I was talking to my teacher about slow movements when practising Chen style. He told me before that in Chen style, there must be slow and fast movements (有快有慢, 快慢相应), and when he demonstrates this, there is the flavour of Chen style. However, whenever I try to practise movements slowly, I am unable to replicate the same flavour. Instead, my movements are just plain slow and neither resembles Chen nor Yang style.
This may be because of paying attention to details (细节). When I try to pay attention to the details (keeping body upright, shifting the weight properly, making sure my wrists, elbow and shoulders are correct, etc.) I am not paying attention to appearance (神态). The result of paying attention to details is that as my attention is constantly roaming around my whole body, my actions end up losing continuity (no 绵绵不断), and the upper body and the lower body do not move as a whole (no 上下相随). As a whole, my routine still looks quite loose (散).
However, when I try to pay attention to appearance, I still cannot bring out the flavour of Chen style (or Yang style) as the movements lack sufficient meaning (lack 内涵). This is because the details are just not there.
Details allow you to apply taijiquan. Appearance shows the application of taijiquan. One cannot do without the other. However, in the beginning stages, it is impossible to do both. Paying too much attention to appearance will mean that the details (and therefore the basics of taijiquan) are not there. In the long run, this will hinder my progress. However, paying too much attention to details will mean I can apply taijiquan but don't know how to apply the movements, ie. I can peng, but I won't know when to peng.
The path seems to be to start with the basics, to start with paying attention to details. With sufficient practice, your body will start to move as a whole. Once you have reached that state, more emphasis can be placed on appearance, so that in the end, not only can you apply taijiquan, but you know when to apply the various movements.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Appearance 神态 and Details 细节
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2 comments:
Hi Tek. Like you've I had similar issues myself when I try to focus on too many things at once. If I focus on qi/yi paths then I often lose fluidity in movement. If I try to focus on discerning dantien rotations, than all details go awry...
However, one thing I'm curious about, have you been shown or learned the applications for each and every single move of the chen set? Or when you say application, are you primarily referring to energies?
Most of my experience has been with the energies and not necessarily working applications for each and every move. However, I feel my intentions could be more clear if I got the latter.
Hi wujimon, no, I have not been shown how to apply all the movements in Chen style. But when I talked about appearance, I meant I try to put whatever I have learnt about applying the movements into practice. For those that I have not been shown the application, I try to infer them from my limited knowledge of taijiquan. As for details, I am moving away from paying attention to physical details (hand too high, backside sticking out, etc.) towards focusing on yi 意.
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