Ting and Dong and silent sounds

[Appledog]

Jin can only be understood by hours of hands on work with a skilled teacher
It is a gift from hand to hand

Then how was it created?

[robert]

I mean there are folks claiming things that transcend anatomy but they haven't shown me anything more compelling than science so far.

I think science is compelling. My approach to CIMA is to do what my teachers say and see what happens. Ting jin is jin. Some people describe peng jin as being like an inflated ball. If you inflate a balloon or exercise ball and tap one side you should be able to feel that tapping all around the ball. Listening with jin isn't localized, you feel it throughout your body. The conscious mind appears to operate serially, while our senses operate in parallel. In order to deal with this our brains filter sensory data. Visual artists learn to see, musicians learn to hear, and CIMAs learn how to feel. First one must develop jin, but that is still limited, a person must also learn how to feel with jin, to remove some of the filters. It's not magical, but it sure seems like it sometimes. My experience.

[wayne hansen]

Tai chi was not born fully formed
It is an accumulation of the expierences of past practitioners
Refined over time and passed on to deserving students

[marvin8]

Ting jin and dong jin are kind of confusing to me... What are your thoughts about this?

One should not only listen but be in optimal position relative to their opponent. Corey discusses listening and interpreting energy (not limited to taiji) starting from long range.

Most people don't understand striking... There's space, position, then there's your advantages... Space is key because striking happens with your eyes. Striking is like we're playing this game, Okay, hit my hand and I'm moving it around. That's why switching stances works so well. Space is your reaction time because striking happens with your eyes. Instead of grappling if someone's leaning into me, I have the proprioception to feel they're leaning into me. Let me move like this. It doesn't happen with your eyes. In striking, it happens with your eyes. I see your punches come in, I know to block. So the more space I have and the better I can maintain and control space or manipulate space by closing it quickly or using it at the same time you close I close where I could be twice as fast, the more success I'm going to have. For example, I just don't think that people are understanding space in a way where it's your reaction time. So, if you get closer like if you're standing over there and I'm standing here it's not scary, if you throw a punch at me. Because, I have plenty of time to react to that punch. Where if me and you are standing right next to each other, that's like super scary no matter who you are. So, space is reaction time and I really don't think that a lot of people see space like that…

Then there's of course position. My position and then your position. My position according to your position: lefty-righty, righty-lefty, lefty-lefty, righty-righty. All of that is important. Because if you're in a different stance, then target's change. What you throw is different. The attacks that you'll have are very different, than the ones that we would have if we're in the same stance if we're in the opposite stance. I don't think that people necessarily pick up on those things too. I don't think people super understand position. My guard, where am I open if I stand like this? Where am I open if I stand like this? The advantages like being a little bit outside your shoulders on each side, so that I can take angles a little bit easier. If I'm standing over here, I know you're going to correct yourself here. So, I'm going to step here. You're going to correct. I'm gonna step here and then eventually I'll be able to build off of attacks. But that to me is what striking is. It's a positional battle. It's a battle for space. It's not like combinations. Amd. it's not set things…

JRE Greatest Hits
Apr 7, 2023

UFC Bantamweight Mixed Martial Artist, Cory Sandhagen, teaches Joe Rogan the approach to MMA Striking, Stance, managing distance and controlling range that helped in his recent fight against Chito Vera. This podcast clip is taken from the JRE MMA Show 138 with Cory Sandhagen, a spin-off of The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, dedicated to MMA fighters and UFC interviews.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuzUFPcpPdY&t=31s

[wayne hansen]

Great clip

[origami_itto]

I mean there are folks claiming things that transcend anatomy but they haven't shown me anything more compelling than science so far.

