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Sorry if this is a little off topic.
I am interested in Tai Chi forms. But … looking at the instruction that is out there from various teachers, the teachers do not seem to know what is supposed to occur within the form. They teach the movement, the hand position, the leg position. And that’s it.
They do not seem to know the purpose of a form. What is this form for ? Is it for integrating the heart ? Is it form opening the dantien ? Neither do they know the purpose of the movements. It would seem.
Anyway know differently ?
With the Primordial for instance the instructions include a sense of what is occurring inside. But Tai Chi forms do not. Not that I have seen.
And so one upshot of this is that you don’t know if the form is bogus or whether you are doing it right.
Here is some instruction for instance (2nd half of video) … but she just talks about the movement and not the inner meaning.
I seem to recall you live in the UK.
I know it’s not a Healing form, but towards the end of Nov, Bruce Frantzis is teaching the Old Yang Style in Brighton. There’s an emphasis on the internal techniques.
I saw that course but it’s 1.5 days only. I don’t think you can learn much in 1.5 days. Not something you can carry with you in life.
More generally I am wondering why most tai chi teachers don’t know what occurs within the forms ?
Martial arts instructor and author, Sifu Phillip Starr, has suffered a stroke while living in China. Chinese medicine is not really up to the task of taking good care of him. His family and students are looking to bring him back to the U.S. to make sure he gets the best treatment possible. We will most likely have to send someone to China to fly back with him in case of emergency. We appreciate any help you can give in financing this venture. If you can’t, we understand. We will take your prayers, good vibes, and warm wishes instead.
-https://www.gofundme.com/sifustarrWell, there you have it: thorough introduction to the real art of chansi-jin. You now have the tools with which to build a strong foundation. It’s up to you to use them. I know that some of you are wondering whether I’ll get around to writing more books about how to use this special jin in the forms of xingyiquan, baguazhang, and taijiquan. The answer is yes-that’s my intention. I deliberately did not include that information and training in this text because it would make this book so large that you’d need a wheelbarrow to carry it around. Besides, you must first train individual techniques…
-http://forum.healingdao.com/general/message/25915/In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective, using sentences designed to encourage or provoke a rational argument from an emotional display of a given perspective or action. Note that although rhetorical devices may be used to evoke an emotional response in the audience, this is not their primary purpose.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_device…I am interested in Tai Chi forms. But … looking at the instruction that is out there from various teachers, the teachers do not seem to know what is supposed to occur within the form. They teach the movement, the hand position, the leg position. And that’s it…
Besides what Healing Tao is offering Phillip Starr’s recently mentioned book has enough instruction.
In this case ordinary videos can be used only when for example coiling movements are greatly exaggerated.
Also for torso and abdominal demonstrations totally nude material of course would be needed.
HOWDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGM4LcKTO4s
My teacher, Phillip Starr will visit on Saturday, August 1, 2015 to hold a workshop on Martial Mechanics. You will practice techniques and principles that will make you faster, more powerful, and more effective in actual self-defense…Ken has trained with some top internal masters and their disciples, including Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang and Grandmaster Chen Xiaoxing, direct descendants of the creator of Tai Chi, Chen Wangting. Even if you have studied other styles of Tai Chi, you will learn new skills in this workshop. Among them:
-How to establish and maintain the Ground Path.
-What is Peng Jin and how it is combined with the Ground Path to give Tai Chi the reputation of being iron wrapped in cotton.
-Whole-Body Movement, connecting your internal movement.
-Silk-Reeling Energy the spiraling movement connected through the body that provides your techniques with additional power (hint: it is a physical skill, not mystical).
-Dan Tien Rotation, how to separate the waist from the hips and let your Dan Tien guide your movement.
-Opening/Closing the Kua, the crease at the top of the leg at the groin.
-https://morrowsacademy.wordpress.com/page/2/Sorry for my broken English.
It’s very easy to find right kind of instructional material.
It would seem that it’s in this case simply an attitude problem.
HOWDY
http://morrowsacademy.wordpress.com/page/2/
c_howdy, you are hilarious!
I have a funny story about that “Nude Tai Chi” VHS tape . . .When I was a horny teenager, I actually bought that “Nude Tai Chi” tape and stuck it on a shelf. I didn’t know anything about Tai Chi, but I thought to myself that I’d love to watch a woman do Tai Chi while nude. After buying it, it suddenly felt silly to me, so I stuck it on a shelf and forgot about it. Years later, after I actually had a few years of Tai Chi under my belt, one of my best friends saw it on a bookshelf and asked about it. I started laughing, realizing that I hadn’t watched it, despite buying it many years previous. So I immediately put it in, and proceeded to watch about 15 mins of it, and . . .
Well, the woman in the video knows about as much Tai Chi as a baby knows about how to drive a car. It was clear that the person who made the VHS tape just made it out of a marketing ploy (obviously it worked successfully, as my earlier horny teenager self bought it on impulse). He clearly just found a woman who agreed to get paid to be naked on video camera, and recorded her, after maybe giving her an hour of prep time in memorizing some semi-choreographed scene. It was simply terrible. The Tai Chi was terrible. She was so terribly inept that it wasn’t even good nudity to watch; it was–in fact–painful to watch. After 15 minutes, I turned off the tape and ejected it. I told my buddy that I never wanted to look at that crap again. He requested the tape as souvenir, and I gladly gave it to him. Now it sits on a shelf in his house, covered in dust, and has been so now for more years than I can count.
