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Perhaps someone can help me?
I feel very interested in Tai Chi especially the flowing Wudang style, but also very frustrated.
What is it ?
What are they doing ?
And if I do it, how should I do it ?On youtube some practitioners seem very much like empty arm wafters just wasting time.
But even on many instructional DVDs by great masters ! the teacher just makes a hell of a lot of noise about the positioning of the body, the knee, the weight, the angle of the foot and so … bla bla bla
So what ?
Is this really just about getting your knee into the right position?
Because I am not going to remember these boring instructions unless I can feel it inside?
And my spiritual practice does not revolve around the alignment of my ankles let me tell you !!!
Is it just better to ignore the irritating-non-explanations and just copy them visually?
Or is anyone actually able to say anything direct accurate verifiable about it?
This reminds me when I was learning to meditate and I must have gone through 40 different teachers all with huge amounts of non-explanation to talk about, until I found 1 man on the entire surface of the planet who knew what he was talking about !!!
I like Primordial because you feel it and there is not the endless talk about alignment, just do the thing. I like that. Then you can feel it yourself. However Primordial is a particular practice, does not replace Tai Chi.
Often in Tai Chi forms the practitioner seems caught in some strange position with knees pointed together, or you have the floaty toe touching the ground thing etc… Which seem to make you a sitting duck from a martial perspective. What’s that about ?
And what happens to you after 10 years of Tai Chi ?
I bet this question gets zero answers !!!
But I would be very interested if anyone can say anything at all … ??
Tai Chi is a specific type of qigong that must satisfy three traits for it to actually be Tai Chi.
1. Body structure and connection to the ground is important.
2. Movements change in a sequence, rather than a single movement in repetition.
3. Every movement must have a hidden martial arts application.If it doesn’t satisfy all three, it is not Tai Chi and is simply qigong.
Why someone interested in spiritual evolution should care at all and why you get some unique benefits over ordinary qigong, is more involved of an answer, which I’m not too motivated to get into here. I teach this stuff when I teach Tai Chi but I don’t feel too motivated to take time and effort to write an essay for the forum. BUT to give the readers a quick soundbite, much of it has to do with getting grounded, pumping qi from the earth into your body, activating the tendon system, and creating a moving meditation that is effective for clearing the mind.
All Tai Chi earlier than Wu-style must also satisfy the instructions of the Tai Chi classics, which any good Tai Chi teacher should provide for you as a resource when you learn Tai Chi.
Most Tai Chi masters know the importance of all of this stuff, as well as more esoteric information incorporating qi flow, yin-yang, directional feng shui, etc., but they are not going to tell any of this to beginners (as you’ve noticed from these instructional DVDs you’ve looked at). For the most part, if you are beginner you will learn body mechanics and that it is. Most masters don’t feel like sharing anything higher-level if a person can’t even get the body mechanics down, and they don’t feel motivated to share unless they have observed that the student actually has the patience to put the long work down to mastering the body mechanics.
Qi,
StevenThanks for the answer, that is clear.
I was looking yesterday at a tai chi form and the teacher mentioned that it opens the macro-cosmic orbit somewhere in the blurb … but I was asking myself if there is anything in the form other than that. Otherwise there are more direct ways to do the same thing. It is just a question of doing something beautiful and fun ?
Unfortunately the nature of society is that when teachers do not tell you the higher aspects, some teachers do not actually know, and some do. That is the nature of things. And I also believe that the development of the mind in the West leads to students being able to use more technical information. Perhaps I just look for someone who speaks my language.
I did find something yesterday that looked good, a form by Erle Montaigue:
A wise person watches the seasons rise and fall,
and he knows how things grow.
He knows they are fed by their roots and they return to their roots.
To grow, to flower and to flow.
This quiet feeding is the way of nature.
A wise person never tries to break up the whole.
-Tao Te Ching
I like this documentary, but it doesn’t go into the nitty gritty.
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