horse vs beng to the face

[mixjourneyman]

Sorry for the sudden shift of topic but I answered my own question re beng.

What I would like to talk about now is what people think of using horse or beng at face height. Which one is more useful to you? How do you use it?
I think ZZD said that Horse was better to attack the face with than beng.
My main tactic in sparring is to use beng to bridge over the hands of my opponent and use several quick beng's to attack the face.
I've tried using horse in the past in a sort of jab cross combo and I just never felt as safe if I couldn't tie my opponents hands up.
I just want to know other xingyi people's take on this subject.

[cloudz]

I understand this concept as it applies to striking the body, but when it comes to hitting the face with it I have a harder time getting that spiraling drilling thing happening and so it becomes more of a straight vertical fist, which has much less penetrating force.

You say you understand 'this concept' - you can get the thing happening .. so what do you think is impeding you from doing the same to a different target area?

Is it more than a matter of direction ?

prolly a matter of practice hey. Do you have a heavy bag ? (best idea)

[mixjourneyman]

edit: Was talking about beng on a heavy bag and how I felt it was hard to get the drilling right.
I did horse on the bag a lot and I found something interesting: If you keep the hand bent like in the horse form you can very easily roll your wrist. So does that mean that one should keep the wrist straight (IE: change the way the punch is done), or something else?
Its sort of the same problem I have with some other xingyi fists that have a cocked feeling in the wrist. It never bothers me in sparring, but hitting things like bags always seems to hurt my wrist. Whats up with that?

[mixjourneyman]

Was talking about drilling and beng to the face, but I realized that I already knew the answer and the question I asked was kind of stupid and embarassing lol.

[kenneth fish]

This may sound a bit simplistic - pretend you have a screw driver in your hand. (the tool, not the drink with the paper umbrella). Hold your hand at about nose height. Start with your elbow rotated out (blade of hand towards the ceiling). Then turn your arm 180 degrees. Do this as an arm motion only for a while. Then add hip rotation. Then try to twist from your rear ankle up (without turning you knees). This is the drilling component. Next practice beng starting with the elbow rotated out, turning the fist so that the thumb points up as you strike (a rotation of about 90 degrees). That should do it.

[mixjourneyman]

I had originally asked a question about Beng being used at face level and how to get the drilling motion going in the hands at that height, Dr.Fish answered my question.

Thanks for the tip. For some reason this morning I was having a hard time getting drilling force clearly crystalized in my mind. Went and actually practiced for ten minutes and there were none of the original questions left, so the thread is no longer neccissarry as a question on beng.

[mixjourneyman]

.

[meeks]

This may sound a bit simplistic - pretend you have a screw driver in your hand. (the tool, not the drink with the paper umbrella).

I suddenly envision all EF members reading this post in a comfy smoking jacket with embroidered initials on the left breast, martini in hand and a playboy bunny bringing a refill to their computer desk...

[middleway]

Beng is not simply a punch. it should be able to be applied everywhere with anything.

Basic Beng Chuan as i learnt it has 3 different 'lengths' of force.

Bend the bow = short power (touch power / elbow shoulder etc)
Shoot Arrow = mid range ( few inches to about a foot) can be used with all weapons except shoulder n hip (as they are better suited to 'bend the bow')
Battering Ram = Long range (used to cross guard or attacks in boxing / kicking range) this is best with fist or foot.

Direction in Beng can be up or down. In the basic form its up/down/up. But this is not set, the 'up' ones are face height in basic training as i learnt it.

Punching the face with Beng is very fundamental to the way i was taught.

As for horse .... Scary at the face n collar bones .....

Neither is 'better' IMO ... i think they are both useful when they need to be used!

cheers
Chris

[mixjourneyman]

Beng is not simply a punch. it should be able to be applied everywhere with anything.

Basic Beng Chuan as i learnt it has 3 different 'lengths' of force.

Bend the bow = short power (touch power / elbow shoulder etc)
Shoot Arrow = mid range ( few inches to about a foot) can be used with all weapons except shoulder n hip (as they are better suited to 'bend the bow')
Battering Ram = Long range (used to cross guard or attacks in boxing / kicking range) this is best with fist or foot.

Direction in Beng can be up or down. In the basic form its up/down/up. But this is not set, the 'up' ones are face height in basic training as i learnt it.

Punching the face with Beng is very fundamental to the way i was taught.

As for horse .... Scary at the face n collar bones .....

Neither is 'better' IMO ... i think they are both useful when they need to be used!

cheers
Chris

Cool info. I had not known about the three lengths of beng before.

[Daniel]

...I have done Xingyi and Bagua and Taiji and assorted silly movements in front of my students while holding coffee, tea, water, whiteboard pens, books and - even - qi - but completely missed out on doing them while holding a Screwdriver .

As always, I bow deeply to the knowledge of the older EF uncles... *bows very deeply indeed*. I will immediatly start making this classical jibengong a deep part of my practice. The paper umbrella, however, no, no, I´m not ready. Much practice to do before that honor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUsZiYmx9r0

The guy does both Pi, Zuan, Heng and Beng in the video...and even a brief Swallow.

More seriously, thanks for the advice, Dr. Fish. And good post, Middleway. I really liked the clip that used to be up on Mike, Alex Kozma´s student, doing a really short, very powerful Beng to a poor student. It´s also incredible how much you can toy with changing the Four Energies to change the various vectors and effects of the strike. I have played with Beng while doing both Lu and An hidden under the obvious Ji. Gives a very odd, stopping dead kind of effect on the guy you hit.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[kshurika]

Allow me to get simplistic here. A Beng straight to the face can result in broken knuckles. A horse punch thrown over the top with a loose wrist (as in pitching a fastball), can separate your opponent's nose from his face and the impact to the bottom of his forehead (which is dispersed evenly over your descending fist) can knock him out. I like the latter scenario.

[middleway]

A Beng straight to the face can result in broken knuckles.

ummmmmmmm ..... so can the horse your talking about if your off target at all (lets say the opponent ducks his head slightly and you connect with his forehead)!!! A Beng off target is much like any other punch off target ... i assume thats what you meant??

Beng to the jaw line = knocked out opponent and alot of blood. I know people that have used it.

all the best
Chris

[mixjourneyman]

I would say that any fist to the face can result in broken knuckles, but to me beng is a much more solid punch because of it's body mechanics.
Horse seems like its almost specifically supposed to be aimed at soft areas like the nose, or eyes.

[Bao]

Beng to the face? My bengquan is stronger at stomach/chest level. I would prefer paoquan or a high "brush knee" at face level. Or maybe vertical arm swing with the lower arm as surface. But I would defenitively choose beng to the stomach area and ribs.