Thanks c_howdy for the memory and the good hearty laugh . . . S
For this kind of situation I suggest RECAPITULATION. That Castaneda quote should already be enough to start with. It is to strengthen the mind and also one’s emotional intelligence.
-http://forum.healingdao.com/practice/message/25917/Following the flow of chi energy, rather than directing it as in traditional Tai Chi, Wu-Style Tai Chi focuses on internal development, seeking to conserve chi energy and gather jin power from the Earth through the tan tien. Centered on a small frame stancethat is, feet closer together and arms closer to the bodyand a slower progression of movements in solo practice, Wu Style offers a gentle Tai Chi form for beginners and, when practiced with a partner, a grounding introduction to martial arts boxing and Fa Jin (the discharge of energy for self-defense). The more functional stance, smaller movements, and conservation of internal energy make Wu-Style Tai Chi ideal for older practitioners as well as those with health disabilities.
-http://www.universal-tao.com/interview/TaiChiWuStyle.html…I saw that course but it’s 1.5 days only. I don’t think you can learn much in 1.5 days. Not something you can carry with you in life…
One now needs to ask if there has been enough homework done.
What about M. Chia’s Tai Chi Chuan material?
…more generally I am wondering why most tai chi teachers don’t know what occurs within the forms…
Or one could simply ask why they are so untalented, stupid and especially lazy.
HOWDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw91zmQTMm0
Hello. I appreciate your interesting material, although I don’t understand all of it, or your intention.
I have to be practical, I am not at this point going to devote my whole life to tai chi, I just want an honest and interesting and fun beginning.
A form or teacher that is constructed so that I can learn from it.
Much of your material is very heavy, and I don’t want to plough through book after book and imagine something is happening. Also I don’t have a current tai chi practice, many of these books are internal guidance for people who do.
In terms of recapitulation it would certainly be an old pattern of mine to buy a stack of books and hide inside them and not ‘do’ anything.
I just want to be free, opening outwards, creatively, in tune with existence. Tai chi, these movements are beautiful, enjoyable, creative, and you can go deeper and deeper, and it becomes beautiful training material … but like I said … many people don’t seem to me to be doing anything but imitation.
Mantak Chia … well he made some videos that is an advantage, but I do have difficulty understanding what he is saying, and I find his structure incredibly confusing, and confusion is not building confidence in me.
If MW or BKF did some tai chi videos that would be good, or someone like that, with clarity. 1.5 days (3 sessions) is not enough to learn anything. Perhaps if you are already a practitioner you can get some tips.
I have been doing Primordial 7 times a day for the last 2 days, DHQ> I had an IChing that told me not to get it.
Gurdjieff had a similar exercise to those encountered by Castenada, but simpler, at the end of the day you simply work back through the entire day recalling it in as much details as possible.
And there was another exercise which is called “the last hour of my life”, where at the end of each hour one considers the previous hour, and tries to make the next one ‘better’.
Which are interesting for many reasons.
However the overwhelming truth is that these exercises are quite limited because ‘you’ do not have the power to heal and fix everything nor of propelling yourself forward on your journey … and so evolving is more about channelling higher forces, like love, that do have that power.
To invite the universal forces into your being, to clean house. That is vastly superior, and practical, and simple, then sifting through your sock draw look for the magic secret.
Faith, Hope, Love
The BKF course is three days (5 hours per day).
I’ve never done a course with BKF so can’t speak from personal experience.
However, one might argue that three days with someone widely regarded as a leading western teacher and who’s emphasizing internal techniques might just constitute “an honest and interesting and fun beginning”.
It’s 15 hours, although it says something about not needing to attend the Friday seminar if you already know tai chi – possibly Friday is just an intro ?
I am sure he is excellent, but what can you learn on a one off event from a teacher who lives on the other side of the planet ? Certainly if you are a practitioner he is a very learned teacher, he can give you some fine tunings.
I took me a week to learn his Dragon & Tiger form, and that’s a simple form.
The Old Yang Style has about 10 forms in it … I don’t think you could even learn one in a weekend. From the description he is teaching a few principles, but where could I apply them?
A different approach would be more realistic, this is a bit desperate.
A little further investigation and the answer is Bruce Frantzis !
He knows what he is talking about. He actually has produced a mega box of tai chi DVDs … it’s big, costs $900 = a lot. For some reason it’s not advertised clearly on his website.
But, he if the first person I have seen who I think he knows, he understands completely. Hi I Chuan material is also the best I have seen. Deep and clear knowledge.
There is also an introductory streaming course which is $200, cloud hands.
When I have enough time in my life I will take him up on the offer.
Bruce Frantzis is definitely the real deal. I’ve only read his free materials and watched some short videos but I do get his emails. The mastery systems that he has developed all look like they are pretty intense and definitely very thorough.
Yes, I agree. He is a good man who has brought a lot of knowledge to the west and made things very clear and accessible, and his materials are very good to learn from, he will leave a big legacy.
But … I have asked myself the difference between him and Michael Winn.
Frantzis had some bad car accidents in his time, and it seems to have changed the course of his teaching. I have a lot of trauma and I can appreciate some his methods for dealing with it.
MW on the other hand seems to be very jovial and uplifitng, and a very powerful teacher. I think I have found it a bit hard to relate that anything so good could be delivered with a smile, that’s my problem for you.
Perhaps there is a time for both approaches.
For myself I need to move to more love and light and laughter, and not try to ‘fix’ ‘problems’ all the time.
That just doesn’t work.
We must love life and life loves us.
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