Taijiquan Styles

[dwai]

Curious to hear from other long term taijiquan folks (also with an excellent teacher and excellent training) on the topic of spiritual development in, or alongside, one's taijiquan practice.

One of my concerns about studing IMA with a martial focus is the karma issue - i.e., how many folks have been hurt/maimed by one's lineage?

 

Imho, taiji is an excellent daoist meditation. One can stay in preparation form and become one with dao. We end up lerning all the various forms because we (unknown to us) want to be able to meet the dao in any position, any situation etc(ergo preparation form)

 

My teacher emphasizes meditation over martial training in taiji...though we do learn fa jin, etc. karma is non issue if we stick true to taiji....ie being wu wei. Wu wei is the state of nishkama karma so no karmic points are earnt.

[Marks of Glory]

To this I would add that if you went swimming in the ocean on the East and West coasts, you could also compare the East coast to Yang and the West coast to Chen. On the East coast the waves can be large or small, depending on the weather, but they have a measure of regularity to them, all going in the same direction, you can sort out what to do with them -- swim over or dive under, and you can keep swimming uninterrupted by them. Yang style ocean. On the West coast, more often than not you can't swim uninterrupted -- it's like swimming in a giant washing machine, you can't go in a straight line, you have to jump, change direction, duck, the waves can collide on you two at a time, turn backward, now push, now pull, tumble you off your track -- they are full of surprises. That's Chen style ocean.

 

 

 

 

Hmm... Porbably metter to learn how to swim in the East Coast...

 

 

I would say all are good for energetic development, coordination, balance, well being, many health benefits, and heightened awareness. None are good for enlightenment (whatever that means). While Taijiquan methods often incorporate meditation methods and many of the training methods do greatly improve mind-body integration and awareness, if you want to pursue spiritual development you're better off following that path (Daoist meditation, Buddhist methods, Vedanta, etc..). And finally, none are good at teaching you how to fight unless: 1) you are fortunate enough to find an exceptional teacher, and 2) several like-minded training partners, and 3) you are willing to commit a decade or two to dedicated and consistent training. I've been involved in full contact fighting for a very long time and there are precious few folks that train primarily in Taijiquan that can really make it work when it counts.

 

 

I personally am seeking taijo more as a complement for spiritual practices...

 

I think that if you stand in Zhan Zhuan for 30 minutos or more, and when energized practice a good taiji sequence, you probably clean alot of dirt from your Aura / Energy field.

 

notice the word : think

 

Quite a few spiritual schools work with energies withou touching the body... I will search for some Videos and post it here.

 

Imho, taiji is an excellent daoist meditation. One can stay in preparation form and become one with dao. We end up lerning all the various forms because we (unknown to us) want to be able to meet the dao in any position, any situation etc(ergo preparation form)

 

My teacher emphasizes meditation over martial training in taiji...though we do learn fa jin, etc. karma is non issue if we stick true to taiji....ie being wu wei. Wu wei is the state of nishkama karma so no karmic points are earnt.

 

I agree with that!

 

I think it is important to strengthen the body so that you feel confortable in any ocasion, so that you can perceive the Dao anytime...

 

 

 

 

Ohh... about taiji..

I practice alot of still meditation, chakra visualisation, mantras in speceific parts of body, etc...

taiji is quite new to me but htis morning something amazing happened.... as I was sitting in meditation i discovered that I could concentrate on the chakras and mentaly mantralize them alot more efectively by focusing "energetic arms - hands" onto them... i never had that experience before and I guess that the taiji moving meditation helped out alot to achieve this. my actual physical arms stayed normally resting in my knees...

 

reminded me of that dude from dragonball - ten chi ran - who had the ability to develop 4 arms during the fight...

Edited August 21, 2012 by Marks of Glory

[Marks of Glory]

.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Marks of Glory

[Clarity]

Slightly OT but I have also found that you can take the principles of T'ai Chi and apply them to your daily life.

 

It's important to know when to follow, yield, sink, retreat, advance, and attack. Also, meeting overwhelming force with softness is of great value in daily life.

 

I once applied these principles to a conflict situation in the office and it worked like a charm!

 

I practice Yang style T'ai Chi. My teacher studied with Chen Man Ching, who developed a short 37-form version of the original 108 postures (or whatever the number was).

 

My teacher often points out differences between the styles but emphasizes the principles are the same. We focus on the form, pushing hands, and free form fighting.

[Taomeow]

I saw something on youtube that made me reconsider my prior statement that you can't learn fighting skills by merely watching.

