Hey,
I'm just wondering, Where did the term "Half Hard Half Soft" come from? According to Campbell Sensei (At summer camp, under the tent one of the times) Pangainoon means "Strike hard and retreat fast" or something to the same extent. Where did Half hard half soft come from?
I don't mean to offend anyone in ANY way whatsoever, so if I offend someone out there my humblest apologies, never ever meant to do that.
Thanks
-David
Half Hard/Half Soft
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Bill Glasheen
- Posts: 17299
- Joined: Thu Mar 11, 1999 6:01 am
- Location: Richmond, VA --- Louisville, KY
Half Hard/Half Soft
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote
Sometimes people feel like they're walking on eggshells when there's a bit of a disagreement on these forums (elsewhere). No need to worry; I know you mean well. Let's relax and enjoy the company.
I've heard Bobby say this. The origin of the phrase comes from three characters that Tomoyose Ryuko artfully painted in the early pages of George Mattson's Uechiryu Karatedo. Tell you what... I have a Chinese here at work. I'll get her to look at the characters and have her tell me what she thinks they mean.
Be back in a bit...
- Bill
You talkin' about me??
Sometimes people feel like they're walking on eggshells when there's a bit of a disagreement on these forums (elsewhere). No need to worry; I know you mean well. Let's relax and enjoy the company.
I've heard Bobby say this. The origin of the phrase comes from three characters that Tomoyose Ryuko artfully painted in the early pages of George Mattson's Uechiryu Karatedo. Tell you what... I have a Chinese here at work. I'll get her to look at the characters and have her tell me what she thinks they mean.
Be back in a bit...
- Bill
Half Hard/Half Soft
I was there when Bob told the story.
Bob, where are you?
Anyway, the three Chinese characters literally mean half hard half soft. But, the Chinese are a confusing bunch of folks, myself included, and like to interpret words in a million different ways. Bob was telling a story of a triad who borrowed the three Chinese characters for "half hard half soft" to mean something to the effect of "attack quick and retreat fast". It does make sense doesn't it?
Bob, where are you?
Anyway, the three Chinese characters literally mean half hard half soft. But, the Chinese are a confusing bunch of folks, myself included, and like to interpret words in a million different ways. Bob was telling a story of a triad who borrowed the three Chinese characters for "half hard half soft" to mean something to the effect of "attack quick and retreat fast". It does make sense doesn't it?
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Bill Glasheen
- Posts: 17299
- Joined: Thu Mar 11, 1999 6:01 am
- Location: Richmond, VA --- Louisville, KY
Half Hard/Half Soft
Excellent, Henry. That brings up an interesting point I drive home in my classes all the time.
Hard/soft
Attack/retreat
Hot/cold
Male/female
*
*
*
yang/yin
So we see that - as in many languages - characters/words have different meanings depending on the context.
It makes PERFECT sense to me that guerilla fighters would consider such characters as symbols of their struggle. Heck...in my dojos we use the dogwood blossom as our "symbol." Why? Yes, all this started in the state of Virginia where the dogwood is the state flower. But actually there's more to it than that. If your read up on the historical use of the dogwood, you will see that dogwood was used as skewers for cooking meat. Why? Because it didn't splinter! And so it is the wish of all that pass through our doors, that they cherish and preserve the bonds we develop through our struggles together.
The metaphor of hard/soft or yang/yin carries throughout the style. Because the dichotomies are so prevalent in what we do, I sometimes tell people that a better translation for the characters (with respect to the actual practice of the style) is "A little of this and a little of that." It works for me. It avoids the unnecessary mystique and provides real-world meanings that the average student can grasp and internalize.
- Bill
Hard/soft
Attack/retreat
Hot/cold
Male/female
*
*
*
yang/yin
So we see that - as in many languages - characters/words have different meanings depending on the context.
