Article about abandoning fajin?

[Trick]

Fajin is not something added to ones Taiji form it comes naturally when one is ready

If I go to 2 teachers and

Teacher 1 says: Fajin will come naturally when you are ready.
Teacher 2 says: If you do the following drills, you will understand Fajin.

I'll definitely go to teacher 2.

Here is one of my favor Fajin drills.



Also if you train this Taiji drill, you will understand Fajin too.

Ok, I assume your question to teacher one was -‘I want to learn Fajin?’
However,teacher one would then answer you - ‘go to teacher two!’

[Bob]

In the very old days, without the internet & access to proper Chinese, the student would train for power - " How do I train so I have power in my punches and don't look like a wet noodle in my execution of applications?"

The teacher would take them through a wide variety of exercises & drills including relaxed stance training, qi gong (which were really nei gong), slow/fast executions, solo & 2 person, da qiang exercises slow/fast & 2 person.

A person's degree of attained power was inferred through it's expression & aligned execution and we would say, His fa jin is very smooth, or aligned, or "crispy" etc etc - so for us fa jin was the external way we inferred a person's degree of EFFECTIVE power, alignment, structure & attainment - this did not guarantee fighting ability - that was another pathway

What you see in Adam Hsu's is a very small fraction of what we played against a person holding a shield or padded board - sometimes we did 2 person drills and punched against their shoulders

This is simply a sharing of my experiences - not the last word on THE way to train - i acknowledge that there may be many more ways to reach the goals and whether right or wrong that is how we understood fa jin

So we never trained for fa jin, we trained for power

Fa jin was the expression of power and through its expression we inferred quality & quantity of power a student had attained - a necessary but not sufficient condition for fighting and only one of perhaps many pathways to becoming a "warrior" LOL conceal & carry was always an alternative pathway LOL

[Trick]

It's always interesting to see non tai chi people talk about advanced stages of tai chi
The best tai chi practitioner and fighter I have known did no special exercises to cultivate fa Jing but could manifest it when needed in any circumstances
Most of what people show as fa Jing is just karate style Kime

I will be brave to boast that during my karate heydays my Kime expression looked more awesom than the two Fajin clips posted in the thread.....

[Trick]

in the Yang Chengfu line you can find Fu Zhongwen expressing fajin in single moving postures on youtube -

Yes I have seen those Fu family Fajin stuff demonstrating, it’s cringeworthy. Now, I’m kind of in the Fu Zhongwen linage myself since my main taijiteacher is of Fu Zhongwen linage(he studied some years directly from him). My teacher does not do that Taiji fajining whiles Form playing nor do he theach it. If I remember i will ask him next time i meat him, if Fu zhongwen taught Fajin as can be seen in some of the Fu family videos.
I actually suspect it was an later addition to keep up with the growing popularity of Chen family boxing(its cringeworthy to watch any Taijistyle form player expressing Fajin in each and every posture, I think). Fajining as such in thin air of course does not help an practitioner to become a great pugilist, however it might look impressive to beginners and might attract new students.

[MaartenSFS]

The best (and probably only) way to train Fajin is through specific drills to develop the power and drills to test that power (and structure). These drills also teach a practical relaxation. After developing Fajin one must train to hit a moving target with it through partner drills and/or sparring. EVERY single Taijiquan practitioner that I met that said that they could learn it just by doing the form nearly sprained their wrist when hitting my backpack with my coat or other soft things stuffed in. They were doing fake Fajin. It looked explosice, but was empty.

CMA are not the same as boxing. Linear and circular attacks are combined and one usually sets up the other and "draws the bow" (potential energy), so there is little wind up. There are a lot of advantages to Fajin, but it is exceedingly rare and in danger of dying out. That alone makes it worth learbing: to preserve this knowledge for future generations People make it out to be esoteric, which has turned real fighters off.

One day I was fencing against two students and attacked one and moved on to the second without hesitation. Afterwards that student told me that my thrust sent him flying through the air with both feet off the ground and pinned him to the wall for a moment. He said that I just ignored him and continued and that he had never felt so powerless. I didn't remember it until he reminded me. I was so relaxed and intent on what I was doing that it was instinctual. It was a great feeling. I developed that power through years of hard drilling, not by waving my arms in the air. There are no shortcuts.

[D_Glenn]

There really needs to be a clear distinction made, otherwise people are just talking past each other.

CXW told me that in the early days public push hands matches (da shou), that they were highly competitive and when someone got another guy uprooted and sent flying (Ti Fang) that they would also ‘Spring the spinal column’ to cause damage to the guy at the point of contact. Because it was less likely for the opponent to want to try again. Observers would ask “What did you do?”, to which “I used Fajin (spinal column adding in the secondary penetrating force). But since they only observed the ‘Ti Fang’ (Uprooting and flying part), the term Fajin became confused, where the Subtle usage of the spinal column (true fajin) became replaced with just launching someone.

