Chen Zhonghua on sung and peng

[ChiDragon]

Let Nature take its course.

Edited December 9, 2013 by ChiDragon

[ChiDragon]

Let Nature take its course.

Edited December 9, 2013 by ChiDragon

[baiqi]

Peng is not a hand position. A "an" is also a "peng".

 

Internal martial arts terminology describes principles, not techniques.

 

http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E6%8E%A4%E5%8A%B2

Edited December 8, 2013 by baiqi

[kevin_wallbridge]

Well, "peng" is a posture, except when its not. The term has connotations both as a noun and a verb. So there is some talk at cross purposes here.

 

What Chen Zhonghua is saying is simply Yin-Yang theory, I'm not sure why that is so hard to see. Yin without Yang is meaningless and vice versa, isn't this a well established concept? By the same token he is simply implying peng-song cannot be understood independently either. This is actually a fairly common understanding of the dynamic which has been expressed at least since the 1930's in the Taijiquan world coming out of Beijing.

 

You cannot have "springy aliveness" without "relaxation" or you will be too stiff. You cannot have "relaxation" without "springy aliveness" or you will be collapsed. There is nothing new in what Chen Zhonghua is saying.

[NotVoid]

These sort of demos that some tai chi or other style martial arts teachers do where they have a line of people pushing them, with each person in the line pushing on the back of the person in front of them is not really 'fake', but it is kind of a gimmick. Sure, the person being pushed by the line of people has to have a good stable and correct stance and know how to direct force into the ground without collapsing their structure, so they have to have some degree of real skills in tai chi, but the whole thing of having a line of people pushing on someone like that to give the impression that one person is resisting the force of all those people combined is where the gimmick part is. Each person in the line has someone pushing on their back, except for the last person in the line, so each person in the line has to direct some counterforce back at the person who is pushing on their back to try to maintain their own balance and positioning in the line. The result is that much of the force in the line from person to person is not all combined together, but actually broken up and dissipated a fair bit from person to person in the line. The person being pushed by the line may be receiving somewhat more force than they would get from one person pushing them, but not really a whole lot more force than one person alone could deliver. For this reason I always tend to cringe a bit when I see a tai chi teacher doing that particular demo as it is more of an illusion to impress people than a demonstration of real skill.

 

Some people who do 'hard style' brick breaking also have a trick that you can often spot if you watch for it, where they hold the brick or stone with one hand against a cement slab or rock surface and strike with the other hand, and they tilt the brick or stone being broken up on one end slightly just before they strike with their other hand, and this allows the brick or rock to be smacked against the hard surface a bit when they strike it, which makes it somewhat easier to break the brick or rock. It is still not that easy to break the brick or rock even doing it this way, but it is still a bit of a trick. I have seen some people break bricks and rocks laying on a flat hard surface without doing this trick, but that takes more power and skill.

 

Regarding peng, my understanding is similar to what Chen Zhonghua said, that peng is something that is maintained in all movements of tai chi but it is not a 'hard' type of structure or force. Peng is a type of 'energy' or skill which develops more and more over many years of practice. Peng relates to the whole body being connected into a whole, so no matter how you push on a person the person being pushed does not collapse their overall structure or lose their center of gravity or stability. It is always like the whole body has this sort of expansive outward force no matter where you push on a person, but again this takes many years of practice to develop to higher levels like most anything in tai chi. Song is keeping the body relaxed and loose as much as you can with no unnecessary tension and still maintaining the correct form and structure and full body connection. So Chen Zhonghua's explanation seems in line to me with what many tai chi teachers say, but his way of expressing this is a bit different. Some tai chi teachers have indicated that true song is something that also must be developed over many years of practice, and when most of us who are not masters yet think we are relaxing there are actually much deeper levels of relaxation in tai chi to be discovered.

Edited December 8, 2013 by NotVoid

[PLB]

This is actually a fairly common understanding of the dynamic which has been expressed at least since the 1930's in the Taijiquan world coming out of Beijing.

 

 

To illustrate your point, consider the following remarks made in 1921 by Xu Yusheng in response to one of the passages in the Classics.

