Is Tai chi fake?

[Taomeow]

29 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

 

I am talking about Tai Chi and Taekwondo right here in this thread.  I have first hand experience with both.  (...)

 

So I am standing with my assertion that the members of the Tiger Division who were attached to the 161st Engineer Company did practice Tai Chi to warm up for their Taekwondo.

 

 

I have first hand/first foot experience with both too, and for me it's vice versa:  I still like to use the taekwondo warm-up before doing taiji.  The master maintained the discipline and willful disregard for the student's pain and suffering he learned when being trained in TKD since age 6, and then in the Korean army.  If you complained, he would wistfully recall how they had to, e.g., practice the correct ways to fall on the ground hundreds of times while climbing up a steep mountain slope strewn with rocks. 

 

They don't do it with taiji in this country, i.e. they don't prime the body before attempting to give it control of qi, but priming the body like that (provided it's done correctly) does open up possibilities.  My TKD master definitely had a lot of internal power, and crrrrazy fajin.   (And lack of control thereof -- that's where his lack of taiji showed...)  I don't know if he'd ever learned any taiji or just managed to incorporate some principles into his own art, but it is very clear to me in hind sight that he was not oblivious. 

 

I think I simply got lucky with him, because many people who come to taiji from hard MA are, in all honesty, worse off than people who come with nothing.  But master Ho managed to give me extra flexibility instead of the staple rigidity and slow reflexes a typical hard stylist picks up from overdeveloping the external at the expense of the internal.

 

Oh, and if you think taiji can't be strenuous as hell, you should try Pao Chui (Cannon Fist), the second routine of the traditional "old Chen."  Or playing push-hands with a 300 lb opponent of superior taiji skill.  (Been there done that...  yikes.)

[Marblehead]

5 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

I have first hand/first foot experience with both too, and for me it's vice versa: 

Yeah, sounds like your path was different.

 

There used to be two videos of Masters performing two sword Tai Chi on YouTube.  The demonstrations were in real time and too fast for me to be able to use any of it to improve my practice.  I'll look to see if any of them are still available and do a link.

 

[Taomeow]

1 minute ago, Marblehead said:

Yeah, sounds like your path was different.

 

There used to be two videos of Masters performing two sword Tai Chi on YouTube.  The demonstrations were in real time and too fast for me to be able to use any of it to improve my practice.  I'll look to see if any of them are still available and do a link.

 

 

Which is why taiji sword is not taught to beginners (at least my teacher told me not to teach it to beginners).  You have to have the foundation down pat before doing the fast stuff in taiji -- and with the sword, it's impossible to slow it down enough for the student to get it.  The getting it must come first.

[Marblehead]

This isn't one of the ones I was recalling in my mind but it is very good.

 

Spoiler

 

I did notice some that I have not seen yet.  I'll have to look at them later.

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Marblehead said:

This isn't one of the ones I was recalling in my mind but it is very good.

 

  Hide contents

 

I did notice some that I have not seen yet.  I'll have to look at them later.

 

 

Ah, good taste, Marble!  That's my grandmaster. 

[Mig]

10 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Well, remember, the Koreans are Chinese people who ran away from home a long time ago and created their own style of Chinese culture mixed with a little Caucasian blood from Siberia.

 

 

Really even though the language is far from being close to Chinese languages.??

[Mig]

is this fake?

 

 

[Mig]

Or is this fake

Edited June 3, 2017 by Mig

[Marblehead]

7 hours ago, Mig said:

Really even though the language is far from being close to Chinese languages.??

Yep, the written language is very similar.

 

A good study of the spoken language would likely find more similarities than differences.

 

[Marblehead]

7 hours ago, Mig said:

is this fake?

 

IMO, not fake.  Very good advice.

 

[Marblehead]

6 hours ago, Mig said:

 is this fake

No, not fake.  And he is left handed.  Very difficult to defend against.  (And likely left footed too.)

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

Fighting topics are always enjoyable, strange how it leads to fights and conflict.

 

Hard styles train hard to soft TKD at higher levels are taught the soft techniques. Soft styles go soft to hard / Shaolin hard to soft, Wudang soft to hard 

 

Basically if one wishes to be a perfected warrior one must be like the blade of my sword soft and hard.

 

We can be soft and hard at the same time.. A fighter and a martial ARTIST are two very different life styles.

 

I personally am invited to TKD tournaments and schools to do seminars,demonstrate and teach the martial roots of Tai Chi Chuan.I enjoy this deeply and my classes are overflowing with masters and students because there is great interest.

 

[Marblehead]

Your mentioning "soft to hard" brought to my mind Donnie Yen and his Wushu.  I watch his movies and to my recall he has always gone from soft to hard.  I don't doubt that he was that way while competing as well.

 

[AussieTrees]

As with any competition there is often a winner and a loser,just competing makes it real,making both winners.

[Mig]

maybe this can help to understand different opinions not the hocus pocus we still keep hearing

 

https://nysanda.wordpress.com/2017/05/19/are-we-in-a-downward-spiral-chinese-martial-arts-in-the-21st-c/

[Mig]

14 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Yep, the written language is very similar.

 

A good study of the spoken language would likely find more similarities than differences.

 

Not sure my friend, I thought Korean belonged to a different linguistic family and not related to Sino-tibetan family branch. 안녕히 가세요.) Annyonghi kasayo. is quite different than zaijian or choykin: good bye. They are unrelated though Chinese had influenced their culture, it is my understanding

[Walker]

The best thing I've heard about this video--which has created such a stir in China that I've overheard complete strangers going on about it excitedly more than once--is that the distraction it provided on the PRC internet was taken advantage of by Xi Jinping, et al, to quietly topple a few more "corrupt" adversaries while everybody was busy babbling about martial arts and sharing a plethora of videos of guys with a bit of MMA experience embarrassing IMA fellows who fight like they've never been in a single fight. Now that's Chinese gongfu for you. Not that it's much different from the gongfu of leaders around the world, mind you.

