Richard, I agree it cannot be taught and it cannot be intellectualised. Teacher/Sifu shows the path but we must ultimately go down the path. You are now playing with words and stating the obvious. I could argue we are 'Human beings' not 'Human Doings' and that we 'be' rather than 'do' and all that jazz. BTW for your reference,I 'practice' Tai Chi Chuan not 'Do' Tai Chi Chuan'. The thing is that we can mystify and fudge all we want and claim that your elevator is quicker than my elevator and so you will get there faster than me, but at the end of the day this is balloney as well you know. Yes we have to practise,yes Tai Chi is a life long study,yes we hopefully will develop and refine over the years and yes Tai Chi is a slow burner but yet to use it as a martial art we do not have to spend 10 years to gain the benefits. Tai Chi is a blend of external and internal and there are practises such as the nei kung that can help to fuse and refine the two. You talk about 'Invisable power' and understanding the growth process. After practising nei kung Yin set for around 3 months one can take kicks and punches to the abdomen and feel no effect-This nei kung is not exclusive to any one style and other styles such as the Cheng Man Ching style practised by Nigel Sutton has a set of nei kung that produces similar results. We are aware of what you say,we just don't talk about it much. My parting shot is that I'm working on this process that you talk about as i'm sure many others are too and that i wholly subscribe to the maxim that 'The depth of the subject often outstrips my ability to fathom it'. Mark.
Uh, I can do this easily... I can also do wen-xue (touching my head to my foot without bending that leg), which I think is much harder. As you can see from the video, we also always do our horse stances with thighs parallel to the ground...This is just a basic level of strength and flexibility in Longfist and Praying Mantis. Sounds to me like your students are out of shape. Your posts began as somewhat interesting and are quickly descending into madness... I guess I shouldn't have expected more from the producer of those ridiculously fake video clips. Jekyll, the concept of "marrow washing" does exist in both Buddhist and Daoist systems of qigong, though I haven't traditionally seen it associated with Taiji qigong. Everyone else: please don't get into the "internal vs. external" debate. Internal and external are two levels and two aspects of training CMAs, not two different kinds of CMA. Praying Mantis practitioners traditionally do just as much if not more qigong than Taiji practitioners and Taiji certainly doesn't have the monopoly on borrowing power, emphasizing relaxation, emphasizing soft overcoming hard, emphasing circular overcoming linear, etc. These concepts all exist in Praying Mantis, a so-called "external" martial art. I've already talked ad nauseum about this, so if you want to hear my logic read some of my older posts.
Sorry Mark I would love to reply to you in the terms you wish, but I don't have them. I have my perception and judgement. How many master of old have you met. Who told you that. I have met and trained with two of the most traditional that exist. Both are family or tudi of family so have to be traditional in outlook, it is battered into them, and neither of them were practical or gave you easy ways. You have to fight for knowledge, more often you are given hints and clues and have to find it yourself. Traditionally you had to steal your art from your master, only then did you have the courage, the perception and basically only then you deserved it. Now a'days you try to buy it with money, and you demand the gift of knowledge. In the old days you earned it, then the art not the teacher taught you. You became the art in every action and deed because you grow into it while doing it. That process cannot be duplicated by techniques!! that is Shaolin. When you meet that process you know it, when you meet the words but not the fact you also know it. With other arts you can feel this level of power (or lack of it) on meeting them. As an example I met RobP last year and his energetic level of development is very apparent and can be felt in close proximity without touching, and he does Systema (though he used to be a Tai-Chi'er). I have never felt this from a Wudang or practical (whatever) student. I hope one day I will, then I will tell you. The power is very apparent, though without the sensitivity training they often don't know they have it.
Blessed are those, that still teach with these old ways things in mind and attitude. That way of teaching should never be extinct!
Your 24 neigong you practice is Shaolin not tai-chi. The yang family neigong is completely different. It is only taught to family and disciples, a very much more simplified and easier method is used publically. Your method is basically Iron Shirt and many school use it and if you read the thread you will see I site it as a sign of hybridisation not purity. Wrong energy wrong technique. I claim no increase of speed of effectiveness, I have no desire for either. That desire is also a facett of the hybrid. I have no desire to take kicks and punches on my belly, whether I can or do is completely irelevent. In Chinese culture travelling salesmen used these easy techniques for selling their wares. No mystery, and definitely not deserving or meriting an artificially created baishi, like turning Chinese tradition into Disneyland, no reality no cultural understanding, as I say conceptual Disneyland. Tai-Chi hardens nothing either internal or external. It *uses* other peoples hardness against them. I am no master!! I am a journeyman of limited ability travelling the path and still growing. But at least I know the name of the path I am on.
