the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

The Tai Chi Notebook is back!

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show ... nn-e2ih0m4



Nabil Ranné is a Chen style teacher living in Berlin who offers classes and online training at CTN Academy Nabil is a student of Chen Yu, who is the only son of Chen ZhaoKui and grandson of the famous Chen Fake. Listen here.

Here’s what we talk about:

Timestamps:

1.00: Nabil’s background in martial arts and what attracted him to Chen style Tai Chi

3.40: What is Jin in Tai Chi?

7.30: What makes Tai Chi different to other marital arts?

11.15: What is the strategy for Tai Chi?

16.00: What is the function of Tai Chi push hands?

17.55: Competition push hands vs Tai Chi push hands

22.20: The Xin Yi podcast and how do you train applications in Tai Chi

28.00: Real life self defence situations

36.00: Martial arts vs marital sports

44.02: Zhan Zhuang: Standing pillar practice

46.55: Chen style FaJin methods and their purpose

55.00: Nabil’s book and getting in touch

Links:

https://thetaichinotebook.com/2024/04/1 ... -training/

Okay fine I'm giving it a shot and an hour of my precious time, please tell me you don't start shilling for a stamp website though I may have to run for it.

Thankfully I have zero sponsors or advertisers, so there is no shilling of any kind. Obviously this is a deliberate editorial decision, reflecting my values.... not just that nobody has ever wanted to sponsor an episode... Spotify might put ads in it... I don't know.

People I know and respect have trained with and spoken highly of Nabil.

I'm not much into Podcasts, and even less into most interviews. Too often I find they are simply generalist sound bites rather than meaningful - to me - insights. I appreciate your interviewing Nabil and bringing it to the fore, but the half that I listened to I found to be too general in nature to offer much insight.

Having interviewed Liu Chengdu in the late 1990's, I asked similar questions to what you did in your interview with Nabil. It's the nature of the format and topic. The interesting - to me - part of that interview was LCD asking me what I would do with the information if he answered my questions and why I would do that. I found THAT discussion very insightful and it changed how I approach my own practice and what, if anything, I have to say about it.

In that spirit, what is your purpose for making these Taiji-related podcasts? What had you wanted to accomplish in your interview with Nabil?

“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

“It isn’t much good having anything exciting, if you can’t share it with somebody.”

—Winnie the Pooh

Graham, I think your podcasts are a little too mellow. You need to let your real personality shine through… Like when he mentioned that he practices while standing in one place, you could have asked why trains to fight while stepping without stepping. Spice it up a little. We want to hear the real Graham Barlow interview podcasts.
[edited for the masses]

I think there’s something wrong with you.

GrahamB wrote:“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

“It isn’t much good having anything exciting, if you can’t share it with somebody.”

—Winnie the Pooh

I'm glad you're doing it. Keep it up, get better.

GrahamB wrote:I think there’s something wrong with you.

This is the first podcast, and only the last 10 minutes of it, that I have listened to of yours, so maybe you are different with other guests. So my preposterous and sarcastic post aside, I think you maybe just need a little consistency between all of your posts on RSF and the persona you portray on your podcast. Unless you’re trying to reinvent yourself or something

“Don’t worry, be happy” Bobby McFerrin

I listened to Byron's podcasts with Marin Spivak (who used to post here as Moling) and his one with Nabil. They both have the same teacher, but Marin is a much spikier character and doesn't mind dissing other people/traditions, whereas Nabil is milder and seems to be a bridge builder. (I found Marin's point of view quite interesting, but I'm used to outspokenness when it comes to martial arts). I know that's not what you meant, but perhaps all this mildness is not Graham's fault .
(I should add that I have listened to various of Graham's podcasts, too, but haven't got round to this one yet.)

Graculus
[url]https;//www.ichijoji.blogspot.com[/url]

charles wrote:the half that I listened to I found to be too general in nature to offer much insight.

Agreed. But this is the nature of podcasts, it depends on who you interview. Some people are shallow and boring and not very good subjects to interview, while others believe they are important, so they think everything they say should be interesting. It's very hard to find people to interview in this small, narrow Tai Chi world, people who combine knowledge and a genuine interest to share, with a colorful personality.

Thanks for the timestamps-- I've listened to Nabil on other podcasts, so it was nice to be able to skip around to interesting topics rather than just listening to stuff I've heard before. I also liked that you seemed to have some specific topics in mind you wanted to cover. Most "interview" style podcasts seem to be more rambling and whatever comes up is what comes up (or maybe you just did a better job of coming up with questions).

Yeah, I like timestamps - can help you dip in and out.

If you guys like my bubbly "podcast personality" so much then you might like the Heretics podcast I do with Damon - lots of weird and wonderful things on there!

https://open.spotify.com/show/0BgS6rucOoZbu9Zc2NPmwE

Do you still do the accent when nobody is around?