Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

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Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby yeniseri on Mon Oct 17, 2016 9:42 pm

From Taiji Forum
https://taiji-forum.com/tai-chi-taiji/t ... nterviews/

I loved the POV of Dan Docherty and Mario Napoli! True pioneers in their own vision and sincerity.
Enjoy!
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Patrick on Tue Oct 18, 2016 4:44 am

Thanks. The interview of Napoli was indeed interesting (to me).
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Bao on Tue Oct 18, 2016 5:31 am

I've read most of them. The one with Li Deyin is interesting. It says a lot about old school teaching.

For the first 4 years, my training mostly focused on Ji Ben Gong (foundation skills) which included kicks, body stretching, splits, handstands and somersaults as well as basic Shaolin training including Shaolin Fist, Shaolin Sabre and Staff etc. My grandfather used to say ‘Children need to get a good foundation in their legs and waist because these skills are difficult to train when you get older.’

When I went to secondary school, my grandfather would ask us to practice Xing Yi Quan which involved daily Zhan Zhuang (pole standing) and Wu Xing Quan (Five Element Fist). This training was repetitive and intensive. We would practice the same movements over and over for more than 20 or 30 repetitions. Grandfather said, ‘The simpler the movement, the more advanced skills can be developed’.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby mfinn on Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:07 pm

Bao wrote:I've read most of them. The one with Li Deyin is interesting. It says a lot about old school teaching.

For the first 4 years, my training mostly focused on Ji Ben Gong (foundation skills) which included kicks, body stretching, splits, handstands and somersaults as well as basic Shaolin training including Shaolin Fist, Shaolin Sabre and Staff etc. My grandfather used to say ‘Children need to get a good foundation in their legs and waist because these skills are difficult to train when you get older.’

When I went to secondary school, my grandfather would ask us to practice Xing Yi Quan which involved daily Zhan Zhuang (pole standing) and Wu Xing Quan (Five Element Fist). This training was repetitive and intensive. We would practice the same movements over and over for more than 20 or 30 repetitions. Grandfather said, ‘The simpler the movement, the more advanced skills can be developed’.



Whenever I read some sort of memoir of a practitioner from China -- who grew up and lived through the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution, I always wonder what they were doing, how they were living through all of that. Master Wang Pei-Sheng spent his time in prison. It seems to me such people should not act as if such a tumultuous time never existed.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby nicklinjm on Sun Nov 06, 2016 6:29 pm

Well, the cultural revolution was very different for different people. The most important thing was your class background - a lot of masters that we hear of getting 'struggled against' (paraded for humiliating public denunciations, placed in agonising poses for hours, etc) were targeted because they were considered one of the 'class traitors' such as landlords, businessmen or intellectuals. If you were dirt poor and/or a card-carrying communist party member you probably managed to get through the cultural revolution unscathed and maybe even managed to practice your martial arts in secret.

Of course, this is not to say that a lot of masters didn't get 'struggled' against - many famous taiji masters, such as Wang Peisheng, YCF's disciple Cui Yishi, Chen Xiaowang's father Chen Zhaoxu etc were all struggled against. On the xingyi side I know that masters like Zhu Guofu, Zheng Huaixian (Sun style), and Liu Molin (famous Hebei style master in Shanghai) were all targets of public struggle sessions. IIRC, in the end Liu Molin could not stand the beatings and denunciations and committed suicide by jumping in the Huangpu river. Very sad :'( :'(
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Gus Mueller on Sun Nov 06, 2016 6:29 pm

Bao wrote:I've read most of them. The one with Li Deyin is interesting. It says a lot about old school teaching.

For the first 4 years, my training mostly focused on Ji Ben Gong (foundation skills) which included kicks, body stretching, splits, handstands and somersaults as well as basic Shaolin training including Shaolin Fist, Shaolin Sabre and Staff etc. My grandfather used to say ‘Children need to get a good foundation in their legs and waist because these skills are difficult to train when you get older.’

When I went to secondary school, my grandfather would ask us to practice Xing Yi Quan which involved daily Zhan Zhuang (pole standing) and Wu Xing Quan (Five Element Fist). This training was repetitive and intensive. We would practice the same movements over and over for more than 20 or 30 repetitions. Grandfather said, ‘The simpler the movement, the more advanced skills can be developed’.


Sorry, real world alert. Twenty or thirty repetitions is not even a warm up in Xingyi. What I'm hearing from this is that old school teaching was super easy.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Bao on Sun Nov 06, 2016 11:57 pm

Gus Mueller wrote:Sorry, real world alert. Twenty or thirty repetitions is not even a warm up in Xingyi. What I'm hearing from this is that old school teaching was super easy.


