Hi All,
Question came upon Empty Flower forum today about weapons as an extension of the body. I train in Wu Style tjq but Laoshi Rodell kindly allowed me to post here. I wondered as you are a school that really specialises in weapon use what anyones perspective here is on making a weapon 'an extension of one's body' i.e. what's the benefit in training this way? How or why does it make sword use more effective? Is it really different from the way a non internal arts practitioner would use a tool, say a professional carpenter using a hammer or chisel?
Kind rgds,
TimP
Chi/ intention in weapon
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Hello Tim. I am a beginner, so my comments will be basic. Let's start here and then make room for others of more experience to fill out the topic. When I stand with my sword in zhan zhuang, there is a connection between my body and the weapon that isn't easy to explain. It is as though the weapon is part of me and my awareness of my body extends into the reach of the sword.
While practising Basic Cuts in the earliest months of my sword training, there were times when I could hit a small target almost every time without trying, or even with my eyes shut. In fact, while training with another swordsman (of European style), he sometimes made me defend his strikes with my eyes closed. The idea is that the movement of the body is what powers the sword and it is only an extension of the true weapon, which is the swordsman or woman.
I am not yet good enough to be so relaxed in a spar that I can absorb and return an attack without thinking of the sword, but the building blocks for that sort of skill are gradually being laid. If the power for the weapon comes up from the legs, is directed through the waist and flows through the sword, it can be thought of as nothing less than an extension of the body. There is no cut off point where the body ends and the weapon begins. The movement comes from the weapon - the person. This is, as I said, the observation of a beginner.
While practising Basic Cuts in the earliest months of my sword training, there were times when I could hit a small target almost every time without trying, or even with my eyes shut. In fact, while training with another swordsman (of European style), he sometimes made me defend his strikes with my eyes closed. The idea is that the movement of the body is what powers the sword and it is only an extension of the true weapon, which is the swordsman or woman.
I am not yet good enough to be so relaxed in a spar that I can absorb and return an attack without thinking of the sword, but the building blocks for that sort of skill are gradually being laid. If the power for the weapon comes up from the legs, is directed through the waist and flows through the sword, it can be thought of as nothing less than an extension of the body. There is no cut off point where the body ends and the weapon begins. The movement comes from the weapon - the person. This is, as I said, the observation of a beginner.
There's a very practical aspect to making the weapon an extension of your person... it takes a beginner's mind off of the fact they are holding a weapon. When I learned sword, we were told to think that our arms had double in length and what was our wrist was now are elbows. It helps beginners keep the blade under control.
This is a separate point to whether the art is internal or not.
This is a separate point to whether the art is internal or not.
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There is an interesting set of biological studies relating to this question. At the turn of the last century, researchers observed that ladies with long feathers in their hats ducked just enough, without looking, to let the feathers clear a doorway. The mechanics of this were not worked out until recently. It seems that the brain maintains an unconscious map of the body, and that after a relatively short time of working with something from a feather to a hammer, the body image becomes modified to include the object. The more contact with the object, the more the object is included in the brain's body map. New neural pathways are developed that govern how the body moves when connected to the new object. The brain automatically switches between one's regular body map and one including an object when the object is touched. There is nice hard data on this showing the brain switching from one set of neurons to another more or less instantaneously. Thus, how much a sword becomes part of the body would depend on how much you train with it. So once again modern science has reconfirmed what you could probably figure out for yourself.
The interesting part for me is how automatic this process is, and how it happens no matter what approach to training one takes. As for energy flow, the difference between forced energy systems ("hard"), controlled energy systems ("soft"), and guided energy systems (in-between?) is outside of what can be studied by Western science at the moment. I would venture to say that these systems work on the nervous system, and that differences between the energy systems might influence how the brain models the body's connection to a sword, but that it would be next to impossible to set up an experiment to demonstrate the differences.
Josh
The interesting part for me is how automatic this process is, and how it happens no matter what approach to training one takes. As for energy flow, the difference between forced energy systems ("hard"), controlled energy systems ("soft"), and guided energy systems (in-between?) is outside of what can be studied by Western science at the moment. I would venture to say that these systems work on the nervous system, and that differences between the energy systems might influence how the brain models the body's connection to a sword, but that it would be next to impossible to set up an experiment to demonstrate the differences.
Josh
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