It makes PERFECT sense to me that guerilla fighters would consider such characters as symbols of their struggle. Heck...in my dojos we use the dogwood blossom as our "symbol." Why? Yes, all this started in the state of Virginia where the dogwood is the state flower. But actually there's more to it than that. If your read up on the historical use of the dogwood, you will see that dogwood was used as skewers for cooking meat. Why? Because it didn't splinter! And so it is the wish of all that pass through our doors, that they cherish and preserve the bonds we develop through our struggles together.
The metaphor of hard/soft or yang/yin carries throughout the style. Because the dichotomies are so prevalent in what we do, I sometimes tell people that a better translation for the characters (with respect to the actual practice of the style) is "A little of this and a little of that." It works for me. It avoids the unnecessary mystique and provides real-world meanings that the average student can grasp and internalize.
- Bill
Half Hard/Half Soft
Well, being away from a proper uechi dojo recently, I decided to take up the free taichi class given by my college. Well, it's been an eye opener. There are movements in the form I'm learning that are exactly like sanchin, but much slower and not tensed up. An example of this is the part of sanchin (sorry, never did learn the name for it) with the 3 strikes (before the 90 degree turns) that reach out, then pull and rip back before striking again. Well, in the short form that I'm learning you have almost the same movement with your arms, but no squeezing of the hands. It's about dissipating force in this case, succumbing in order to strive forward.
While we can look idealistically as uechi having it's half hard half soft approach, the same can be applied to any good martial art. Just as a karateka needs to relax his muscles to bring his arm forward swiftly, so does taichi fighter need to tense his arm at the end of a strike to apply maximum force. (if you don't get into the chi aspects, and no point in doing that at this point) Without some bend, a tree will break against a strong force, without some strength, a blade of grass would never stand up to reach towards the sun. The key is just knowing when to be which.
stepping off philisophical soapbox,
Adam
[This message has been edited by Adam (edited September 06, 2002).]
While we can look idealistically as uechi having it's half hard half soft approach, the same can be applied to any good martial art. Just as a karateka needs to relax his muscles to bring his arm forward swiftly, so does taichi fighter need to tense his arm at the end of a strike to apply maximum force. (if you don't get into the chi aspects, and no point in doing that at this point) Without some bend, a tree will break against a strong force, without some strength, a blade of grass would never stand up to reach towards the sun. The key is just knowing when to be which.
stepping off philisophical soapbox,
Adam
[This message has been edited by Adam (edited September 06, 2002).]
Half Hard/Half Soft
Adam:
You may be interested to know that in our small dojo, our Uechi Ryu teacher, who respects Tai chi by the way,frequently has us perform Sanchin "at Tai-chi speed", which means very slowly and with correct-as-possible form...NO POWER.
It's an eye-opener for sure! All of a sudden balance becomes key, and like Rick Wilson posted, you can "listen to " the Kata (thanks Rick, again!)and it's a whole new dimension of "experiencing Kata" rather than just performing it.
Anyway, I think your observations are right on the mark.There's a lot of depth in Uechi Ryu and that's probably what's keeping you finding it in other styles.
May we always dig deeper, right? NM
You may be interested to know that in our small dojo, our Uechi Ryu teacher, who respects Tai chi by the way,frequently has us perform Sanchin "at Tai-chi speed", which means very slowly and with correct-as-possible form...NO POWER.
It's an eye-opener for sure! All of a sudden balance becomes key, and like Rick Wilson posted, you can "listen to " the Kata (thanks Rick, again!)and it's a whole new dimension of "experiencing Kata" rather than just performing it.
Anyway, I think your observations are right on the mark.There's a lot of depth in Uechi Ryu and that's probably what's keeping you finding it in other styles.
May we always dig deeper, right? NM
Half Hard/Half Soft
When I had the privilege of studying under GEM in 1960 in the 'Meat Locker Loft' he taught our beginner class perform Sanchin totally relaxed & yet to keep control, to sense, savour, understand, each action, etc. After a few weeks, on my own I tried performing the Kata at full focus just to experiment. The different perspective gleaned fedback on my performance. As usual GEM was 'ahead of his time'. When he did introduce full focus into Sanchin we had the prerequisites to evolve. To this day I do Sanchin in the varying mindsets.
