From: psc@sei.cmu.edu (Peter Capell)
Subject: My "Tai Chi Magazine" Article
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:04:59 GMT


A reader of this netnews service wrote to me and said I owed it to "the
community" to reprint my article in this forum.  At his request I am doing so,
with permission from Wayfarer Publications.  The article is reprinted here
from the July 1992 issue of "Tai Chi Magazine."

	Peter

				*****

The 5 Bows of T'ai Chi Ch'uan

by Peter Capell

There is so much confusion around how T'ai Chi Ch'uan is made to be an
effective fighting form, that I decided to render a perspective taught to me
by my teacher, Lu Ping Zhang.  Lu Ping Zhang is the student of several famous
and not-so-famous masters in the People's Republic of China.  He learned Hua
Mountain Kung Fu from Cai Hong Xiang, five-time national champion (undefeated)
in full-contact fighting.  From Wang Su Ping, he learned H'sing i.  From Xie
Bing Can, senior student of Fu Zhong Wen, he learned Yang Style T'ai Chi
Ch'uan.  Lu Ping's martial arts resume covers 30 years of saturation in some
of the finest martial arts instruction available in the world.  I cite his
lessons as those of a bonified T'ai Chi Ch'uan expert.

One of the first levels of confusion one typically encounters as an American
studying T'ai Chi is the dilemma as to whether it is a health exercise, or a
martial art.  In fact it is both, but often instruction centers around one
focus or another.  In my original wushu training, T'ai Chi Ch'uan was seen
only as an adjunct to the hard style training, kind of like a vitamin
supplement.  It was only when I met an authentic teacher of the art that I
came to know it in a visceral sense, as a whole and complete martial art,
with health as a side benefit of course.

Other interesting dilemmas can haunt the experience of the dedicated student
of T'ai Chi.  For example: If it is a martial art, is it a kinder, gentler
martial art, or is it a fighting method comparable to other seemingly more
violent styles?  And of course there is then the general class of confusing
thoughts about The Art, such as: What makes T'ai Chi an internal style? Why,
when my teacher says "you're using too much muscle force!," do I think I am
relaxed?  ...and so on.

Among those of us who study T'ai Chi Ch'uan seriously, there is no question
about its martial utility or origins.  Although it is classified among the
soft styles, I am at a loss for a definition of what is soft, having
experienced a few of my teacher's palm strikes.  In truth, the softness of
T'ai Chi Ch'uan is probably a misnomer for its emphasis on the redirection of
force in subtle ways that permit the practitioner to apply more sophisticated
defense and offense options than simple blocks and strikes.  A salient
vignette: Once I was practicing with a T'ai Chi student and demonstrated a
small pung (on request).  His comment to me was you're using too much force!
The partner was a novice, so the value of this opinion was not at issue.  His
perception was that T'ai Chi Ch'uan was always "gentle to the participant." He
had no capacity to distinguish between application of force, and the method
and source of the delivery of the force--the important distinction being
whether or not the force was generated from local musculature (too much muscle
force), or from the ground, (using one's chi).  Enough of these encounters
with the T'ai Chi intelligensia can make you quite cynical.

In any case, this article describes one small but important aspect of my
instruction, which is a principle behind the delivery of force in T'ai Chi
Ch'uan according to my teacher, and his line of teachers.  The notion is
called "the principle of five bows." The basic idea is that your body is
made of five fundamental bows.  While my teacher assures me that there are
actually many more bows in the body than five, we need only concern ourselves
with the basic five at this juncture.  The bows are: the two legs, the two
arms, and the spine.  Simple right?

Basic Principles of the Bow

According to this method of training, each bow should behave like a leaf
spring, or like an archer's bow.  The bow (arm or leg) can bend, but it should
never collapse completely.  It should retain its integrity as a bow-like shape
at all times, whether the arm is extended or compressed.  It should never
collapse to total flatness.  It is important to maintain this concept as a
mental image.  This is the first principle.

Next, in order to make the bows do what you want them to, you must use the
entire body to accomplish any local action: to punch, to push, to pull, and so
on.  This idea is of course what most martial arts pay lip-service to, but in
my view, which only T'ai Chi Ch'uan ever really provides direct how-to
instruction in accomplishing the fact.  When you commit to the first principle
of the bow, you must also give up the bad habit of relying on local
musculature in order to generate power.  In other words, we are now embarking
on the difficult journey of using the entire tree to shake the branch.

As an experiment, stand and extend your arm in front of your body so that is
retains a curved shape.  Let it float there in space, neither stiff nor
floppy.  It should definitely be relaxed, but it should never lose its bow
shape.  Pretend that it really is the limb of a tree.  Your body is the trunk
of the tree.  Now ask yourself a difficult question: if I wanted to
perform a palm strike downward from this position, given the rules expressed
so far, how would I do it?  This is the beginning of a long, self
confrontation.  In order to make the extended limb of the tree become an
effective weapon, you must engage the other five bows.  You must allow your
knees to drop, your spine to curve inward naturally, your other arm to play a
role in balancing and so on.  You must use the entire body to accomplish any
useful force by this method, every increment along the arc of the bows must be
engaged and moving.  There is no other way.  In proper usage, each bow
compresses and releases just like a spring, allowing the striking arm to meet
its target with the full force of the entire body, instead of by its own
effort alone.  This is the second principle.

Implied in this scheme is that the joints of the body be maximally supple.
Our bones are connected to one another by ligaments and tendons.  Overall they
are driven by the muscles.  A central difference between the bow method of
training and say, weight lifting, is that in weight lifting one develops power
through increasing the size and power of the muscles themselves.  The bow
method is more like gaining an understanding the body as a complex system of
pulleys, and learning to optimize their power by virtue of one's
understanding.  Weight lifting will accomplish some of the same effects, but
in a manner somewhat like building an 18-inch foundation wall on a house that
requires much less to accomplish a better effect.  The difference is whether
or not the house was engineered versus only having been eyeballed.  This
is the third principle.

What is so valuable about this technique over say, leaping into the air and
flailing downward with your well-trained knife hand?  You certainly get whole
body power when you just flail, right? But the biggest advantage to using the
bows is control and power in a short distance.  When you become adept at using
the bows, you will be able to command great power at shorter and shorter
distances, increasing your ability to execute techniques in a minimum of time.
This means, there is no need for a wind up in order to strike, and even when
you are in contact with your opponent, you are prepared to deliver your fa
jing with focus and intensity.  This method is difficult at first.  Typically
our bodies are too stiff to generate much power in the beginning.  With
patience and practice however, power comes incrementally as a function of
relaxation through the practice of T'ai Chi Ch'uan.  With relaxation, one's
arms begin to have a full or weighted feeling.  This perception is essential
to bringing power to strikes, and to be able to apply continuity of force when
you are in direct contact with a partner or opponent.


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