the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

it's possible those people changed their thinking or understanding over time. who knows. the art is full of red herrings. people can easily deliberately or unwittingly claim some expertise that is actually something else, then think or claim "here is taijiquan", or worse, make up their own elaborate theories and think/say they figured it all out w/o realizing that's not the case, however well meaning or well articulated.

Well, either way, find out for yourself. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

very true. some/many/all(?) of the "wrong" answers are luckily probably still great answers in the grand scheme of things.

for example, arguably the "most wrong" answer from a rsf meat-head pov (taijiquan is a moving meditation health art that helps seniors reduce falling risk and improve various markers of healthy in a statistically significant way) is one of the single best answers and treasures in the world in its category.

origami_itto wrote:, whatever Dan Docherty does...

to pour a little more oil on the fire, wasn’t it Earle’s Taiji teacher that Dan Docherty poured a glass of water over to prove the chi-masters inability?

Other than that teacher, if I recall right, Earle spent about a week in Shanghai trying to impress Fu Zhongwen in hope to become a disciple or something like that.

And that other of Earl’s teachers, the unverified one that taught the “real thing” sound well…bogus…..

I see the flames rising

Don’t get me started

Trick wrote:

origami_itto wrote:, whatever Dan Docherty does...

to pour a little more oil on the fire, wasn’t it Earle’s Taiji teacher that Dan Docherty poured a glass of water over to prove the chi-masters inability?

Other than that teacher, if I recall right, Earle spent about a week in Shanghai trying to impress Fu Zhongwen in hope to become a disciple or something like that.

And that other of Earl’s teachers, the unverified one that taught the “real thing” sound well…bogus…..

I see the flames rising

People do all kinds of wild stuff out there. So many ideas.

I brought Erle up because I was familiar with "Fishes in eight" through his line of instruction. We can see the ideas he was bringing to the section of form we were talking about because he bothered to document it.

He was a friendly and open guy who was easy to talk to and put a lot of his ideas into print. Nothin wrong with that, pissing contests and insecurities aside.

For better or worse, not a lot of people have had the impact he did. Who's going to bringing up our names 13 years after we die, and what are they going to say?

"Wayne Hansen? Wasn't that the guy that saved Taijiquan from Origami Itto?"

everything wrote:taijiquan is a moving meditation health art that helps seniors reduce falling risk ...

If you just train the drill "left punch with right kick, right punch with left kick" combo 60 times daily, you will get the same result as "reduce falling risk". Why do you need a MA system (such as Taiji) to get such beginner level benefit?

When you do this drill, 100% of your training time, you have to stand on one leg. You will get much more benefit for your balance than what you can get from training your Taiji form.

the practical problem is 98% of 80+ year olds probably cannot do nor want to do those exercises.

they might even be seated

When people in their 80’s ask me what exercise they should be doing
I say the one you started in your 20’s and never stopped
For people in their 80’s conscious walking is the best thing

johnwang wrote:

everything wrote:taijiquan is a moving meditation health art that helps seniors reduce falling risk ...

If you just train the drill "left punch with right kick, right punch with left kick" combo 60 times daily, you will get the same result as "reduce falling risk". Why do you need a MA system (such as Taiji) to get such beginner level benefit?

When you do this drill, 100% of your training time, you have to stand on one leg. You will get much more benefit for your balance than what you can get from training your Taiji form.

That seems phenomenally boring.

wayne hansen wrote:When people in their 80’s ask me what exercise they should be doing
I say the one you started in your 20’s and never stopped
For people in their 80’s conscious walking is the best thing

It's very sad that if Taiji is a MA system that's design for someone who is 80 and has never done any exercise in his life.

If one starts to train Taiji when he was 20, at the age of 80, he has to sit on a chair to do his arm movement, something must go wrong there.

origami_itto wrote:That seems phenomenally boring.

Today when I walked 3 miles on the beach, I did this drill 200 times (not continuous, but 10 steps 1 leg lift). It's boring. But it helps seniors (like myself) to reduce falling risk. When I get much older, I may quit my long fist, SC, Taiji, ... but I will keep doing this for the rest of my life.

I do believe this is the best exercise to "reduce falling risk".

A lot of those ones sitting in chairs were people who came to Tai chi with damage done from hard style training
I don’t know what the future holds but at 73 no problems pushing with young bulls and yet to use a chair

wayne hansen wrote:A lot of those ones sitting in chairs were people who came to Tai chi with damage done from hard style training
I don’t know what the future holds but at 73 no problems pushing with young bulls and yet to use a chair

Those people may spend too much time to develop their muscle than to develop their balance. Maintain balance through old age is one of my personal interests. But most of the exercises that I recommend all require some foundation developed during the young age.

johnwang wrote:

origami_itto wrote:That seems phenomenally boring.

Today when I walked 3 miles on the beach, I did this drill 200 times (not continuous, but 10 steps 1 leg lift). It's boring. But it helps seniors (like myself) to reduce falling risk. When I get much older, I may quit my long fist, SC, Taiji, ... but I will keep doing this for the rest of my life.

I do believe this is the best exercise to "reduce falling risk".

If you are at risk of losing your balance while going about your day to day activities that looks like a HORRIBLE exercise. You need a pretty high base level of fitness for this or the holding one leg up.

Those are very impressive feats, no doubt. I don't think that they are the best way to gain foundational strength if you're lacking, it's a bit further down the pipe.

I'll send the teenagers and supermen your way. Gimme the folks that can barely stand up, it'll take them so much longer to catch up to me.