Roots

打拳不遛腿，必是冒失鬼

Training boxing without strolling with the legs, certainly a reckless person.

Or

Training boxing without stopping on the legs, certainly a reckless person.

Legs and up to the waist are the roots, the essential part of training.

Deciphering Martial Arts Poems

理是功能之本，法是功能之基

Theory is the essence of capability, method its foundation

皆由渡水不知津，登山不識徑*

All because they cross waters without knowing the ford, climb a mountain without the knowledge of the path

As it was already mentioned in Method, old practices favourite method of teaching was through enigmas to be solved by the students, the best ones having more than one level of understanding. Since most of the teaching were done through oral transmission at the beginning, it may be interesting to first have a brief introduction of the oral ones. Still, with the emergence of the boxing manuals, 拳譜, roughly starting at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and the decline of old martial arts practices, the main work nowadays remains in deciphering those texts.

Spirited Heart

心平氣和*

A peaceful heart for harmonised vapours

藏所藏：心藏神，肺藏魄，肝藏魂，脾藏意，腎藏志，是謂五藏所藏**

What storages store: the heart stores the spirit, the lungs store the corporeal soul, the liver stores the immortal soul, the spleen stores the intention, the kidneys store the will, this is what is called "what the five storages store".

Training differentiates the spirit methods, 神法, from the heart methods, 心法.

Three Methods, One Art

拳講三術，技，醫，藝術

Boxing emphasise on three methods: skills, medicine and art.

Skills for fighting.

In And Out

食氣者必謂吹呴呼吸，吐故納新也*

Who nourishes himself/herself from vapours has to be called the blowing and yawning breathing, spitting out the stale and receiving the fresh.

其息深深。真人之息以踵，眾人之息以喉**

Their breathing came deep and silently. The breathing of the true man comes from his heels, while men generally breathe from their throats. 

得胎息者，能不以鼻口噓吸***

Who obtains the fetal breathing can, without his/her nose or mouth, slowly breathe out and in.

Inhaling and exhaling, it is also a question of order. Internal breathing tends to reverse it, as the Chinese word for breathing, 呼吸, literally means exhaling and inhaling.

Antidotes

陰陽接而變化起

The Feminine and Masculine joins, initiating changes*

是故誌意隨天地，緩急仿陰陽**

It is keeping intentionally in mind that intention shall follow Heaven and Earth, in priority imitating the Feminine and the Masculine 

所以必因射助陽選士者，所以扶助微弱而抑其強，和調陰陽，戒不虞也***

Then certainly because the best and brightest shoot to reinforce the Masculine, then helping the feeble while containing its strength, harmonising the Feminine and the Masculine, thus preventing the unexpected.

Any exercice, even if done perfectly, an anyway impossible feat, will still bear some armful effects on one's body, spirit...

炁, Taoist Propaganda

董仲君者，臨淮人也。服炁煉形，二百余歲不老。

Mr. Dong Zhong, someone from the Huai river surroundings. Taking vapours and refining his body, still young when more than two hundred years old.*

炁 is a synonym of 氣(气) sometimes used by taoists and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Back to the Centre

磨轉千遭臍不動

The millstone turns a thousand times, its pivot remains still

練藝不練腰終究藝不高

Training the art without training the waist, in the end it's a waste*

三盤一軸

One axle for three plates

The waist moves first.

Style

把勢、把勢，全憑架式。没有架式，不算把勢

Martial arts, martial arts, it is all a question of posture. No posture, no real training.

把勢 is an old way to say training martial arts.