Formosa Neijia

15 responses so far ↓

• 1 tim // Oct 22, 2006 at 2:46 pm

  cool. really cool. have you ever seen the akuzawa material? specifically the tenchijin exercise? how do you feel it relates (if at all) to the yi jin jing stuff you’re doing?

• 2 chessman71 // Oct 23, 2006 at 7:51 am

  Tim,
  I’ve only seen the stuff on the qi/jing list and a little over at the Aikio journal forums. Frankly, I see that he has skills but I don’t understand the terms that they use. It’s hard enough trying to figure how to talk about this stuff in Chinese and English. I don’t really have the time or patience to do it in Japanese as well.

  But he does seem to have some interesting stuff.

• 3 Orz // Oct 23, 2006 at 1:23 pm

  The legends of Shaolin Yijin-Jing (Damo Yijin-Jing) :
  1. A very old health-building nei-kung (internal exercise) invented by an Indian monk - Damo Zushi (達摩祖師). http://www.chibs.edu.tw/publication/chbj/12/figures/chbj12p465.jpg , Damo Zushi was also the inventor of Chinese Zen(禪宗). According to this legend, Shaolin Yijin-Jing (Damo Yijin-Jing) was based on Indian yoga. Besides, he is accredited with passing on the treasures of XiSui Kung (洗髓功) and Lohan Shi Ba Shou (羅漢十八手) to the monks of Shaolin Temple. However, some Buddhist historians insisted Damo Zushi came from Persia.

  2. Some CMA historians declared Shaolin Yijin-Jing (少林易筋經) blended many ancient Chinese health-building exercises together, major based on the five-animals-postures (五禽戲), Baduan Jin (八段錦), HuangDi NeiJing (黃帝內經).

  Seriously, All CMA, sports and exercises relate to Daoyin (導引) and Tuna (吐納). So you can call all of them - Qigong (氣功) , include Yijin-Jing (易筋經). Generally, Yijin-Jing (易筋經) means “internal exercise” (內功) and breathing exercise (導引術 or 吐納). It is a body-exercise, not an internal martial art. “Nei-kung”(內功) doesn’t mean “Internal martial art” (內家拳法).

  The Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Chan (Zen) Buddhism and Shaolin Kung Fu, Chan Buddhism was founded by Bodhidharma (Damo Zushi, 達摩祖師). In fact, Shaolin Temple was burned down for three times in its history. The last fire was set by the warlord, Shi Yousan (石友山) in 1928. In this fire, which lasted for 40 days, the temple was almost wiped out and priceless ancient manuscripts on Shaolin Kung Fu were reduced to ashes, include Shaolin Yijin-Jing (少林易筋經). After that, Shaolin Yijin-Jing (少林易筋經) was taught and passed on by few elders of Shaolin Temple. Nowadays, you can hardly find the real and ancient Shaolin Yijin-Jing (少林易筋經), even in Shaolin Temple. But many CMA “masters” rearranges with the five-animals-postures (五禽戲), Baduan Jin (八段錦), HuangDi NeiJing (黃帝內經), invented many kind of “Yijin-Jing” (易筋經). As we know, “Yijin-Jing” (易筋經) is kind of stretching work and training. Actually, many Chinese martial arts have their own “stretching-trainings”, they have different names in Chinese, such as 養生功, 拔骨功, 伸筋術, 拔斷筋 (八段錦), 纏絲功, 混圓操, 元極舞 ….etc.

  Here are some pictures of XingYi Quan: stretching-trainings called 伸筋拔骨功

  http://pic48.pic.wretch.cc/photos/1/t/tob2/1/1141477575.jpg
  http://pic48.pic.wretch.cc/photos/1/t/tob2/1/1141477570.jpg
  http://pic48.pic.wretch.cc/photos/1/t/tob2/1/1141477573.jpg

• 4 chessman71 // Oct 23, 2006 at 6:48 pm

  Orz,
  None of the pic links at the bottom of your comment work.

• 5 Q // Oct 24, 2006 at 12:06 am

  W/ such a huge amount of movements, you wouldn’t be doing the whole set at a time right? How do you determine what you should be doing in any one day? Do you do what you feel you’re best at more frequently or what you feel worst more often?

