Giles wrote:There are loads of possible scenarios, applications and variations for this move, as for most +/- Yang style form moves. As some others here also say or imply, if you focus specifically in the form on just one narrow application, then you're limiting your body and mind. Which will tend to result in you trying to force through a particular application in practice. Might work, might be totally appropriate in that moment, maybe not.
The more 'neutral'-looking form executions require that more is happening on the inside. If a lot of body and mind principles are in play as you do a more 'neutral' move, then the neutral execution is better training because you'll be better able to respond spontaneously and adequately and surprisingly to incoming forces, with different shades of application. But if there are few body and mind principles in play on the inside, then the move is in danger of becoming 'flat', or just weakness. Then incoming forces will lead to you simply collapsing.
So a more 'neutral' form can be full of taiji-gongfu, or just wishy-washy. The proof of the pudding is in the pushing. Or self-defending.
That's why I tend to take a critical view of beginners (without other martial arts experience) doing the CMC form in just the same way that CMC himself did towards the end of his life.
The way I learned applications were that they were an idea, not THE WAY. They serve to help you find the energies of a movement, but yes exactly as you mentioned, we don't want to make the mistake of defining any particular application as the only valid expression of the movement.
That being said, certain postures do lend themselves more readily to certain applications. In my own application of the art I tend to think more abstractly about the desired energy flow in a movement and then just let my body create an expression that will manifest it. Only afterwards can I look at it and try to compare it to a formal posture for reference.
I grabbed FZW and YCF's books off the shelf to compare their ideas here. FZW describes the palm down variant and doesn't mention any application. YCF's described application is simply turning around to face someone attacking from the rear, also with the palms down.
And then there is Yang Jwing Ming, he describes an application similar to what I mentioned, guiding the opponent past your body, but his hands are doing something COMPLETELY different.