flowing like a river?
flowing like a river?
I have not as yet had the privilege to recieve direct instruction from either yang jen duo or yang jun. However,after recently viewing a video of yang jun performing the entire long form,i noticed that he seems to pause momentarily between the completion of one posture and the beginning of the next.Does this contradict one of the ten essentials "LINKED WITHOUT BREAKS",continuous without ceasing? Do these short pauses interupt the chi flow? I am not trying to be hypercritical,i only want to know if i should try to emulate this fashion in my own form practice. Any help on this subject would be deeply appreciated. Thanks. jp
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JerryKarin
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I will try to answer this, though I do not claim to have any great authority. Feel free to jump in. In Yang style we have a concept of the ding4 shi4 or 'final position', 'defining position' etc, of a move. It is important to make this final position clear. For example in zhuan shen pie shen chui (turn body and chop with backfist), the final position is the spot where the back of the right fist strikes something, such as the opponent's face. In seminars Yang Zhenduo always makes a special point of saying that you must perform this so as to show the strike. That means the fist cannot just continue at an even speed in a circular fashion but must somehow mark the point of the strike. Yang Zhenduo uses the phrase si4 ting2 fei1 ting2 'seems like it pauses but it doesn't really pause' to describe this. Hope this helps.
A simplification, perhaps, but I think it may help illustrate Jerry's point.
I have always been told during Taiji, to keep my "mouth closed, but not closed, open but not open". This theory can be applied to the entirety of Taijiquan.
Move, but don't move, be still, but not still.
When my opponent moves, I move first, when my opponent is still, I am still first.
All these fun phrases say basically the same thing:
As there is Yin and Yang in equal proportions in all of taijiquan, so there is movement is stillness. This stillness is also represented in the form if done properly.
Clear as mud, but it covers the ground!
Hope that helps.
I have always been told during Taiji, to keep my "mouth closed, but not closed, open but not open". This theory can be applied to the entirety of Taijiquan.
Move, but don't move, be still, but not still.
When my opponent moves, I move first, when my opponent is still, I am still first.
All these fun phrases say basically the same thing:
As there is Yin and Yang in equal proportions in all of taijiquan, so there is movement is stillness. This stillness is also represented in the form if done properly.
Clear as mud, but it covers the ground!
Hope that helps.
Hi All:
JP, you made a very good observation from the video. Good luck with your practice and explorations.
I was actually a little startled to see this sequence of posts, because just the day before I saw them I had been considering posting a question about where to pause in Turn the Body and Chop with Fist and how to separate it from Deflect, Parry, and Punch. Good question, good answers, and good comments.
One comment I would like to add is that in the seminars I have attended, the Yangs seemed to value “clarity” more than other teachers I have been exposed to and to value evenness of movement less. I have heard some advocate absolutely no pause between postures, ostensible to preserve the flow of movement. I was first taught the form with a specific number of beats for each posture and was even advised to try practicing once or twice with a metronome.
My brief experiences with the Yangs have been the same as what Jerry described. I would like to add, however, that it seemed to me that they Yangs had two distinct reasons to “pause” between movements: to show a clear separation between named posture sequences (though not necessarily between each “technique”) and to distinguish the martial purpose of certain movements from mere “choreography.” This latter emphasis was a little bit of a surprise to me at first, because the atmosphere at the seminar I was attending and the flavor of the Yangs’ teaching had generally not seemed particularly oriented to martial purposes to me. Since that time, I have heard Yang Zhenduo take pains on more than one occasion to say that what they were teaching was, at its root, a martial art and that certain performance characteristics of the form should reflect this, even if one was only interested in health aspects.
Turn the Body and Chop with Fist seems an unusual posture to me, because it is one of the few postures whose name does not seem to refer either to the last movement in the sequence or to its “peak” position. As a result, I have never been quite certain how to articulate the various movements. I no longer recall precisely what tempo changes the Yangs use or how much variation might be possible. I currently try to articulate the back fist as a clear strike, but do not pause more than instantaneously. For me, it is more a clear change in energy trajectory than a distinct pause. I do the same for the left hand palm strike. I then pause slightly, but distinctly, at the conclusion of the Roll Back portion of the sequence to separate it from Deflect, Parry, and Punch.
By the way, I first found the concept of Ding Shi (“Determinative Posture”?) quite surprising, given all the talk in Taijiquan about “flowing like a river.” I had another surprise as I tried to explore this concept and apply it for a few months. As I tried to check for maximum extension, stability, and rootedness while assuming the Ding Shi within each “posture,” I began to feel a sense of Fajin power I had assumed was lacking from Yang Chengfu’s form. It began to give me an insight into what things like Inch Power might be and why Yang Chengfu might have decided to remove Fajin from most of the form.
Take care,
Audi
JP, you made a very good observation from the video. Good luck with your practice and explorations.
I was actually a little startled to see this sequence of posts, because just the day before I saw them I had been considering posting a question about where to pause in Turn the Body and Chop with Fist and how to separate it from Deflect, Parry, and Punch. Good question, good answers, and good comments.
One comment I would like to add is that in the seminars I have attended, the Yangs seemed to value “clarity” more than other teachers I have been exposed to and to value evenness of movement less. I have heard some advocate absolutely no pause between postures, ostensible to preserve the flow of movement. I was first taught the form with a specific number of beats for each posture and was even advised to try practicing once or twice with a metronome.
My brief experiences with the Yangs have been the same as what Jerry described. I would like to add, however, that it seemed to me that they Yangs had two distinct reasons to “pause” between movements: to show a clear separation between named posture sequences (though not necessarily between each “technique”) and to distinguish the martial purpose of certain movements from mere “choreography.” This latter emphasis was a little bit of a surprise to me at first, because the atmosphere at the seminar I was attending and the flavor of the Yangs’ teaching had generally not seemed particularly oriented to martial purposes to me. Since that time, I have heard Yang Zhenduo take pains on more than one occasion to say that what they were teaching was, at its root, a martial art and that certain performance characteristics of the form should reflect this, even if one was only interested in health aspects.
