Just "How much" Zhan Zhuang required for unified mechanics

[edededed]

In general, IMA rejects acrobatics and such (although there is sometimes a little bit remaining), but many styles do use these significantly, like of course monkey or drunken styles, but also chaquan, chuojiaofanziquan, and so on.

[Winter dragon]

I know this is off-topic. But regarding the argument about CMA as a performance art...
You might find this one of interest, if you haven’t read it already.

Theater of combat: A critical look at the Chinese martial arts
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/holcom.htm

[Slim]

If I honestly consider my practice of Taijiquan as on some level performance, no matter how abstract I take the notion of performance to be I don't seem to be able to do it. What I have learnt from my teachers, even in terms of the 'basic' form, is not performance as everything we practice is martially accounted for. There is nothing superfluous that might be the leftover influence of some sordid past affair with the world of theatre. And what is the 'basic' form of a system? From my experience both within the Quan of Chen Yu and my Wu style Taijiquan Teacher the form is constantly modified as a student progresses, there is no basic nor standard routine to perform. And from a martial perspective why would one show his Quan to another anyway?

As a student of Chinese history I can see that the ties between some martial art and theatre throughout Chinese history are no doubt strong and manifold. However as a practitioner within a specific tradition I just can't see it within what I practice, and doubt it was ever there.

[Scott P. Phillips]

Slim, Wu style comes from Chen Style, and Chen Style is packed with performing training. When you say everything you practice is martially accounted for, I hear, everything has been dumbed down. I don't mean to diminish the value of what you practice, I'm just sensitive to the enormous loss. That each and every micro movement of Taijiquan has strikes, throws, and breaks (da,sui,na), is to reveal only the faintest shadow of the original practice, and its significance.

[Chris Fleming]

"Chen Style is packed with performing training."

Only because that is what you want to see in it. You research backwards to come to that conclusion. Go read another comic book.

[Doc Stier]

Performance priorities do in fact exist within every extant style of Tai-Chi Chuan, as well as in every version of each major style, as the signature performance attributes identified with each style. Different Tai-Chi Chuan styles can be visually identified quite easily by their unique stylistic interpretations of the various postures and movement patterns.

By way of analogy, different genres of music...i.e. classical, jazz, blues, country, rap, rock, and so forth, can also be easily identified by their unique stylistic sounds. This holds true even when the performing artist or the song in question is unfamiliar to the listener, providing that the listener has had sufficient experience in hearing the same style of music performed previously.

A substantial amount of time and effort has always been required of every martial art student to learn the proper stylistic performance interpretation or signature appearance of the style, not merely the form sets and drills only. Aside from combat application skills, the 'best' practitioners of any style are usually those who also represent their chosen style well in their ability to expertly perform within the generally accepted stylistic parameters of their style. Simply stated, their movement has the right 'look' to it, and is thus easily identified as one specific style.

Those who perform in a manner which substantially departs from a style's normally accepted stylistic performance parameters are no longer readily identified with that style, but instead are said to have created a new version of the style, or simply a new style altogether.

In the past, prior to video access and other information resources via the internet, it was always easy to identify performers who were primarily self-taught from books, magazines, or printed wall charts. Since these individuals had usually never actually seen the material properly performed, they lacked the right stylistic appearance even when they performed the right movements in the right sequential order.

Additionally, since how you 'feel' energetically influences how you 'look' physically, personal interpretation of your intrinsic energy when practicing will contribute greatly to the your external performance expression of your form sets and applications. As such, specific energetic feeling inwardly, combined with specific physical form expression outwardly, produces the identifiable stylistic appearance of the style.

[Daniel]

Slim, Wu style comes from Chen Style, and Chen Style is packed with performing training. When you say everything you practice is martially accounted for, I hear, everything has been dumbed down. I don't mean to diminish the value of what you practice, I'm just sensitive to the enormous loss. That each and every micro movement of Taijiquan has strikes, throws, and breaks (da,sui,na), is to reveal only the faintest shadow of the original practice, and its significance.

I have never heard of performance - in the sense you´re using repeatedly here - being a formal part of Chen Taiji or any other Taiji. Some significant amount of the evidence you have amassed while researching this would be interesting to see.

There are also members of this Board who have done Chen for many decades, and with good people, both in China and in other places, who surely would be able to verify if your self-assured statement is correct.

Doc: your definition of performance is something I have seen with my chinese teacher, who incidentally also does Chen. He usually teaches three versions of most practices: public, intermediate, and advanced. The public version is the one that can be shown to the public - MA performances, dinners, parties etc. None of the others should be.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Slim]

Hi Doc Stier, I've always enjoy your posts tks, however I’m going to stick to my guns on the performance thing.

Perhaps there’s something to what you’re saying concerning a certain spirit to the movements within different styles, especially with the inner emotional state of the practitioner informing the outer move, and I’ll give it further reflection, however it seems (correct me if I’m wrong) that the way you are framing things better fits the form competition paradigm of practice. When I first started down this whole crazy path I practiced Wushu and Wushu Taijiquan and I remember that it was important to integrate the proper “signature appearance of the style” as you put it so well, into the form. But it seems to me that with more traditional teachers it’s the inside requirements of executing the technique correctly that informs the spirit of the movement. I’m thinking mostly of the differences between the Chen and Wu styles (or at least those taught by the teachers I’ve had) each having a very different flavor. However from my experience it seems to me that this flavor comes fairly directly from how the teacher wants me to perform the martial technique, that is with what kind of force (to be clear I don’t mean different kind of jin but the quality of the jin). And being on the receiving end of both teachers (both Chen and Wu) it seems the force is quite different, even when delivered using the same move. Say with a certain take down, with my Chen teacher it would feel like being crushed down upon with a lot of weight as my feet get knocked out from under, from the Wu teacher the force is different it just feels like my lower body of its own accord is swept from under and I’m down. A very different quality and these qualities are trained, so for me I still find the spirit of the movement is informed through the martial requirements of the style not so much from considerations of performance.

