A breath contains two aspects: “heng” and “ha”. (Once your skill is deep, you will be able to do this as a single breath, or with but an action of your navel.) One who is highly skilled in solo and partner practice will often unexpectedly utter these sounds. They have three principles:
1. Make your internal energy comfortable, without the errors of forcing it or injuring yourself.
2. Make your internal power course through your whole body without the slightest obstruction.
3. Make the opponent become panicked, which causes his movement to become disorganized, his mind to become dazed, his advance and retreat to lose its effectiveness, and he is rendered unable to defend himself, giving you the opportunity to catch him off-guard.
Therefore the two tricks of “heng” and “ha” are extremely useful and you will need to understand them. “Heng” is usually used when drawing in and neutralizing (inhaling). “Ha” is usually used when seizing and issuing (exhaling).
Within the Songs From an Old Handwritten Copy of Taiji Boxing Classics From During the Reign of Emperor Qianlong [Song Three], it says:
Focus on your elixir field to smelt internal skill.
Within “heng…” and “ha!”, there are endless subtleties.
With passive and active dividing in movement and blending in stillness, bend and extend. Responding slowly to slowness and quickly to quickness, the theory will be realized.
TAIJI COMPILED: THE BOXING, SABER, SWORD, POLE, AND SPARRING by Chen Yanlin 1943, Paul Brennan, 2014