Video: Fajin Exercises of the Pre-Heaven Power Method

[baguadeerhorn]

Here is a video of Fajin exercises presented by the Chinese Taoist Martial Arts Association in Skokie, Illinois:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Qvo_BUmNU
The objective of these exercises is to measure the Fajin ability of a practitioner, be it pushing or striking, after he/she completes a series of fundamental trainings based on the Pre-Heaven Power Method (or Shian Tien Jin Fa 先天勁法).

[Dennis Monk]

Well, I uh, ah nevermind. :mad:

[jwinch2]

:ban: :dancing_ban: :nutkick:

[Erik]

The music was kinda nice....

[Sochin]

I have felt that kind of force.

I did not know what the teacher was going to do so I had no prior expectations nor was I "going with the master" because I didn't know where he was going.

He just said push me so I pushed him a number of times while he talked about structure and alignment of joints and then suddenly when I pushed, there was a very irresistable force popped me up and back like these guys.

The teacher was Chen Zhonghua (http://www.chenzhonghua.com/) and a number of us hard style guys were really trying to push him over or back.

[Musubi Dojo]

I met a Chen Instructor who was literaly half my size. He didn't throw me across the room but I was popped up off my feet and thrown back with ease.

Josh Gossling posted an interesting video on Fajin Masters a while ago.

We're not talking about magic chi balls, but body alignment, unbalancing (like Aiki) and a whip like motion of the body be it arms, legs or spine.

The video presented here looks a little dramatic, but I'm not really qualified to judge.

[TonyU]

The video presented here looks a little dramatic, but I'm not really qualified to judge.
Easy to push someone standing straight and on their heels. I don't doubt there is some power there, just hard to judge in this case.

[Cliff Hargrave]

My impression...fake and laughable.

[jwinch2]

My impression...fake and laughable.
:qft:

:nothingtogive:

[Musubi Dojo]

Easy to push someone standing straight and on their heels.

I agree entirely.

I was doing push hands with the gentleman who tossed me around and then I leaned into him as hard as I could. He moved me backwards fairly easily.

Could he do it if I was trying to take his head off? I have my doubts, but the fact that he could pop up off me feet was impressive.

The video seems a little over the top to me but again I'm not really quailifed to judge.

I'd like to hear Sean's take on it.

I can also understand why it would look like flying chi balls if you hadn't have someone do it to you. :wink2:

Cheers
c


Cheers
c

[Dennis Monk]

My impressive of the video was also somewhat less than stellar. I won't deny certain techniques working in ways that can be difficult to understand.
Seriously though, watch the video. You can actually see the people being "pushed back" slightly bend their knees, dip in and push back. That makes for a fake, bogus video to me. If this was done for dramatic effect, it should have been clearly stated.

[ramszman]

The video was suppose to demonstrate a method of testing fajin. Which it does so quite well. While anyone can push someone it is how someone does it which can demonstrate whether it was fajin or not. Does a football player use fajin because he can push a lineman back? Fajin is defined as It means to issue or discharge power. Would you say that Bruce Lee had it in his famous one inch punch?? If the instructor did a demonstration video showing that fajin power in an fighting application with a student I doubt he would have students in his class (or at least very few volunteers:D ). Who would want to be knocked unconscoius while getting demonstrated on :eek: I think you have to look at this for what it is, an exercise of how well you can transmit fajin. If you look, there is very little movement from the pusher on the exercises. Sochin talked about structure and alingment which is very evident in this video. I am curious if you are saying this is "fake and laughable" could you post a video that you qualify as "real"?

[Gordon Nore]

The video was suppose to demonstrate a method of testing fajin. Which it does so quite well. While anyone can push someone it is how someone does it which can demonstrate whether it was fajin or not. Does a football player use fajin because he can push a lineman back? Fajin is defined as It means to issue or discharge power. Would you say that Bruce Lee had it in his famous one inch punch?? If the instructor did a demonstration video showing that fajin power in an fighting application with a student I doubt he would have students in his class (or at least very few volunteers:D ). Who would want to be knocked unconscoius while getting demonstrated on :eek: I think you have to look at this for what it is, an exercise of how well you can transmit fajin. If you look, there is very little movement from the pusher on the exercises. Sochin talked about structure and alingment which is very evident in this video. I am curious if you are saying this is "fake and laughable" could you post a video that you qualify as "real"?


