Belt System for Tai Chi

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby RobP3 on Thu Jul 06, 2017 9:50 am

Appledog wrote:The deeper I go in this system the more I understand a sad and curious state of affairs; most people, even people who say they are doing Tai Chi, really aren't. They're doing some other martial art in place of Tai Chi.


You mentioned before you had a camera, how about showing us?
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby Appledog on Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:09 am

Hello! Originally I wanted to have a "cool post count" of 108, or something like that (something associated with Tai Chi) but that does not seem possible here. Therefore I am editing this post to point out that users here cannot delete their own posts. I do not understand why users have the ability to edit their posts but not to delete their posts.
Last edited by Appledog on Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:04 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby charles on Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:14 am

Appledog wrote:The deeper I go in this system the more I understand a sad and curious state of affairs; most people, even people who say they are doing Tai Chi, really aren't. They're doing some other martial art in place of Tai Chi.


Ahhh, there's the rub. Most people believe that what they are doing is Tai Chi. Many believe that what they are doing is the "right" way to do Tai Chi. Many believe, that since others are doing it differently, they are not doing it correctly. In short, "Nobody does Tai Chi right but me and my teacher".

I think they had a much better environment for learning tai chi back then than we did


Nothing stops any of us from doing hard labour every day, working the fields, eliminating computers, internet, television, phones and radio from our lives, and walking where ever we want to go. ;)


and not modifying the training slightly to fit the modern environment is a mistake.


What makes you believe that Village folks haven't "slightly" modified training to fit the modern environment?
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby Appledog on Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:19 am

Hello! Originally I wanted to have a "cool post count" of 108, or something like that (something associated with Tai Chi) but that does not seem possible here. Therefore I am editing this post to point out that users here cannot delete their own posts. I do not understand why users have the ability to edit their posts but not to delete their posts.
Last edited by Appledog on Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby RobP3 on Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:53 am

Appledog wrote:[

Also on the off chance you mean you want to see a video of me doing tai chi, there's no point, it has nothing to do with what I am talking about in this thread. It might be interesting to put something up later though, now is a bit of a problem because this is an unpopular idea and the video would just be nitpicked by people with nothing better to do.


Yep, pretty much what I thought you'd say
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby charles on Thu Jul 06, 2017 11:31 am

Appledog wrote:They did, in a way -- increasing the amount of standing, and training silk reeling motions separately from the form. This is in the direction I am heading.



You might like to look up Zhu Tiancai's 4-movement and 13-movement forms. Of course CXW and CZL also have their own short forms.

Then there's Feng and his massive curriculum from fang song gong to ba fa walking drills, etc.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby everything on Thu Jul 06, 2017 12:11 pm

Ahhh, there's the rub. Most people believe that what they are doing is Tai Chi. Many believe that what they are doing is the "right" way to do Tai Chi. Many believe, that since others are doing it differently, they are not doing it correctly. In short, "Nobody does Tai Chi right but me and my teacher".


You would think there could be some basic solutions to this problem, but beyond perhaps the idea of 13 postures, yielding, and "soft", and perhaps some vague notion of balancing yin/yang, no one seems to agree on some other basics. Maybe I've already overstated what people agree about. How can you entertain the notion of marking progress if no one agrees on characteristics of the art in the first place. Sad.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby charles on Thu Jul 06, 2017 2:09 pm

everything wrote: Sad.


What's sad is that too many people spend too much time focused on the wrong thing to produce "results", however one choses to define "results".

Instead, find someone who has the skills or abilities you want to have who is willing to teach you how he developed them. Doesn't matter what he or she calls it. Probably doesn't even matter that much where he or she learned it from. Avoid people who talk more than they do, since its about abilities and the acquisition of those skills, rather than about who has the better "story", the better explanation for how they think it works.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby Appledog on Thu Jul 06, 2017 3:03 pm

Hello! Originally I wanted to have a "cool post count" of 108, or something like that (something associated with Tai Chi) but that does not seem possible here. Therefore I am editing this post to point out that users here cannot delete their own posts. I do not understand why users have the ability to edit their posts but not to delete their posts.
Last edited by Appledog on Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby everything on Thu Jul 06, 2017 4:09 pm

