Re: "Ball-holding posture"

Subject:

Comments:
: : : Greetings, : : : I’ve been thinking about what is commonly referred to in taijiquan as the “ball-holding position”. At a taijiquan and sword seminar I attended last July, Master Yang Zhenduo remarked that this is not really a traditional concept in taijiquan, but a modern development. He pointed to some problems in the ball-holding idea, asking “How big is this ball? What kind of ball is it? What are you doing with this ball?” He further illustrated that in many of the close-up positions, the palms of the hands do not in fact face one another as though holding a ball, and that trying to model one’s posture too rigidly on the notion of holding a ball will result in a distorted form. : : : I’m curious to know when and how the ball-holding imagery was introduced into the teaching of taijiquan. I don’t recall it being used in Yang Chengfu’s _Taijiquan ti yong quan shu_ (Complete book of the essence and applications of taijiquan), but I have seen usage: “as though supporting a ball”, or “as though embracing a sphere” in Chinese books by Fu Zhongwen, Gu Liuxin, Wu Zhiqing, and others. One can only speculate about how this came about. Possibly, with the introduction of taijiquan and other martial arts into the broader stream of physical education activities and sports in China in the twenties, the ball was introduced as a useful and congenial teaching image. (In like manner, I speculated some time back about the appropriation of “play” (da) from sports as a verb for engaging in taijiquan training.) But one also wonders if the “ball” is in fact a reference to something else. Jou Tsung-Hwa liked to point out that the taijitu, the yin/yang symbol, in fact refers conceptually to something three-dimensional, spherical, not a flat disk. This may in fact be what inspired the ball-holding usage. : : : I would like to know what other practitioners think about this. Is this ball-holding imagery useful in practice or in teaching of taijiquan? My own feeling is that it’s useful to imagine that there is “something” there, but that one must must be aware of the limitations of the ball imagery as pointed out by Master Yang Zhenduo. : : : Comments encouraged. : : : : --Louis : : :What about viewing "embrace ball" as a stance "accepting" energy, as in deflecting a right punch with the right hand guiding the agressor's right forearm while the body turns right, left foot comes to an inside empty position, and left hand comes to dan t'ien position preparatory to positioning the left foot behind the thigh of the agressor, shifting weight left, and using Ward Off energy with the left arm to sweep agressor over your left leg? (Mirror image too, of course). Lots of other similar "set-up" uses for "Embrace Ball" come to mind, too. Hope I'm not being too obvious, and deserving of fire and brimstone... See Ya! Don (I don't know how to add my comments correctly, as you see. Sorry if I annoy.)

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: