Archives


Playing With 'Peng' in Taiji Boxing

Aaron Alan Cross
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD

Abstract

'Peng' (pronounced 'pung'), or 'ward-off', as it roughly translates, is one of the thirteen 'shi' or core postures/principles of the Chinese meditative, self-healing and martial art of Taijiquan (T'ai-chi Ch'uan).

This paper describes a particular 'peng' training drill, simply called the 'peng-drill', created by a small group of Taiji Boxing practitioners in Australia. The analysis draws on the work of cultural theorist Paul Willis, and recent scholarship within the sociology of the body that builds on Willis' work, most notably the work of Alan Radley.

It is argued that 'peng-drill' evidences a particular opening out of or 'playing with' the 'objective possibilities' of Taijiquan as a practice. 'Peng-drill' is depicted as a form of 'sensuous meaning making' - body-out as it were - through which practitioners generate and configure meanings and hence salient body-self-identities, or rather bodily sensibilities: as Taiji practitioners - as 'Taiji Boxers'.


Toggle references

References

Bourdieu P (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Chan, Stephen (2000) 'The construction and export of culture as artifact: the case of the Japanesemartial arts, Body and Society 6(1): 69-74.

Douglas M (1973) Natural symbols: explorations in cosmology, Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Douglas M (1966) Purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Foucault M (1979) The history of sexuality, Vol 1, London: Allen Lane.

Foucault M (1977) Discipline and punishment: the birth of the prison, London: Allen Lane.

Frank A (1996) Reconciliatory alchemy: bodies, narrative, power, Body and Society 2(3): 53-71.

Jullien F (1995) The propensity of things: towards a history of efficacy in China, New York: Zone Books.

Lohse F (1999) Self-transformation and the martial arts in the American cultural environment, Journal of Asian Martial Art 8(1): 11-29.

McFarlane S (1991) The mystique of martial arts: a reply to Professor Keenan's response, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 18(4): 355-368.

Montaigue E and Simpson W (1997) The encyclopedia of Dim Mak: the main meridians, Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press.

Pfeiffer K Ludwig (1996) The black hole of culture: Japan, radical Otherness, and the disappearance of difference, in S Budick and W Iser (eds) The translatability of cultures: figurations of the spaces between, Stanford: Stanford University Press: 186-796.

Radley A (1999) The aesthetic of illness: narrative, horror and the sublime, in Sociology of Health and Illness 21 (6): 778-796.

Radley A (1996) 'Displays and fragments: embodiment and the configuration of social worlds, Theory and Psychology 6(4): 559-576.

Radley A (1995) The elusory body and social constructionist theory, Body and Society 1(2): 3-23.

Radley A (1993) (ed) The role of metaphor in adjustment to chronic illness, in Worlds of illness: biographical and cultural perspectives on health and disease, London: Routledge: 109-123.

Wile D (1999) T'ai-chi's ancestors: the making of an internal martial art, New York: Sweet Ch'i Press.

Wile D (1983) T'ai-chi touchstones: Yang family secret transmission, New York: Sweet Ch'I Press.

Willis P (2000) The ethnographic imagination, Cambridge: Policy Press.

Willis P (1978) Profane culture, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.



Web Feed

Latest Articles

Call for Papers

Expert Patient Policy
Volume 18/2
Deadline: Closed


Ageing, Anti-Ageing and Globalization: Transitions and limits in the governance of ageing
Volume 18/4
Deadline: 20th Feb 2009


Special Issues

Ageing, Anti-Ageing and Globalization: Transitions and limits in the governance of ageing
Vol 18/4, 1st Dec 2009


Expert Patient Policy
Vol 18/2, 1st Jun 2009


Social Determinants of Child Health and Wellbeing
Vol 18/1, 1st Mar 2009


Integrative, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenges for Biomedicine?
Vol 17/4, 1st Dec 2008


Community, Family, Citizenship and the Health of LGBTIQ People
Vol 17/3, 1st Oct 2008


Re-imagining Preventive Health: Theoretical Perspectives
Vol 17/2, 1st Aug 2008


Death, Dying and Loss in the 21st Century
Vol 16/5, 1st Dec 2007


Social Equity and Health
Vol 16/2, 1st Jun 2007


Medical Dominance Revisited
Vol 15/5, 1st Dec 2006


Childbirth, Politics & the Culture of Risk
Vol 15/4, 1st Oct 2006


Revisiting Sexualities and Health
Vol 15/3, 1st Aug 2006


Closing Asylums for the Mentally Ill: Social Consequences
Vol 14/3, 1st Dec 2005


Workplace Health: The Injuries of Neoliberalism
Vol 14/1, 1st Aug 2005


Symposium on Rural Health: Patients and Practitioners
Vol 13/2, 1st Dec 2004


Symposium on Women's Health
Vol 13/1, 1st Sep 2004


Symposium on Indigenous Health and the Contribution of Sociology
Vol 10/2, 1st Nov 2001


Sponsored Links

Selected Articles

Sibling Incest Within Violent Families
Sharon Brennan


The Problem of 'Social Suffering'
Iain Wilkinson


What's emotion go to do with it? Reflections on the personal in health research
Glennys Howarth


Social action research in practice
Aerinn Morgan


New Directions
Eileen Willis, Jane Shoebridge


Ethical issues for the qualitative researcher: Some critical reflections
Allan Kellehear


Website by Arrowsmith Websites. Business, Government & Corporate Websites, Web Hosting, Domain Names & SEO. Maleny, Sunshine Coast, Australia.