Tai Chi

How to Do Fa-Jing –Issuing Energy — in Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua

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He was one of the greatest kung-fu masters in the world, a direct descendant of the creator of tai chi, and he was asking me to show him a punch. It was an exciting moment but also nerve-wracking. Trying not to be nervous, I settled into the posture and prepared to show him internal power. Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang stood in front of me, watching carefully.

Trying to remain relaxed, I shifted my weight from my right to my left leg and my right fist shot out, fast, relaxed, and powerful. At the same time, my left elbow thrust backward and my left hand stopped at my ribcage.

Grandmaster Chen was not impressed. He took my right hand in his left, my left hand in his right and told me to relax. Before I knew what was happening, he jerked the right hand out and pushed the left hand backward. I wasn’t quite relaxed enough and almost suffered whiplash in my neck.

Relax, he told me again, and once again he jerked my arms — hard — forcing one to punch and the other to return to my ribcage. For a minute, I was like a rag doll, completely limp as he repeatedly demonstrated how relaxed I was supposed to be when performing fa-jing.

It’s amazing how the internal arts of China — Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua — have been distorted by teachers who take what they have read too literally. The subject of fa-jing (pronounced “fah-zhing”) is one example of how a simple concept is misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Fa-jing means “issuing energy.” Unfortunately, the people who desperately need to believe in the supernatural think that in doing fa-jing, you are shooting chi out of your hands or body. They take it literally.

It’s not magical or mystical. It’s a matter of physics, and in the internal arts, it’s a matter of body mechanics.

Boxers issue energy anytime they deliver a jab, a hook, or an uppercut. If you’re into karate, you issue energy when you break a board with your foot, and if you’re into MMA, energy is issued when you drive a knee into an opponent’s face.

In the internal arts, fa-jing — issuing energy — is more complex, but the end result is the same. You knock someone into next week.

Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang, whose ancestor,Chen Wangting created Tai Chi 11 generations ago, teaches that fa-jing is a matter of proper body structure (posture) and good internal movement. From there, he says you simply “step on the gas.” He likes using automobile metaphors. In other words, if you use good structure and mechanics and then add speed, you will create the unique relaxed power of the internal arts.

I’ve studied other martial arts and have found the body mechanics of the internal arts far more difficult and complex. For high-quality tai chi you must maintain ground strength, peng jin, whole-body movement, silk-reeling (spiraling movement through the body), dan t’ien rotation and opening/closing the kua. You must connect all of these skills through the body as you deliver the strike with speed, power, and relaxation.

It takes years to learn how to do this from an internal perspective, because we all bring bad habits to the internal arts and it takes years to learn the above-mentioned skills and learn to maintain the whole-body connection as you move. It takes years for us to lose the muscular tension that we’ve developed all of our lives.

When Grandmaster Chen worked with me on the punch, I didn’t have it the first few times I did the punch and he corrected me each time. Suddenly I understood, and the next time I punched I connected the relaxed power from my foot, through my body and out my hand, exploding and shifting my weight at the same time.

“Ahh!” he said, his face lighting up. “Good.”

As a martial artist, few things are better than getting a “good” from Chen Xiaowang.

A short time later, he astonished those of us attending his Washington, D.C. workshop by doing a series of fa-jing strikes.C. With each strike, it seemed his uniform was exploding in all directions. That type of power comes from being connected and relaxing — and from a lifetime of practice. When he does fa-jing, you can almost feel the energy even standing halfway across a room. It reminded me of being on the floor right behind the basketball hoop during a University of Iowa game. When the big players were slamming into each other beneath the hoop, you could feel the body heat and almost feel the energy as they collided. I’ll never forget it, and being close to Chen Xiaowang when he does fa-jing is very similar.

There are two myths about tai chi that all martial artists should put aside. One is that tai chi is a slow motion health and meditation exercise. In truth, it’s a powerful martial art that is practiced slowly so students can learn the body mechanics and later can speed up the movements and deliver amazing power without a lot of obvious effort to the untrained observer.

The other myth people should forget is about chi. Fa-jing has nothing to do with shooting energy out of your body. Instead of focusing on chi, which has never been proven exist in independent scientific studies and which is too often the focus of tai chi teachers, you should focus on proper posture and body mechanics. Do this and you’ll be closer to developing the relaxed power of fa-jing.

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Ken Gullette has practiced martial arts for 36 years and is best known for his high-quality instructional DVDs, his online internal arts school and his internal arts blog. He is dedicated to dispelling the myths surrounding tai chi, hsing-i and bagua, showing that the skills required for the internal arts are physical, not metaphysical.

Why Students Drop Out Of The Martial Arts The First Month!

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This is sort of a question with lots of importance. Nobody has ever come up with a reason for the phenomena, and yet people have tried virtually everything in the world to keep students from leaving. I mean, they were doing good, they were excited, and then they disappeared.

