Liokault's Taiji Theories

What you mean is that it didn't fit your theories and it doesn't suit you to answer.

 

Hmmm doesn't fit my theories,,,,Well I actually have no well formed ideas about Tai Chi somehow turning streetfighters into pacifists.

 

liokault - just a simple question really - aren't you able to transform the nei gong into your form. maybe this is why you seem to sell your form a bit short. Though darn it I have to admit to practicing less form than I did per se .

one thing I would say we should think about is to fit our training to our purposes. the training we do is right for us at the time.

borrowing from zirranmen.. I have notice that wang lei shan was considered a bad ass.. he fought and won beating other cma styles. The training of it i think is quite telling in that the motions (mostly simple) incorperate all the aspects we seem to want to seperate..

we begin with form in the beginning and we should be begining it again at the end. certainly It is a simple thing to do 3 hours of form and make it neigong and qigong also.. broken up or put together. there is place for it all.

regards
zd

 

Pacifists wrapped round a crowbar apparantly.

 

On Qi Gong, Dan does actually teach Qi Gong as part of his syllabus. He does Immortal Family Eight Pieces of Brocade. It's more his long standing students/instructors that do it though. It isn't something done in class, it's hard enough fitting the rest in!

Regarding Nei Kung, there is no claim that it is the "real" stuff, it is called that to say it isn't Qi Gong. They are static and moving postures designed as an aid. Dan puts quite an importance on them, saying to do them over form if you have no time for both. I am slipped as late, but generally I do my Nei Kung at least five days a week, I do that and if I can steal some form time I will.

 

Why would a pacifist carry a crowbar? Unless they are a docker or carpenter.

 

The wake up call to Taiji Butterfly safe, non threatening dream world lol

Clearly. The above title was taken from your profile btw. I'm sure none of your comments are personally driven tho...

Not interested in proving anything to you m8. If you think you have something to prove to me then you can travel to Rochester and have a go any time you like.

Objective and open-minded to a fault

Because of course they had 'video evidence' 300 years ago... (and I thought I was supposed to be the one 'in denial')
When do the kids go back to school again, anyone...? sigh
:Angel:

 

no just a sailor in high seas..

 

I'm not joining in the argument as a whole, but I would like to point out that Liokault said "three generations," which does not amount to three hundred years.

For example, my Taiji teacher is Bob Boyd. Bob is the second disciple of Ip Tai Tak. Ip studied under Yang Sau Chung. Yang Sau Chung died in 1985. so there were three generations of practitioners before me alive twenty years ago. I was young in 1985, but I'm fairly certain that cameras were available.

 

I can see that, it seems to me that your vision is too narrow. Let me try and say it more simply.

Taiji (as practised by the majority) is not a competing art, it is a self development art. 'Fighting' covers a broad canvas from that required from soldier to security personnel to streetfighter, teaching those people has been my profession for over 30 years. Taiji has many effective principles and techniques that work effectively in those fields. But to look solely at those self defence skills is to sell the art short.

The more accurate description is not an iron bar wrapped in cloth but a needle wrapped in soft cotton.

If you broaden your perspective sufficiently you will see that all traditional martial arts are methods of peace through strength (which is not pacifistic) competition has never been able to recreate real violence and is therefore representative of nothing more than young inexperienced males indulging in sexual preening as I'm sure you'll witness with all the young men rolling around at the 'san shao'..

 

Well, besides the fact that they ran succesful bodyguard businesses, and my grandmaster was the last Martial Zhuangyuan of the Qing Dynasty, a distinction which he would have had to fight many people NHB to earn, I also know what it's like to try to spar a Mantis master, and believe me, you don't know what hit you. If you're a traditionalist who believes Taiji, trained in the traditional way, is an effective fighting art then why are you skeptical of Mantis trained in the traditional way?

Interesting you spend as much as an hour on qi/neigong out of your 3 hour practice. Really, I'd say that's about right. I think in the beginning it may be good to somewhat more forms practice, but by the time you've been practicing for a few years I think forms practice should only occupy maybe 20% of your time at most. What I think was interesting is that my shifu said that when he was training as a young man they would spend about half their time doing semi-cooperative pair practice. They also did wholly non-cooperative sparring, but this took less of their time. I personally also still spend a lot more time on semi-cooperative drills right now, but I think as I get better I will gradually phase in more and more uncooperative sparring.

