"What Makes Taijiquan, Taijiquan?"

[mixjourneyman]

What I was driving at is that you can get really deep material out any martial art or movement paradigm.
Yoga has equally extensive classical writing to Taiji, so I don't think Taiji is any deeper than yoga in terms of classical writings. Bagua and Xingyi also have a great deal of classical writing and songs, as I would assume Shaolin also has. Taiji is a great exercise modality and a wonderful martial art, but it is not better than other arts. Thats also what I was driving at.

[Wanderingdragon]

Is Tai Chi only Wu , or Yang or Chen, is it Bagua or Xing I, all of the soft arts embrace the same principals albeit they manifest in different forms. Tai Chi The Great Ultimate, the moment of change from emptiness to fullness complete in Yin and Yang, representing the constant change of the many things, this is a fight, or it is control, This is Tai Chi, so, I suggest Tai Chi is Kung Fu, I will continue to work.

[internalenthusiast]

yes, graham, i agree. that's a nice little essay.

although Xiang Kairen's essay on push hands is more technical, the passage you quoted reminds me of his essay a bit.

two particular quotations from his essay, which seem to me close to the center of what he's talking about:

Taijiquan is only the exercise of a central pivot. When you have found where this pivot is located, then your feeling will become spherical and every place will be single weighted, If you do not find the center of gravity, then your feeling will become stagnant and every place will be double-weighted. And it is not only the feet and hands--even one finger will be double weighted,

and...

I practiced "Grasp the Sparrow's Tail" while Master Wang observed. Master Wang said with a laugh, "No need to continue. Your opening is not opening; your closing is not closing." At that time, he had a folding fan in his hand. As he waved the fan, flicking it open and closed, he asked, "How is this opening and closing produced?" I said, "It is produced by the motion of your hand." He shook his head and pointed to the button that held the ribs of the fan together, saying, "Only if you have this thing is it possible to open and close." Then he pointed to the door of the house, saying, "It is just like this door--which must have a hinge in order to open and close. You haven't yet discovered this pivot, so naturally your opening is not opening, your closing is not closing." I asked, "Where is the pivot?" He replied, "This is something you yourself must find. If I tell you, it would be of no use."

i actually do think xiang's teacher could have told/showed him, and it might have expedited the process. but i imagine the teacher wanted him to find it himself, as sometimes the bodily truths we find ourselves, mean more than what we've been told. i'd probably show someone, but that's my mode of operation.

for those who don't know the essay, and might find it interesting:

http://www.nardis.com/~twchan/ph.html

not that the central pivot is all of everything. but i do think it's a sine qua non, for finding the kind of simplicity and ease the passage you quoted, mentions.

best...

ps: i should say i don't think the central pivot point is what distinguishes tcc. i think all good MA/MAists have that. as per the topic: well, imo, tcc is based on the inter-relationship of yin/yang. but again all good MA have this imo. so i think tcc is a path, not a destination. as rob and others have said, there's no superior MA. only ways of pursuing things, which make more or less sense, and can develop differently emphasized skill sets. fwiw.

[johnrieber]

get over your instincts. invest in loss and sensitivity, and a method of cultivating strength that makes no goddamn apparent sense. wind up trusting your shen more than you trust your li. don't complain if the process is frustrating, slow, and hurts and embarasses you, even if you're out in the back yard by yourself. realize you can't fake it. commit to the core energetic philosophy, ha ha, tra la, or don't get the core skills that made the stuff work, once upon a time.

choose this and let that go.

no reasonable being on earth would put themselves through this mess if they hadn't had some significant contact with someone who already had. and paid attention.

[ors]

Hi everyone!

I think internalenthusiast has the point! ;-) The pivot point...

"Taiji" simply means center or pivot. If you have center, what you do is "taiji" fist. I think taijiquan is not an art, but a level of mastery. You can reach that by practicing chen style, yang style, wu style or even tongbei style, xing yi etc... I even have seen some Japanese guys who have reached that level...
And of course to reach this level, is not enough to practice some kind of taiji style...

I maybe wrong, naturally!

Örs

[GrahamB]

Ah... the still point upon which the universe turns....

[ors]

What a nice picture!

What the hell is that?

[GrahamB]

What a nice picture!

What the hell is that?

Hey! I'm not just giving that information out you know - I had to sit through 5 and a half series of Lost to find out what that wheel is -

[RobP2]

get over your instincts. invest in loss and sensitivity, and a method of cultivating strength that makes no goddamn apparent sense. wind up trusting your shen more than you trust your li. don't complain if the process is frustrating, slow, and hurts and embarasses you, even if you're out in the back yard by yourself. realize you can't fake it. commit to the core energetic philosophy, ha ha, tra la, or don't get the core skills that made the stuff work, once upon a time.

Instinct - some TJQ people say it is all about cultivatin "inborn ability", others that the movement is "unnatural" and is re-patterning the body

Cultivating strength - nothing there that doesnt make apparent sense to me, I was taught work with staff, stances, two person drills, standing etc for strength, nothing that unusual within CMA circles

Trust your shen / li don't know what that means. Sounds like instinct, but I thought we were getting over that?

