Freedom

[willie]

No offense intended but everyone on this site seems to be a master

Just an apprentice...

[D_Glenn]

I have been lurking here for many years since I am predominantly an aikido man but have many years in other arts including some IMA.l have an observation about most of the video clips floating around hitch leads me to a question and I'd like to hear your opinions on this.
All styles carry preconceptions built in and therefore limitations. Is speed of adaptation to an unknown opponent skill base a sign of a correct and successful Shen Fa. I use the Chinese term with limited linguistic knowledge but it seems the most neat description of a body trading method which creates what Akuzawa would refer to as a Budo body. My experience with him, as well and with Dan Harden and Sam Chin have convinced me the "Grand Ultimate" is not an art but an embodied quality or set of qualities. When these mind/body conditions are met then freedom of response occurs. Force escaping becomes an extension of Yi rather than a calculation and techniques become irrelevant.
All replies are welcome since none of us have a sole license to truth.
respect,
Alec

The CIMA body that one seeks to obtain is called 'Tanhuang Gangsi' (Spring-steel wire/cable). The person who achieves this has power in all degrees or distances of movement, almost any part of their body can attack.

It takes years to develop the quality, the development comes from Zhan Zhuang and Xing Zhuang (Standing and moving postures), but in the meantime the practitioner also learns techniques and combos to train the Yi and because just working on development alone would be like constantly building up a race car in the garage but never taking it out for a drive on the road. The quality has to be continually used, so that it reaches to the fingertips, but in turn the usage or shapes will come to define the quality in the practitioners body. But with one system learned it's fairly easy to change the shape a little to learn a different system, but it's changing the Yi that is the hard part. Tanhuang Gangsi can be remolded in 3 to 6 months.

I don't know if that answers your question.

.

[Taste of Death]

KEND everything sounds great, thank you. You speak of basic and intermediate levels as if you have long since mastered these things. No offense intended but everyone on this site seems to be a master, I guess after a lifetime of training I just missed the boat. In 40 years of training I've only met a handful of people where they could say "I put my hand in front of me and that is Kung Fu" and keep a straight face. Nothing you write is alien to me it's just a lot more difficult than most people think.

Here is Ken's hand. It looks like Kung Fu to me.
http://ef.sifuondemand.com/crushing/visit/visit02.html

[Itten]

Yes, it looks like Kung fu to me too and I'm sure he is very good. No disrespect intended to someone with his reputation. I've never felt the man or seen him in action but the photos are very nice.

[KEND]

I hope I was not appearing arrogant, I was trying to make the point that IMA is not, and cannot be treated in the same sense as external MA. In fact everything you do reflects the training, even something as simple as putting out your hand.The body is trained and responds to external stimuli [Mind Fist in Hsing Yi] the techniques merge into reactions, the internal movements are circular.
As for experience, I trained in judo and wrestling in the fifties but started training seriously in 1965. Have trained in, researched, written on and eventually taught Hsing Yi since 1974.
As far as the 'master' bit, I am against the whole thing, I would never call myself a master and by the same token I do not call others masters, I feel if it ever meant anything that day has long since passed. If people want to call themselves master or talk about their teachers as masters that's ok by me, that's your path, just don't ask me to do so. [The term has become degraded and with kids at 12 being black belts and by 18 masters, frankly, embarrassing]. I am sorry if I offended traditionalists but if you are in the MA world you know who has skills and who hasn't, lineage, grand titles mean nothing if you cant back them up.

[Itten]

Thank you for your courteous and succinct reply. I understand where you are coming from with your statement and I can only agree, if you have something that something expresses itself in everything you do. I began training in 1967 and apart from a period of about 10 years have trained ever since. I try to maintain a beginners mind and stay open to learning and refining, hopefully for the rest of my life. Although I am a teacher with a reasonable "rank" I do not consider belts or titles meaningful except when you know the lineage, and even then time decays all. It was not my intent to be personally derogative towards someone with your dedication. There is so much BS here, mixed with some great gems, that sometimes I lose it a wee bit. Must be an age thing ;-)
All the best,
Alec

[willie]

If the art is in the form, then why so many people have developed internal skills without forms?

One style can store his internal training in the forms, or just in neigong exercises, without forms. Or can use both a form and separated exercises.

Hi Jaime_g.
Not everything is about internal power or what the common thoughts of it are.
Internal means so many things and most don't agree on what internal is. I think that the term is over used and becoming generic.

I know IMA guys who don't use techniques from forms and I also know people who do.
I guess it is what works out well for you.

[windwalker]

My experience with him, as well and with Dan Harden and Sam Chin have convinced me the "Grand Ultimate" is not an art but an embodied quality or set of qualities. When these mind/body conditions are met then freedom of response occurs. Force escaping becomes an extension of Yi rather than a calculation and techniques become irrelevant.
All replies are welcome since none of us have a sole license to truth.
respect,
Alec

Grand Ultimate, is a term applied / associated with taiji with out first
understanding why the term was used in the first place I don't quite understand how
one would arrive it it means a specific art.


