5 missing pieces (2)
   
     

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4. Shuai jiao

(i) Different skills

Shuai jiao incorporates a wide range of different skills:

  1. Applications

  2. Combining chin na, shuai jiao & jing

  3. Dying ground

  4. Everybody falls

  5. Finishing-off

  6. Floor work

  7. Floor work (control)

  8. Flowing shuai jiao applications

  9. Freeform triangle

  10. Mutual arising

  11. Shuai jiao against a knife

  12. Shuai jiao: elbow & bump

  13. Shuai jiao: footwork

  14. Shuai jiao: throws

  15. Shuai jiao: use of legs

  16. Yielding/shuai jiao

Shuai jiao is immensely effective and psychologically unsettling for the attacker. Hitting the floor is tiring. Getting up off the floor is tiring.


(ii) Do we teach techniques?

No. A technique is a step-by-step formula for addressing a particular type of attack. The purpose of shuai jiao applications is different.
Students discover how to manipulate and manoeuvre their opponents body in an effective, comfortable, flowing, natural fashion. The principles used can be applied to a variety of different attacks.


(iii) Spur of the moment

As a student advances through the our syllabus, their responses should become spontaneous and easy. The appropriate application should emerge without contrivance or conscious thought.
Eventually, the student switches very rapidly between shuai jiao, chin na and striking. This enables fast counter-attacks; with the exponent changing tactics unpredictably and effectively.


(iv) No effort required

Although shuai jiao is essentially about taking the opponent to the floor, there are a multitude of options available.
Unlike conventional martial arts, there are no 'hip throws' or other strenuous methods in the syllabus. Everything must be easy, fast and flowing.


If I concentrate while he divides, I can use my entire strength to attack a fraction of his.

(Sun Tzu)

5. Jing

(i)
Whole-body power

The ability to employ whole-body strength and whole-body movement effectively is called 'jing' and is part of what makes tai chi an 'internal' martial art.
Power generation and practical application are major areas of development.


(ii) Reeling silk

A practitioner learns how to generate an undulation wave. This is passed throughout your entire structure, storing and releasing kinetic energy.
We develop this wave by learning whole-body movement. Every strike involves every body part moving as one. The skill cannot be attained by tensing the muscles or trying hard.
Only when the body has augmented itself with neigong will fa jing emerge without effort. You need to be soft and relaxed. You need to let go of your tension.


(iii) Kinetic force

Positioning, frame, alignment and weight distribution are the means by which you shape and express kinetic energy. Jing represents this new way of moving.
Each quality can only be made manifest by a specific kind of physical action. Form is a moving network of associated body parts, whose purpose is to cultivate and release power.



(iv) Types of jing

It is necessary to differentiate clearly between the types of jing at your disposal. Without such knowledge, how are you going to fa jing? Energy release without focus is random and clumsy.
There is a distinct difference between each jing. You must be conscious of the quality/nature/essence of the jing you intend to utilise. Movement begins with intention.


(v) A punch is not a punch

A tai chi 'standing fist' punch is not the same as a wing chun punch. The punch itself is not the emphasis. It simply represents the means of contact, the point of impact.
Our concern is with the jing utilised to produce the punch and how that choice of jing will affect the opponent when delivered.


(vi)  Fa li

Fa li is delivery that feeds kinetic energy through a fairly evident, connected framework. It is structure-based. Abrupt, sharp and penetrating, it is the first method of striking but strictly speaking not tai chi.


(vii) Fa jing

Fa jing is vibration based. The body is looser, more natural. It is capable of spontaneous movement in all directions and power generation is far less reliant upon an evident structure.
This is the second striking method.
Preceding the strike there must be no anticipation, no telegraphing, no movement at all. One moment you are standing still, the next you have struck.
The spiralling kinetic energy wave passes through your body without fanfare, and into the opponent. This is known as 'cold jing'. To achieve cold jing, you must be completely in the moment, alert and physically relaxed.


(viii) 3 levels of skill

There are 3 levels of skill with jing:

  1. Obvious power (ming jing)

  2. Hidden power (an jing)

  3. Refined power (hua jing)

'Ming jing' is harder and longer, more forceful. 'An jing' is softer, shorter and requires greater skill. 'Hua jing' is subtle; covert. It employs elastic strength, twisting, change and gentleness.
All forms of jing should feel effortless to perform. If there is any struggling or forcing, this is li.


(ix) Sensitivity jing

Listening jing is your ability to feel what your partner is doing through touch. Understanding jing is how you interpret and respond to that information.
In both cases, your awareness must be unconscious. If you are thinking, there is no jing. You must practice until you no longer realise you are using them.


(x) Your attacker is teaching you how to defeat them

In terms of listening, your opponent is everything. Without them, you would have nobody to evade. There would be no need for combat.
You must become a shadow, echoing your attacker, exquisitely sensitive to their every movement. The aim is to move as one. This takes you into the realm of meditation.
Unless you are present, you will not see/feel what is happening right in front of you.
 


(xi) Stickiness

If you are sticky, you have the ability to retain contact with ease. Any form of stiffness or bodily tension will impede your ability to feel. Stickiness is a
sensitivity skill, it requires softness.
If you are tense or apply too much pressure, you will be unable to 'listen' to their movements using your body.
The contact has to be maintained. They move, you move. When you both move as one, they cannot strike you. As soon as the contact is broken, they are free to attack again.


A syllabus

As far as we know, there are no missing pieces in our syllabus.
We follow a typical
martial arts syllabus. Students are led through the curriculum, accumulating insights and skills as they progress. Periodically, their knowledge, competence and understanding is tested.
As they climb up the syllabus, more information is revealed and the student makes connections and associations without the need for as much explicit tuition.
The material feels more significant and the student eventually begins to glimpse the true nature of the art. They cultivate a comprehension that no new starter could share.


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Page created 18 April 2005
Last updated 16 June 2023