But who knows, the more I practice this stuff the less I know, ask me in a year and I’ll probably think different.

Slim

PS I might be a little slow in responding over the next two days. Forgive.

[cdobe]

Slim, Wu style comes from Chen Style, and Chen Style is packed with performing training. When you say everything you practice is martially accounted for, I hear, everything has been dumbed down. I don't mean to diminish the value of what you practice, I'm just sensitive to the enormous loss. That each and every micro movement of Taijiquan has strikes, throws, and breaks (da,sui,na), is to reveal only the faintest shadow of the original practice, and its significance.

No, Wu style comes from the older versions of Yang style, practical experience with the application of Taiji-principles and probably some other martial influences. Yang style came to a large extend, but IMO not exclusively, from Chen Changxing. To assume that his practice was the same as todays Chen Taijiquan is ridiculous. Just like todays apes are not the ancestors of humans. This view of martial history is lazy thinking.

But I tend to agree with your point about Chen style. Chen style performances often appear to be "cocky" to me. As if they wanted to show off with power and grace, like a courtship ritual in the animal kingdom.

[GrahamB]

I'm pretty sure all styles of Tai Chi are pretty equal in that regard

[cdobe]

I'm pretty sure all styles of Tai Chi are pretty equal in that regard

In this case it's the personal trait of the performer.

Other than that there is no Schnickschnack in Wu style...

[Adam S]

Come off it guys

lets not get into a, my style is better than yours crap

....thats how it's reading

[GrahamB]

Come off it guys

lets not get into a, my style is better than yours crap

....thats how it's reading

Come on, grow a sense of humour and stop telling other people what to do.

[Chris Fleming]

Performance priorities do in fact exist within every extant style of Tai-Chi Chuan, as well as in every version of each major style, as the signature performance attributes identified with each style. Different Tai-Chi Chuan styles can be visually identified quite easily by their unique stylistic interpretations of the various postures and movement patterns.

By way of analogy, different genres of music...i.e. classical, jazz, blues, country, rap, rock, and so forth, can also be easily identified by their unique stylistic sounds. This holds true even when the performing artist or the song in question is unfamiliar to the listener, providing that the listener has had sufficient experience in hearing the same style of music performed previously.

A substantial amount of time and effort has always been required of every martial art student to learn the proper stylistic performance interpretation or signature appearance of the style, not merely the form sets and drills only. Aside from combat application skills, the 'best' practitioners of any style are usually those who also represent their chosen style well in their ability to expertly perform within the generally accepted stylistic parameters of their style. Simply stated, their movement has the right 'look' to it, and is thus easily identified as one specific style.

Those who perform in a manner which substantially departs from a style's normally accepted stylistic performance parameters are no longer readily identified with that style, but instead are said to have created a new version of the style, or simply a new style altogether.

In the past, prior to video access and other information resources via the internet, it was always easy to identify performers who were primarily self-taught from books, magazines, or printed wall charts. Since these individuals had usually never actually seen the material properly performed, they lacked the right stylistic appearance even when they performed the right movements in the right sequential order.

Additionally, since how you 'feel' energetically influences how you 'look' physically, personal interpretation of your intrinsic energy when practicing will contribute greatly to the your external performance expression of your form sets and applications. As such, specific energetic feeling inwardly, combined with specific physical form expression outwardly, produces the identifiable stylistic appearance of the style.

All of the above is one hell of a difference from useless performance flourishes, as in street performance/opera performance, like the guy likes. A different use of the word "performance". Each style certainly has a different flavor but that is not to say that these arts have their roots in opera like one fella would like to claim.

[Bugang]

SNIP


FWIW - and I don't really have an opinion on this, one way or the other - there are those who say that Cheng Tin-hung's neigong set is not a part of Taiji but was added from outside, after Cheng studied with Qi Min-xuan. Dan notes in his book "Complete Tai Chi" that other Wu branches, and Yang style (and I would add, Chen style) does not have the neigong set. I have been informed told that the "Stone Warrior" sets taught publicly by Gene Chicoine are the same material as the neigong, and I dont believe Chicoine credits them with being a Taiji set.
.

In the "Practical Taijiquan History Version" the ominous Qi Min-xuan (nomen est omen ) was a Taiji-Teacher of YLC Lineage, so it would still be Taiji. Anyway it's not really worth discussing about the Origin of the Lineage of a guy that might be (to say the least) made up. Either DD doesnt know other Wu Lineages from HK very well or he deliberately dismisses the fact that they all have the neigong exercises, albeit with different (worse? better?) details and less rather redundant repetitions that CTH seems to have added to arrive at the magical number 24. I don't want to offend PTT People, agree that the neigong is an important part of (HK) Wu Style Training, but CTH Lineage is not at all the only lineage who has it.

Anyway is there a Thread on this Theme? I think it deserves one, given the fact that this forum is about fighting