Walk the Line: a Matter of Principles
- May 11
- 6 min read
and a Neglected Yang Style Taijiquan Principle
“不偏不倚 Bu Pian Bu Yi”
WEN-WU FIELD NOTES
Issue 4
by Prof. Dr. Dan Vercammen
One of the things that struck me during the first few years I was studying taijiquan was the gap between the principles that were supposed to define taijiquan practice and the way they were (not) applied in this very practice. I was working on my MA thesis about taijiquan in those days and was examining the taijiquan quanjing (the classic manuals about martial arts). Most, if not all, Chinese martial arts have written information that is shared with serious practitioners, i.e. with indoor disciples.
In the 20th century several teachers decided to publish the manuals in printed form, often in combination with photographs and explanations about how to practice the art. In this way the traditional indoor system was somewhat undermined, because anyone who had been well educated could acquire and read the “secrets.” Of course, without actual in-person instruction it remained difficult to get really familiar with the techniques. We shouldn’t forget that the indoor system also needed something called “koujue,” the oral, individual and general practical tuition.
These kinds of publications, along with the public teaching of martial arts in sports centers and elsewhere, are representative of the modernization of China in this field. In the first half of the 20th century important taijiquan masters found it opportune to publish books on their art. Some wrote these books themselves, while others turned to their literate students to write and publish works in their own or the teacher’s name. As one might assume, the published quanjing mainly attracted intellectuals and therefore several later generations of indoor disciples and taijiquan masters were indeed literati or upper-class people.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s there existed some translations of taijiquan quanjing. The French translation by Catherine Despeux (see T'ai-ki k'iuan: technique de longue vie, technique de combat, Paris, Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1976) was by far the most interesting. So, I had some predecessors in my search for the secrets of the practice.
Although my teachers (who couldn’t read Chinese) knew about these translations, I found some big discrepancies between their execution of taijiquan and what I read in the texts (especially in the Chinese originals). Looking for the reasons for this was beyond the scope of my MA research then, but it ignited a strong interest in finding practitioners who did know the classics and performed their practice according to the principles.
I had to wait until 1985, when I was in China, before I finally met some who were the living embodiment of the classics. To be honest, most teachers I met were just like most Western teachers of taijiquan. That’s no wonder, since taijiquan was mainly practiced as a kind of sport or as a type of gymnastics for old people.
The people who created taijiquan borrowed heavily from earlier systems of martial arts, yet also brought along their own insights and experiences and wanted to see these integrated into their fighting art. Moreover, once they took on disciples, they had to think about didactics, and working with principles can help students remember and explore the essentials.
Coming from a low class (laborers, servants), Yang Luchan probably leaned on the teaching methods used by those who taught him martial arts, but his background (and the fact that his own technique was still developing) made it impossible for him to write anything down himself. Others therefore ran off with that.
The Wŭ 武 family was the first to put into writing how the new art should be practiced. Having studied with Yang and the Chen clan of Chenjiagou, they found that what they had learned offered interesting perspectives to propagate. Whether they found quanjing about taijiquan or wrote them themselves (the latter being more probable; see research by Douglas Wile and myself) doesn’t matter here; what matters is that they came out with quanjing. In them, some important principles can be found, and they thereby inspired later writers on taijiquan.
When we reach the time when Yang Chengfu became popular (the 1920s and 1930s), we can see that more texts and principles had either been developed or written down. As I’ve shown in my book Neijia Wushu, Vol. I: the Texts of Neijia Wushu with an English Introduction and Annotations (Ghent University, Ghent, 1989), these texts were published in several books and there are some differences between these publications.
A list of twenty-two principles is ascribed to Yang Chengfu himself (太極拳基本要點, pp. 104–109 in my book), but there is also a list of only ten principles (太極拳說十要, pp. 115–129) and although the ten are contained in the longer list of twenty-two, some characters differ and hence the meaning of those parts also differs.
I dare to say that I doubt whether the principles can truly be ascribed to Yang Chengfu, mainly because in the photographs of his taijiquan postures and in the execution of Yang taijiquan by his sons some of the principles are clearly not applied.
So, maybe …
Well, I’m not going to bore you any further with the history of the taijiquan texts now.
We’re going to have a look at the twenty-two principles first. In practice many more principles are applied and the third part of this post will be about an essential one of those.
Yes, you read that right, this is a trilogy.
太極拳基本要點
（一）虛領頂勁。
（二）眼神注視。
（三）含胸拔背。
（四）沉肩垂肘。
（五）坐腕伸指。
（六）身體中正。
（七）尾閭收注。
（八）鬆腰鬆胯。
（九）膝部如鬆非鬆。
（十）足掌貼地。
（十一）分清虛實。
（十二）上下相隨。週身一致。（一動無有不動，一靜無有不靜。）
（十三）內外相合，呼吸自然。（當呼者呼，當吸者吸。）
（十四）用意不用力。
（十五）氣遍週身，分行上下。（貼於脊背，沉於丹田。）
（十六）意氣相連。
（十七）式式勢順，不拗不背，週身舒適。
（十八）式式均勻。（不快不慢）綿綿不斷。（外式如此，意與內勁亦然。）
（十九）姿勢無過或不及，當求其中正。
（二十）用法含而不露。
（二一）動中求靜。（心靜無思無慮。）靜中求動。（內氣運用。）
（二二）輕則靈，靈則動，動則變。
Taijiquan’s Basic Essential Points
Empty the neck and push the energy up.
Keep your eyes focused.
Contain the chest and elongate the back.
Let the shoulders sink and drop the elbows.
Bend the wrists and extend the fingers.
The body is centered and upright.
Keep weilü tucked in.
Loosen the yao and kua.
The knees seem loosened but aren’t.
The soles of the feet stick to the floor.
Clearly distinguish empty and full.
Above and below follow each other, consistent all over the body. (As soon as you move, there is no place where you don’t move and as soon as you rest, there is no place that doesn’t rest.)
Internal and external join each other, breathing is natural. (You should breathe out what needs to be exhaled and breathe in what needs to be inhaled.)
Use yi, not li (force, physical strength).
Qi moves all over the body, it partly goes up and partly down. (It sticks to the back and sinks into the dantian.)
Yi and qi are interconnected.
Obey the momentum of each pattern, don’t break it up and don’t violate it; the whole body should feel comfortable.
Each pattern should be even. (Not fast nor slow) Continuous, unbroken. (The external patterns are like this and so are qi and the internal energies.)
Don’t go too far and don’t fall short in the postures, you should strive to be centered and upright.
Conceal the applications and don’t reveal them.
Look for quietude in the movements. (The mind is quiet, without thoughts or considerations.) Look for movement in the quietude. (The internal qi is put to use.)
If you’re light, you’ll be nimble and if you’re nimble, you can move and when you move, you change.
There you have the twenty-two principles in the original Chinese version and my translation. In the second part of this post we’ll briefly discuss the meaning of the principles. The format of these posts doesn’t allow for a very elaborate explanation.
However, in our online taijiquan programs and live courses we go into them deeply, as they can help you practice effectively, and we also reveal other principles that are usually only transmitted to indoor students.
To be continued ...
Comments