Mike Sigman Admin · January 6 at 1:24 AM

6H and "Body Tricks"

In a discussion with David Roth-Lindberg yesterday, the idea of "body tricks" came up. I've talked about
that topic before, but it's been a few years, so maybe it's time to hit the highlights again.

Basic 6H movement is/was ubiquitous in the Chinese martial-arts from long, long ago. The Chen-style
and other arts all mention that in part they derive from the ancient Daoyin exercises (movement and
breathing and intention). Other contributors are breathing systems (TuNa) and the Jingluo
channels/flow of qi, etc. If your Asian martial-art talks about qi, dantian, jin, channels, yin-yang (the taiji
poles), etc., then your martial-art has as its origin the general Six Harmonies type of movement. A lot of
the mimicries of Asian martial-arts, though, are purely external copies of the art, with no knowledge of
the role of Six Harmonies movement.

The movement in Six Harmonies is one thing that is important, but various areas within the art can and
have been developed in various ways that are *not* ubiquitous in the Asian martial-arts. For example,
two arts like Taijiquan and Xingyiquan may use the same basic 6H framework for movement, but they
may emphasize different ways of generating power. Both of those ways of generating power will have to
conform to basic 6H principles, but the emphasis and permutations may be different.

I have to say that although it would be nice if I could do a black v white split between 6H movement and
"Body Tricks", there are a lot of "body tricks" that are just side-aspects of 6H movement ... so a lot of
times it is just shades of gray.

I'm trying to think of an example of a "body trick" that some CMA's may use, but other CMA's don't have
that trick or lost it, years ago. OK, one example might be something like the stance-weighting that Sun
LuTang mentioned in his Xingyiquan. Sun's book calls for something like a 70-30 stance, some people call
for a 60-40 stance and I've even heard it as 80-20 stance.

A lot of people who do Xingyi talk about the weight distribution between the legs when they mention
these various "weightings". There's a reason for the talk about 70-30, etc., but it's not the amount of
weight on each leg.

Without going into the why's of things like 70-30, my point is that people can weight or not weight their
stances and still move with 6H movement. In other words, 70-30 is a good example of a "body trick" that
might differ (or not exist) among different styles that use some percentage of 6H movement. The way
that you "weight" your stance will largely determine how you generate power and how powerful your
releases are. So "body tricks" involves things like qi, jin, intention, etc., but there is no "one size fits all
and you must do it this way" when it comes to body-tricks.

Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that 6H is about movement, optimal movement ... but there are other
factors. Remember though that most "body tricks" are only optimized if they're used with 6H
movement, but 6H movement can be done with or without body-tricks.

Mike Sigman Here's a video of Chen Xiang (no relation to Chen Village) demonstrating a power release
from Bajiquan, which was his main art. Feng Zhiqiang named Chen Xiang as his successor in the Hun
Yuan Chen Style, but Chen Xiang was never able to change his way of delivering power fully over to a
Taiji way. So, in essence, Chen Xiang is adding a "Body Trick", while still using 6H movement, into his
Chen-style Taijiquan. His method of releasing power is similar or reasonably close to the way that the
Chens do it, but it's not the same. Feng's version of the Chen-style included methods of power
generation that Feng had learned in Xinyi Liu He, so while his 6H was good, his "body tricks" were
different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN88QIsMHqA

YOUTUBE.COM

Chen Xiang's Bajiquan scientific

Tom Osborn This is a good bit of visualisation, and force measurement at the ground. It doesn't say
anything I can see about internal harmonies, but for Chen Xiang, shows flow between ground force
(force bouncing up off a foot) to thighs/hips, waist, shoulders, impact. It does seem to be a regimented
"clockwise", clockwise", "clockwise" one foot-> both knees-> both hips ->waist-> both shoulders -> one
elbow and impact. Not interesting and varied like Chen style.

BTW, the discussion of "impulse" is not correct. The delta_mv/delta_t normally refers to collisions. In
their imaging, Chen Xiang wasn't hitting anything, so the momentum "change" is happening in his own
body (ie, what happens to all of us at the finish of an 'air punch'. Air-hitting should be undamaging in any
martial art, for anyone who practices and self-conditions their body and technique.

Mike Sigman Tom, you're the maths guy, so let me toss in my off-the-cuff thoughts/questions. The
Impulse equation can be reduced to the old basic equation of F = ma, of course, so let me proffer my
thought from that one; it's less complex to discuss.

If I "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" using non-jin punches, the basic formula of F = ma is easily
applied to the power of my punches. In a punch that uses ground-based jin, though, at the moment of
impact there should be a solid path through the body to the earth, so the equation will shift to some
variant of F = (m1 + Me)a: in other words the mass in the equation changes quite a bit because the
whole point of ground-based jin is to hit someone with the ground.

