the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

D_Glenn wrote:If you aren’t tucking your tailbone under, rounding your back, lifting Huiyin point, lifting your crown and tucking your chin to vertically align Baihui with Huiyin, touching the tip of your tongue to the soft palate, and hollowing your chest, then this exercise is a complete waste of time.

1. "It is not possible for one to teach others who cannot teach his own family."

You didn't say "then that exercise...," you said "then this exercise." What you said straight out is that the people in the video are completely wasting their time. The video isn't just bad, but quit your teacher bad. Of course they aren't doing those things. They're beginners. Imagine if your teacher felt that teaching you was a waste of time because you weren't aware of some arbitrary list of requirements. Would you have gotten anywhere? Of course not. Of course you can't do all those things. You don't even know all the moves yet and remembering them breaks your concentration.


2. "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

I remember what it was like to learn Tai Chi. I would start with Yang Cheng Fu's 10 points and as I did the form I would concentrate on one point at a time. When I felt I had made some kind of progress, when I felt I had changed my form (even just a little) to accommodate that point, I would move onto the next point. After a while people started complimenting me and I realized I had stopped focusing so much on keeping the points. Maybe I wasn't perfect and maybe I didn't feel like I was doing something special. But I realized the efforts I made to integrate the principles of Tai Chi were paying off. I had made progress along those roads. I still return to focusing on one principle at a time, improving my form, checking and balancing, trying to make myself a better person. I did not waste my time.


3. "The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance."

I think fundamentally you are right. If you yourself weren't doing all those things, you would feel that for you the exercise was a great waste of time. However in the Da Xue it is written, "From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered. It never has been the case that what was of great importance has been slightly cared for, and, at the same time, that what was of slight importance has been greatly cared for."

Therefore, I feel that we must help the beginners. Even if the beginners are just wasting their time, we cannot say it is a waste of our time to try and help them.

In Tongbeiquan a/the most fundamental and important exercise is a “repulse monkey “ kind of practice, stationary and then stepping forward and backwards referred to as drilling.
In Chen tjq or at least the hunyuan Taiji of Feng Zhiqiang there’s the similar idea just after the “push”(24 posture form) and before the stepping back “repulse monkey”, it’s stationary with a slight forward and back ward shifting of one’s center. If it’s a most important exercise of TBQ it’s also so in taijiquan.

this is why i asked in a thread "what is the 'mother palm' of taijiquan" ... mostly agree with D_Glenn that if you don't do your neigong, are you even ever doing "neijia"? seems like by definition, no. but somewhat agree with appledog about the beginner musings.

Now that depends on how you define noi gung

I always wonder why any teacher would choose beginners to demonstrate the training methods of their respective style or system? Certainly, the merits and benefits of any training regimen are better demonstrated by those who have devoted more practice time and effort to developing and refining it, namely the teacher or advanced level senior students. In this way, all discussion is more easily focused solely on the value of what is being demonstrated, imo.

I think Appledog is using these posts as feedback for the students themselves. As their teacher, he gives them instruction and corrections, but 3rd party unbiased feedback is additionaly beneficial. But, I don't know.

I don’t know about that he got very upset when someone pointed out their shortcomings

wayne hansen wrote:I don’t know about that he got very upset when someone pointed out their shortcomings

I don't think I got upset at that. I did get upset, but at something else. The main thing I get upset with is when people don't read the video description or assume that these videos are intended to demonstrate a high level of skill. I've repeatedly said they are just documentaries of what we do, like family videos, to keep track of what I taught them.

People just want to complain. They will complain no matter what is put out. They will even make stuff up to complain. Look at them complaining every time a master's video is posted. Now, people are even complaining I got upset when others posted rude things about the videos It's not worth it.

Well you told people not to pick on these two young kids
So I think that showed you weren’t putting it up for honest assessment

I’m confused, probably lacking some context. I had checked out this channel almost a year ago and these same two people were in that video, so I made the assumption that they weren’t beginners. And the lack of any tangible progress over the year stands out. So point is that if you’re going to be waving your arms around in the air, if you at least follow those principles that I mentioned, then at least these people will be getting some Neigong developed.

If a person only practices(Gong) Li without Qi (as external arts do) they will have very little after the age of 40-50.

If a person practices both Li and Qi simultaneously (as Internal Arts strive to do, although Li is severely lacking in most cases) then that person will be able to practice martial arts for their whole lifetime.

It appears to me that there’s no Li, nor Qi being practiced in these clips. Hence my initial post and recommendation to at least practice Qi (Neigong).

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D_Glenn wrote:I’m confused, probably lacking some context. I had checked out this channel almost a year ago and these same two people were in that video, so I made the assumption that they weren’t beginners. And the lack of any tangible progress over the year stands out. So point is that if you’re going to be waving your arms around in the air, if you at least follow those principles that I mentioned, then at least these people will be getting some Neigong developed.

If a person only practices(Gong) Li without Qi (as external arts do) they will have very little after the age of 40-50.

If a person practices both Li and Qi simultaneously (as Internal Arts strive to do, although Li is severely lacking in most cases) then that person will be able to practice martial arts for their whole lifetime.

It appears to me that there’s no Li, nor Qi being practiced in these clips. Hence my initial post and recommendation to at least practice Qi (Neigong).

A fair assessment! Anyways, once the documentation project is done, I won't have a strong reason to release videos. Maybe if someone asks a question instead, we could make a video explaining certain aspects of a topic. I do like a good discussion. But most of these are just for our own personal reference or to use as a demonstration to explain something else.

A better kind of comment would be to discuss whether or not your school has a similar movement. For example, most of Shaolin Wahlum's 18 lohan qigong can be mapped directly to our Wang's 20 therapeutic qigong. We also do a lot of hunyuan style qigong. We also do some silk reeling exercises that no one else does. That might be interesting to share someday. I find these comparisons interesting.

In our school, if you’re not an acupuncturist, then you don’t really need supplementary exercises unless you’re too sick to train. Everything you need is in the forms and Circle Turning.
The bigger question is- do those movements have a valid martial application? If they do, good. If they don’t, then why are they being practiced. If you do them as a Neigong, why does the person need to be doing a Neigong. Are they over the age of 60? Are they sick with the flu? Or are they a doctor whose constantly being around sick people and needs to protect themselves?
In Taijiquan (especially Chen Taijiquan) everything you need (martial and Neigong) is in the form. Even Zhan Zhuang can be done in the form because you periodically pause (ding shi/ nail your posture down) and hold the position for awhile before moving onto the next movement in the form.

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Don't Chen folks routinely practice silk reeling exercises? Positive and negative circles?

Never heard the term nail down before
Like YCF we use single whip and lift hands in that manner
I know William CC Chen did a lot of this sort of training
I am always amazed that people feel it necessary to go outside their training for a complete system
Every time I see a new breakthrough in science or medicine I usually find it already exists in Tai Chi

origami_itto wrote:Don't Chen folks routinely practice silk reeling exercises? Positive and negative circles?

They do, but per CXW advice, they shouldn’t be. He said he regrets ever teaching them because he wasn’t aware how people exaggerated their importance. Thinking it was the golden treasure. When in actuality it’s just Fool’s gold and the real treasure is in the form.

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