By Han Jingyu
Translator: Li Jiong
(Assisted by Bertram Chock, Scott Meredith & Raymond Sosnowski)
First of all, I want to thank Mr. Stifen and the Italian International Yiquan Institute. They created the chance to exchange and delve into Yiquan with everybody here.
1、 At this time, I want to talk about the results that I’ve gotten from the research and teaching process since I put forward the Second Course of Yiquan at the Yiquan Conference in China in 1997. This may also be seen as a summary of my learning of Yiquan. The amount of material is great, and it involves the knowledge of multifold subjects, however, my presentation time is also limited. Therefore, I will be unable to fully develop this subject. So, I will highlight the essentials by concentrating on the main points here, these are, the problem of realizing Yiquan and the method for teaching it. I will draw a roadmap for the audience, which will arrow you to know the cause and effect of Yiquan, where we came from, where we will go, the direction, way and method, and what outlooks we will pick up on the way. You will see what obstacles we will meet and how to overcome them. You may also find out what stage you are currently in via this roadmap. We have just met for the first time, and haven’t communicated with each other before, so I plan to enunciate things perfectly first. If anyone finds something that I haven’t clearly explained, then you may bring it up and allow me explain further. Or if you have any questions, please note them down so that we may discuss them later.
Toward a same thing, due to the different experiences and perspectives, there will be some different opinions and understanding, with different cognition results in different methodologies, and so the conclusions will also be different. In order to get the only, certain and proper conclusion, it is necessary to research the way of cognition. Therefore, our work should start with a discussion on how to understand Yiquan.
2、 Yiquan is called the “Life Science”, it can also be called a great engineering of building and changing both physiology and psychology. Here there are two difficulties:
a) on the physiological side, there is the figuration of movement (trace reactions, how to solve this problem); and
b) on the psychological side, there is the figuration of thinking and personality (self-affirmation, how to solve this problem).
It isn’t easy to unravel these two great difficulties, they both require processing and time. It won’t be finished as soon as you hear my lecture. Here I only express Yiquan with epistemology, methodology and my own experience. My hope is that it will help everyone who learns Yiquan in the future.
3、 According to my experience in studying and teaching, if one can’t progress quickly, or progress to a certain level, then one can’t advance any more. There are three reasons for this: one is that his basic knowledge configuration doesn’t support it; the second is that his life experiences are insufficient; and the third is that he can’t give up his implicit thought process in understanding the matter. It is especially the third point, because it contains the pain of beating oneself down and the difficulty of overcoming oneself. This is a tribulation to one’s intellectuality and sense. (Introduce <Talk about Method>--Descartes as a transition)
1. What is “quan”?---- “Quan” is a person’s ability to respond to an object
We ought to look at it from the viewpoint of producing science (why has this happened) (just as how to go about understanding a person...), from the viewpoint of history (induction course), and finally, look at it from the viewpoint of requirements (the requirements of the living and one’s intellect).
2. The epistemological orientation of Yiquan:-- this is researching a person’s movement as enveloped by the consciousness.
1) The orientation of the leading factor of the body’s movement-- it is leading by spirit and the nervous system.
2) The orientation of the analytic plane of movement:—activity of consciousness is the main thread.
3) The orientation of the doer of cognition:--a person’s activity consciousness is the doer.
4) Conclusion: all of a person’s movements are enveloped by the consciousness. (This includes movement of the body, the movement of thinking, and the activity of consciousness.)
3. The learning orientation of Yiquan
Taiji
Chinese Bagua
martial arts Shaolin
etc
The movement law of human
Martial arts science
(Yiquan Science)
Karate
Foreign Taekwondo
Martial arts Boxing
The cognition of etc
human beings
Life Science
Other subjects
If we talk from the viewpoint of the development of science, the stuff we take out is always more than the stuff we put in, because what we put in are examples, and what we take out is a universal law. It is imaginable, that along with going deeply into researching Yiquan science, it arouses the interposition of other subjects, such as philosophy, psychics, linguistics, pedagogy, physiology, esthetics and humanics, etc., and at the same time, it also brings influence to them.
Conclusion: Yiquan is martial arts science. It is a science which takes consciousness as the point of entry in researching the movement law of human body. It is cognition of the external law of nature, like mathematics, chemistry and mechanics. “A human can’t say east or west, a law can’t say south or north.” (For example: in building a house, all kinds of houses with different styles have different roofs and decorations, just as sports have different kinds of schools and styles. But all houses have a roof and a door, this is their commonality and inevitability, it is determined by the requirements of a house. Understand this point and one may get an understanding of the intrinsic nature of “house”. Excessive emphasis on individuality will bring diminished results in understanding the commonality and intrinsic nature.)
