Reading any of your posts is like watching a dog thrashing around in a circle chasing it's own tail out of frustration and boredom. I can only marvel at the energy and effort you put into it and smile. You're a malcontent ... but you carry on as though you've got it all figured out whilst claiming simultaneously to being your own master etc. It's a pretty funny routine but really it's got nothing to do with me - it's all about you and your battle with yourself. As I said earlier, good luck with it.
See, you don't even mean that. You're 36 years old and you're saying "I wish you luck" when really you mean nothing but ill-will. I tell yuo Syd - I wish you luck, and I really do. This time and effort, sure, it's for me - we always act for ourselves, I don't deny - but I do have genuine intent to progress you further in your understanding - whether you like it or not, after all, you're responsible for choosing to read me, thrashing about or not. So why is it that I don't wish you ill will over what you say, but you wish me ill will? Why you insult me? Why is that? Do you know why? It's because what you say is wrong. Simple as. Question for you is, why would your ego get all upset about something that's wrong anyway?
Hey FireQuan and Syd, Looks like the two of you are doing the same thing in a couple of threads here.. I have to say that when I first started reading FQs posts here, I found them quite arrogant and disagreed with most of them. But to be fair, he's only asking you to question the effectiveness of your chosen art, which is something you would do as a matter of course if you really were serious about improving anything. And to back up statements with proof, which is how things actually do get better. I don't think that providing proof would mean having to essentially kill/maim someone. It's been done to death (hahaha) on this forum and on many others. Rather than just closing off an avenue of investigation, why not bring something to the table? TJQ seems to have been a fairly efficient way of defending yourself. Many people in the past seem to have used it to great effect. Nowadays there are less people who can say they can and do use it, whilst at the same time professing it's greatness. Which is basically lazy and more disrespectful than any percieved arrogance from FQ. For me TJQ is great. I find it interesting and challenging. It helps me keep fit mentally and physically. It certainly seems to have the structure and content to produce a great fighter and I'm investigating that by my own means. I look forward to the day when all tjq playes can say "it is an awesome fighting art, look here are our peers fighting and innovating", rather than talking about the past and what could happen if something did happen.
I feel it is a shame that we all never got around to organising the third IMA seminar...simply because the previous two gave those who attended a chance to discuss and do hands on training together. People who previously held different views on the forum found that they were, in the most part, on the same path. They simply held views from a different standpoint. Also, as we come from different areas, the language used is open for misinterpretation. I, for one, am encouraged that TaijiQuan practitioners here care enough about what they do to to voice their opinions. On topic....I haven't learnt enough Taiji to say I could use it effectively if the situation arose. In training, I default into 'anything that works at that moment in time'...be that Ninjitsu, Bagua or Taiji techniques.
"All the senior Yangs of his time were defeated by their friend, Wang Xiang Zhai," Do we have any non-biased,independent confirmation of this?Chinese gazettes,or writings of,or even an oral transmission of witnesses who didn't belong to either camp? Not defending TC or the Yangs,Fq,just wondered.
The thing about "either camp" doesn't really apply with Yang taiji, because they weren't enemies in the way that we often hear stress between taiji and yiquan now. Yang Shao hou and Yang Cheng Fu were Wang Xiang Zhai's friends, which is probably why we have push hands in yiquan and possibly why we have standing meditation in Yang taiji. Of course, Wang is in the Beijing times saying that Yang taiji is largely useless, and of course, no Yang stylists ever made him take back his words. Why? Well, he was a modern thinking fighter - he was on to the next stage, that's all. The greatest skill in looking at martial arts, whether it be looking at Wang, or the Yangs, is to dis-appoint our expectations. Right here and now, Cloudhandz, and probably the others who went to that Southern meet, are probably far better than Yang Cheng Fu already. Maybe better than Wang. We don't know. We get caught up in the romanticism of the past - we appoint massive expectations about the levels of people, and then hold ourselves hostage to those expectations. Probably most of us are better already than many of the people we've held as heroes. They are still heroes - it's just that thanks to them we've adopted better, more modern and effective training methodologies. With all ideas, it's not knowing them, it's how deeply you understand their implications. The ideas of taiji, like all ideas, and all methods of Quan, can be understood on various levels, from shallow to astoundingly profound. The same ideas that take one generation so far can then, thanks to them, be extended further, deeper, more profound. But we're always looking for bigger methods, instead of stripping away the useless flotsam that have stuck to the styles. We're hard wired to look to the past as superior - but maybe we are actually superior. It's like - as my Dan Docherty senses are tingling - Dan's win in South East Asia. I've seen that fight. I'm not sure if that's who CLoudz is hinting at.... but if it is, Cloudz is already, here and now, of a much, much higher level than Dan was when he won that tournament. A couple of the others at that Southern meet looked really good as well. Does it really matter if Li Rui Dong left town after losing to Wang? Maybe neither of them would stand for one minute in a modern UFC. What matters is their ideas - if they are ideas in that tiny category of things that are genuinely true, then there's no limit to how deeply we can further unfold insight in to them, how deeply we can see further implication and gain benefit from them. Taiji and Yiquan should be friends, learning from each other and other martial arts. What Wang talked about wasn't another style, it was about the essence of Quan itself - the foundation, and aim of all styles in CMA.