Chen Wanting was a Ming Dynasty general and said to have founded Chen style taijiquan. He is believed to have a background in various arts, just like all "mixed" martial artists and well known IMA people such as Dong Haichuan, Cheng Tinghua, Sun Lutang, etc. Generally, having rankings from founders of arts such as judo (Kano, founder of the belt system), Funakoshi (shotokan, borrowed from Kano), Helio Gracie (brother of a grand-student of Kano, father of people instrumental in forming UFC and modern MMA sports) probably makes a lot of sense. Of course, the IMA founders are not around and the origins are somewhat mysterious / not well documented, so that is impossible now. Having just some teacher like a teacher who posts on RSF (could be a lot of us, not just the OP) establish a system isn't the same thing and won't create an international standard of the highest level for many reasons many people posted. But for a "random" teacher to (in all humbleness) give rankings to only his students is probably fine for whatever that is worth (may not be seen as much in the eyes of RSF or the broader world, but maybe that's fine).
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby Appledog on Thu Jul 06, 2017 4:50 pm

Hello! Originally I wanted to have a "cool post count" of 108, or something like that (something associated with Tai Chi) but that does not seem possible here. Therefore I am editing this post to point out that users here cannot delete their own posts. I do not understand why users have the ability to edit their posts but not to delete their posts.
Last edited by Appledog on Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby cloudz on Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:14 am

appledog wrote:
https://youtu.be/GII5YGgbsyM

The main problem with push hands like this is that you are never really going to learn any kind of internal mechanics by doing it. Its like being shoved into the deep end. Nothing wrong with that it can be fun for a while, just that it is incompatible with trying to actually learn tai chi.


Hey,

A little help here; the link isn't a push hands clip, but a technique / application clip. Though I can presume that what you're talking about is a kind of fixed free pushing or even free moving step 'pushing'.. Given the "shoving" thread.. I'm curious why you hold so firmly to this idea of incompatability. It's a bit strong, especially when it's just an opinion you hold, no actual sound reasoning or evidence is ever presented, just biased subjective personal feelings. Do these feeling extend to moving step taiji grappling/wrestling. It would be nice to hear why it is so incompatable and an example of which types of practices you think fullfill this prediction. I think you're missing a trick by not making these and similar type drills a part of your syllabus. You can have uncooperative drills that break down parts of the process and lead people along. None of it should be seen as an 'end result' or a learning of tai chi chuan. They represent a developmental tool and a measuring yardstick of certain skills/ attributes - important foundational ones. I don't deny some issues, but it's very hard to not come across issues in any kind of training that simulates parts of or an entirety of martial engagement. Does what Chen Zhiqiang gets up to with taiji grappling incompatable in your eyes for example ?

Regards the fixed feet pushing, if it dissapeared from competitions in favour of moving step categories I would be fine, Perhaps one more traditional and one more in line with Chinese wrestling but jacketless. One of the things about fixed feet is that peoples egos often get in the way and rather than invest in loss they resort to distortion and breaking form to stay in the game. Could you not see the personal value in overcoming a challenge like that?

What would be even better is if competitons adopted something involving some striking, but not as severe as full contact, something a bit less intimidating.

To be more specific, I was referring to the students under Huang Sheng Shyan who was well known to teach White Crane alongside Tai Chi. When I went to push with some students from that school it was like doing basic shaolin. They had some tai-chi like skills but loved to break taiji rules when it suited them. I got hit by a lot of common applications like monk opens the door. They had a totally different focus and different goals from the training. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't exactly the kind of thing I was expecting at the time.


