Bad Taijiquan

[Dmitri]

so-irritating-its-amusing manner

to me it's more of "I-can't-watch-more-than-2-seconds-of-it-even-on-mute" manner

[mixjourneyman]

I dislike that guy almost as much as I dislike Dragonmastershow.....


He makes me want to vomit.
I feel sad about the future of humanity when I see this guy.

[QuaiJohnCain]

BEHOLD, his Taiji!

[Andy_S]

So there IS a God...and his RSF handle is QuaiJohnCaine!

Thank you, sir, for posting that, thank you.

Now let us address this example of "Bad Taijiquan" that has been placed before us for our delectation. First - a compliment. There is nothing like a round of "Tai Chi Chung" on the golf course to get the chi flowing! Enough. Let us now proceed to the critique. Look at his stance. If you carefully examine the relationship between his kua and his...oh bugger it, I will be here for a month.

What the shag is this fellow doing?

Two comments:
(1) Is he SERIOUS? Really, I have wonder if the whole persona is a piss take.*
(2) The video was surprisingly uncompelling absent his customary, "You poor simp, let me look you in the eye and tell you that I know something you don't," voiceover.

Next!

*If it is, I bow before what can only be described as a work of ironic genius.

[QuaiJohnCain]

I thought you'd get a kick of out of it...

[nianfong]

really like how he constantly kinks his spine and destroys his own structure

[Kevin_Wallbridge]

come on nianfong, he has no structure to destroy... he is "formless"

[Chris Fleming]

Wow. That is extremely bad even from an OYD standard.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

solo form demonstrations not done for the purpose of instruction (and even then), coming from the wrong place, go to the wrong place.

The best tai chi practice is that which you do yourself.
That which you do and that you intentionally seek to improve yourself in that practice.

Virtually all solo form demonstrations or system promotional videos are crap on that basis.

[meeks]

just saw this post for the first time - sorry for my fashionable lateness.

I think we need to keep in mind that there are people from beginners to advanced in any group. The first video was basically focused on one guy at the back row who was clearly a beginner. Kinda like looking at a white belt in karate and saying "whoa...those guys really suck". Don't forget, when you're learning a long form it takes XXX amount of time to learn the sequence of movements and then probably about 10x that to correct it.

As for peng jin in the knees...I'm not sure I really understand what that means. I assume you were referencing the lack of knee alignment. But it reminds me of a guy once saying to me 'if you need to sneeze, simply put peng jin in your nose and it will go away...'.

[klonk]

So taijiquan has this identity crisis going on. Is it a martial art? Is it a qigong? Is it a health and fitness exercise promulgated, and ruined, by the reds? Is it cosmic oneness with the whole universe, as some qi huggers would have us believe? (It also slices, dices and makes mountains of cole slaw.)

In fact it is a clever idea coupled with some very ordinary Chinese fighting techniques. The clever idea is make early touch contact and rely on following to lead you to a good place. The ordinary part is hitting and kicking, locking and throwing. You get all that ordinary part in any martial art. Taiji is different in how you set them up for the kill.

Did I say kill? Silly me, I meant achieve the dao. Cosmic oneness, dudes!

[bailewen]

BEHOLD, his Taiji!

The best thing about that vid was that in the "related videos" there was this other vid:

[hennie]

ehem...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuBz7fTWWKA


WTF?

[Din]

Meeks, I thought that putting too much peng jin in your nose could disintegrate your septum? Wait, or was that something else...?
Finally! A thread that makes me feel better about my own sucky taiji! Thanks guys.

[cloudz]

ok..... you know I didn't really support this thread.. Well I can make one exception.



Belly dancing or the shake and vac ?



Check it, quite some time ago I went to a seminar he put on re. short staff. .. Anyway he taught us this form stuff, maybe some apps (can't really remember now..) And he admitted it was customary for him to perform the form for the attendees at the end so they could get a better idea of it - that sort of thing. That was one of the things I wanted to see, and you know I'd paid my way in, so..

Anyway, we get near the end and he only makes the excuse that he was flying to China to train at Wudang in a few days time and he wanted to avoid depleting his energy too much, due to facing a long flight and all that, form had fajin in it blah blah...... so lame.

I find his taiji in that clip quite horrible!