How do you do this? Is it the same as stamp throw in ju jitsu but through the arm rather than leg? kind regards
Fa Jin(g) means to 'discharge or issue force' in order to counter an opponent. It is usually trained in Tai Chi pushing hands and is in effect a mixture of good body mechanics and the ability to focus energy from your own body into your opponents. This would usually be done after redirecting an attack rather than head on into the attack which would be using yang against yang. The body mechanics aspect relates to the the perfect coordination of the body with the power coming up from the feet through the waist and into the arms and hands. Jin is usually translated as 'educated force' with Fa Jin being only one of many types used in internal martial arts. Hope this helps
Or a body shake that leads to a whiplash-like strike, if you subscribe to Earl Montaingue's interpretation.
Good points. One more thing - fa-jing is supposed to be a shockwave, it is NOT a push so the opponent won't go flying backward. Instead of sending someone flying across a room, a fa-jing is designed to disrupt over a short distance to cause internal injury. Think of what happens when you hold a jackhammer - there is a lot of force but it is not momentum.
Explosive power is one of the ways Fa Jin is described. From the viewpoint of internal martial arts like Tai Chi Chuan it is probably the wrong way to describe it because it gives the impression of the art being more external than internal. Ie tensed muscles etc rather then relaxed and soft with the power/energy coming up through the body as previously described. The idea is that the energy is discharged and transmitted into the opponent from inside the body using internal power rather than muscular power. Not very eloquent but I hope it helps explain Fa Jin.
Sorry, been busy. Cold Jin to the best of my reccollection, is a type of Jin used for sudden, surprise atacks where your opponent is unaware of any obvious preparation being made by you for the attack. Basically, it appears to have come from nowhere. It is a type of Fa Jin because it involves emitting power. There are a large number of Fa Jins. If you are looking for info on Jin to supplement your Tai Chi training there are a large number of books that cover the subject. The best (in my opinion) are by Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming and they describe the many types of Jin involved in the internal martial arts. Dont be put off by the fact that the books relate to Yang style Tai Chi, if that is not your style, The theory realts to all intenal Martial Arts. A good starting point is Tai Chi Theory & Martial Power.
Good points made by all and I would respectfully add some of my own thoughts on Fajin. It is true that Fajin can be named explosive force or an explosive issuing of power but it is a complex thing in and of itself and takes a long time to internalise should you wish to couple it with the issuing of Qi. The concept of fajin, as a purely superficial body mechanic of Taiji, is exactly what the forms are supposed to teach the Taiji fighter while they are still learning how to breath, are practising standing qigong and push hands etc. You will often see people in the first few years (in some cases many years later) of form practise who are still only moving their upper body and arms when doing forms. But the idea of form practise is to move hips, waist and upper body in opening and closing movements which are literally slow, flowing versions of fajin mechanics which are the supreme expression of Taiji fighting whilst remaining sung. When you begin to understand the relationship of the hips and waist in regards to what your upper body, arms and hands are doing, you will begin to naturally allow the qi to direct your body in correct movement of the forms and at that point the fajin will naturally occur whether you are doing forms of training in high speed applications. Taiji being the complete system that it is, unlike many other martial arts, has so many stages which essentially are trying to lead the student into a place where you literally forget forms or pre-arranged sequences and literally become Taiji when and if a situation arises. So things like push hands, long har chuan, forms, san sau, etc are methods of teaching you fajin. When you watch old Taiji masters performing Taiji it could be argued that nothing looks right and their form looks like nothing is going on. But it's these guys who are actually at such an advanced stage that they are performing everything led by their qi and yi through a process of internalisation. All I can say is do the research, watch senior students who are moving correctly... you will notice because their forms look a little weirder or funkier than the rest, and train as often as you can. There are people who can perform external fajin very well but the point of fajin is to use the entire body like a weapon. To expand on this it is best to imagine it like a sneeze, but rather a full body sneeze with a ball and chain on the end of it that cracks like a whip! The idea with remaining sung is that in order to express maximum force there must be the least ammount of tension present in the muscles, joints and sinews. Another aspect of the forms is to open up the joints. Some of this is tricky to explain without actually performing it on a bag where you can see the difference between a stiff linear strike and a loose fajin kind of strike. So essentially when you wind up for your fajin strike it should be subconcious and you will direct your qi using your yi (mind) to lead it to the end of the weapon of your choice and then to your intended target. However a Taiji fighter remains totally relaxed and sung even whilst engaged in striking, all but for the final moment before impact where the weapon, in the case of a Taiji fist or palm strike, suddenly becomes firm for a split second and flicks/cracks at the end like a whip! This is the kind of strike which can only occur with the correct use of fajin. Your hand is like the end of a whip and the effect internally on the oppenent is devastating. Most people when they punch, wind up for a kind of pushing style of punch, whereas the Taiji fajin strike creates internal explosivity with the opponent remaining pretty much where they started. Fajin is also so much more than this, the technique alone could have an entire book written about it. Another thing to understand is that the nature of fajin as a body mechanic has a progressive nature. For example when you strike in any direction the nature of the fajin strike which is driven by the waist creates a rebound effect which has the Taiji fighter already rebounding into the second strike on the opposite side only a fraction of a second after the initial strike has been launched. You end up with up to four or more strikes which literally occur within a second! This cannot happen unless you are totally sung and the joints are open and the body totally relaxed or as they say in the classics "soft as cotton externally, hard as an iron bar internally". In writing this I am made aware of how difficult and complex the concept of fajin is to explain without actually doing it or showing it in person, but at the end of the day it is the goal of every Taiji fighter to hook this body mechanic up to the emittance and issuing of their qi and to direct the strikes to vital points to create devastating internal damage whilst breaking joints along the way. Nice eh? A Taiji fighters goal is to end conflict before it's even started, fajin is the means by which this is achieved. Best to all, Syd