So what kind of focus and goals are you working towards; can you find clips that represents that to show us ?
I'm interested what format(s) you would use to measure progress in the end goal you envisage. I was hoping the clip you posted would show your perspective towards the bad or ugly, but regardless it would be useful to share your perspective of the good.
Last edited by cloudz on Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby Appledog on Fri Jul 07, 2017 4:14 am

Hello! Originally I wanted to have a "cool post count" of 108, or something like that (something associated with Tai Chi) but that does not seem possible here. Therefore I am editing this post to point out that users here cannot delete their own posts. I do not understand why users have the ability to edit their posts but not to delete their posts.
Last edited by Appledog on Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:04 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby wayne hansen on Fri Jul 07, 2017 4:36 am

Appledog wrote:
RobP3 wrote:
Appledog wrote:The deeper I go in this system the more I understand a sad and curious state of affairs; most people, even people who say they are doing Tai Chi, really aren't. They're doing some other martial art in place of Tai Chi.


You mentioned before you had a camera, how about showing us?


A bit of a strange request -- it's all over youtube. To be more specific, I was referring to the students under Huang Sheng Shyan who was well known to teach White Crane alongside Tai Chi. When I went to push with some students from that school it was like doing basic shaolin. They had some tai-chi like skills but loved to break taiji rules when it suited them. I got hit by a lot of common applications like monk opens the door. They had a totally different focus and different goals from the training. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't exactly the kind of thing I was expecting at the time.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/GII5YGgbsyM[/youtube]

The main problem with push hands like this is that you are never really going to learn any kind of internal mechanics by doing it. Its like being shoved into the deep end. Nothing wrong with that it can be fun for a while, just that it is incompatible with trying to actually learn tai chi.

Also on the off chance you mean you want to see a video of me doing tai chi, there's no point, it has nothing to do with what I am talking about in this thread. It might be interesting to put something up later though, now is a bit of a problem because this is an unpopular idea and the video would just be nitpicked by people with nothing better to do.



You will have to be a bit more specific there are a lot of lines claiming lineage from Huang
I have never known any to use Shaolin type moves if anything they tend to be a bit too soft
As I have said before it is about time you put up some film of yourself to show what you mean
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Re: Belt System for Tai Chi

Postby cloudz on Fri Jul 07, 2017 4:58 am

Ok fair enough. I wish you well, you write well and obviously are dedicated and have put much thought into things. A belt system isn't really for me, and i'm also planning to start a little group if I can in the upcoming months. I'm not against such a thing, but I'm inclined to agree that as you've layed it out, it comes accross as too involved. Something looser might be better. Personally I'm not a fan of the do this for x time then we'll introduce this and so on. Of course this doesn't mean throwing things at people they wouldn't be able to handle. But I would attempt to give some interconnected portions from the start; or in other words, a small start in each area I feel is important to train. In contrast to say waiting a year to do push hands whilst you ingrain some form, for example. I'm not sure if that's in your plans, but it's just meant as an example off the top of my head.

To give you an idea of what I mean let's say I have a beginner through the door they would get a little form, a little neigong, a little push hands, a little technique (solo and or paired) and a little sparrings drill(s). perhaps not all in one session, but maybe, that can be played by ear. But certainly if someone was to come along for a month say they would get exposed to all that. starting though very much from the basic of basics and bulit up and linked and built into a coherent and interconnected whole.

It would have been nice if you had attempted to respond directly regards some of my enquiries, as you've put opinions and statements out there in public. And what's out there in the public domain is up for scrutiny as you will know, which comes back to credibility. We need to also remember that Taijiquan is a traditional art in a modern world, it was used by and trained by people exposed to very different things, most notable other people of the same time and place. None of this is an easy balancing act, whatever category of taiji person you fall into.

You probably need to think about the one art, multiple style situation we have. Whilst I agree with us have and sharing one art, "art" itself is notoriously subjective. What we have and what I think you recognise is a collection of principles, theory and ideals, that paint a picture - that people (generally) agree on. What they don't always agree on is interpretation and the best road travelled to reach those destinations. Hence styles; styles of training meaning systems. With styles of fighting being a further complication. For example by all accounts the brothers Yang Shou Hou and Yang Cheng Fu; brothers that you would expect were in a position to share much and follow "one art" are catalogued to have used quite different styles and systems. That includes teaching method(s), favoured techniques, cirriculum etc.
Last edited by cloudz on Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:05 am, edited 6 times in total.
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