Theory of Martial Art--The Second Course of Yiquan
Li Jiong
Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
Translator: Timo Heikkil?
For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
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'This writing is sincerely dedicated to our mother, Lady Wang Qun, who
has tacitly devoted herself to yiquan.'
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Producing a feeling with a fixed method
Giving up the method after getting the feeling
Letting the feeling follow into everything
Personal feeling leads to complete awareness
I. What is yiquan?
Yiquan, since it originated, has aimed at training and cultivating the
practitioner by developing the natural instinctive abilities of the
human body and mind as its goal. This is the highest reflection of
man's primordial spirit, and these natural instinctive abilities bring
one's physical and mental functions into full play. Summed up, it
could be called man's pursuit of a healthy mind and body. Concretely
it can be divided into three aspects. The first one is health, which
includes both physiology and psychology. Only when you are in good
health, can you live a normal life and do all the things you want to.
The second is combat. Only when you are in good health, can you deal
with another person in combat and only then can you compete
victoriously. The third is the pursuit of an interesting and
meaningful life. That means, by the processes of studying and applying
yiquan, getting zest into one's life gaining knowledge of the law of
the movement of life (1) of the human body, and then, from an even
higher state, realizing the primordial spirit in one's life. That
could be called 'understanding tacitly by intuitive perception'.
To achieve this goal, yiquan makes clear that its subject of research
is the whole movement process of life of the human body. This issue
must be met with the principles of science and the law of the movement
of life must be the subject of research. Thereby it is established
that yiquan is a branch of science - 'combat science'. The difference
between yiquan and other martial arts can be seen from that statement.
Yiquan is not a collection of boxing routines or fixed techniques and
postures, neither is it a school of thought or a style, nor can it
assume as a criterion that the correctness of boxing could be judged
merely by victory or defeat. Yiquan is study of life. Only after
having understood this, can the true meaning of yiquan be considered
to have been grasped. Only then can yiquan indeed be considered to
have been understood.
II. The present training method still has room for improvement
The predecessors who developed yiquan, noticed that in order to grasp
the law of one's movement of life, the attention must be put towards
the human body both in theory and in practice, and in this way bring
one's natural instinctive abilities into full play and thus reach the
goal of yiquan. Merely seeking this law from an external form is not
enough. This is the opposite of the traditional martial arts training
method of movement patterns and fixed techniques. Yiquan has personal
intuitive perception as its means and pile standing (zhanzhuang),
trial of force (shili) and issuing of force (fali) are used to make up
most of the content of its training system. At present this kind of
training system is widely used in the yiquan circles. At the same time
yiquan starts to spread its influence towards other sports. We can
assume that in the near future it will certainly change into a
treasure of the common culture of all the people in the whole world.
But we have gradually, in the process of practising and researching
yiquan for years, found out that insufficiencies can still be found in
this kind of teaching method, mainly in the following few aspects:
A. The abstract description of yiquan's final state is within sight,
but beyond reach. For example, our predecessors spoke about things
such as 'a flag in the wind, a fish in the waves' etc. How could a
student enter such a state?
B. Also, concrete statements are one-sided. When talking about
zhanzhuang, there are requirements on how to position the head, the
neck, the waist, the legs, etc. Actually that is just the opposite of
yiquan, 'once something concrete is being told, it becomes one-sided
at once', which finally causes what we call the unity problem. For
instance, while doing zhanzhuang one feels very good and strong, but
the whole vanishes once one moves. Commonly that is called 'loss of
unity'. When one does a single movement it is very solid, but the
whole shatters immediately when one starts moving freely.
C. As a result of the two above mentioned points, there is no concrete
integrated training process for the student to step by step enter the
highest state of 'not a single method exists, yet no method
non-exists'.
D. At the same time the defects of the time of the learning process
being too long also exist. According to Mr. Wang Xiangzhai, it takes
ten years before one is able to 'issue maximum power, thus being fully
ready for combat'. What we have experienced ourselves, is that maybe
after ten years one still has not reached that state, I think
everybody else might have realized the same too. In today's society
the rhythm of life is gradually getting faster and faster, so I am
afraid that the possibility of someone using dozens of years for
pursuing yiquan, like we did, gets smaller and smaller and the
difficulty of teaching yiquan gets bigger and bigger.
What was mentioned above is the reality that we cannot evade,
therefore we feel it as our duty to, on the basis of the yiquan that
our predecessors started, take the way of learning one step forward,
making it even more perfect and completing what our predecessors
started.
III. The problems that need to be solved in the theory and practice of
yiquan
1. The fundamental concept of yiquan not being understood clearly
A. Not being clear about the fact that the subject of research of
yiquan is the whole process of the movement of life. It is a mistake
to study how to beat the opponent, in fact already a long time ago Mr.
Wang Xiangzhai said that, 'Correctness of boxing cannot be judged
merely by victory or defeat....' Advancing in any subject must be
judged by the progress in understanding the law of objective reality.
Only in sports is the difference of victory and defeat between
individuals used as a standard. This resembles Mike Tyson having
knocked many opponents down yesterday, which explains that within a
certain period of time his skills were better than those of the other
boxers. Today Evander Holyfield beat him up, this explains that within
another period of time Tyson's skills were not the best ones. So
neither their victory nor defeat can explain whether their
understanding of the boxing sport is correct or incorrect. The
progress in a branch of science must be examined within a wide process
of practice to see whether it is positive or not.
B. The scientific attributes of yiquan not being understood clearly.
What is researched scientifically is the law of movement of nature,
but that is not a school of thought. There is only one law of nature.
