Yang Long form

[wayne hansen]

Is there any film of you so I can see where you are coming from

[flints]

As someone completely new to this board and as someone with a very limited experience of tai chi in terms of who I have worked with, can I say that I don't think there is a CMC Tai Chi or a Yang Tai Chi. I believe there is a CMC form and a Yang form, etc., but what animates those forms is only as effective as the teachers who teach them are. A lot of the internal knowledge within lineages may be lost. The people who I have worked with who I believe to have good internal power say that the body follows the energy and if the energy follows the body you are doing it incorrectly. (An emphasis on fighting will tend to lead to that error, I think.) It's a long, but not impossible, path to using internal energy correctly to fight. And, of course, a certain level of using internal energy to fight is extremely dangerous for the opponent (luckily I don't have that level of skill). So some of us like to just feel more empty, more still, find the motion in stillness, move the energy with the intent and the body with the energy. Simple basic things that are endlessly interesting. Life is short and mastery is difficult. If that makes us hedgehogs, so be it. That said, I understand the desire to master body structure and mechanics, and a certain level of that seems necessary but not sufficient. But, if emphasizing mechanics is the way you learn best, who is to say it's an incorrect path? And when married with internal capability, perhaps that time spent is very well worth it. My short experience has been however that mechanics and internal cultivation move together and build upon one another: more open and relaxed leads to better structure and better structure makes you more open and relaxed. It's a long crappy process.

[XiaoXiong]

Very well said sir. Thank you for that.
Jess

[XiaoXiong]

Is there any film of you so I can see where you are coming from

[windwalker]

The people who I have worked with who I believe to have good internal power say that the body follows the energy and if the energy follows the body you are doing it incorrectly. (An emphasis on fighting will tend to lead to that error, I think.) It's a long, but not impossible, path to using internal energy correctly to fight. And, of course, a certain level of using internal energy to fight is extremely dangerous for the opponent (luckily I don't have that level of skill). So some of us like to just feel more empty, more still, find the motion in stillness, move the energy with the intent and the body with the energy. Simple basic things that are endlessly interesting. Life is short and mastery is difficult

had a long post, but I think this sums it up quite nicely.
clip of some of my work for reference.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22171

[wayne hansen]

Is this water tai chi
If so they use a lot more strength that the originator

[windwalker]

the water taiji group is hosted by a friend of mine, some other taiji instructors where there helping or showing their work in an
a live setting with some other teachers or long term practitioners from other taiji styles.
some of the work is not so clean, as they where actively trying to go against it.
chen, and some zhao bao, stylist among others.

my own style comes from my teacher in beijing,,,best described as a yang variant
judging myself, im not not such a good example of his work compared
to some of my classmates here.

[XiaoXiong]

Wayne, what's in the video is just my work based in taiji. I am doing a lot of things in these drills that aren't no force. These are part of the process. I am not a taiji expert, so just keep that in mind. My expertise is mainly in Bagua and Xingyi and I'm pretty good at Jiu Jitsu and Judo. Taiji is something that took me a while to find. Lots of paper tigers around here.
Jess
Oh I realize you weren't addressing me in your question, which I mistakenly responded to.

[MartialDev]

I was lucky enough to meet Master Xie on two occasions. He is an amazing martial artist with real internal power though he is past 80 (someone said). My impression is that he insists on correct movement, that the position of the body and limbs, their direction and rotation is all very significant to successful use of internal power. I know others that disagree with that. They believe that internal power is something you cultivate through certain practices and the form is a series of suggestions as to how the power can be manifested -- with internal movements having a many to one relationship to external postures; however, "correct movement" is somewhat chimerical because fighting does not give you option of correct movement whereas principles can always be used even in a disadvantaged position. I tend to be in the latter group, but there are definitely folks in the former who kick my ass. So there you go.

Hi, I'm the original poster of the video, which came up for me today during an unrelated Google search...

Master Xie is careful to distinguish between Taijiquan and fighting. (I wish others in the Tai Chi community were so careful.)

His position is that Taijiquan is: what the classics say it is. Every posture and every movement should be measured ruthlessly against this standard. Which is a standard of fidelity, not "practicality" or "effectiveness," whatever that means in the immediate moment.

Whereas, you can do whatever you want in a fight. Including but not limited to the fruition of your canonically-justified practice. I have seen Xie perform many a demonstration of a Tai Chi application, followed by a different fighting application, provided with the caveat "This works too, but it is double-weighted so..."

[cloudz]

I was lucky enough to meet Master Xie on two occasions. He is an amazing martial artist with real internal power though he is past 80 (someone said). My impression is that he insists on correct movement, that the position of the body and limbs, their direction and rotation is all very significant to successful use of internal power. I know others that disagree with that. They believe that internal power is something you cultivate through certain practices and the form is a series of suggestions as to how the power can be manifested -- with internal movements having a many to one relationship to external postures; however, "correct movement" is somewhat chimerical because fighting does not give you option of correct movement whereas principles can always be used even in a disadvantaged position. I tend to be in the latter group, but there are definitely folks in the former who kick my ass. So there you go.

Hi, I'm the original poster of the video, which came up for me today during an unrelated Google search...

Master Xie is careful to distinguish between Taijiquan and fighting. (I wish others in the Tai Chi community were so careful.)

His position is that Taijiquan is: what the classics say it is. Every posture and every movement should be measured ruthlessly against this standard. Which is a standard of fidelity, not "practicality" or "effectiveness," whatever that means in the immediate moment.

Whereas, you can do whatever you want in a fight. Including but not limited to the fruition of your canonically-justified practice. I have seen Xie perform many a demonstration of a Tai Chi application, followed by a different fighting application, provided with the caveat "This works too, but it is double-weighted so..."

Love that.