Hi Newbie question

Of course they do, when they are training internally. And guess what, some internal stylists don't do it, confusing eh?

Why should it be easy? What makes you think there is "a" difference rather than many? And if you really want to know what we think the difference is, I'm sure you would just read the earlier posts in this thread. Or even the "Internal Arts" forum where there is a great thread, "What is an Internal MA"!

Perhaps this is where the difference lies, I do not go to an instructor to ask for answers, I go to ask for guidance in a method that will provide its own answers.

 

Well I'm an acupuncturist and I will reiterate what I said earlier. Qi is not bioelectricity but bioelectricity could be considered to be Qi. Just as water is a liquid but a liquid is not necessarily water. Unfortunately there is no simple answer to what Qi is and different Chinese doctors will give you different definitions.

I'm studying Taiji too but that doesn't give me the ability too look back in time and read the intentions of unknown founders/contributors to the art. And here's a wild idea, what if Taiji evolved slowly (rather than being "invented") through the input of many, many people each with different ideas as to its function?

Perhaps I did misunderstand. When you said that Taiji was not "invented for self enlightenment or any other cr%^p like that." I thought you were saying that self-enlightenment was crap. It is a little strong to accuse me of listening without using my ears (funnily enough you are right, I read these threads with my eyes) without checking whether or not your words are ambiguous.

 

Great so we agree that the bio electicity in the body is what western Scientists know as Chi.
I don't care what else it is at this point, or what its believed to be thats not the point I'm making.

Tai Chi was invented in a time when China made the Wild West look like Disneyland. We may have fought wars while the Chinese were busy killing each other, doen't that say it all.
Modern day so called masters will tell you different, but that,s because they only know the form.

my apology's if I offended you

 

Sorry, I don't understand this, what do you mean?

I was not offended but thanks

 

Is this from wikipedia?


Astonishing.....

 

oops thats one major brain f**t and no its not from Wikipedia I managed to mess that one up all on my own.

 

sorry what I meant to say all though we fought wars against other countries, which were very intermittent.
The Chinese fought each other for centuries, which meant they got rather good at it. Its during this period that Ho' Chuan was invented which is what modern Tai Chi is derived from.
At the end of the day the Name "Tai Chi" says it all.
what ever you can get from Tai Chi is good, whether Its martial, self Healing, enlightenment or what ever.
But don't ever doubt that in its original form it was used for killing and maiming ones enemies.

 

Define, Ho Chuan! please whoflungdat.

Because I thought it was from Long Chuan.

 

Ho' chuan means Loose boxing or Rag doll boxing.

 

An answer is the reply to a question - whatever you ask you get answers, you can call it guidance if you like but an answer is what it is. Here is the merriam webster page on the word answer for you http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/answer - 1a is what you are looking for.

 

The reason there are different meanings listed is because meaning changes according to context. Personally I think 1b is more applicable in this context. Or are you suggesting that people go to instructors for any old response to their questions? Anyway I suspect you appreciate the meaning of what I said and I'm not too interested in your attempts to turn this into a debate about the precise meaning of the word "answer". My interest here is in learning and sharing ideas about Taiji, not point scoring in an English Language quiz.

 

Do you really, really mean it??

Ideas like Internal and External are just that - ideas - so then what matters is what kind of a "mapper" you are - it you're the kind that's using ideas actively to suggest new and interesting possiblities, then you can "read" a number of different things in to ideas.

For me, the definitive explanation is always that "Quan" is a different skill to what people normally think it is. It isn't a learned art, it's an unfolded art - unfolded from natrual potential. Which sounds airy-fairy, but isn't in practical terms. "Internal method" means proceeding via intuition. External method just means copying others, trying to mimic their movement. It's nothing whatsoever to do with any particular kind of movement.

But to see that, it's essential to first dis-appoint our pre-appointed expectations about what "internal/external" actually meant.

 

So there's the REAL meaning of "Internal" then, huh?

I'll add it to my list.

 

Well, the first thing is to "dis appoint" that "internal" method is anything special. People are doing it all the time, in all different kinds of things.

Once we let go of the idea that it's a way of moving, and recognize that it's a way of learning, then it loses a lot of the mystique. However, a lot of people feed their egos on that mystique, so do get over it, they literally will be "dis appointed" - it's just a matter of who dares let go of their fancy dress.

Asking other people questions isn't by any means wrong, or contrary to "internal method" and neither is copying other people. That's just falling back in to slavery to binary ideology - taking one extreme... In fact, the right path is always, seems to me, encompassing all aspects.

Only you ever understand anything - just as only you ever feel your emotions - only you ever feel your love, only you ever feel you are a victim, or alone, or weak. We breathe all the meaning in to our search, and we choose what questions to ask, and what answers to listen to, then how we will act on them.