Thanks, Sensei.
Thanks, Sensei.
Half Hard/Half Soft
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hthom:
I was there when Bob told the story.
Bob, where are you?
Anyway, the three Chinese characters literally mean half hard half soft. But, the Chinese are a confusing bunch of folks, myself included, and like to interpret words in a million different ways. Bob was telling a story of a triad who borrowed the three Chinese characters for "half hard half soft" to mean something to the effect of "attack quick and retreat fast". It does make sense doesn't it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Please allow me to continue a bit. But let me make it clear that it is only my opinion and I might be totally out of wack, which is nothing new.
In addition to meaning half hard half soft,the three characters can also be interpretted to mean half external and half internal.
Chinese martial arts have several catagories: Nei-Gung,meaning internal work or internal practice; Wei-Gung, meaning external work or external practice; and of course our favorite, half external and half internal, which takes advantage of both the external and internal systems.
The external styles, such as Hung Gar and many other very effective fighting styles, generate most of their power externally, or practice external chi. Although they also generate Chi from their Dan Tien but mostly they use raw power, muscle, tendon, hip movement, etc.
Whereas the other end of the spectrum, Tai Chi, generates power or Chi internally, from the Dan tien only. The movements appear to be extremely soft. Nowadays most people only practice Tai Chi for health purpose.
For most martial arts folks, a life long practice in order to generate power internally for fighting purpose is just too long. We don't have the time or the patience. But then, some martial arts medicine folks believe that generating Chi or power completely by external means may be damaging to ones health and causes internal injury to the practioners themselves.
So, there is the half hard half soft catagory, or half external half internal system, taking advantage of the best from both the external and internal practices. Synergy, if you will, to generate power both from the inside, which is the Dan Tien, and from the outside, such as muscle power, tendon, hip movement, and generate Chi in our arms and legs for fighting purpose. Our beloved Uechi-ryu, I believe, was originted from a style which practices the half hard half soft concept, and somehow this "concept" of half hard half soft was taken to mean the name of our style is a different story.
If I may go on just a bit more. I believe that our Sanchin is meant for practicing the generation of Chi or power internally, which is the "soft" part of our concept. I believe that during our practice of Sanchin we should try to generate power solely from our Dan Tien, for the purpose of internal Chi practice. I don't mean that our Sanchin should be practiced sofely, I mean the power itself sholud come from the Dan Tien only.
But it is a different story when we work on our fighting katas, we should try to generate power both externall and internally, meaning from our Dan Tien in addition to from our raw power plus hip movements. This way, the internal and external work compliments each other and makes our style very effective and efficient.
Just my opinion. Please excuse me if I have distorted the truth or contradicted anyone else's opinions.
[This message has been edited by hthom (edited September 07, 2002).]
I was there when Bob told the story.
Bob, where are you?
Anyway, the three Chinese characters literally mean half hard half soft. But, the Chinese are a confusing bunch of folks, myself included, and like to interpret words in a million different ways. Bob was telling a story of a triad who borrowed the three Chinese characters for "half hard half soft" to mean something to the effect of "attack quick and retreat fast". It does make sense doesn't it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Please allow me to continue a bit. But let me make it clear that it is only my opinion and I might be totally out of wack, which is nothing new.
In addition to meaning half hard half soft,the three characters can also be interpretted to mean half external and half internal.
Chinese martial arts have several catagories: Nei-Gung,meaning internal work or internal practice; Wei-Gung, meaning external work or external practice; and of course our favorite, half external and half internal, which takes advantage of both the external and internal systems.
The external styles, such as Hung Gar and many other very effective fighting styles, generate most of their power externally, or practice external chi. Although they also generate Chi from their Dan Tien but mostly they use raw power, muscle, tendon, hip movement, etc.
