How the heck did Taiji get a reputation?

[RobP2]

Maybe its because it came in on the back of the late 60s/early 70s Kung Fu TV series boom, served with a big heap of mysticism that everyone bought into? Like it was just taken for granted that this stuff worked and a lot of teachers were quite clever / careful to never be in a situation where they really got tested

[mixjourneyman]

Activeghost: they have a Taiji viola form now?
I bet yoyo ma is good at it, being Chinese and shit....

[cloudz]

First - I am not a taiji practitioner (although I spent a lot of time and sweat and energy learning taiji). I am old enough to remember when darn near nobody knew what Taiji was, and even fewer people practiced it - even in the Chinese community. In the early 1960's, you might have seen a few old people practicing in the park in SF, but that's about it. Even in New York, with a relatively large Chinatown for its time had nothing really in terms of Taiji. Nor was it respected as a system of martial arts - it was a calisthenic for old people. The situation in Hong Kong and Taiwan was pretty much the same - there was a lot of martial arts training available, but Taiji was basically something that old people did, and for good reason. There was no public record of Taiji teachers having much in the way of real martial arts ability - especially not in comparison to the giants of traditional martial arts who were around in those days (Hong Kong and Taiwan were chock full of great teachers- think Liu Fameng, Zhang Dekui, He Niu, Yip Man and so on).
In those days if any Tiaji teachers made absurd claims, they would quickly find themselves being asked to put their money where their mouth is - usually resulting in lost teeth or loss of face.
Then came the late 1960's and the 1970's. Somehow, especially in the West, Taiji gained a reputation as a martial art without being put to the test - I believe most of this was the result of Westerners promoting it in America and the UK, and the Chinese being all to happy to jump on the gravy train. Also, the Mainland government, eager to promote martial arts without martial content, began to publicly promote the alleged health benefits of Taiji among its people en masse.
This is not to say that there were not famous, highly capable fighters who also did taiji - but pretty much to a man they all owed their skill to earlier study of something else - for example Guo Lianying - his Shaolin was superb. Taiji came later in his career.
Now we are at an even more absurd juncture, where the dialogue regarding Chinese martial arts uses Taijiquan as a yardstick to measure the worth of other Chinese martial arts. Even more laughable, the highly unskilled Chinese martial arts landscape in the West has polluted the waters in Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia - the "search for spiritual development" through Taiji and related tripe is now commonplace. It is the martial arts choice of the athletically disinclined who want nothing to do with the violence inherent in actual martial arts training.
This is not to say that there are not valuable things to learn from training a framework of movements slowly, delving deeply into the mechanical forces and coordinations inherent, explicit, and implied in any system of CMA - but even this is seldom seen in Taiji practice, both here and abroad - this takes sweat, concentration, intuition, and hours upon hours of work.
From my point of view, the good currency has been driven out by the bad.

Well people like Nigel sutton and Dan Docherty who spread certain lines in the UK tell it differently than you. They learnt taiji in Malaysia and Hong Kong respectively.

If you were looking for someone who proved and tested taiji in HK as well as in the SEAsian fighting competitions of the day with his students, you should have run into Cheng Ting Hung, Dan Dochertys teacher.
He didn't get the nickname of the taiji bodygaurd for nothing. It's surprising you never heard of him.

When I met Nigel Sutton he described a very different situation to the ones you describe but in Malaysia, where apparantly there where some very tough taiji guys who would be only too willing to test it.

I guess it depends who you run into. And I'll also add, whilst i think taiji is a great system (can be), it's not always practcied to its full potential or in the right way - in terms of kicking ass.

In my opinion reputation and kicking ass comes from individuals not styles per se. The guys that have given taiji a fighting rep would have done the same whatever style they did due to their own talent and hard work and balls - for want of a better term.

[yeniseri]

It would make sense that Sutton and Docherty''s experience would be different from USA!
Malaysia and Hong Kong at that timeframe, stll had exponents of the old school who were keen on 'busting ass' when they needed to, plus Docherty being in the Hong Kong Police Force and Sutton, while travelling, meeting the experts of the time.

US never had the sanshou type tuishou or any similar activity so nothing to develop or train. The hippie movement in USA with peace protest certainly invoked the tempo that taijiquan was to follow meaning the martial content or exposure was unknown or there was no money in teaching it.

[neijia_boxer]

Taijiquan’s reputation was developed by its original founders who brought it out publicly. Yang Luchan had the fortune of having a connection to the Forbidden city as a fighter who could use Taiji for combat and trained the Imperial guards. Wu Yu Xiang was responsible for connecting Yang Luchan to Beijing where he networked with many martial artists in Beijing. Note that Yang Luchan had previous experience in Hongquan, some form of Shaolin Longfist. Some of those earlier forms and training methods do exist and look nothing like today’s Taijiquan.