The answer for this problem, and a way to keep enrollment high, is possible through something called Matrix Martial Arts. Matrixing is a technology that introduces logic to the martial arts. The fact of discovering why students drop out came to light because of it.

To understand this problem of student drop out we must understand that there is a problem with the martial arts themselves. I don’t care what you are teaching, be it karate or kung fu or wudan or that rare form of Kenpo, the fact of the matter is that you are teaching by having students memorize random strings of data. With respect, I offer that this is the most inefficient method of learning that there is.

Memorizing random strings of data is an oral tradition that worked when people couldn’t read nor write. Now, how ever, the written word has come into its own, and people can avail themselves of such things as mind mapping, computers, and good, solid logic. This thing of logic is extremely important when one uses Matrix Martial Arts.

Matrixing is the analysis and handling of flow and force. It is a method for laying out a gridwork of martial arts techniques, and being able to quickly and efficiently sort through the techniques until you have the exact and only answer. It is so efficient that people who learn matrixing achieve intuition with their art within months, not years, as is common with the traditional arts.

When matrixing methods were first released, when students were enabled to view all the martial arts as a unique and order body of knowledge, one thing became obvious, there were a lot of blank spots in the martial arts. No matter how many arts one knows, it can’t compare with being able to see all the data. Students who can see the whole picture are always able to learn at a faster rate and in a more efficient manner.

And, students who left early in their training were found to be confused by the blank spots in their education. Learning the martial arts were like learning languages without all the letters. The data appeared illogical, so they left.

The truth of the matter is that students aren’t going to stick with what doesn’t make sense. No matter how much incredible fun they are having, the brain rejects the data, the hardware loses the software, the student refuses the martial arts, simply because the subject has become confusing, and has not been made logical and simple. In a word, no matter whether you teach karate or kung fu or that rare and esoteric style of Tai Chi, you will not be able to keep students unless you matrix your art, and matrix your students, and, the fact of the matter is…you , too, may someday feel like hanging up your gi.

Martial Arts For Your Health and Mind

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Your health is necessary and maybe one thing we don’t suppose much roughly till it is too late. Martial Arts deal a brilliant process to maintain match and take care of your health. Readers will acquire a quick introduction to Martial Arts being maybe the most effective manner to keep you and your loved ones fit.

There are many methods on the planet to exercise and keep fit. I want to recommend that for seeking after your well being there’s not as a whole technique on this planet today that may come close to coaching within the martial arts.

Looking after your well being is sizeable company at present and one thing which should not be taken lightly, after all at present we tend to be living longer. After a life occasion of giving ourselves to working for the contain and surviving our retirements should be the perfect days of our lifes so looking after your health at the moment should be one of the most important things in your intelligence.

Martial arts put forward a approach of life to take care of your well being and a method of interacting with the world something like you. It goes with out saying that there are countless martial arts to resolve from and they don’t seem to be all going to be suitable for everyone. For moment if you’re a forty 12 months outdated with arthritis in your knees training in kick boxing is a manner it’s best to maybe provide a miss. The truth is after attending scores of well being and safety seminars inside health services I state come to the conclusion primarily based on the facts and figures there usually are not lots of activities that can be considered safe in your health.

You’ll come across that even the fashionable day Yoga will experience workouts that health and safety reps will exhibit lots to say around, enormously almost about the positions that require you to bend backwards placing your backbone in extremely unnatural positions.

Find a great Martial Artwork college and you’ll not boast to worry over completions or preventing, they’re there that will help you take care of your well being and that of your families. They need your currency to keep the school start off and put forward this invaluable service to the community. They dont longing your capital like numerous commercial faculties which might be raking it in, where you will acquire numerous completive lotto gamblers ready to punch you in the head and just about power you.

With martial arts like Tai Chi and Aikido I would like to recommend it’s never t o early to commence and defiantly never too late when shopping into these arts to help you in looking after your health. Tai Chi and the practice which makes up this artwork class is the one one I exhibit encountered which might come near the excessive standards of the Health and Security Representatives of our contemporary world. Actions are gradual there are no snapping movements on the joints of your skeleton, various classes do not incorporate bending backwards in any technique and contact training with other lotto players does not come until later on in the training and again could be intended especially mild unlike sparing in Karate or Kick Boxing.

In case you are shopping to take care of your health and that of your households possibly going to a Tai Chi school collectively would not be the best choice except your Children are above 16 years outdated, mainly because of the awareness span of our youngsters at the moment and the non completive and slow actions of Tai Chi will rather usually leave them questioning what it’s all roughly speaking.

Aikido is great for households to experience and gives different ways of interacting collectively and the world about them. Not solely will you be shopping around after your well being, your family will increase in confidence collectively and individually allowing you all a novel outlook on life as a whole. You will pay for to meet different magnificent talented gamers and establish some new pals to final a life moment.