Why Stomp?

Hmmm….don’t put any weight into the stomp? I’ve been taught almost the exact opposite: that most of the stomp is a natural shift of the weight into the leg. However, neither of my teachers emphasize it. One has us simply put the leg down softly. The stomping is done after relaxation and peng are attained. My other teacher has me go into horse stance and then bang the fist down in buddha’s attendant by using a body drop. No stomping yet. But he has specifically said it’s almost all body weight. Doing it that way prevents headaches and knee problems.

This is an area that should be talked about more. I see lots of people doing this in a loud, superficial, external kind of way.

stomping should be done as relaxed as possible. The more sung you are the less possibility of injury.

putting the feet down softly is also another way of training, although it was said that Chen fake trained that way becos he often did his forms in the deep of the night in his bedroom where he was sharing with his cousin and didn’t want to wake his cousin up.

Stomping serves to disperse(san) your qi and dispersing is an important principle to achieving emptiness in your body. This is something i am still trying to figure out.

Imagine disperse as a drop of water falling and hitting the surface and thus causing ripples. This analogy has been used by knowingfish at some point. So if you imagine stomping to do the same you’ll what i mean.

There is a stomp before die cha, and die cha is before golden chicken on one leg. Die cha is a difficult movement and it is the best example, i think, of how disperse during stomping is important.

My own progression of experience with the stomping is ismilar to yours. It was quite common to not that beginners (as did I) always would try to stomp hard. Then with more instruction and practice, it would be toned down. I also received the instruction you mentioned for proper weighting, etc. I also appreciated Feng’s perspective which reminded us that practice wasn’t supposed to kill us, and ruin our knees!

Perhaps the bottom line is something in common to many aspects of the pactice—it is all about practicing enough to arrive at correct alignment and path of motion. As Hong Junsheng always mentioned “even a millimeter off”, and you miss by a mile. So, for the stomp, if you are structurally off, and you stomp hard, you are going to jar the body in a misaligned state. You are definitely going to subject your spine, knees and other body parts to some stress.

Like all parts of the form, it makes sense to do it however slowly and mindfully might be necessary for establishing the perfect path of motion–the one which will allow alignment and structural integrity at each moment of the movement.

P.S. I forgot to add, what a great title for a post “Why Stomp?”

[quote comment="125"]@Chessman:

If there is a need to disperse qi via a stomp technique, then where is this technique found in other styles (yang, wu, sun, etc), do they not need to disperse qi? If not, why?

Good comments and thoughts ;)[/quote]

good observation. infact disperse should be throughout the form and this is true for all styles.

apart from the obvious martial application i have cited that disperse might be a reason for stomping. Now stomping in chen style means also there is a sudden change in shenfa (body method)from high to mid, and from mid to low, co-ordinated with the change in substantiality. I think it is because of this sudden change in tempo that neccesitate dispersing qi via stomping as the most effective method.

I am not sure about other styles but they seem to have a even tempo. Take Yang 108 for example, shoot the tiger follows lotus kick at the end - the shenfa is mid to mid done at a even tempo.

Shen, yi, qi
The three treasures of taiji

Song, san, tong, kong
The keys to entering the gate

Where the mind wills
The body reacts

Yi and xing
Must be separated

Hence yi zai xian
Is of utmost importance

So as not to confuse the domain
Of the mind with the body

We are all stupid
No need to figure out

Practice the methods of the ancients
Seek not and you will find enlightenment

For if we have to figure out ourselves
Then the methods are not being transmitted

Learning and understanding
Are two different things

Just as practicing to understand
And trying to understand intellectually

Hence the masters of old like to say
The secret is to practice

Those were words of value
Except they forgot to mention

That one should practice
What has been transmitted

And not be too smart
To try to second guess the methods

Be it martial arts,
Be it Buddhism

The methods of the mind
Are not easily grasped

And certainly not by
Thinking or guessing

For as Lao Tzu said
That which can be said

Is not
The real Tao

Song and San
An inseparable old couple they make

For when you see Song
You see San

The methods of Yang
Have no stomping

For how do you maintain Song
At the point of impacting forcefully?

