Writing with a brush is the same as eating with chopsticks and shoveling with a spade. If the method is wrong, it will be laborious and difficult to achieve the goal. Therefore, beginners must first learn to write correctly. There have always been many names about writing methods, and calligraphers have different views. This paper mainly introduces a method that we think is more scientific and widely used by most calligraphers. This is the traditional method, which is called the "stirrup method". In the Tang Dynasty, Lu Xisheng summed up the essentials of this writing with five words: Yi, pledge, tick, expose and touch. The following is a brief explanation in turn:
"Ye Si Sheng" means to press, that is, press the pen tube with the rib of the thumb and press it hard to the right with the index finger.
Hold, the index finger bends down, hold the pen tube with the first joint near the thumb, and exert force against the thumb. The thumb and forefinger are mainly used to fix the pen. It is important to pay special attention not to hold the pen tube in the middle of the index finger, because the pen tube is very firm, but it cannot be operated flexibly.
Hook, middle finger bent, fingertips tilted downward and inward, ribbed pen tube, outside of hook tube, palm forced.
Jie, also known as Ge, is the bending of the ring finger, with the nail in contact with the flesh against the pen tube, outward and upward force, that is, in the opposite direction to the middle finger force. Hooks and lids are mainly used to make the pen turn when it is carried.
Yes, the little finger bends like a ring finger and clings to it. This helps to reveal the truth.
Five-character stirrup method
The advantages of this method are that the five fingers are naturally flexed and stretched properly and the force is uniform; The pen is not only stable in the hand, but also easy to rotate back and forth and left and right when writing. There are two points to pay special attention to when writing: first, don't put your fingers together, and don't buckle the tips of your ring finger and little finger in your palm, otherwise you won't be able to write flexibly. The ancients said that writing should be "virtual and real", that is, it is necessary to implement the writing power of fingers and let the five Together Brothers work together to perform their duties and do their best; The so-called "palm deficiency" means not to hold your fingers tightly, so that your fingers and pen tube naturally keep a certain distance from your palm and form a certain gap. Whether it is "pointing to reality" or "lack of palms", it is to ensure the "elasticity" of writing. Some people understand that "pointing to reality" means squeezing the pen tube hard, and "palm deficiency" means that you should be able to hold an egg in your palm when writing (that is, you should always keep your fingers in a certain posture when writing, otherwise the egg will fall to the ground). This is the postscript, incredible. Second, don't hold the pen too tightly. I don't know when someone began to spread a story that Wang Xianzhi practiced calligraphy when he was six or seven years old, and his father Wang Xizhi drew a pen from behind, but he didn't, so Wang Xianzhi became a great calligrapher. A mature man can't pull out the pen in his child's hand, except that the child is a genius Hercules! This story, even if it was true at that time, can only show that Wang Xianzhi was not only careful but also alert when he was a child. His father came to "sneak attack" the brush, and was immediately discovered by him, deliberately holding the pen tube and not drawing. Later, people misunderstood that Wang Xianzhi clung to the pen tube when writing, so according to this story, he deduced that he would "crush this tube". If you want to crush the pen tube, you must suck the milk with your strength. Hold the pen too tightly, your wrist will die, your arm will die, and it will be stiff. How can you let the pen wave freely in your hand and write it vividly? If we want to "crush this chopstick" when eating, peanut beans will definitely not be caught in our mouth; If you want to "crush this handle" when riding a bicycle, you will definitely fall into the ditch. Isn't it "a truth" to write with a pen? Of course, writing with a pen requires a certain amount of strength, but the strength should be moderate, steady and loose, and loose and tight. It naturally changes with the size of writing and the strength of drawing with a pen, and it must not be tight. The story of Wang Xizhi's pen has been passed down through the ages. It is not only a household name, but also a fascinating story that many parents and teachers must tell in the first lesson of enlightenment. It can be said that it is very poisonous. This fallacy should have been refuted long ago.
There have been many mysterious sayings about writing, such as writing with three fingers, putting the fingertips of the index finger and the middle finger in front of the pen tube and pressing the thumb inside the pen tube, all of which make an arc to hold the pen tube and make it round, which is called the "Tianzhu method"; If the tiger's mouth is oblate, it is called "phoenix eye method"; There is also the inward twisting of the wrist, which is euphemistically called "wrist returning method", and so on. It's hard and awkward to write like this, really awkward. "There is no definite way to hold a pen" (Su Dongpo's language). There are differences in the size and shape of pens, and there are also differences in the size, style and writing place of words. Naturally, calligraphers can adopt different methods of holding pens according to different situations and their own habits, and they don't have to stick to one, but they always have to write flexibly to facilitate the artistic effect of their stippling.
Excerpt from "Calligraphy Common Sense" by Qi Gong and Qin Yonglong (under the master)