 

[/media]

[ChiDragon]

I saw something on youtube that made me reconsider my prior statement that you can't learn fighting skills by merely watching.

 

No, I guess not. Cat meows are natural instinct, so is the way they use their claws to fight......

[Taomeow]

No, I guess not. Cat meows are natural instinct, so is the way they use their claws to fight......

 

"Study the cat, Saihung. Everything you need to learn, she knows already." -- Deng Ming-Dao,

"The Wandering Taoist"

[GreytoWhite]

Hey Mithstrike, i practice some Chen and very much enjoyed your post

 

Thanks. The way I am being taught is that taiji is a martial art and the meditative aspect of it is only to facilitate analysis of movement and proper bodily alignment. My teacher practiced Yang style for 15 years and then met Chen Xiaowang and his martial skills went throught the roof. After meeting master Chen and training with one of his disciples, my teacher attained floating root in a year. It's crazy to see a 4'10" man jump 8' in the air as if it were nothing and snap off a double kick that I'm sure could kill me. He lost interest in a lot of the martial aspect after this as he was never much of a fighter to begin with, just wanted to be able to defend himself because he is a small person.

 

My teacher insists that I learn the spiritual separate from the martial as that is how the Chen family insisted he learn. The family recommended healing and spiritual teachers for him. He says there is a lot of energetic potential in the movements but that cultivation should not be a focus in taiji. I have not learned forms at all but rather my teacher insists I practice chansigong and zhan zhuang. When he wants me to work on something he will show me a posture and have me transition into another so that I understand the focus of the movement. Then he will tell me which of the chansigong exercises contain the movement. Almost a Yiquan-esque approach to taiji.

 

From what I have been taught it is better to open up the body with something like Temple qigong or baduanjin, move into chansigong, transition to zhan zhuang exercises once the body's pathways have been opened, and then to perform tan tui-like routines to send the qi out the legs and back to the lower dantian so as not to "short circuit" oneself. After the "tan tui" I usually practice slow and intricate footwork patterns and exercises similar to some of the Pencak Silat drills. Interestingly the "tan tui" I was taught was a little different than the standard 10 or 12 road to be more compatible with taiji principles and to preserve my knees. My teacher also encourages spontaneity in application and "form" so I am not stuck with routine movement patterns if I do need to fight. I had a friendly sparring match with a fellow a few months back and he was taken aback by how little time I have been practicing and how mobile I was for a taiji player.

 

My teacher is very interested in baguazhang and plans to focus on it in the next few years when he has more money to train. Currently his focus is on his spiritual development. He asked me to obtain some Taoist texts for him so he could read and compare with the Yucatec Mayan teachings he learned from his grandfather. His opinion is that his grandfather gave him the poetry but that the Chinese are better engineers. I am more of the poet and he is definitely an engineer at heart. There is definitely a "sohbet" quality to most of our conversations and I always feel recharged afterward.

[doc benway]

I had a friendly sparring match with a fellow a few months back and he was taken aback by how little time I have been practicing and how mobile I was for a taiji player.

 

My teacher is very interested in baguazhang and plans to focus on it in the next few years when he has more money to train.

It's funny how much emphasis there is in Taiji training regarding rooting, distinguishing full/empty, sinking, and so on.

At the same time, my teacher stresses that all footwork in Taiji is light and agile.

It seems like it's exactly the time spent coordinating the awareness with the root and movement that helps to develop the agility.

There is an old saying about it (probably several), but I can't think of it right now.

Bagua is a great compliment to developing that agile footwork as well.

Sounds like you have a good teacher!

[zerostao]

"My teacher is very interested in baguazhang and plans to focus on it in the next few years when he has more money to train. Currently his focus is on his spiritual development."

funny how that works out and seems to be

"Bagua is a great compliment to developing that agile footwork as well."

it is a different type of rooting tho, walking while remaining rooted is fine art imo

 

edit>

 

"Sounds like you have a good teacher!"

sounds like both of you guys do have good teachers

be thankful

Edited August 27, 2012 by zerostao

[Harmonious Emptiness]

[/media]

 

Love the shoulder block/overhand ear-scratch! Nice jab set-ups too. He\or she must have been watching for a while! lol

It all changes in the alley though. Looks like a decent workout all the same...

