Changes

玲瓏變化佈周身

Exquisite, ingenious and delicate changes dispose the whole body

拳有勢者，所以為變化也。横斜側面，起立走伏，皆有墙戶，可以攻，故謂之勢。拳有定勢，而用時無定勢。然當其用也，變無定勢，而實不失勢，故謂之把勢*

Fists have a posture, which implies changes.Transversal, oblique, sideways or frontal, getting up, standing, moving or lying prostrate, everything has walls and doors, attack being then possible, therefore we talk about posture. Fists have fixed postures, but when boxing there is no fixed posture. So that it undertakes its own usefulness, changes knowing no determined posture and yet one actually not losing posture, which is the way to be skilful in the art.

A few further posts will try to stick more to the old methods, giving only leads.

Starting with one dealing with changes in one's practice seems, then, appropriate.

Chinese martial arts practices thought fighting was chaos and were, then, deeply influenced by the theory of changes. 

Training principles and routines were in those days much more flexible than nowadays.

To describe sometimes quite indescribable processes, one would have to rely even more on the smarts of students and not on their capacity to learn by heart rules and exercices.

Changing from an oral tradition handed down to a happy few to books, videos and organisations standardising everything for the masses leads to sclerosis.

Routines with no set moves and where the student would just let his body do as it pleases used to be one of the aim of schools starting with very strict postures.

In the same school two students were never taught the same things, to each his/her own practice was the rule.

Transforming deeply one's body meant to change drastically one's motion and moves. Hence, the same routine practiced by two students at different levels of transformation would look totally different. In internal practices, the progression was from long and straight moves to short and rounded.

At an intense level, training is like cooking, one cannot just add whatever, there is always a question of proportion, too much salt, and integrity, a dessert is not a main.

The stronger the core, the deeper the capacity to change. Real change can only flourish from a very strict core of principles. Total freedom is also a form of sclerosis.

*Martial Compilation First Collected Works, Chapter Five, Boxing, Tang Shunzhi (1507-1560), 武編前集, 卷五, 拳, 唐順之 (1507-1560)