Therefore Mr. Wang Xiangzhai once said, 'Only the objective truth is
universally sacred, a publicly-owned master.' He also said, 'It is the
origin of right and wrong.' Finally he said, ' I only know the
difference of right and wrong in my study of boxing and ignore the
sectarianism (2).' That expression of learning spirit could not be any
clearer.
C. Not understanding the difference between Nature and knowledge
learned from others, causes following blindly. Mr. Wang Xiangzhai in
his book, 'The Essential Way of Boxing', wrote about the reasons why
many boxing practitioners mistakenly enter the wrong path: 'Mostly
their teacher teaches badly. In practice they do not scrupulously seek
the truth, but follow what others do and echo what others say. That is
called following like sheep.' In this statement he brought up that one
should not follow the predecessors blindly. Following the predecessors
refers to predecessor's experiences, which can be the direct teachings
of one's master or the knowledge gained from the books of the
predecessors. All this is the predecessor's understanding of objective
reality. We should know that they were working hard expressing their
personal understanding of the objective, but this kind of
understanding might be incorrect, it might be correct, or maybe partly
correct and partly incorrect. But the everlasting and unchanging truth
only lies in objective reality. We are talking about Nature, it is
the sole noumenon (3) of knowledge. So we say that, although one has
to learn from one's teacher, it is even more important to respect and
learn from the Nature. This requires us to have skills to observe,
think and perceive independently, not to follow blindly, and not to
echo what others say, including what our direct teachers have said and
what the predecessors have written. We have to verify their
experiences in real practice, keeping in close touch with Nature. This
is the only way leading to success.
2. Not being able to completely solve the already known contradictions
From the theoretical point of view, Mr. Wang Xiangzhai once said,
'Boxing has no fixed method at all.' So do the numerous treatises the
predecessors wrote have a fixed method or not? Mr. Wang once said,
'Boxing without fixed form, mind without fixed thoughts, no fixed form
and no fixed thoughts, that is awakening to the truth.' So does yiquan
have fixed thoughts after all? Mr. Wang told to hit like this and
that, but in the end he said again that a clever person does not need
to study that, so do we need to study it or not after all? Mr. Wang
said that once something concrete is said it becomes one-sided at
once. But in another article he told how to position the head, the
waist, the feet, etc. So is it one-sided or not after all? Finally Mr.
Wang summed it up by saying, 'Everything said is a contradiction of a
contradiction', he also called himself 'Old Man Contradiction'. He
already saw clearly that the entire processes of exercise and teaching
included contradictions, and brought up this problem saying: 'To study
boxing, but not its philosophical theory is the same as embracing a
stone egg in a hope that it will hatch a chick, eventually nothing
succeeds. The student must understand this truth.' This points out the
importance of solving the contradictions of theory and practice from a
philosophical level. But how to solve them remained an issue for us in
the later generations.
3. The unity problem
As a result of not having solved the main problem - the contradictions
- in theory and practice from a philosophical level, the unity problem
appears in the process of practice. The original training system is
divided into three phases: zhanzhuang, shili, and fali; zhanzhuang
being its core. Because Mr. Wang has said that everything comes from
zhanzhuang, great many people have misunderstood, thinking that yiquan
is zhanzhuang, that in the process of zhanzhuang a student is required
to position his head, waist, legs, etc. in a certain way. That means
complete dismemberment of yiquan. So Mr. Wang said, 'Once something
concrete is being told, it becomes one-sided at once.' This is what it
means. So some people jokingly say: the dead-like people do pile
standing, they stand like dead piles, pile standing dies away (4).
Yiquan's true meaning has been absolutely destroyed. But how could we
bring the achievements of all the different parts of the training -
i.e. zhanzhuang, shili, fali, etc. - back to life? This is what is
currently called 'the unity problem'.
Above we have already spoken about the contradictions in the theory
and training, so here you will surely ask me: Does what you are
talking here have a fixed method or not? Does the training system you
recommend have a fixed form or not? How do you express methodlessness?
How do you exercise formlessness? This is exactly the contradiction of
a contradiction Mr. Wang spoke about; it is also exactly the main
problem this writing wants to solve. This will be discussed in the
later chapters
For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
Li Jiong
> 'Theory of Combat Science --- The Second Course of Yiquan'
>
> Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
> Translator: Timo Heikkil?
>
> For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
IV. The limits of formal logic in understanding, thinking, and
expressing yiquan's content
The question of having a fixed form or not discussed above, actually
is a way of discussing how a person can attain the highest state of
yiquan, and the question of methodness (5) and methodlessness (6) is
about discussing how a person who has already reached this state could
express his perception to lead others to step into the same excellent
state.
We know that all kinds of knowledge possessed by people is made of
subjective personally sensed feelings of objective things, which then
form the images of the objective things in the brain. We call them
concepts. Then by means of a concept, a conclusion is made and then
expressed by means of spoken and written languages. Thus the concept
gained in the brain is passed on to another person in the form of the
conclusion. Here only obtaining it matters, not how you obtain it. It
does not matter how it is obtained and expressed, the concept is used
as the basic component in every case. Here we have already, without
being aware of it, entered the category of formal logic, which is the
commonly used method of knowing and expressing. Because formal logic
would not exist without its strictness and thoroughness, so the
inertia created by people by regularly doing certain things, makes
them mistakenly think that the concept is the complete reflection of
the objective thing, and they go on to make a conclusion about it by
means of the concept, which they think is the inevitable outcome of
objective reality. Finally what was expressed by the concept cannot be
anything but the objective truth to them. Because of not seeing the
limits of the formal logic in understanding and expressing the content
of yiquan, the difference between objective reality and one's
knowledge gets bigger and bigger and finally there is no way to grasp
the true meaning of yiquan. Below we will explain this problem from
several aspects.