Explain again: the difference between sports elements and sports item.(for example: the difference between glossology and speech)
II. The requirements and cultivation of Yiquan practitioners
1. Love truth (I love my teacher, but I love truth more. Truth is only one, it is not only a subjective understanding, but also has the requirement of external inevitability and validity. Therefore, we should lay down the idea of schools i.e. different sects)
2. Scientific attitude (Truth exists in the objective world, that is, exists in nature. Follow the teaching and follow nature-- the difference of three kinds of instructors)
3. The ability of observing, thinking, analyzing and judging something by oneself independently (One should avoid following like sheep or with superstition)
4. Fortitudinous volition of pursuing truth (Intellectual yearning is a very long road. Always ask why, using the spirit of inquiring into the root of the matter)
5. Solid spirit of practice (Devote oneself to practice, if one doesn’t practice then one won’t ever know-- a comparison of church)
The above five items are the conditions and requirements for martial arts students. They are also for training the personalities of martial arts students. Furthermore, they are internal prescriptions of human nature, it is the only way toward self-realization.
III. The compendium of martial arts science ("horizontally" two ways and "vertically" three stages)
It is the cognition of the cognitive way of martial arts science. It is a key to unravel the treasury of Chinese martial arts. (It is a total differentiating and explaining thinking tool)
1. The cognition development course of Yiquan
know objectivity
know yourself
know the method of understanding
Two lays of cognition: phenomena and substance itself
A. Person’s process of understanding, talk from the cognition how it is produced, be clear in both lays.
B. Martial arts as an object of cognition and martial arts as life activity.
(1) Martial arts as an object of cognition is a kind of life phenomena, its identity is an object of cognition, and it is the cognition of law by the cognitive doer to the cognition object. It is a conclusion to the object phenomena.
(2) Martial arts as your life activity. Its identity is your own ability of life activity. It appears on the process of your own life, and, at the same time, you get the apperception to it by yourself.
C. Two cognition tools: intellect and intuition
(1) Logic (includes three systems)
Its function and limitations
Inevitability: If we aren’t using the method of logic to express concepts, then we also can’t pass information.
Validity: valid exerted in the world.
Selectivity: the difference of its own precondition and cognition object, the cognition object is motive object, motive object is whole, however, concept cognition is unilateralist.
The precondition of logic is rigor and comprehensiveness, but if looked at from its producing, it is neither rigorous nor comprehensive. (Talk about theory of measuring and true proposition).
(2) Dialectic (Two traditions of West and East: Hegel and Longshu)
The development of cognition based on formal logic depends on the antinomy between doer and object, and taxology and atomism, and thus accordingly, contradiction cognition is produced. To solve contradiction cognition, then dialectic is produced.
Talk about the developing process of western philosophy
the developing process of eastern philosophy
(1) Ontology
The above two points are built upon the foundation of experience, they are still the cognition with respect to the objects, built on a foundation of experience. When intellectuality advances again, it will turn into cognition with respect to the doer of cognition. Kant put forward the condition of experience, consequently, he led attention to the doer of cognition. Later, it developed into Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, Ernst Cassirer’s semeiology, Heidegger’s doer cognition, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophy hermeneutic and Mikel Dufrenne’s aesthetics and philosophy. They lead cognition towards ontology. But none have disengaged from the area of cognition. The eventual boundary of cognition they arrived is: the form of “it is X as well as X”. It is the topmost form of cognition.
Intuition:
(1) Introspection
Self-consciousness, now, whole, self-proved, non-expression
Compare intellect and intuition:
1. Both are enveloped by consciousness, and both are based on the human ability of sense.
2. Both are practical existence, objectivity has matter that can be perceived, and that subjectivity has the ability to understand.
3. The differences are: direct and indirect, equal and almost, whole and partial, abstract and concrete, and noumenal and cognitive.
4. The method of transition and amalgamation
i. Via approximation to the utility bound (acceptability bound, ignore)
ii. The matter of consciousness jump (savvy works, explain “see the moon then forget the finger”, perceive the meaning from the concept, enter the noumenon from cognition)
5. Transcend cognition (turn into noumenon proving and knowing) Cognition and action combine
2. Introduction to Chinese doer thinking tradition
(1) If there isn’t any doer, then there isn’t any value
(2) If it can’t be exhibited in the activity of life, then it hasn’t any value
(3) If one hasn’t experienced something by oneself, then there isn’t any possibility to cognize it
(4) The necessity of doer action devoting in something: talk about the practice characteristic of doer.
(5) Sum up: “do yourself and you do” all rest with yourself.
1. Theory and practice are one at all, they prove each other and blend with each other
Use both the first course’s conceptual expression and the second course’s feeling delivery, lead the student to come into and realize the noumenon of movement.
2. Take the second course as the main thread, and take the first course as the tool
(1) The first and second courses are put forward as teaching theory and instrument respectively, they are named according to the time of development (early and late periods, respectively).