Edited August 27, 2012 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Marks of Glory]

 

From what I have been taught it is better to open up the body with something like Temple qigong or baduanjin, move into chansigong, transition to zhan zhuang exercises once the body's pathways have been opened, and then to perform tan tui-like routines to send the qi out the legs and back to the lower dantian so as not to "short circuit" oneself. After the "tan tui" I usually practice slow and intricate footwork patterns and exercises similar to some of the Pencak Silat drills. Interestingly the "tan tui" I was taught was a little different than the standard 10 or 12 road to be more compatible with taiji principles and to preserve my knees.

 

What a nice methodic aproach Mithstrike...

 

_________________________________

 

 

Does anyone know where a methodic approach of wushu stance training can be found\ I simply have lot of difficulty creeting my own...

[shanlung]

First of all, I do not do taijichuan anymore. The last time I did that was about 11 years or so. That was when Tinkerbell, the other entity in the photo, came into my life. With only so many waking hours in life, a choice had to be made, and taijichuan was shedded.

 

Tinkerbell was the love of my life and she was like a daughter to me.

She sprinkled me with her fairy dust and opened my heart and my third eye.

 

 

 

My life was never the same after she came into my life.

 

I do not give up taijichuan easily.

I felt tingjing, dongjing and fajing was almost within my grasp.

 

But to have more time with Tinkerbell, the choice was taken from me.

A choice I readily made and with absolutely no regrets at all.

 

 

Before that, I did as much as 6 hours daily in taijichuan. 4 hours on my own and 2 hours with my Master and fellow students. Even when I was just ticking over, a minium of 90 minutes of so daily was spend on taijichuan.

 

In here and other threads, I have read that 5 or ten minutes will be sufficient. That must be spoken and written by genius or those close to Gods. But then, an Idiot like yours truly felt even those hours spend daily were hardly sufficient.

 

I am a native English speaker, courtesy and legacy of the old vast British Empire where the sun did not set on the British Flag. I am also very good in Chinese even if I came late into that language when I was yanked and dumped into Taiwan. Where 99% of the folks there just could not communicate in English, you must get into Chinese language or you die. I chose not to die and got into the Chinese language.

 

I got to the point I dreamed in Chinese.

 

Talks or assertions that if you do not understand Chinese language meant it would be impossible to understand about fa jing is nonsensical.

 

One of my Masters was Chen Hsiao Wang, the ChangMengPai of Chenjia taijichuan. I thought he was good, until I met others who were better in Taipei.

 

They were perhaps 90 lbs, and I at my peak about 220 lbs. They moved me and my body anywhere that they wanted to.

 

I did the paipai with them and disciple in the old sense of the word. They hold nothing back from me. Fajing is not something that you can explain with words whether in Chinese or English.

 

But that Sifu MUST be able to fajing at will, even if he cannot explain that process.

 

Comparison of fajing to peng missed the point. Fajing can be done whether it is peng lu ji an , or even in hai di jeng as I found out to my surprise in a sudden Taipei roof top encounter with a sixth dan shoto kan man who wanted some 'practise'. I defused his enthusiasm to my great relief.

 

I was nowhere at the level of my Master at HsingKungYuan, and I at best can do a fajing out of 3 or 4. I was nowhere like them about to do fajing even in their sleep.

 

Fajing must come from tingjing (supranormal awareness). If you cannot tingjing, you have no hope in hell of doing a fajing regardless of how rooted you think you are and how connected that you think you are. Those by the way, are just concepts crafted out with English words and barely represent the process.

 

Even so, and even if you paipai me, I find I cannot explain the process of fajing.

My son is in aikido and I cannot find the words to tell him in English or Chinese.

 

For all it is worth, I tried to talk of Fajing even if it was in the context of Wuwei here

Might amuse you all even if you came from that no wiser.

 

Taoism - Some thoughts on Wu Wei

(this also give a sketch to my earlier days and involvement in martial arts)

 

My take on taijichan as martial art and another attempt to explain fajing

Taijichuan martial arts

 

I know folks might just want to do taijichan as an exercise. Nothing wrong at all with that. BUT they must do it with a Master who know taijichuan as a martial art. I make a further distinction. That Master must truly know taijichan as a martial art and not his interpretation of martial aspects of taijichuan.

 

Taijichuan is not just waving and moving slowly of legs and arms. That is nothing but a parody of something truly profound.

Almost like looking at the Ecce Homo restoration by Cecilia Gimenez and thinking that was what Ecce Homo by Elias Garcia Martinez all about.

