The saying "brush strokes: horizontal folding, horizontal, left-off, vertical, horizontal folding hook, vertical, vertical hook,
brush strokes" comes from Mi Fei, a great calligrapher in the Song Dynasty. According to his "Famous Words of Haiyue", the emperor asked Mi Fei: Who can be handed down from generation to generation in the name of calligraphy? Mi Fei replied: "Cai Jing can't write, Cai Bian can write without rhyme, Cai Xiang le zi, Shen Liao typesetting, Huang Tingjian drawing, Su Shi drawing", and when talking about his own calligraphy, he said: "I brush the words with the books".
What he's talking about here is the unique methods and calligraphy styles of these people. Because Mi Fei's own brushwork is all around, he is quick and swift, so he compares himself to "brush words", while Cai Xiang's slow brushwork is called "le words", Su Shi's repeated brushwork is called "stroke words" and Huang Tingjian's light brushwork is called "tracing words".
The ancients used pens, stressing horizontal scales and vertical strokes, using pen and pen hard, hiding the head and protecting the tail, and using the center. However, these calligraphers dared to break through the barriers of the ancients' golden mean, and they were paranoid, highlighting their own methods of using pens, thus forming their own unique style. Mi Fei's brush writing is a prominent example.
However, we must also pay attention to the fact that we should not make some brushwork methods become habitual and deliberately pursue a certain brushwork effect without affectation. We should focus on the natural flair driven by real feelings and personality, otherwise, it will be counterproductive and we will not be able to write a masterpiece handed down from generation to generation.