 

 

一羽不能加、一蠅不能落、

A feather cannot be added and a fly cannot land.

羽、翎羽也。加、增之也。落、降也。着也。言善太極工者。感覺敏銳。稍觸卽知。稍縱卽逝。雖 輕如一羽。微如蠅蟲。稍近吾體。亦卽知覺。趨避而不令加着也。夫虛靈不昧之謂神。有知覺然後能運動。致虛極。守靜篤。寂然不動。感而遂通。有不期然而然 者。非鍛鍊有素、肢體軟靈、富有觸力、未足語此也。

The character for “feather” [can also mean “wing” but here indeed] means feather. To “be added” is in the sense of to be put on you. To “land” means to lower and touch you. These phrases describe one who has excellent Taiji skill, perceiving acutely, knowing the opponent upon the merest contact, putting an end to the situation when the opponent makes the merest attempt. Even if his touch is as light as a feather or as slight as a fly, if he encroaches upon me to the smallest degree, I am immediately aware of it, evading his attack but not adding any pressure to him in the course of doing so. With the natural clear-mindedness we call spirit, I am aware of his action and then able to act upon it. [Daodejing, chapter 16:] “Achieve an extreme softness and maintain a sincere stillness.” Be silent and still, sensing and connecting, and give no warning when you act. If you do not train to the point of purity, building a supple nimbleness in your body and developing an abundant power of touch, you will not be qualified to discuss these things.

 

As this manual and the others amongst the collection on the Brennan translation demonstrate, there was a lot of emphasis at the time on distinguishing the execution of "postures" from the "identification of energies." Chen Zhonghua's remarks are clearly a continuation of that intellectual tradition.

[ChiDragon]

Gentlemen....
Come on. We all knew the concept of Yin-Yang. Yin is Yin and Yang is Yang. They work together as whole. However, when an expert start saying Yin is Yang and Yang is Yin, then it would be question to be challenged. Intellectually, all has to be in a logical sense and explicitly stated. Those who knew the concept already would have no problem understanding it. The concern here is about those who do not.

[Taomeow]

NotVoid,

 

like I said earlier, it's easy to make into a gimmick, but the real thing is actually sensorily impressive, if you participate in it.

 

The reason it is used by masters who have nothing to prove is that it proves something to a body participating in this traditional demo of taiji mechanics. Observers get very little or nothing out of it. Participants get something they would be hard pressed to explain, and then just remember. So, it's a useful demo for those it is demonstrated to, in traditional taiji demonstrations nothing is useless, and everything is a gimmick, taiji is the art of faking the laws of physics as they are being perceived by the opponent, from beginning to end. How do you fake them? By creating different ones for the opponent to perceive. By manipulating their reality, no less.

 

Gods engage in this -- all our consensual reality is predicated on everybody agreeing (not in the head, deeper) to perceive roughly the same things when getting stimuli from the environment. Taiji of a high level makes this agreement nil and void. You impose a different perceptual reality on the opponent. This is the ultimate gimmick, but you have to have been there (the generic you, not you personally), on the receiving end of high skill, to appreciate its impact. Being part of such a train gives you a taste.

 

Being one on one with a master whose skill is light years ahead of yours gives you a puzzle... you simply don't have a frame of reference for the experience, it's indigenous and idiosyncratic to high level taiji and can't be understood in the head at all -- only received systemically.

 

But once you receive it, you will never doubt the party who gave it to you, you will just try to emulate him or her in your practice, monkey see monkey do. So if they do something that the you-in-the-head has a disagreement with, after the experience the disagreement vanishes, your whole system learns to trust what they're doing no matter what they're doing, and do your best to learn to do likewise. It's not a lineage art for nothing, it's the outcome of students having been impressed by what they experienced coming in contact with masters -- in a long line of gaping noobs spanning centuries...

[NotVoid]

Taomeow, I hear what you are saying, but I have participated in that kind of demo directly as well, and in my experience it does work as I described. I am not doubting Chen Zhonghua's skill in the slightest and he actually apears to be very skilled, but I was just pointing out that particular demo is more of a gimmick. IMO, it would likely be much more impressive for each indivudual student to push hands with the teacher a bit to experience directly what someone with higher skills in tai chi can do.