Richard, I'm sorry that you cannot find the terms that you think i want you to reply in. Maybe your traditional ways will teach you them at some point in your development. You are making general statements and you perhaps have not met as many of Cheng Tin Hung's student's as you think? You obviously think that you have found something that others do not have access to(unless thay are part of your gang). Again you state the obvious about stealing the art etc etc. I'm aware of all of this yet you assume (wrongly) that we/I pay for my knowledge and that the traditional ways mean nothing-Again you are wrong. You assume that i'm ignorant of many of the aspects of Tai Chi and that i have not reached the dizzy heights that you have in my Tai Chi Practice. Don't get excited because i'm not,although it may seem so from my words. We are going around in Tai Chi Circles (Oh yeh!) and we will not agree. However,I too have met RobP and yes his Tai Chi IMO was good,and yes I'm also aware of his Systema practise. I just can't see Rob subscribing to some of the stuff on your website. Mark.
At last something I can agree with you about!! but we work with what we are given. You get the people who are willing to put the physical work in. This is why I love to get you when you are going into your 40's and 50's when the kids are showing more strength and using physical power starts to hurt. You are then perfect material and ready to find the inside because the outside has a level of development that creates a good available power base to work with. Though the point of Tai-Chi is everyone gains something, growth is the purpose, where ever the start point is, even a whelchair. Your profile says you do Tai-Chi so hopefully you are being given softness as well as hard power. When you are ready to change accross completely look for someone who can show you your Qi, be open minded and take it from there. Then you will know the benefit that your foundation has given you. Traditionally until their early 20's the families trained basically a form of Shaolin, it was only the latter work that was Tai-Chi. Levels of training followed the ages of man. I would never recommend a kid to do Tai-Chi. Where is your class (I hope in the UK) I am always looking for good Shaolin to recommend as it is so hard to find.
Richard, You say that you are no master. Is it you who is demonstrating the energy techniques on your website? If so then i assume that these skills took a while to develop-There are no quick fixes available-Right? Can you please direct me to the proof that the 24 Neigong exercises are Shaolin based? I could have put money on your reply to the abdominal striking as a party trick used by conmen,flim flam snake oil men in days gone by. I agree Lenny McLean could take massive blows with no adverse effect but the Neigong is not specifically used to train this aspect and is a side benefit and one of many benefits. You talk about an artificial Bai Shi and turning it into Disneyland-I have to say that your energy clips on your website are more akin to something that you would see at Disneyland or a poor remake of the Matrix. I have been through Puja also and i see strong similarities to the Bai Shi that i went through and the Puja ceremony. I have also been to Disneyland-Sorry,no similarities! You say that Tai Chi does not harden anything. Who mentioned anything about hardness? The abdomen is indeed soft whilst taking the blows,this shows your lack of understanding and assumption that you know better. Let me tell you-You don't know better. I have spent and continue to spend time researching the aspects of Tai Chi including the internal work of the neigong. I go along with the'If you see the Buddha on the road Kill him' school of thought. I have seen demos online of student's of the Cheng Wing Kwong (Cheng Tin Hung's uncle) school of Tai Chi practising very similar neigong to what we practise, so i suppose that CWK also learned Shaolin? I suppose that Qi Min Xuan who taught neigong to Cheng Tin Hung practised Shaolin. Why not just say that every art is based on Shaolin and be done with it? I have seen postures from Yi Quan (taoist art) that are similar to some of the postures in our system of Neigong but i guess that the practitioners of this art are deluded also. Let's face it there are some of us out there that are not as enlightened as we would like to be but are more enlightened than you think we are. Mark.
I repeat (ad infinitum) the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When I meet a Wudang proponent who has power over strength and not strength over power, I will be fully willing to eat my words publically. And I won't need to fight you to know it, I will know. It is easy to test it is a simple technique called dynamic pushing hands, though not as spectacular as the ones in the clip. You can release and receive power through many contact points and it is obvious if it is power or strength. I had prefered not to talk about it as then people perceive it as *the* test, that kills the fun and the sharing of the process, which is why I haven't talked about it. But that is how I perceive level if I don't just pick it up from proximity. It is also the main process of training power, as force gets you nowhere against power. Get two people of approx same development and leave them to get on with it. It teaches you to let go of your strength as you push as hard as you can until that just breaks up and goes as the muscle runs out of fuel and *then* when you are ready, bingo! *something else* emerges. Then you can be played with and shown how it works and those things are what the fun clips are about.
Wutan, just leave Richard Dunn alone. He is a long time troll and Dan Docherty hater. Fundamentally he is a know nothing. Please view the clips on his web site showing how he feels we should be doing tai chi! Ricks web site is This Crap And the Clips Are Here Do a search for Richard Dunn on Empty Flower, where even by there standards he is retarded and backwards.