So, looking at Chen Xiang's method of power delivery and tossing out the rotational stuff for the
moment, Chen Xiang uses the ground in a path through his frame, of course, but he's also using the
rebound force through his frame (resultant should be straight from his foot to his hand) and that
rebound force is enormous. Either way you look at it, extraneous factors have been introduced into F =
ma or into Impulse's delta_mv/delta_t. This type of massive rebound force coming through a jin path is
common with CMA's.
*****************************
CXW: This corkscrew strength does not initiate from the foot. It initiates from the trunk of the body; it
initiates from the waist, from the kidney area. It transfers down toward the foot, and then it rebounds
from the foot back up and on through the body. Don't forget, everything initiates from the waist; it then
goes down to the foot and bounces back up from the foot. Otherwise, if you are just
using the strength of the foot, it will not be as powerful. When the power is really coming through, its
expression is not limited to the hands; it could be in the elbow; in your hip; in your knee;
in your thigh. In Chen style, whenever there is movement—not necessarily a striking move, but
whenever you have movement—you have this chan su chin.
*****************************

Tom Osborn Mike Sigman [Getting back to this - had to think more - thoughts in progress, I'm trying to
be clear, but not happy so far with my words]:

Considering an actual impact vs air punching:

"F = (m1 + Me)a" is sort of correct. The "a" is about the change in velocity of the moving bits when
hitting (through) a target. With a heavy bag or or brick or post, the acceleration (deceleration) is huge
because it happens over a very small delta_t. If it's air punching or a light target, the deceleration is
done by the puncher's body. Conditioning the body for either of these can't be done by thinking about it
- just steady repetition. Small delta_t = big impact. [OTOH, hitting a fat loose target takes longer because
it 'gives' more].

The Me*a depends on how much of different parts of Me are connected to the impact, and what
proportion of the momentum of those part adds to the impact. Eg: if the leg isn't much involved, or isn't
at a fairly open angle to the impact, it doesn't contribute.

Thoughts here on "kime"/focus/"gyeol jeong". This is basically adding the available Me*a, by tensing the
body at impact, then relaxing. This isn't what Chen's doing (or mostly not, I've never seen him hit an
actual person). But either way (kime or tjq), the impact is from much more than fist, but from whatever
is tied to it. In Chen, there is more than momentum going on - it's extending from the grounding (or
dropping/pull from DT, if a closing type of strike, with stabilised footing).

The rebounding thing may be front foot or rear foot, opening or closing/drop. Whatever, the leg has to
be ready or set up to do this, it doesn't work it out by itself. In Hidden Hand Punch, the left leg is the leg.
In a Karate right reverse punch or brush knee (if a strike), it's the the right leg.

Speculation: The reeling is both the character of the movements, but it's also preparation for the
movement to work properly (moments later).

Mike Sigman Tom, I understand all of that ... my comment, in a way, is meant to highlight the fact that
when you use jin and allow the solidity of the ground to be present in your foot, you are effectively
changing the "mass" into something that is your mass plus (potentially) the mass of the entire planet. If
you see the way that I'm thinking.

Tom Osborn Mike Sigman I took "Me" to be the "mass of me", ie, the body doing the strike or whatever.
You meant "mass of the earth".
I guess I was considering the earth as immovable, acting like a backstop. The jin is being able to use that
backstop, when coupled to it. Using the solid earth that way, it would be minutely/immeasurably
accelerated (rotated) backwards. So M_earth*a isn't really valid.

On a small asteroid, maybe the asteroid response may be measurable, but without much gravity,
applying force would be a challenge (unless rebound was the way).

If the earth was a bit flexy (which it is, but not a lot), your acceleration would load that flexiness like a
spring.

A lot of tournaments use a padded spongy foam surface for safety. Competitors need to train on it. If
they train on a sprung wood floor, the foam surface slow them down...

Mike Sigman Hmmmm... good point, although there's still a bit of me that wants to argue that having a
jin-based force affixed to the "solidity of the earth" (the Chinese say essentially that, in relation to jin) is
to some extent equivalent to borrowing part of the mass of the earth into your F = ma equation.

Tom Osborn Mike Sigman It's an appealing notion, and depends on the mass of the Earth. Here's an
experiment. Big panda is on a wheeled platform + W Kg. Little panda's platform is fixed to the ground.
As W increases up to M_earth, it's as if Big panda is affixed to a mass = M_earth. Little panda already has
the same mass. What happens?

Mike Sigman Well, I take your point, Tom, but my thinking was that yes, the coefficient of friction at the
shoe soles comes into play, no question, but once it comes into play, then the mass of the earth comes
into play. If the mass of the earth comes into play, even via the coefficient of friction at the shoe soles,
then it has added some amount of mass to the F = ma equation. Your initial sentence above says it all.

Grant Beachley Could it be said of Chen Siang that one way in which he differs in power generation from
the Chens is a by a more monumental torque of the body through space whereas the Chens torque is
more through the spiralling open and close of the muscle overlay?

Mike Sigman I don't really want to get too far off-topic by analyzing exactly what he's doing. We did a
series of posts on him and the Stanford study, some years ago, IIRC. I just wanted to clarify the topic of
"6H" as opposed to "body tricks".

Mike Loconti for those who become proficient, 'body tricks' become part of normal movement. makes it
difficult to discuss these things in a linear fashion. all movement is physical and mechanical but gets
extremely difficult to discuss because of intricacies of movement in living beings
Mike Sigman I should be careful to mention that most body tricks, while not necessarily a part of 6H
movement principles, are also pretty widely known (surprisingly so) and have their own unofficial niches
in the general lore. For example, the comment I made above to Tom Osborn is about a process that is
often spoken of as "send the qi to the ground" or "the qi goes to the ground and explodes" or sayings
along those lines. (And yes, I'm leaving a very important part of that cute trick out of the description! ;) ).