Turn the Body and Chop with Fist seems an unusual posture to me, because it is one of the few postures whose name does not seem to refer either to the last movement in the sequence or to its “peak” position. As a result, I have never been quite certain how to articulate the various movements. I no longer recall precisely what tempo changes the Yangs use or how much variation might be possible. I currently try to articulate the back fist as a clear strike, but do not pause more than instantaneously. For me, it is more a clear change in energy trajectory than a distinct pause. I do the same for the left hand palm strike. I then pause slightly, but distinctly, at the conclusion of the Roll Back portion of the sequence to separate it from Deflect, Parry, and Punch.
By the way, I first found the concept of Ding Shi (“Determinative Posture”?) quite surprising, given all the talk in Taijiquan about “flowing like a river.” I had another surprise as I tried to explore this concept and apply it for a few months. As I tried to check for maximum extension, stability, and rootedness while assuming the Ding Shi within each “posture,” I began to feel a sense of Fajin power I had assumed was lacking from Yang Chengfu’s form. It began to give me an insight into what things like Inch Power might be and why Yang Chengfu might have decided to remove Fajin from most of the form.
Take care,
Audi
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Louis Swaim
- Posts: 1390
- Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2001 7:01 am
- Location: Oakland, CA
Greetings Audi,
You wrote:
‘By the way, I first found the concept of Ding Shi (“Determinative Posture”?) quite surprising, given all the talk in Taijiquan about “flowing like a river.” I had another surprise as I tried to explore this concept and apply it for a few months. As I tried to check for maximum extension, stability, and rootedness while assuming the Ding Shi within each “posture,” I began to feel a sense of Fajin power I had assumed was lacking from Yang Chengfu’s form. It began to give me an insight into what things like Inch Power might be and why Yang Chengfu might have decided to remove Fajin from most of the form.’
I suspect that the terminology, “dingshi” is a modern word, and is not a traditional taijiquan term, but I agree that it’s a convenient concept. Fu Zhongwen also used the term “dingdian” for the same idea, that is, for a relatively “fixed point” in which the posture reaches its full disclosure. He also used the “seems to stop, does not stop” wording to clarify the concept of continuity and linkage as well as clear definition of ending postures.
I recently gained some insight into the term “dingdian” while doing some research in a database of Chinese scientific terms that collects and documents first and earliest occurances of modern scientific ideas expressed as new Chinese words or neologisms. The term “dingdian” first began to be used during an upsurge of translation of Western scientific writings in the mid-1860s, with the meanings, “fulcrum,” “fixed point,” and “limit.” These definitions all strike me as getting to the functional sense of what Fu Zhongwen meant by dingdian in his taijiquan instructions. It's rather like the “limit,” or “terminal point” in the travel of a pendulum before it swings back. Not knowing much about physics, I will say that to me a pendulum “appears to stop, but does not stop” at the terminal points of swing. Consider this quote about “energy”:
“Energy associated with motion is known as kinetic energy, and energy related to position is called potential energy. Thus, a swinging pendulum has maximum potential energy at the terminal points; at all intermediate positions it has both kinetic and potential energy in varying proportions.” ("Energy," Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia)
As usual, I’m just playing with words, yet this does seem to get at what “dingdian” or “dingshi” feel like to me in form practice.
One final note—among the many early competitors for a Chinese term for “potential energy” at the turn of the century was the single character, “shi” (posture, position, etc.), about which there was some discussion on this board a while back, and for which I proposed the translation, “efficacious disposition.”
Pardon my pendular ponderings,
Louis
[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 01-02-2003).]
You wrote:
‘By the way, I first found the concept of Ding Shi (“Determinative Posture”?) quite surprising, given all the talk in Taijiquan about “flowing like a river.” I had another surprise as I tried to explore this concept and apply it for a few months. As I tried to check for maximum extension, stability, and rootedness while assuming the Ding Shi within each “posture,” I began to feel a sense of Fajin power I had assumed was lacking from Yang Chengfu’s form. It began to give me an insight into what things like Inch Power might be and why Yang Chengfu might have decided to remove Fajin from most of the form.’
I suspect that the terminology, “dingshi” is a modern word, and is not a traditional taijiquan term, but I agree that it’s a convenient concept. Fu Zhongwen also used the term “dingdian” for the same idea, that is, for a relatively “fixed point” in which the posture reaches its full disclosure. He also used the “seems to stop, does not stop” wording to clarify the concept of continuity and linkage as well as clear definition of ending postures.
I recently gained some insight into the term “dingdian” while doing some research in a database of Chinese scientific terms that collects and documents first and earliest occurances of modern scientific ideas expressed as new Chinese words or neologisms. The term “dingdian” first began to be used during an upsurge of translation of Western scientific writings in the mid-1860s, with the meanings, “fulcrum,” “fixed point,” and “limit.” These definitions all strike me as getting to the functional sense of what Fu Zhongwen meant by dingdian in his taijiquan instructions. It's rather like the “limit,” or “terminal point” in the travel of a pendulum before it swings back. Not knowing much about physics, I will say that to me a pendulum “appears to stop, but does not stop” at the terminal points of swing. Consider this quote about “energy”:
“Energy associated with motion is known as kinetic energy, and energy related to position is called potential energy. Thus, a swinging pendulum has maximum potential energy at the terminal points; at all intermediate positions it has both kinetic and potential energy in varying proportions.” ("Energy," Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia)
As usual, I’m just playing with words, yet this does seem to get at what “dingdian” or “dingshi” feel like to me in form practice.
One final note—among the many early competitors for a Chinese term for “potential energy” at the turn of the century was the single character, “shi” (posture, position, etc.), about which there was some discussion on this board a while back, and for which I proposed the translation, “efficacious disposition.”