Andre,

The CTMAA is located in Skokie, Illinois. Your profile indicates you're from Arlington Heights, IL. If you have direct knowledge of the teacher depicted in the YouTube clip and his system, please feel free to share.

[Webmaster]

Andre,

The CTMAA is located in Skokie, Illinois. Your profile indicates you're from Arlington Heights, IL. If you have direct knowledge of the teacher depicted in the YouTube clip and his system, please feel free to share.
Except his IP address says he is in Illinois. Time to come clean Andre.

[chrisfreel]

Except his IP address says he is in Illinois. Time to come clean Andre.

Well, Andre is a student there, as am I (for somewhat more than a year). I don't think there was any intentional indirection...

The video just demonstrates a testing method. Why no resistance from the students? Because then you're always dependent on the other person's skill to measure results, and that's a different drill anyway.

Why not just use a heavy bag? Because heavy bags react different then people. Many of the variants also use an uprooting movement at first, which isn't really practical to practice on bag. You can practice some things on a bag, but there's also a benefit of feeling what it's like when it's done to you.

The people involved aren't jumping or assisting, they're simply not resisting. They do cooperate by keeping the arms stiff enough that the energy can go into moving the body. You can get the same effect on a non-cooperative person by attacking them in a way that they're likely to put up a hard block

This is an internal arts forum. I'm surprised if people think it's all fake or acted out; I thought this was one of the skills strived for by studying IMA. It's all about structure and body mechanics. The system taught at this school seems to vary in method from others I'm aware of (for example, it's independent of breathing).

Hopefully, this can be taken in the spirit of open sharing; I don't think anyone meant anything to come off as defensive (or offensive :D )

Thanks,
Chris

[Webmaster]

This is an internal arts forum. I'm surprised if people think it's all fake or acted out; I thought this was one of the skills strived for by studying IMA. It's all about structure and body mechanics. The system taught at this school seems to vary in method from others I'm aware of (for example, it's independent of breathing).
Chris:

Not everyone that posts in this forum are practitioners of the internal arts, and thus you are bound to find skeptics. Take them for they are, uninformed about your art. You are not going to convert everyone, but you can still make a positive impression with those that are more open minded to that sorta thing.

[Jeff C.]

It looks like cooperative exercises to me. Exercises of this type are not supposed to look like resistive fighting. The video is presented as exercises, and therefore does not misrepresent. I do not understand the criticism.

Jeff Cook

[Gordon Nore]

Well, Andre is a student there, as am I (for somewhat more than a year). I don't think there was any intentional indirection...

...Hopefully, this can be taken in the spirit of open sharing; I don't think anyone meant anything to come off as defensive (or offensive :D )

Thanks,
Chris

Fine by me. I'm not even a moderator of this forum. The lack of information made me curious.

Welcome, Chris and Andre.

[Musubi Dojo]

Yeah, welcome to Budoseek guys!

Can you give us a more in depth description of fajin?
In another thread we compared it to "hip" in karate...

Cheers
c

[chrisfreel]

Yeah, welcome to Budoseek guys!

Can you give us a more in depth description of fajin?
In another thread we compared it to "hip" in karate...

Cheers
c

Thanks to you and others for the replies.

I'm far from well qualified to talk about fajin in any authoritative way. Basically, my understanding is that it's a refined force. Since there's many ways to generate specific, controlled force, every system could use a different method.

Most external systems generate force in fairly straightforward ways. For example, when I took Ving Tsun 1.5 years), some power seemed to be from the arm and shoulder, some from the hips, some from the waist. In Penjak Silat (1.5 years), a lot of use was made of throwing force into your strikes using the hips.

For internal martial arts, fajin is thought of as "internal" power. At the least, your main source of power shouldn't be something like your triceps, shoulders, waist, etc. What's left? Well, your leg muscles are the strongest in your body. If you push off the ground with them, and align the rest carefully, you can, at least in theory, create a powerful strike. Of course there's a lot of training to make it work, and many details to get right. The advantage is that power can be generated in virtually any direction without a windup (this implies an explosive motion over a very short physical distance).