1. The difference between a concept and reality
First of all we have to check whether a concept can perfectly reflect
objective reality. For example, you have just eaten a grape and
another person asks you what it tastes like. You answer that it is
sour, so the other person asks you again what kind of sourness it is,
is it sour like an apricot or sour like a plum, or as sour as vinegar.
Naturally it is not like any of those. This concept of 'sour' cannot
express the sourness of this grape, it can only tell that it belongs
to the category of sourness. Everybody knows that actually every kind
of sourness is different, the sourness of this grape can only be its
own taste. That means, reflecting the objective reality of the grape
by the means of the concept of sour is very difficult, because there
is a difference between the concept and reality. The same applies to
yiquan, understanding and expressing its feeling with a concept is
also very difficult.
2. A concept can only describe a single aspect of something, but it
cannot reflect the whole condition
We know that the objective things consist of many kinds of
information; let us take one specific pear as an example, the
information it is made of includes size, colour, weight, temperature,
flavour, shape, smell, etc. Maybe there is also much other information
that we are incapable to sense. The summation of this information
expresses this pear's existence. When we want to tell other people
what this pear is like, we can only go through the concept describing
it one by one. What is called one by one means that within one unit of
time you can represent this pear only from one aspect and one point of
view, you cannot at once pass on the whole general information of the
pear to another person. After the other person has one by one got the
information, he has to gather the information together in his brain,
only after that can he get the general impression of this pear. Why do
we call it general impression? That is because there is still much
information that has not been received, because the whole is bigger
than the sum of its parts; the whole includes the content of every
part and it also expresses the synthesis of the content. This
resembles our eyes, they both are capable of perceiving form and
colour; when the two eyes work together, that gives birth to the
perception of distance. This sense of distance is a result of the
whole being in possession and integrated; it cannot be expressed by
the parts. Because yiquan is a kind of understanding of the human
body's whole process of life, it cannot be expressed and understood
part by part, therefore it is said that 'once something concrete is
being told, it becomes one-sided at once' and afterwards this creates
what is called the unity problem.
3. An experience must precede a concept
In the process of teaching yiquan, is it possible to pass our
experience to another person using a concept? The following story can
answer this question. There was a blind man who had always heard other
people saying: how white is this and that, but he himself did not know
what was white, so he went to ask a clear-sighted man. The
clear-sighted man answered him right away: 'white is one kind of a
colour', the blind person still did not understand, therefore he asked
again: 'what kind of colour is it?' The clear-sighted man told him
again: 'it is white like a white swan.' The blind man still did not
understand, so he went on asking what kind of white is the whiteness
of a white swan, and was told by the clear-sighted person that it is
white like the white clouds. The blind person did not understand and
asked him what kind of white is the whiteness of the white clouds, the
clear sighted man answered... Ultimately the blind person did not
understand. This story tells us that the things expressed by a concept
must be passed on using facts both parties have experienced. When I
say 'white' you know what it means right away. That is because before
I said it, you have already seen white things with your own eyes, and
have had the same feeling as I did. Only because of that, can you
understand the meaning that the concept of 'white' expresses. Mr. Wang
also said, 'One cannot talk about something one has not experienced',
that is what it means. But we want to explain boxing, we want to talk
about boxing, we want to tell the people who do not understand boxing
what it is, because there is no need to explain boxing to those who
have already understood it. But the students have not experienced the
understanding of boxing, therefore it is impossible to explain them
what boxing is using a concept.
4. The difficulty in explaining a concept
When we do not understand one concept, it needs to be explained to us
by another person, but how to explain a concept? One must put it among
many other concepts. What does that mean? That means if someone does
not understand the concept of 'vegetable', you explain: it is an
edible plant. Here appear the five concepts of 'it', 'is', 'an',
'edible', and 'plant', so one can go on asking; what is 'it', what is
'is', what is.... So after you have explained again, he can keep on
asking no matter how carefully you explain. This example tells us:
already known concepts must be used to explain unknown concepts, so
everybody, think a little, where does the first concept already known
come from? It is definitely not created by an explanation; it is
obtained by the means of direct feeling from nature. Then one kind of
commonly agreed symbol is used to express this kind of common feeling.
Here we have understood that the most basic concept of any science is
certainly created by the means of a direct feeling of this process of
movement.
5. The flaws of contemplating and demonstrating something using a
concept
We know that when we ponder something and when we want to pass on the
knowledge of something to another person, we have to strictly obey the
laws of logic. Deducing from the preceding thing leads to a
conclusion, deducing from one thing leads to another thing. If you do
not obey the logical laws you cannot advance. And if the logic is not
strict, you cannot but make a mistaken conclusion, so you cannot pass
on the idea you want to express. This fact already makes us deeply
trust and not suspect. But there is a German philosopher who came up
with a philosophical proposition - the Law of Contradiction. He found
out that the same concept, by the means of strict formal logical
reasoning can lead to two opposite conclusions without violating the
laws of logic at all, then he adduced four ways to prove it: 1. Time
and space have limits; time and space have no limits. 2. Everything in
the world is composed of single divisible parts; everything in the
world is complex and indivisible. 3. The existence of the world has a
reason; the existence of the world has no reason. 4. .... He revealed
that there is a contradiction in judging and knowing objective things
using formal logic. Later many others took the theory a step further
proving that not only the four things Mr. Immanuel Kant pointed out,
but also all other things belong to the Law of Contradiction, and even
more importantly they understood the universal existence of a
contradiction. This also tells us that judging something by the means
of a concept just using the simple method of formal logic to prove one
truth is impossible. So we should not think that just going through
one argument confirms everything, neither should we think that
everything can by negated just by the means of the opposite statement,
even less should we stick to theoretically discussing the concept.
