everything wrote:Still haven't thrown out the 4 oz ideal enough. Suppose you teach your 20 year old daughter and her friends "women's self defense" (not meant to be sexist but in this example, it is her and her other female friends). Perhaps you show them lots of knees and elbows maybe like this:
They don't have time to contemplate 4 oz, 1 oz, 1 lb, 8 lbs or learn a bunch of philosophy. Whatever we have left of "taijiquan" if we say this shell of taijiquan is not taijiquan has some good stuff for this class (which is not an "art" class). Can the MA portion of the class be taijiquan (plus some ground work)-based?
What if we removed the 4 oz ideal, the steel in cotton, the taiji high-falutin philosophy overlay, the suspect blather about 8 "energies" to force things to conform to the bagua, the TCM, the qigong, the internal power mysteries, the hippie limp noodle push hands, the slow motion old-man forms, the smoothness? What would we have from as down-to-earth a view as possible?
Bao wrote:everything wrote:Still haven't thrown out the 4 oz ideal enough. Suppose you teach your 20 year old daughter and her friends "women's self defense" (not meant to be sexist but in this example, it is her and her other female friends). Perhaps you show them lots of knees and elbows maybe like this:
They don't have time to contemplate 4 oz, 1 oz, 1 lb, 8 lbs or learn a bunch of philosophy. Whatever we have left of "taijiquan" if we say this shell of taijiquan is not taijiquan has some good stuff for this class (which is not an "art" class). Can the MA portion of the class be taijiquan (plus some ground work)-based?
The 4 oz ideal is perfect for this and similar situations. When a big guy puts all of his weight against her in a standing position, she just follow his movement, fill in and put him to the ground. It's completely effortless, the man will not even know what happened, but think he stumbled and fell. When he falls down, she quickly kick his nuts or whatever she think suits the situation.
She can also let him fall on his knee. There's no reason to jump at him and sacrifice her stability. Why not let him lose his balance instead?What if we removed the 4 oz ideal, the steel in cotton, the taiji high-falutin philosophy overlay, the suspect blather about 8 "energies" to force things to conform to the bagua, the TCM, the qigong, the internal power mysteries, the hippie limp noodle push hands, the slow motion old-man forms, the smoothness? What would we have from as down-to-earth a view as possible?
I already find Tai Chi the most practical, down-to-earth martial art there is. And the "4oz" thingie is a part of it. But the old chinese way to verbalize things is in fact an old, chinese way to verbalize things. IMO, we should get rid of the mysticism and fancy talk and instead use our own language and our own way to describe reality. That deosn't mean we need to change anything that make Tai Chi Chuan what it already is, as the practical, commonsensical chinese martial art it in fact is.
windwalker wrote:Once you understand the why of 4oz, all the other questions will be answered.
Its not " a bunch of philosophy" there are very sound logical reasons for it.
of course each has to find their own answers with out which, any explanation will not
for the most part be understood or accepted.
shawnsegler wrote:The 4 oz ideal is a progressive scaling of efficiency in interaction between two bodies.
The idea that it should be existent in all movement from the starting point is a ludicrous misunderstanding.
S.
everything wrote:I'm kinda just saying toss the vocabulary and the idealism (4 oz is really difficult) and romanticism and legendary stories (and some mysterious, sublime stuff we may have felt before that no one else even on RSF would believe) for now for some basic, down and dirty, "self-defense" easy technical moves.
everything wrote:Man that is a great answer!
johnwang wrote:I have just broken the spine of my old Everlast free-standing heavy bag. I got a new one last weekend and I do intend to break this one too. I will never be able to break it if I just use 4 oz force on it.
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