Cheng Man Ching question

[lenmccoy]

By the way I had some problems with my eyes (fixed now) so I did not post for a while but my brain kept generating question. Hence my recent spat of questions. Thank you all for your patience.
I read where T. T. Liang substituted chess for medicine when describing Cheng's five excellences. We probably have people here who actually knew Cheng so questions:
Are we talking something like Xiangqi or international chess?
How good was Cheng's chess?
What is your opinion of he cross over value of Xiangqi, TCM, Chinese Painting, Calligraphy, Chinese Poetry or even studying classic Chinese Philosophy to learning CMA?
I read somewhere where Doc Fai Wong encourages his serious students to read All Men Are Brother, Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
thanks,
Len McCoy

[yeniseri]

Make your choice based on your own vision, goal or choice then adjust accordingly.
Any value has to be based on your worldview and vision. There are quite a few named Chinese chess but my personal choice is weiqi (Go).

[Bao]

Well, what is called "Chinese Chess" is something else as "go"/"weiqi". And that is a game very similar to our western chess.

But I think Liang meant Go/Weiqi. A lot of tai chi schools take this game very seriously.
I know that quite a big tai chi organization that have had terms mixed up by older romanization = Wu chi, Wu Wei, Wei chi. So they think wei chi (weiqi, the game) means wu chi (wuji) and thus means the opposite of Taiji according to the philosophy of Zhou Yi who wrote the Taiji Tu Shuo. The consequence of this mistake is that they absolutely believe that the game weiqi is the opposite of tai chi practice. So if you practice Taijiquan, you need to practice weiqi to get a balance. So they all play weiqi ...

[zrm]

The consequence of this mistake is that they absolutely believe that the game weiqi is the opposite of tai chi practice. So if you practice Taijiquan, you need to practice weiqi to get a balance. So they all play weiqi ...

...wtf

[wayne hansen]

The game of Ma Chinese chess is very similar to pushing hands
The board and pieces like the various parts of the human body
The river the half way point between two opponents
I had an American student who being a model would spend 6 months with me and the rest of the year traveling for work
Her teacher in the states was y c Chang
I cannot remember if it was him or gou lien but one of them would take on top level Go players and beat them
He claimed it was just like pushing you just needed a good knowledge of yin yang

[C.J.W.]

My Taiwanese Bagua teacher is also an accomplished artist in Chinese calligraphy and traditional painting. He has told me on numerous occasions that there are certain principles and skills found in Chinese arts which are directly related and applicable to martial arts.

[Bao]

there are certain principles and skills found in Chinese arts which are directly related and applicable to martial arts.

The way you balance and align a painting brush is virtually same as with a sword (jian).
Centering the clay in cheramics is about the same mechanics as "close" (he) in Tai Chi Kai he shou (open close hands).
Different high levels of Go is required for advancing in the Japanese army. (It means strategy skill)
These are the few examples I can think of right now.

[wayne hansen]

When practiced with mindfulness the art of tea is a strong chi gung and meditation

[Trick]

Many years ago there was an article in my hometowns local news paper. It featured a karate classmate of mine who was/is a high level chessplayer(the"regular"non chinese chess) but not really a pugilist, and his chess club classmate who was a national boxing champion and a decent chess player. As i recall they both found chess and "martial arts" both need the same high level of mental focus and dicipline.....In high school (along time ago) i found out i really suck at chess and since then never tried that game again, but althought not really a pugilist i was ok at martial arts, hmmm