Tai Chi

Jason Rees · Post by **Jason Rees** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:37 am

I just finished my review on Amazon.com of a book I was sent in a care package.

http://www.amazon.com/Tai-Chi-Aikido-st ... 308&sr=1-1

Can anyone point me to a worthwhile resource to check out for this internal art?

Victor Smith · Post by **Victor Smith** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:12 am

Hi Jason,

With literally millions of versions of Tai Chi Chaun instruction covering everything from a serious martial art to new age plant studies (that's a joke) and thousands of good youtube performances, your question is very hard to answer.

That being the case here's a simple answer for you.

The late Cheng Man Ch'ing was a student of Yang Chenfu and developed the 37 short form. Robert Smith documented this in book form (and video record)

I'm showing one video of one of Cheng Man Ch'ing's 27 form performance, one of Cheng Man Ch'ing doing a tai chi sword form and finally one of a tah chi opposing person matching form showing how tai chi applications can work.

They only touch on tai chi chaun but perhaps they will be useful for your study.

MASTER WANG CHIN SHIH - CHENG MAN CH'ING 37 FORM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyZqQwmIqC8
Master Cheng Man Ching demonstrating the Tai Chi straight sword form
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGzBITVQ ... re=related
Taiji Opposing Form
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REVCMRUlmGo

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:13 pm

Dr Yang Jwing-Ming is a pretty good resource on Yang style Tai Chi (Taiji) with a martial arts focus, with numerous books, videos, and DVDs available, including the books:
Taijiquan Classical Yang Style: The Complete Form
Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications
Tai Chi Theory & Martial Power
Taiji Chin (Qin) Na: The Seizing Art of Taijiquan
Taiji Sword Classical Yang Style: The Complete Form
Dr. Yang is the first I have seen (on a DVD) do the Yang style long form with speed and power. He believes slow and soft Taiji by itself is good for health purposes, but believes adding speed and power training into the form (in addition to the slow and soft training, not in replacement of it) is necessary for advanced students for the complete development of a Taiji martial artist. He also offers numerous products on the qigong side of Taiji if you are interested in that. He has also branched out and is offering products others have developed on Tai Chi styles, particularly Chen style.
http://www.ymaa.com/publishing

A cheaper alternative to DVDs is VCDs, but they are rarely in English:
http://www.plumpub.com/sales/vcd-title.htm

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:48 pm

Actually there were two arts (tai chi and aikido) referenced in that book.

I started tai chi (short form yang style with Robert Smith) and aikido (Tomiki method with a green beret) at the same time to explore the soft side of my martial arts. I was 30 at the time. Because 99% of the tai chi instructors out there have no idea how to use their art to fight (and this group was no exception), I found my aikido to be eminently more practical at the time. Aikido was all about working with a partner (or up to 3-on-1) to apply technique, and I was all over that. Good tai chi can be that way as well, but most people who do it don't know their art. Engaging in lectures about chi flowing in-between my chakres IMO is martial masturbation.

Good tai chi is all about the push hands, striking and throwing bunkai, and targeted sequential striking. If you aren't doing that, you're performing geriatric calisthenics.

Good aikido is all about applying technique against martial artists trained in other martial styles. Actually the same holds for tai chi. So if you're working in a school with a preponderance of people who have trained in other (or even multiple) disciplines, then you will be engaged in a BS-free zone.

IMO, you can't learn much about these arts by reading. It's very much about the doing.

The good thing about both of these arts - when you are doing them right - is that they are very good at teaching you how to use your core.

- Bill

jorvik · Post by **jorvik** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:16 pm

Well I trained in YMAA Yang style Tai-Chi, amongst others

and it is good and martial but probably not as martial as a good Uechi class. The real problem with Tai-Chi is the folks that do it, so it is really difficult to find a good "fighting" teacher who teaches fighting, because to stay afloat he will have to cater for the chimeister,yellow bamboo sorts who are into chakra balancing etc............the fighting aspect of Tai-Chi is very good and IMHO much closer to aikido than to karate or hard Kung-Fu, it has a cousin in Wing-Chun.both operate in the realms of "Sticking" to your opponent, although Tai-Chi does it over all ranges while Wing-Chun likes to stay closer in...........If you just did the applications in class and practised the form on your own then that would be a good martial method, but sadly you will probably end up just doing the form

One weird thing about Tai-Chi is that you can come across folks who are so tremendously good that what they do looks like faking or magic or something..........generally it's not weird in the way folks think it will be.
This guy is good
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfvvn-yO ... ed&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrjiVwGH ... re=related

in fact the best I have seen and I would love to train with him

....maybe one day

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:33 pm

Bill Glasheen wrote: IMO, you can't learn much about these arts by reading. It's very much about the doing.

If you come across any martial arts you can learn from reading, let me know!

Jason Rees · Post by **Jason Rees** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:06 pm

Lots of great responses, guys, thanks

Already engaged in Judo, Krav Maga, and Jujutsu, (and out here TKD for four months) I'm not looking to branch off into Tai Chi just yet... but I'm not getting any younger, the knees are starting to ache, and Tai Chi just seems alien to me, so I want to know more. Thanks for setting me on the right trail.

Victor Smith · Post by **Victor Smith** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:28 pm

It is very difficult to characterize Tai Chi, there are so many different expressions of it's wave.

I've been at it over 30 years now, studying from Ernest Rothrock, and never once in that time have we ever discussed Chi or anything but purely mechnical performance issues.

There is not one expression that really characterizes it's experience.

Where Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's practice focuses on specific energy release with many of the movements, other versions of the same style focus on the flow, and other versions combine both, all of which have martial application.

While appearing for the elderly, the best I've seen began at very young ages.

Here's a selection of further clips...