 

Regarding traditional Chinese martial arts' typically poor performance in the ring, I stopped thinking about this question sometime around 2010 or 2011 when I was talking about it with a teacher of nearly 70 in People's Park in Shanghai. His point was simple: traditional Chinese martial arts, regardless of whether they were internal or external or whatever, were really about killing and maiming in quick, surprising, and effective ways. The idea, he said, wasn't to sign up to bounce around a padded ring with gloves and a cup on following rules that force you to avoid ending things quickly and nastily; the idea was to pick up the nearest nasty object (if you didn't already have one in your pocket) and shove it into somebody's eye. One day I wanted to "push hands" with this teacher and for a moment thought I was getting the upper hand, when he feinted, reached around behind me, and then jammed four of his fingers right up my ass crack with such alacrity and force that I damn near jumped into the branches of the tree above me. He then made a few moves to indicate slapping me in the crotch, sticking a thumb into my eye socket, smacking my windpipe, whathaveyou, as he reminded me that preferably he'd do those things with a weapon rather than bare handed. I had a Japanese friend back then who'd previously spent several years in one of the bigger cities in China's northeast as he searched for a proper bajiquan master by fighting his way around the parks of the city. Being a young, cocky Japanese guy, he found plenty of fights--there remains a palpable hatred for the Japanese simmering up in that part of the country. Eventually he found a master, and then even more fights with locals jealous and angry to see a Japanese guy getting trained by the local eminent bajiquan master. I told him about the hand-up-my-asshole story, and asked him if he thought the old guy might've been a little, you know, maybe, off or something. He replied in total seriousness, "nooooo, this is a good master, that's the real way to teach Chinese martial arts!" Moral of the story, in my opinion: if you don't allow a master of "traditional Chinese martial arts" the opportunity to pick up chairs, stab people in the ass with a teapot, or produce a knife from his or her boot during "competition," then you're not really assessing traditional Chinese martial arts. You're assessing sports. Perhaps things are different with masters who possess the sorts of abilities supposedly once possessed by guys like Sun Lutang and Wang Xiangzhai, but I've never seen such things.

[Taomeow]

.

 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Taomeow

[Marblehead]

8 hours ago, Mig said:

Not sure my friend, I thought Korean belonged to a different linguistic family and not related to Sino-tibetan family branch. 안녕히 가세요.) Annyonghi kasayo. is quite different than zaijian or choykin: good bye. They are unrelated though Chinese had influenced their culture, it is my understanding

You may be correct about the spoken language.  After a quick search I came up with this:

 

Spoiler

http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/Korean3.html

 

[Starjumper]

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

Question everything

Bruce Lee had an amazing understanding of Taoist principles. He applied them to his art, and lived them in his day-to-day life. He is still revered years after his death for good reason. His authenticity, and mastery of the martial arts, including The Tao of Jeet Kune Do extends into a mastery of self. There is so much to learn from this intrepid soul.

 

Tao allowed Lee to see his opponents as part of the one – and to truly succeed by winning against himself. He often was able to beat much larger opponents not just by his impeccable training, but by his great consciousness, his immaculate mind, but sometimes his small stature and movie-star moves made him easy prey to men who had lesser wisdom.

 

 

Lee also said,

“True observation begins when one sheds set patterns, and true freedom of expression occurs when one is beyond systems.

Knowledge is fixed in time, whereas, knowing is continual. Knowledge comes from a source, from accumulation, from a conclusion, while knowing is a movement.”

This is quite a decent explanation of the Tao which has no explanation. “Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” ~ Lao Tzu, the Tao te Ching

Lee lived some of the basic principles of the Tao, which can only be discovered for oneself:

[SeekerOfHealing]

99% of Tai Chi are fake. True Tai chi have alchemical results and principles (neidan)

[Marblehead]

99.9% of the people who are telling you that you are doing Tai Chi wrong have no idea what they are talking about.

 

[Taomeow]

8 hours ago, Marblehead said:

99.9% of the people who are telling you that you are doing Tai Chi wrong have no idea what they are talking about.

 

 

Reminded me of the time I agreed to teach a complete taiji virgin for the first time.  He begged, or I wouldn't have agreed to it, because at the time I had no experience teaching someone with no taiji whatsoever.  When I finally said "OK, I'll give it a try,"  I started by showing him three or four opening moves of my main Chen form, and right then, thirty seconds into the lesson, he told me it's not taiji, as soon as I showed him the Warrior Pounding Mortar move.  I'm guessing he had probably seen some Yang demos and there's no such move in Yang.  So...  after a whole bunch of years under a lineage master, I was shot down within 30 seconds by an expert who had seen some videos.

 

He proved one hundred percent unteachable.  Trying to do taiji with a certain mentality frozen into the muscles and joints is like trying to fly by flapping your arms and squawking "buck buck buck buckAHHH!!!"  If I told him "step with the left foot first," whereas he stepped with the right, he took offense and thought I'm nitpicking to make him feel bad.  If I tried to adjust his arm, it petrified, and if I told him to lower the shoulder, he indignantly pulled his head into his ass, pretty much.  I gave up on him in five minutes.  What a waste of five minutes.  At least now I know that anyone without any personal exposure and yet with an opinion already fully fledged is impervious to taiji. 

 

[Marblehead]

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Reminded me of the time I agreed to teach a complete taiji virgin for the first time.  

 

Yeah, I've seen a few of those kinds recently.  Internet educated, they know everything but can do very little themselves.  But they will tell you how to do it.