The demise of Taiijquan

Nei Jia: the Qigong and Taijiquan Forum Taijiquan and the Internal Martial Arts
21

Great post Gary!!!

Chris Mckinley: I bow and I am humbled by your masterful response.

Internal Boxer Give’m hell!!!

I live in the Midwest "Michigan to be exact” I once learned the 108 long form under a major disciple of Yang Zhen Dao. I have never been more disappointed in a school or a teacher. After learning the form I was shocked when I found out that there was no more! She only taught push hands at seminars. I once got to see her leading students at a demonstration. Again a complete joke!!! Swords were clanging of the ground; people were tripping (probably because most of her students were fat slobs!!!) Their push hands were literally choreographed.

18 years of Xingyiquan is hard to break, especially the stutter step, once while in class I performed Pao quan instead of fan through back. She had no idea what she was looking at! She tried to admonish me about the stutter step. I just look at her in disbelief.

Since Yang Zhen Dao is the Linage holder of “Yang family style”, and her direct teacher (her Sifu) I seriously question his or the grandson’s gung fu.

Tai Chi Magazine should be enough proof that Gary, Internal Boxer and Chris are on target. When is the last time you seen anyone in that magazine look like they could actually defend himself or herself

I follow the Mike Sigman philosophy to internal arts. He has been exposing scam artists for years. Hell, anyone can and breathe out their nose and wave their hands in the air.

The question is can you defend yourself! and are you fit/in shape “in the mind and the body!!!” Notice that I didn’t say fight. I’m an extremely strong fighter and if I beat somebody in some sort of contest, that doesn’t mean they don’t know a martial art or that their style is somehow inferior to mine. If you can defend yourself and are fit in the mind and body, then you know a martial art.(might not have mastered it yet, but that’s why you study forever and a day)

However, if your overweight, have no stamina, can’t balance on one leg, and have little or no experience learning how to defend yourself, but think your being taught some art and the teacher is always telling you it takes 10 years to even start to master, then you got a problem.

Unfortunately, I think I just described your average Taichi Chuan stylist.

Hopefully this last statement someday will be put into question.

Paul
Michigan.

22

Pyjamas

“And stop wearing multi-colored shiny satin Mandarin pajamas. You look ridiculous to those of us who know what Taiji is.”

Hey, don’t knock the PJs. I don’t study Taiji, but I’ve always thought they looked kinda cool. Better than a gi, anyway.

23

Okay, I get your point that most US Yang Cheng-fu tai chi guys can’t fight for sh!t.

But to say that your three-month Kali students could take ANY three year Yang Cheng-fu student in the US is what I believe are called “fightin’ words.”

Do you really think this?

24

Chen is completely external. Wu blatantly violates all the classics. Sun studied for one month and then randomly mixed in smut from other arts.

'nuff said.

25

Yes, Mr. Nemo,

I really think this…exactly the way I phrased it, too. And to quote from Braden, rather recently, "<Braden> “Chen is external. Wu leans forward. Sun is too mixed up with smut from other arts, plus he only studied for a month and was a weenie.” His posted version was cleaned up just a bit LOL.

26

Amen chris..and braden

Amen…
I was going to avoid being so mean, but well, the truth hurts!!!

-and a voice rang from the heavens…
“Bother the weak” -George Carlin..(he was talking about you Mr. Nemo)

27

Hey Braden, Chris, please tell me you’re joking, right? “Chen is external, Wu violates the classics…” Jeeez! Are you going to go up to Chen Xiao Wang or Chen Qing Zhou and tell them that? Tell me about it if you do it! :smiley:

28

BRADEN

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR> Chen is completely external. Wu blatantly violates all the classics. Sun studied for one month and then randomly mixed in smut from other arts.