6. Reasoning cannot lead to new knowledge
In real life we often use the method of logical reasoning to obtain a
conclusion and knowledge of a concrete thing. In the process of often
using this kind of method it is very easy to make a mistake, i.e. to
believe that the judgement gained by the means of reasoning is new
knowledge. Actually it is not. Let us first take a look at what is the
normal form of reasoning: major premise -> minor premise ->
conclusion. For example, a fruit is edible -> an apple is a fruit ->
an apple is edible. In this process the conclusion is not new
knowledge; it is already included in the major premise. That means the
small concept of an apple is included in the overall concept of a
fruit. Originally it can be eaten, so by the means of reasoning no new
knowledge is obtained.
We also know that reasoning must start with correct premise, this
premise is called universally accepted truth and the theorem is
deduced from it. But where does the universally accepted truth come
from? Universally accepted truth cannot be gained by the means of
reasoning, it has emerged in the practical activities that people do
again and again. It is what everybody universally accepts as one kind
of perception of objective reality. So the origin of genuine knowledge
is in peoples daily practical activities and in the direct perception
of the objective reality. So yiquan emphasizes that 'one should not
leave one's body', it means that one's body is the subject of
research, its movement process is one kind of objective reality. That
means you must by yourself go forward to directly feel this objective
reality, and thereby gain genuine knowledge. This genuine knowledge is
one kind of real existence in itself, it is also subjective knowledge
of objective, and thereby reality and concept are united. It also
tells us: to push is exactly to push, to pull is exactly to pull,
unite the concept and the action in your own body.
7. The necessity and indirectness of expressing something with
illustrative substance
There is an old story, it says that one year there was a solar
eclipse, and after the solar eclipse the emperor ordered a
historiographer to record this incident. After the historiographer had
finished, he gave his notes to the emperor. The emperor, after reading
the notes, was not satisfied with the description of the degree of the
solar eclipse. He told the historiographer to express it more
accurately. After a while the historiographer still had not found out
a suitable way to express it. After all, how high is the degree of a
solar eclipse? You cannot go to measure its degree. Therefore the
historiographer, in low spirits, thought it over and over again. His
son noticed that he was worried so he asked why. After hearing the
reason he suddenly got an idea and told his father that the degree of
yesterday's solar eclipse was like the crescent of the eighth day of
every lunar month. The historiographer understood immediately and used
this way to express the solar eclipse's degree when reporting to the
emperor, who was more than satisfied with the new report. How come it
was like that? Because the sun and the moon are of resembling natures
that can be compared. 1. They are both round, and 2. solar eclipse and
a moon on the wane both lack one piece. Solar eclipse's degree cannot
be directly measured, but the moon is full and on the wane every month
and thus can often be seen, everybody already has the general idea of
it. So using something often seen here which everybody already has an
idea of to express something seldom seen allows one to get an indirect
feeling right away. This is the value of using illustrating substance.
Similarly we run into this difficult problem when expressing the
feeling, state, or manner of yiquan, and we also introduce many
parables like dragon, tiger, monkey, the sea, and the mountains etc.
to solve it. Here everybody must understand that the illustrating
substance and reality have differences. The moon and the sun in the
end certainly are not the same thing, the way of using parables is
just using a concrete thing to express something behind it. It can be
regarded as 'the finger pointing to the moon'. That means, for the
sake of telling somebody where the moon is, use the finger to point to
the right direction in the sky. Of course one will first see the
finger and then in the same direction as the finger, one sees the
moon. Here the finger is just one kind of a method, just a tool,
nothing more. After you have found the moon there is no use for the
finger anymore. This is what the Chinese idiom 'having found the moon,
forget the finger' means. Having understood the meaning, forget the
words. Therefore we have to be convinced that while the parable method
is also good, using another method is also fine. They are all used so
that one could feel and realize one's movement of life and personally
completely understand its law. Still in the end, that can only be
achieved by means of 'understanding tacitly by intuitive perception'.
8. Knowing the limits of a concept
The focal point of the last few chapters were the limits of the actual
application of the concept method. It does not say that the value of
the concept could be negated even though it has this kind of
contradiction. In daily life we unceasingly use concepts as tools to
express thoughts, including me in writing this article. That resembles
when you say 'red light = stop, green light = go'. Everybody knows
that it is a traffic rule and if it would not be obeyed, the roads
might turn into chaos. So here the location of the contradiction must
be emphasized, so that everybody would pay attention to the limits
inherent in the method of formal logic when it is used to solve the
actual problems in yiquan. Some things can be expressed by a concept
and some can not. To express yiquan both kinds of these things are
required. Thus here we took a step forward and understood the method
of understanding yiquan.
9. The consequences of breaking away from reality
A few years ago I saw a TV program called 'Going Out of Shape'. The
content of it was: ten students stand on the stage side by side, backs
towards the audience, then the teacher tells the first student to turn
around and does the action of frying food. This student looks
carefully, and then he tells the second student to turn around and
passes this action on to the second student (he is not allowed to
talk). Like this it is passed on from student to student. As a result
we see that this action of frying food in the process of being passed
from student to student will gradually go out of shape, and having got
to the last student the appearance is already totally wrong. Although
this is just a game, it still shows information gradually getting lost
in the process of passing it on. This kind of getting lost starts to
pile up and as a result it is impossible to express the original
thing. I think if they had had a frying pan while appearing on the
stage, they surely could not have gone out of shape, constantly having
a real thing to confirm from. So think about our yiquan, should we not
constantly confirm from reality, never let it go out of shape. The
ancients also have a description for this phenomenon, that is, should
we study from the predecessors or study from Nature? What the
predecessors refer to is the master or a writing left by him, Nature
refers to the objective reality of nature itself. Mr. Wang Xiangzhai
also stressed: 'Do not stick to studying from your teacher only.' The
study of yiquan is researching and studying the life of the human
body. We all have one body; we can by means of the experience gained
from our own body, grasp the law of movement of objective reality.
