nicklinjm wrote:This could have been a very instructive and educational thread.
It still can be if people are willing ...
nicklinjm wrote:This could have been a very instructive and educational thread.
ThreeFourFive wrote: I mean, how the hell to you tell someone who's never been on a bike what to "feel" for to keep balance?
GrahamB wrote:Don't tell me - you're going to make This thread great again?
GrahamB wrote:In my experience the best, most complete, accessible, clearest answers to all your questions are freely available from Mr Mike Sigman in a language that westerners can understand and using a logic that doesn't require jumps into magic or the Unknown.
Charles wrote:So, here's the question for y'all. How do you go about explaining/teaching this stuff to beginners in such a way that they actually develop skills in finite time.
For example, In concrete terms and language - for beginners and with absolute clarity,
1. What is "silk reeling" (chan si jin)?
2. What is its purpose - why bother with it or studying it?
3. what is "the dan tian"?
4. what has the dan tian have to do with silk reeling?
5. What is the oft-mentioned "dan tian rotation" - what physically is one doing and what is one "rotating"?
6. Are the dan tian and the waist the same thing? If not, what's the difference?
7. Do we even need to mention the "dan tian" - is development of "the dan tian" a requirement for developing skill in Taijiquan?
8. Do we even need to mention "qi" - is "qi development" an essential requirement for developing skill in Taijiquan?
“CORRECTNESS OF SKILL IN TAIJI”
“太極者元也無論內外上下左右不離此元元也太極者方也無論內外上下左右不離此方也元之出入方之進退隨方就元之往來也方為開展元為緊凑方元規矩之至其就能出此以外哉如此得心應手仰髙鑽堅神乎其神見隱顕微明而且明生生不已欲罷不能
Taiji is round, never abandoning its roundness whether going in or out, up or down, left or right. And Taiji is square, never abandoning its squareness whether going in or out, up or down, left or right.
As you roundly exit and enter, or squarely advance and retreat, follow squareness with roundness, and vice versa. Squareness has to do with expanding, roundness with contracting. Squareness means a directional focus along which you can express your power.
Roundness means an all-around buoyancy with which you can receive and neutralize the opponent’s power.
The main rule is that you be squared and rounded. After all, could there be anything beyond these things?
By means of this you will become proficient at the skill. But “gazing up, it grows higher, and drilling in, it gets harder”
https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... i-fa-shuo/
In the second video you posted, he makes it clear that students shouldn't bother with "jin" or "dan tian" for the first ten years. Is that how you learned, with no mention of jin, qi or dan tian for the first 10 years?
Many students, faced with the void of any real experience or understanding of these things, and what these things practically involve, fill the holes with whatever the student thinks the teacher might have meant. A common result is that there are lots of practitioners - many of whom have been at it for a long time - who talk academically, and with authority, about qi, the dan tian, "rotating" the dan tian and silk reeling, but actually have little or no physical skill at doing the things they talk about - and no concrete way of teaching it to their students.
what i am talking about are powered helix. which means that the coils are created by dantain rotation.
Steve James wrote:The problem is that Mr. Harden and Mr. Sigman disagree, so it's a matter of the student choosing the answer he prefers. Their students will both say that it was the clearest explanation they had heard and made the most sense. Either they're both right or they're both wrong. Of course, they and their students will say that the others are wrong. An absolute beginner walking in off the street to one of Dan or Mike's seminars would have no clue as to which method was correct. Yet, imo, any student who walked into either class and thought what he saw was a good goal, would be doing pretty well for himself.
That said, one of the reasons for the degree of disagreement about all terms in tcc, specifically, is that there's this underlying assertion of superiority. So, practitioners (on the internet, since the very first ma message boards) have had to explain why tcc was so widely practiced. That came down to citing the martial reputations of the 1st and 2nd generation Yangs, with their Chang San Feng legend, versus the Chens -because that's where YLC learned. It was (and is) argued that Chen style was more martial. What illustrated this? Well, the emphasis on using the dan tian, the obvious coiling and "chanssujin", and the resulting "fa jin."
It was said that "if you wanted to learn real tcc, go to a teacher and ask to feel his dantien." These attitudes haven't produced much for martial arts in the last 25 years except arguments. Much more heat than light.
But, if these concepts are simple to describe, then what is Sigman's definition and what is Harden's? How would you define them? Would it be better to call the "dan tian" the "field of cinnabar"? Should a student know the Chinese term or the English translation? Does it make a difference? (Btw, the same is true for qi, peng, fa jing, etc.).
charles wrote:what i am talking about are powered helix. which means that the coils are created by dantain rotation.
I've been working on the script to an instructional video. The video is an introduction to "silk reeling", which is a foundational skill for most of Chen style Taijiquan - and I'd argue, some other styles as well.
Typically, the beginning student of Taijiquan is taught something called "silk reeling exercises" (chan si gong) and/or empty-hand forms. Once introduced to these, the student usually just keeps plugging along, practicing the same choreography they were taught over and over again. In the teaching of these things, the teacher often speaks of some mysterious things called "qi" and "the dan tian". Some teachers will speak of moving and "rotating the dan tian" and "circulating the qi".
Many students, faced with the void of any real experience or understanding of these things, and what these things practically involve, fill the holes with whatever the student thinks the teacher might have meant. A common result is that there are lots of practitioners - many of whom have been at it for a long time - who talk academically, and with authority, about qi, the dan tian, "rotating" the dan tian and silk reeling, but actually have little or no physical skill at doing the things they talk about - and no concrete way of teaching it to their students.
So, here's the question for y'all. How do you go about explaining/teaching this stuff to beginners in such a way that they actually develop skills in finite time.
For example, In concrete terms and language - for beginners and with absolute clarity,
1. What is "silk reeling" (chan si jin)?
2. What is its purpose - why bother with it or studying it?
3. what is "the dan tian"?
4. what has the dan tian have to do with silk reeling?
5. What is the oft-mentioned "dan tian rotation" - what physically is one doing and what is one "rotating"?
6. Are the dan tian and the waist the same thing? If not, what's the difference?
7. Do we even need to mention the "dan tian" - is development of "the dan tian" a requirement for developing skill in Taijiquan?
8. Do we even need to mention "qi" - is "qi development" an essential requirement for developing skill in Taijiquan?
It is surprising how often these things are mentioned, but how difficult it is to provide simple, direct, functional working descriptions of the terms that are constantly thrown around and how to effectively develop these things.
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