[PLB]

Peng is not a hand position. A "an" is also a "peng".

 

Internal martial arts terminology describes principles, not techniques.

 

 

I agree without qualification with the first sentence. Confusion does happen with internal art terminology because many terms have multiple roles. So, I don't think it is an either/or situation in regards to the second sentence.

 

A good illustration of your comment also demonstrates my observation:

 

 

Changelessness means not worrying about which posture our opponent adopts to attack us. I know that Ward-off and Roll-back are Ward-off and Roll-back. I know that yin and yang, empty and full, are yin and yang, empty and full. Therefore, I maintain my central equilibrium, and am not pulled of balance by my opponent, nor do do I pull my opponent off balance. I do not push him, nor am I pushed. This is the principle of changelessness. If I am able to put this into practice, then pulling, pushing, or any technique are simply mutual transformations, or what is called, "treading the knife's edge." If one cannot practice the Doctrine of the Mean, it is obvious that central equilibrium will be difficult. Therefore, I say the principles and applications of the Thirteen Postures are all based on one posture. The application is called Ward-off, but the principle is central equilibrium. This is its essence. "Yin and Yang are called the tao." This is Tai-chi.

from

Master Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on Tai-Chi Chuan

by Cheng Man-ching

translated by Douglas Wile

[Sloppy Zhang]

I have heard B.K. Frantzis talk and write about this as well, that "Peng" should not just be limited to just the "Peng" posture/move, but it is actually a force that is present THROUGHOUT the body and THROUGHOUT the entire form. Even if if you are yielding, you still have that "peng" in your structure.

 

He also writes about sung/song in various places as well, not only with alignments, but in the almost energetic sense that energy/force that sinks down can rise up (and in fact can make the rising force stronger) but energy/force that rises up can not always sink down (and in fact certain rising forces can actually prevent downward flow).

 

So proper training should start with the structure and the relaxation force before you start getting into the way it can "bounce back" up and into the generating/issuing force that can be seen in Tai Chi.

[Taomeow]

I have heard B.K. Frantzis talk and write about this as well, that "Peng" should not just be limited to just the "Peng" posture/move, but it is actually a force that is present THROUGHOUT the body and THROUGHOUT the entire form. Even if if you are yielding, you still have that "peng" in your structure.

 

He also writes about sung/song in various places as well, not only with alignments, but in the almost energetic sense that energy/force that sinks down can rise up (and in fact can make the rising force stronger) but energy/force that rises up can not always sink down (and in fact certain rising forces can actually prevent downward flow).

 

So proper training should start with the structure and the relaxation force before you start getting into the way it can "bounce back" up and into the generating/issuing force that can be seen in Tai Chi.

 

Of course peng is the throughout thing, it's an outer expression of our internal structure, which happens to be a spiral. There was a recent thread illustrating that the heart is a spiral -- well, so is every bone in the body! And the "fascia suit" -- not just of an individual muscle but connected all through into one twisted "inner shirt." ("Anatomy Trains" has amazing illustrations of this overlooked and neglected major structural feature of the human body.) Tense muscles, chronically contracted fascia (which correspond to chronically lax ones on the opposite side -- like an ill-fitting internal suit, and sometimes like a straightjacket), locked joints, a lack of feeling and connection between different parts of the body make it impossible to perceive peng naturally (the way it was perhaps perceived in prehistory) without special training, but it is in fact a sense, that of one's own inherent tangible physical structure. Good taiji awakens peng, in fact Chen style is sometimes referred to simply as "the art of peng" by family members. Taiji techniques are applications of peng, of what your body can do when it is thoroughly "fitting you inside," not just outside, and is under your control -- inside and out.

 

Not sure I understand what you (and/or BKF?) mean by force rising up and then not necessarily sinking down. It is my current understanding that when this is the case, it's a mistake of execution or structure or both. The forces that prevent downward flow are tensions and locked passages and misalignments. This is known as "floating" or being "top heavy."

[ChiDragon]

Let Nature take its course.