Thereby our knowledge and understanding of yiquan will never go out of
shape. This is also the reason why Mr. Wang said: 'One should not
leave one's body.'
10. Theory can be explained, yiquan must be perceived by intuition
Today when science flourishes, all of its branches have developed to
different extent, so there are even more tools for us to know the
world. As to the specific research target of the movement of life of
the human body, it can be explained using any science, it can be
explained by physics, chemistry, biology, as well as mathematics. All
that knowledge and all these explanations are correct, but one must
understand that they only explain the theory, nothing more. A plain
explanation of yiquan is not enough; a picture of a cake cannot allay
one's hunger. Studying boxing requires people to be able to understand
this law of movement from the movement of one's own body. At the same
time this law gains evidence for itself in one's body, one obtains
realization from one's inmost. In the end one achieves the state of
syncretism of the subjective and the objective. That is like if I
would want to tell you a specific pear's flavour, I can tell you how
many per cents of it consist of water, sugar, salt, vitamin, protein,
etc. Maybe there are still many unsaid ingredients, they all are
objective and correct, but by means of this knowledge you will never
know what that pear tastes like. You must taste it by yourself to know
what it tastes like. So when training yiquan you must earnestly
practise it by yourself, go to test it by yourself, only then can you
really understand it.
Li Jiong
> li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02021...@posting.google.com>...
> > 'Theory of Combat Science --- The Second Course of Yiquan'
> >
> > Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
> > Translator: Timo Heikkil?
> >
> > For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
>
V. A key to open the gate of 'awakening' to yiquan
We know that the whole theory is for solving problems in practice. The
purpose of studying yiquan is to let every student to grasp the law of
one's movement of life and thus gain healthy body and mind, to realize
the natural primordial spirit and to enjoy a happy life. So it does
not require a more advanced explanation, it just requires a solution
to the problem of how to practise so that the boxing skills may enter
everyone's body.
1. Entering methodlessness from methodness
Here everybody certainly might have a few questions in his or her
mind. Mr. Wang Xiangzhai said about yiquan that, 'Boxing has no fixed
method at all.' You have also used much space to explain the limits of
using a method to learn yiquan, so do you now want to tell us again
that there is a method that is not a method? Is this not very
contradictory to you? Therefore here it is necessary to elaborate a
little the relationship of methodness and methodlessness, as well as
the work that we have to do. Please allow us to use formal language to
explain: the process of studying yiquan could be compared to a road,
this road is divided into two parts, the first part is called
knowledge and the latter part is called transcendental wisdom. The
road of knowledge has a beginning and an end, while the road of
transcendental wisdom only has a beginning, but no end. There is a
gate between them; a gate called the 'awakening'. The starting point
inside the gate of 'awakening' is awareness; from awareness starts the
way towards the syncretism of the subjective and the objective. The
road of knowledge is a territory of methodness; the road of
transcendental wisdom is the territory of methodlessness. The
territory of methodness is called 'the territory of the intellect' in
philosophy. It is a state in which the method of concepts can be used
to express something. The territory of methodlessness is called 'the
territory of something that goes beyond the intellect' in philosophy.
It is a state that cannot be expressed by the method of concepts.
People start from ignorance and due to the ignorance the teacher tells
them the knowledge of all kinds of methods. In the process of
advancing the knowledge gradually piles up and increases. On this road
everything can be explained, because the road has a method. Finally
when one arrives at the gate of 'awakening', there is no way to
advance because one has not experienced what is behind the gate, so it
is impossible to use a concept to pass information about it. One has
come from the road of methodness so all the knowledge one has remains
within the state of methodness, but the methods within the area of
methodness cannot open the gate of 'awakening', so one cannot peek out
to see what the area of methodlessness is like. One cannot know the
Way, because the knowledge of the territory of methodness where one
finds oneself differs from objective reality, so one cannot talk about
syncretism of the subjective and the objective; it can only be
approached gradually by the road of transcendental wisdom. At this
point some people stay at the gate without being able to continue
going forward. Some people suddenly start to hesitate and go back to
the starting point of ignorance. Some people search for a method in
the state of methodness over and over again, their knowledge getting
greater and greater all the time and their method getting more and
more complex. As a result of this, entering the area of methodlessness
gets even more difficult. Those people who have already entered this
area cannot come back to help the others to advance one step forward,
because once something is said, that is having a method, it is not the
state they have achieved. So the process of studying boxing, and in
fact any studies, means entering awareness from ignorance and then
going on towards the syncretism of the objective and the subjective.
While advancing on this road it is possible to run into this juncture
(i.e. the gate of 'awakening') in every process. This is a common
juncture and what we have to do now is to help you to go through the
last part of the road of methodness by giving the key to open the gate
of 'awakening' into your own hand so that you can open it by yourself
and enter the state of methodlessness, receive the taste of awareness,
gain more transcendental wisdom, and push forward towards the
direction of the syncretism of the subjective and the objective.
2. 'Feeling' is the key to open the gate of 'awakening'
Feeling is sensing and thus becoming aware. Sensing points to the
impulses of information received by human body's sensory organs.
Becoming aware points to personal intuitive perception, that is the
subjective knowledge of the objective. All concepts and knowledge
possessed by the humankind come from this origin, nothing is contrary
to what has been gained this way, so this 'feeling' can be called the
source of all knowledge. Yiquan wants to perceive skill by intuition.
