A fighting Shaolin monk called Cheng Te had heard about Yang Luchan’s great abilities and wrote to ask for a challenge match. Yang Luchan received the monk at his home. As he opened the door, Cheng Te suddenly charged at him with both fists. Yang Luchan easily repelled the attack, and with a tap of his hand against one of the monk’s fists, threw him against the wall, behind a folding screen. Cheng Te apologized for his rudeness and expressed amazement at Yang Luchan’s skill. Yang Luchan served the monk tea. After they had been talking for a while, a sparrow flew in the window. Yang Luchan swiftly captured the bird in both hands and said, “I’m going to play with this bird for a while”. Once the bird had calmed down a little, Yang Luchan set the sparrow on the palm of his right hand. Each time the bird tried to fly away, Yang Luchan dipped his hand very slightly, neutralizing the delicate push of the bird’s legs. The monk was amazed and asked, “How do you do it? ” “Once one has practiced taiji for a time”, master Yang explained, “one’s whole body becomes so sensitive that even a fly’s weight will set it in motion.”
I wonder, can this really have happened?
The existence of paranormal abilities, conferred by the development of neijing, or internal power, remains a subject open to debate. The external techniques of taiji aren’t so different from other forms of kung fu.
And even Yang Luchan didn’t always win. After a few losses early on he returned to Chen village, where he had originally studied Chen family style taijiquan, to learn the neijing, the “juice”, the internal aspects of the art. Afterwards he suffered no more defeats. It was the fact that he kept winning which popularized taiji among kung fu students in the 1850’s and 60’s.
In the 1920’s taijiquan’s popularity again increased, thanks in large part to Yang Luchan’s grandson, Yang Chengfu. His student Chen Weiming wrote three books on taiji, and founded the Zhi Ruo (Achieving Softness) Taijiquan Society in 1925. Yang Chengfu taught workshops to the students of the society. He was big and powerful, but also had plenty of juice. Students and fighters who challenged him said his arms felt like cotton wrapped around metal rods. The average taiji student had also become more gentlemanly – it was a well-mannered, literate group. This in contrast to the largely illiterate “village kung fu” fighters of China’s Boxer Rebellion of 1900-1901.
Huang Xingxian, star pupil of Yang Chengfu’s disciple Zheng Manjing, may have been a gentleman, but he wasn’t above a rumble. In 1970 he defeated champion wrestler Liao Kuang-Cheng in an exhibition match in Malaysia. Liao was in his thirties and at the top of his game. Huang, then sixty years old, defeated him 26 throws to nought. This was in a boxing ring with ropes, not the traditional lei tai.
My teacher, Howard Choy, had his first Yang style lessons from Yang Chengfu’s eldest son, Yang Shouzhong. Howard later travelled throughout Southeast Asia in search of masters who could manifest special powers. His question was whether winning at taiji is simply a question of biomechanics and mechanical advantage, or is neijing something mystical? He met Huang Xingxian around 1990 at Master Huang’s home in Malaysia. They played “push hands” at Howard’s request. Rather than a no-holds-barred challenge match, in push hands the players touch arms and attempt to throw the other off balance. This should give an idea of a player’s internal power, without the risk of injury. Howard said that Master Huang won, but that he felt hemmed in between the sofa and coffee table. He would have liked to try it again outside.
Adam Mizner is a taiji teacher within the Huang Xingxian lineage. I’ve participated in two of his workshops. At one point he said we might find it useful to try to push him. He didn’t mean push hands, in which we would touch arms, but actually to put our hands anywhere on him and try to shove him any way we liked. I got my chance. I put one hand on his shoulder and another on his chest and pushed. Nothing happened. He had no special stance and wasn’t bracing with his back leg. He just carried my horizontal push vertically into the ground. I was in essence pushing on the floor. The Huang Xingxian school emphasizes song, or release. Adam explained that you can learn to song the fascia within your body to carry force vertically into the ground. You can then also release it back into the body of your opponent. That is how he explains taiji’s neijing. He said that he continues to improve. “It wasn’t always this strong. Now people can’t get past my skin,” he said. He meant that we can touch the surface, but cannot affect his balance or center of gravity. He can also shoot people across the room. Neat.
Adam isn’t the only present-day taiji teacher who has the juice, but he’s the only one I’ve met personally. They don’t hide their training method. Most important is plenty of zhan zhuang standing exercise: bones up, joints open, let the flesh hang. Gravity stretches the connective tissue and creates lines of stretch throughout the body. Then there are Huang Xingxian’s Song Shen Wu Fa – literally “relax the body five ways”. The soft tissue does the work. Not the limp softness of overcooked spaghetti, but an extremely sensitive elasticity. This is the softness the Zhi Ruo Taijiquan Society was working to achieve. Juice is real.