Yang Jwing Ming - Forma corta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0J6A7T3 ... re=related

A version of the Yang 48 focusing on the flow
tai chi 48 form (steps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFZUIgaxlsI

A dance version for those starting young and aspiring to superhuman skills
Wandering Clouds, Flowing Water - dance, Taiji, Kung Fu
Tagou Martial Arts School, Dengfeng City, Henan Province
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuEIBBJ8 ... re=related

As for books the best tai chi books compress 50 years of knowledge and then take 50 years to understand. I'm not kidding here is a great example of that axiom.

"Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan" by Fu Zhongwen (translated by Louis Swaim) North Atlantic books

And here he is, as an older gentleman (ahem!) performing the Yang form

Fu Zhongwen Yang-style Form Tai Chi
1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIpKW6AnKYw
2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-tLF_hZ ... re=related

Tai Chi study, IMO, is very much a martial study, but coming from a very different direction than karate.

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:18 am

Victor Smith wrote: Where Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming's practice focuses on specific energy release with many of the movements, other versions of the same style focus on the flow, and other versions combine both, all of which have martial application.

Yang Jwing Ming - Forma corta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0J6A7T3 ... re=related

Thanks Victor, I'm glad you found this. This is the advanced performance that Dr. Yang also teaches that I mentioned above, in addition to the more typical flowing performance that he teaches.

jorvik · Post by **jorvik** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 6:58 pm

I think even the title "Tai-Chi" is overplayed, technically there is only one Tai Chi and that is Yang's style, because a court poet saw him doing his stuff and called it Tai Chi.
there are many conflicting tales and theories about which is the original style of Tai Chi and they were called various things before they got that handle "loose boxing" and ShiShi Dao...and sometimes folks would say that they were doing Tai-Chi when in fact they were doing Crane.
The most impressive guy that I ever pushed hands with was my Wing-Chun teacher, who also specialised in Qi Kung and had done Chen style Tai Chi......he could some how compress me so that I had to shuffle back with little steps.........very cool and amazing, so when I see the more spectacular displays and folks say that it is fake I have to sometimes bite my tongue because I don't always have their certainty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neYv-te_kJU

Some Yi Quan

J.Iovinelli · Post by **J.Iovinelli** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:52 pm

technically there is only one Tai Chi and that is Yang style

Say what?

Chen style is the grandfather of all Taijiquan. That's where Yang Lu-chan learned his style, at the Chen Village before he synthesized it. As far as I know the Yang family openly agrees with this fact.

Then Yang style was even synthesized more when the short form was devised. It was mostly created for people who were older or in poor health still be able to get some health benefit. There is no FA JING in it at all.

Maybe I misunderstood. If so my apologies.

Here is a demo of Chen Xiaowang, grandson of the famous Chen Fake.

This is real TC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkd2KvUoxuY

And here is a Fa Jing demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxxebP0u31g

J.Iovinelli · Post by **J.Iovinelli** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:08 pm

Victor Smith wrote:
A dance version for those starting young and aspiring to superhuman skills
Wandering Clouds, Flowing Water - dance, Taiji, Kung Fu
Tagou Martial Arts School, Dengfeng City, Henan Province
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuEIBBJ8 ... re=related

This isn't TC, its a choreographed dance. Was that a joke I did not understand?

jorvik · Post by **jorvik** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:21 pm

Quote
"Maybe I misunderstood. If so my apologies. "

Yes you did. I meant the "Name" Tai Chi can technically only be used for Yang stye because that is what it described, also there are some folks who doubt that Chen was the original style, most notably Wudang style in the form of Dan Docherty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqKHOg9DZfU

read this

http://www.taichichuan.co.uk/informatio ... iator.html

and for some questionable skills check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM_E6sRQQAg

really cool

read this
Quote
What about Chen style Tai Chi?

Oh yes, this amazing Taoist martial art with techniques such as 'Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounding Mortar'! basically it's Shaolin Boxing with a bit of Tai Chi thrown in. I've written on this elsewhere. In brief, some members of the Chen Clan of Henan Province wanted to cash in on Tai Chi's popularity so they invented a false genealogy and put forward their mish-mash of Chen Family Pao Chui and Tai Chi as the original Tai Chi. China's leading Tai Chi historian Wu Tu-nan exploded this myth in 'A Research into Tai Chi Chuan' (written in Chinese and published in 1986) which describes his visit to the Chen family village in 1917.

J.Iovinelli · Post by **J.Iovinelli** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:38 pm

Yup, heard that all before. I was not there so I do not know what really happened. Nor am I really interested in who came first or what people say on the interweb.

Everyone can have their own option and state that freely.

I study both style. I just like Chen better. My personal preference.

I just believe the Sun, Yang, Chen and both Wu styles are all unique forms of Taijiquan (Tai Chi) and I was just confused as to why someone would says that...Sorry again that I did not get your point. I understand where your coming from now.

Victor Smith · Post by **Victor Smith** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:33 pm

Hi Joe, You wrote
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Victor Smith

A dance version for those starting young and aspiring to superhuman skills
Wandering Clouds, Flowing Water - dance, Taiji, Kung Fu
Tagou Martial Arts School, Dengfeng City, Henan Province
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuEIBBJ8 ... re=related

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This isn't TC, its a choreographed dance. Was that a joke I did not understand?
_________________
- joe

Of course it is a choreographed dance which I called it. Yet it contains very high level tai chi skills in its execution too.

Karate has it's own traditions (true or false) that it's skills can be found in Okinawan dancing. I don't find it unusual for a Chinese art to do so, with all their traditions for public performance, lion and dragon dances, etc.

While a dance it is truly an extension of tai chi skills, which were the ones I was commenting on.

I am only a long term practitioner, of little note, but would suggest I certainly understand good tai chi practice when I see it, and find very few who could begin to execute as they do.

Respectfully.