In order to perceive the skill of boxing by intuition one must obtain
this 'feeling'. Therefore 'feeling' is where the core of studying
yiquan is. So what do we want to feel after all? We say that the first
step is feeling objective reality with one's spirit and senses. This
objective reality is the subject of research; it is your own body's
process of movement. One must feel the state of movement of one's body
and spirit. The second step is feeling the meaning of certain
concepts, because you are still in the territory of methodness, so you
must understand the meanings of the concepts told by the teacher. The
third step is feeling the comparative relation between the concept and
the reality, to feel the difference between them, to build a
connection between them, not to disconnect them. Finally by the means
of the perceptions of the previous three stages, from an even higher
level, feel the primordial spirit in one's own life.
3. The use of the 'feeling'
We already know that the core of yiquan is 'feeling' and the
perception of one's movement of life is achieved from this 'feeling'.
Here the four concrete ways to use the 'feeling' in the teaching
process are explained:
Producing a feeling with a fixed method
Giving up the method after getting the feeling
Letting the feeling follow into everything
Personal feeling leads to complete awareness
A. Producing a feeling with a fixed method. The goal of yiquan is to
let the student to grasp his state of movement of life; while the
student enters a certain state of this movement by using a fixed
method, he will feel something, and therefore gain one kind of
'feeling'. This kind of feeling is one kind of self-awareness, a state
that cannot be sought from external form and it cannot be passed on by
means of a concept either. To let the student feel this state right
away, you should first find the original and simplest shape of
movement of this kind of state then teach him a movement that has this
shape. Let the student enter this kind of state by doing the movement
and then affirm this kind of feeling.
B. Giving up the method after getting the feeling. First of all you
need to know that what Mr. Wang Xiangzhai did was passing on one kind
of 'feeling', the fixed method he used for it is just like the finger
pointing to the moon mentioned in the previous chapters. After you
have gained the 'feeling' stop using the fixed method at once, just
reserve this 'feeling'.
C. Letting the feeling follow into everything. With the above
mentioned methods you have already gained a perception of one state of
the movement of life, you need to actively go to grasp it, use it
everywhere, all the time. In the yiquan circles that is called 'a
state of never practising and never not practising, it remains in
walking, standing, sitting, and reclining'.
D. Personal feeling leads to complete awareness. This refers to
personally, in the process of unceasingly applying the feeling to
everything, feeling that one has a free will and the ability to react
instinctively to the world outside one's body. Thus one gradually
becomes conscious of oneself, the past unclear points immediately
vanish and become obvious in one's heart, every boxing method and
theory, all come to harmony, all actions return to the original purity
and simplicity, all reactions become natural, not a single method
exists, yet no method non-exists. Enter the state of 'boxing without
fixed form, mind without fixed thought, no fixed form and no fixed
though, that is awakening to the truth' and personally clearly realize
and grasp the primordial spirit in your life.
By going through the above mentioned four processes of using
'feeling', we can realize how all methods are gradually being brushed
off from the body, how all kinds of knowledge is gradually dropped
while, unconsciously, we have already passed through the gate of
'awakening' and entered the territory of methodlessness: the light of
transcendental wisdom gradually appears. Personally one has already
realized the primordial spirit in one's life. From now on one can
ceaselessly go ahead towards the syncretism of the subjective and the
objective.
>
>
> >
Li Jiong
> > > 'Theory of Combat Science --- The Second Course of Yiquan'
> > >
> > > Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
> > > Translator: Timo Heikkil?
> > >
> > > For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
> >
>
As a result of the new knowledge of the theory and practice of yiquan,
a change in the training system of yiquan is given birth to.
Until now, the method has been to break the entire process of movement
down into several representative points and then let the student to
know his state of movement by intuitively perceiving these points one
by one. These points are split seconds of the movement process, that
we call piles (zhuang). Looking their appearance they seem immobile,
actually their target is to let student, in a nonmoving shape,
intuitively perceive its moving potential, approach what is called
'endless movement'. Therefore within one pile, using many directions,
such as push, pull, lift up, press down, etc., let the student feel
the moving potential of this power towards any direction from static
points. This is the true meaning of 'zhanzhuang causes stillness to
become movement'. After having accomplished the intuitive perception
of the points and having this kind of movement ability and having
reached what is called having gained power, this power must be
transmitted into the whole movement process and tried in every way.
Trying the power (shili) is a movement process of the points in a
line. Finally comes the issuing of the power, that is practising the
use of the power and finding out how it affects an object. Thus
emerged the training system of zhanzhuang, shili and fali.
Now due to knowing that the subject of research in yiquan is the state
of movement of the whole body, so from the beginning the aim is to
learn the basic state of movement of the body and mind directly from
the whole body. We know that man's state of movement can be divided
into three basic states: A 'relaxed', B 'tense', C 'relaxed -> tense,
tense -> relaxed (the interaction of relaxation and tension)'. So the
first stage is to coach the student to feel relaxation, feel tension
and feel the change between relaxation and tension. The content of
training is exploring both directions, from movement to stillness and
from stillness to movement. That can concretely be divided into three
processes, first of all, explain one principle, that is, explain the
goal, method and steps of a certain exercise. After the student has
understood one concept, then let the student to get this feeling by
this exercise. Having had this intuitive perception and having grasped
this state of body, then practise it over and over, make it emerge
into a natural way of doing things. The second stage is to ask the
student to attempt to freely extend the already gained feeling in the
three dimensional space to any angle and direction. Realize the
freedom of body's and mind's ability to react to the changes of the
objective environment and in the process of reacting to the outside,
naturally shape the finest body and movements. In the third phase,
after the simulated training processes of the previous states, comes
actual combat. By the means of the above three phases, the student
naturally enters and completely realizes the primordial spirit in
one's life.