Pardon my pendular ponderings,
Louis
[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 01-02-2003).]
Thanks for the input on the "flowing river"inquiry. I especialy like the concept of dingdian.To me the laws of physical science correlate so well to the study of taiji quan. In fact,i've found that within the study of taiji (with or without quan)lie the nurturings to learn or appreciate everything else.I personally have developed a wide range of interest in art and science (Mozart,Da vinci,astro-physics,kite flying)by relating these subjects to the inherent concepts of taiji(quan).Anyway,thanks again for the replies.jp - p.s. To me,kite flying on a breezy day is like pushing hands with the wind.
I think I need to learn Chinese, at least one dialect well enough to get my face slapped.
I read these posts, and I'm just floored by the Chinese words that I simply don't understand and mostly have never heard.
What I have been finding is that I know what these words mean, once I get through the translation. In other words, I have been taught that particular theory, but in English, so when I hear it in Chinese I don't know what people are talking about!
I think that may be a contributing factor to my puzzelment about the flavor of Taijiquan we are discussing here.
Not ever having heard either term, Dingshi or Dingdian, before I was at first totally flummoxed by what they stood for. But then reading on, I found that the theory was very familiar to my poor, one-language-only-sorry-guys brain but the words were not.
Any way you say it, this "stillness in the movement while not still" was taught to me pretty early on in form training, and I have passed it on while training others using just that wording.
The "apparent stillness in a pendulum" correlation was exactly what was used to illustrate the point to me.
Another way it was described to me was as I wrote above:
Move but don't move, be still but not still.
The fajing (fajin, fa-ching, fa-chin, you say tomato...) in the moves is rooted in this "stillness", as Audi has keenly observed, or so it was explained to me.
I've heard all kinds of differing ways of describing this "stillness in the movement", but I still think the "Yin within the Yang" clarifies this more for me than any other way I've heard it.
Without these "still" places in the form, you would be ignoring Yin in your forms and only the Yang would be being practiced. To understand and utilize both sides of Yin and Yang, you need to practice both.
It is equally valid to practice "movement" during the "stillness" in your form as it is to practice "stillness" during the "movement", or so a very wise member of the Wu family once said to me (I am paraphrasing, as I have only my admittedly poor memory to fall back on).
He told me this as I was asking just about exactly the same question as the one posted here.
He went on to tell me something like, "You must understand both movement and stillness and why they are related, not seperate. They are the same thing, for they are within each other at all times and one cannot exist without the other."
I must admit, I had NO idea what he was talking about at the time. I'm starting to understand, but only just.
I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
I read these posts, and I'm just floored by the Chinese words that I simply don't understand and mostly have never heard.
What I have been finding is that I know what these words mean, once I get through the translation. In other words, I have been taught that particular theory, but in English, so when I hear it in Chinese I don't know what people are talking about!
I think that may be a contributing factor to my puzzelment about the flavor of Taijiquan we are discussing here.
Not ever having heard either term, Dingshi or Dingdian, before I was at first totally flummoxed by what they stood for. But then reading on, I found that the theory was very familiar to my poor, one-language-only-sorry-guys brain but the words were not.
Any way you say it, this "stillness in the movement while not still" was taught to me pretty early on in form training, and I have passed it on while training others using just that wording.
The "apparent stillness in a pendulum" correlation was exactly what was used to illustrate the point to me.
Another way it was described to me was as I wrote above:
Move but don't move, be still but not still.
The fajing (fajin, fa-ching, fa-chin, you say tomato...) in the moves is rooted in this "stillness", as Audi has keenly observed, or so it was explained to me.
I've heard all kinds of differing ways of describing this "stillness in the movement", but I still think the "Yin within the Yang" clarifies this more for me than any other way I've heard it.
Without these "still" places in the form, you would be ignoring Yin in your forms and only the Yang would be being practiced. To understand and utilize both sides of Yin and Yang, you need to practice both.
It is equally valid to practice "movement" during the "stillness" in your form as it is to practice "stillness" during the "movement", or so a very wise member of the Wu family once said to me (I am paraphrasing, as I have only my admittedly poor memory to fall back on).
He told me this as I was asking just about exactly the same question as the one posted here.
He went on to tell me something like, "You must understand both movement and stillness and why they are related, not seperate. They are the same thing, for they are within each other at all times and one cannot exist without the other."
I must admit, I had NO idea what he was talking about at the time. I'm starting to understand, but only just.
I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
One more thought on the above discussion.After giving it some thought,i seem to think that this stillness/movement(MOUNTAIN/RIVER)idea is a little mis-leading.In fact,taken literaly,the entire concept becomes a misnomer.Universal law states that a body in motion cannot simultaneouly remain at rest."Moving through stillness" may be an expression designed to convey a somewhat different application. Looking at the way a pedulum swings,it seems clear that the pendulum MOVES toward its fixed point of energy depletion(momentum)where gravity takes over, causing it to reach STILLNESS and reverse its trajectory. It becomes apparent that movement and stillness do not occur at the same time.However,taiji quan does exactly move the way a pendulum does.Movement is not infused by falling toward gravity,nor does it subside by moving away from gravity.If this were the case, all deciding on where and when to stop/move would be eliminated.So, these "mountain/river" movements originate and are regulated by the intent,which brings me back to ponder my original question,why do they occur at all?
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Louis Swaim
- Posts: 1390
- Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2001 7:01 am
- Location: Oakland, CA
Greetings Shadow,
You wrote, “Universal law states that a body in motion cannot simultaneously remain at rest.”
I’m going to be only partially facetious here, and ask: Who is stating this? Is there really such a “universal law?” Along with Heisenberg, I tend to experience some uncertainty when confronted by pronouncements of universal laws about what we perceive to be motion and stillness, particles and waves, or anything else, for that matter.
