Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Louis Swaim wrote:This old Yang family formula is similar, but different from the song mr. yslim quoted:

杨氏太极拳九诀
虚实诀

虚虚实实神会中,虚实实虚手行功。
练拳不谙虚实理,枉费功夫终无成。
虚守实发掌中窍,中实不发艺难精。
虚实自有虚实在,实实虚虚攻不空。

Here’s a translation I did of this in the “Empty and Full” thread here on the board a few years ago.

Xu Shi Jue
Using empty-empty full-full, the spirit gathers within.
Using empty-full full-empty, hands trade merits.
If in training quan you’re not versed in the principles of empty and full,
It will be a waste of gongfu with no end result.
Abiding in the empty, issuing the full; the knack is in the palm.
If the center remains full, with no release, refinement will be elusive.
Knowing that empty and full themselves contain empty and full,
In applying empty-empty full-full, your attacks will not be in vain.
—transmitted by Yang Banhou

Take care,
Louis

HELLO MR SWAIN,
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING THIS WONDERFUL OLD YANG FAMILY FORMULA WITH YOUR TRANSLATION. IT MAKES MUCH MORE EASY TO CHEW AND REGURGITATE .


THE SECOND HALF OF THE FIRST LINE IN THIS FORMULA IS A PERFECT ANSWER TO THE TAIJIQUAN LUN LINE #3 IN QUESTION.

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR HELP AND GOOD WORK!

CIAO AND HAVE A GOOD TAIJI DAY, BEST TIME TO PRACTICE THE 'WATER ELEMENT' TODAY
LIM

Greetings Mr. Lim,

Could you tell me the source of the song that you quoted?

--Louis

Louis Swaim wrote:Greetings Mr. Lim,

Could you tell me the source of the song that you quoted?

--Louis

HELLO MR SWAIN,

I COPIED IT FROM A TAIJI BOOK A FRIEND LOADED ME YEARS AGO. DON'T REMEMBER MUCH OF THIS BOOK, NAME OF THE BOOK NOR THE AUTHOR. I KNOW MY SENIOR MOMENT IS GETTING MORE ADVANCE THEN MY TAIJI.

THE GOOD NEWS IS MY COMPUTER STILL REMEMBERS MY 'BOOKMARKS' OF 56.COM'S CLIP ( YOUTUBE.COM?) OF GM. WANG PEI SHENG DEMO. HE REPEATS THE SAME QUOTE @ 4:19- 4:47. I CAN'T DO MANDARIN BUT I ABLE TO RECOGNIZED THAT QUOTE AS HE SPOOK (HE IS IN THE TAIJI HEAVEN) ALONG WITH HIS BODY LANGUISH CONNECTING WITH SOMETHING I TRY TO PRACTICE TO A POINT TO UNDERSTAND IT . MAYBE YOU CAN TRANSLATE THE REST INTO A CLEARER PICTURES FOR OUR XMAS WISHES.???PLEASE. IF NOT,MERRY XMAS TO YOU AND FAMILY JUST THE SAME.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf0DNMElas8

CIAO AND HAVE A GOOD TAIJI DAY
LIM

LIM,

First of all, please turn off the caps lock on your keyboard. It's really kind of rude to write like that. It's the online equivalent of yelling at people.

Second of all:

...MAYBE YOU CAN TRANSLATE THE REST INTO A CLEARER PICTURES FOR OUR XMAS WISHES.???PLEASE. IF NOT,MERRY XMAS TO YOU AND FAMILY JUST THE SAME.

Merry X-mas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRlS3fBR ... er&list=UL

p.s.

If any of you (Mr. Swaim maybe?) can provide me with the characters for what he's saying at 1:31 and again at 1:23 I'll add that in. I couldn't make it out. That's why the subtitles for those two bits are just a bunch of question marks.

bailewen wrote:p.s.

If any of you (Mr. Swaim maybe?) can provide me with the characters for what he's saying at 1:31 and again at 1:23 I'll add that in. I couldn't make it out. That's why the subtitles for those two bits are just a bunch of question marks.

HI BAILEWEN

WOW . I IMPRESSED THAT YOU CAN PUT UP THE SUBTITLES RIGHT ONTO THIS YOUTUBE CLIP! I LIKE THE CHINESE VERSION TAHT YOU PUT IN. AT LEAST I KNOW WHAT YOU ACTUALLY TRANSLATED. BUT IN ENGLISH SUBTITLES I AFRAID SOMETHING MIGHT MISSING ESPECIALLY WHERE IS IMPORTANT PART OF THE 'SONG'. BUT I WAS VERY PLEASE AND APPRECIATED FOR ALL YOUR GOOD HARD WORKS AND TIMES TO PUT THIS WHOLE THING TOGETHER FOR ALL OF US TO HEAR AT LEAST TO KNOW WHAT HAS BEEN SAID.