What about the boxing gloves and rules? What rules do you follow and what equipment do you usually wear when doing your free sparring? The reason I ask is that my shifu always stresses that too many restrictions on your sparring will warp your self-defence ability, i.e. wearing boxing gloves too much will cause you to break your hand and alter your body mechanics to ones that are more effective with a glove but less effective with a fist.

So why is what you do "neigong" and not "qigong"? You mean it's working with "internal" strength, but not working with qi? If you don't believe in qi, then what exactly is it working? The organs? Just strengthening and stretching the muscles and connective tissues? How then is it different from just say, holding your leg out at a 90 degree angle and standing there? What benefits does it provide that you think it's worth spending one out of three hours of practice on?

 

They were on Bullshido and linked from MAP in a thread way back. But you can ask Liokault for that link - I won't be promoting them for any reason, positive or negative, to anybody.

You're quite right, I was tired, have a cold and was not concentrating, I apologise for my error. Tho tbh there is still no way of comparing your present ability and training to three generations back without meeting said persons and asking them to assess you personally imo - otherwise it's all speculation, isn't it?

True, and of course, "the camera never lies" as the old saying goes... Do you think looking at footage of those guys is as good as training with them tho? Cause I don't.
Clips old or new can only show you a detached two-dimensional viewpoint that you view subjectively from wherever you are in that moment. It's the same as critiqueing a bout from a side-on perspective, you can always see the gaps and flaws the persons involved can't see. I've done this loads of times - we all do it - but if you're smart you know that being in the 'hot seat' is a totally different experience.
Don't get me wrong, I like looking at clips and I've seen and collected loads over the years - they can be a useful resource. But they are no substitute for hands on, personal and direct experience. To refer to internet clips as 'evidence' of the ineffectiveness of entire MA systems and schools is just plain stupid imo
For example, I've been doing Taijiquan for around 20 years and I like to think I'm starting to understand the art a little more these days. About a year or so ago I decided I wanted to experience some more IMA, particularly hands on stuff for self-defence. To cut a long story short, people on here directed me towards several sites and teachers - so I went surfing and looked at some clips. When I first saw the one I ended up going to, I had doubts about the school. Everything looked slow, soft and a bit too casual. I thought "that's not very realistic... that doesn't look all that effective...etc"
I really wasn't sure based on those clips - but after talking on the phone to one of the instructors and listening to my gut feeling I decided to go along and try one of their workshops out to see. I really didn't expect too much, but it was relatively inexpensive, so I thought "what the hell".
The instructor of the workshop was Alex Kozma and I have been blown away completely by what he's shown and taught me in only two sessions. But if you look at the clips of him on his home site they look like nothing much until you've been on the sharp end of it. I was sceptical and uncooperative... and then thrown easily around the park, experiencing real pain at the hands of this relaxed, humorous and seemingly gentle man! If I'd used clips to make the decision I never would have gone along ...and my Taiji wouldn't have been revolutionised

Classic, Steve!
On a serious point, being non-violent is totally different from being a pacifist. People who value violence never understand that point because they don't do their research. The whole idea of being peaceful is intimidating to them imo
It doesn't massage the ego much, yielding, does it?
Joe Strummer famously said (something like): "Getting into fights isn't tough. If you want to be tough, stay home and collect stamps. That's tough!"
Personally, if I never experience a real fight again, I'll be happy. If I do, I'll go all out to defeat my opponent, then I'll go back to training out whatever violence inside me attracted the situation in the first place.
:Angel:

 

And yet you are the only one who ever points to them!

No, what I see when I look at 'old' video, is not a way to judge my ability. I see people doing things the way that I do them now. I see some form, but not much. I see lots of people trying to hit each other and lots of people trying to throw each other.
I do not see anyone pretending to hug a tree.

Well, if we're calling what you do taiji!

