question about abs contraction/expansion

[WanderingMonk]

I read in one of the forum sometime ago about how a taiji guy showed off his skill by poping a weight plate (5 lb?) into the air from his abdomen.

Now, I just did some rough calculation and came up with 12 m/s^2 as the rate which his abdomen had to be expanding in order to pop the plate into the air (I made some assumptions, but his ab had to be expanding faster than the rate 9.8 m/s^2 to overcome gravity and pop the plate into the air).

Now, here's my question, do taiji quan has special training which specially concentrated on abs concentration/expansion which develop this skill? Or is this just a natural byproduct of taiji breathing training?

This expanding and contracting skill will also do wonder at deflecting and absorbing blows (I think).

wm

[batesy]

I met a student of John Bracy's who could shoot a coin a fair distance into the air using lower abdominal contraction/expansion. I think he trained it by deep abdominal breathing while using the hand to provide resistance.

[yuanfen]

Dan tien rotation- a Chen specialty.

[Kumkuat]

Just a side effect of good taiji training. Of course, you can train just to pop stuff off your belly, but that won't improve your taiji any.

[foolinthedeck]

there are girls who can shoot ping pong balls out of their genitalia too, but i dont think it has to do with taiji... no it must be a much higher level gong.

[Repulsive Monkey]

Its just the development of different Jin's within Taiji practice thats all. As already mentioned the Dan Tien in this case is exerting not contractions as such but such things as Zhe De Jin or simply suddenly absorbing/suddenly expelling Jin.

[Muppet]

Proper reverse breathing exercises will develop the lower-ab/dan-tien area.


This article doesn't describe tai chi, but it should give you an idea of what's going on:

For example, I witnessed a situation when a Xinyi exponent was sitting on a bed cross-legged and used Discharging Dantian method to jump one feet high. Dai Kui is said to have been able to jump in this way from one chair to another across a table. True or not, discharging with Dantian is the most powerful weapon of Dai style.

Read the whole article here: http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/xyxy/daitech1.html

[WanderingMonk]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the replies.

wm

[Lowlynobody]

Ging is ging is ging eh? Once again so many different martial arts have so many similarities. And yet not....