I think science is compelling. My approach to CIMA is to do what my teachers say and see what happens. Ting jin is jin. Some people describe peng jin as being like an inflated ball. If you inflate a balloon or exercise ball and tap one side you should be able to feel that tapping all around the ball. Listening with jin isn't localized, you feel it throughout your body. The conscious mind appears to operate serially, while our senses operate in parallel. In order to deal with this our brains filter sensory data. Visual artists learn to see, musicians learn to hear, and CIMAs learn how to feel. First one must develop jin, but that is still limited, a person must also learn how to feel with jin, to remove some of the filters. It's not magical, but it sure seems like it sometimes. My experience.

Science wise I think it's more about quieting the noise in the nervous system and learning to better integrate sense data, as the nerves are working in a more integrated and cohesive whole in a less noisy space, more quality information get through, creating a much more sophisticated map of your immediate reality.

In practice I don't think knowing the precise anatomy is necessary for the skills to be developed. The question I'm thinking about here is, what is that anatomy? We know Taijiquan can improve balance? How? "Do the exercise" okay, yeah, that's great. But what does the exercise do, and how does it do it?

"Just do what your teacher tells you"

Yes, definitely, but don't just shovel the wisdom in like a pig at a trough. Examine and question and test every bit of what they say, as you practice it, until you understand it thoroughly in terms of what the exercise is, what it does, how it does it, and when it is useful, savoring it like a fine meal, a tiny, flavorful, appreciative bite at a time that I chew until there is barely anything left to swallow.

[Bhassler]

Science wise I think it's more about quieting the noise in the nervous system and learning to better integrate sense data, as the nerves are working in a more integrated and cohesive whole in a less noisy space, more quality information get through, creating a much more sophisticated map of your immediate reality.

Here you go, have fun!
https://semiophysics.com/SemioPhysics_A ... isk_3.html

[BruceP]

https://semiophysics.com/SemioPhysics_A ... isk_3.html

does heightened intuition beget Neutrality Principle, or does Neutrality Principle beget heightened intuition?

Forced ownership:

http://www.semiophysics.com/SemioPhysic ... tisit.html

Thanks for the rabbit hole.

[Ad_B]

My interpretation of Ting is that its a skill, one of the many skills that combine to make the whole arts what they are and is borrowed from meditative and health traditions and the 'listening' is in the internal feeling within oneself of ones own condition.

In meditation, if i have understood correctly and it does work for me this way, one quietens the inter-lobe noise of the brain with intention and so there's a sense of a sort of 'external' consciousness that direct processes and intention which is a mental quietness and from this sense one can scan oneself for tensions and blockages and arrive at sung (as in 'gently engaged balance and harmony'?), it is that process of internal 'scanning' which is the 'listening' which is the Art of Ting?

If you know where everything is biologically and what it should be doing and how, then the Art of Ting would have a much more beneficial effect and the intention of the healing sounds (if they are the sounds meant herein) can be directed unto their proper organs as an internal 'resonance massage' ?

IDK if the Art of Ting in oneself is the same as the 'listening' (feeling/knowing?) of an opponents disposition because I'm not advanced enough to practise it but I suppose it must be. You must be able to become so internally sensitive to your own structure and operational performance that you can ID it in others (otherwise you wouldn't be able to unbalance them etc?). I recall a quote from a classic that states along the lines of "do not seek it in others, seek it in yourself" but I do not recall the context, it might have refered to Ting as an art of Taichi or might not.

Ting = sensing/reading/interpreting/listening with nervous system information ?

[Bao]

lis·ten
verb
give one's attention to a sound.

If it is true listening it's done with the ear. If it's done with the skin it's metaphorical listening.

There's no metaphor, it was never meant to be a metaphor. The ear has nothing to do with tingjin. It's about a direct sensory stimuli – sensitivity, to "listen" or understanding physical stimuli. The ear has nothing to do with what we call "listening skill".

The ear is fundamental to balance.

So?

So my dawning understanding is that all of these contribute to create ting jin, the perception of movement and vibration in the body, and by extension a greater understanding of things external to the body that affect it directly physically, such as another person trying to push you over.

How would feeling vibration in the body help your sensitivity?