So now, using the spinal column generally is referred to as ‘Fali’ or ‘Bao Fali’, while Fajin was given over to just being synonymous to ‘Ti Fang’.

So for the sake of conversation, could people maybe start using these distinctions?

.

[Climb-up]

It's always interesting to see non tai chi people talk about advanced stages of tai chi
The best tai chi practitioner and fighter I have known did no special exercises to cultivate fa Jing but could manifest it when needed in any circumstances
Most of what people show as fa Jing is just karate style Kime

I will be brave to boast that during my karate heydays my Kime expression looked more awesom than the two Fajin clips posted in the thread.....

I’m not experienced enough in IMA to feel comfortable making a comparison, but I’ve been watching videos of old-school Okinawan karate masters and, more than once, have been !!!
Definitely doesn’t look like what I was doing when took karate as a kid.

[MaartenSFS]

I'm not talking about a normal push, but a penetrating wave that can crumple someone on the ground or send them hurtling backwards. Not with little effort, but with my whole body in focus. Whether or not I have an object in my hand is irrelevant (though a weapon only makes it worse for the receiver).

[johnwang]

One inch? Too far away.

You can punch out in 2 steps process:

1. Throw a non-committed punch (arm lead body). If your punch miss the target, you pull back and punch again.
2. If your punch land on target, you then add your body weight behind it (body chase arm).

In theory, this can be done. It's just like your finger tips touch on the wall, you then drop your palm and hit that wall.

The long fist toe push kick is using this principle.

- You throw a heel hick.
- When you hell kick hit on your opponent's body, you change your heel kick into a toes push kick and lean your body back at the same time.

IMO, this is a high level kicking skill.

[dspyrido]

You didn’t get the point. I spoke about Chen taiji as JW took examples from Chen taiji. Real Chen Tai chi fajin starts from a very relaxed yet balanced body. The difference between very soft and hard, or solid, - beginning and ending the fajin - is greater than in fajin from external arts. It can be compared with a greater wind-up, or with a greater acceleration. It’s the greater difference between yin and yang that makes Chen Tai Chi fajin so powerful. If you cannot keep your body in a very relaxed state as you initiate the fajin, the power will be weaker. So indeed, song is a vital part of power generation in Taijiquan fajin.

Don't worry - i get what is being said. It's just as mentioned 99% of ima'ers (even less in tc) can't generate enough power short, long or magical to stop a moderately conditioned opponent. The methods of the few that I've met that could generate great power did not practise only song but the other end of the spectrum as well.

But let's make it easier and avoid the hearsay and conjecture.

To avoid wasting time post 1 video of someone showing what you are saying in action on an opponent (not on an eager hoppity training partner) & it will be far less opinion.

[dspyrido]

So for the sake of conversation, could people maybe start using these distinctions?

I only use it in reference to how it was spoken to me and make no claim to knowing it's correctness in language or even if it has multiple variations to it.

I simply understand it to be to issue power and can be applied to any striking move. But it needs to be developed.

It's practise is after the basic movement is understood then power needs to be developed through repetition:

Cut upwards - fajin
Hit a bag - fajin
Punch with wood (xy) - fajin
Kick a wall or tree - fajin
Repulse the monkey - fajin

The commonality was - to issue power. In practice - moving slowly to get coordination is not fajin. Doing it fast is.

Learning to do it with the whole body from 0 to intense and back again while issuing power into the opponent is the objective. Much like anything in life it is specific training that is developed by practising it over and over.

I am yet to see anyone train in fajin by only doing push hands or a slow form. It's like saying that by slow walking enough will eventually make a person a great sprinter.

Also I don't see it used in context of where it is targeted. It's not about uprooting, leverage or spinal alignment.

Just "with power".

But then again I'm not a linguist.

[Bao]

To avoid wasting time post 1 video of someone showing what you are saying in action on an opponent (not on an eager hoppity training partner) & it will be far less opinion.

I don't speak about what I have watched, I speak about what I have experienced. I have no idea where to find anything that would make it justice.

As I already said, a real good punch should have a power that goes deep into a target. There will be no hoppity-hop, rather the person would collapse straight down.


There's a good bengquan vid somewhere against someone with protection. You can look for it if you are interested.

[MaartenSFS]

That's what impresses you? That takes less than a half year of training...

[Bao]

That's what impresses you? That takes less than a half year of training...

Not really. The guy asked for something similar. If you can read I said that I know no vid that is exactly what I wrote about. Just wanted to throw in something. The vid here shows short jin which is not exactly to what I was referring to. I also said that I spoke aboout experience, not something I watched.

But actually, it can take far less than 6 month to learn different techniques and methods. The problem is to execute something in a live unrehearsed situation. So no demonstration can show if it works or not.

[Bao]

You are right, it's not a good example, I'll try to find something else instead.