Terminology is simply names or special terms used in our area of study.
Jargon originally referred to the chattering noises of small animals and by extension gibberish. More usually jargon is used to refer to the idioms and special vocabulary used by a particular group or profession. It is not uncommon for such jargon to be both obscure and pretentious.
As the martial arts have evolved and developed so has the terminology and jargon used.
Within the terminology of Tai Chi Chuan there are many references to animals and it is often said that many of the techniques in Chinese martial arts in general and Tai Chi Chuan in particular are based on animal movements.
I'd like to suggest that this is not necessarily the case, even when techniques have names such as "White Crane Flaps Its Wings" or "Golden Cockerel Stands on One Leg".
Are we really to believe that it was not until a bird was observed flying obliquely did there exist the technique of "Flying Oblique"? That not until a tiger was observed being returned to a Mountain after being embraced did there exist the eponymous technique?
I believe that whilst observing animal behavious is likely to have played a part in the development of the art, in many cases the names given to techniques are simply descriptive of the actions performed. Sometimes the names used contain literary allusions, sometimes even jokes.
For example in Tai Chi Nei Kung there is the technique called "Wu Gang Cutting Laurels". This unfortunate gentleman was banished to the moon after offending the gods and was sentenced to chop the cassia trees which grow in abundance there, unfortunately every mark his axe made in the tree instantly healed up. The Nei Kung technique not surprisingly uses repeated chopping movements.
In the sabre form there is the technique "Taking off the Boots while Drunk". This refers to an incident involving the Li Bai, who was renowned for his drinking, his swordsmanship and his poetry, though not necessarily in that order. Under the affluence of incohol, Li ordered the powerful eunuch, Gao Li-shi, to take off his boots for him, thus incurring Gao's undying hatred.
The technique of "Embracing the Moon" exists in both Tai Chi sword and sabre forms. Our old friend, Li Bai, is said to have met his death in 761 AD when, drunk and overcome by the beauty of the reflection of the moon on the Yangtze, he reached out to embrace it and fell in and drowned. Incidentally the name also indicates that when applying this technique we should be leaning well forward, rather than standing erect.
In the Tai Chi spear form there is the technique, "the Black-eared Kite Flies and The Fish Leaps". This is a direct quotation from the Book of Odes, most of which dates from the early Zhou dynasty; i.e. from around 1000BC.
Even "straightforward" names such as "Brush Knee Twist Step" and "Fist Under Elbow are widely misunderstood. Many people think that Brush Knee Twist Step refers to brushing your own knee and twisting your own step whereas the name in fact refers to diverting a kick and destroying the opponent's balance with a palm strike. Likewise because we place the fist under the elbow when performing the eponymous technique, many believe that this is the derivation of the name, whereas the name derives from an upward diversion of the opponent's punch followed by a counter punch to the ribs.
Other names such as "Cloud Hands" are Chinese puns. The character for cloud sounds similar to the character for turning hence the name
Some terminology and jargon is of more recent origin, used to refer to techniques which the teacher doesn't know the correct name for or to techniques which he ahs introduced to Tai Chi Chuan from some other system. For example, one of my teacher's former student's in Australia taught a technique called "Willow Tree", which does not exist in Tai Chi Chuan and , having forgotten some of the Nei Kung exercises made some up, incorporating techniques from Wing Chun.
My teacher's uncle went even further. Never a man to say "no" to his students, he would tell them that Tai Chi had everything other systems had including techniques such as "Kuan Gung Stroking His Beard" and he even changed his form to include such techniques. Even worse, some more specialised techniques, such as "Running Thunder Hand" he deliberately taught wrongly to certain students, one of whom, in Malaysia, was stunned some 12 years ago when with the brashness I corrected the self same technique which he had been practicing wrongly for more that twenty years.
While even fifty years ago most of this nomenclature was probably not very well understood, nowadays, it has become archaic and will remain so unless Tai Chi instructors and students spend some time researching and attempting to understand and explain their art instead of seeking to make it more mysterious than it really is.
It is for this reason that in seminars I get the students to recite the names of the techniques as we do them in the forms.
In the second part of this article I'll deal with jargon.