Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby D_Glenn on Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:42 am

...that TJQ is now like trying to cram a round rock through a square hole. Pieces are chipping off, it's cracking into shards.

Yes like the full combination Peng as check, Lu to off balance while angling then Ji to blast through, an to slam them into the deck if their still conscious. Its a very clever sequence


I brought this up in the past that the TJQ people on here should go see someone like William DeThours who uses his Silat to Off Balance, Angle, Blast, and Slam an opponent, but as he learned TJQ in it's proper context he can show you how it's subtle yet devious in comparison.

TJQ can practice Large Circle but mostly uses the Small Circle in actual fighting. So picture a Small Circle Single Whip (Dan Bian) where he kind of uses a rubbing and slight tugging with his fingers on your outgoing arm, it's not a grab or a hook it's just there 'feeling/ listening' for when your shoulder has turned a certain degree more than your hips, then his other arm's open palm, doesn't hit or push, but mops down your chest, and just the way your shirt and clothing wraps over your own shoulder can provide enough leverage but if necessary the finger tips slightly hook onto your collar bone, and then 'An' happens, as the angle of your hips to shoulders puts the spine in a position where the individual vertebrae don't move but the spine, as a whole unit, presses your sacrum into the sides of your pelvis and all your nerves fire off warning signals like lightning shooting all down your legs, up your spine, and all you can do is collapse straight down in a heap, and you're scared because you don't know if your paralyzed, or what, because your nerves aren't working properly for a few seconds and you realize that if he did it just a little bit faster how much worse it could have been. "Do you need to feel it again?" he asks. Answer "Not no, but fuck no!".


'Tui' (Pushing; Shoving) isn't even an actual method in TJQ.

Tui Shou (pushing hands) isn't even in the original texts. It's called 'Da Shou' which should be translated as Attacking Hand Methods (Da Shou Fa), not hitting, hitting is 擊 'Ji'. TJQ doesn't want to Hit (Ji), it Attacks, but it's attacks are not like charging towards someone with a 2x4 board with nails sticking out of it. It's subtly 'attacking' the Root of one's body (spine, sacrum, hips,) via subtle manipulation of the opponent's Branches (arms, ankles, and knees). 'Pushing Hands' is a great way to figure out how to do this but only if it's understood that you're not trying to shove or throw the other person out. It's like a massage therapist or a chiropractor who moves your limbs into various positions to re-adjust your hips or spine, but in this you're moving them into positions that misalign the opponent's body.

Thankfully there's still a fairly decent number of TJQ people who know and understand this, but even the younger generation of Chinese don't understand what TJQ and Push Hands and the whole train may jump off the track one of these days.

If you're serious about how TJQ's attacking methods really work, it behooves you to go and seek out someone who knows and can show you how it actually works. Just feeling it one time just opens your mind up to so many possibilities for it's usage.

Kao (leaning) and Elbow are TJQ's pain, or direct damage but these should be really short (cun/ duan Jin) attacks and they ideally have a Zhen (shocking force) so they penetrate the exterior and damage the interior. The opponent shouldn't fly or be shoved away from a Kao strike.

There's an old saying, something like that 'When a TJQ fight is over, the outside observers don't know how the opponent lost, and when questioned, the opponent can't describe how he was defeated.'

Now, this subtle usage can't be done in isolation, there needs to be knowledge of how people fight, hit, shove, scratch, kick; and the best way to know how something works is to do it, but there are far better and quicker ways to learn how to fight, any other system of martial art, will suffice; but TJQ used to only be taught to people who knew and could fight with some general martial art techniques or boxing.

But again TJQ doesn't 搏擊 BoJi (fight, wrestle, struggle, contend, capture prey). Now on the other hand your opponent will be trying to BoJi against you, so you need to know everything you can about how people 搏擊 BoJi and in the beginning you may find yourself having to resort to similar methods to counter your opponent, but with practice you can find and create the opportunities to use TJQ Attacking Methods Properly. This is the biggest conundrum or catch-22 in the IMA world and it's why Xingyiquan and Baguazhang have stages of practice that one goes through to get to the end, which works as long as people actually want to get to the end but most are just happy stopping somewhere in the middle, so the end methods are lost. So now you have people doing Xingyiquan then TJQ. Luckily our stages are intact, so everything I know about TJQ comes from practicing our Bear Xing System, but our Bear has the same catch-22 that TJQ has and it takes years of doing another animal like our Lion or Dragon that has the 搏擊 BoJi (fight, wrestle, struggle, contend, capture prey) methods and techniques, where Bear is just a polishing stone in a sense.

.
Last edited by D_Glenn on Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby Bao on Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:25 pm

... Possibly the best post on Tai Chi ever on this board ...

