A horse is a horse, of course...

…unless it is jumping over a river.

There is a move in the 32-motion tai ji jian (sword) form called 跳步平刺, or tiao bu ping ci. A rough word-for-word translation might be “jumping stance horizontal thrust”.

That describes the motion pretty well – after surging forward, you lift off one foot and take a small jump, land in a preparatory position, and thrust forward. With a horizontal blade.

Another, older name for the motion is 野马跳涧, or ye ma tiao jian: experienced tai ji people will recall our old friend, 野马分鬃, (ye ma fen zong), part the wild horse’s mane. Indeed, the motion in the jian form features a wild horse, this one jumping over / across a river in a valley.

Suddenly we get a much more powerful image of the horse leaping, making distance – and landing gracefully, blending into the next motion smoothly.

A similar motion appears in many tai ji sword forms. In the Sha family style 24-motion sword form, it is called 虎包头 (hu bao tou = tiger shakes its head??). Another similar motion appears in the Sha family’s 36-motion sword form, actually composed of two bits, 退步勒马 (tuibu lema, step back and tame the horse / control the bit in its mouth) and 灵猫扑鼠 (ling mao pu shu = swift cat grabbing a mouse, a reference to nimble footwork?).

Returning to more commonly seen sword forms, we have the 42-motion competition form – the same move also called tiao bu ping ci.

So what’s in a name? I am definitely not a fan of the kung fu flicks where fighters call out flowery names of overblown techniques before attacking. But hearing about the older, more descriptive name of the motion in question last night – and hearing my teacher lightly chastise a Japanese student for not contemplating the meaning to be found in the written characters – made me think of Liu Jing Ru Laoshi.

He put together some of the forms we practice in his line today. For both these and other, older forms, he attached names, usually descriptive in a suggestive way rather than mere descriptions of physical techniques. That is, “open the window and gaze at the moon” rather than “grab the guy’s arm and pull it across to the right with both hands, then unwind that energy to smack his ____”. They are both saying the same thing, just with different words.

Many of these old forms had no names for the motions in the old days. “Do this. No, like that. Faster. Then do that.”

I’ll take the newer, more suggestive names. Too poetic for some people, maybe, (what the hell? I punch him before he punches me. Who needs all these tigers and moon-gazing?). But we can find hints and suggestions in names like these, and I’ll take every hint I can get. “Jump stance horizontal thrust” doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination.