三戰 in White Crane
Helen Shen
Ok, Tom, I have been absent from the forum for a while. I think that it is easier to move the conversation to the forum. Wow… I am so happy to have time to come back to talk about the white crane. Maybe I can explain what is due to the translation issues and other obstacles.
As for “the body naturally aligns itself” sounds easy, but it’s not. That’s what “頭正、身正、步正” is talking about, as well as “懸頂, 沈肩, 墜肘, 鬆腰, 由腳而腿而腰而周及全身” (postures and delivering the force) in Taiji. I will gradually interpret/translate those words individually.
For “At the beginning it talks of imagining a weight on the head so the body naturally aligns itself.”, it is saying that if we try to walk with something on the head like old time native African, our body would have to be straight-up/proper/align to support the thing/weight. Probably I will not imagine a weight on the head; it seems like that the body will be pressed down with the weight on the head instead of feeling of being agile (actually the feeling is the head pushing-upward/being-pulled-up and the body is free/movable). The head posture is called懸頂in Taiji. 懸 is hanging/suspending, and 頂 is the top or the Tian-Ding(天頂) point of the head (the highest point of the head if the body is naturally aligned. The chin is a bit in.) To feel the Tian-Ding point and to hang it (懸頂), we can try to pull some hair up at the point.
Probably, we don’t want to visualize things but to feel internally. We usually only visualize the different external combat scenarios as the opponent approaches.
Just a few years ago, I didn't know that I had this ‘head-hanging’ problem until I got injured from skiing with T-7 fracture. My neck and upper back had hard time to recover. The younger days, it will be no problem; for a slight posture misalignment, the body can muscle through it. Finally, I had to hang my head 100% right to gradually recover and get rid of the neck and upper back pains.
Talk to you more about body alignment and my knee problem experience later.
Regards,
Helen
Hello,
Ok thanks a lot
I'll try and find some good software to try and translate. Thanks for your
help. I am studying Ming He White Crane. I recently came across a Southern
Shaolin book on The Iron Wire in the Hung Gar style. At the beginning it talks
of imagining a weight on the head so the body naturally aligns itself.
At the moment I'm trying to research about visualisations used to get the
body moving in the Crane way.
Thanks again for your help.
Tom Hill
…
The translation was incorrect due to some major text issues on the original text. It translates "所謂「三戰」，意即頭正、身正、步正。" to
> 'When boxing, the first item to be straight up, head up top intention,
> within close under the chin,*head stone seems to wear a hat*.......
this is not right.
Actually, "所謂「三戰」，意即頭正、身正、步正" is saying that 三戰 means 頭正 (head straight-up/proper), 身正 (body straight-up/proper), and 步正 (stance/steps/marching straight-up/proper).
戰 means battle/fight/boxing in Chinese. So, I thought 三戰 should be 三正 at first, then the meaning should be more accurate but not quite. In Chinese, 戰 is pronounced as 'zhan', and 正 as 'zheng'. In meaning, using 三正 is more accurate, but the pronunciation doesn't fit.
Then, if I use 三站(three stands/postures), then the whole article will make total sense. 站 is pronounced as 'zhan' (the same pronunciation as 戰), and it means how we should stand. Sometimes, in old Chinese, we may use 戰 (battle stands) to replace 站.
So, whenever the 戰 is used in the article, the translation will be totally off. However, if you replace all 戰 with 站 in the article and translate it again with software, the meaning should be much closer.
Regards,
Helen
Hello,
…
I found the article here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/whitecrane/p6xGBbRNxeY
> Hello.
>
…
>
> On the discussion forum you had a Chinese article. I translated it using
> Google. Which is not very good.
>
> One part I was interested in:
>
> 'When boxing, the first item to be straight up, head up top intention,
> within close under the chin,*head stone seems to wear a hat*.......
> "*such as wearing extremely heavy trend*." '
>
> I was wondering if you can tell me whether this is a visualisation used,
> it seems to be saying that we should visualise wearing a very heavy hat?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Any information would be greatly appreciated. I'm researching the
> visualisation used in White Crane. In our tradition they say' mind,
> mind, mind, relax, relax, relax'. I think the visualisation is key to
> developing the correct /Jin./
> //
> Thanks
>
> Tom Hill