Using mathematical language to express the above, it may be said that
the old training system is an integral process, while the new current
training system is based on this integral process together with a
differential process. These two mutually contrary processes are
grasped as a whole at the same time. Thus emerged a dialectical unity
of two contraries, which settles the contradictions in theory and
practice.
In this training process theory and practice melt into one, so the
theory guides the practise and the practise proves the theory. That
means that both the theory and the practice effectively guard against
going from theory to the mistaken theories. At the same time, the
subject and the object of learning become one. Here the one who
understands yiquan is the student himself and the subject of research
is one's own body. In this way the entire sensing and consciousness
stay within one's body and it is easier to reduce the difference
between knowledge and objective reality, going towards the syncretism
of the subjective and the objective with maximum speed.
Li Jiong
> li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02021...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > 'Theory of Combat Science --- The Second Course of Yiquan'
> > > >
> > > > Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
> > > > Translator: Timo Heikkil?
> > > >
> > > > For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
> > >
> >
Now, knowing that the theory and the practice have melted into one,
what the preamble has spoken about is still a 'method'. Naturally we
are not able to make the audience understand the intent at once, so
here we have to use certain exercises to create a 'feeling' for every
one, pass this 'feeling' on to your body, give you a personal
intuitive perception. Now everybody should give a try to my method,
you can also use this kind of method to teach some students, using
reality to verify the feasibility of the theory. After trying, it may
become clear to your mind what it is after all, only then can you know
the real meaning of what I am saying.
Mr. Wang has said: 'This kind of relaxed movements can be used as the
basic thought activities of pile standing work (zhanzhuanggong).
Regardless of what kind of posture is adapted, the beginners need to
relax, only after that can they do other thought activities.' These
words tell us that relaxation is the foundation of studying boxing, no
matter what kind of postures are taught at the same time. That
explains that, what is emphasized, is the body's condition of
'relaxation', but that is not a shape. On the basis of what I said
before, the first step is 'producing a feeling with a fixed method',
that means you have to use one kind of a concrete exercise to let the
student to enter the state of 'relaxed', obtain the feeling of
'relaxed', and understand the concept of 'relaxed'.
Please follow me and try: stand naturally, then bend the waist 45
degrees forward, both hands naturally hanging down, then sway the body
left and right, let both arms sway too, like pendulums. Here you can
feel it at once, the shoulder joints are as if dislocated, the arms
have no power at all, and they are like two thick loose ropes. Pay
attention to the fact that I am explaining it here by writing, by
words, this is not the reality, you must feel the real feeling by
yourself in the process of this movement, experience it in your own
body, that is, perceive the feeling of 'relaxed' by intuition. Now you
can ask another person to try to lift your forearm, he can feel if
your forearm is hanging loosely and if after letting it free, it falls
down at once, dropping freely and naturally.
This is how being relaxed looks like to the outside. With this method,
the feeling of 'relaxed' is passed on to your body. We call this
'passing on by body feeling'.
After you have gained the feeling of 'relaxation' you have to practise
the skill of entering the 'relaxed' state by yourself, then this
'relaxation' must be present in your whole body, everywhere and all
the time. But you must not keep doing the movement I taught you
indefinitely, i.e. you have to 'give up the method after getting the
feeling'. Practising this movement is to give you a feeling, after
having completed this task, it has no use so you must stop doing it.
The third step is to 'let the feeling follow into everything', that
means having gained the feeling of 'relaxation', apply it to
everything. Here, try standing naturally both hands hanging down on
the sides of the body, then turn the body left and right around its
central axis. Now the already relaxed arms can resemble the two
pendulums of a rattle-drum, flapping the body in the back and front.
Now it can be said that you have already grasped the bodily condition
of 'relaxed', then the feeling of 'relaxation' must be passed on to
the whole body. Practising over and over, imprint it into the whole
body, achieve the state of never not being relaxed. Finally examine
yourself, i.e. the relaxed condition should remain in walking,
standing, sitting, and reclining. When you can achieve that, you have
already understood what being 'relaxed' means, this is the principle
of theory and practice having melted into one. This is exactly what
Mr. Wang Xiangzhai once said: 'No matter what you do, it is all
natural, if looking back at all the methods done for ten years, you
can see they are all worthless, drop them without hesitation, put the
pure and real into practice.' So the meaning of what I am telling now
is to let everybody drop the methods of ten years and enter the
naturalness at once, becoming pure and real.
The examples above are just to express the intent of this method,
other contents of training can also be reasoned by analogy; they are
not listed here one by one.
Passer
> li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02021...@posting.google.com>...
> > li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02021...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > 'Theory of Combat Science --- The Second Course of Yiquan'
> > > > >
> > > > > Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
> > > > > Translator: Timo Heikkil?
> > > > >
> > > > > For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
> > > >
> > >
Before yiquan originated, all kind of boxing styles consisted of fixed
forms, for example the predecessor of yiquan, xingyiquan, was made of
five ways to punch (wuxingquan), twelve forms (shi'erxing), and the
old three punches (laosanquan). Although already very simple and
practical, it still falls into the category of a fixed method.