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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby windwalker on Mon Nov 17, 2014 1:25 pm

edited: interesting thread ;)
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby johnwang on Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:05 pm

D_Glenn wrote:Yes like the full combination Peng as check, Lu to off balance while angling then Ji to blast through, an to slam them into the deck if their still conscious. Its a very clever sequence

Peng - clinch
Lu - pull
Ji - strike
An - throw

Where

- Peng followed by Lu is "give first, take later".
- Lu followed by Ji is "fast shaking", a head on collision for the striking model.
- Ji followed by An is "borrow force", a rear-end collision for the throwing model.

Many useful principles exist in the Peng, Lu, Ji, An.
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby middleway on Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:39 pm

Nice post d glen. You know far more about cma than I and its very thought provoking to read. Thanks

Perhaps the terms I used made you think of a big check a separate lead to emptyness, a big shove and then a throw. In fact The sequences is a single motion IMO broken down into 4 phases. They are extremely subtle and just look like a smooth single method when I have experienced them by good adepts.

However I am not a 'tai chi guy'. I frame everything through the lens of fighting/ combative methods and not the lens of traditions or styles so am not bothered how far things may or may not stray ... Just if they work or not :)

Thanks
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby Bao on Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:52 pm

middle way wrote:..I am not a 'tai chi guy'. I frame everything through the lens of fighting/ combative methods and not the lens of traditions or styles so am not bothered how far things may or may not stray ... Just if they work or not :)


I am a pure "tai chi guy". But I could say the same as you about me.
...And most things regarded as "traditions" in tai chi are very modern constructions anyway...
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby middleway on Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:04 pm

That's cool mate. Wasn't bashing pure tai chi people or tradition, just highlighting my position. :)
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby Bao on Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:49 pm

middleway wrote:That's cool mate. Wasn't bashing pure tai chi people or tradition, just highlighting my position. :)


I know. :)
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby jonathan.bluestein on Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:56 pm

Very good post. Always enjoying your stuff 8-)
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby SCMT on Mon Nov 17, 2014 7:04 pm

D_Glenn

Very good post, thank you
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby D_Glenn on Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:05 pm

Middleway, I just quoted you but left off your name because I could have did a quick search and found numerous other quotes or even a video clip to illustrate the opposite, so it's not about you. It's an argument or point that many people have tried to address for the last 10 years on this forum.

***

Thanks for the replies.

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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby dspyrido on Mon Nov 17, 2014 9:51 pm

D_Glenn wrote: TJQ doesn't want to Hit (Ji), it Attacks, but it's attacks are not like charging towards someone with a 2x4 board with nails sticking out of it. It's subtly 'attacking' the Root of one's body (spine, sacrum, hips,) via subtle manipulation of the opponent's Branches (arms, ankles, and knees).


Great post ... but something does not seem 100%. Usual prefaces apply (imho etc) & I will also highlight I have not spent decades on tc.

Firstly, what is the original tc to draw the conclusions? Aside from the 13 postures and other theories tc diverges greatly between branches. We can pick chen writings but that would be pretty limiting (& political).

Secondly the divergence sees different interpretations bring in different strikes but you dont have to look to hard to see that on top of shoulder strikes & elbows there are many horizontal fists, kicks, stomps etc. - eg consider the high crescent kicks found in various flavours of tc. Not alway practical for an but very ji.

Last point & this is probably controversial. What you emphasise in the post is right but only seems to take in the yin part of the equation relating to timing, subtle control of the spine/centre through manipulation of the limbs etc. There is also the yang (ie physical/hard) undercurrent of tc training as well where away from public eyes you get the stone ball, heavy pole and other serious physical forms of training.

The combination yin/yang would then be sense, connect (while hiding), understand, redirect & return with interest. But alternatively evade, strike and finish still exist in the system.
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby gerard on Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:25 pm

D_Glenn wrote:...that TJQ is now like trying to cram a round rock through a square hole.


Not only Taiji.

This book gives you a good insight of what the problem is from a practical and not research-based perspective.

It's just society itself which has become too technological, fast-paced always seeking for quick gains with little or no effort. And then, not only IMA but anything else: As one ripple in a stream causes another, and that, also still another...

Mabu for 7 years before I teach you anything else...how many today would endure such a regime before learning anything else? ;)

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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby middleway on Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:31 am

Middleway, I just quoted you but left off your name because I could have did a quick search and found numerous other quotes or even a video clip to illustrate the opposite, so it's not about you. It's an argument or point that many people have tried to address for the last 10 years on this forum.


Cool i enjoyed your post regardless of who it was meant for.

thanks.
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Re: Taijiquan has strayed so far off it's original path...

Postby MaartenSFS on Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:54 am

Interesting post, though I agree with Dspyrido about the Yang side. Some fighters may lean towards one than the other, but both are a part of TJQ (and all other arts).
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