This phrase is widely misunderstood and taken to mean other than what the Creators of the Art had in mind.
Today we will talk about this descriptive statement and do our best to explain what is really meant, along with some ideas on how you too can achieve it.
To achieve Body As A Single Unit several attributes need to be cultivated and made to work collectively. The same goes for creating Peng.
Some of these attributes are; Alignment, Root, Rotation, and Expansion.
I had a Karate friend who claimed that when he did a Lunge Punch he was using his entire body so he proclaimed that Karate was also an art that used ‘body as a single unit.’
Unfortunately, he did not understand the difference between Internal and External.
A Lunge Punch is similar to a hammer striking a nail. It is all of one thing.
Internal on the other hand is an art of many things combining to create a hand movement, a step, and even a punch. Internal works more like a watch work than a hammer.
Chen Xin talked about ‘the turning of the joints’ in his hard-to-decipher book. It’s a great line and partly explains the difference between Internal and External.
Taiji and Qi Gong both use Joint Adjustment rather than ‘movement’. Movement in this case is muscle-based and not Internal. It is just moving, probably not very coordinated, and definitely not coming from the joints.
T’Ai Chi Ch’uan for Health and Self-Defense (Vintage)
In the martial arts, there are many schools. Most of them emphasize the strong defeating the weak and the swift conquering the slow. Clearly, they all rely on external muscular force to win. This is not the way of T’ai Chi. The art of T’ai Chi is entirely different.
One main difference between Internal and External is the use of joint-based adjustment.
Hong Junsheng defined the essential energy of Taiji and Qi Gong thusly, “Peng is an expanding, rotating kind of energy’.
Rotation is not the same as turning. Turning done commonly has little proper alignment and is usually loose. Rotation calls for supreme alignment and is “tight” in the Internal sense of “Tight” that is. Not in the usual sense which commonly means contracting.
Tight in Internal Arts means that your body fits together “tightly”. It does not imply contraction, or the tightening of muscles.
To “rotate” the body must follow the Rules of Alignment, otherwise a person will wobble. Wobbling is most common.
Now we get to the heart of the article – Expansion.
An Expanding kind of Energy
Most people do not have a clear idea of what this could mean, but we have a simple answer. It simply means stretching must be present in all movements, and in all body parts.
Sound easy? No of course it doesn’t, and for most people, it seems a weird and impossible idea.
However, it clearly is possible with the right kind of training or Hong would not be basing his entire description of Peng on it.
If you do not know of Hong Junsheng or his reputation I strongly suggest searching him out and reading about his amazing feats.
Here’s a clever story about him and one of his many matches.
Hong instructed every day at Black Tiger Springs in Jinan, Shandong, China.
Almost every day he had challengers come to face him down. He never lost.
And this was despite being a slender, small man. So small that in his youth he was taunted with the phrase, “3rd sister” which is quite an insult in China.
One day a very large young challenger came to Hong and told him that although he did not have much time he was there to show him up and demonstrate that Taiji was a useless art.
As Hong often did he replied, “Maybe we should find out.”
The young man attacked with vigor and was thrown back and down. “Must have slipped”, he said.
He attacked again with the same result.
During this, Hong was standing with his pipe in one hand and the other on his hip. No one saw him move.
The attacker came in a 3rd time and again was thrown out, a little harder, and thrown down.
He admitted defeat but claimed he could not figure out what Hong did and also claimed that he never saw Hong move.
“I have to leave as I only have a short time in Jinan, can you please give me something to take with me so I can improve my own Gong Fu?”
Hong thought for a moment and then said, I will give you a task, if you can complete it I will give you a gift of instruction. The task is you must move that boulder from the right side of this square to the left and rear side. The boulder was huge and very heavy.
The challenger thought he may not be able to move it but decided he would give it a try as the gift was sure to be Gold.
He grunted and heaved, started again, and finally staggered to his feet carrying the boulder. He wobbled over to where Hong had indicated and dropped it down.
“You see, he said, I am very strong, and I have accomplished your task.”
“Your gift of instruction”, Hong replied, “is this. I could never have done that. Now go and ponder your gift.”
The Glue that Binds
As with creating Peng the ability to Expand relies on cultivating several other attributes.
Alignment is one attribute that many take lightly but without it, or without understanding the rules of Alignment, many other attributes cannot be created.
Here are a few to begin with.
As stated in the Classics, the head must be ‘suspended from above’. But practice must go beyond that simple statement.
To align the head there are Three points to consider.
The back of the head, where the spine enters the skull, must be pulled up and straightened.
The top of the head must also be pulled upwards, straight up, not up and back.
When you work those two points the third one enters the picture, the chin must be slightly tilted downwards for the other two to correctly align.
When done correctly this should result in a good stretch being felt at the back of the neck.
This stretch, or expansion, is enhanced by dropping the shoulders deeply into their sockets so that other stretches along the side of the neck are created.
In Taiji and Qi Gong, we are mostly in our backs. Those used to pushing their chest out and their lower back in will have to adjust to this. Our backs should mostly be slightly rounded out and straight, with the chest usually slightly rounded in.
When the head and neck are correctly aligned we now drop our tailbone straight down and this creates a long stretch down our back, and should ensure that our general appearance is very straight.
Our back is required to be very supple in Taiji. We need the ability to create stretches on several different planes through our backs. Diagonal, from left shoulder to right hip, side to side, for instance, a straight stretch down the stable side of our body, while the power side of our body slightly rounds outwards.
We often do an exercise that we jokingly call, “Fire your chiropractor” as it goes a long way towards healing back problems, while simultaneously bringing attention to different parts of our back, and how to stretch them open.
It is a simple gradual rounding of the back while our arms stretch forward as we drop down the back. It is difficult to explain in words but simple to show in person.
More on Expansion
To say that our entire body must be capable of stretching/expanding seems impossible to the untrained, but like other Internal attributes is possible with sufficient training and information.
Here’s a simple one. Can you create a stretch from your shoulder to your elbow?
Even this simple stretch requires alignment as it is not possible unless the shoulder has a hip to sit on. You cannot stretch away from something that is not rooted.
If you think about that last statement for a moment you will realize that even stretching a small elastic requires that one end of the elastic be rooted. All other stretches require this also.
Stretching from our shoulders to our hips gives rise to the fact that our shoulders must consistently align with our hips. If you twist your upper body, which is considered ‘moving’, your shoulders misalign and will not be capable of rooting.
All body parts must align with the hips. This is possible even when most of your weight is on one side.
To create a stretch from your elbow to your fingers requires that the fingers point upwards and the elbow points straight down. If your elbow floats it cannot be rooted, and all body parts must be rooted for you to say that you are performing Taiji, otherwise you are simply practicing to gain that ability.
Fingers are one of three body parts that always go up. All other body parts must sink and root. This calls for an exceptional ability to ‘let go’. Something most people are not capable of.