Zeno’s arrow paradox (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/3 ... Arrow.html) treats of this difficulty in making absolute statements about motion and absence of motion. Interestingly, the Chinese sophist Hui Shi, quoted in the Zhuangzi, called upon similar arrow imagery: “As fast as a barbed arrow goes, there are times when it is neither in motion nor at rest,” to cast doubt upon perspectival perceptions. Hui Shi also used another image you may like: “The shadow of a flying bird has never moved.”
I do agree, of course, that taijiquan movement is not exactly like the behavior of a pendulum in gravity, but I’m suggesting that the idea of the “terminal point” (dingdian in modern Chinese) may have been borrowed metaphorically from the realm of physics to describe something that “is like” that behavior of “seems to stop, does not stop.”
The polarity of motion and stillness, incidentally, has preoccupied Chinese thinkers for hundreds of years.
Take care,
Louis
You wrote, “Universal law states that a body in motion cannot simultaneously remain at rest.”
I’m going to be only partially facetious here, and ask: Who is stating this? Is there really such a “universal law?” Along with Heisenberg, I tend to experience some uncertainty when confronted by pronouncements of universal laws about what we perceive to be motion and stillness, particles and waves, or anything else, for that matter.
Zeno’s arrow paradox (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/3 ... Arrow.html) treats of this difficulty in making absolute statements about motion and absence of motion. Interestingly, the Chinese sophist Hui Shi, quoted in the Zhuangzi, called upon similar arrow imagery: “As fast as a barbed arrow goes, there are times when it is neither in motion nor at rest,” to cast doubt upon perspectival perceptions. Hui Shi also used another image you may like: “The shadow of a flying bird has never moved.”
I do agree, of course, that taijiquan movement is not exactly like the behavior of a pendulum in gravity, but I’m suggesting that the idea of the “terminal point” (dingdian in modern Chinese) may have been borrowed metaphorically from the realm of physics to describe something that “is like” that behavior of “seems to stop, does not stop.”
The polarity of motion and stillness, incidentally, has preoccupied Chinese thinkers for hundreds of years.
Take care,
Louis
hi louis, based on your reciprocation of flying birds and arrows,i must revise my own convictions on what i assumed to be "UNIVERSAL LAW".All of this seems to be as enigmatic as chaung-tzu's butterfly dream. Anyway, the idea of an arrow flying through the air,OR hanging motionless as the world whizzes by,seems to infer that it may be difficult,if not impossible,to intellectually percieve reality.
Hi JP, Louis, and Wushuer,
JP, here are some additional thoughts for your ponderings on movement and stillness.
From Yang Chengfu’s explanation of the principle of “continuity,” available elsewhere on this site, it seems that the principle of “having stillness in motion” is somewhat distinct from the principle that determines the cadence of the form. Some of the discussion on this thread seems to address one principle, and some the other.
In addition to thinking of an oscillation between movement and stillness, one can think of moving as if every position you move through and every instant of your movement is perfect and still in itself. No additional movement is necessary unless conditions change. In other words, you are not trying to get anywhere, since where you are is already complete and appropriate without further movement. More often than not, you are not moving your limbs to do something that is only useful at its endpoint, but rather you are changing the disposition of the joint energy manifested by you and your opponent at that very instant.
Another yin/yang tension that is maybe worth considering is that often when our limbs are in motion with respect to the floor, they are relatively still with respect to our torso, or some other part of our anatomy. I believe this issue was touched on in one of the earlier Association Newsletters. I think an understanding of this tension is one of the hard-to-define things that is visible in the performance of people who are good at form.
If stillness and motion are the same, one might ask the question: Why move at all? Your opponent, by virtue of being an opponent, is trying to alter your happy existence and “change conditions.” Note that inertia is an essential property of both movement and stillness in Newton’s theory of motion. Movement and stillness are equally relative terms in Einstein’s theories and really do refer to the same parameter. How do we define the movement of the flying arrow? As we sit “still” in our chairs reading Internet postings, we are “moving” at several thousand miles per hour with respect to the center of the earth, the center of the sun, the center of the Milky Way, etc.
One might also ask the question: “Why pause between postures if movement and stillness are the same thing”? Without an opponent, there is no reason for conditions to change other than our whims and our anatomy. If you therefore do each posture to the full extent our anatomies allow, you reach a point of “recoil” or point of articulation where the force vectors must change. If you do form in this way (and not everyone does or tries to, in my opinion), this point of articulation is different from the other points you pass through. It belongs to two different postures and helps define the vectors necessary for both postures.
This duality arguably means that the point is still Taiji, rather than Yin, Yang, or Wuji. You are still contrasting two things, rather than merely stopping, pausing, or stagnating. In an instant, as your original mind intent reaches fulfillment, it transforms from one thing into another. The combination of the “pause” and the instant change can be thought of again as stillness in motion. This is different from merely letting a posture continue to unfold, as we do during transitions. So much is going on here that a pause allows us to perceive the changes clearly and make sure not to leave something undone.
Louis, thanks for the info on dingdian. It always surprises me how Taijiquan is both old and new. By the way, during your research, did you find out anything about the choices made to translate the English word “energy”? I do not recall if we have discussed this in the past.
My own speculation, based on absolutely no research, is that the term “Qi” is simply a pre-industrial version of the term “energy,” modified by traditional Chinese views that make its range of usage somewhat different from the term “energy” and from terms like “mana” and “prana” that have their own cultural associations. I have wondered whether 19th century translators settled on other words in order to avoid the additional cultural associations of Qi that do not fit well with Western scientific traditions. I am also curious if you know why the term “energy” (presumably, “energia” in Greek) was first coined. From the roots of the word, I think it means something like “internal work,” but I am uncertain as to whether this was an ancient Greek term, or a Medieval one, and what concept was meant to be conveyed.