(2) We take the second course as the main thread, because the orientation that a human is the doer,--is determined by the fact that a human is the certain doer on the world--otherwise, all things are meaningless. (The response is the doer’s response, cognition is the doer’s cognition, consciousness is the human’s consciousness, movement is the human’s movement, noumenon is the human’s noumenon, and human’s spiritualism illuminates the world) All things should be fulfilled in your life by yourself.
3. In the course of teaching, request devoted understanding
Because martial arts is human body’s martial arts this noumenon attribute, and the second course is an action method teaching this precondition, it determines that a student must devote himself to it in order to understand it, and only then can he achieve the aim of studying martial arts. (Theory is the thing’s theory, this theory then this act, theory and thing combine to one, if you never act, then you can never understand)
1. Explain the principle clearly
2. Teach the training method
3. Practice by yourself
4. Prove by yourself
VI. Four sentences of the general programme of the Second Course
Producing a feeling with a fixed method (It is an apperception, and it is an archetypal movement state of life. Do an action, enter a state, get a feeling, and grasp this state)
Giving up the method after getting the feeling (It is a false method, affirm then negate it)
Letting the feeling follow into everything (Movement is the mother of all training, accomplish it in movement)
Personal feeling leads to complete awareness
Movement contains both affirmation and denial at the same time, this is derived from movement itself, it is both theory and a final state. If we discuss it from the teaching point of view, then it is affirmation first and then denial. There is an order, lacking affirmation, then there is nothing, however if there is no denial then it is stone dead. These above points are talking about the method, one should embody it in practice, and feel and realize it in reality.
The cognition to prime education
Fulaveil put forward prime cognition in 1976, which gave rise to the upsurge in researching the doer cognition, the cognition participated by prime cognition is a more perfect cognition without fail..., it offers plentiful theoretical knowledge for studying games.
Norman: expect a student to study, but never teach a student how to study, this strange phenomenon will become a history.
Teach people how to fish, instead of give people a fish.
Explain that the action teaching method isn’t researching the object’s action, but rather, it is leading the doer to grasp the content of his own life. (Distinguish object action and doer action, object action is the object of analysis, and doer action is your own action)
Prime cognition includes: prime cognition knowledge, prime cognition experience and prime cognition control. The aim is enabling the students to receive the transfer and master the knowledge and ability as a doer.
VII. The five stages of the Second Course
1. The five stages:
(1) “Relaxation”
(2) “Tension”
(3) “Relaxation and tension change each other”
(4) “The body relaxed and the mind tension”
(5) Demonstration
On-limits demonstration and the life combine to one
include: ① understand the truth
②observe and practice
③combat
④athletics
⑤health preservation
⑥aesthetics
⑦and so on
2. The practice of assembling lesson style
3. Use the two courses to compare and explain in the process of teaching
4. Train the student’s self-determination ability
5. Explain the Juiajie (using something unreal to produce real results) method of Yiquan.
6. Define idealism (Jiajie as a memory of reality, it must return to reality, subjectivism and experimentalism are idealism. The active subjectivity must be restricted by objective validity, nature is the final frontier of humanity)
7. The sequence transfer of movement-- just as water flow into the sea.
8. To gain strength and to be happy is an enduring principle, it is an objective stipulation which is responded to subjectivity, human nature lead to God (nature), and self-evidence. The coherence of subjective realization and objective validity.
9. Three points of explanation
① The logistical necessity of movement, each stage above should take the accomplishment of the prior stage as its precondition, otherwise, all can’t come into existence.
② Martial arts dance (health dance) is the maximal realm of Yiquan training, it is a result of martial arts studying, rather than of teaching content. It requests that one has hearty vitality, abundant feeling, excellent introspection ability, and harmonious sports ability. Its active doer is one’s own body and mind, its tool is one’s own body and mind, and what it is expressing is the feeling of one’s own body and mind, what it is perceiving is the existence of one’s own body and mind. What they call: the feeling comes, the hands wield it, the feet tread it, it is a natural production. When you reach this realm, your whole life is all art.
③ To explain it again, the above explanation of the second course training content, is the essence and noumenon of sport. It must be incarnated in action, however, for its existence, it can be known. But cognition is second nature, namely, it should be exhibited via the investigation and expression method of the first course. Therefore, all kinds of perspectives to understand and researching martial arts come into existence.
VIII. Know, train and grasp human nature
1. Know and train your intellect, thirst for knowledge, and explore continuously.
2. Know and train your senses, objectively and cautiously, and the ability of cognizing and of utilizing cognition tools.
3. Know and train your intuition, introspective perceptual abilities, and powers of awareness.
4. Know and train your transcendental wisdom, self-evidence, and activity, with undaunted spirit and an open heart
5. Cognize and train your practice spirit, the body and mind combined in action, form and spirit combined to one, theory and object combined to one, if you never practice, then you never really know, so we still need to add a sentence that “one should grasp himself”.