Edited December 9, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Taomeow]

Editing my response to ChiDragon, because with his characteristic impeccable honesty he changed what he originally wrote as soon as I responded to it.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Taomeow

[opendao]

 

 

In order to Fa Jin(發勁), one must know what Jin(勁) is and how to develop it in the first place. Without Jin in the body, then there is no way one can Fa Jin.

 

yep, without 勁 it has no big sense to speak about Peng or even Sung... So what is Jing-勁?

[ChiDragon]

Sorry, I guess I am in the wrong crowd if we are not talking about the same "peng".

[dwai]

My teacher (as does his teacher Master Liao) tells us that everything except roll back and roll pull is Peng. The other energies are expressions of Peng in different vectors and angles.

 

Lu (roll back), which in essence is a void - I consider it the anti-peng. And cai (Roll pull) is an expression of Lu in a specific direction (this is often combined with the split energy - which is again peng).

 

Another idea that my teacher had us think of in the past is the resonance of the sound "Peng" (the vibrations of it - pungggggg....) - that is how peng should feel (either in a large frame or a tiny frame). He says - a traditional ward off is peng. but a fist punching is also peng (and smaller and smaller). The smaller the frame, the more powerful the expression (he likens it to the power of the laser as light gets more coherent and narrower/more focused). So we'd practice ward off while expressing the sound "peng" till we feel vibrations on the outside of the wardoff arm (and radiating outward like a wave).

 

Over time ward off comes naturally (say in push hands) where you will feel a void in the partner's energy and a ball of energy fills that void, sinking into the ground (or as deep as the other's root is) and then lifts him/her up (uprooting). So it's a sink, lift and away type feeling (and effect is visible too, in the partner). But its frame will shrink too -- we will start feeling a wardoff generating in form of a punch to the midsection or chest), or even smaller, like the touch of a fingertip.

 

BTW, I thought Master Chen's exposition of Peng and Sung were very clear, and attractive due it's simplicity and directness.

 

I had not thought of Sung in that way before. But when I think of it, it makes perfect sense. Whatever is the natural "state" of a thing, it will be in perfect state of "sung" too. Any deviation from it's natural state and it is not in "sung". In such a case, Sung can also be known as equilibrium?

Edited December 9, 2013 by dwai

[PLB]

dwai,

Thanks for the interesting account of how these matters were discussed in your school. The vibration element is something I would like to experience more of.

 

There seem to be many ways of comparing the different aspects of peng, ji, liu, an. Working with liu as a void touches upon something important. There are other ways to compare them. I find Robert Tangora's pairing of peng and an as upward and downward energy with the pairing of liu and ji as a center to periphery energy to be helpful.

 

Using words in both a universal and particular context is confusing. When Cheng Man Ch'ing or Chen Zhonghua use peng as universal, it creates a tension with the other usages. Leaving this particular debate to the side, the universal element being addressed is well put by Li Jianqiu (from a Xingyi manual on the Brennan site where I spend most of my time now):

 

 

It is always the case that what disperses will have its way of reintegrating, what separates will have its way of rejoining.
So it is in the world. There are four compass directions, then eight, then too many to keep track of, but each has its place [meaning every specific angle of direction can be more conveniently generalized into the area it belongs within the basic compass points]. Things are numerous, then innumerable, then a haze of meaningless detail, but all things have their basic sources [by which they can be more understandably grouped and classified under].
Everything is distributed from a single source to which everything ultimately and inevitably returns. The content of martial arts is very complex, but really the endless variations consolidate into matters of merely posture and energy, and even though there is a variety of postures, there is only one energy.

 

So, whatever one would prefer to call a thing, it is in the thinking about this one energy that I read your question:

 

I had not thought of Sung in that way before. But when I think of it, it makes perfect sense. Whatever is the natural "state" of a thing, it will be in perfect state of "sung" too. Any deviation from it's natural state and it is not in "sung". In such a case, Sung can also be known as equilibrium?

Edited December 10, 2013 by PLB

[shanlung]

I find it hilarious that ChiDragon, himself a fake imagining all kinds of chi running up and down and thinking his theory peppered with chinese words normally taken out of context, can comment on real Masters of Taijichuan.

 

But again, what else is new from Chidragon.