Hey guys, you are talking about two different things! Richard do a more traditional version of Taijiquan (as he said of the 2nd generation of the Yang family), the Docherty's Taijiquan is another thing. The Yang TJQ has more emphasise on the softness, while the "Wutang" TJQ has more external characteristics. There is no better TJQ! One is more "internal" one more "external", both has some similitaries but are also different. In you like a more a "practical" TJQ then maybe the "Wutang" is for you, If you like more a "intrinsic" TJQ then maybe the Yang (or Tian's) is for you. How I said we are talking about two different (martial) arts, with some different practices, so please stop to offend others arts. BTW, what is better an apple or a pear? It depends of your taste!
Yeah, different people like different things. I practice the Yang TJQ, and I respect others who practice other styles (or martial arts). If there was any better martial art than others then all will practice that one.
Oldyangtaiji, I/We are not saying that 'our' Tai Chi is better than 'his' Tai Chi-You are missing the point. There are many practitioners of the Wudang group who may well appear hard and external but there are many who appear soft in their approach but are still using the art in an effective practical way. This is from personal experience. Cheng Man Ching emphasised softness and relaxation yet i have practised with student's of this style who do not appear to be soft and yet some do appear soft. It's the old addage of 'it's not the art' it is the person that matters. What Mr Dunn appears to be teaching is not helpful to anyone in the Tai Chi world and his attitude stinks. However Mr Dunn has not answered my questions or any body elses for that matter but has responded with psychobabble and has taken the high moral ground assuming that we are all beneath his level of understanding. If i walked into his class and saw the stuff being practised that i see on his website then i too would walk out of his class-Bemused but not confused. It is the poor barstewards that are being taught this bunkum that i feel sorry for. This is my parting shot-No more! M.
When a person runs out of argument and reason it is so easy to revert to the child that is in all of us and stick your tongue out and blow rasberries. Yes empty flower does that as well. That is what we are seeing. They don't have it, they have never had it, so the child says it must be crap and nonsense. The fact that that *it* happens to be the defining aspect of Tai-Chi (chuan) and was the aspect that was being refered to when the name was coined (if any of you know the history of the name), then in that case the argument is mine. I have never once called Docherty a bad martial artist or his school a bad school, I have never called the work being taught bad martial skill. In fact I have made a point of saying that they are very good relative to what is generally available. Because of the lack of good traditional Shaolin schools in the UK, I would also recommend to any young students, or those who haven't grown up yet and still dream of being Bruce Lee, to not train with me and go to a Wudang school or even more effectively go do Systema with Rob Poyton. Tai-Chi is something else, and yes it is out there amoungst the conceptually difficult. And no it is not a particularly quick and effective way to train physical martial ability. We are also limited by public perception which dictates who walks through our doors. It is superior in the long run but how many are willing to put in the years of training and find someone with the skill to teach it correctly in the west. That is why the hybrids have been created, no other reason. Systema in my view has more in common with the reason Tai-Chi was called Tai-Chi than what they practice. At least they have the honesty to create their own name for it. The traditional is so hard to find, even some of that has been severly altered in the current generation. But the likes of James Uglow, John Ding and a majority of schools that come out of Chu King Hung when he was still in the UK are at the least effective. Others are growing into good schools such as John Elliot who represents Chu Gin Soon in the UK. And hopefull someone who will represent Bob Boyd (Ip's #2) in the UK. So we have some effective schools left in the Yang family lineage. Wu, Wu Hao, Chen and Sun I am sure have some traditional left, but you will have to find as I am only concerned with Yang. Some don't overtly show and train the energetics aspect but it lies behind there training and they at least pay lip service to it. But those that try to put down and dismiss the very aspect that created the genre are doing a disservice to the public. If you don't want to be shot at don't stand up, I am afraid on occassion I cannot resist the temptation, especially over a boring time like Christmas. I entertained myself with a little tickling and proding.
Wutang - You are judging a martial art that you don't understand. It is different that the stuff practiced in you school, but this don't mean that has less value. Richard - For people that don't practice such thing that is practiced in your school is difficult to understand if it is real and if it work. Also to explain such thing is almost impossible. There is too much inner work behind and is needed too many experience to (realy) understand what you are saing. How I said, different schools, different practices, different results. There is no correct martial art.
You seem to have done your fair share of this so far Richard. Either that or hiding behind the claim that we are unable to understand. Please do tell us what this magical *it* is, that makes your taiji the real thing, and everyone else's wrong. I am genuinely intrigued to know what you think you have that virtually everyone else here and at Empty Flower are missing out on.
If you follow this link it may help and save me having to type it all out again. http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cach...site:www.emptyflower.com+"richard+dunn"&hl=en
