Actions speak louder than words... and words without any action are empty. In other words, for all I know you are someone who maybe practices taiji but never used it for what its meant for, which would nullify most of what you say. Its just a matter of credibility. If you will criticize others and call them level 2 or whatever (not that I know hat that means) then you should show what is a higher level, i.e. demo it. Otherwise, its just talk..
Ultimately, ignorance is its own reward. Just as a point of record, the idea I've presented isn't 'my' idea - it's the orthodox Yiquan nerve activation theory on why ZZ and slow movement are used, based on WXZ profound understanding of taiji, bagua and Xing Yi. What Dan Docherty and his school think slow movement is for - well, I think ultimately they don't know, and see the whole thing rather as an embarrassment; hence its ultimate sense of being unimportant in that school. I can understand that because the theory seems silly.
At some point you have to start finding a way to expore things on their own merits, rather than on the merits of the person who brings them to you. Dismiss it if it doesn't ring true for you right now, consider it deeply if it does - but don't dismiss the value of ideas based only on the credibility of the person you're talking to, because if a point is right, it's right, no matter who says it. And just as wrong if it's wrong. Some times the 'greats' are caught up with BS, and some times, idiots say the wisest things. And I should know.
Sure, that may be true.. but, at the end of the day the human mind can spout and receive all sorts of wonderful and bizarre thoughts, but they are just thoughts.. in action, none of that is relevant. However, in terms of not being close minded to certain approaches, particularity ones which are long term investments, it is applicable i.e. sometimes you need some faith/belief.
Yeah, you know, recently I've been deeply exploring the wisdom of that idea. All the time wasted in arguing about things like qi - when what really matters is the astounding power of our mind to use visualisations to positive, practical effect. So, yeah, ultimately, there are those people who are 'right' on a subject - like, it might be scientifically true that there's no qi, but for a person wishing to develop certain physical attributes, using 'qi' as a visualisation tool may be very powerful and useful - and they have to have faith and belief in it on some kind of bodily level, rather than the intellect. Which is not to stray in to the cultish tactic of separating people from their intellect - only to recognise that the mind has a power that we can utilise. As for Weliquan - it's just so ignoble, ultimately, to be all B---ching on the internet. Maybe Weili 'needs' to believe that his paradigm is true, because that's what makes it work for him. The people I really admire, who really sum this up for me, are the authentic Japanese karate masters, who may not be, necessarily able to defeat UFC champions - but there's something about the way their whole life is permeated with sheer warrior spirit that makes them men of another ilk. Whether the 'ki' or spirits they believe in are scientifically true or not, the belief in them empowers them. Aya... I'm rambling, aren't I? AYA! Heh..
Hey - I've invented something - the 'B-ching' - the spiritual philosophy of the internet. 'I've consulted the B-ching, and it says you're an idiot....' Yeah? Well I've consulted my B-ching and it says you're a double troll.... Maybe one trolls the b-ching, instead of rolling a dice... The way of the b-ching, I fear, drains our much needed attention.
God damn it - we're all stooges. Maybe 'shills' is a better word, one way or another. All of these people we talk about, and argue for- all of these styles and people from Yao Cheng Guang to Dan Docherty to Chen Bing, are all men, and warriors in their own right. I had an American Indian friend once, who told me that to Indians, if you defend someone, it's considered an insult, because you're saying they can't defend themselves. I dunno - I can't shill for anyone anymore. If their theory works, well it would help if they definitively demonstrated it I guess. 'Cos what do we argue about? What they 'could' do? Maybe we just need to believe that, at certain points on our own development?
For sure, the mind is a very powerful and dynamic tool and indeed, realities made with it can be very useful for training certain aspects. Unfortunately, in some instances the tool becomes the master and master becomes a tool I guess part of the trick is not to take yourself too seriously and play with what you find useful without it becoming your bible.
This is what I don't get about Tai Chi. I've said this before, no one seems to agree. If you had a load of Karate people on here talking about Karate, there would be some sort of common ground. Same with Ju-jitsu. Although they may go about it a slightly different way, their overall principles would be similar. Judo, etc, the same. Tai Chi seems all over the place. Ask a simple question, or what should be a simple question, and you either start an argument or someone sprouts a load of arty-farty stuff that doesn't really mean anything. Why isn't it more straight forward? Is there really any substance to the art? I'm not sure I'm convinced there is. I don't know anything at all about Tai Chi, but I know about other martial arts. I have to say, Tai Chi doesn't come out looking very good because everyone argues with each other all the time. I can't keep up with all the contradictions!
