TaoBoxer wrote:I disagree. Yang Taiji is all about getting on 1 leg, as is much of xingyi. Pistols are exactly that.
What I meant was that when you practice exercises like that, it's like weight-lifting, you train your muscle. I agree completely that a lot of Yang taiji is about one-leg ability, but it is even more about "mind leading body" which I don't see in exercises like pistols, etc.
After my first 4 years of taiji, at a "bad" school (where they only did form, without any corrections, poor structure, no proper mind involvement, etc.), I could do many pistols easily, as I did the form with thighs almost parallel to the ground, etc.
But when I came to my present school (10 years ago), my thighs were burning like hell and that was at very high stances, with thighs at about 45 degrees to the ground. I had strength but (forgive the inevitable cliche) it wasn't "internal". Hence my earlier comment. Others' mileage may vary of course.