Fq,your entire post is irrelevant to a simple yes or no question. So much for your constant claims of eliminating obfuscation.
Hi guys, I don't know if master Wang defeated the Yangs or not, but he was right about the rot setting into Taiji Quan . Yang Chenfu had abandoned his Grandfathers form to Teach his own form, which was basically easier to learn and easier to teach. Although it is said it was to enable anybody to learn it, I am beginning to believe it was more money orientated. Yang Chenfu practiced his fighting behind closed doors and never taught martial to the public. Yang Shou Hou (that's not how you spell it, but I don't think he'll care) taught his grandfather's art to a few students how many is not really known and whether he showed it to master Wang or not I seriously doubt it, based on how saddened he was to see the state of Yang Taiji. I have reason to believe that when yang Shou Hou died Cheng Fu asked his brothers students to join him or be struck from the family records. I am hoping to gain evidence that Yang Chenfu's grandfathers form did exist even though some parties are now denying its existence. Please be patient I will try to provide proof for everything if I can. It seams that corruption and money definitely come into it somewhere.:bang:
Yang's encounter with Li is very famous, as is his friendship with the Yangs. I think the other possibility would be more improbable, and really, much worse for Yang fans - that Wang Xiang Zhai, the most famous challenge fighter in China at that time, was in the Beijing Times calling taiji ruined and unuseable against any real fighter, and the Yang brothers didn't take him up on his open challenge? That's simply inconceivable in the martial arts world of early 20th Century Beijing, and they would have lost so much face it would be considered a defeat anyway. But that's not what happened - they knew each other and remianed friends, and that's only possible in one circumstance - Wang was the senior, and they accepted that he was right.
Humm.. maybe but for them to accept him as there senior seems some what out of Character, also we all know how the press changes things, don't suppose you know the date of the article? I will have to find out more. thank you.
The article in the Beijing Times was apparently written by one of Wang's students, which begs the question was he using Wang's own words or stretching them like most reporters do. It seams strange that he would call himself friend and that slag them in such a demeaning way, maybe this is another reason they remained friends, because it was all press b*******.
Hi Who-(hi who,it's off to work we...goo?)-anyway- in 1920 Wu,CC and YCF performed their forms together in a public demo.The forms were structured pretty much as we see them today,but were still performed with slow,fast,and explosive movements. It's difficult to know if these were still the postures as they had been performed by Lu-ch'an in his final years.We see today various forms from those claiming descent from Lu-ch'an's sons,and they all look somewhat different.I think what counts is not what the postures themselves look like,but the depth of the teachings behind them.As TC was made palatable for the general public,that seems to be what changed. While money was probably a factor,the cultural/national movements at the time also seemed to have played a major role in this.Combine that with the decreasing value of hand to hand and non-projectile weapons training-(even well known boxers who were security/caravan guards carried firearms)-one could make the case that YCF was also trying to keep TC somewhat relevant in a rapidly changing world. Not that I'm excusing the dilution we have to sift through today.Seems it went from the normal practice of teach people good stuff,and teach your inner circle the really good stuff,to teach a bunch of people diluted basics,and a very,very few what MAs would consider anything of worth. And churn out a lot of students who become "instructors" who know very little.Even in the realm of basic mechanics.That's the general legacy of TC we live with.
