by charles on Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:00 am
George,
You've asked some good questions. I'll try to address them as best as I can based on my experience, which will differ from others’ experiences. I’ll try to be as brief as possible.
First, in any human activity, there are relatively few who achieve very high skill in that activity. There are a variety of reasons for that, including the amount of sustained dedicated effort required to achieve that level of skill. In the 1990’s, Chen Xiaowang (CXW) put forward a description of five levels of Chen Taijiquan skill. He stated that the vast majority of practitioners, including many teachers, were below a level of 1.5, with most being below 1.0.
This leads to the curious situation where if you ask the “average” Chen Taijiquan practitioner about Taijiquan, he or she can do little more than abstractly talk about skills they haven’t experienced and don’t themselves possess. He or she repeats dogma and abstract platitudes he or she has been taught but has largely not experienced.
Understanding of Taijiquan comes from first-hand experience of it. That is, the understanding of it comes through experiencing it rather than from academic or theoretical discussion of it. That is difficult to do given that the vast majority of practitioners can’t demonstrate the skills found at higher levels of the art. That brings us to the Catch 22 of Taijiquan: to truly understand the art one must experience first-hand the skills of a high-level practitioner but the ease of finding such a practitioner is only slightly more common than finding a unicorn. In the absence of such an experience, most students take it on faith what the art is about.
That certainly sounds like the ultimate cop-out. Certainly, one can discuss academic or theoretical aspects of the art – and many do and have - but to truly understand the art, one must experience it first-hand. Describing in words to someone who has never experienced a beautiful sunset one doesn’t really gain what it is like to experience such a sunset. Words go only so far in describing the experience. Ditto for describing higher-level skills in Taijiquan: the words, the theories, the descriptions only go so far towards actual understanding.
For that reason, I have long since abandoned protracted abstract theoretical discussions on Taijiquan. Granted, on a discussion forum, one can’t do much beyond having such discussions. I’ll be happy to try, up to a point, but I’m well aware that no amount of discussion is really going to help someone understand it who hasn’t experienced it.
With that said, in my opinion, a good Taiji teacher presents a student with a progression of exercises that are designed to lead the student towards having very specific experiences. By having those specific experiences, the student can then gain understanding of specific aspects of Taijiquan that the progression of experiences was intended to highlight. Rather than go into protracted, abstract, theoretical discussions that will likely bring about little result, here’s an exercise you can try with a partner. The exercise is intended to have you, and your partner, experience something very specific, from which you might gain greater insight, more than if we have a protracted academic discussion of force.
Mutual Dependance
Stand with your feet shoulder width apart facing your partner who also stands with feet shoulder width apart. Extend your arms forward, toward your partner, at shoulder height. Your partner does the same. When both you and your partner’s arms are fully extended, there should be about a foot or more of space between your outstretched arms/hands and his. Both you and your partner lean inwards towards each other until your right palm is against his left palm and your left palm is against his right palm. Each of you supports the other. If one of you were to suddenly disappear, the other would fall forward.
In the above arrangement, move your right hand to your right. Have your partner try to prevent you from moving your hand. Regardless of how much force or effort your partner uses he cannot prevent you from moving your hand. Also, he cannot prevent his hand, against yours, from moving when you move yours. If you move your right hand to the left, or up, down or inwards and outwards, he similarly cannot prevent you from doing so and cannot prevent the movement of your hand from moving his hand. Ditto for your left hand and his right hand. Reverse roles and have him move his hands while you try to prevent it. This situation involves each of you being dependent upon the other: neither or you can prevent the other from moving his hands.
You Independent, Your Partner Dependent, or “I know my opponent, but he does not know me”
Next, while your partner remains exactly as he was, leaning in with your hands supporting him, you step inwards so that you are now fully upright. Repeat the above by moving your right hand to the left, right, up or down. As before, have your partner try to prevent you moving your hand. Repeat with the other hand. As with the previous situation, your partner cannot prevent you from moving your hands and cannot prevent the moving of your hands moving his hands.
Next, have your partner move his hands and have you try to prevent his moving his hands. In this situation, you can easily prevent him from moving his hands and he has no control over the motion of your hands. In this situation, he is dependent upon you, but you are not dependent upon him. You control him but he has no control over you.
You Dependent, Partner Independent
Last, reverse roles and have you lean inwards while he stands upright and supports you. Try to prevent him from moving his hands. Try to prevent him from moving your hands.
This is not a “thought experiment”. Instead, it is something you should experience first-hand with a partner. The experience illustrates several things. First, if each of you is dependent upon the other, neither of you can prevent the movement of the other. No amount of force by one of you prevents the other from moving his hands. Second, if your partner is dependent upon you, but you are not dependent upon him – as when he is leaning and supported by you, while you are standing upright – you have complete control over the movement of your hands AND his. No amount of force that he exerts prevents your control over yourself and him. Third, the amount of force used is irrelevant – using more force or less force does not change the outcome. Fourth, in any “practical” situation, it is beneficial for you to be independent of your partner while your partner is dependent upon you: in any “practical” situation, it is detrimental for you to be dependent upon your partner.
So what relevance does this have to Taijiquan? It illustrates that in a specific situation, the amount of force used is irrelevant to the outcome: the outcome is not dependent upon the magnitude of force used – or the “type”, such as “linear” versus “spiral”. It also illustrates that in that specific situation one can control the movement of a partner preventing a partner from effectively manifesting force, such as a strike or kick.
The obvious question is can such a situation of dependence/independence be created outside of the very specific arrangement of this exercise? The answer is yes. How does one do that? A substantial part of a good syllabus of Taiji training is about how to do that. Finding such training is only slightly more common than finding a unicorn.
Last edited by
charles on Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:49 am, edited 2 times in total.