I used to be observing the standard argument/dialogue between two individuals about historical Chinese language phrases like Yi and Qi that steadily occur in Tai Chi circles, and it was taking place a well-known route..
“Don’t lecture me! I learn traditional Chinese language and Yi means ‘concept’ and Qi means ‘motion’.”
“Actually? Wang Yongquan wrote ‘To mobilize Qi, you create an empty house, by Soong and a lightweight Yi to empty the realm. The differentiation of yin and yang is what makes Qi stream.”
“Appears quiet completely different then…”
And on and on and on…
Not too long ago I had a dialog with a really skilled Chinese language martial artist (will probably be launched as a podcast quickly, don’t fear) about how these items are skilled in Asia vs how we do it within the West.
He made the purpose that within the West we’ve got to know one thing intellectually earlier than we are going to do it. i.e. we’ve got to know we’re not losing our time, that we’ll get one thing out of this. It has to ‘make sense’. And we normally ask a great deal of questions earlier than even attempting it. In distinction, in Asia, there’s a lot much less questioning and much more doing. You simply do it. If you happen to’re doing it mistaken you hope your instructor will discover and put you heading in the right direction. However typically you simply preserve doing it safe within the data that finally you’ll get it. It’s all within the really feel. You probably have the texture proper, then you’re doing it. Finish of story.
Nowhere is that this distinction between the Japanese and Western strategy extra clearly represented that on dialogue boards about Tai Chi which are stuffed with Westerners. We like to argue about what these historical idea and phrases like Qi, Yi and Xin actually imply. As if in the future we are going to arrive on the final reply. It appears we will’t get sufficient of it.
However right here’s the key: it doesn’t matter the way you outline these phrases, what idea or principle you employ for his or her implementation, or how properly you learn Classical Chinese language from the Ming Dynasty. What issues is – are you able to do it? Are you able to present it to me?
If I mentioned, “Present me your Yi. Let me really feel your Jin” May you do it?
If you happen to can then it doesn’t matter wether you outline Yi as “concept”, “thoughts” or “intent”. I’m positive we’re all aware of the well-known phrase coined by Polish-American scientist and thinker Alfred Korzybski, who gave a paper in 1931 about physics and arithmetic through which he wrote that “the map isn’t the territory” and that “the phrase isn’t the factor”, encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from one thing, or a response to it, isn’t the factor itself.
So, all these on-line arguments about Qi and Yi, are successfully pointless. They’re map, not territory. Nevertheless, I do assume that a bit mental understanding can be helpful. Particularly if it stops you asking questions lengthy sufficient to simply apply. Additionally, there’s at all times this temptation to assume that if I can simply perceive one thing completely, or write it down within the excellent, simplest approach, then finally everybody will go “Sure! That’s it!”
Anyway, as I used to be training this morning a thought popped into my head which I believed felt proper, so I believed I’d write down and share it:
“Yi is the course you’re sending your thoughts in, and the Jin follows.”
To me, Yi is at all times a few course. And it’s directed. It’s the alternative of a imprecise, heat, fuzzy haze. It has a steadfastness and a spotlight. There. Did that assist? Or did it simply make you extra confused. Solutions within the feedback part please. You probably have your personal pithy phrase to summarise an idea as delicate as Yi that works for you, then be happy so as to add it beneath.
I’ve written earlier than about Yi in Tai Chi Chuan. So, you possibly can have a learn of that too.