He was just a kid, secondary school. He was supposed to, well, go in school and study just as other kids. That's living in the real world.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Gus Mueller on Mon Nov 07, 2016 12:17 am

Wow, sorry, I did not pick up on the kid's tender age. I guess I was applying adult standards, where we don't spend 23 hours a day locked in a pod and don't consider 3 minutes of mild exercise super demanding "old school" training. Seriously dude? I started training Xingyi at that age and me-then would laff at your excuse making.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Bao on Mon Nov 07, 2016 1:42 am

Gus Mueller wrote: I started training Xingyi at that age


So how many hours did you practice every day when you were what age? 7,8,9? ..In the real world I mean. :P
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby wiesiek on Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:13 am

well
i`m not the Chinese old school
but
I started in grammar s., from 2 days a week 1,5h e.a. workout in the 1st year
- 3 -4 days a week in the 2nd
6 in the 3rd
and twice a day later...
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Gus Mueller on Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:29 am

Bao wrote:
Gus Mueller wrote: I started training Xingyi at that age


So how many hours did you practice every day when you were what age? 7,8,9? ..In the real world I mean. :P


Okay I'll play along with your game of being deliberately obtuse.

You said "secondary school", which is clearly double digit in terms of the student's age. I'm not Doogie Howser.

You present "20 or 30 repetitions" as "old school teaching".

In Xingyi, 30 repetitions is about 3 minutes, maybe 10 for some of the longer animal forms. I'm not making an extraordinary claim. WTF is wrong with you dude?
Last edited by Gus Mueller on Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby GrahamB on Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:34 am

I don't know why, but I found reading these really depressing. lol.

I mean, half of them spent their whole life grubbing around in the dark for information that wasn't available, the other half were just working out how to make money out of what they had.

That's life I guess ;D
Last edited by GrahamB on Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby edededed on Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:43 am

Perhaps something got lost in translation here? Maybe he meant 20-30 lines across a field.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby Bao on Tue Nov 08, 2016 7:17 am

.... Trolls ... ::)

Gus Mueller wrote:
Bao wrote:
Gus Mueller wrote: I started training Xingyi at that age


So how many hours did you practice every day when you were what age? 7,8,9? ..In the real world I mean. :P


Okay I'll play along with your game of being deliberately obtuse.

You said "secondary school", which is clearly double digit in terms of the student's age. I'm not Doogie Howser.

You present "20 or 30 repetitions" as "old school teaching".

In Xingyi, 30 repetitions is about 3 minutes, maybe 10 for some of the longer animal forms. I'm not making an extraordinary claim. WTF is wrong with you dude?

Doogie Howser. :o

Have you even read the interview? Doogie Howser? I think you just might be a moron.

Pobably you are very young. You write that you have studied arts for 30 years, so you should be at least 40. But you act more like you are 14 years old. You are probably not that young, Hard to tell.... :-\. But you are certainly not much more than a troll.

When I went to secondary school, my grandfather would ask us to practice Xing Yi Quan which involved daily Zhan Zhuang (pole standing) and Wu Xing Quan (Five Element Fist). This training was repetitive and intensive. We would practice the same movements over and over for more than 20 or 30 repetitions.
...
I started formal Taijiquan training before moving to High School. Although I had already learned the pattern of the form, I had to start again from Open Stance in front of my grandfather.

https://taiji-forum.com/tai-chi-taiji/t ... -li-deyin/

In the United States, the term 'secondary school' can refer to several types of schools. The first type is a traditional, comprehensive high school, comprising grades 9–12. Another type is alternative schools, including continuation schools, which serve those same grades. In some jurisdictions, 'secondary school' may refer to an institution that houses grades 7–12. The term 'secondary school' also categorically includes both middle school and high school. This page lists many secondary schools in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary ... of_America

In China, the only second grade before High School is the second year of primary school, which means approx. 7-8 years old. So if it means that Li Deyin started XY when he was 8, at the same time as he started practicing CMA or if he means after those 4 years when he was 12 yrs old. I'm not perfectly sure about what, but I would guess he meant 12. Anyway, how much did you practice when you started your arts, regardless when? Are you afraid to answer that question? I can tell you about myself. From 11 years old to many years later I practiced 2-3 hours regularly every day.

Anyway, write whatever you want. I won't reply to or comment your posts anymore. I don't deal with trolls.
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Re: Taiji Forum: Interviews with some notables

Postby origami_itto on Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:41 am

edededed wrote:Perhaps something got lost in translation here? Maybe he meant 20-30 lines across a field.


For my own practice, well... first you have to understand I do a very active step version of xingyi, so each single posture can cover up to about 10 feet depending on how aggressive you want to be.

Learning the elements, you would do nothing but that element for the hour of class time. The number of repetitions was.... man I have no clue. Hundreds?

After learning the elements, usually each class would start with the whole class doing lines across the studio, each element from one side to the other then back, before beginning instruction in other things. That would be between 20-40 full iterations of each posture, so somewhere between 100-200 total.

In personal practice, after San Tsai Sek/Zhaun Zhang I would do 100 each of the elements while standing in wuji before starting the rest of my practice. This might be a practice particular to the flavor I study. For additional practice I would do a couple hundred of each with jailhouse steps and resistance bands strapped to the wall.

For reference, the studio and steps in question.

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