Wushuer, I apologize for the Chinese I use. Since my own knowledge is very restricted, I have to show off what little I have! J
On a more serious note, the Internet is a strange environment, where you can have fairly intimate conversations between two people, and yet anyone else on the planet is invited to read and comment. Not everyone who participates on this forum speaks native English or appears to have been taught Taijiquan in English. While there is a fair consensus about the English translation about many Chinese terms, there is no consensus about many others.
Even where there is a consensus, the English terms often have undesirable connotations that do not fit the Chinese. Dropping in the Chinese equivalent of an English term can sometimes clarify what concept is being discussed. For instance, the English word “energy” can correspond to “Qi” or “Jin(g)” or maybe even “Jingshen,” which I believe to be separate things in Chinese and the Taiji texts. If, for instance, I mentioned “energy points,” would not most people incorrectly think I was talking about “Qi meridians,” rather than “focuses for Jin”?
I prefer live instruction to written words any day. You are blessed if you have had consistently good verbal instruction. Having acknowledged this, however, I confess that I agree with a sentiment that T.T. Liang expressed, which is that both verbal instruction and personal research are best. Every teacher and every book has its limits. The minute we go beyond one teacher or line of teachers or beyond one book or series of books we not only have the opportunity to fill in gaps, but also run into the problem of differing vocabulary.
I have a whole host of terms that I no longer interpret as I once did, because my understanding of the linguistic context behind them has changed. The most serious problem I have had is not so much that English does not have terms for the Chinese concepts, but rather that the full range of meanings never lines up precisely. One thing that is rarely mentioned in language books is that even such mundane terms as body parts often have slightly different core meanings in different languages. In such an exacting art as Taijiquan, this can be disastrous for understanding.
Please excuse all my mental meanderings.
Take care,
Audi
JP, here are some additional thoughts for your ponderings on movement and stillness.
From Yang Chengfu’s explanation of the principle of “continuity,” available elsewhere on this site, it seems that the principle of “having stillness in motion” is somewhat distinct from the principle that determines the cadence of the form. Some of the discussion on this thread seems to address one principle, and some the other.
In addition to thinking of an oscillation between movement and stillness, one can think of moving as if every position you move through and every instant of your movement is perfect and still in itself. No additional movement is necessary unless conditions change. In other words, you are not trying to get anywhere, since where you are is already complete and appropriate without further movement. More often than not, you are not moving your limbs to do something that is only useful at its endpoint, but rather you are changing the disposition of the joint energy manifested by you and your opponent at that very instant.
Another yin/yang tension that is maybe worth considering is that often when our limbs are in motion with respect to the floor, they are relatively still with respect to our torso, or some other part of our anatomy. I believe this issue was touched on in one of the earlier Association Newsletters. I think an understanding of this tension is one of the hard-to-define things that is visible in the performance of people who are good at form.
If stillness and motion are the same, one might ask the question: Why move at all? Your opponent, by virtue of being an opponent, is trying to alter your happy existence and “change conditions.” Note that inertia is an essential property of both movement and stillness in Newton’s theory of motion. Movement and stillness are equally relative terms in Einstein’s theories and really do refer to the same parameter. How do we define the movement of the flying arrow? As we sit “still” in our chairs reading Internet postings, we are “moving” at several thousand miles per hour with respect to the center of the earth, the center of the sun, the center of the Milky Way, etc.
One might also ask the question: “Why pause between postures if movement and stillness are the same thing”? Without an opponent, there is no reason for conditions to change other than our whims and our anatomy. If you therefore do each posture to the full extent our anatomies allow, you reach a point of “recoil” or point of articulation where the force vectors must change. If you do form in this way (and not everyone does or tries to, in my opinion), this point of articulation is different from the other points you pass through. It belongs to two different postures and helps define the vectors necessary for both postures.
This duality arguably means that the point is still Taiji, rather than Yin, Yang, or Wuji. You are still contrasting two things, rather than merely stopping, pausing, or stagnating. In an instant, as your original mind intent reaches fulfillment, it transforms from one thing into another. The combination of the “pause” and the instant change can be thought of again as stillness in motion. This is different from merely letting a posture continue to unfold, as we do during transitions. So much is going on here that a pause allows us to perceive the changes clearly and make sure not to leave something undone.
Louis, thanks for the info on dingdian. It always surprises me how Taijiquan is both old and new. By the way, during your research, did you find out anything about the choices made to translate the English word “energy”? I do not recall if we have discussed this in the past.
My own speculation, based on absolutely no research, is that the term “Qi” is simply a pre-industrial version of the term “energy,” modified by traditional Chinese views that make its range of usage somewhat different from the term “energy” and from terms like “mana” and “prana” that have their own cultural associations. I have wondered whether 19th century translators settled on other words in order to avoid the additional cultural associations of Qi that do not fit well with Western scientific traditions. I am also curious if you know why the term “energy” (presumably, “energia” in Greek) was first coined. From the roots of the word, I think it means something like “internal work,” but I am uncertain as to whether this was an ancient Greek term, or a Medieval one, and what concept was meant to be conveyed.
Wushuer, I apologize for the Chinese I use. Since my own knowledge is very restricted, I have to show off what little I have! J
On a more serious note, the Internet is a strange environment, where you can have fairly intimate conversations between two people, and yet anyone else on the planet is invited to read and comment. Not everyone who participates on this forum speaks native English or appears to have been taught Taijiquan in English. While there is a fair consensus about the English translation about many Chinese terms, there is no consensus about many others.
Even where there is a consensus, the English terms often have undesirable connotations that do not fit the Chinese. Dropping in the Chinese equivalent of an English term can sometimes clarify what concept is being discussed. For instance, the English word “energy” can correspond to “Qi” or “Jin(g)” or maybe even “Jingshen,” which I believe to be separate things in Chinese and the Taiji texts. If, for instance, I mentioned “energy points,” would not most people incorrectly think I was talking about “Qi meridians,” rather than “focuses for Jin”?