I think it's best understood the other way around.

The two quotes above contradict each other.

First you say that vibrations should help your body to understand things that affect your body (I asked how). And then you say it's the opposite around, i.e. vibrations help your tingjin.

.... I am not actually against this vibration thing you've come up with, it's always good trying to explain things in your own language, but I think you need to polish your theory a little to make it fit better together with Tai Chi theory without distorting the older theory.

[origami_itto]

I know this is complicated but I feel like we can make our way through it.

To listen is to use the ear to percievecsound. That is the real world literal meaning of listening.

Thus listening does not use the ear so it is not listening. Therefore it is metaphorical listening. It is taking in information via the skin and body not via the ear, which is the organ or uh sr to actually listen.

met·a·phor
/ˈmedəˌfôr/
noun
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

The only part of your body that literally listens is your ear. If you are 'listening" with something other than your ear, it is metaphorical listening.

It's like you're so committed to disagreeing with me that you can't even agree with yourself.

You say ting is unrelated to balance, fine I take your word for it. Your ting jin has nothing to do with balance. No need to convince me further.

[origami_itto]

We have one organ.. well two organs, that track our position and movement through space. Why invent some other mechanism for understanding position and movement? I don't understand the need for abstraction or the resistance to curiosity.

[marvin8]

Ting jin and dong jin are kind of confusing to me.

They are usually translated as listening energy and interpreting energy. Ting jin is a lower (than dong) level, fundamental, skill and dongjin is like the key to it all, so they say. "How can one be beaten when they have mastered interpreting energy"

So how do you understand that? Do you agree?

Excerpts from Tai Chi Sensing-Hands:

In this story, [Yang] Chien-hou provides a demonstration of his profound Intrinsic Energy skill of Interpreting by showing how he could prevent a sparrow standing on the palm of his hand from taking flight. As the bird attempted to gather momentum by pushing downwards, Chien-hou would hollow his palm, without grasping the bird by any means with his fingers, and thus halted the bird's ability to fly away.

Whether Chien-hou could really perform this feat or not doesn't matter. What this story provides is a wonderful example of Interpreting Energy, which is developed through T'ui-Shau. And as previously mentioned, the character for T'ui, interestingly enough, shows a "bird within the hand." The Interpreting ability to accomplish such a feat implies a very heightened sensitivity within Chien-hou's hand. The bird may have attempted to "push," but Chien-hou was able to "sense" the movements and respond to them…

Hands in T'ai Chi are simultaneously the receptors of information and the transmitters of responding to that information. As Yang Cheng-fu well related, "Hands? We have hands all over our body, but it has nothing to do with hands." Meaning, our entire body should be perceived as if it were a hand Interpreting the actions of an opponent. Likewise, with such a perception, the response could be expressed from any part of the body as well.

The Three Interpreting Skills of Sensing-Hands

First and foremost, Sensing-Hands develops the ability to Interpret. Meaning that the adherent becomes exceedingly sensitive and alert to the actions and intentions of an opponent. This Interpreting skill creates the ability to recognize the intent of an opponent in three manners:

1) Sensing the Actualization. As the coarsest skill of Interpreting, this is where you determine the physical movement of an incoming attack and then Neutralize it. This is like seeing an arrow just as it is shot and being able to evade it.
2) Sensing the Inception. In this more refined application, you are able to sense an opponent's initial intent to draw in force in order to attack you, but you close ireff before it is released. This is like seeing the arrow just as it is being drawn back in the bow and then stepping in and preventing the release of the arrow in the first place.
3) Sensing the Mind-Intention. In this, the highest aspect of Interpreting, you are able to sense the intent in the opponent's eyes before he can physically express any action. Thus, you can choose to defeat the opponent before the bow is even raised-or, on the other extreme, allow the arrow to nearly reach your body before deflecting it.

