole or in part to our physical conditioning matrix, whatever that may be. My best objective reference is Tim Cartmell.

I mention one of my older generation teachers (Zhang Dungsheng-shuaijiao) with whom I learnrt xinyi , a combination art which embodied liuhebafa conncepts.
I recall that even the translator at that time was not sure of some of the terminology and I was less knowing byt the translator was using the concept liuhebafa, the ar,t when in fact it was the concept that was being talked about.

[BruceP]

That’s what Shen fa is about
As you train so u react
If you train in several ways you have no predominate Shen Fa
It is muddied not refined
It is like trying to ride two horses going two ways at differing speeds
Jing is like a Damascus blade folded beaten and forged until it is razor sharp

what you're saying, I think applies in a very specific way.. If you try to learn two very different methods at the same time, that's going to be a problem and real progress will be hard, if not impossible. But that's not really what's being spoken about. In the end you can only develop one unified body method, and that's your own.

Wayne maybe didn't consider the contradiction of what he was trying to point out with his comparison of body-method to a damascus blade. Modern damascus/pattern-welded blades are a blend of 2 or more different types of steel which are folded/forge-welded whatever number of times with a variety of patterning techniques to produce a blade material that has mostly (in modern times, at least) an aesthetic rather than a functional characteristic due to the hi-tech nature of the modern steels bladesmiths use for that purpose. But, a combination of two properly paired steels can result in a whole being greater than it parts, as it were.

In keeping with that analogy, what George says about combining two very different methods may hold some truth (and not without its own contradictions - see below) if the blade is pattern welded from softer, low-carbon or mild steel, and a harder, high carbon or alloy steel, because any portion of the blade's edge where the softer steel is exposed will compromise the blade's structural integrity as well as its ability to cut and hold an edge.

Interestingly and conversely, the 'steel wrapped in cotton' could be likened to a San Mai blade construction wherein a harder, high-carbon or high-alloy steel is sandwiched between two outer layers of mild. or low-carbon steel(s) to produce a blade with outstanding qualities due to the softer steel's ability to flex and take all kinds of surface damage while allowing the inner layer to remain unaffected by extremely high flexural loads and impacts that might otherwise break a blade that was made entirely of the steel used as the core material in the San Mai blade. So one could forge a body-method that looks and feels relatively insubstantial, but has incredible hardness and strength at it's core...Tai Chi? And, it weeel keeel!

[robert]

I love that classic!

I think the idea that it is "shared" between Taijiquan and Xing Yi is stretching it a bit, as its really a document associated with Xing Yi. There have been attempts to co-opt it as a Taijiquan document by changing the name to "Taijiquan" and the name of the author, but I'm not buying it.

I like that too. In Chen taijiquan it's referred to as Chen Changxing's Ten Important Points. CCX worked in the private security business, and I suspect he ran across it in his travels and took it back to Chen village. Later CCX taught so it wouldn't be surprising if it spread around the village.

I see you've gone for the Brennan translation of the-xingyi-manual-of-li-jianqiu

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... i-jianqiu/

The Yang Jwing-Ming translation is good, too.

https://ymaa.com/articles/2014/12/marsh ... ses-part-1

I have a xingyi book by LSY and YJM that has a lot of translations in the back, including that. I used the Brennan because it's handy. I only became aware of CCX's version six or seven years ago when CZQ mentioned it at a seminar. At that time I could only find it online in Chinese.