re:peng in Japanese martial arts

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J HepworthYoung
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re:peng in Japanese martial arts

Post by J HepworthYoung » Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:04 pm

I am not allowed to post in the michaun section but was very interested in this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1090
This week in class a question came up on how to deal with certain types of grabs to the wrist. We went over ways of using Peng to bounce the duifang's energy back into his or her center, jamming them up. After class, one student found a video of Japanese martial arts practitioners practice nearly identical movements. Just goes to show, there are only so many way the human body can move & only so many ways to solve the same situation.
Image

i'd like to address a few points, though i am not contesting any of the content above

the first point i would like to address is that Japanese martial arts are heavily influenced by Chinese martial arts
several of the Ryu of Nippon claim to have been founded by Taoists, Kain Doshi is a name of one such individual said to have founded or co-founded martial arts lines in Japan and have been a Chinese Daoist
additionally Okinawan martial arts are heavily influenced by Chinese White Crane styles/forms, White Crane is also associated with having a common ancestor to Taijiquan, as well as Wing Chun, which incidentally often claims influence from Daoist martial arts/artists

the second point i would like to address is that the idea that the similarities in the above technique are convergent in terms of origin, that is to say that it is questionable that the above technique was arrived at in Nippon/japan independently of CMA/taiji influence. The technique is almost identical to one i was taught by Chen style teacher who was trained by the Chens in Bejing, not just the Peng portion but the lock as well. I consider it highly probable that this technique shown above is archaic and originates well before it appears in Nippon, where it appears to have arrived and been taught as opposed to elucidated through trial and error

the last and third point i would like to address is that i have no information about the time frame of the above technique and illustration/picture of it, however since it is in black and white we can assume it is 20th century footage and likely from around the middle of the 20th century at that. my point being that the general introduction of Taijiquan to the outside world may have taken place several decades before this and this technique may not even originate with archaic influence but may have been introduced to Nippon around a century ago, perhaps by an individual who was Japanese and went to China to study and train martial arts, this type of thing is not unknown, for example Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969) and Toshitsugu Takamatsu (1889-1972) were both known to have traveled to China where they encountered Chinese martial arts that influenced their teachings in Japan afterwards, both of these men not only lived in the time that i suppose the footage to originate in, they also taught that the Japanese martial arts they taught and practiced were introduced to Nippon via China and they also noted more archaic origins than this insofar that they identified elements of their arts as being found in ancient Buddhist iconography hailing from India. Interestingly enough the Taoist Kain Doshi is often depicted holding a vajra, the weapon of Indra and several Japanese martial arts claiming to have Daoist origins or influences maintain old scrolls written in Sanskrit.

It is my belief that the technique illustrated above is not analogous to Peng, but actually is an example of it.
however this is just a belief, not something i know

I've often noted that japanese martial arts and weapons have almost no origin in Nippon, this is not surprising considering that the Ainu are native to Japan and what we call the Japanese people are not. Almost nothing about Japanese culture, remarkable as it is, is Japanese is origin, though through development said culture is certainly distinct in many ways and the martial arts are no exception to this

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