Horizontal Stroke: 4 Common Mistakes 横划：通病四则

Here are four common mistakes on horizontal stroke made by new learners of Chinese calligraphy:

1. New learners usually do not apply enough pressure on starting and ending the stroke. The techniques of pressing the brush should be applied when one starts to write and ends the stroke so that middle part of the stroke is generally thinner than its start and end.

2. New learners usually fail to hide the tip of the brush, especially at the start. For writing kaishu (the regular style), the Liu style in this case, generally, one must always apply the ‘tip hiding’ technique so that there is no showing of sharp and jagged tooth.

3. New learners must always remember that when there is more than one horizontal stroke in a word, the strokes must always be written in such a way that they are almost parallel to each other.

4. Similarly, when there are more than two horizontal strokes in a word, the distances between two horizontal lines next to each other should always roughly be the same.
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这里列出书法初学者常见的书写横划的四个毛病：

1． 初学者一般在起笔与收笔时按笔不够。在起笔与收笔时，一定要应用‘按笔’的笔法，这样才能显出横划中间的线条比较细。

2． 初学者经常不注意藏锋起笔。书写楷书，以这里所举的柳体为例，一般要应用到‘藏锋’的笔法，才不会在起笔中出现尖齿。

3． 初学者应记住，在一个字中，如果有多过一条横划，这些横划书写时应该平行。

4． 相同的，一个字如果有超过两条横划，它们之间的距离应该大约相等。