Slow ability - that's how it's been sold, I don't believe it's faster or slower than any other good method

Made the stuff work once upon a time - does that imply it doesn't work now?

[ors]

What a nice picture!

What the hell is that?

Hey! I'm not just giving that information out you know - I had to sit through 5 and a half series of Lost to find out what that wheel is -

Oh! It is from Lost! Now it is explain everything...

[Daniel]

get over your instincts. invest in loss and sensitivity, and a method of cultivating strength that makes no goddamn apparent sense. wind up trusting your shen more than you trust your li. don't complain if the process is frustrating, slow, and hurts and embarasses you, even if you're out in the back yard by yourself. realize you can't fake it. commit to the core energetic philosophy, ha ha, tra la, or don't get the core skills that made the stuff work, once upon a time.

Instinct - some TJQ people say it is all about cultivatin "inborn ability", others that the movement is "unnatural" and is re-patterning the body

Cultivating strength - nothing there that doesnt make apparent sense to me, I was taught work with staff, stances, two person drills, standing etc for strength, nothing that unusual within CMA circles

Trust your shen / li don't know what that means. Sounds like instinct, but I thought we were getting over that?

Slow ability - that's how it's been sold, I don't believe it's faster or slower than any other good method

Made the stuff work once upon a time - does that imply it doesn't work now?

Yes, the whole saying of "Xingyi, kill in one year; Taiji, in ten years, don´t go outside the door," is probably one of those things they got wrong... Taiji, using Taiji principles and energies, is considerably slower than many other methods for actual combat. Six hours of Xingyi a day for a year or six hours of Taiji for a year with tailormade programs for real life fighting could, I think, be said to produce different results in that space of time. Fairly well-known IMA teacher Eric Luo holds the opinion that Taiji is the most advanced of the Three Sisters, in the sense of what you need to be able to do to make it work in real life. And he is recognized as doing all three IMA to a quite decent level.

In my personal experience at least, there is a huge difference in still being stuck with mentally thinking that li is the thing that makes it work, or yi is the thing that makes it work. That took a long time to unlearn for me, and I´ve been doing this training...well, a lot, though I´m sure I am a slow learner. Moving on to shen-level takes even longer to do fully and to trust the skills of listening and yin.

Good Taiji for combat is where your opponent feels that he has you...and then gets hurt. It´s like punching into a cloud, or into the ocean. You can feel the bastard, but he has you surrounded and you don´t understand how it happened. This takes time to produce, especially for men, in regards to letting go of wanting to control and using anger.

"Made the stuff work once upon a time". Well, quite frankly, few people who do Taiji and only Taiji can show it against either trained or untrained violence these days. I think that you probably really need to meet and see someone who can use the principles of Taiji and the powers of Taiji in real fighting on you, to fully believe that they are useful against an opponent that wishes to injure or kill you. Otherwise I think that most people would doubt the efficacy in comparison to say, Xingyi.

Again: one lu, one ji.



D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Royal Dragon]

I have not read the whole thread to see if someone has given the same answer as me, but, since I am the ONLY one who knows what Taiji Quan actually is, i am sure I won't be repeating anyone's previous contribution.

In very simple terms, Taijiquan is Shaolin Tai Tzu Chang Chuan, softened up a bit with lots of focus on the addition of push hands practice and more refined sensitivity training.

Even simpler terms, it's softened tai tzu.

What is Tai Tzu? well, it's pretty much internal Shaolin built from the military arts of it's time.

You could also say Taiji is softened and highly refined internal Shaolin.

Well, there you have it.

[RobP2]

RD - you could be onto soemthing there!

[RobP2]

Good Taiji for combat is where your opponent feels that he has you...and then gets hurt. It´s like punching into a cloud, or into the ocean. You can feel the bastard, but he has you surrounded and you don´t understand how it happened. This takes time to produce, especially for men, in regards to letting go of wanting to control and using anger.
I think that you probably really need to meet and see someone who can use the principles of Taiji and the powers of Taiji in real fighting on you, to fully believe that they are useful against an opponent that wishes to injure or kill you. Otherwise I think that most people would doubt the efficacy in comparison to say, Xingyi.

I have felt that, but not from TJQ people, and, as you might suspect not from people who have been through that "long years of training" routine. As for the issue of control and anger, some say you need to let go of it, other's seems to make it work for them - Steve Morris springs to mind.

But we get to the crunch again of "you need to meet.." OK - so who do I meet?

[Haoran]

From here:
http://www.wudanggongfu.com/kungfu/2009.htm

In Chinese culture, there is a saying: “Lian quan, bu lian gong.Dao lao yi chang kong.”What this means is that if one only practices the external form and pays no attention to their self-cultivation and the internal aspect of their training, later when the practitioner becomes older they will realize that they have gained nothing and wasted all of their efforts.