Itten wrote: No offense intended but everyone on this site seems to be a master
Just an apprentice...
Itten wrote: No offense intended but everyone on this site seems to be a master
Itten wrote: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
Itten wrote: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.
jaime_g wrote: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.
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
Itten wrote: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.
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.
Itten wrote:
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 .
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