Open and Close (开合): A Single Term, Two Different Methods

[windwalker099138 168]

getting back to solo work, it's still difficult. I think it's easy to want to attach to the "qi" feeling but maybe this is just a necessary phase to link "external" to "internal" whole body and prep to not be "localized" in a very simple push hands cooperative drill.

You might try videoing yourself so you can see your movement, either on your own or with someone you trust. It can be a useful tool, even if it’s no substitute for a teacher.

As for linking “external” to “internal,” Don’t really see it as a phase. What’s there was always there. The qi feeling can be a useful indicator of whether something is correct or not — the problem comes when attention fixes on the feeling itself, rather than what produces it.

some thoughts on this:

Wang Youngquan

Pursue the state of nothingness

When practicing boxing postures, whether it is a health-preserving method or a martial arts method, one must pursue a state of "nothingness". One should have nothing and not pursue anything in mind. Just be loose, scattered, and round, without a goal or an object. There is no intention to meet the enemy. Practice to have nothing, "the whole body is empty", "the whole body is suitable".

When practicing boxing postures, one should not think or do this is peng, this is lu, this is ji, this is an, how peng becomes lu... Practicing boxing postures only requires being loose, empty, hollow, and scattered.

“Pursue the state of nothingness” interesting in itself, to pursue a state of “nothingness” already introduces something.

For nearly ten years I asked my teacher what he felt when he demonstrated on us. His answer was always the same: “I feel nothing.” By nothing, he never meant a lack of awareness, but the absence of anything being singled out.

Yet in training, when partners reacted, a kind of quandary appeared.
Those causing the reactions often didn’t believe the reactions they produced — asking whether the partner was faking — while at the same time fully accepting the reactions our teacher produced in them.

Now, when I work with others and they react, they sometimes ask what I feel.
My reply is the same: “Nothing.”

When I react to what they do, they too sometimes ask if I’m faking it.

 

[everything1]

when I did (a very small) something once, accidentally, when practicing with a partner, it felt like nothing. or rather, it felt the same as just standing doing zhan zhuang and qigong. But "trying" to "do nothing" paradoxically sounds much more difficult. As you said, now that's "something" instead of "nothing". It's hard not to, say, focus on contact point or a punch or who knows what. Probably related to why "yi quan" is a very interesting name on various levels for that art.

 

[windwalker099138 168]

It's hard not to, say, focus on contact point or a punch or who knows what. Probably related to why "yi quan" is a very interesting name on various levels for that art.

Those I used to work with asking about were or what they should focus on..
I would usually point them to this book:


The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master
by Takuan Sōhō (translated by William Scott Wilson)


Takuan addresses this directly:

If you place yourself before your opponent, your mind will be taken by him. You should not place your mind within yourself. Bracing the mind in the body is something done only at the inception of training, when one is a beginner.

The mind can be taken by the sword. If you put your mind in the rhythm of the contest, your mind can be taken by that as well. If you place your mind in your own sword, your mind can be taken by your own sword.

When the mind stops at any one place, you become an empty shell.

 

[MnemonicMike]

I just (1 minute ago) had an epiphany that open and close are illusory and that there is only peng. Then I come on here and see this question! It is fate. Peng is illusory; not just peng and lu, but in the sense that there are two pengs (one, an expansive energy) and two the peng-lu dichotomy -- that even before the expansive peng there is a kind of growing force, which arises out of sinking force. The closest analogy I can come to is ground reaction force but I do not think that it is a ground reaction force because growing force operates in stillness. There must be total stillness and a total absence of the desire to affect outcome (yi). As my sifu would say, the secret key to unlock the heart. I mentioned this to you before.

I don't think anyone knows what I am talking about since I am coining the term growing force. I think it's distinct from peng; one of the underlying primordial forces. What am I talking about? It's simple; remember when you were a child, and you were growing? That. We must return to the source; to become like a child.

I'm writing a book about it called "opening the iron gate." Might be done, someday.

My question then would be, if open and close are worth studying (meaning, if one must pass through open and close) or if one can push forward directly into the great void and then beyond it into growing force? Theoretically there would be such power behind this that one could be thrown with a thought.

What do you think? Is it possible to get that close?