• 6 Casey // Oct 24, 2006 at 1:48 am

  Traditionally, you’re supposed to spend about a year learning the “first level skills” of the Tianmen 108 exercises, though my teacher taught me most of them in a few months so I could practice on my own. The sets should be learned in order, as they build upon each other. Once you know them all however, you can just practice whatever you want to work on that day.

  On a given day you probably shouldn’t do more than 10 or so different exercises. If you want to do more then do more sets of that exercise or go slower with greater relaxation. A lot of times it’s not until the 30th, 60th or 100th rep you really start to feel (though remember to take a break every 36 reps or if you start to feel tense). Much better to do a small number of exercises many times and with great attention to detail than to try to run through 36 exercises in one day.

  Though you start out by practicing them all, you can gradually start phasing out the exercises which don’t work for you. This is part of the reason there are so many. Everyone’s body is different, so different people’s bodies will react favorably to different exercises. By learning all 108 Tianmen, besides going through a full range of qigong training, you are also searching for your own best exercises. Of course, one shouldn’t be too quick to drop an exercise altogether, because while you may not feel anything now, you may feel something later on in your development. However, over the years you can gradually whittle down the practice to the exercises you think are most effective. You might end up with only 10 or even fewer and that can be “your” qigong.

• 7 Casey // Oct 24, 2006 at 2:32 am

  Actually, one full set of 12 exercises (most sets include about 10 exercises, one massage and one “closing” exercise) is probably just about right for one day’s practice. If you want to practice more after that you can work on meditation or some other aspect or else do the same set again. I don’t rigidly adhere to this myself, but a general goal of quality over quantity is best.

  Just like you wouldn’t do every possible exercise in the gym on one day, you definitely wouldn’t want to try to do all 216 YJJ exercises in one day.

• 8 Orz // Oct 24, 2006 at 10:44 am

  chessman71:

  Really? Those links don’t work? *_*

  Well…I’ll send you the pics through email.

  Orz

• 9 chessman71 // Oct 24, 2006 at 12:40 pm

  Casey,
  Thanks for the details. I was wondering how the system is practiced as well, especially since I’ll try to study it soon.

  How about the split between pre and post heaven forms? Do you exercise the pre-heaven material first and then the post, saving the “earth” section for last? Or do you work a little bit of both at the same time?

• 10 Casey // Oct 24, 2006 at 3:37 pm

  Ideally, I believe you’re supposed to work them in order. Though I think you can kind of skip over Earth somewhat if you’re only interested in martial arts, but you have to do Heaven before you can do either of the other two and I think the extent of your success with the other 2 is largely dependant on how well you do Heaven.

  A few of the Man exercises are also simple stretches that you could probably benefit from before you’ve necessarily done much Heaven, but the ones with stamping and fajin definitely require you to have spent significant time with Heaven or some equivalent type of qigong. For example, in the stamping movements, you’re supposed to send qi to your feet. But you have to open the leg meridians with Heaven exercises to be able to do that. Now Zhou helped me open the leg meridians with an exercise from Lying Arhat, so it’s not a hard-and-fast thing. But that’s the general way it works.

  By the same token, Earth will just be a complete mystery without a background in Heaven. I’ve actually only learned one or two Earth exercises from Zhou, such as one to cleanse the kidneys. I definitely don’t think I would have been able to feel anything or even know what he was talking about withou some prior background. And that was just one exercise he showed me. My Heaven is still probably not good enough to really do Earth or Man justice. I asked him once if he could teach me Earth in more detail and he said, “your Heaven basics have to be very strong before you can understand Earth.”

  So basically, Heaven is THE qigong. It’s what teaches you the breathing, opens the meridians, stretches the tendons trains the intent, etc. It’s everything everyone thinks of when they think of qigong and, if I had to pick one, I’d say it’s the most important. Earth and Man are really like extensions–what you can do once you’ve opened your energy pathways. But the key, of course, is that they be open, and that’s what Heaven does.

  Of course, with your prior IMA experience you may have already accomplished some or many of the goals of Heaven to one extent or another. Therefore Zhou may “fast-track” you to some extent and may even teach you some more Earth and Man exercises earlier on. Then again, there’s no need to hurry since all the exercises have basically limitless depth. It’s really amazing to me how much they change each time I go back to them. What I can tell you is I’m sure it will benefit your Huleijia practice. If there’s any doubt in your mind that “Shaolin” qigong is 100% applicable to Taiji, it will be dispelled soon.