 

 

 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

 

 

Warmest regards

 

Shanlung

山 龍

Mountain Dragon

 

http://shanlung.com/

 

aka

The Taoistic Idiot

[shanlung]

First of all, I do not do taijichuan anymore. The last time I did that was about 11 years or so. That was when Tinkerbell, the other entity in the photo, came into my life. With only so many waking hours in life, a choice had to be made, and taijichuan was shedded.

Tinkerbell was the love of my life and she was like a daughter to me.

She sprinkled me with her fairy dust and opened my heart and my third eye.

My life was never the same after she came into my life.

I do not give up taijichuan easily.

I felt tingjing, dongjing and fajing was almost within my grasp.

But to have more time with Tinkerbell, the choice was taken from me.

A choice I readily made and with absolutely no regrets at all.

Before that, I did as much as 6 hours daily in taijichuan. 4 hours on my own and 2 hours with my Master and fellow students. Even when I was just ticking over, a minium of 90 minutes of so daily was spend on taijichuan.

In here and other threads, I have read that 5 or ten minutes will be sufficient. That must be spoken and written by genius or those close to Gods. But then, an Idiot like yours truly felt even those hours spend daily were hardly sufficient.

I am a native English speaker, courtesy and legacy of the old vast British Empire where the sun did not set on the British Flag. I am also very good in Chinese even if I came late into that language when I was yanked and dumped into Taiwan. Where 99% of the folks there just could not communicate in English, you must get into Chinese language or you die. I chose not to die and got into the Chinese language.

I got to the point I dreamed in Chinese.

Talks or assertions that if you do not understand Chinese language meant it would be impossible to understand about fa jing is nonsensical.

One of my Masters was Chen Hsiao Wang, the ChangMengPai of Chenjia taijichuan. I thought he was good, until I met others who were better in Taipei.

They were perhaps 90 lbs, and I at my peak about 220 lbs. They moved me and my body anywhere that they wanted to.

I did the paipai with them and disciple in the old sense of the word. They hold nothing back from me. Fajing is not something that you can explain with words whether in Chinese or English.

But that Sifu MUST be able to fajing at will, even if he cannot explain that process.

Comparison of fajing to peng missed the point. Fajing can be done whether it is peng lu ji an , or even in hai di jeng as I found out to my surprise in a sudden Taipei roof top encounter with a sixth dan shoto kan man who wanted some 'practise'. I defused his enthusiasm to my great relief.

I was nowhere at the level of my Master at HsingKungYuan, and I at best can do a fajing out of 3 or 4. I was nowhere like them about to do fajing even in their sleep.

Fajing must come from tingjing (supranormal awareness). If you cannot tingjing, you have no hope in hell of doing a fajing regardless of how rooted you think you are and how connected that you think you are. Those by the way, are just concepts crafted out with English words and barely represent the process.

Even so, and even if you paipai me, I find I cannot explain the process of fajing.

My son is in aikido and I cannot find the words to tell him in English or Chinese.

For all it is worth, I tried to talk of Fajing even if it was in the context of Wuwei here

Might amuse you all even if you came from that no wiser.

Taoism - Some thoughts on Wu Wei

(this also give a sketch to my earlier days and involvement in martial arts)

My take on taijichan as martial art and another attempt to explain fajing

Taijichuan martial arts

I know folks might just want to do taijichan as an exercise. Nothing wrong at all with that. BUT they must do it with a Master who know taijichuan as a martial art. I make a further distinction. That Master must truly know taijichan as a martial art and not his interpretation of martial aspects of taijichuan.

Taijichuan is not just waving and moving slowly of legs and arms. That is nothing but a parody of something truly profound.

Almost like looking at the Ecce Homo restoration by Cecilia Gimenez and thinking that was what Ecce Homo by Elias Garcia Martinez all about.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Warmest regards

Shanlung

山 龍

Mountain Dragon

http://shanlung.com/

aka

The Taoistic Idiot

 

I did not know my earlier embedded URLs did not get through in this posting.

 

This is to rectify that.

 

Taoism - Some thoughts on Wu Wei

http://www.shanlung.com/oldwuwei.html

 

(this also give a sketch to my earlier days and involvement in martial arts)

 

My take on taijichuan as martial art and another attempt to explain fajing

 

Taijichuan martial arts

http://www.shanlung.com/oldtaijichuan.html

 

 

Idiot on the Path

 

http://shanlung.com/

[PLB]

All of these "schools" (for lack of a better word) emphasize that separting jings is why a movement or change comes about the way it does.