It's interesting that you compare it to "hip" in karate. When I took Aikido (10 months), we were taught to kia when falling, but I was told was that you just wanted to tighten everything up... so the noise is almost mnemonic Some systems teach something similar when they fajin... you exhale suddenly, maybe tightening everything. From our school's point of view, breathing shouldn't need to be coordinated; just whatever's natural.

Chris

[ramszman]

Except his IP address says he is in Illinois. Time to come clean Andre.

I did not try to mislead anyone. If it was seen that way then I am sorry. I tried to post something quickly before I left for the evening. I guess I should have known better :( . I did not have time to get into a long description and as I returned for the evening Chris beat me to the punch.:mad: I have been in martial arts for almost 25 years. I have studied under some very reputable and Masters in internal arts (I will not drop names). I will say that none of them has broken down the understanding and teaching of Fajin as well as Master Lin has. Videos can be deciving. I probably wouldn't have believed it either a year ago. But feeling is believing in this case.

[Gordon Nore]

I did not try to mislead anyone. If it was seen that way then I am sorry. I tried to post something quickly before I left for the evening. I guess I should have known better :( . I did not have time to get into a long description and as I returned for the evening Chris beat me to the punch.:mad: I have been in martial arts for almost 25 years. I have studied under some very reputable and Masters in internal arts (I will not drop names). I will say that none of them has broken down the understanding and teaching of Fajin as well as Master Lin has. Videos can be deciving. I probably wouldn't have believed it either a year ago. But feeling is believing in this case.

No worries, Andre. I think the fact that you train with the man enhances your assessment of what he's doing. My apoligies if I came off as unduly suspicious. Welcome again.

[Musubi Dojo]

Thanks to you and others for the replies.

I'm far from well qualified to talk about fajin in any authoritative way. Basically, my understanding is that it's a refined force. Since there's many ways to generate specific, controlled force, every system could use a different method.

Most external systems generate force in fairly straightforward ways. For example, when I took Ving Tsun 1.5 years), some power seemed to be from the arm and shoulder, some from the hips, some from the waist. In Penjak Silat (1.5 years), a lot of use was made of throwing force into your strikes using the hips.

For internal martial arts, fajin is thought of as "internal" power. At the least, your main source of power shouldn't be something like your triceps, shoulders, waist, etc. What's left? Well, your leg muscles are the strongest in your body. If you push off the ground with them, and align the rest carefully, you can, at least in theory, create a powerful strike. Of course there's a lot of training to make it work, and many details to get right. The advantage is that power can be generated in virtually any direction without a windup (this implies an explosive motion over a very short physical distance).

It's interesting that you compare it to "hip" in karate. When I took Aikido (10 months), we were taught to kia when falling, but I was told was that you just wanted to tighten everything up... so the noise is almost mnemonic Some systems teach something similar when they fajin... you exhale suddenly, maybe tightening everything. From our school's point of view, breathing shouldn't need to be coordinated; just whatever's natural.

Chris

Thanks Chris!

My own experiece with fajin was a whip like motion of the spine taught to me by one of Dr. Yang's students out of Boston. (His student is/was is Tornto) I was only able to attend a half dozen classes but was very impressed with what I saw. So while I know of fajin I know virtually nothing about it.

Cheers
c

[Sochin]

The people involved aren't jumping or assisting, they're simply not resisting. They do cooperate by keeping the arms stiff enough that the energy can go into moving the body. You can get the same effect on a non-cooperative person by attacking them in a way that they're likely to put up a hard block

I've had some practice with experts in the few years I've trained. When Remy Presas got your wrist, you hit the deck as fast as you could, flapping your hand on the mat as fast as possible, or your wrist hurt for three days.

When I tried to resist Chen Zhonghua's push, I also felt the point of inevitability and would pop back to take the pressure off. A push is just a slow hit.

So it may have looked like I was cooperating when I 'popped.'

It is hard to tell with these guys - it is almost irresistable not to try to make your teacher look good, or, if it was a student, making him look good so he'll do the same for you.

As For Chen Zhonghua's teachers, one talked about chi but Hong Junshen who started the Chen Style Practical Method always said, "If there is a physical result, there can also be a physical explanation." He talked about the body as a series of gears and levers, depending on structure and rotation of the joints.

You can also pull a bit on your uke so he engages and then stiffens to fight your push, multiplying the force he recieves.