Yang Lu Chan’s grandson Yang Chen Fu was also pivotal in the 1920’s and 1930’s when he wrote books on Taijiquan. Pre-cultural revolution 1956, China’s communist government promoted 24 Taijiquan for health for its citizens. Cheng Man Ching with Robert Smith’s books popularized the art in the west in the 1960’s with several books.

While many of the earlier founders had kick-ass experience: Yang Lu chan, Quan Yu, Yang Pan hao, Yang Shaohao, Li Ruidong, Wu kung Yi, Zhang Qilin, to name a few…however there are many more modern instructors happy to be called a “Master” or “Sifu” unwilling to take a fight nor don’t know how to throw a decent punch.

[Daniel]

I think we can start with beating up the Beatniks. They spread SpiritualZero (TM) to the hippies.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[neijia_boxer]

As long as your confident you can defend against multiple bongo drum fighters

[mixjourneyman]

See taiji is not good for that, only bagua, and only if there are eight of them....

[Daniel]

As long as your confident you can defend against multiple bongo drum fighters

That´s some weird capoeiristas, they can´t even form a roda.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[everything]

Activeghost: they have a Taiji viola form now?
I bet yoyo ma is good at it, being Chinese and shit....

yeah nevermind that he is a master of the lowly cello art.

[kenneth fish]

Cloudz:

I think you need to read my post again. It is not meant as a slight against Messrs. Sutton or Docherty (and yes, I am aware of them) - the thrust of the post is to question how Taiji got a very overblown and undeserved reputation vis a vis other CMA in a relatively short time.

FYI I also knew Zheng Tianxiong (Cheng Tinhung). I thought he had a good studio and a relatively well thought out program. However, in the context of the the teachers who were active in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the early and mid-1960's, he was not a major figure. (for context, think of the period when Muhammed Ali was at his peak - there were plenty of other decent boxers around, but he overshadowed them) Again, that is not the point of the post.

Coiled Spring:

You may be thinking of Xu Shiyou, a general who served on the Long March. He was abandoned at the temple as a child and raised by the monks - he was incredibly talented. His personal preference was, if I recall, Liu He Quan.

[LaoDan]

I think that the evolution of Taijiquan may also be explored in the following way:

TJQ probably started as a physical art without the underlying philosophy (e.g. taiji, wuxing, bagua...). Later insights and modifications produced the understandings of the Chinese philosophical concepts in relation to the physical art.

With the philosophy associated with the art, practitioners with other martial arts backgrounds could understand TJQ in a way that resonates with their long cultural history, and they can understand the physical art in a new (‘advanced’) way supported by the philosophy.

Over time, especially in situations (e.g. the west) where the physical arts are in decline (e.g. due to changes in fighting due to the invention and usage of guns, more sedentary lifestyles, etc.) the philosophy may have started to overshadow the physical aspects of the art (or the health aspects could come to overshadow the martial aspects).

Personally, I am not particularly attracted to martial arts that are more of a collection of physical techniques, and I like TJQ because of the underlying philosophy. But I also think that overemphasizing the philosophy, especially if it results in sacrificing some of the physical aspects of the art, is also undesirable.

Could the above progression of the art (if accurate) also reflect its perception as once being an advanced martial art, only to later lose its status in regards to fighting proficiency?

Dan

[Adam S]

Because people wised up & learnt that it's also an amazing martial art & not just a health exercise & one (not the only) of the pinnacles of TCMA

If you cant see that Mr Fish, dont worry just keep training what you train

[Josealb]

[kenneth fish]

Thank you Adam for touching on precisely the point I was trying to make - what, exactly, would have lead the general public to have "wised up & learnt that its also an amazing martial art"? What would have given them this impression? Was there a popular figure, like Jane Fonda for Pilates or Jack LaLane for calesthenics and all around healthy living? Or was it just the repetition of teachers and students saying "you know, its also a very effective martial art"? Did Taijiquan acheive popularity on the coat tails of the kung fu movie craze of the 1970's? If so, didn't people notice that there was a great difference between the Hong Gar, Choi Lay Fut, and Wing Chun that dominated the screen and Taijiquan? Was it the mystique of learning a novel Oriental exercise, that promised great results via endless slow repititions of vaguely martial movements? And how did it move so quickly from a fringe exercise to something so common it can be found in even the smallest senior center in rural America?

Wing Chun and CMA in general had Bruce Lee to spread the word - for better or worse he did not shy from promoting both himself and his art, and demonstrating its effectiveness. Was David Carridine the equivalent figure for Taiji? If so, what does that say about the perceptions that permeate the mass consciouness in regard to Taiji?