Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Bob Ashmore wrote:CD,

What if you are not in contact with your opponent with your shoulder, torso, or chest, and still need to bump them?
Do you simply not do it?
CD: Oh! Bob. There are eight methods to fajin. You should decide what method to be used at a different situation or the body position of the opponent was in. BTW The eight methods are well defined in the Fajin thread.

Or, do you do it with whichever body part you happen to currently have in contact or can make come in contact when you need it to?
CD: Exactly, same as above.

Once again, any and all jins can be expressed by any and all body parts at all times, so the answer is... (you can do it, I have faith)
CD: There are names have been assigned to each method for different parts of the body for fajin.

Yes, the PRIMARY way to deliver koa jin to an opponent is to use the shoulder. But that is not always going to be possible, is it?
CD: Of course that is not always possible; but there are other methods which will be suitable for another situation.

It takes me about one second to demonstrate how effectively koa, or any other energy for that matter, can be delivered through the feet, calves,knees, thighs... anywhere... when I'm there with someone and can actually do it. Unfortunately that is not the case here on the interwebs.
CD: I am sorry, I regret that I have to say this to you, Bob. I think you have misunderstood the principle about fajin. Any energy issued by other parts of the body is not necessarily Koa. Please keep in mind Kao is not an energy. It is a method to fajin by using the shoulder, chest or the back of the body. In other words, if you have told me that you had bumped somebody off with Kao. Immediately, I'll know that you had used you shoulder, chest or back. Another case, if you told me you has used peng(掤), right away, I knew you had used your arms. How do I know this? It was by the definitions which are spelled out in the fajin thread.

I am, frankly, a bit amazed at the lack of understanding of this concept.
Perhaps I got lucky in having access to simply some of the best TCC teachers in the world early on in my training, which would explain why I don't understand why others don't know, or know but can't do, these kinds of things.

I call them jins. They each have names of their own and there are simply thousands of them that we use.
And we rarely ever fa when we use any of them.
CD: This cannot be true. Again, the given names are not jins themselves. They are the names were given for the methods. For example, if you had used kao(shoulder) method to fajin, then the description of the jin is called "kaojin(靠勁)" The jin was using by the arms is called peng (掤勁); but the method is peng(掤). Anyhow, you always have to fajin in order to make it effective. If you don't fajin, then you are not applying any force at all.

You do realize that "fa" isn't a jin? .....
CD: Fa(發) means to issue. Fa(發勁) is to issue a jin or use force.

Fajin simply means "exploding", so putting it in front of jin is simply saying to you're using a forceful expression of any jin but it is not a jin in its own right.
CD: No, please see above.

So any jin can be fa'd, but there are literally an infinite number of ways other than fa'ing them to use the jins.
Do you "explode" a jin every single time you use one?
CD: Let's put it this way. Jin is an explosive force. It explodes when you hit someone, literaIly speaking. It doesn't explode when you push someone or picking up something heavy.

I don't. I sometimes use extremely subtle, nearly undectable expression of jins. No idea what that's called in Chinese though, as that kind of thing doesn't get much press.
It is called yinjin(陰勁).

Think about Ting Jin, listening energy. How forceful do you have to be during the use of that jin?
CD: Oh! Bob. You really got misled on this one. Ting Jin is not jin. Ting is a verb which means to listen. Ting jin is not the listen but to feel someone's jin. Tingjin is very confusing to an English speaker. There is something called Chinglish which is Chinese English. It doesn't say what it means and doesn't mean what is says. That is where the confusion comes in. Anyway, tingjin is to feel the jin strength and the direction of the opponent, during push hands, and where it is coming from.


Do you explode your listening energy into your opponent every single time you touch with them? Or do you touch lightly, without using force?
If the latter, as I suspect, then you're not fa'ing that jin at that time.
CD: Again, tingjin is not a jin; it is an action. See above.

Or Chan Si Jin, silk reeling energy? Do you think that ramming it straight down your opponents throat is going to be the best option every single time you use that particular type of energy? Probably not.
Fa'in jin is probably the least utilized skill in the TCC arsenal. Which is why I am always surprised at how frequently sought out it is by almost everyone.
CD: If you do understand what is fajin by now, then, you will know how deadly fajin is. It can kill someone instantly with one explosive blow. Good luck! Please don't use it too often
Bob

fchai wrote:Greetings,
Sorry for the intrusion. However, nit-picking over semantics and not being open to alternate interpretation and perspective is unproductive. Taiji is about being infinitely adaptable and responsive. If you are not, my 'interpretation' is that you are 'double weighted' or even 'double floated' (lol). Finally, as DPasek's nice article mentions, there is nei jin and wai jin. From the discussion I get the distinct impression that some folk thinks that fa jin is almost exclusively applied in the circumstances of wai jin. However, Taiji is very much more nei jin and is mostly expressed in subtle and not often explosively. Wai jin typically is used for the coup de grace.
Take care,
Frank

ChiDragon wrote:Gentlemen!
We are using words to speak. Are you suggesting that we should not deal with semantics at all and expect to know what others are saying? Now, I am perplexed.

That's a battle no one can win.

We Like, We Don't Like, We Don't Know [who wins]. Bob was right. You are not dumb, just don't know .
yslim

yslim wrote: We Like, We Don't Like, We Don't Know [who wins]. Bob was right. You are not dumb, just don't know or how to share the facts with others, perhaps.
yslim

ChiDragon wrote:

yslim wrote: We Like, We Don't Like, We Don't Know [who wins]. Bob was right. You are not dumb, just don't know or how to share the facts with others, perhaps.
yslim

Good night, yslim
Your 陰陽虛實 has been acknowledged. Thank you very much! Please keep up the good work!

Good Morning CD,
you added " or how to share the facts with others, perhaps ". To share the facts with others, perhaps you should acknowledge what is fact and what is alt-facts, before you can knock them silly yslim

yslim wrote:
Good Morning CD,
you added " or how to share the facts with others, perhaps ". To share the facts with others, perhaps you should acknowledge what is fact and what is alt-facts, before you can knock them silly yslim