Neigong is a focus. It is like a koan.

It pays attention to how an action is performed rather than the action itself.

Imagine throwing a punch?
Neigong addresses what the body does in order to produce the punch.
It re-trains the framework to deliver power from the whole-unit rather than the shoulder, waist and leg.

Each neigong is different. It has a particular emphasis.
Neigong is internal, with most of the work occurring unseen.
The body looks to undulate as you move.

Fa jing is not hard, it is soft. The effect is hard, not the means itself.

No more than 4 ounces of pressure is applied and the moment of delivery is a split-second.
You do not have time to tense the hand.
The hand (and body) must close by itself on impact, then instantly re-open again.
Conscious strength ruins any chance you have at using fa jing, so just relax.
Be patient.

When you deliver fa jing into a focus mitt or target pad it will pass through the body and into the ground. 
It may cause the floorboards to resonate.

Reach is the act of stretching out your arm or leg in order to touch or grasp something.
It is the limit of your potential stretch. 

A young boy travelled across Japan to the school of a famous martial artist.

When he arrived at the dojo he was given an audience by the sensei.

"What do you wish from me?" the master asked.

"I wish to be your student and become the finest karateka in the land," the boy replied.

"How long must I study?"

"Ten years at least," the master answered.

"Ten years is a long time," said the boy.

"What if I studied twice as hard as all your other students?"

"Twenty years," replied the master.

"Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?"

"Thirty years," was the master's reply.

"How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer?" the boy asked.

"The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the way."

(Joe Hyams)

Shuai jiao is a very good self defence skill.

It teaches you how to keep the body free and mobile, and see opportunities within every situation.

Instead of seeking to apply techniques from the palm changes, a student learns to blend with the incoming attack and respond spontaneously.
Natural movement is encouraged.
Turning, stepping and changing enable the individual to move freely and comfortably.

The relaxed stepping methods cultivate evasive habits and help students to feel confident when faced with assault.

The body, freed of tension, should reach a condition where the joints move freely.
Only then is the body loose enough for fa jing.
You must be sufficiently attuned to your own movements to feel when and how fa jing can be generated.

Some students are not patient enough and use force.
A common mistake is to use the pelvis and hips rather than the combined muscles of the entire body.
People become adept at rapid pelvic turns or abrupt shunts of force.
These are quite strong but they are not fa jing.
They tend to create a residual pattern of tension within the body.

Fa jing is like a wave, rippling up from the ground, through your hand and into the opponent.
Instead of using the hips and pelvis, you should use the spiralling of the legs, the opening and closing of the spine and the movement of the centre.

Unlike many grappling arts, shuai jiao does not rely upon holding your attacker's clothing.
Grabs require commitment, and a successful application is over almost as soon as it started.

Holding onto your opponent is unnecessary. Instead of holding, you employ stickiness.

Baguazhang addresses the experience of combat in a different way to tai chi.
The student avoids direct confrontation by circling around the opponent or by encouraging the attacker to circle around them.
Momentum and flow are used to overcome strength. The aim is to draw the attacker out of their centre and off-balance.

Bagua trains the student to adapt, change and improvise.
There are no fixed techniques, with the exponent preferring to respond to the demands of the moment rather than force an outcome.

There is some degree of overlap between shuai jiao and chin na.
However, the skills serve a different purpose.

Chin na encompasses a range of skills (misplacing the bones, cavity press, sealing the breath and dividing the muscle). 
Shuai jiao is simply wrestling.

Ultimately, chin na is designed to defeat shuai jiao. 

Pain is the means by which you can deter even the strongest attacker.
The human body responds to pain.
It seeks to get away from pain.

Chin na begins with misplacing the bones; a coarse infliction of pain through joint leverage.
The threat of breakage acts as deterrent, whilst actual breakage renders the limbs useless.
But breaking a limb is extreme and vulgar.

Incapacitation is important, but preventing a person from earning their livelihood seems excessive.
A broken bone may cause long-term problems.

More advanced chin na focus upon short-term intense pain, designed to fill the mind with panic.
When an aversive reaction is promoted, the assailant cannot think clearly.
Such pain is also temporary and fades soon after the chin na ceases.

'Fa jing' means spontaneous energy release or 'jing release'. It is concerned with kinetic energy emission.
It is the means whereby energy can be transmitted from one person to another. 
It is not structure or movement or energy. It is the way in which the energy is emitted.

Fa jing is a means, not an end.

The harder you seek it, the more you try. Trying involves effort, effort causes tension, tension blocks energy and there is no fa jing.

A practitioner learns how to generate an undulation wave.
This is passed throughout your entire structure, storing and releasing kinetic energy.
We develop this wave by learning whole-body movement. Every strike involves every body part moving as one.

The skill cannot be attained by force.
Only when the body has augmented itself with neigong will fa jing emerge without effort.
You need to be soft and relaxed.
You need to let go of your tension.

The fa jing release of energy is akin to a sneeze; the entire body opening and closing in an instant.

In self defence practice, we cannot use fa jing on one another. The outcome is too unpredictable.
We use soft target pads and sticks for fa jing practice.

The gravity component of fa jing is trained separately. We strike one another using gravity in order to develop this skill.

Peter Southwood's main kung fu instructor was Chu King Hung, following the Yang Shou Chung line. 
His other instructors include Peter Newton, Lam Kam Chuen, Yang Jwing-Ming, Bruce Frantzis and Mike Sigman.

In Wolf Lowenthal's book There Are No Secrets, the author presented a situation in which Cheng Man Ching had asked the students to push hands without using the arms.
The students were using tension.
They were forcing a result.
Cheng Man Ching wanted the students to push hands in a different way.
However, he was not prepared to explicitly tell the students what to do.

Years of fruitless practice bore no result.
After Cheng Man Ching's death, the author was watching a video of the instructor pushing hands when he suddenly saw how to push hands correctly.
In hindsight it seemed obvious.

Cheng Man Ching was not keeping secrets. In fact, he was showing the very skill all the time. But his students were just not ready to see it.

Think of the treasures as being like this example.