The main problem with Zhang’s Science of Internal Strength Boxing is that it’s an advanced book. Zhang talks about stuff that other people don’t talk about. And he makes it accessible. But most of this material lies way outside the normal realm of martial arts chatboards and magazines. Basically, Zhang’s ideas need to be introduced and explained a bit. Naturally, if the reader has some experience then the material will make more sense.
This quote below is how Zhang starts setting up his argument about tension in the body and how to get rid of it. The main culprit in his opinion is chest tension. He advocates a complete reversal of the Western, “military” posture of chest out, stomach in. He goes to great lengths to show WHY that is totally at odds with practicing IMA.
Zhang starts with the starting posture of every IMA form — the most overlooked posture in martial arts — and shows why it’s supremely important. External styles do not practice this way nor do many arts from other countries. This is one of the things that separates the arts. And yet, I see people all the time gloss over the opening posture, never realizing that if they miss that, they miss everything that comes after. The importance of the wuiji/starting posture just isn’t widely recognized, though it should be if we are to practice REAL internal martial arts.
Here’s Zhang:
As one begins practicing Internal Strength Boxing, there is always a degree of preparation. Motionless, complete body relaxation. This kind of preparation posture is very important. As a standing method, it is practiced while facing fully forward or facing to one side (edit: note that fully forward is the wuji stance of taiji, and facing to one side is the wuji stance of xingyiquan). It engages all parts of the body in complete accord with mechanical physics. There is not one part of the body that does not feel as if it is dropping downward. The joints, in every part of the body, maintain a slight natural curve. Then, starting from the head, to the neck, to the shoulders, chest, hands, abdomen, arms, thighs, calves, all are observed, in order from top to bottom. Become aware of areas where there is unconscious holding of unnatural and unsuitable tension and make immediate correction (relax). If one’s posture is not correct, then correct it. Unconscious tension requires conscious relaxation. The inhalation and exhalation of the breath should be natural and there should be no obstructions. Momentarily observe the breath as to settles down. There will be complete relaxation and resolve. The entire body should relax, sinking naturally downward with gravity, with complete lack of intent. The positioning of the skeletal structure relies on a mechanically fixed point of support, not necessarily relying on tendon and muscle maintenance. Rather, the tendons and muscles should hang on the skeletal structure like pieces of cloth, strung with a thread of qi…At this time, the eyes and ears become unaware of the outside world. As soon as there is awareness of the outside however, the chest will not be able to avoid becoming unconsciously tense. Nonetheless, attention upon a condition of complete relaxation is maintained. This is especially important as concerns attention paid to one’s natural inhalation and exhalation. Confining one’s attention to the interior in this way can assist in averting awareness of the outside.
Notice that “unconscious tension requires conscious relaxation.” You can’t just “relax” and expect to get the opening posture or anything else that comes after that in the form. You have to greatly increase your awareness of the body, and let’s face it — many people lack a good sense of body awareness. It sounds corny and new-agey, but you have to get in touch with your shoulders, your chest, your arms, etc. in order to feel whether they are tense of not. This requires sensitivity to what you’re actually doing, not what you think you’re doing. You also have to start opening up and losing some of that armor that we hold to keep the rest of the world out.
When Zhang talks about using a “mechanically fixed point of support,” he’s giving a big clue as to how to do internal martial arts. The bones provide the power for the moves, not the muscles. I know that sounds abstract, but maximum relaxation is allowed by having the skeleton in the most mechanically advantageous position. As he says, the muscles hang there. This is hard to do, but is worth working towards because it allows for maximum efficiency.
As the tension in the muscles is freed up, the focus can then turn inward. The converse is also true - turning the attention inward can cause the outside to relax. Slightly different process, but the same goal is achieved.
So what happens when the attention turns inward? What happens when all the energy used to keep that muscle tension going is freed up because the tension is gone?
It’s all in the book. 
25 responses so far ↓
1 David // Dec 4, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Are those your emphases in bold, or his? Just curious.
2 Dave Chesser // Dec 4, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Mine.
3 onebir // Dec 4, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I think the same concept (in yoga & western biomechanics) is discussed here:
http://www.extensionyoga.com/Bachin.asp
4 Joseph Crandall // Dec 4, 2007 at 10:50 pm
At this stage the yi “is” involved. It is just focused inward.
5 Dave Chesser // Dec 4, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Joe,
Yep, good point.
6 Graham // Dec 4, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Dave,
One of your bold comments is:
“There is not one part of the body that does not feel as if it is dropping downward. ”
He says this when describing WuChi. The overall sentiment is right - sink down, but the “not one part” element is just plain wrong.
It violates two of the postural requirements of Tai Chi Chuan - “suspend the head” and “raise the back”.
“Suspend the head” is usually the first princple given. When you stand in Wu Chi you should feel your weight is sinking down below your knees, but at the same time that you are being drawn up from a thread attached to your crown - there’s a natural feeling of being stretchd gently in two directions - up and down.
“Raise the back” also does obviously not involve dropping downward.
This book may be good… haven’t read it, but I wonder now, how he could have missed such basic things?
G
7 Dave Chesser // Dec 4, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Well, he’s only addressing one part of the whole here. And he’s stressing that part.
BTW, not everyone does “raise the back.”
8 Graham // Dec 5, 2007 at 12:13 am
Dave… you almost came close to agreeing with me about something then.
9 Pete // Dec 5, 2007 at 9:50 am
I like onebir’s link too which talks about the need for alignment of the axial skeleton, so that all the other structures can hang “like a peice of cloth” (Zhang). I don’t think the classical items ” suspend the head” and “lift the back” are contradicted by Zhang’s points at all, which sounds like a very useful reference. “Lift the head” I think is about reducing the cervical lordisis while “lift the back” is about reducing thoracic kyphosis. When the spine is aligned, it does feel like it is being stretched.
10 Graham // Dec 5, 2007 at 6:45 pm
There are no references to anything but sinking in that text. I think it would seriously give the wrong impression to a beginner.
11 Dave Chesser // Dec 5, 2007 at 7:41 pm
It’s not for beginners.
12 Marcus // Dec 5, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Graham,
Zhang’s views were challenged by other martial art adepts during his day…so its not to late to join the choir..
Nonetheless, his writings do give explanation concerning why different concepts have evolved. This is partly, he claims, due to common misinterpretations of some classical, internal cultivation adages.
Anyway.. the title of the chapter Dave posted was (wuji). According to taiji theory wuji refers to an undifferentiated state of yin and yang. That state writes Zhang, is a state of “complete relaxation” which exist before there is a division of yin and yang. He also refers to this state as huen yuen yi qi , the “one qi of chaos” .
taiji is the division of yin and yang… (the division of full and empty, wuji sheng taiji). His reasoning for the division of these energies is his central thesis and according to his understanding is centered around the adage “fu shi xiong kuan”
(relaxed chest firm abdomen).
Just the same..I think Zhang’s theories are quite interesting, although I personally do not subscribe to his methodologies.
Marcus
13 wudang05 // Dec 6, 2007 at 12:14 am
Hi!
“Zhang’s views were challenged by other martial art adepts during his day…”
Do any of you have any info on Zhang’s background and these controversies with other martial art adepts?
14 Dave Chesser // Dec 6, 2007 at 12:20 am
A student of Wang Xiang-zhai’s in Shanghai had written a long letter that challenged Zhang’s book in some ways, but supported it in others. Zhang liked it so much that he included it as an introduction in his original book. Marcus is working on the translation of the letter and we hope to send it out to people that have bought the book.
15 GrahamB // Dec 6, 2007 at 3:59 am
Thanks for your reply Marcus.
I see what you are saying - before the division of yin and yang there’s only a unity, therefore to create the division in the body of raising (the head) and sinking (to the dantien) would be to have formed Tai Chi, which you haven’t started yet.
I think this idea has merit. It’s an interesting philosophical debate
best,
Graham
16 wudang05 // Dec 6, 2007 at 5:19 am
I understand, then, that the original articles published in the newspaper were put together, at some stage, in a book by the author. I thought they were just pure newspaper articles.
Good to know there wil be supplementary material for the e-book. Great for such translation! Thanks!
17 scott // Dec 6, 2007 at 6:57 am
Marcus,
Any idea why the term Wuji is used at all when Hunyuan seems to say it better?
Wuji has picked up a lot of baggage from Buddhist notions of emptiness which I find off the point. Were they trying to re-claim it?
Were they trying to be syncretic?
–thanks
18 Marcus // Dec 6, 2007 at 10:00 am
Great word..(syncretic)…! I should have used it in the intro of the book. Yes, Zhang employs examples, comparisons, analogies, metaphors, etc.. in resolving some common misinterpretations. In so doing, his idea is to organize these old theories using scientific method.
