Jin Series #3

Jin Series #3 by Mike Sigman

Illustrating Qi and Qi Jin

Just a quick aside to explain how I illustrate sometimes. In the drawing below, there is a yellow band of color that has some little balls in it. The yellow band is meant to represent the actual tissues/muscle-tendon-channels that are support the stresses through the tissues: that is the Qi or the qi-tissues which are making minute directional force adjustments in the body. The little balls with arrows all pointing in the same direction as the jin force are to indicate those minor adjustments that are happening all through the body. So the yellow line is basically the Qi tissues that align to form the jin force.

Here is an illustration of Downward Jin. Remember that a good push outward and a good pull downward with jin require that the body be cohesively connected throughout the qi-tissue path.

Also remember that you can combine different directions of jinsimultaneously. For instance, a good basic punch is going to have jin from the feet to the fist and at the same time there will be a downward-pulling jin. The combination of two forces adds into a stronger force.

The red line is the jin force as it feels to someone receiving the jin force. Of course forces don't happen magically through the air, but since that resulting force *feels* like it is directly from foot to hand, I draw it as such. When I'm actually doing a jin-force like that, I visualize that there is a force up from my feet and straight to my hands. If someone touches my hands, I focus and maintain the visualization of a force from my feet to my hands: the body and subconscious oblige by producing such a force.

As you progress, you learn to picture forces from a point of access to the ground up to some other point on/in your body or into your opponent's body.