Unfortunately you have hit the nail on the head! In general MA is full of partisan stances/positioning, general political twaddle and use of 'mysterious' language to describe/hide behind/whatever. TaiChiChuan seems to be quite a bit worse than most MA for this - I too have been quite surprised at how much of this manifests itself in the TCC world, but I am getting a bit more used to it now - I have managed to identify aspects that interest/concern me better than a year or so back. For beginners/ those prospectively interested, it is a minefiled of quicksands everywhere. Fire-quan, InTheSpirit and Liokault all provided some usefull info, but you have to filter through what they are saying and understand their standpoints to get to this. All are trying to distill TCC down to simple manageable concepts. I tried to express this as well. In one of Fire-quan's posts he states 'Chinese arts have a profound connection to philosophy – especially experiential philosophies such as Taoism and Ch’an.' Unfortunately, this is undeniable. To some extent you have to buy into these concepts up front, but it doesnt make TCC a bad art, just that its difficult to find credible tuition and to gauge your understanding.
Well, the first thing there is recognise that you're in the West, so your chances of getting authentic information on taiji are limited. For example, Liokault belongs to a very unorthodox school of taiji - so unorthodox that there's not too much common ground between it, and the more orthodox taiji schools in China. And to resolve that, the head of that school ultimately claims that his taiji is the real stuff, and what we know of as the orthodox tradition is not real taiji as such. His stuff, essentially, is a kind of judo with kick boxing. Not saying that's bad, or doesn't achieve a good effect, just that there's a limit to how far one can change a style in to something else, and still call it that style. Lio's teacher's movements, for example, are completely different to what I know as taiji. I'm extremely conservative regarding what I think is correct movement, not because I want to defend any traditional school for it's own sake, but because I only accept movement which clearly conforms to the idea of training with mojin - isometric resistance - as being the actual taiji method. Anything else is either just moving your arms about, or is something else completely. Whereas, with karate, there's a strong sense of what it is, consequetly, similar training methods, and then similar opinions regarding it. You can't get, for example, information on the meaning of slow movement from schools that don't emphasise it - all you can really get is what you got, a kind of embarrassed down playing of its meaning, or, at best, a kind of misunderstood sense that it's there for making learning techniques easier. So, you didn't actually get a range of opinions - you got the real information from me, and a number of other people whop said, in roundabout ways 'I don't know what it is for.' So the first thing to do is don't bother with the people who don't have much real experience with slow movement training, at least in terms of asking what it does or is there for. How would they know? They don't. We can all know if no one can demonstrate any usefulness to it, but we can't all know what it feels like to train that way, or have insight in to that method. As for airy-fairy - the second point to understand is that even if the theory doesn't work, never the less, the theory - the orthodox theory of taiji training is zhan zhaung - i.e. standing meditation; exploration of 'mojin' - relaxed isometric resistance; exploration of mojin through specific movements - such as short sequences, or later on historically longer forms, fa jin - explosive release of power; push hands, shuai jiao/wrestling; san da - free fighting - and ultimately actual fighting. Along the way, the various knowledge of the system/teachers is also taught - chin na/joint locks, punches, kicks etc. and through it all is the experiential element of making the whole body more sensitive, and activating the nervous system in a perfectly achieveable, scientifically explainable way. The idea of things like one's 'intent' having much more direct connection to one's actions is described in other sports by things like 'being in the zone', or the kind of mental/phisical awarness required for, and talked about by, free runners. It's not by any means airy-fairy - just misunderstood. That's the orthodox method. The reason for slow movement I've probably made seem overly mystical - and one shouldn't assume, either, that the complex sounding explanation implies an astounding result - it's just a simple training method intended to achieve a higher sensitivity across one's body. I don't actually do much taiji, but I use the same method via Yiquan - visualisation and nerve activation through slow movement. Many other sports use visualisation techniques as well now - and the same method is very popular amongst kyokushinkai, for example, which has deep links with yiquan. Liokault, for example, can't show you that method, or its results, because he doesn't do that kind of training. But without it, it's doubtful to me whether one can say that his school follows a sufficently orthodox taiji syllabus for it to still be taiji, and not something else. Simply doing a form isn't the point of taiji forms. The slow movement is a specifc training and conditioning practice, utulising isometric resistance. Either way, the reasons I explained for slow movement are correct. Now, if you're asking if anyone in taiji can actually do that, or present a realistic demonstration of that method, well, I assume yes, but no one yet has provided any kind of video evidence of it.
Actually, I think it's a profound benefit to Chinese arts, and why it's still a cultural treasure of the world. I think people who don't understand the connections necessarily overly focus only on learning techniques, rather than deeper connection between intent and application which at one time definitively characterised Chinese arts.
