ultra-relaxed taiji. (ben lo?)

[ninepalace]

Personally, I've never met anyone from the uber-soft school who was worth a damn relative to their martial art, but obviously it would be foolish for me to dismiss the whole practice simply because I haven't met someone who could demonstrate the utilty of it.

CMC's student Saul Krotki is from the "uber-soft school" and he can also issue significant power, not just neutralize. he also studied w/ yuan tao and has a certificate from hong yi-xiang so he can scrap too. he's been doing martial arts since the 50s.

henry wang is a modern CMC, IMO. he is obsessed w/ softness and has won tournaments in taiwan. Saul says henry is probably the best taiji player in the world right now and he's been all over the world so i defer to his judgment.

I've seen a lot of things but I haven't seen everything, and I have to believe that if I were to meet a Ben Lo or Cai Song Fang it could only enrich my experience of taiji and the broader world as well.

try to meet henry wang. he's not my teacher but i've been to one of his seminars and it totally change my perspective on the possibilities of soft power.

[Bhassler]

Thanks, Ninepalace-- I definitely believe the good/great guys are out there, I just haven't been fortunate enough to hook up with one, yet. My first exposure to taiji and CMA in general was a guy who had spent several years as a street thug and a sparring partner for a world-ranked kickboxer, and he always said that he rated Ben Lo as one of the top three martial artists he had ever met. High praise coming from a guy who used to go into biker bars wearing a tutu for "practice."

[ninepalace]

Thanks, Ninepalace-- I definitely believe the good/great guys are out there, I just haven't been fortunate enough to hook up with one, yet. My first exposure to taiji and CMA in general was a guy who had spent several years as a street thug and a sparring partner for a world-ranked kickboxer, and he always said that he rated Ben Lo as one of the top three martial artists he had ever met. High praise coming from a guy who used to go into biker bars wearing a tutu for "practice."

THAT'S AWESOME!

[everything]

I went to two week long intensive camps with the master. Mostly what we did several hours per day was standing in various postures. Most of us were drenched with sweat. Anything he did with us (including push hands) - he seemed totally relaxed and "soft". Everyone wanted to know how he did it. He always gave that same mysterious-seeming answer. Do a lot of form. Cultivate qi over time. I don't think he was interested in giving some scientific sounding answer. I think he just told the plain and simple truth of his personal experience. Sublime, no doubt.

[Shanghaijay]

A bit late to the party on this one but as I trained with Saul Krotki from 86 to 96 and then worked with Shen Tiegen and many students of Ma Yue Liang over the last 12 years I can tell you there is more then one way to get soft.

The CMC school invests in a lot of standing while the Shanghai Wu school of thought is to practice 13 shoufa and slow form. One is all about stillness the other is all about pulling the silk.

Who is better? I can not say. I only know what works for me.

Jay

[lazyboxer]

huh, i experience the opposite. so what are these things more conducive to softness?

my CMC teacher is VERY good at SOFT push hands. when i push with him i basically feel only his arm hairs and he makes me stand on marbles no problem. he believes in standing in postures (like peng) to get a strong root which he says is essential for neutralizing.

It's funny you asked that. The softest person I know, who also has the ability that you mention in the second part above, trains very differently from Ben Lo. He's doesn't do much standing. He trains taiji daoyin -- a type of dynamic stretching that is derived from huleijia taiji. I find that type of work much more conducive to the relaxation when combined with form work than ZZ.

Dave C.

Interesting observation - I don't know about huleijia, but suspect it uses similar elements to the integrated movement principles I use in my training - i.e. teaching opposing muscle groups to work in unison rather than opposition, as is the case with dynamic tension and all its variations. This, I think, is what Taijiquan calls "stillness in motion" - teaching the body to work effortlessly as a unit. Quiescent muscle fibre is a better conductor of bioelectricity than contracted muscle. Taiji is very explicit on this matter, but few seem to believe it.

[lazyboxer]

When I asked Ben back in the 70s how he could stand in a bow stance with fully relaxed calf muscle in the loadbearing leg (and it was as soft as a baby's bottom), he told me he transmitted the load through his bones. Long training of correct dynamic structure is the key to relaxed power in all 3 neijia arts. Wuji training will start you off, and is very good mental and emotional training, but the practise of empty movement is far, far harder - and far more important, in my view. When Ben started to train with Zheng Manqing nearly 60 years ago, Zheng made him stand in Wuji for a year or more because he was weakened by illness. But too much zhanzhuang brings stagnation and stiffness. Always experiment and diligently question.