"Peng jin" is the idiomatic term Chen Village uses for "Neijin". "Neijin" is the mind-directed forces that the body can learn to turn on and off at will: the sources of the forces are the force Up from the ground and Down from the weight of the body. I.e., I can make a jin path upward from the ground, or make one downward with my whole-body weight ... or I can make some combination. The jin directions in Taijiquan are Peng, Ji, An, Lu (up from the ground, away from the body, down toward the ground, and toward the body. In other words the four *directions* of the basic neijin/pengjin are just variations of Up and Down jin forces. Up and Down are what power Open and Close: Open and Close are the basis of the bodily Yang and Yin discussed in Asian martial arts. 2 cents.

 

[Appledog43 16]

How could there be a directional force, if Tai Chi does not use force against force? If you say the forces are related, isn't the explanation of the directions of force no longer consistant with the known relationship between forces? Open is the other side of close; as yin is the other side of yang, and peng is the other side of lu. Therefore I must conclude that the idea of four directional forces is foreign to taijiquan.

 

[MnemonicMike]

Both jin and li are "forces". If you're not aware that jin is used in the four cardinal directions, I can't help you. "Force against force" is a totally different topic. I'll leave you to your conclusions.

 

[Appledog43 16]

Both jin and li are "forces". If you're not aware that jin is used in the four cardinal directions, I can't help you. "Force against force" is a totally different topic. I'll leave you to your conclusions.

I think you're right, to a point, I just don't like the terminology because it is imprecise. Just bite into it to see. Jin is a force, and li is a force. Just based on that, jin is li? No, obviously not. So you are using force to mean at least two different unspecified forces (jin and li) which are also forces alongside PLJA (peng, lu, ji, an) which are classified as directional forces. This kind of starts looking like a situation where if a word can mean anything it means nothing. Maybe there is a better way to say it, or maybe you haven't fully explained this theory yet and I just don't understand.

However, therein lies a problem. I've never heard this theory before, and that does matter because I study Tai Chi. It's always possible there is a new idea or a good idea that I have never heard of, but ideas have opportunity costs. Beyond a certain point, you can tell if a theory is right or wrong just by whether or not it supports the levels that are known to come after it. That's why discussions over kong jin are so humorous to me; people talking about a level they didn't reach yet which is superseded by a level after it. It's not even if the topic is right or wrong; it's the discussion of it alone which is the big reveal.

I mean come on, after 30 or 40 years, we still don't understand these terms? How is that possible?

 

[Same Trick83 34]

”We” certainly understand that straight forward statements can be turned into something “we” don’t understand

 

[Appledog43 16]

I don't understand >_<

 

[Wing Woo Gar72 34]

Many arts talk about “open and close” (开合 kāi–hé).
On the surface the words sound the same, the methods behind them can be very different.

Externally, open–close refers to visible mechanics — expanding, contracting, loading, unloading.
Internally, open–close describes something else entirely: intent, pressure changes, whole-body elasticity, and internal reorganization.

Same words… different methods that only look similar on the outside?

To my mind, the internal methods can’t necessarily be seen. This is my issue with the way many internal arts are taught. These internal concepts do not necessarily produce externally visible conditions in the body. When reading or listening the words and interpreting a concept or “feeling” as something to “do” with the external frame, this is folly. A common example is “empty or sink the chest”. It doesn’t mean to bow out your back into hyper kyphosis, yet that is how it is often interpreted. I am not suggesting that anyone here is doing this. I have seen it in Tai Chi as well as in Ma bu at gung fu schools. These folks have no useful structure and are as a crooked building, ready to fall. This contributes to a somewhat deserved negative reputation of the fighting ability possessed by internal martial artists.

 

[Wing Woo Gar72 34]

Can you explain what is meant by ‘internal coordination’?

Six harmonies.

 

[Wing Woo Gar72 34]

Thanks for the well-reasoned reply. Most people question these kinds of demonstrations simply because they don’t match their own experience — which is understandable — but it’s very different for those who can do this or have felt it directly.



People question these reactions because they don’t match the mechanical model they’re using.
They come from real, familiar principles applied in an unfamiliar way.

Internal method uses timing, pressure changes, joining, emptying and filling (开合), and instantaneous loading shifts.
When you combine these with someone who is already connected to you, their body reacts automatically as it tries to stabilize.