I prefer live instruction to written words any day. You are blessed if you have had consistently good verbal instruction. Having acknowledged this, however, I confess that I agree with a sentiment that T.T. Liang expressed, which is that both verbal instruction and personal research are best. Every teacher and every book has its limits. The minute we go beyond one teacher or line of teachers or beyond one book or series of books we not only have the opportunity to fill in gaps, but also run into the problem of differing vocabulary.
I have a whole host of terms that I no longer interpret as I once did, because my understanding of the linguistic context behind them has changed. The most serious problem I have had is not so much that English does not have terms for the Chinese concepts, but rather that the full range of meanings never lines up precisely. One thing that is rarely mentioned in language books is that even such mundane terms as body parts often have slightly different core meanings in different languages. In such an exacting art as Taijiquan, this can be disastrous for understanding.
Please excuse all my mental meanderings.
Take care,
Audi
-
Louis Swaim
- Posts: 1390
- Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2001 7:01 am
- Location: Oakland, CA
Greetings Shadow,
I’d been gathering up ideas for what I had hoped would be a more helpful and less enigmatic response to your questions, but in the process of thinking through the issues, questions of my own kept coming up, and one thing led to another. I fear the result may still be less than clear, but I’ll just go ahead and post my ramblings. In the meantime, I think Audi did a great job of making distinctions among the notions of continuity, cadence, and the oscillations between relative states of stillness and movement.
Here goes:
“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”
—Werner Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927
Heisenberg, of course, was talking about the observed behavior of subatomic particles, but many modern thinkers have noted the wider implications of his observation—sometimes also known as the “uncertainty relation,” the “uncertainty principle,” or the “principle of indeterminacy”—on epistemological issues, such as causality.
Being one who likes to play with words, and then “see what happens,” I can almost hear an aphorism for the taijiquan practitioner here, stated as, “seek the position in the momentum, and seek the momentum in the position.” That is, one should avoid fixating on one at the expense of knowledge or awareness of the other.
Another thing to keep in mind with regard to the notions of “motion” and “stillness” in the taijiquan context is that the particular Chinese words being used for stillness (jing), and motion (dong) do not refer exclusively to physical/mechanical motion and its absence. The word jing not only refers to physical motionlessness, but also to mental quietude, calmness, or presence of mind. Some Neo-Confucians extrapolated from jing “quietude” to another jing character, “composure,” and asserted that one should in fact seek composure in both actions and in quietude. At the same time, the word dong can refer not just to specific physical motion, but also to “action” in a more general sense. So, “dong” can and often does refer to mental activity. There is a Chinese expression that may help get at how to understand these terms in the taijiquan context: “yi dong bu ru yi jing.” Literally, this is, “one action is not as good as one stillness,” but the common meaning is more like “better to refrain from action until one is absolutely sure one’s action will be effective” (an equivilant English aphorism might be 'Look before you leap.') To me, this ties in with the taiji aphorism, “deji deshi” (obtain the opportunity and strategic advantage), having to do with finding the perfect nexus of timing and posture so as to avoid superfluous movement.
In my opinion, the notions of “motion” and “stillness” do have additional, wider ranging, philosophical connotations. One thing that leads me to this position is that the phrase “seek stillness in motion” resonates with language found in the discourse of various Chinese philosophical traditions. The pair “dong/jing” is one of a host of what have been referred to as “ontological dyads” that have played perennial roles in Chinese thought. Most notable is some phrasing in the work of an early Buddhist thinker named Seng-zhao (384-414). In an essay called “The Immutability of Things,” he wrote:
“In our search for immutability, we surely do not find quiescence by putting movement aside. We must seek for movement in the quiescent, just as we must seek for quiescence in movement. Therefore though (things) move, they are ever quiescent. Because we do not find quiescence by putting movement aside, therefore though (things) remain quiescent, they are ever in movement.”
—Seng-zhao, trans. in Fung Yu-lan, _A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II_, p. 263.
Although most classical taijiquan documents do not tend to have much in the way of a Buddhist flavor, the “seek stillness in motion” aphorism may well be inspired, directly or indirectly, by Seng-zhao’s wording. For those interested, Arieh Lev Breslow discusses this connection in his book, _Beyond the Closed Door: Chinese Culture and the Creation of T’ai Chi Ch’uan_(1995, Almond Blossom Press).
In the tenth of Yang Chengfu’s “Ten Essentials,” the wording, “Seek stillness in motion” is followed by wording that is likely Chen Weiming’s elaborative commentary: “Taijiquan uses stillness to manage movement” and, “Even when there is movement, there is stillness.” The second phrase “sui dong you jing” picks up wording that appears in the “Song of the Thirteen Postures”: “In the midst of stillness one comes into contact with movement, moving as though remaining still (dong you jing), and in Li Yiyu’s “Song of the Essence and Application of Taijiquan”: “Movement arises from stillness, but even in movement there is stillness [sui dong jing you ran].” (see Wile, trans., _Lost T’ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch’ing Dynasty_, pp. 50-51, 130-131). In each case, it might be helpful to think of “stillness” here as “calmness,” or presence of mind.
Addressing your initial question about the metaphors “still as a mountain” and “move as a river,” these natural images are again very common metaphors in Chinese. As Audi suggests, I don’t think the taiji usage of these metaphors has so much to do with absolute physical stillness or motion as much as with the quality of one’s form, or if you will, with the quality of one’s disposition (psycho-physio disposition). In the metaphors as they appear in the “Mental Elucidation of the Thirteen Postures,” it’s not just “mountain,” but “shanyue,” meaning a particularly lofty peak. This imagery is sometimes called upon to describe someone whose bearing or deportment is noble and dignified. Chen Weiming’s commentary says that “still like a lofty mountain” here means “sink the weight and not float” (chen zhong bu fu). Also, it’s not just “river,” but “jianghe,” meaning the Yellow River, or a particularly large river. Chen Weiming’s commentary for “move like a river” is “ever flowing without ceasing” (zhou liu bu xi). A large river may have spots of relative stillness as it flows, but it moves continuously nonetheless.