 

Well, there are have been uncounted masses of body guards over the centuries, most could fight, many were probably brutal.....how many needed to be 'mantis masters' to make a living?

I believe this because where there is any evidence it points to them (read kung fu, not specifically mantis) being poor fighters.

I only do this when I go to my teachers house to train. I put it down to him having no concept of time.

Uncooperative is the best kind.

We let people put on what they want. And the rules tend to be that you can do anything that you like as long as it wont cause an unreasonable injury.

The breaking your hand thing is another thread, but fundamentally, every one can hit hard enough break their hand if they catch the wrong part. Its not a function of gloves.

Your teacher is correct in that if you never put gloves on, your unlikely to get enough sparring in to ever be able to land a hard punch anywhere, and so your hands will be safe.

I think you will find that I confirmed my belief in chi on another thread. Sadly it didn't tally up with many other peoples idea of chi.

NeiGung is an 'exercise' like any other. It is not moving 'chi' around your body, it is not generating and storing an unknown force for later use.

 

Yes, in the same way as American Military strength

Nothing has ever been able to recreate violence. Competition comes closest to recreating many of the important factors involved in 'real' violence.

Rejecting any form competition leaves you with ineffective mutual masturbation (to use another term that will get TJB excited)

 

So what is your idea of qi?

Do you do the small circulation (du and ren meridian circulation) as part of your qigong? You take in the breath and let what can only be described as its "energy/qi/oxygen/whatever" and let it sink into the abdomen and go around the tailbone. Then take another breath and use the back to raise that same energy up the spine, between the shoulder blades, through the neck and to the top of the head. Now, as you exhale you kind of let it "drip" down from the top of the head, to the third eye and through the face. Then you let it sink further, through the neck, behind the lungs and into the dantian, which you will start to be able to feel quite strongly once you can do this circuit.

Anyway, I'm not expecting anyone to be able to learn to do this from my explanation (it would take a few months at the least), I'm just wondering if my description at all corresponds to any of your "neigong." Cuz when I do what I just described above, it certainly feels quite strongly like I'm moving something around my body (and you can see the signs, for example when I move it my hands and they become blotchy and red). And it also feels as if the dantian is "storing" the energy or becoming accustomed to holding more of it. This is also not just my experience, but a common understanding of qigong. Are you saying this kind of qigong is fake? What am I actually experiencing? Why do so many traditional CMAists practice this kind of qigong? What is your qigong/neigong "exercising" if not moving qi around? Is it just exercising the muscles? The breathing, the blood flow... what? Why do you believe that qi exists but that it's not possible to bring it under conscious control?

 

nope.

Am I saying that its fake?

Am I saying that it is just exercising muscle?

Am I saying that it is just moving blood?


Do I think you are storing something?

Probably/yes/yes/no

 

...In which case, what you are practising is not neigung/qigong or any kind of genuine Chinese IMA development imo, as it is missing vital elements of genuine IMA training.
It's external.
:Angel:

 

Well, what I described is common to nearly all systems of qigong, Buddhist, Daoist or other (even some types of Yoga) and has been practiced by martial artists 3, 5 and probably 10 or more generations ago. I'm basing this not only on many extant pieces of qigong literature describing it, but also because my shifu's shifu taught it to him. By your counting, my shifu's shifu would probably be four generations ago, considering he was born in the 19th century.

I'm not beyond admitting that qi may be a construct or combination of multiple things already identified by western science--blood, oxygen, nervous system, etc... Also, while qi and blood follow each other, you gradually learn to distinguish one from the other. Blood feels more like a warm rush, qi feels more like a wave-form tingling or electric current. You might say that that tingling is just my nerves detecting the increase in blood, which I doubt since increased blood flow doesn't always result in the sensation of qi..., but even if all qigong does is allow you to move oxygenated blood around your body at will, isn't that still pretty amazing?

Again, I ask what your qigong is exercising? The blood? The muscles? What benefits does it provide?

 

That was a joke - right?

That's not true. I'm not against competition, my association Karate squad is one of the most successful in England, but if you want to train for real fighting, properly constructed and trained pairs work is far more effective.