In physics terms, you can think of it as impulse timing plus sudden vector reversal — small internal changes producing large external reactions.

a different organization of force

People question it because there are so many fakers, frauds, and tricksters out there claiming martial prowess. Let’s be honest, it’s mostly frauds these days. The real thing is out there, but it is exceedingly rare and more difficult to find. How will a neophyte locate it having never experienced it?

 

[windwalker099138 168]

People question it because there are so many fakers, frauds, and tricksters out there claiming martial prowess. Let’s be honest, it’s mostly frauds these days. The real thing is out there, but it is exceedingly rare and more difficult to find.

If you consider it exceedingly rare, I'm curious what experiences led you to that conclusion.
What have you personally experienced that you would consider the “real thing”?

I would think honesty should be a given in the discussion.

How will a neophyte locate it having never experienced it?

Maybe by not looking for it.
The old adage comes to mind:
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
With those I work with, my approach is to help them understand that the real teacher is within themselves.

 

[Appledog43 16]

Lineage, while not a guarantee of combat ability, has an interesting value proposition.

The logic is simple; if the lineage itself lost the narrative the style is dead anyways; if someone's teaching isn't lineage aligned they obviously made it up.

This is why they say Tai Chi is one family; if you have the same theory, you can create an entirely new style of tai chi and it will be accepted. If you start adding and removing exercises and change the theory, it will be viewed at best as an experiment.

The big reveal? Every time someone masters tai chi a new style is created.

 

[Wing Woo Gar72 34]

If you consider it exceedingly rare, I'm curious what experiences led you to that conclusion.
What have you personally experienced that you would consider the “real thing”?

I would think honesty should be a given in the discussion.




Maybe by not looking for it.
The old adage comes to mind:
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
With those I work with, my approach is to help them understand that the real teacher is within themselves.

Having found my teacher accidentally, I went to many schools over the last 30 years thinking that I might find similar qualities in many places. That was not the case, instead I found a veritable host of fakers, frauds, tricksters, charlatans and hucksters. In only a couple of cases did I find legitimate quality. The real thing is undeniably and explicitly felt. Once having experienced it, it can be identified.

 

[Wing Woo Gar72 34]

Lineage, while not a guarantee of combat ability, has an interesting value proposition.

The logic is simple; if the lineage itself lost the narrative the style is dead anyways; if someone's teaching isn't lineage aligned they obviously made it up.

This is why they say Tai Chi is one family; if you have the same theory, you can create an entirely new style of tai chi and it will be accepted. If you start adding and removing exercises and change the theory, it will be viewed at best as an experiment.

The big reveal? Every time someone masters tai chi a new style is created.

Who has mastered it? I will like to meet this fellow.

 

[windwalker099138 168]

Having found my teacher accidentally, I went to many schools over the last 30 years thinking that I might find similar qualities in many places. That was not the case, instead I found a veritable host of fakers, frauds, tricksters, charlatans and hucksters. In only a couple of cases did I find legitimate quality. The real thing is undeniably and explicitly felt. Once having experienced it, it can be identified.

Very good...

Also found my last teacher accidentally, though his student in the US at the time. Also someone I ran into accidentally . A chance meeting in gg park.


So what are the qualities you look for ?

 

[Appledog43 16]

Who has mastered it? I will like to meet this fellow.

Well like I said, when a new style was created! Yang Lu Chan, Wu Jian Quan, Chen Fa Ke, Sun Lu Tang, Wu Yuxiang.. All the people who master tai chi tend to create their own new style. I wonder why that is, though?

 

[Wing Woo Gar72 34]

Well like I said, when a new style was created! Yang Lu Chan, Wu Jian Quan, Chen Fa Ke, Sun Lu Tang, Wu Yuxiang.. All the people who master tai chi tend to create their own new style. I wonder why that is, though?

Good question.

 

[Kung Fu Wang138 168]

All the people who master tai chi tend to create their own new style. I wonder why that is, though?

Chang Taiji was created for the following reasons:

1. Add leg skills into the form (push + leg skill = throw).
2. Emphasize pulling more than pushing (emphasize leading arm control).
3. Combine both fast speed and slow speed training (slow, fast, slow, ...).
4. Integrate Xingyi principles into the form (Pi Quan, Beng Quan, ...).
5. Coordinate each move with breathing (1 move = 1 inhale or 1 exhale).