Whereas the other end of the spectrum, Tai Chi, generates power or Chi internally, from the Dan tien only. The movements appear to be extremely soft. Nowadays most people only practice Tai Chi for health purpose.
For most martial arts folks, a life long practice in order to generate power internally for fighting purpose is just too long. We don't have the time or the patience. But then, some martial arts medicine folks believe that generating Chi or power completely by external means may be damaging to ones health and causes internal injury to the practioners themselves.
So, there is the half hard half soft catagory, or half external half internal system, taking advantage of the best from both the external and internal practices. Synergy, if you will, to generate power both from the inside, which is the Dan Tien, and from the outside, such as muscle power, tendon, hip movement, and generate Chi in our arms and legs for fighting purpose. Our beloved Uechi-ryu, I believe, was originted from a style which practices the half hard half soft concept, and somehow this "concept" of half hard half soft was taken to mean the name of our style is a different story.
If I may go on just a bit more. I believe that our Sanchin is meant for practicing the generation of Chi or power internally, which is the "soft" part of our concept. I believe that during our practice of Sanchin we should try to generate power solely from our Dan Tien, for the purpose of internal Chi practice. I don't mean that our Sanchin should be practiced sofely, I mean the power itself sholud come from the Dan Tien only.
But it is a different story when we work on our fighting katas, we should try to generate power both externall and internally, meaning from our Dan Tien in addition to from our raw power plus hip movements. This way, the internal and external work compliments each other and makes our style very effective and efficient.
Just my opinion. Please excuse me if I have distorted the truth or contradicted anyone else's opinions.
[This message has been edited by hthom (edited September 07, 2002).]
Half Hard/Half Soft
Excellent post hthom! Well worded and clearly shows you know and believe what your talking about. Don`t hesitate to share that kind of knowledge. kindly grant me permission to print a copy and credit is due to the author.
Half Hard/Half Soft
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Chinese martial arts have several catagories: Nei-Gung,meaning internal work or internal
practice; Wei-Gung, meaning external work or external practice; and of course our
favorite, half external and half internal, which takes advantage of both the external and
internal systems<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Often heard that we are a "hybred" system, I wonder if Kanbun can take credit for the mix...shame we will likely never know.
practice; Wei-Gung, meaning external work or external practice; and of course our
favorite, half external and half internal, which takes advantage of both the external and
internal systems<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Often heard that we are a "hybred" system, I wonder if Kanbun can take credit for the mix...shame we will likely never know.
Half Hard/Half Soft
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CANDANeh:
---- kindly grant me permission to print a copy---- <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Certainly, please feel free. There's no guarantee that the info is anywhere near being accurate though
Henry
---- kindly grant me permission to print a copy---- <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Certainly, please feel free. There's no guarantee that the info is anywhere near being accurate though
Henry
Half Hard/Half Soft
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CANDANeh:
[QUOTE]--- I wonder if Kanbun can take credit for the mix...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sorry to say that I don't think so. There are other semi-external/internal systems in Chinese martial arts. And, as you probably know, Goju is also a half hard half soft system, it may or may not be originated from the same Chinese style as ours.
Henry
[QUOTE]--- I wonder if Kanbun can take credit for the mix...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sorry to say that I don't think so. There are other semi-external/internal systems in Chinese martial arts. And, as you probably know, Goju is also a half hard half soft system, it may or may not be originated from the same Chinese style as ours.
Henry
Half Hard/Half Soft
Hard, Hard-Soft, and Soft gets a fairly detailed treatment in terms of chi development in the muscles (external) and from the Lower Dan Tien (internal) in "The Essence of Shaolin White Crane: Martial Power and Qigong" by Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. The author repeatedly indicates the theory and practice are readily applicable to all MA styles. Its an interesting read with several subsequent volumes (I haven't read those yet, I'm waiting on UPS) dedicated to the finer points of chi development and manipulation. The salient points noted by hthom could form and abstract of the book.