Does any of this help make the taiji notions of stillness and motion more understandable?
Audi,
regarding your questions about “energy” in Chinese and its inherited meaning in English: I did a search on "energy" in the above mentioned database, and got 247 entries, beginning with an 1867 entry for "nengli," probably the most common neologism for energy, from a publication on "zhongxue," (study of weight -- the earliest term used for mechanics or physics in Chinese). There were some early competitors that incorporated "qi," but nengli eventually out-competed those. Why? I suppose that nengli (capable/strength) more closely captured the Western physics meaning. Still, I wouldn’t say that there’s anything about “qi” that would make it incompatible with the scientific notion of energy. I still like Porkert’s thoughts on this. He says that qi is rather similar to the conception of “energy.” “And yet, unlike our concept of energy, qi, whatever the context and absolutely without exception, always implies a qualitative determination of energy. . . . For this reason we use for the technical term qi the standard definitions ‘configurational energy’—i.e., energy of a definite direction in space, of a definite arrangement, quality or structure—and ‘energetic configuration’.” (The Theoretical Basis of Chinese Medicine, pp. 167-168)
As I understand it, the most common definition for “energy” in physics is “the capacity for doing work.” (This has puzzled me, as I don’t know what exactly to make of “work”; it seems to be a loaded word for what is supposedly a scientific concept.) Just to add to the mix, my CD Encyclopaedia Britannica says: “All forms of energy are associated with motion. For example, any given body has kinetic energy if it is in motion. A tensioned device such as a bow or spring, though at rest, has the potential for creating motion; it contains potential energy because of its configuration.” (I find the “configuration” wording quite congenial to my previous ruminations about “disposition.” The wording “it contains potential energy because of its configuration” would be quite at home in a Warring States description of a crossbow.) As you know, classical taijiquan writings often rely on metaphors or analogies of bows, springs, levers, balance scales, etc. For example, “Store energy as though drawing a bow. Issue energy as though releasing an arrow.” Oh hey, another arrow metaphor!
I’m intrigued by your statement, “. . .you are not moving your limbs to do something that is only useful at its endpoint, but rather you are changing the disposition of the joint energy [combined energy?] manifested by you and your opponent at that very instant.”Consider this statement under Britannica’s “Potential Energy” entry: “Potential energy arises in systems with parts that exert forces on each other of a magnitude dependent on the configuration, or relative position, of the parts.” A system would include solo form as well as partner training. Neat, huh?
Take care,
Louis
[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 01-07-2003).]
I’d been gathering up ideas for what I had hoped would be a more helpful and less enigmatic response to your questions, but in the process of thinking through the issues, questions of my own kept coming up, and one thing led to another. I fear the result may still be less than clear, but I’ll just go ahead and post my ramblings. In the meantime, I think Audi did a great job of making distinctions among the notions of continuity, cadence, and the oscillations between relative states of stillness and movement.
Here goes:
“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”
—Werner Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927
Heisenberg, of course, was talking about the observed behavior of subatomic particles, but many modern thinkers have noted the wider implications of his observation—sometimes also known as the “uncertainty relation,” the “uncertainty principle,” or the “principle of indeterminacy”—on epistemological issues, such as causality.
Being one who likes to play with words, and then “see what happens,” I can almost hear an aphorism for the taijiquan practitioner here, stated as, “seek the position in the momentum, and seek the momentum in the position.” That is, one should avoid fixating on one at the expense of knowledge or awareness of the other.
Another thing to keep in mind with regard to the notions of “motion” and “stillness” in the taijiquan context is that the particular Chinese words being used for stillness (jing), and motion (dong) do not refer exclusively to physical/mechanical motion and its absence. The word jing not only refers to physical motionlessness, but also to mental quietude, calmness, or presence of mind. Some Neo-Confucians extrapolated from jing “quietude” to another jing character, “composure,” and asserted that one should in fact seek composure in both actions and in quietude. At the same time, the word dong can refer not just to specific physical motion, but also to “action” in a more general sense. So, “dong” can and often does refer to mental activity. There is a Chinese expression that may help get at how to understand these terms in the taijiquan context: “yi dong bu ru yi jing.” Literally, this is, “one action is not as good as one stillness,” but the common meaning is more like “better to refrain from action until one is absolutely sure one’s action will be effective” (an equivilant English aphorism might be 'Look before you leap.') To me, this ties in with the taiji aphorism, “deji deshi” (obtain the opportunity and strategic advantage), having to do with finding the perfect nexus of timing and posture so as to avoid superfluous movement.
In my opinion, the notions of “motion” and “stillness” do have additional, wider ranging, philosophical connotations. One thing that leads me to this position is that the phrase “seek stillness in motion” resonates with language found in the discourse of various Chinese philosophical traditions. The pair “dong/jing” is one of a host of what have been referred to as “ontological dyads” that have played perennial roles in Chinese thought. Most notable is some phrasing in the work of an early Buddhist thinker named Seng-zhao (384-414). In an essay called “The Immutability of Things,” he wrote:
“In our search for immutability, we surely do not find quiescence by putting movement aside. We must seek for movement in the quiescent, just as we must seek for quiescence in movement. Therefore though (things) move, they are ever quiescent. Because we do not find quiescence by putting movement aside, therefore though (things) remain quiescent, they are ever in movement.”
—Seng-zhao, trans. in Fung Yu-lan, _A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II_, p. 263.
Although most classical taijiquan documents do not tend to have much in the way of a Buddhist flavor, the “seek stillness in motion” aphorism may well be inspired, directly or indirectly, by Seng-zhao’s wording. For those interested, Arieh Lev Breslow discusses this connection in his book, _Beyond the Closed Door: Chinese Culture and the Creation of T’ai Chi Ch’uan_(1995, Almond Blossom Press).