'nuff said. [/quote]

How can you argue with that? You must be kidding!!! Who are you and what have you done with braden??? Have you ever learned anything about Chen style Tai Chi Chuan? It is tai chi at it’s purest form. Sun style may sway from the classics due to the fact that Sun Lu Tang incorporated his Bagua and Hsing-I but his style can hardly be considered smut. I’m not so sure about Wu style (still making up my mind) but from what I have seen, it seems to follow tai chi principals closely. I must know, how many high level practitioners of these styles have you fought to come up with these “off the wall” assertions? To keep this on topic, I have seen more bad Yang style being done than any Chen, Sun or Wu. And I have seen more good Tai Chi Chuan from Chen practitioners than any style. If you want to see the combative side of tai chi chuan look to Chen style applications. Maybe more brutal and hard hitting but certainly not external. Chen style puts more emphasis on Chan Su Jin and Fa Jing than any other style of tai chi chuan. Are these characteristics of an external style? Didn’t Yang Lu Chan learn tai chi from the Chen family in the first place? AND DON’T YOU EVER CALL BAGUA SMUT!

29

May I ask you a question? :wink:
Count, where did you learn Word Boxing ?

Although there are many styles, they all depend on the strong beating the weak and the slow falling to the quick. These are not related to the power that must be learned – Taiji Classics

30

Word gate boxing

Our class had a visit and impromtu lecture from a man named Joe Kao. He studied from Won I-Sen himself. I have seldom seen such a display of internal skills from the older masters. I have been doing some research and I can not understand why so little is known about this style.It is truely a scholarly style and a sight to behold. I think this would be a topic for another thread but I brought this up here because one of the other posters did not understand there is more to internal fighting than Tai Chi Chuan, Hsing-I and Bagua! :wink:

31

"Yes, Mr. Nemo,

I really think this…exactly the way I phrased it, too. And to quote from Braden, rather recently, " “Chen is external. Wu leans forward. Sun is too mixed up with smut from other arts, plus he only studied for a month and was a weenie.” His posted version was cleaned up just a bit LOL."

A couple of questions. First, if Yang style just sucks, Chen is external, Wu leans forward, and Sun is “smut,” what style do you practice? It sounds like you practice some style of tai chi. I’m just curious, because it’s not in your profile.

Secondly - Ok, so you stand by your “fightin’ words.” Now I’ve only taken Yang style for about three months myself last summer before moving to LA, and since then I’ve been practicing on my own. So all told I’ve been doing Yang style for almost a year, and most of that time without instruction.

I think I could take one of your three-month kali students, and with two additional years under my belt, I’d think that even more. Now, I understand you probably aren’t going to fly one of your students out here to LA just for me, so this isn’t really a challenge. But since I study Yang Cheng-fu tai chi and like it, when you slam Yang style you’re slamming me. When you say Yang stylists have no fighting ability, I take that personally. I’m sure Chen, Sun, and Wu stylists feel the same way.

32

Braden, wtf?

Braden, I’m going ot be in the Kingston Ontario area in the summer, perhaps you’d like to see some internal Chen style. I’ll actually be there studying Yin Fu Bagua with Eric Tuttle, but we’ll also be working on Chen. After all, internal doesn’t mean “without cannons,” otherwise no-one would ever have considered Xingyi to be internal. (btw this is an invitation not a challenge)

As for the rest of the discussion, Internal Boxer, no offence to your country but I have never heard any discussion of the great Taijiquan training available in Britain. In fact I would go so far as to say that Britain is known as something of a backwater when it comes to Internal martial arts in general. Please inform me of what high level teachers of the big three (Taiji, Xingyi, Bagua) are there. What Chinese “living treasures” are there? Have you ever been to China or seen any high level practitioners outside your own community?

I don’t say this to be disrespectful, but the way you talk about punching suggests to me that you actually don’t have a sophisticated understanding of power expressions. All you have talked about is “lightning fast” punches. The fastest punch is the one that is delivered from the point of contact.

What you describe seems to be long-power which is the lowest level of hitting. A weapon is launched from long range with the aim of intercepting a target on the opponent’s body. It is not physically possible to strike this way without telegraphing the movement. Before the hit lands the body profile will change to a degree that anyone can see (or be trained to see in an afternoon).

Have you never heard of short power? Bruce Lee did not invent the one inch punch, its an old idea. With long power the full potential of expression of kinetic force is a narrow window that can be jammed short or drawn to hyperextension, and this can extremely difficult for the striker to react to because of the intent it takes to fire the “lightning fast” long power expression.

