（十五）人乃動物。並具靈感。譬如我以拳擊一人。彼當以手推開或身子閃開。決不能靜立待打。抵抗乃人之本能也。靜物則不然。如懸一沙包。垂懸不動。拳擊之後。當前後鼓盪。然其鼓盪之路線。乃一定之路線。向左擊之。向右盪回。此乃物之反應也。人則不然。一拳擊去。對方能抗能空。變化無定。此人之反應也。拳術家有穩，準，狠三字。等求我不發勁。發則所向披靡。然何以求穩準狠。須先求靈感。如何求靈感。讀者應在前篇王宗岳先生之行功論內求之。卽彼不動。己不動。彼微動。己先動。須在似動未動之時。意未起形未動之間。爭此先著。所向披靡矣。
15. Human beings are animals and are therefore responsive. If you send out a fist to strike an opponent, he will use a hand to block it away or dodge with his body, not just stand there and wait to get hit. It is instinctive for us to resist such a situation. Inanimate objects do not behave in this way. If you hang a sandbag, it just hangs there unmoving until you punch it, and then it merely sways back and forth along the same path. Strike it to the left, then it sways back to the right, and vice versa. This is the way objects respond. A person will instead oppose an attack or evade it, adapting unpredictably. This is the way people respond.
Boxing arts masters have three qualities: stability, precision, ruthlessness. If you lack these qualities, issuing power will be useless, but if you have them, your power will be invincible. How to gain them, you must first achieve the quality of responsiveness. The approach to this is found in Wang Zongyue’s Treatise on How to Practice: “If he takes no action, I take no action, but once he takes even the slightest action, I have already acted.” In that moment when is about to act but has not yet acted, when his intention is not yet fully committed and his technique has not yet fully taken shape, get there ahead of him, and thus you will be sure to win.
Excerpt from the translation by Paul Brennan, to be found in the Brennan Translation blog.
Boxing arts masters have three qualities: stability, precision, ruthlessness. If you lack these qualities, issuing power will be useless, but if you have them, your power will be invincible. How to gain them, you must first achieve the quality of responsiveness. The approach to this is found in Wang Zongyue’s Treatise on How to Practice: “If he takes no action, I take no action, but once he takes even the slightest action, I have already acted.” In that moment when is about to act but has not yet acted, when his intention is not yet fully committed and his technique has not yet fully taken shape, get there ahead of him, and thus you will be sure to win.
Excerpt from the translation by Paul Brennan, to be found in the Brennan Translation blog.
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