In Zhang’s excerpt above, the title “so-called Wuji”..is his attempt to subtly bash “occult” terminology.
Marcus
19 Hermann // Dec 6, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Wuji and Taiji are oldest terms out of the Yijing. I never studied Buddhism deeply, but Wuji for me is strictly Daoistic in nature.
20 Buddy // Dec 7, 2007 at 5:23 am
““Lift the head” I think is about reducing the cervical lordisis while “lift the back” is about reducing thoracic kyphosis. When the spine is aligned, it does feel like it is being stretched.”
Pete,
I like this a lot.
Marcus, any sighting of the other Marcus?
21 Marcus // Dec 7, 2007 at 11:22 am
Confucius speaks about “inner benevolence”. Laoze talks about “internal emptiness” (xu zhong), Sakyamuni talks about” internal nothingness” (kong zhong)…. Any thoughts?… same truth, different schools?
Buddy…. I heard (little) Marcus went on a party and girl chasing binge upon arrival..thought I got a glimpse of him, stumbling out of a taxi early one morning… on my way to church. .. ha ha!
22 YMAA.com // Dec 13, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Amazing discussion! Such an important topic. Personally, i think the wuji posture is the most important part of all internal arts. Wuji is an ancient Daoist term that existed in China before Buddhism was imported from India/Nepal. There is some vague similarity between Daoism, Buddhism, Confucism regarding inner psychological quiet, but that’s not so much the point of Wuji as it pertains to Taijiquan.
Wuji existed in Taiji philosophy for thousands of years before the philosophy was adopted into the martial arts and became taijiquan. Wuji means ‘no extremity’. In physics, it would be equivalent to the singularity before the big bang. No discrimination. Then, the spiraling creative energy of Taiji becomes involved and yin and yang are discriminated. In taijiquan, this is the mind becoming involved. A thought is initiated, and QI is circulated, nerves activate, muscles move, yin and yang are discriminated.
The ancient characters for the word Qi, were ‘no fire’, before it was constructed of ‘air and rice’. This earlier understanding was more esoteric, and the latter more practical. The food you eat and the air you breathe are metabolized into energy: Qi. But, in ancient times, they understood that the goal of the wuji state was ‘no extremity’, ‘no fire’. When your Qi is deficient, or there is resistance in your circulation, the body will become excessively Yang. But when the body and mind are regulated, Qi circulates smoothly. On each inhalation, the Qi condenses in the real lower dan tien, but Qi also permeates the body. On each exhalation, Qi circulates throughout the body, and out through the five gates, unimpeded. This happens without Yi being involved, because it has been regulated, so no conscious or unconscious thought is needed.
In my understanding.
I think the only way to relate to this and experience it first-hand is to spend a lot of time in the wuji state, practicing five gates breathing until it is regulated.
23 Dave Chesser // Dec 13, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Welcome to the blog, David!
24 Chris bates // Dec 16, 2007 at 4:31 pm
In the text it says:
(edit: note that fully forward is the wuji stance of taiji, and facing to one side is the wuji stance of xingyiquan).
Note that in Sun taiji (perhaps because Sun trained xing-yi first) one shifts from forward to diagonal facing before commencing. Martially, this is also a nice distinction. Rarely will a good opponent attack from directly facing.
In the YMAA comment above wuji is translated as no extremity. In English, an extremity can be something that is at the far outside, like your arms and legs are referred to as the bodies extremities. Perhaps “no polarity” captures the meaning better in English.
25 elf_man // Feb 22, 2008 at 6:59 am
Marcus, as I understand Confucianism, there’s a belief that people are basically good, such that we are all born with the “seeds” of all virtues, and through cultivation (ritual, primarily) they blossom. Also, so that these seeds are never destroyed, but always available if we turn back to them.
This is a somewhat different understanding of essential nature than is seen in Buddhism, if only because Buddhism doesn’t really concern itself with social virtues as such. The internal nothingness of Buddhism is both the great death and the great rebirth; everything and nothing, the relative and the absolute. Realization of “internal nothingness”, or emptiness, brings about prajna wisdom, the functioning of things as they are, which is compassion. In this way, it seems that a parallel can be drawn between the functioning of both Confucius’ and Sakyamuni’s terms. Both, ultimately, are not about a specific state so much as the transformation brought about by a continuing process.
Dunno about Laozi’s term, but considering the wuji, undifferentiated yin and yang concept, it sounds quite similar to the great emptiness of Buddhism.
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