The Name of the Practice

There's a word for it,
but words don't mean a thing.
There's a name for it,
and names make all the difference in the world!

David Byrne

Every experience that contributes to the practice blends together, creating a unique constellation of form for each practitioner. This is the best of it. Does everyone who teaches, at some point consider the balance between the transmitted forms and their own original forms? As differences of emphasis emerge, the issue of differentiating elements and emphasis by name becomes a consideration.

There's even a phrasal description of the activity: qiao li mingmu 巧立名目 - ingeniously establishing named divisions. And remember too that naming 名 is the second action mentioned in the Daode Jing 道德經, immediately after 道 itself in the second line, as shown in the following literal translation:

道可道非常道		way may way uncommon way
名可名非常名		name may name uncommon name

What are the existing names that I want to bring into scope? First, the three main physical arts that I have any training in, beginning with Taiji Quan 太極拳, the fist named after the fundamental philosophical principle of polarization; and then Xingyi Quan 形意拳, the fist named after the specific polarization of the physical into form and mind; and finally Bagua zhang 八卦掌, the palm named after the multi-dimensional polarity of the eight symbols. Those eight divinatory symbols are the abstract content of the standard text, which gives the last name in this context, the Yijing 易經, the Change Classic.

Yi Shou
		Two of the physical arts named above include 拳 quan as part of their name. So, a pun on another name becomes possible, 易拳 Yiquan - the fist based on change. Phonetically of course, this is close to 意拳, the fist named after the essence of intent. This is too close, too likely to lead to confusion; so what about using 掌 zhang, palm 易掌 Yizhang? Then I thought, what have fist 拳 and palm 掌 in common? They are both particular configurations of the hand, 手 shou. In Taiji 太極 we have the partner work exercises of tui shou 推手 - pushing hands, and san shou 散手 - scattering hands. Which brought me to consider yi shou 易手 - change hands, as a name to refer to an emerging solo practice, a way of working with the hand form by improvising sequence. Of course, the literal meaning of this phrase "change hands" means to pass (ownership) from one person to another.
Yi Jin
		All of these physical arts work with forms of physical energy, with jin 勁. Which leads to a rather obvious pun: 易勁 Yijing - the energies of change. The use of the symbols of change to think about movement, as described here, is a large part of the conceptual content of current practice, shaping the emphasis of the physical content. By metaphorical extension, we should also consider jin 勁 to have psychological content, the inner energies of our being. So that is where I settled as a name for the content and method of the overall practice.
Nei Lian
		Now, considering the idea of nei lian 內練 - inner training. An original Daoist concept of inner training [1] was named nei ye 內業, but ye 業 today carries the meaning of profession or business, so is less appropriate here, now. Lian 練, training to perfect skill, seems better in this current context; especially as I generally retain nei gong 內功 to refer to specific physical sets of exercises, such as those from the Wu-Cheng 吳-鄭 syllabus. Nei lian 內練 instead is to refer to the complete scope of the inner training outlined here. There is also the nice homonym lian 煉 - meaning to refine and smelt.