Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

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

Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby origami_itto on Tue Mar 01, 2022 8:27 pm

Hearts and Stars. Rings true for me on many levels. Thanks for sharing.
The form is the notes, the quan is the music
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby windwalker on Tue Mar 01, 2022 8:29 pm

good post

many echos :)
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby wayne hansen on Tue Mar 01, 2022 10:03 pm

Nice writing
Any videos of him
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby everything on Wed Mar 02, 2022 9:23 am

If the writing is by Larry Wall, creator of the Perl programming language, he is a legend of the first dot-com era and seems to have written a book about Christianity and tai chi https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212 ... ce-tai-chi OTOH, unfortunately, it's hard to tell if he skipped over "step one" of the art as most people seem to do.
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby GrahamB on Wed Mar 02, 2022 9:54 am

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

"Another thing my teacher did was, if you learned an element of a move or a taiji principle that he didn’t think you were ready for and you asked him about it, he’d tell you that you were doing it all wrong and that you were to never do things that way again."

No, just no. I don't think teachers are that "on the ball" about every little thing. As somebody who has been the teacher for years, I can tell you that sometimes you misunderstand what students are telling you, and sometimes you are just wrong - we're all human. Ask me the same question a month later and you'll get a different answer - of course you will! - we're not machines, we're human beings, even great master sifu teacher is a human being who makes mistakes. Not everything is part of some grand plan - this is something I've observed in most students. They want to put you on a pedestal and every little thing you do has meaning and significance. Of course it doesn't.
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby GrahamB on Wed Mar 02, 2022 9:58 am

"I caught a single glimpse of my teacher observing this student showing me the move. I knew instantly he believed I had breached his trust and was showing that move to the student from the other school."

That attitude is the curse of Chinese martial arts. The teachers I've gravitated towards couldn't give a fig what you teach other people. Internal martial arts, and probaby most Chinese martial arts, are self secret - it's not about knowledge it's about practice, and if you don't practice it over and over then you don't have it. The knowledge alone is worthless. Although you can charge for it, and people will pay you - lol :)
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby GrahamB on Wed Mar 02, 2022 10:06 am

The 5 stages text I thought was great.
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby everything on Wed Mar 02, 2022 10:39 am

GrahamB wrote:"I caught a single glimpse of my teacher observing this student showing me the move. I knew instantly he believed I had breached his trust and was showing that move to the student from the other school."

That attitude is the curse of Chinese martial arts. The teachers I've gravitated towards couldn't give a fig what you teach other people. Internal martial arts, and probaby most Chinese martial arts, are self secret - it's not about knowledge it's about practice, and if you don't practice it over and over then you don't have it. The knowledge alone is worthless. Although you can charge for it, and people will pay you - lol :)


Probably true of all arts, I guess
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby everything on Wed Mar 02, 2022 10:42 am

His writing really gives me Portlandia vibes

Old Unix hippie culture
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby wayne hansen on Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:03 am

Still want to see him
Is he out there
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby GrahamB on Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:29 am

wayne hansen wrote:Still want to see him
Is he out there


God wants you to find him Wayne...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/May-Christian- ... B005JES05E
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby wayne hansen on Wed Mar 02, 2022 12:40 pm

I tried Christian tai chi
Every time I made the sign of the cross thy thought I was showing them 4 targets and they kept hitting me
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby everything on Wed Mar 02, 2022 8:03 pm

ah, it is too bad this larry wall is not the same as the Perl larry wall. visited ann arbor but not portland. super nice.
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby marvin8 on Wed Mar 02, 2022 9:34 pm

Tom wrote:Larry Wall trained taijiquan with Gabriel Chin in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan....

Excerpt from "What went wrong in the recent fight between a kick boxer and a Tai chi master? I respect Tai chi and want to learn so I’m curious?"

Larry Wall wrote:I was Gabriel Chin’s (https://www.sunshen.org/master-gabriel-chin), first American student (from 1972) and am the legacy holder of the style (as opposed to being a legacy holder, which many of Gabriel’s former students claim). For almost everybody, Gabriel was very evasive about showing any applications that might seriously hurt anybody. He’d seen too much in WWII and in the Long March. But with two of his most senior students he showed the harder stuff. As I said, I’ve largely stopped showing any of that stuff to my present students, save for a couple students who are former medical professionals who I completely trust won’t abuse the knowledge.

