the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Top 10 things CMC (cheng Man ching) players do that annoy everyone else in the Taiji world:

10. Believe they are “the place to be”.
9. Watch you like a hawk when you perform your form to determine your skill level, will not push hands with you.
8. Dismiss the original long form.
7. Often Go out to tea/food after practice without doing any push hands practice.
6. Think that the short form, sword, and push hands/Da lu is all there is in Taijiquan.
5. Dismiss the art of Chinese stretching and conditioning cause “everything is in the form”.
4. Believe form will help them in real combat fighting.
3. Over relaxing to the point of limp noodle taiji form, and “old man’s back” form.
2. Talk about how superior their martial art is. Dismiss other forms Chinese martial arts training.
1. Being a CMC player.

I've met some very good CMC players and instructors over the years but many do seem to fall into these "humorous" categories. You could say the same thing about many Yang stylists in general but that doesn't mean that you can't find good instruction in all aspects of the training if you hunt hard enough and have enough skill and experience [or drive to develop the skill and experience] to tell the gold from the brass, much less from the lead.

My pet peeve is how few can punch effectively, sometimes after years of training in a variety of recreational martial arts as well as taijiquan in general. Granted they have any number of fancy terms for whatever they do; but fancy terminology won't help you when someone who wants to hit you and is used to hitting people effectively heads your way.

Speaking of fanciful ideas... my favorite internet example was the website by the bagua "expert" who wrote earnestly that this discipline was named after the war-cry of the founder of the lineage. Beware of men shouting "BAGWA" as they attack as they apparently have the goods!

That is hilarious Michael!

Having started with CMC style I can testify to some of the non-sense. I still go to places where they actually might have some decent park practice where some people actually will do push hands and are very good.

while there is a huge majority of silliness in that community, there are many stand-outs players who have done well in competitions in push hands and full contact fighting.

as for the punching thing: YES! i took a pair of focus mitts to the park once to have them work some striking and they were horrible. Sadly i have gotten into heated arguments with some CMC people on striking and kicking (since it is in the form) but they are of the belief there is no striking in Tai chi as a fighting art. wtf?!?!?

they are of the belief there is no striking in Tai chi as a fighting art. wtf?!?!?

"They"? William Chen teaches striking methods and let have his students practice sparring as well.

William C.C. Chen is getting old but still apparently punches with a wallop all out of proportion to his size and I experienced them first-hand in the early 90s and vouch for their quality then.

Don't know if he still travels as much doing workshops but he was a great teacher of his version of the CMC style and worked you hard without making it look as if he was doing so. Plus he had the greatest little "toys" for demonstrating his ideas on how the body should function.

Bao wrote:

they are of the belief there is no striking in Tai chi as a fighting art. wtf?!?!?

"They"? William Chen teaches striking methods and let have his students practice sparring as well.

I don't want to say names or the forum where I have had that argument, but it clearly wasn't folks from William CC Chen's branch of CMC taiji.

May I add

#11 Continually grab at your wrists and fingers until you chin na them back and then try to scold you with "we " dont grab in push hands

#12 try to instruct you in what you are doing wrong as they are flying away or getting back up

#13 shove you several times with a slide in step and complain when you return that favor

To be fair, I have only met and played with less than thirty or so CMC folks but after awhile the patterns were too much to ignore.

HAHA WVTaiji yes the grab thing and more!!

#14- walk over to you and your friend actually practicing push hands and then tell you "thats not push hands, that's MMA".

"ooohhh, i see you did not use your waist there"

Stereotypes LOL LOL

Funny stuff

Love this topic, experienced most of the ones mentioned and a few more:

#15 Of course you can fight with this stuff cause CMC took all challengers.

#16 Because CMC was a Chinese Doctor.......(fill in your own blank with something about how great thou art Professor Cheng, I've heard multiple sentence finishers with this one).

Master Lazy's Five Essentials:

5. T'ai Chi is a Taoist art. Anyone who says a word against Chang Sanfeng will be taken out and shot

4. After many years of hard training, everything you do will naturally become an expression of t'ai chi. Then you can stop, thank god

3. (Thank you, I'd love another glass of champagne)

2. Professor defeated all challengers because he was always completely relaxed drunk
1. You should relax more

*lol*. Seen most of these myself!

This is all very fine. Now that we've had some fun, can anyone think of any advantages the CMC style offers over the traditional style? I teach both forms and have my reasons for doing so. The CMC form offers something fairly unique. What might that be?

3 types of cmc

American
Taiwan
Malaysian

Not all the same but the 10 does apply to a lot,
Likewise it applies to many outside the cmc cohort.