Generally speaking, all boxing forms have the opponent as the target
of research, in other words they study how to beat the opponent and
how not to get beaten by one. That means they all study objective
things. After Mr. Wang Xiangzhai founded yiquan, on the basis of
already understanding the objective, he took the study of boxing a
step forward, and changed it into researching oneself, advancing to
understanding tacitly by intuitive perception, which of course means
intuitively perceiving one's own state. The changes of the objective
are responded to with one's whole spirit (7). This means already
knowing that only by completely grasping the state of one's body, can
one better deal with the ever-changing objective reality. Although he
made sure of the goal, there were still some insufficiencies in the
training method, which made the learning to take a long period of ten
years. Secondly, he had superhuman perspicacity, he found the
contradictions existing in theory and practice, but had not yet found
a way to solve them, he had not illustrated the inevitability of these
contradictions either, thus requiring us to understand again the
method of understanding yiquan, hoping that both theory and practice
can give a concrete and logical solution. This writing is exactly the
result of working hard on this aspect; thereby it is called the second
course of yiquan. This process of developing the understanding of
yiquan is in complete accord with the general understanding law of the
humankind, firstly understand the objective, secondly understand
yourself, thirdly understand the way of understanding. From a
philosophical point of view, it does not matter whether these three
processes are processes of body's movement or processes of thinking.
All of them are kinds of movement processes for developing total
knowledge and understanding of the movement. That is, as time goes on,
the process is unceasingly confirmed and at the same time negated,
thereby unceasing movement forward emerges and contradiction is just
an internal power within the movement. We feel the process of
development of the knowledge and undertanding of yiquan in a lively
way reflects philosophy's dialectical rays of wisdom. From inmost we
feel one kind of a joy of life.
IX. Epilogue
The above was just our point of view, we hope the reader can 'read it
with devotion' with the attitude of 'moral neutrality'. That means, do
not just take it as accurate right away and do not declare it to be
wrong right away either, but take it in the light of neutral
information. Then, with your own body, actually try it, gain the
understanding of this information by feeling it with your own body. To
sum up, we, in the process of studying yiquan, have had this kind of
perception. We have this kind of perspective and say it out to let
everybody know. If it will, in the long-term process of practice in
the future, be of any help to the people undertaking yiquan, we can
feel extremely gratified.
Passer
> li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02022...@posting.google.com>...
> > li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02021...@posting.google.com>...
> > > li...@yiquando.com (Li Jiong) wrote in message news:<ce54a405.02021...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > > 'Theory of Combat Science --- The Second Course of Yiquan'
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Authors: Han Jingyu, Han Jingsheng
> > > > > > Translator: Timo Heikkil?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > For more information: http://www.yiquando.com/
> > > > >
> > > >
Li Jiong
After learning, practising, teaching and researching Yiquan for about
forty years, in 1997, Mr. Han Jingyu founded a new teaching system of
Yiquan--The second course of Yiquan. I have learnt Yiquan from him for
about ten years already. Before 1997, I learnt the first course of
Yiquan (just as the common practitioners of Yiquan do now) and since
1997, I have been learning the second course of Yiquan. Mr. Han has
introduced the new teaching system in some articles already. In this
article I will compare the new system and the customary system (first
course) from my personal experience of practising both of them.
The customary system is the first course, It mainly consists of seven
parts, they are: Zhanzhuan (Pile standing), Shili(Test Force),
Mocabu(Rubbing step), Fali(Shoot out strength), Shishen(Test Voice),
Tuishou(Push hands) and Shizuo(Combat). It is based on atomic theory
(all things are consist of some dissociative parts), so it needs to
unite all parts at last. It is very difficult to achieve this
unification. If you can imagine how difficult it is to unite a broken
bottle, then you will have an idea of it. However, the second course
is based on Monistic theory (all things are unitary and whole), and it
lets you walk on the right path of Yiquan at the very start, and,
therefore, what you need do is walking on only.
In the first course, the teacher tell students what martial arts are
and what they are like, tell students how to do it, how to do that,
and whether you do are doing it right or you are doing it wrong. The
students have to receive this teaching passively. In the second
course, however, the teacher leads students to realize themselves what
is martial arts are and then they voluntarily grasp the learning
process.
Before 1997, I had already learnt Yiquan in customary way for more
than five years. Of course, I became healthy and strong, but I
couldn't shoot out a break-out force then, and I felt my progress was
too slow. Since 1997, I have been learning Yiquan in the new way. I
feel I am advancing at railway speed, and I feel I can control all
things in training by myself, namely, I have freedom.
In order to let more people gain the benefits from Yiquan, we are
trying to write a correspondence course of the new teaching system.
This correspondence course mixes the first course of Yiquan and the
second course of Yiquan and it consists of five steps: 1, relaxation;
2, tension; 3, relaxation and tension change each other; 4, the body
relaxed and the mind tension; 5, To verify what you learned in
Tuishou, Shizuo and Health dance.
The first step--relaxation includes Yangshengzhuan (health
preservation pile standing) and many other exercises, to let people
improve the ability of relaxation; The second step--tension includes
Jijizhuang (combat pile standing) and Shili in fact, to improve one's
strength and the ability of tention; The third step--relaxation and
tension change each other includes Fali, Shisheng and some other
exercises, in order to improve one's ability of using force; The
fourth step--the body relaxed and the mind tension is to simulate
combat inorder to train your coordination ability and fast reaction
ability of spirit and body; The fifth step--verify what you learned in
Tuishou, Shizuo and Health dance, just as its name implies, includes
Tuishou, Shizuo and Health dance, to let one achieve entelechy in
reality.
Because the new system is all based on motion and unity, one will get
nimbleness naturally, so we feel Mocabu is not needed any more.
Commonly, one will achieve the first three steps within one year,
however, in the customary system, one could maybe spend more than
three years and, like me after five years training in the customary
way, be unable to shoot out a break-out force. Although I am probably
not very clever and studious. It is unquestionable that the new
training system will make you run faster in practice, and let you have
the possibility to achieve a higher level. Thus, you will get much
more benefits in less time.