GrahamB wrote:Sorry to use you as an example David, but I think your post is a great example of a typical Westoner's view of "internal" - you're just listing all the things written using the word "internal" and just taking them at face value without any deeper enquiry into the cultural and political movements of the times.
Well, I didn't write an essay about Chinese culture and politics, I merely used a few sources to make a point.
The typical westerner is not interested in sources or only reads a shallow portion of what is easy to find out there. They have not read a ton of Chinese classical literature (including Chinese thought) and they don't have academic degrees in the subject, so if you want to put me in that typical westerner bunch, I can not help being slightly offended.
Luckily, Stanley Henning is here to rescue you!
http://www.nardis.com/~twchan/henning.html
I don't know how he could save anyone. There are many things in his texts that could be discussed, things that are way too much simplified and things I don't agree with, for example his appreciation about the status of Buddhism in China. Buddhism and Daoism has a mutual history and has walked hand in hand probably as early as from approx the 300s. The nationalism in the 19th century that led up to the Boxer rebellion was an anti-western movement, not an anti-Buddhism movement. Also a statement as "The first openly published work associating Zhang Sanfeng with Taijiquan was Taijiquan Classics (1912), edited by Guan Baiyi. " is a bit redundant as Tai Chi Chuan /Taijiquan is a 19th century term. And Tai Chi is not a Daoist term, so how he could believe that the name "Taijiquan" should be an anti Buddhist propaganda thing I have no idea about. But nationalism was indeed very strong in the turn of that century and obviously it had a strong impact on culture in general. But I cannot see how the names "Neijiaquan"or "Taijiquan" would fit in this picture.
"We also know that Chen Wangting, from his own writings, studied Daoism and Daoist practices, so even if one would agree with the Chen family version of history, there is still a direct connection with Tai Chi and Daoist practice right from the beginning. "
I think you are talking about the recently discovered Li manuscripts. Take them with a pinch of salt. Here's Henning on the matter:
https://mas.cardiffuniversitypress.org/ ... /download/
"The question of whether taijiquan is the product of Daoism creating
a martial art or a martial art absorbing Daoism is a critical issue in
Chinese martial arts historiography. If anything, Daoism is an even
more slippery term than taijiquan itself, but the issue has become highly
politicized, which is understandable in the context of Chinese history
and culture....
I don't know the origin of these Chen Wangting facts or the quote I gave, but I would like to find out more about the sources. I merely stated that if you look at the Chen version of history or the Zhang Sanfeng version of history, Daoism and Daoist internal practice has a connection to the origin of Tai Chi Chuan.
I don't agree that Daoism is a "slippery" term. It means different but very specific things in different contexts. People tend to mix different connotations together and confuse them, but that doesn't mean that it's slippery. How the name Taijiquan should be remotely slippery I have no clue about.
Anyway, I have never claimed that Zhang Sanfeng has invented Tai chi or even that it should be a product of Daoism. And I certainly don't believe that the Chen style that is common today or can be learned in the Chen village is the original Tai Chi Chuan. When Tai Chi Chuan started is not important. But internal practice and Chinese martial arts has a long history that certainly doesn't start as late as the end of the 19th century. And today people associate Tai Chi Chuan with internal practice or Neigong and use Chinese terms and names that have a Chinese cultural specific context. If practitioners are interested about what different terms mean in a Chinese cultural and in a historical context, I believe that they have the right to be interested and that others with a bit of insight should give honest answers to questions. Dantian for instance is a Neidan specific term and belong to the Daoist neidan tradition that has a very specific view on qi inside the body. IME, if you mean other things with the dantian you should call it by other things. If you don't believe in the Daoist connection to internal practice, why bother about this term at all? People keep saying that there is nothing called internal, and that the historical connection to Daoism is fabricated and still they continue to use Daoist terms and concepts. It's dishonest and doesn't make sense.