• 11 chessman71 // Oct 25, 2006 at 7:44 am

  Orz,
  I got the pics. Thanks for sending them. I’ll try to post them soon.

  Casey,
  Considering the fact that the pre-heaven forms are actually the “heaven” section of Zhou’s yijin-jing, I think many people would get confused using the pre and post-heaven paradigm to explain the system.

  It seems the system uses more of the “san cai” idea from the TCM/qigong paradigm (same idea as “san cai jian”). But from what you’re saying, I see the heaven and earth sections as both being pre-heaven work with the man section being post heaven. I mention all this because if you’re working on translating these DVDs, it may help in keeping the theory straight. I don’t think most people will be able to realize that heaven and earth are actually pre-heaven as far as that paradigm goes.

  I also find the emphasis to be interesting. From my experience, the post-heaven work tends to be easier to pick up. But from looking at Zhou’s system, some things are re-arranged compared to my prior training. Still, I see from your decriptions that his system fits together very nicely.

  As for the shaolin internal material fitting in with the taiji, I see it already. The yijin-jing is a type of daoyin that prepares the body for taiji. Afterall, if you can’t stretch and move the body in a fixed stance, you sure won’t be able to do it in a taiji form.

  It seems this system is similar in some respects to Xiong Wei’s taiji daoyin system that I wrote about in the past. At least in terms of preparation work.

  As for my personal training, yes, Zhou “fast tracks” my training quite often. But that isn’t such a good thing some times. I quite often wish that we would just start at the beginning so I’d have a complete system, both for myself and my future students. With the qigong, I will politely insist that we start at the beginning so that I don’t miss any steps. I think following the whole sequence from beginning to end is very important, as you suggest.

  Consdiering the fact that the heaven portion has limitless potential, when is it appropriate for a student to move on to the man section?

• 12 Casey // Oct 25, 2006 at 10:28 am

  You’re absolutely right about this “Heaven” being part of the “Sancai.” I didn’t think of it, but it could be confusing to people used to working with the “Pre-Heaven” and “Post-Heaven” ideas. “Heaven” is definitely a type of “Pre-Heaven” qigong. It seems kind of hard for me to define Earth because I don’t know if harmonizing organs counts as “pre” or “post” Heaven. I figured that since you need the (pre-)Heaven background to do Earth that maybe it counted as “post,” but you’d know better than me. Zhou once said the full name of the Tian-men is “Damo Yijin-jing Xiantian Daoyin Qigong.”

  I think you’d be traditionally required to do Heaven for at least a year or two before doing Man. But once you can do Man you don’t stop practicing Heaven. You continue to practice it all forever, basically (though you can gradually whittle down the exercises as I mentioned).

• 13 Orz // Oct 25, 2006 at 12:26 pm

  chessman71:

  You’re welcome. Hope those pics are useful to you. ^^

  “san cai”(三才) … Wow, quite an interesting topic. That is a very advanced level for CMA practicioners, it came from Dandao (丹道) philosophy, complex and difficult to understand . “san cai”(三才) includes heaven (天), earth (地) and body (人). Learning“san cai”(三才) is learning the converting of external and internal chi in a natural way. You could regard it as a nei-kung (內功) training.

  According to Chen, Yang, Li and Wu taiji, one of their trainings in“san cai”(三才) is making students understand what“san quan”(三圈) is. “san quan”(三圈) means the three circles of chi around one’s body:“jian quan”(肩圈),“yao quan”(腰圈) and“kua quan”(胯圈). That is why some people said : People do applications or practice themselves in CMA, their“jian quan”(肩圈) must connect with heaven (天), their“kua quan”(胯圈) music connect with earth (地) and their“yao quan”(腰圈) must connect with body (人) . Only that, everything will become one; only that, every movement would be natural; and only that, you can feel the universe and the universe inside your body.

  Training“san cai”(三才) and“san quan”(三圈) could be very concrete, not only abstract.

• 14 tim // Oct 28, 2006 at 6:00 am

  Here is one of Akuzawa’s exercises:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBV1nfpthUE

• 15 chessman71 // Oct 28, 2006 at 10:23 am

  Tim,
  Thanks for the clip. I’ve seen some good clips of him from the qi/jing list. This is also a good one. He’s obviously very skilled.

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