And yet there is stomping in Yang
In High Pat on Horse

But its a mind stomp
Hence no “xing” impact

No “xing” impact means
The treasures of shen, yi, qi

Are maintained carefully
And qi is cultivated, not dispersed

Its a misunderstanding too common
When one does not follow the transmission

For the real objective is
To disperse “xing”

For only then can we say
Use intention, use no strength

And Song and San that old couple
Peacefully in harmony on the way they go

Knowingfish has provided some good prose of where the long term goal lies, and these key points are also reflected in the chen classics.Infact, there are times of soft landing where I let my mind do the stomping and can still achieve die cha, just like how it is played by zhaobao and some chen people. So not everything about this discussion comes from second-guessing. A chen stomp done correctly is physically effortless. The less effort the louder the bang. This is one manisfestation of taiji.

Xing(form with obvious shape) is necessary for undertanding the shenfa(body method). Differentiating xing and yi so that they can be better combined is indeed a good method. Common ways to achieve this are through simple visualisation exercises during zhan zhuang and silk reeling exercises or even in the forms. Due to the static nature of zhan zhuang postures, visualisation exercises are easier to attain through them than in the forms. But that is not to say that I don’t incoporate them in the forms. This is my current level of understanding through practice, not second-guessing nor intellectualisation.

Silkreeling,

your words (purposely put in BOLD)? “Stomping serves to disperse(san) your qi and dispersing is an important principle to achieving emptiness in your body. This is something i am still TRYING TO FIGURE OUT.” If anything this shows that you don’t understand what emptiness is. If you are on the right track, you won’t have “TO FIGURE OUT”. If this is not trying to intellectually understand or 2nd guess the process then i guess i’m wrong in understanding what you mean. Anyway, its your path - good luck to you

I am still figuring out lots of things. My latest thing is lifting the anus is not actually squeazzing or tensing the anus. It is the feeling attained when the tail bone is properly aligned, which is very subtle. You have been through this so remember the times when you think you have gotten something but the next day you are lost at square one or simply not consistently being able to realise a certain principle? This is what I mean when I say figuring out - it is the figuring out through practice rather than by intellectualisation. it wasn’t until recently that things became slightly less vague. However emptiness is still vague. Thanks I need the luck. This will be my path until my situation change.

the nei jia stomp is a “rebounding energy” trick. its kind of like a more vigorous version of the downward vectoring that you do with p’eng ch’uan. e.g. you vector down, then send it back up. xingyiquan uses this in both peng ch’uan and p’ao ch’uan, with the idea that you are ‘ricocheting’ energy off the ground and back up your body. incidentally, my wushu coach stressed this as the secret to why advanced/professional wushu players jump so bloody high. he emphasized the ricochet effect and also that the earth pushes back when you “attack” it thus. he used to be the coach for the shanghai team and wrote what i hear is a rather influential paper on the mechanics of the wushu jump, but unfortunately i cant read chinese yet.

My favorite jump crescent moment: on Mondays we practiced in the gym at Virginia Commonwealth University, which had a sort of 2nd floor that ran around the edges, making a balcony over the basketball courts. Anyway, i was wearing shoes that didn’t stay on so well, so out comes the jump-spin-crescent, off comes the shoe, sailing like a meteor down to the basketball court. I then have to go downstairs-with only 1 shoe on-and get it. Fortunately it didnt hit anyone.

on the article mentioning about feng Zhiqiang, he only mentioned about dou jin is bad for health. If stomping is not done properly, may cause injury esp the knee. Not to mention that the body is mainly made up of fluid, so undesire vibration to the body is to be avoided. Stomping is to be done in “song”. Yi song will lead to Xing song.(for beginner, xing and yi is not linked, hence focus on XING, =>xing song will slowly lead to yi song if practice long enough). The more song you are, the louder will be the stomp.

purposes of Stomp :
1)is for changing of foot step in order to get in to a advantage position (especially when you are wrong footed) and
2)at the same time create a psychological shock to the opponent.
3) Stomping helps teach the student to drop the weight of the body from the kua area.