Developing Fa Jing

[@markdonovan1540]

My teacher, who is very good at Fa Jing, tells me it comes from relaxation and using the waist. He creates a "whip" like movement which is light and fast - but it has the "needle in the cotton" at the end of it/the point of contact. I've been on the receiving end of it when he's being gentle and careful not to injure me. Another student of his wanted to feel more of the power, he almost ended up flying through a window but the teacher caught his wrist and brought him back to ground. I'm talking about a 78 year old man doing this! He says it's nothing magical, but it requires absolute skill and control of the fundamental principles of Tai Chi. He's always telling me: with tense force it will never work, it will be too slow and it telegraphs intention too easily for a skilled person to read it.

[@TheIronandSilk]

Mark Donovan...Awesome! It sounds like you have also hit the martial arts lottery and found an excellent teacher. They are rare and few. In my opinion, it is the waist that gives it that snap, but it really begins from the feet. I bet if you were able to film your teacher and slow the video down. You will see it begin from the feet, and like a whip, see the roll a crack from the waist. Just my opinion, thanks for commenting and sharing your insights. I would love to hear more about your teacher as I believe he is a treasure.

[@markdonovan1540]

@@TheIronandSilk You can read up about him by searching clstaichichuan Chelmsford. I feel very privileged to learn from him, even at my later stage in life he's given me inspiration and encouragement to keep training. His most frequent statements are: never mind, let go, work on the principles. You won't find any videos of him, but there are several of his teacher Tok Seng Gim.

[@whpierce3]

Energy has to be created. You cannot just swing your arms or legs and expect there to be power. Fa Jing is one of those foundational pieces that most martial artist rarely understand. Mostly be cause they want the art and not the martial. Fa Jing will give you the martial back into your art.

[@TheIronandSilk]

Will Pierce...Most are just "moving meat" around as azlaroc12 said in a previous post. Putting the Martial back into the Art! Love it!

[@AcceleratingUniverse]

I always struggled to do this while stepping.

[@TheIronandSilk]

AcceleratingUniverse...That's why many times I don't refer to Tai Chi as Tai Chi. I call it Tai Chi Principles. I was going to keep on typing, but I think your question is a very good one that I should do a video on. Thanks, and I'll get into your question on Tuesdays video.

[@azlaroc12]

This is probably the biggest challenge with Xing Yi-timing the release with stepping through the enemy. It's tight. If you find the timing with Xing Yi 5 elements elements you can find it in other systems imo. It's like a compressed tsunami. The trick is to get both shoulder girdles and pelvic girdles to work together using the WILL to direct the wave where you want. It's fuckin hard and does not come natural,but then most of Kung Fu does come naturally either. It's worth shooting for,and one of the areas where the Chinese arts contributes its genius imo.

[@TheIronandSilk]

@azlaroc12 ...Something I was going to talk about was what my first teacher called, Be Like A Spring. As in the metal kind of spring. When I began Hsing-I, everything came together. That's why I fell so deeply in love with it. One way to get that timing is to never care about what your opponent can do to you. Only care about what you're going to do to them. Great stuff man, you're really fueling my mind!

[@markdonovan1540]

I love the analogy of the metal spring. These analogies can help us look into things to discover these connections and feel them for real, not by using just imagination or visualisation. One I've been asked to work on by my teacher is to work in feeling the body like a sack of metal ball-bearings! I'm nowhere near feeling it, yet it's given me something to aim for. Another teacher tells me to think of the arms as fenders (bumpers in the UK) - although he's Spanish, so he says "parachoques". When I practice push-hands with them, I can feel it, but as yet I cannot produce it myself. I need to work more on the basics, but keep in mind these type of aims.

[@TheIronandSilk]

Mark Donavan...I also get more from these analogies. Think about it, I was a twelve year old kid when my first teacher implanted the spring analogy in my head, and it's still helps me to this day. I love the ball bearing one. Man, I can feel the power just by hearing that! Thank you so much for sharing it!

[@RocknRollkat]

To begin with, the term is "Fa Jin", NOT Fa Jing.

[@TheIronandSilk]

@RocknRollkat Thank you. But, to really begin with is, who cares? The only people who care about such petty crap are petty people. People who worry about the spelling or pronunciations of "martial" words have no clue about what's really martial. Thanks again for showing me the way.

[@RocknRollkat]

@@TheIronandSilk People who care about learning, that's who cares. "Jin" is 'force', "Jing" is 'essence'. So yeah, imply that I'm petty, etc. You're the one with no clue. Bill P.

[@TheIronandSilk]

@@RocknRollkat Again, thank you.