If instead of sniping from long range you touch the target area (this can be done quite slowly and softly), then connect the body internally from foot to fist you have a “lightning fast” hit that doesn’t rely on hoping that the target area on the opponent will still be there when the hit reaches its range of maximum power.

So how do you set up short-power hits and disrupt long power-hits?

One of the key aspects of internal martial arts, and Taijiquan in particular, is the focus on mid-range grappling. To see this concept: reach out ot full extension (not too powerful, not much potential expression left as energy can only come back in), press your hands to your body (some potential to expand, but you could still be sealed in), finally round your arms away from the body but not fully extended (here you have the most power and possiblity to change).

If you can control the middle range you can keep the fast strikers from landing long-power shots and most importantly keep them from recovering to throw another. As well, it is in this range that you can exploit weaknesses in the opponent’s structure to disable their strength on the one-hand and to deliver short-power hits into their unbalanced body on the other.

“The heart of the study of boxing is to have natural instinct resemble the dragon” Wang Xiangzai

33

Kevin, are you there yet? I know what you’re talking about but have only seen it twice. All I know is, if you got THAT, you da man!!!

Although there are many styles, they all depend on the strong beating the weak and the slow falling to the quick. These are not related to the power that must be learned – Taiji Classics

34

The jig is up, count,

I, and Braden, I might add, was pulling the forum’s collective leg. I’m never that categorically dismissive in such a blatantly ignorant way. Besides, I like Sung.

Mr. Nemo,

Perhaps you could, perhaps you couldn’t. While there are always individual exceptions to things, I still stand by my claim exactly as worded. To be candid, it isn’t necessarily a fair match. Taiji is known for its longer than usual learning curve, while Kali is equally known for having one of the shortest. In the very short term, i.e., 3 months to 3 yrs., Kali is likely to have a very distinct advantage over MOST styles, whatever their origin, all other factors being equal. Other arts in that category would include Wing Chun, the various Silats, a few of the modern “reality”-based systems, and others. Beyond the shorter term, it might be anyone’s guess, as all the learning curved tend to catch up with one another.

Still though, I feel very comfortable, perhaps even conservative, about matching a 3-month Kali student against a 3-year Yang Cheng-fu stylist in terms of real combat ability. And yes, I’m fully aware of the implications of such a statement regarding the fighting abilities of students of Yang Cheng-fu style. It is uniformly pathetic, especially given what it could/should be, considering the art’s real potential.

That’s of course not the fault of the students, per se. The instruction is uniformly dismal regarding actual fighting applications…that is, when you even GET fighting applications from Yang Cheng-fu Taiji instructors.

35

Sorry guys, I was, of course, joking. :slight_smile:

Frustration over school and frustration over martial arts bickering collided and formed a smarmy comment; my bad.

The fact is, I really don’t get the bickering that goes on.

Picture for a moment that you lived a couple hundred years ago, and you studied some art under a master for ten years. Then life calls and you go out and venture to a distant city. One day in the city’s park you see a group of strangers practicing what is clearly your art! Sure, some of the postures are a bit different, the training methods aren’t the same, the form is in a bit of a different order, but it’s clearly your art!

How would you react? Maybe it’s my deep-seated idealism talking, but I’m convinced that just about everyone would be like a kid in a candy store.

Now let’s say you even had some reason to believe what they were practicing was somehow flawed. Maybe your teacher told you how 8 generations ago his ancestral teacher taught their ancestral teacher, but taught them a few lies because he didn’t like the cut of their jib.

How would you react then? Would you dismiss what they do? Or would you figure that, no matter what they were given, there was bound to be at least one person in eight generations who had some amount of talent and some amount of work ethic and that learnt something useful, even from a flawed source. Would you be interested in that “something useful”? Again, call me idealistic, but I really think most people would.

Why is it so different on the internet then? We have this incredible tool at our disposal, and for some reason it infects everyone with “if you don’t do it the way I do, you have nothing to offer.”

Truly frustrating. ;p

I apologize to those who took me seriously, heh. We all get in wierd moods, eh?