 

Form is necessary. Not because it has everything within it but because it has enough to teach you how to separate jings.

 

The multiplicity of forms should be seen as the proof of that condition rather than an argument against it.

[GreytoWhite]

Clarification on post #12 it was not the xiaojia that was lost but rather a Hongdong Chang quan variant that was recovered by Chen Li-qing. Chen Xiaowang has openly criticized this form and believes it should stay lost. From what I am told a lot of the body method in this form is glossed over in this video.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5xE_dwjGA

[PLB]

MithShrike,

The Chen 108 is interesting. It reminds me of the Chen 56 in some places. The stepping method is hard to figure out in the video. It doesn't show the clear opening and closing of Aiping Cheng, for instance.

By the way, I appreciate the other comments you have made on this thread regarding your practice.

[Gerard]

.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Gerard

[ChiDragon]

FYI.....

1. The Chen 108 Long Fist(Chang Fist, 長拳) is different from the 108 Tai Ji Chuan(太極拳).

 

Ai Ping Cheng was doing the Fast Tai Ji with Fa Jin at the second level. At first level, the practitioner does not stumble the foot nor fast strike with the hands. Stumbling the foot and fast strike with the hand were in the process of Fa Jin at the moment.

[PLB]

ChiDragon, I am well aware of the difference you point out between "108s" I practice Yang Cheng Fu's 108 as transmitted through the Dong family.

Your comment about the feet and hands is interesting. I have read bits of your view of Fa Jin through out the site. There are other points of view. I need to advance further before I could say anything useful about that.

The silk reeling in Aiping Cheng's form is what I didn't sense in the video MithShrike linked to.

[GreytoWhite]

MithShrike,

The Chen 108 is interesting. It reminds me of the Chen 56 in some places. The stepping method is hard to figure out in the video. It doesn't show the clear opening and closing of Aiping Cheng, for instance.

By the way, I appreciate the other comments you have made on this thread regarding your practice.

 

I had never really seen the 56 before, form competition doesn't really interest me. After looking it up it seems to be a synthesis liaojia yilu and erlu. Considering that the 108 is a couple of generations previous to Chen Changxing we are seeing a form that the current forms took material from. Very interesting to see how an art progresses.

 

I'm really curious about the origins of the Zhang Sanfeng Originality School taiji taught to Wan Lei Sheng. I bought the DVD a while back but it didn't look like anything other than a "fat man's" taiji.

[PLB]

MithShrike,

I figured you would say that about the competition form. I linked to Aiping Cheng because she came from the same teachers you were talking about and that there is a certain vivid quality to her demonstration. In the name of being perfectly clear, I have run into a number of practicioners of the Chen 56 in NYC who certainly don't treat it as a performance routine. It appeals to a number of people practicing weopons, particularly the jian. This comment is purely anecdotal, by the way. I may be hanging around the only chen 56 players on earth who also practice the jian.

I, too, am curious about the forms that preceded what is presently practiced. If I had a time machine, and it cost money to use it, this sort ot thing is what I would blow my paycheck to observe.

[GreytoWhite]

Any form can be practiced with martial qualities intact and with intent. Aiping Cheng's performance was quite good, she overtly displayed chansijin and kai he throughout the form and I definitely wouldn't want to be on the other end of one of her fajing strikes. I'm not particularly fond of forms to begin with as many of them seem to be a bunch of finishing moves linked together. I was taught the Chen Xiaowang 19 form and the laojia but I never practice either in their entirety. I will take certain postures and practice the intent behind them but that's about it. The qualities behind the movement are what I care about.

 

Once I'm gainfully employed here in Sacramento I'll be studying with the local Han shi Yiquan guys. I'm also a big fan of Ark Minoru's Aunkai as well as Ziranmen. I would like to get a large spear (10+ feet) sometime in the near future to really practice some of the power and intent extension.

[PLB]

I had not heard of Aunkai before you commented upon it. My quick survey intrigues me. I see the stepping of brush knee being done with an entirely different emphasis than what I have been practicing. Good stuff there.

 

What you say about the linking of "finishing moves" in forms is a fair observation. I am not advanced enough to speak with any kind of authority on the matter but my experience so far suggests to me that one benefit with persisting within a form is that some things become inside out from where they start. The "transition" stops becoming the gathering before release but the space between ending and beginning; A player can never own that place, just pass through it.

[Shagrath]

What about Wudang Tai Chi? They have Wudang San Feng 13, 28, 108 and sword forms. Has anyone practice it?