6. Cognize and train yourself as a doer.
There is a stele in Ancient Greece at Olympus on which is written: “Human, know yourself!” During endless history, people have continuously pursued this question. We can consider that Yiquan——the Life Science-- was founded as a direct response to this problem. It opens a way to know oneself. To understand and train human nature is incorporated through all the teachings and practices of Yiquan. Educational anthropology says that one’s cognitive development, that is, the accomplishment of cognitive ability, is the essence to help a person. If we talk about it from the perspective that cognition and practice combine to become one, then it is self-control to accomplish your own glorious life.
IX. Summing-up
Look back the thread of the Yiquan science development
1. Human life requirement→the development of epistemology→the development of ontology→answer the requirement of cognition→tend to noumenon life action→fulfill human’s life requirement.
2. The cognition of motility: object motility cognition→doer motility cognition→doer cognition motility cognition. (It is transfered among logic, dialectic, epistemology and ontology, and finally, choice and grasp it by active action, which clears up all contradictions. Show vitality in movement)
3. From “turn over to think” turns into introspection, from intellectual pursuit of knowledge comes clearing of intuition, and from the opposition of subjectivity and objectivity comes the unity of subjectivity and objectivity.
4. It is Weltanschauung as well as methodology. The outside world→subjectivity cognition--how the subjectivity reflects the objectivity—the active subjectivity and the objectivity combine to one, and—the existence of subjectivity and objectivity combine to one. As the human doers, what we need to grasp is our active subjectivity, so we need to practice martial arts,--martial arts is the response ability of a human doer. Subjectivity is a part of objectivity, subjectivity and objectivity respond to realization, and then this being appears, this being proves existence, and the present time being proves everlasting. This being just is only, and existence just is everlasting. Illuminate the world by the light of human spirituality.
5. What I talked about here is primary a thoughtway, so long as you understand this thoughtway, even if there are some deficient parts in my expression, they won’t bring any bad effect, and there is nothing that can prevent you from coming into the wonderful realm of Yiquan.
Yiquan, originally, was a science of combat, and, while it succeeds as that, it is a science of life. Originally, it was for defeating opponents and overcoming circumstances, whenever it succeeds, one accomplishs the completion of oneself. Considering from the standpoint of educational anthropology, it allows oneself to develop into a full-grown person. Every student should again practice this cognitive development course on himself or herself. By this practice, it changes and consummates the states of your body, spirit, and your viewpoint toward life. And then by proceeding to the next step, it changes and consummates your experience of life. Know yourself, grasp yourself, achieve yourself and enjoy yourself in real life. I think these are what Yiquan has to offer to humanity.
X. A bit explanation of mine
I explained above a great deal regarding Yiquan, as related to several broad fields. But you must be certain not to misunderstand or think that I invented a new theory and put forward a new method. What I want to explain is: that what I have talked about, in these contents, have all been previously memtioned and experienced by our ancient sages. In the progressive course that I follow, I have just dusted off the signposts that they had already set up, or, to put it another way, I simply re-paint the map which our forefathers had already drawn for us, so that those who accompany me can see it a little more clearly. This also is the deepest experience in my study. While I was exploring ahead, led by intellect, every time I experienced a revelation, figured out a problem, or found a solution, I was always amazed to realize that the solution had already been obtained previously by someone else, being on record already, namely, it is said this way had already been walked by someone else, and that they had set up a signpost. People have been walking on this path for thousands of years. In particular, it is said that if we are not guided by these signposts on the way, then it is impossible for us to come here within our lifetime. The most amazing finding is that our forefathers had not only progressed so far so early, but also that they had reached the end-point, namely, it is said that the farthest place where human spirit can reach, they had all reached. And what is their realm? It is full and round, complete apperception. If you are a monist, then you will certainly believe this is a certain result. But in reality, why do you lack this experience? It is because you are still on the way. This is just like the developmental process of mathematics, before people discovered reduction of fraction to a common denominator, integers and fractions couldn’t be operated on together, however, with Cartesian coordinate geometry and algebra, these methods and operations are contained in a single system. Accordingly, as a practitioner applying unremitting effort, when you reach the end point, you will get the experience of complete apperception as well.
Below I copy two ancient poems to illustrate these two different realms:
Inscription on Xilin Cliff by Sushi
Look at it crossways, it becomes a mountain,
Look at it sideways, it becomes a peak,
Far, near, high and low all are different,
I don’t know what Lushan Mountain really looks like,
Just because I am in this mountain.
Look over high mountains By Dufu
As I approach the summit,
I view all mountains as small.
In the end, I wish to express my infinitely sublime devotion to our human ancestors who created civilization!
March 21, 2002 morning In beautiful Zhuhai
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