Yiquan E-book

[LiamBoyle]

I stand corrected about the principle of "Beautiful Lady's Hand." That would be why I added the "not that I am aware of" to that statement. I now know, so thank you for enlightening me.

 

[Quotheraving]

Xuesheng, the essence of Yiquan is, you guessed it, Yi. Intention. If you read the PDF, you'll get a better idea of what the student is asked to do during standing practice.

Now, keep in mind, that these intentions can also be applied to the traditional standing postures of other arts with varying effects. The student is encouraged to experiment. It's this internal focus and aforementioned intention that makes this practice more than simply standing.

I've only been practising YiQuan for about a year so I should begin by qualifying this by saying that I'm no expert.

In my experience both of you are correct.
We do think nothing during practise and we do practise with intent.

Intent however is a vague and misleading term, what we try and do while practising combat postures is to imagine a pressure acting upon us so strongly that it becomes a palpable sensation.
The body reacts to the imagined pressure in the same (though less extreme) way it would to a real pressure, by stabilising and accepting this imagined force through the body and into the ground.
This effect becomes more pronounced the less tense the body is and this relaxed concentration helps prevent the mind from becoming distracted and straying into verbal thoughts.

It sounds a bit kooky and new agey with all that visualisation stuff but my ability to respond quickly to changes and ground pressure in push hands has massively improved as a result of practising Yiquan and I heartily recommend it to everyone.

In the health postures (weight evenly distributed between both feet) it's a bit different, we don't tend to imagine pressure so much as a feeling of buoyancy and being supported, which is harder than it sounds but very rewarding when it does happen.



PS the chinese word 'Sung' in Yiquan (at least for our school) is translated as 'unbound', not just sunk and relaxed, but in a middle place, balanced and free to move without constriction.

 

[mograph]

Nicely said, all of it, not only in what you've said, but how you've phrased it. It sounds as if you've made it your own, as it were. :asian:

PS the chinese word 'Sung' in Yiquan (at least for our school) is translated as 'unbound', not just sunk and relaxed, but in a middle place, balanced and free to move without constriction.

Along those lines, I've read that the character for sung/song relates to long hair, previously bound up and tied, now let loose and unbound.

 

[Devlin76]

Thank you for the book link. I do a little standing practice and find Yiquan very interesting.