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Old 05-16-2012, 04:41 PM   #25
davoravo
Location: New Zealand
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 67
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Re: Aiki, Iki, Kokyu, Heng-Ha and Aun, Part 2 - Breathing deeper...

I have a cultural question. Following your blog I went looking at Heng Ha breathing and I found that a description of generals Heng and Ha

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/ind...erals-heng-ha/
Quote:
"As for the name "General Heng and Ha 哼哈二将", they originated from Ming dynasty novel Fengsheng Yanyi 《封神演义》 (The Investitures of the Gods). The author based them on the two door guardians of buddhist temple. Both of them were fierce and brave. They generally became Chinese folks figures because of this novel.

One was called Zheng lun 郑伦. He was able to spit out white breath from the nose to kill the enemy. The other was called Chen Qi 陈奇. He was able to spit out yellow breath from the mouth to kill the enemy."
So general Heng is actually spitting ("hoicking a lurgey" according to the school kids across the road) or forefully exhaling, hence the contracted abdomen

I understand Heng usually but not always refers to inhalation in Taiji which would be different from the cultural understanding above.. So I was wondering if in Japan the common cultural understanding, not the martial artists' version, is whether the Un/Heng figure is inhaling or spitting. Just wondering if the imagery has changed when it moved countries or whether this association of Un/heng with inhalation is purely a martial artists conception.

Last edited by davoravo : 05-16-2012 at 04:43 PM. Reason: punctuation

David McNamara
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