by Yeung on Tue Apr 28, 2020 1:24 am
The idiom biomechanics of motion and quietness (动静之机 dòng jìng zhī jī) was not in the original Taijiquan Treaties of Wang Zongyue published in 1881, and it is believed that it was added on by Xu Yusheng (1921) who attempted to explain the Treaties. In any case the Treaties told us something about the passive and active relationship of movements, motion is active and quietness is passive. Motion and quietness should be a continuum of movement from high intensity to low intensity same as with sounds from loud to quiet. Since open and close are progressive, I translated “ji 机” as biomechanics instead a mechanic because the explaining of muscular movement with the laws of physics are not adequate. I translated “jing 静” as quietness instead of stillness according to other translators. Quietness is the literal translation which does not corresponding to no sound or no motion. The Yin Yang symbol described a continuum of changes between active and passive actions of the universe in harmony rather than as some kinds of dichotomy or dilemma.
Shen Jiazhen (1963) suggested the centrifugal force (moving away from the centre) and centripetal force (moving towards the centre) model to explain this phenomenon. This can be demonstrated by standing upright with arms relaxed on the sides and then use the legs and torso to spin and the arms will move upward and back to the sides when stop. The upward movement is centrifugal when actively spinning and back to the side passively is centripetal when spinning is stopped. This demonstration will not work properly if the performer fails to relax his or her arms. And it only demonstrated the effects of active and passive movements of the torso and legs.
The active and passive movements can be explained in terms of biomechanics: concentric (shortening of muscle fibres), eccentric (lengthening of muscles fibres), static (no change in the length of muscle fibres), and muscle elasticity (the ability of returning to original length of muscles fibres after changes). Taijiquan is a conscious exercise of stretchy and springy activities. So stretching is active and the springy effect or recoil is passive in utilizing the stored elastic energy. The human muscular system functions in a unity of passive and active actions without concentric muscle contraction is the same as the Yin Yang Binary System of Taiji (2^0), Yin Yang (2^1), Four signs (2^2), Eight Trigrams (2^3), etc., unto infinity. From archaeological excavations, China has a long history of stretching exercise possibly dated back to Warring State Period (475 – 211 BC) but it was developed as a kind of therapeutic exercise and how it developed into martial arts is not very clear. The binary exercise model can be constructed from the art of various martial arts that advocate springy and springy actions.
Mark Albert (1991) provide the rational for eccentric training, and there are many more articles and books on the subject. Their findings are relevant to the claims of Taijiquan and other martial arts claim to be internal in not using brute force or concentric muscle contraction. This sort of differentiated internal martial arts from other martial arts, and there are many disagreements on this subject, as most so called internal martial arts have been deconstructed in such ways that most people no longer can tell the differences.
The aim of writing this post is to attack comments and examples of the utilization of eccentric muscle contraction and stored muscle elasticity in martial arts.
Reference:
Mark Albert, Eccentric Muscle Training in Sport and Orthopaedics (2ne Edition), Churchill Livingstone, New York, 1991
Shen Jiazhen (1963), Chen Shi Taijiquan (chapters 1 to 3), in the Taijiquan Quan Shu (2nd Edition), People’s Publisher of Athletic, Beijing 2010
Wang Zongyue (1881), Taiji Boxing Treatise in A manual handwritten by Li Yiyu presented to his student Hao He (Weizhen), translated by Paul Brennan, May, 2013 (accessed on 26 April, 2020)
Xu Yusheng (1921), Taiji Boxing Postures Explained, translation by Paul Brenna, Aug, 2012 (accessed on 26 April, 2020)
Last edited by
Yeung on Fri May 01, 2020 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.