Taiji at first is the Supreme Ultimate Exercise. Taiji is a gentle exercise which stretches the limbs, loosens the spine and rejuvenates one’s sense of balance and bodily kinesthetics. Taiji enhances one’s breathing and is vigorous enough when practiced correctly to raise a good sweat while being gentle enough that one can continue to practice it well into old age. Most people who begin to practice taiji remain at this level, no matter how many years they practice the art, which is perfectly all right. Most people either have no desire to progress to the next level or else they lack a competent teacher who can help them go further.
Next, taiji becomes a Supreme Ultimate Dance. Only a few people begin to sense the inner rhythm and flow of taiji to the point where they experience taiji as a dance form. For these people, taiji becomes a delightful way to turn on one’s inner happiness and radiance at will. Qín Liáng Zhōu once commented that taiji “is very much like the waltz. It has that rhythm once you feel it.” Most people who experience taiji as a dance are content to remain at this level.
I'd be somewhere between 1 & 2 (and still evolving) and more than happy to stay there and its well worth the time and effort of achievement. A big surprise for me was to find that endorphins and dopamine etc can be self-actualised without external influence (if everybody knew that, it would crash the Global Economy?)
One of the first things my teacher underlined was our roles. His role as a teacher and guide and more importantly (IMHO) our role as student, learner, enquirer and judge.
It was made clear that he would teach, demonstrate and answer enquiries but it was solely up to us to learn, practise and judge our own progress and thus to embark opon an endeavour of self-realisation and actualisation of the concepts and dynamics.
I think that it was an important primary distinction to be made that we were not passive consumers and that he could not 'do it for us' and the self-judgement aspect was actually quite harsh but necessary since only we ourselves know if we've understood, practised and developed....or if we've been distracted, passive, lazy gits.
Anyway, tahnks for posting the O.P. I wish I'd read it 10 years ago, but another similar one caught my imagination and I hope it helps:
From: Tai Chi: First Principles to Correct 4 Common Mistakes (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUPohEU ... m&index=25)
By: Hai Yang (
https://www.youtube.com/c/HaiYangChannel/featured)
Is there a principle in practice and why? The answer is Yes, of course.
In my opinion, a martial art is a technical system, which consists of the practice of
different techniques to its fundamental level. Therefore, there must be a relation between
techniques and principles.
I always say that we use techniques to demonstrate principles. And principles are used to guide
our practice.
In ancient Chinese philosophy, we call it Li, or Principle, which is the specific function
of each type of energy in the universe, or specific pattern of each individual or a collection.
Another key term in the Chinese ancient philosophy is Dao, or Tao. which is the general principle
of the universe. I believe that Li follows Dao, or Dao is the guidance of Li. In other words, specific principl
follows general principle, or general principle is the guidance of specific principle.
Following the correct specific principle or Li, will help one achieve the great Dao. Therefore,
Li, or specific principle is important.
If we consider martial art practice as a way of life, at least that is how I perceive it,
we should start practicing by understanding and following certain practical principles,
in order to achieve our ultimate goal. In ancient China, people called this state the Harmonization of Universe and Individual
or Tian-Ren-He-Yi in Mandarin. Universe or Tian here represents Dao, or the general principle. Harmonization is the result of the individual’s action fitting the requirements of Dao.
This is why I believe that nowadays, in any martial art practice, if our objective isn’t to fight in the battlefield, whatever the battlefield may be, it should be a way to
achieve the harmonized state between ourselves and our surroundings.
In the martial art community, we often come across someone who has practised for years. However, it seems that there is always something missing. Based on my personal experience, what’s usually missing is the correct understanding and application of the necessary principles.
2, What causes misunderstandings and mistakes in practice?
In any learning process, basically, there are four types of situations in terms of people’s awareness of their skills:
1. People know what they already know.
2. People know what they don’t know.
3. People don’t know what they already know.
4. People don’t know what they don’t know.
For the first situation, where “People know what they already know”, it seems a lot better when compared to the rest. However, as a martial artist, we need to correctly apply theoretical knowledge. This is why I always emphasize that martial art practice is the integration of theory, concept, and principle with physical movement or action. This is the real practice, or ideal state of practice.
For the second situation, where “People know what they don’t know“ it’s not a bad situation. It can be a driving force for us to keep working on improving our practice.
For the third situation, where “People don’t know what they already know” the resultmay be good to a student, but not sufficient to a qualified teacher. So, if you want to
be a qualified teacher, you should not only know the movements but also the underlying principle. Or it wouldn’t be called real practice.
The last situation is where “People don’t know what they don’t know”. This situation can be highly dangerous, but it can be improved by continuous learning and maintaining an
open-minded attitude in martial art practice.
So, what is the cause of these situations?
I have been teaching internal styles of practice for decades. Based on my observations, these situations are caused by:
1, Lack of information, or learning materials. One of the problems of the old Chinese training materials is that those documents were written for those who had already mastered the practice.
The objective of those training manuals is just to help practitioners work better. If you are a beginner, then reading those documents will not help much. You need to read interpretations or commentaries of those old documents in order to have real understanding. Please keep this in mind, or you will waste a lot of time.
2, Information has been lost in translation or distorted during interpretation. Very often, when my students show me some books about Chinese martial arts translated from Mandarin to English, I find so many things missing or misinterpreted. If we work together in the community, we should be able to translate classical documents into English without distorting the subject matter.
(...continues to elaborate upon common mistakes in early practise)