Well, when people say 'no nonsense in taiji' in one way that'slike insisitng that taiji must no conform to a different agenda. Like saying, I want taiji to be simply about fighting, no nonsense, punch and kick. Well, what if it isn't solely about punch and kick? What if there is more to it? It irritates me enormpusly when people tryto make Quan solely about violence. Really, that's a modern, Western introduction. I choose to make my training more than just about fighting. I train 24 hours a day - it saturates and permeates my life, in every part of it. Some people want only to learn how to fight effectively. I respect that - I want that too, I just don't only want that. People can't comealong and say - this is what Quan must be now! It must be only about fighting! No nonsense! Woah - it's about other things, too. And some of the training ideas have profound depth and implication in other areas of our lives. Use of things like zhan zhuang and shi li/silk reeling can have other affects on us - and always were intended to. Ultimately, why not just learn muay thai and BJJ and call that taiji? Well, I'll you why, because 'taiji' isn't in the techniques, it's in the training way. The ultimate achievement of Quan was intended to be the point where you could use any technique, or no technque, from any art or no art, because your mind had such delicate motor control over your body, and such an aware integration with what was happening to it. All arts, including muay thai and BJJ are also looking for that kind of level, although they might have different words for it. Making taiji only about superficial technique isn't 'no nonsense' - it's the epitome of making a nonsense out of the entire point of taiji. I fully respect the criticisms of taiji - as most people know, it's usually me making those criticisms, saying the things Puma is saying. But ultimately, that's only to make people realise that in taiji, most people are absoloutely stuck at the furthest end of the spectrum, where they simply copy corrupt, useless form. It's far, far from my intention to say only stay at the point of slightly better martial function. The actual achievement of Quan is to make quan a state of mind, and yet, that to have practical application and not be an airy fairy idea. Like Morpheus says - it's nothing to do with techniques, or strength, or even speed - it's the mind that matters. And that's the same in all martial arts, and in fact all sports, and human endeavours, once people get past a certain level. And that's not nonsense - and it is a valued treasure of Chinese philosophy.
Puma did ask direct questions and only sometimes received direct answers. That there is a heck of a lot more to TCC than 'practical' street fighting is undeniable. Equally undeniable, is that TCC has gotten the itself into quite some twist, and the events of Communist China, the Cultural revolution, the emergence of Capatilist China; have all contributed to this twist, along with western interpretations of TCC. You quote the example of Karate as being more unified in its interpretation and presentation. This is partially true, but probably not completly. I have heard from Karateka tales of watering down of the art, political twaddle etc. Maybe some folk on this forum can supply better info than me on this front. Japanese society has been a lot more stable since WW2 than the PRC, and in genral has managed to maintain its MA heritage fairly well, but it is not immune from difficulties e.g. Aikido - for which you can read a lot about on this forum. You make a lot of valid points and present a lot of usefull info reg. CMA, but the essential messages of your posts sometimes mix very partisan standpoints in amongst the interesting/usefull, and (by your own admission), you sometimes rant away, thus diminishing the content of your pieces. I hasten to add, I am not much better. I will come back to you when time permits (not sure if it will bein this thread mind you) with some specific points and questions; and I think you could write up 2 good articles on a) general CMA tying in traditional and modern aspects, and b) the philisophical aspects of CMA e.g. along the lines of your YiQuan descriptions of nerve theory/animal state. My advice would be to try to stick to informing, rather than taking prejidicial stances - so that the content is easily digestible. It may be later tonight when I come back on these points. In the meantime, you can keep exchanging punches with Lio.
Hi Embra, FQ has put up some articles that you may find of interest. http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=156
I understand that there are other benefits other that 'real fighting'. I am not particularly interested in cage fighting and such. BJJ keeps getting mentioned. I dislike the term "Brazilian Ju-jitsu" because there is no such thing. Ju-jitsu is Japanese. I also believe that cage-fighters are sportsman. I respect what they do, although I find most of the fights boring as it usually ends up with 2 half-naked men rolling around the floor. What I am trying to say is, although I asked for no nonsense, I am interested in all aspects of the art and the training. If something is done as a certain exercise to build up certain skills, but isn't practical for real, cool, I want to hear about it. Most people I have encountered that go on about 'real' self-defence have either never had a fight or couldn't fight anyway because they lack in knowledge. They hide behind the 'real' thing like some do behind the 'mystical' terms. You know, I can't do that, it's too hard, so I'll just tell everyone it doesn't work. I mean, how do you practice biting someone or ripping their eyes out anyway? I don't think it would be a good idea to train somewhere where eye balls are rolling around the floor or ears are being pulled off! By no nonsense, I mean no explainations that don't mean anything. I want to understand, not come off hear thinking, "I don't think anyone really knows what they are talking about."