The study of taiji leads to freedom in it self, past "masters"
have written extensively on this.

[amor]

I use the Chinese term with limited linguistic knowledge but it seems the most neat description of a body trading method which creates what Akuzawa would refer to as a Budo body. My experience with him, as well and with Dan Harden and Sam Chin have convinced me the "Grand Ultimate" is not an art but an embodied quality or set of qualities. When these mind/body conditions are met then freedom of response occurs. Force escaping becomes an extension of Yi rather than a calculation and techniques become irrelevant.
All replies are welcome since none of us have a sole license to truth.

You bring up an interesting point concerning the 'budo body' and I would expect that the body type that's developed does offer a degree of freedom relative to and above your average non-IMA external fighter but, still within that arts constraints of internal progression so it's not absolute.
I've pasted a comment by Michael Guen who wrote a very good article a while contrasting bagua and taichi, which should clarify what I am getting at:

I actually had only brief exposures to other ba gua styles, most before I met Gong Baozai. Like many of my tai chi colleagues in the 70's, I was fascinated with ba gua and took various workshops offered by different teachers. Until I met Gong Baozai, none of the styles I studied put me in conflict with other internal styles. I could keep practicing ba gua zhang, tai chi chuan, qi gong, xing yi quan, all with no disagreement. However, the open body style Gong Baozai taught was so different from what I call the "turtle back" posture. Opening my chest, pulling in my abdomen and sticking out my buttocks seemed contradictory to what I had learned was "internal," and it at first made me feel weak. This is the reason I didn't practice his style seriously for many years; I didn't possess the emotional strength to hold my body open that way. Another reason was that because it was practiced so radically different from other internal styles, dedicating myself solely to ba gua quan would have alienated me from the greater martial arts community.

How would you describe the 'budo body' ? Is it more 'open' in the manner described above, more "turtleback" or something separate from what has been described in the quote above?

http://www.chusaulei.com/martial/articl ... rview.html

[Itten]

Windwalker,
I was not attempting to redefine anything but clarifying for myself the distinction between Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi. I apologize for any confusion I may cause in you. I practice aikido for a long time. Aikido as an art is substantively different to what was originally known as Takemusu Aiki, the spontaneous manifestation of Aiki ( in/yo, yin/yang). As I wrote, badly I'm afraid, after watching video clips for years of experts in CMA and aikido I see very few people who are free enough to use their skills in action with other arts. I am not talking about sport sparring or street fighting but merely about speed of adaptive try to the unknown and not reliance upon forms. Demonstrating upon students from within your own art shows very little as far as I am concerned. Please forgive me if I put it badly.

[willie]

Wuji give birth to taiji. taiji gave birth to the ten thousand things. if you like that theory.

Or perhaps a medical view?
The stomach and intestines are like a car battery, full of acid. perhaps that is the root of internal power. After all, Just the brain alone takes 12 watt's.

[Itten]

Thank you Amor for your response and question. This is exactly the sort of question I would like to to investigate especially since different style do develop different ways of using and absorbing power and I believe ultimately limit spontaneous adaption. I'm out of writing time now butI will respond more carefully later.

[Wanderingdragon]

Strike high cover low, when right is full left is empty, engage the left seek the right, the hand leads to the elbow,stop the kick at the gate, or follow the kick through the door. Small ideas, big principles, understanding these leads to freedom.

[willie]

clarifying for myself the distinction between Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi.

I see very few people who are free enough to use their skills in action with other arts. I am not talking about sport sparring or street fighting but merely about speed of adaptive try to the unknown and not reliance upon forms. Demonstrating upon students from within your own art shows very little as far as I am concerned .

So you train with the infamous Bodywork and you have decades of training, I think that's great.
Dan is about 45 minutes out, So you are near Western Ma? Perhaps you would like to meet up and see how your training with bodywork
and your Aikido applies.
There is no difference between taijiquan, Tai Chi Chaun or Tai Chi, it's just terms.

[Itten]

Sorry Willie,
I live in The Netherlands, a bit further away;-) I don't train with Dan anymore but I have done a number of workshops with him I am not a champion for him but he is one of the best guys I've ever felt.
If you were inviting me to touch hands with you I would be delighted to if you are ever in Europe. I suspect you are 20 years younger than me so I would ask you to play nice
I wasn't referring to the name of Tai Chi as another version of Tai Chi Chuan, I was referring to the principles of Yin and Yang as present in all things but having endless manifestations.
You seem like a good guy that gets a bit worked up about stuff, we're cool, I'm not blowing my own trumpet or anyone else's. I'm still learning like you and hope to do so the rest of my life.
Night,
Alec