by Niall Keane on Sat Nov 05, 2016 4:40 pm
see, I just can't fathom why a martial artist would want to lose connection "automatically" with the ground through a hop and so lose control? A dynamic root should move around, yes, but be maintained, certainly it is skillful to make it "APPEAR" to disappear to the opponent but going all pseudo-science-quantum about it and having it hop around the place, actually disappearing and appearing is ridiculous!
You are fools to believe that a decent fighter wont discover how to "hop" you around the room if you are pre-programmed to do this, a decent fighter is surgical in application and trained to constantly test and record the results in real time, and if it was me, like many others I know, I'd use that gap in control to devastating effect!
Perhaps I already have, I recall wrestling some lad in a Danish Open over a decade ago who managed to "float" out of throws and hop/ float out of applied resistance (pushes would be too simplistic a description), I had assumed he knew some sort of Qing Gung, well, I simply changed tactic from clean throw and remaining on my feet to throwing both of us and controlling it so I landed on him with elbows or shoulders... that ended his game! he was devastated and easily thrown around the place subsequently, I guess I "disconnected" him? ;-)
My understanding of dynamic rooting and dynamic balance etc. which all play together, is that its about transfer, or "hua jin" with use of movement and alignments, sneaky steps and lots of trips if you are good enough too, but it flies in the face of nei jia, and certainly the Wu Styles I'm familiar with of Tai Chi Chuan to have exploitable "gaps" no matter how short lived they seem. I've never seen Eddie Wu hopping around, I know Bruce Franstis bases his martial art around exploiting the opponent's "gaps" (on many levels) and my own style would frown on sacrificing structure and such a hop being initiated by the opponent and leading to a position not predetermined nor necessarily advantageous.
I guess there is a reason you just dont see this in combat sports save when we watch a dominated party being shoved and/ or hit back and controlled.
In fairness we get to see a snipet of information and for all I know this could be about demonstrating exactly the weaknesses I've outlined?
But I think it fair to suppose, given the weight of recent threads showing far more contrived hopping (to be fair) that the agenda for posting such is to seek legitimacy for such practice, mind you never by offering an example of the why and how in anything remotely martially relevant and unambiguous. It kinda stinks of snake oil then.
Is it really too much to ask for a rational set of clips?
Clip 1: this is the training method
Clip 2: this is the application under pressure
How hard is that? If you present something unusual it is not "incumbent" on the observer to accept extraordinary claims and seek out people and methods of validation, quite the opposite, rationally it is required of the proposer to provide clear and satisfactory explanation. It should be noted that the plural of anecdote is not evidence, otherwise we are in danger of accepting a naked emperor is finely dressed. This debate has raged now on RSF for over a decade and never has even remotely plausible evidence been produced, the schools that ascribe to this hoppy tai chi are unified in their inability to produce recognized fighters, or any evidence of such. Surely if such existed it would have been used to accompany the hard to believe hops? In the end, its hard not to view this as Tai Chi's version of internet's "become a millionaire in a few weeks with "zero effort" scams. And Gung Fu does draw those "types" seeking magic ways to overnight mastery, those "types" who shun the Boxing or MMA gym as beneath their intellectual consideration and assume "secret (intellectual) knowledge" of some obscure and largely irrelevant detail, often an isolated instant of bread and butter fighting, utterly transmogrified from a valid basic element into a disjointed from action, and divorced form reality, sickness of fixation. The fixation is evidenced so often by the failure of those on such poisoned paths to traverse from the imaginary world of the intellect to the physical world of combat. Like, I've met countless numbers of these "types" in the jianghu, and when competing against them or watching them compete against others the story is always the same, utterly inept, devoid of skill, like week one beginners who never involved themselves in any sport ever. crude, clumsy and quick to resort to retard-strength. For sure, I could be the statistical anomaly, like Pratchett's "Diskworld" and my life has just happened on all the useless gobshites and none of the lads who have "it"?
One is logically required to use Occam's razor no?
and the "emptying" of devastating force is simply bullshit, one should be well able to rotate and divert forces with every major part of the body, even the head, like every half-decent western boxer can, and NOT lose positional advantage. Seven -Star Step in Tai Chi Chuan and the idea of each step creating advantage, and similarly "lead-foot dominance" in western boxing are whole basic requirements of biblical importance in fighting. Floating, hoping, bouncing (not dancing) precludes skill in such area, the gaps, the micro-seconds lacking 100% control (freely offered up) kill such commanding ability. It just contradicts the nature of fighting to pre-programme in an autonomic response so lacking of control and also, lets be honest, awareness! Position, angle, range requires the mind (Yi) to be crystal about it, no sleep-walking, no gaps, no auto-pilot. "Ting jin" must evaporate in the hop.
Of course my better judgement tells me these points will be ignored or glossed over, certainly not dealt with through credible example, my experience on this forum has shown most of the "woo brigade" lack the martial experience to understand fundamental basics and so to realise how "incredible" their speil presents itself, I'll probably be presented with a list of vouching parties or other dudes up to the same lark to one degree or another. I know from recent PMs that many with verifiable relevant martial experience lurk here but have the good sense not to cast pearls before swine. Perhaps I love Nai jia Chuan too much and seek to make a statement or two for the record, so future generations might not label all Nei Jia alongside the Anit-vax Tin-Hat crew of our times?
Like why lads, just why cant you give, just what average joe with slight combat sport experience martial artist might demand, a reasonably credible explanation with video example of it utilised under pressure? And if not why can't you refrain from embarrassing the whole of the Nei Jia Chuan world with incredibly fantastic claims? You are killing the arts! and making them the legitimate butt of jokes.
You claim these types of demos are for "insiders", but they are not, hell these videos are not kept in a closed student group but published on the web for all to see. Even before the net, I've been at such demos for over 20 years, presented to the general public with "masters" pushing lines of students who fly off in uncoordinated, mistimed fakery. Watched students hopped into walls with mats placed to enhance the slapping sound of impact rather than for protection.
What young lad could watch these parodies of Woo and decide "that's for me!" and without the young, the art is doomed! I look at old photos of legitimate schools of Tai Chi and I see teenagers and young adults, today most students seem to be pensioners? Its not that the "youth of today" are lazy etc. They are part of the biggest martial arts revolution of our times - MMA. They train, even as amateurs twice a day, 6 days a week, watch their diet and nutrition like professional boxers. But this hoppy hop nonsense demands, that should they even consider Nei Jia, or even Gung Fu, they must first suspend their reason and pretend they never did basic science, physics or biology in school. And even with the most open mind in the world, bordering on the gullible, should they visit a forum like this dedicated to Nei Jia, what are they greeted with? Evidence and example correcting their initial perception and offering credible reasoning? No!!! No fecking way pal! The onus is on them to seek out the "real", and then they'll "understand".
I mean if you want to kill an art, there's no better way, dilute its efficacy among oceans of fantastically incredible parlor tricks.
As someone once posted on this forum:
真假, 假真 Zhen jia, jia zhen (What's real has become fake, now what's fake has become real.)
Last edited by
Niall Keane on Sat Nov 05, 2016 4:56 pm, edited 6 times in total.
The Emperor has no clothes on!