An interesting effect of acquiring the latter two skills of Inception and Mind-Intention is that the actions of an opponent no longer appear fast or quick. Your responses, on the other hand, appear fast and quick to him. This is all due to the heightened awareness of the processes of what an opponent has to undergo in order to initiate an attack. Through the skills of Interpreting, you can more easily distinguish the inception of an opponent's actions, and thus have the foresight comfort of being there before the attack arrives. "Heading him off at the pass," or not being there at all so that his force lands on nothing, is upsetting to an attacker, who relies on the premise that his attack will meet with something substantial in order to sustain his center of balance.

[origami_itto]

Ting jin and dong jin are kind of confusing to me.

They are usually translated as listening energy and interpreting energy. Ting jin is a lower (than dong) level, fundamental, skill and dongjin is like the key to it all, so they say. "How can one be beaten when they have mastered interpreting energy"

So how do you understand that? Do you agree?

When it comes to ting jin, I always thought of the listening as a bit metaphorical, like we're talking about a sense in the body primarily. I'm starting to question the role of the ear in the skill. Our sense of balance is rooted in the ear, any disturbance of or change to that balance or our orientation relative to gravity is registered and interpreted as something we may take action about.

They are both jin and the fundamental idea of jin the that the body is connected. Listening is a metaphor, we're really feeling. If a person is feeling with their jin, then you can ask how complete is their jin? If they can only sink their qi to their dantian they are only feeling with their upper body; if they can sink their qi to their feet, they may be able to feel with their whole body. Dong can be translated as understanding. It's one thing to listen and another to understand. There are two aspects to understanding, one is what is the person's opponent doing? Are they pushing or pulling? To the left or right? And so on. The second part to understanding is how to use jin to respond to the opponent. Whether a person can beat their opponent depends on the opponent's skill level, mass, physical condition, and so on. HTH.

I wanted to get back to this because it's the fundamental nut of the existential crisis.

I don't see how listening can function without understanding.

I guess in a way it is like "White Men Can't Jump" listening to Jimi Hendrix vs hearing Jimi Hendrix, but in my experience I can't see it being separable. If you know you are listening, then you are understanding what you're hearing, right? Like are people really just saying "well I can tell they're doing SOMETHING but damned if I know what it is" Doesn't make sense to me.

Which is what makes me think there's more to the idea of interpreting energy. Something other than what we're pointing at with listening since they're suggesting it is cultivated in a separate stage of development.

Or maybe it's as windwalker says, a mountain behind a mountain. Or maybe listening is revealed when interpreting is achieved? I dunno.

In practice it seems to function as I described, and as others have described, we listen, at the opponent's slightest stirring we have intercepted their intention and smothered their qi, replacing their yi with our own, in theory Sometimes easier said than done.

I know a lot of y'all don't set much stock in talking about it, but I got a lot of spare cycles for stuff that I'm passionate about.

[Bao]

Thus listening does not use the ear so it is not listening. Therefore it is metaphorical listening. It is taking in information via the skin and body not via the ear, which is the organ or uh sr to actually listen.

met·a·phor
/ˈmedəˌfôr/
noun
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

The only part of your body that literally listens is your ear. If you are 'listening" with something other than your ear, it is metaphorical listening.

It's like you're so committed to disagreeing with me that you can't even agree with yourself.

You are continuously contradicting yourself. If "listening does not use the ear so it is not listening", why do you use the ear to describe "ting"?

I know what a metaphor is. I don't believe that the ear was meant as a metaphor. I can accept the process of listening as a metaphor if you want to call it so, but the ear, its shape and how sound is received inside the ear, are all irrelevant for the process of ting. It's your fixation with the physical ear I am opposed to. Listening and sensitivity are both about a direct sensory perception.

You say ting is unrelated to balance, fine I take your word for it. Your ting jin has nothing to do with balance. No need to convince me further.

Eh... No I didn't. I commented using two letters and one question mark: "So?". I don't understand how you mean that ting should be related to balance. If you actually know what you are talking about, you could try explaining it.