The only step then is to be a questioner, rather than just a believer. Everythign we choose to believe, we choose to believe it for a reason, from our religion, to what we think about ourselves, to what we think abotu martial arts. If you dare, then the best thing to do is ask why you believe, whatever you believe. That really will open the gateway.

 

So it's the opposite of Origami then?

 

Tah-da!!!!!!! This really appealed to me. I like you despite your lack of Qi and your preoccupation with fighting

 

We all are actually - see Wittgenstein.

What Whoflungdat did was use words to confuse the issue - I just highlighted how it was done. No one has three thousand years of wisdom. As cultures, the product of thousands of years of knolwedge doesn't actually accumulate in the way you obviously think it does. Ever considered the "size" of someone's reality? It doesn't get any bigger because of how much knowledge has gone before.

Look at a word like "knowledge" - do you know where it comes from, its etymology? Do you have as cultural knowledge every stage of the development of the word/concept "knowledge"?

Apply that to every word, menaing, cultural more in your reality - see - it's another word game - you have the product of thousands of years of knowledge in one sense, but you don't actually have thousands of years of knowledge - knowledge doesn't work like that - it creates a world view for you, based on the past, but not incorporating every aspect of the past. It's "emergent" in other words. I can explain more deeply, if you're really interested in emergent reality.

Well, I just judge it on videoed success in fights, where we can see people's actual level in action - as opposed to seeing it in our imagination. If you have another criterion... do tell....

 

Is it? Got any videos to prove that?

What I asked was, how do YOU know. As in, have you reached your full combat potential?

Well that's a very, very complex proxy-word game. See, the Chinese "doctor" works within his own nexus of meanings, as we all do. No word has any meaning outside of a context - none at all. Qi has no meaning outside of a context, and the doctor has his context, but it doesn't mean that he's right.

On the whole, Western doctors totally rule the roos in the world of medicine, if you hadn't noticed. Western doctors can transplant herats, and save kids from diseases where Chinese doctors would only be able to explain why they died in terms of lack of qi. Maybe we should be getting away fromt he idea that real knowledge is always truer if it's from the past?

Well, I didn't say that - I never comment on my level. But as for whether we can actually - oh Lord - heresy - actually be hinest about levels is an important thing for us as we face the future of martial arts - baiting as some people might think it is. We're absoloutely trapped in a rule that says it's bad to say if someone isn't very good, or if one way is better than another...

Given that, how can we even begin to honestly start assessing what works and what doesn't, what is BS and what isn't?

Yes, that could be true - but if it wasn't, how would you know?

Well, my teacher was a Chinese doctor, and a tree hugger - as all the senior Chen people are as well. His martial arts were so good that when he moved heaven had to check if it was missing a dragon - but that doesn't mean that everything he said, or believed, was true. There's a difference between what our body knows and the words our mind uses to explain it.

Drugs.

Well, that's just a word game. The point of philosophy is to make clear word games, so that we can see what slaves we are to words. It isn't a "fact" that people live because of qi - it's a belief. And what you use is a reverse proof - very funny really. The fact that we live "proves" your idea that we live because of qi. Er, no.

Well, what facts, then, do you have on qi? Because, usually, facts are presented via words, making them very open to forgery... as in, qi is life, therefore if you live that is proof of qi... That's a very simple obfuscation.

The ears just do the listenng part -it's the brain that does the interpretation - that's what you, specifically need to worry about - people actually understanding why you must be wrong, just by the way you say it - it's a game of word twisting, twisting it so much that it's almost too difficult ot work out why you're wrong... unless you're a speicalist at doing that... like me.

 

One of the primary tools of obfuscation in our language is "widening"... it works like this:

"God is love."
"God is perfection."
"God is everything."
"Qi is energy."
'We are all one."

In all those examples, the person who says them thinks they are defining the object - i.e. God, qi, "we"... but they don't at all do that - the just widen out the meaning of the second part, to include the first.

That seems a bit too academic to be useful, I know, but if you catch the meaning of how it works, you realise that it's actually a tool of confusing things, not defining them at all. It's a really useful thing to understand, because it is one of the primary means by which people trick themselves with their own language use.

Very often, it's used to define ideas that have no physical existence that we can see in any other way, and is an indication that what we are trying to describeis actually a mental construct.

 

Thing is, in most cases, if you're asking the question, you're only a step away fromt he answer - and it's usually a step we can make ourselves if it's about physical skill.

Often, even in philosophy, if you're asking the question, you already have all of the pieces of the answer - you just need to rearrange them. That;s internal method philosophy!