Cheng Hsin Training
Our training at the school goes through as many aspects of the Cheng Hsin syllabus as possible. These include:
Cheng Hsin T’ui Shou (CHTS)
Cheng Hsin Boxing (with gloves)
Perceptive Skills
Ground Relations
Interactive Skills
Power Training
Receiving Skills
Technical Dynamics
Cheng Hsin Body Being (CHBB)
As recommended we try to concentrate on the four Principles of Effective Interaction (PEI) and CHBB in every single moment of our movement in relation to our partner. This helps us to (hopefully) relate more effectively and appropriately to our partners movements and actions.
To help train these skills and dynamics we frequently engage in freeplay. These are games and exercises in which there are no set sequences or techniques. We simply have techniques occur spontaneously on our partner while he tries to do the same to us. However, there is no contest, no struggle, no tension or muscular force exerted at all. In some games we even help our partner find a technique by going along with him (if we haven’t neutralized effectively) and “showing” him an easier route to achieve an effortless technique. These games include:
Pressure - No Pressure
Touch - No Touch
Game A
Game B
T’ui Shou Freeplay
Throughout all these games, we practice our skills and the PEI (listening, outreaching, joining & neutralizing) and also the Cheng Hsin Body Being. Of course, freeplay opens up countless opportunities to apply techniques against your partners wishes and vice versa and in addition to the PEI and CHBB we have the chance to experience some of the technical dynamics of the t’ui shou techniques such as:
Leading
Following
Cutting
Offering and Taking Away
Advantageous
Complementing, and many others.
T’ui Shou freeplay would not be practiced for many years as first we need to retrain the mind, body and nervous system to respond appropriately to what is presently occurring, rather then the usual “knee-jerk” reactions that occur in most people during combat. We train to ‘relax under fire’. Until then, there’s no point going all out because you’ll only revert to what the mind and nervous system are used to doing and turn Cheng Hsin T’ui Shou into gongfu (also applies to many taijiquan practices, when people practice applications they turn taijiquan into gongfu too!).
All that we practice in the T’ui Shou should be done effortlessly and with intrinsic alignment. When Peter Ralston says effortlessly, that is exactly what he means - no physical strength whatsoever, absolutely none at all. So then, our power training is that of learning to utilize intrinsic strength. A dictionary definition:
intrinsic inward, inherent, essential, genuine, (of muscles) entirely contained within the limb and girdle, belonging to the point at issue
For our purpose, the key word here is ‘inherent’ or ‘that which is already there’. For T’ui Shou purposes this means that if we can access the intrinsic strength of the body (it’s already there, remember) we don’t need to add anything to it (muscular strength or physical effort). How do we access the intrinsic strength? By staying relaxed. Relaxation is the prerequisite state for accessing intrinsic strength and it’s very hard to achieve a state of complete and deep relaxation, it requires persistent training of body and mind. If you like, it requires a re-training of yourself. Most people think they’re relaxed until they come to the Cheng Hsin or Taijiquan sessions, particularly those who have trained in yoga or other taijiquan styles. It’s a shock to find just how much tension they have in their bodies (and minds). Relaxation is only relevant to your experience of it, if your experience is that of being as stiff as a board, then to you that’s relaxed! You can always go deeper, and must to make progress. A constant attitude of honesty, grounded openness, questioning and not-knowing and direct and authentic experience must be adopted, these are the cornerstones of the arts collectively known as Cheng Hsin.
With regards to the boxing arts of Cheng Hsin, this is Peter Ralston’s unique brand of pugilism. Here we train in effortlessly powerful punching, dodging, basic and advanced strategies, footwork, perceptive skills, ‘reading’ skills and much more. Exercises are undertaken in increasing awareness and consciousness which are so necessary for boxing mastery. In freeplay we train for skill, not power we save the power for the bags. This enables us to relax more and concentrate on developing necessary skills instead of knocking our opponent’s head off. The atmosphere is more conducive to learning as you will get hit of course but not hard enough for you to worry about. Peter runs boxing intensives at Texas each year in which he also teaches his highest level of boxing, Huang Shen - ‘to spring up on all sides, as prolific as thought’.
A short word on self-defense. We don’t teach it in Cheng Hsin. Self-defense to quote Peter ‘implies an avoidance of aggression or violence’. This avoidance can take many forms such as running away and talking as well as engaging the adversary in combat. This is a different domain to the objectives of Cheng Hsin. In Cheng Hsin we learn how to fight.
Saying that, boxing mastery is not the purpose of Cheng Hsin. For more information on Cheng Hsin and to sign up for the newsletter, please visit the web site where there is a stack of information at:
www.chenghsin.com
You can also find out more from Peter’s book’s:
The Principles of Effortless Power
Cheng Hsin T’ui Shou: The Art of Effortless Power
Ancient Wisdom, New Spirit (Ontological)
Reflections of Being (Ontological)
All are available from Amazon but you experience some difficulties in obtaining some as they may be temporarily out of print (Art of Effortless Power, Ancient Wisdom, I think). Alternately you may be able to obtain them from the publisher at:
www.northatlanticbooks.com
Download Cheng Hsin Article by Klaus-Heinrich Peters (.DOC)
|