In the US, Gabriel only employed and showed level #2 in public, although there was one incident apart from the Cube where he came very close to moving to level #3 once. Fortunately for the aggressor, his buddy verbally stepped in and managed to let him know who he was dealing with. When I was in Ann Arbor teaching in Gabriel’s place a few times, there would be challengers who would show up and claim taiji was woo-woo and complete BS. My approach was to use level #2 for the first two or three attacks and then. of the challenger continued, move to what I’ll call level #2 ½: I’d evade the attack and then return a counterattack but stop at the point of light contact with the skin, usually at the throat. With only one guy did I have to use to level #2 ½ twice before he finally concluded that taiji wasn’t only for hippies and all about waving your arms around in the air.


SwordLab/Five Dragon Kung Fu
Apr 4, 2010

filmed in 1974 by Ed "the Red" DeDeo


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWCoBRxywac

Excerpts from Nei Jia Quan:

Jess O'Brien in 2004 wrote:Octogenarian martial arts instructor Gabriel Chin has spent a lifetime in the internal martial arts. His study began at a young age in China, and continued in Taiwan after World War Cl. He eventually made his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his Tai Ji and Qi Gong classes have been a permanent fixture in front of the Cube on the University of Michigan campus….

I first got interested in this thing because I ran into my teacher. Literally, I ran into my teacher, and got knocked back a long way!... My teacher was short, skinny, and looked sickly, but I noticed he could really play soccer. Anyway, I was the center forward and he was fullback, so the two of us were always against each other.

It was very apparent that he was one of the professors, and I was a new student just getting into college, a freshman. I was quite different at the time. I was three and half inches taller, and a hundred and ninety-some pounds. I tried to test him, to see how strong he was. Soon I realized that he was faster and stronger than me, and I said to myself, 'This is impossible!" So I tried a few more times. He was dribbling over here, to my left, I can still remember it was from that side because I got knocked the other way. He noticed that I used strength to hit him, and so when I tried again he sent me flying. I thought, "Oh, he knows something…."

That's how I met my teacher. I got my little brother to come. I knew he would like it, so the next day I took him along with me. Unfortunately my brother has passed away now, but to my memory and knowledge, I'd say that among modem Tai Ji practitioners he was one of the best. He had gotten to the stage that he didn't seem to have the human body anymore. From a sitting position he could jump onto the table, with just a single hop! He could climb trees so easily—his hands would stick to the bark just like a monkey's.

Anyway, both my brother and I studied with him. I studied with him three years, then I had to leave, but my brother had two more years. That's how we started Tai Ji. During my life, most of the time when I arrived in a new place I practiced with people I met. It's the same form we still do today.

My teacher learned from Yang Cheng Fu's uncle, Yang Ban Hou. That is true. It's not like the books where everybody claims they were Cheng Fu's student! My teacher went to the Nanjing University, one of the very famous first five Chinese colleges. He graduated from there. In those days very few Chinese had that kind of education. He became a teacher at a girls' school to start with, and later he came to the school where I was....

Hard and Soft Strength

… Tai Ji training is useful if you have to protect yourself. You don't have to try and throw anybody. If they want to grab you-give it to them, they can do whatever they want until they’re tired. It's not that I'm so strong, I can lift maybe thirty pounds if I really work at it. But I don't know what you call this kind of strength. The only word I have for it is qi. The qi is there. I can't understand how it can get hard and at the same time stay soft, like a piece of rubber. While you squeeze it, it's a piece of rubber, and when you stop it's still rubber.

The terms wai jia and nei jia are merely a way to distinguish things for practice. If the person who says things like that really understands martial art, he wouldn't stress it. They are the same in the end. You can say it just to remember who does what. Nei jia, wai jia, they are the same provided you are very good at them. When you are young, you can punch hard with no problem, but at this age I can't do it like l used to—now it's a different thing....
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Re: Stages and Basic Principles of Taijiquan Practice

Postby Quigga on Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:57 am

Thanks for posting so much interesting content y'all.

IMO there's little point to dividing practice into stages. The method that results from correct application of correct principles should be practiced from the very beginning so as to avoid confusion. If the principles change, they weren't correct. Cut away all unnecessary garbage. That being said, practice itself can be very much fluid and changing, depending on what one wishes to focus on.
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