windwalker wrote:Is it not funny that with taiji everything is talked about in the abstract. With any other martial art or most martial arts there is no abstract only the reality.
Taiji is now at the point where people have to use other people practicing other Arts to somehow demonstrate with taiji is said to be doing but never shown doing
Yep. Appealing to authority to validate opinions seems to be the M.O. Just post a clip or pic of some elite athlete doing something that has nothing whatever to do with what most anyone else is capable of or will ever have the opportunity to actually apply. Drives me crazy...always has.
Lots of topics on RSF seem to be on some sort of weird loop. Kind of cool, though, to see how peoples' thoughts, opinions and practice have evolved over the years. And others whose tune hasn't changed a single note.
Anyway, Abstract is the way of tai chi. 'Apps' have always been incidental to the movement in the tai chi I've trained. I never learned a single application to anything in the form from the 3 teachers I trained with, and have never 'taught' 'apps' to any one who's trained with me.
To illustrate the looping topics thing, here's some stuff I wrote in a thread back in 2009 that addresses the issues you raised above:
I've always thought that IMA was about what the person can do now, immediately, with the tools and abilities they presently posses - without working toward a horizon they will never reach. Seems like lots of tie chee folks in particular, don't like things to be simple and immediately effective. They want mysticism and 'hi-level' crap that only a 'master' can show. I call it trick or treat. If you keep people focused on the trick, they always miss the treat. That's been my experience here anyway - with more than a few tie chee dudes. Keeps things light and entertaining, though
And from the same thread regards throwing (An And Sealing The Root):
Why not pretend you're gonna try lifting someone? Not their whole body, just their point(s) of contact. That way, you can find their center and dial in their preliminary movement/intent. Whether he has ahold of you or you have ahold of him doesn't matter. I was shown how the method is contained in Roll-back And Opening-move in a wrestling context because that was what I knew best at the time. It 'seals his root' long enough for you to step onto one of his feet, pinning it to the ground, and then follow through from Roll-back to Push
And just to play along with what you wrote about appealing to what people are doing in other arts to somehow demonstrate what tai chi is doing;
Brush-knee-twist-step is Tai-otoshi - NOT osoto gari