In the tenth of Yang Chengfu’s “Ten Essentials,” the wording, “Seek stillness in motion” is followed by wording that is likely Chen Weiming’s elaborative commentary: “Taijiquan uses stillness to manage movement” and, “Even when there is movement, there is stillness.” The second phrase “sui dong you jing” picks up wording that appears in the “Song of the Thirteen Postures”: “In the midst of stillness one comes into contact with movement, moving as though remaining still (dong you jing), and in Li Yiyu’s “Song of the Essence and Application of Taijiquan”: “Movement arises from stillness, but even in movement there is stillness [sui dong jing you ran].” (see Wile, trans., _Lost T’ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch’ing Dynasty_, pp. 50-51, 130-131). In each case, it might be helpful to think of “stillness” here as “calmness,” or presence of mind.
Addressing your initial question about the metaphors “still as a mountain” and “move as a river,” these natural images are again very common metaphors in Chinese. As Audi suggests, I don’t think the taiji usage of these metaphors has so much to do with absolute physical stillness or motion as much as with the quality of one’s form, or if you will, with the quality of one’s disposition (psycho-physio disposition). In the metaphors as they appear in the “Mental Elucidation of the Thirteen Postures,” it’s not just “mountain,” but “shanyue,” meaning a particularly lofty peak. This imagery is sometimes called upon to describe someone whose bearing or deportment is noble and dignified. Chen Weiming’s commentary says that “still like a lofty mountain” here means “sink the weight and not float” (chen zhong bu fu). Also, it’s not just “river,” but “jianghe,” meaning the Yellow River, or a particularly large river. Chen Weiming’s commentary for “move like a river” is “ever flowing without ceasing” (zhou liu bu xi). A large river may have spots of relative stillness as it flows, but it moves continuously nonetheless.
Does any of this help make the taiji notions of stillness and motion more understandable?
Audi,
regarding your questions about “energy” in Chinese and its inherited meaning in English: I did a search on "energy" in the above mentioned database, and got 247 entries, beginning with an 1867 entry for "nengli," probably the most common neologism for energy, from a publication on "zhongxue," (study of weight -- the earliest term used for mechanics or physics in Chinese). There were some early competitors that incorporated "qi," but nengli eventually out-competed those. Why? I suppose that nengli (capable/strength) more closely captured the Western physics meaning. Still, I wouldn’t say that there’s anything about “qi” that would make it incompatible with the scientific notion of energy. I still like Porkert’s thoughts on this. He says that qi is rather similar to the conception of “energy.” “And yet, unlike our concept of energy, qi, whatever the context and absolutely without exception, always implies a qualitative determination of energy. . . . For this reason we use for the technical term qi the standard definitions ‘configurational energy’—i.e., energy of a definite direction in space, of a definite arrangement, quality or structure—and ‘energetic configuration’.” (The Theoretical Basis of Chinese Medicine, pp. 167-168)
As I understand it, the most common definition for “energy” in physics is “the capacity for doing work.” (This has puzzled me, as I don’t know what exactly to make of “work”; it seems to be a loaded word for what is supposedly a scientific concept.) Just to add to the mix, my CD Encyclopaedia Britannica says: “All forms of energy are associated with motion. For example, any given body has kinetic energy if it is in motion. A tensioned device such as a bow or spring, though at rest, has the potential for creating motion; it contains potential energy because of its configuration.” (I find the “configuration” wording quite congenial to my previous ruminations about “disposition.” The wording “it contains potential energy because of its configuration” would be quite at home in a Warring States description of a crossbow.) As you know, classical taijiquan writings often rely on metaphors or analogies of bows, springs, levers, balance scales, etc. For example, “Store energy as though drawing a bow. Issue energy as though releasing an arrow.” Oh hey, another arrow metaphor!
I’m intrigued by your statement, “. . .you are not moving your limbs to do something that is only useful at its endpoint, but rather you are changing the disposition of the joint energy [combined energy?] manifested by you and your opponent at that very instant.”Consider this statement under Britannica’s “Potential Energy” entry: “Potential energy arises in systems with parts that exert forces on each other of a magnitude dependent on the configuration, or relative position, of the parts.” A system would include solo form as well as partner training. Neat, huh?
Take care,
Louis
[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 01-07-2003).]
Wow.
Now my head REALLY hurts.
Awesome stuff guys.
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Makes me wonder what kind of fun you guys would have with:
"Seek the curve in the straight and the straight in the curve"?
I also like what Audi said about:
“. . .you are not moving your limbs to do something that is only useful at its endpoint, but rather you are changing the disposition of the joint energy [combined energy?] manifested by you and your opponent at that very instant.”
This ties in with how I was trained, if I'm thinking of this correctly. That you "accept and redirect" incoming force rather than generate any of your own. You use your opponents energy against him, by accepting the energy he gives you and redirecting this new "combined" energy (the energy he gave you that is now at your disposal) to achieve your desired end.
Did I get that even close? I'm struggling with all the fifty cent words and trying to boil these concepts down to something even I can understand.
Now my head REALLY hurts.
Awesome stuff guys.
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Makes me wonder what kind of fun you guys would have with:
"Seek the curve in the straight and the straight in the curve"?
I also like what Audi said about:
“. . .you are not moving your limbs to do something that is only useful at its endpoint, but rather you are changing the disposition of the joint energy [combined energy?] manifested by you and your opponent at that very instant.”
This ties in with how I was trained, if I'm thinking of this correctly. That you "accept and redirect" incoming force rather than generate any of your own. You use your opponents energy against him, by accepting the energy he gives you and redirecting this new "combined" energy (the energy he gave you that is now at your disposal) to achieve your desired end.
Did I get that even close? I'm struggling with all the fifty cent words and trying to boil these concepts down to something even I can understand.