Kevin - heh, sorry for freaking you out. My teacher speaks favorably of Mr. Tuttle; I hope you enjoy your training with him. There’s actually study groups under Joseph Chen and Li Lai Ren here in town that I’m sure are doing presentable Chen style; I’ve checked out some of the latter’s stuff allready. At some point in the reasonably near future I’ll be moving out to your end of the country (to work at the Riverview Psychiatric in Vancouver). You can bet I’ll get around to pestering you and a couple others. I’m really looking forward to seeing Yang Gou-Tai’s bagua. I hear great things about him.

36

OK

Now there’s the braden we all know and love.
:wink:

37

Actually, if I saw someone in the park practicing my art incorrectly, I would speak with them and try and give them what they were missing or correct what they had wrong. Just because that guy so long ago may have been taught incorrecty, does not mean that those people today do not deserve the real thing. I think that there is a very good chance that at least a few people who are really into it may have picked up something of serious value from practicing it incorrectly or by practicing an incomplete system, but just think about what they could learn and how far they could go with the same attitude and the real, complete system.

The problem with something like that is getting them to accept what you have to offer without offending them. It would be wrong to walk into a class session and tell the teacher he’s doing it wrong, just as it would be wrong with telling the students in either public or private that they are doing it wrong, you know better, and trying to correct them slyly. You would have to lead the teacher into learning the correct stuff or learning something extra so that he would correct his own students.

“I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.”
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

38

Hey , that’s cool. We do something like that too. We do it like this because…

Why do you do it that way?

Have a sincere heart and you can both learn something :smiley:

Although there are many styles, they all depend on the strong beating the weak and the slow falling to the quick. These are not related to the power that must be learned – Taiji Classics

39

Kevin, Do not worry mind friend, I realise as far as UK quality internal martial artists you are completely ignorant, it is not your fault, and I can never get upset by ignorant people. There are many quality teachers here in the UK. Steve Reilly, Bill Barnes, Dave Nicholson, Robert Poynton, Jim Uglow (who regularly goes to China to train with the Yang family) are to name a few. I have trained under most of these people, and I am a WTBA instructor myself, so to insult Erle (who comes here to teach), since he is not a “living Chinese treasure” really does highlight your bewildering outlook. It is not a good idea to insult the British instructors, as one may drop in and pay you a visit. A lot of Americans seem to have a quiet perception of England. Sadly this could not be further from the truth, no guns in this country means hand to hand violence here is common place in the city, knives, bottles, bricks, whatever. I live in the north of england, and I remeber a quote from a book by Ranulph Fiennes who was an SAS officer, who noted that street fighting was practically a sport in the North. By this he was refering to the mental acceptance of northerners attitude that we have seen and been involved with so many bar or street fights in Manchester, that it is ingrained in our mentality that we become de-sensitised to it.

Yes Fa-jing is known as inch energy as the power can be discharged, with no distance, every attacking portion of your body can deliver the energy, originating from your centre and flowing outwards like a tidal wave, and it is not limited to a punch, the centrifugal force generated by the waist always creates a recoil which results in a continued barrage of strikes which to the casual eye may look like one attack. What I always find is that there are many people out there who can be very articulate about the internal arts, but sadly have little internal power, and cannot practice what they preach. And I do not know if you are a “Ray”, because we have to take what you say at face value. Before you begin to get wrapped up in the superiority complex of Taiji. I suggest you go down to your local boxing gym, and see if you can yield to a boxers jab. Which skilful boxers employ the some of the tendon mechanics as inch energy, but with obviously much less power than a high level internal artist. Although a powerful boxer jab has the ability to knock someone out, and if he is a good boxer he will not telegraph upper cuts, hooks or straight crosses. So before you construct a reply, please test your “yield” against someone who will not play the game, but against a very skilled boxer who has the intention of knocking your head off, if you cannot find anyone, I would be more than happy to do this, you are more than welcome to come across the pond, and we can go for a beer down town, where you can test your yield for real. We could also go and see some of those “backwater” instructors who would no doubt like to try out your Yield.

40

count, get off the pipe!!

anyways, i didnt say there any other, or ANYMORE to the internal styles other then Tai Chi Bagua or Hsing-i.
i said you wouldnt be able to find any more COMPLETE then those 3.
sheesh, didnt your teacher teach you how to quote somebody correctly?!

ok, i posted this with a text browser, so i apologize for any inconsistencies, except for counts :wink: