the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

(Dear Adminstrator, Not sure what happened to same titled posts. It says, "The requested topic does not exist." when clicked. So, I can't delete it. Please, delete other two same titled posts.)

Discover Taiji
Published on May 11, 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIwwyHOy4qA

A couple other videos on wu wei.

frederick behar
Published on Sep 22, 2014

Video presenting an idea of how to use the tai chi principle of Wei Wu Wei (action which is not action);

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zpuY3C79sA

Gene Burnett
Published on Nov 17, 2011

Here I am with my student Neil Buettner demonstrating the Chinese concept of "wu wei" in action. I translate it to mean "unforced action". My student John Soares is behind the camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_60WHwPAQA

I didn't watch Adams vid because I've seen enough of him to know what to expect
The other two not only are they not Wu Wei they are not even relaxed

I think wuwei is a concept that is hard to use for combat or self defense. I wouldn’t. There are better and more practical ways to describe the different things shown above.

Ant btw... If you show how to defend yourself without any preconceived idea you shouldn’t first be telling your partner how to attack, IMO.

Not to give off emotions and therefore others emotions have nothing to cling on, nothing or nowhere to attack?

windwalker wrote:also requiring "no mind" or "no action" allowing "it" to work...

Yes, emptiness or "no mind". This is a better point from where to start the whole discussion, IMO.

Trick wrote:Not to give off emotions and therefore others emotions have nothing to cling on, nothing or nowhere to attack?

This comes much closer to what should be consider wuwei, IMO.

I remember my meeting with my first teacher. He wasn't really exceptionally good back then, but it was a shock. He just said to me that I could try to attack him anyway he wanted. He didn't give away anything, just stood there very still. But he adjusted himself just slightly to my posture and my movements so he showed no gap to attack. If I had tried to do anything, I know that I would have acted like a mouse just put my head into a mouse trap knowing that there was a trap that would cut my head off. I was defeated even before trying. I still made a few half-assed attempts knowing that I didn't stand a chance up against him and felt even more stupid. Like an utterly stupid mouse putting his head into the trap knowing it's there.

I'm not sure why we'd analyse these clips so much for practical use, when the guy in the last video quite clearly states he isn't training for practical use. It seems obvious that this training is for some other purpose

RobP3 wrote:I'm not sure why we'd analyse these clips so much for practical use, when the guy in the last video quite clearly states he isn't training for practical use. It seems obvious that this training is for some other purpose

The three clips are very different, did you watch them all? Why judge the other two upon what the third one says?

all fine and dandy as long as the wu wei mouth talkers actually have tried this against real resistance and not get ass kicked. Talk is cheap.

if the cheap talk can be replicated to actually produce real combative results then i'd actually care. this is utter bullshit though.

Bao wrote:

RobP3 wrote:I'm not sure why we'd analyse these clips so much for practical use, when the guy in the last video quite clearly states he isn't training for practical use. It seems obvious that this training is for some other purpose

The three clips are very different, did you watch them all? Why judge the other two upon what the third one says?

My bad, I could only be bothered to watch one But I suspect my point remains, in the case of many of his students

Rhen wrote:all fine and dandy as long as the wu wei mouth talkers actually have tried this against real resistance and not get ass kicked. Talk is cheap.

if the cheap talk can be replicated to actually produce real combative results then i'd actually care. this is utter bullshit though.

You saying you won't post here again?

My interpretation of wu wei, as appropriate for Taijiquan, is what the ball is doing in response to the tiger’s attacks in the following video; responding with pengjin and lujin without thought or initiating action...the tiger causes the ball’s responses.

Adam hit a new low on that video! I couldn't stop laughing when I seen the big guy taking a fall over and over again. I don't know which video is worse though, his or Roy's? The funniest part is all of gullible people in the background.

Who is the Roy u are referring to and what do you find wrong with adam

wayne hansen wrote:Who is the Roy u are referring to and what do you find wrong with adam

I was talking about Roy Goldbergs videos. Although some of them are quite good. most of them that I have seen are not impressive. Years ago, or perhaps a decade and a half ago, I used to be a fan of Adams work, but after the level of my current instruction, I'm not a fan anymore. In fact reviewing some of the older videos that he made, he appears to be sending people flying effortlessly 20 or 30 ft. Upon asking him directly how he was doing it back then. His reply was" it can only be done when someone is truly empty". Unfortunately, this is the incorrect answer. The only way to do that type of thing is to use the bows of the body. Which he was not in that case. Which also leads me to believe that there was quite a bit of Showmanship or embellishment in his early videos.