THANK YOU FOR THE XMAS CHEER
lim

I LIKE THE CHINESE VERSION TAHT YOU PUT IN. AT LEAST I KNOW WHAT YOU ACTUALLY TRANSLATED.

For the most part, I only put the Chinese in when he was speaking classical Chinese and did so because rather than risking a really sketchy translation, I preferred to just wait until he explained it himself. There were several instances when he was quoting songs or sutras I was familiar with and in those cases, I felt comfortable translating directly. But one thing that was really nice about the clip was that each time he quoted something from classical Chinese, he followed it directly with his own translation into modern Chinese which saved me the trouble of trying to interpret those songs.

Sorry I didn't subtitle the whole thing in Chinese but my intended audience was not Cantonese speakers. I was aiming at my English speaking friends.

I threw it up so quick because I didn't really translate it for this discussion. It has long been one of my favorite push hands clips on youtube. It resembles my own teachers style more closely than anything else I have seen out there so a few months back I took the trouble to throw some English onto the clip using Youtube's built in software.

Hi Omar,

Your 聽力 is very good! Nicely done.

--Louis

I started my Chinese studies out your direction at SFSU but I have been living in China most of the time since '99.

It also helps that, IMO anyways, Wang Peisheng speaks very standard Chinese and beyond that, the kind of language he uses, the stuff he quotes and so on...very much the same as my own teacher. Although Wang Peisheng is Wu and my teacher is Yang, his teachings appear to be closer to my Shifu's than anything else I have seen out there. That makes it much easier to understand what he's saying. Most of it, I have heard before only from my own Shifu's mouth.

Hi Everyone,

Louis, could 虚守实发 mean "With the empty guarding and the full issuing"? How do you understand "abiding in the empty"?

Hi Audi,

I think in the post where I originally posted the translation (in the thread on empty and full), I speculated that this text deals in part with psychological as well as physical tactics and strategies. Shou can mean "to guard, to defend," but it can also mean "to abide in," or "to abide by." I take "abiding in the empty" as a psychological or mental posture -- a reserve of calm and clarity, if you will. Then from that reserve of emptiness, one can issue force in an instant. Yang Jwing-ming renders those lines: "Defense [defend?] with insubstantial and attack with substantial, the tricky (keys) are in the palms." (Tai Chi Secrets of the Yang Style, p. 22)

--Louis

Greetings Louis,

I speculated that this text deals in part with psychological as well as physical tactics and strategies.

take "abiding in the empty" as a psychological or mental posture -- a reserve of calm and clarity, if you will.

I wonder if "abide" loses too much of the physical meaning. How about something like: "guarding in emptiness, and issuing in fullness"? Something along those lines might preserve more of your beloved polysemy.

Take care,
Audi

Greetings Audi,

I wonder if "abide" loses too much of the physical meaning. How about something like: "guarding in emptiness, and issuing in fullness"?

Your wording probably works fine. I happen to like the word "abide," and I think it shares many of the entailments of 守, including "waiting," "to continue in a place," "to conform to," "to remain stable or fixed in a state," etc. I don't quite see that it is any less physical than "guarding." I abide in my house, and that is a physical act.

Consider this line in Yang Chengfu's narrative on the beginning form in 太極拳 體用 全書, which I translate as "I hold to my own stillness in order to deal with the other's movement. . ."

守我之静. 以待人之動.

Of course, we must also remember: "The Dude abides."

Take care,
Louis

Greetings Louis,

I don't quite see that it is any less physical than "guarding." I abide in my house, and that is a physical act.

I see I was unclear. By physical, I was referring to the possibility of the "defend" meaning that Yang Jwing Ming prefers. I understand 守 as meaning to "keep," which, depending on the object can be extended to "keeping safe," "keeping unchanged," or "keeping under watch." I was searching for a translation that would be as ambiguous as the Chinese in suggesting the spectrum of "defending," "guarding," "keeping," and "abiding." For the concept suggested by the Yang Chengfu quote, your rendering of 守 as "abide" would definitely be superior.

Happy Holidays,
Audi

lol.

Wow. Mr. Swaim's translation is so mysterious sounding. I don't have a better one but my understanding of 虚守实发 is so much more down to earth. I suppose 'defend' for 守 kind of works for me in this context. I just can't think how to offer a smooth translation that represents my understanding of 虚守实发. I can explain it though.

I read it actually as very down to earth advice. It's describing when to attack and when not to. When you make a connection with your opponent and sense only emptiness/虚 then it's best not to extend your self. Tread carefully. Do not attack. This is called 守. When OTOH, you can sense something substantial, that is the time to attack/发.

Shifu has made this idea really clear during push hands training. He is always emphasizing that emptiness is vastly more dangerous than fullness. I've learned the hard way to 守 when he is 虚 and only 发 when he presents 实.

My perspective is the opposite of the translation posted. The empty/full in my understanding of the line refers to the other guy.