I agree with you that in some form, all 3 aspects are represented. However, to me, the differences is in their proportions. Given that, something like:

50% Health
30% Spiritual
20% Martial

will probably not yield martial efficacy. Sure, you’ll get something but I think when people refer to martial training, this means if someone could “hold their own”.

However, I feel given the breakdown, a further breakup of martial training is required. By this I mean, what is martial training? Is this knowing an application? Is this drilling applications? Is this push hands? Is this sanshou or free form sparring? Give that, if the proportion spent on martial training is primarily spent on ‘knowing an appication’ but not drilling or testing, then I don’t think martial efficacy will happen. I think some type of ‘contact’ is required for someone to truly say they train the martial aspects, otherwise what people are doing is philosophizing or playing around with martial ideas.

In regards to coming from the health and training skills required for martial artists, I don’t doubt that. However, I don’t believe alignment, relaxation, breath control are really ‘skills’ as much as they are characteristics of good martial artists. Skill, IMO from a martial perspective, come from execution.

by this logic, you would get neither health nor spirituality. you can never (IMO) train taiji without some aspect of the three. no matter what your focus is, the others will ‘leak’ thru. if you train just for martial purposes, you have to keep alignment, relaxation, etc. this benefits health no matter how hard you try not to incorporate it.

it you came from the health side, you still have to adhere to taiji principles. since taiji is a martial art, even if you just want health, you still need alignment and song and coordinating breath. quite good skills for martial arts. i agree you probably wouldnt be able to kick as tech-wise, but even without focusing on the martial, the very nature of the art gives you skills in that area simply by following its principles.

know what i mean?

“The most important reason is that when you finally reach the place where you understand what life is about, you’ll have some health to enjoy it,” was his answer.”
– Reason to Study Taiji

So in this regard, I felt his focus was more on the health aspect than the martial. The emphasize could also be due to the social climate of the time in that hand-to-hand combat was no longer needed in modern society. However, the quote goes a bit further to note:

“More than self-defense, more even than its health benefit, he taught Tai Chi Chuan as a Tao, a ‘way of life’”

I think this coincides along more with the ‘spritual’ aspect of the art.

As for the commutative properties, I think it really depends on focus. Just b/c CMC’s art is touted more along the health/spiritual lines, I don’t think that means the martial is not existent. William CC Chen is an example of a CMC stylist who emphasizes the martial aspect in his own training and teachings. I believe there to be CMC schools out there who do emphasize the martial, it’s just that most do not.

As for getting the martial aspects while focusing on the health, not too sure that would work. Martial efficacy will only be gotten if one trains for the martial, IMO. In this regard, I think any style, including chen, if focus is placed solely on the health, may not yield martial efficacy.

Given that, if we want martial efficacy, then we must train in a martial context irregardless of style, IMO. We can’t just imagine opponents and combat techniques to work magically when called for if we haven’t been put in that situation. Part of martial training is training the mind in such a way so that we can remain calm when confronted with the stressors of conflict.

my question is, why couldnt you start with any of them and then get the others? (commutative property?)

cmc gets alot of crap for changing his form and that it is not primarily martial. who said that was his focus? maybe he set the primary as the spiritual, health second and martial thirdly.

you would still get martial training, but it would take longer to matriculate.

thoughts anyone?

M