Jin a la Aunkai Discussion
Bear in mind that the 6H forum is more investigatory about
jin, qi, dantian, reverse breathings, etc., and is less interested in actual
martial usage. Aunkai is a focused
martial pursuit, so there is no parallel in goals, although Rob John and some
of the other Aunkai demigods do pursue a level of "how to explain
this" and "how does this work".
Anyway, to cut to the chase, this is a brief discussion about jin, at
least from a 6H perspective. I'll let some
of the Aunkai guys explain the subtleties and nuances that they posit we are
missing (in good humor, of course). 😉
Jin is defined as "the physical manifestation of
qi" and you can find that definition in a number of texts from different
Chinese martial arts. What that
statement means is that a jin force-path is arranged by the mind arranging or
"willing" how the subconscious-controlled involuntary-muscle/fascia
systems act. Often, during a day, our
body compensates for balance conditions by arranging forces in certain
directions that will balance against unbalancing forces. The process is generally pretty automatic, to
the extent that we can use it, but the Chinese began training the use of the
subconscious-related forces as part of the skills we can have in our bag for
use in calligraphy, martial arts, qigongs, and so forth.
Basically, the source of a jin-force path is from the ground
to some point like the hand. The
subconscious mind can arrange a resultant force vector such that the force from
foot to hand is essentially a straight-line force that goes from the foot
through the air to the hand. Downward
forces can be arranged from the center of mass of the body to the hands (or
wherever you train it), in a similar manner.
Training of jin to add to the body's forces should be part of everyday movement
exercises, particularly in basic qigongs and martial-arts forms. Moving the body as a unit is another critical
part of movement exercises, but that is something that merits its own discussion: let's stick to jin.
The essential point is that jin is a force path that tends
to use either the ground, the weight of the body, or some solid object that the
body is in firm contact with. Taijiquan
openly says that it uses jin at all times by coining the term "peng
jin", meaning a spherical potential of jin forces, but upward and
downward, in all directions at all times.
So, if you hit, push, deflect, or any purposeful movement in Taijiquan, there
should be jin in the movement. Kuo Lien
Ying, a Yang-style practitioner, once said that the name for Taijiquan
could actually be PengJingquan because Taiji is all about using jin.
Let me use that basic comment above to note that any
movement in correctly-done Taijiquan could therefore be said to be some form of
jin, whether it is slow, sudden, twisting, sinking, and so on. No matter what type of movement, whether a
slow movement or a sudden release of power of some kind, that movement is going
to be founded on the basic definition of jin I described earlier. This is where the saying of "there are
many jins, but there is only one jin" comes from.
If someone has a clever way of using the body to hit someone, he may call it
some special name like Fajin or spiraling jin or cold jin, or whatever, but if
it has jin in it, it is going to be a movement that can always be analyzed, for the
most part, as a movement that has basic jin in it.
If someone grabs or holds another person so that that other
person's frame becomes part of the jin propagation path, it is a clever use of
jin, but it is still always going to devolve to it just being a use of basic
jin. There are many jins, true … but
there is only one jin.
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