Zhang Sanfeng (1279-1368)
- As soon as you move, your entire body should be light and sensitive and all its parts connected.
- The Qi should be roused and the spirit gathered within.
- Do not allow gaps; do not allow bulges or hollows; do not allow discontinuities.
- The root is in the feet, energy issues up through the legs, is controlled by the waist and expressed in the hands and fingers.
- From the feet to the legs to the waist should be one complete flow of Qi. You will then be able to seize opportunities and occupy the superior position. But, if your body is scattered and in confusion, you will be unable to seize opportunities and gain the superior position.
- Look for weakness in the waist and the legs.
- The same is true for above and below, front and back, left and right. All this has to do with the mind and not with externals. If there is an above, there must be a below; if there is a front, there must be a back and if there is a left, there must be a right.
- Full and empty should be clearly distinguished. Any given point has the potential for full and empty, and the whole body has this dual aspect: full and empty.
- All the joints of your body should be connected without permitting the slightest break.
Wang Zongyue (1700s)
- By moving the Qi with your mind and directing it to sink, it is able to permeate the bones. Let Qi circulate throughout your body freely and your body will be obedient to your mind.
- If you can raise your spirit (mind), there need be no fear of sluggishness or heaviness. This is what is meant by holding the head as if suspended from above.
- Your spirit must become supremely sensitive in order for there to be complete and lively enjoyment. This is what is meant by the transformations of full and empty.
- Your posture should be erect and relaxed, able to control the eight directions.
- When energy is set in motion, it is like steel tempered a hundred times. What resistance will it fail to defeat.
- You should appear like a falcon seizing a hare, with the spirit of a cat catching a rat. In stillness, be like a great mountain; in movement, like a mighty river.
- From the greatest softness comes the greatest hardness.
- From the proper breath comes sensitivity and liveliness.
- The Qi should be properly cultivated so as to avoid damage.
- The attention of your whole being should be on the spirit and not on the Qi. If it is on the Qi, there will be blocks. Those whose attention is on the Qi have no power. Those whose attention is not on the Qi achieve essential hardness.
- The mind is the commander, the Qi a flag and the waist a banner.
- It is also said that things are first in the mind and later in the body.
- The body should be relaxed and the Qi will permeate the bones. The spirit should be open and the body calm.
- At all times bear in mind and consciously remember that as soon as one part of the body moves, the whole body moves; and as soon as one part is still, the whole body is still.
- Although the changes are infinite, the principles remain the same.
- From mastery of the postures you will gradually awaken to interpreting energy. From interpreting energy, you will arrive at spiritual insight. However, without long, diligent practise, you will not suddenly make this breakthrough.
- Silently memorise and thoroughly ponder and little by little you will reach the stage where the body will automatically follow the mind.
- The root of all is to give up yourself and follow others. Most people make the mistake of scorning what is near and pursuing what is far.
- The slightest error will take you a thousand miles off course. Students must finely discriminate, hence the reason for this treatise.