The taiji of Mario Napoli (CMC)

Discussion in 'Tai chi' started by cloudz, Sep 9, 2008.

  1. unfetteredmind

    unfetteredmind Valued Member

    Yes but they don't look like grappling or wrestling.
    I agree that when people are well matched things will look different but if both are supposedly using Taiji they still wouldn't be using that kind of power. As for not having wrestled like that I don't see the relevance. A boxer doesn't need to have wrestled to know that two guys wrestling aren't boxing does he?
    The different skills I mean are in the fundamentally different way that power is applied. You know what I mean cos we've discussed this before. A wrestler applies power by contracting the muscles. A taiji player allows power to arise as a result of releasing into alignment and allowing the muscles to stretch which generates an elastic force back in the direction of the incoming force. This is what is meant by the "intrinsic power of the muscles" talked about by CMC and in the classics and the metaphor of the drawn bow. A bow does not generate its own force, it's intrinsic pliability causes it to generate a force in the opposte direction to the force that is applied by the person drawing it.

    Relative to anything. I mean it in the physical sense of the state of the muscles. A contracting muscle is by definition not relaxed. They don't even seem to be attempting it and failing.
    I certainly agree that physical strength is not a dirty word. I weight train intensively myself for the many benefits that increased strength gives. It is necessary for all kinds of things. It's just that my interest lies in understanding if and how physical strength can be overcome through the principles of taiji as I understand them.


    Of course but as I said in a reply to FQ earlier, my approach is to increase the pressure at a rate that doesn't result in a sacrifice of the principles. Don't get me wrong, I fail all the time at not resorting to physical strength in push hands but I can say I am practising Taiji because I am constantly striving not to.
    You know I wrestle (no pun intended) with this one all the time myself but I always end up back at the point that if you train to use muscular strength then that is what comes out under pressure. I train Taiji for very particular reasons, if I wanted to train in the way you suggest I would do an art that I think would produce better quicker results such as BJJ, sambo etc. You see I think that FQ makes some very good points about taiji not producing many decent fighters. The reason in my mind is that if you want to use physical strength there are much better arts - ones that were designed for that purpose. The very training methods suggested as the solution to the fighting efficacy problems in taiji are to me the reason for the problem.
    I do face them whenever I push hands.

    Most of the time it seems that people pay lip service to the ideals but in fact do very little to work towards them. If the ideal is to relax and yield to incoming force, contracting and resisting it seems to be not working towards the ideal at all.
    I don't expect picture perfect taiji but if the principles are abandoned under presure, what good are they as principles? Better to train a different art in my mind.
     
  2. unfetteredmind

    unfetteredmind Valued Member

    Sorry I just realised that I missed a post from you. I'm a bit short on time but will try and answer your points briefly. If they seem a bit curt it's just because I am trying to be brief.

    The principles violated are to not resist incoming force but to yield and neutralise that force then return it. Forced errors or not doesn't change whether or not it is Taiji.

    So hearsay in other words. The trouble with this kind of thing is that maybe those people in Taiwanes MA circles decided it was rigged because they thought it didn't look right. Same as you.

    Application of a fundamentally different kind of strategy and power will look fundamentally different. This is my whole point. You can only look like you are a proper wrestler if you get the chance to apply your techniques.

    I didn't mean to imply that the skills developed can only be developed in taiji. Certainly other arts utilise very similar skills. Just not many of them. I haven't seen the clips you refer to but accomplished judoka will certainly be more likely to use similar principles. As for an articulation of the skills I am addressing, well I've tried to do that in previous posts.

    The key to this statement lies in what he meant by force.
    I don't train the way I do to demonstrate ideals. I do it because I share those ideals as the best way to overcome force. If someone is trying to hurt me I will use everything I've got at that moment to win. At my stage of training that would be a combination of my training in Taiji, judo, wing chun and Tae kwon do (probably very little of the latter!). The fact that I run and weight train would probably also help. I certainly wouldn't be trying picture perfect taiji. However I could only say I was doing taiji if I fought with taiji principles.
    It was the "skillful means come after" part that I don't consider taiji because taiji is all about skill. As for Yang Ban Hou, no I don't think he did.
    Yes but there is much more to taiji than that!
     
  3. Fire-quan

    Fire-quan Banned Banned

    But, a boxer has seen boxers box, and wrestlers wrestle. How do you know what you think is real taiji even exists? Have you seen someone do it? I mean, you may have - and that's cool - just wondering, though, if you're seeing the right thing in terms of pursuing the true principles of Quan, but appointing a pre-expectation of what those principles will look like in practice...

    Funny how we habitually appoint massive expectations of what things will be like - focussed on the complex fantasy, we miss the simple sweat and pain truths of authentic training and application.

    I have to tell you, what makes the principles of taiji authentic isn't that they are taiji - rather, authentic taiji is made authentic only if it expresses the authentic principles of Quan, and those principles are from human anatomy, from physics, and are pan-human, and across all arts.

    Effete push hands isn't as valuable as some people would have you believe. I've met many people who have good push hands, but almost zero ability to apply them in even a slightly live situation.
     
  4. Fire-quan

    Fire-quan Banned Banned


    So we keep being told. But there was much, much more to Ali, too- as we keep being able to see!
     
  5. MPhelan

    MPhelan Valued Member

    That video was freaking awesome. If I can find competitions like that when I'm in China, I'm definitely entering
     

Share This Page