wujimon taiji blog

Alrighty… time for all the keyboard warriors to stand up and face the piper. What are your top taiji training distractions? What are those things that keep you from getting in more training time? Maybe you have great self-control and it’s easy for you to stay centered and focus, but I admit, for myself, it’s difficult.

For me, all of my training is done solo.  This means there is no one to watch over my shoulder and tell me to train. There is no one to really compare myself against in a classroom setting. There is only me and only I really know how much time and effort I put into the training.  Ultimately, it’s quite difficult to stay motivated.

I can easily say my top training distraction is …. THE COMPUTER. I can always find a reason to get on the computer.  The allure of reading blogs, surfing forums, or justing mess around with my blog design is quite powerful and often draws me into it’s grasp.  To get in some decent traing, I either have to do it during lunch at work or in a completely different room in the house. If at home, I find it easy to train in my bedroom in the dark.

Another distraction for me is watching and/or reading about taiji. I can pop in a taiji demonstration video and watch it for hours, critiquing all the alignment issues, shifting issues, whatever issues that keep distracted from training myself. At times, it’s easier to become an “armchair warrior” in the confines of my own world.

Tai Chi With Attitude posts about “using yang” in his training. After reading his post, it made me think of the “stomp” often found in chen forms. What is the reason for producing loud stomps? I used to think it was cool to stomp, especially in the beginning sequences of buddha warrior pounds mortar, but overtime, I begin to question it more and more. When I learned this sequence, I wasn’t really taught anything about it, just the basic “follow me” kind of thing. The teacher stomped, so I stomped.

However, over time, I received some corrections on the movement. The main correction was to not put any weight into the right leg. Hmm.. If there is no weight in the right leg, then how can there be a stomping sound? Visually, there can be a sinking of weight associated, but if the weight is supposed to remain in the left, than producing a stomping sound would mean that weight/force has been given to the right leg, right?

Another move I’ve often seen a stomp associated with is after the move where you turn the body on one foot and right hand goes down and the left hand goes up. I don’t recall the name of this movement, but based on this listing of laojia moves, it’s the “Flashing the Arm” (Shan Tong Bei) move. Why is there a stomp after that move right before the “Hidden thrust punch”? Is it to stomp on someone’s foot?

I’ve read somewhere that both stomping and “shaking energy” as a result of fajin can be quite harmful to your body, especially the head and knees. Feng Zhiqiang is even quoted about such warnings:

While issuing power the body should be relaxed, but one should be very conscious about so-called “Shaking Power” (Dou Jin). This power has to be focused and not scattered all over the body. The more advanced one is, the smaller the shaking. When we were learning Taijiquan from Chen Fake shaking the body in Fa Li was the greatest taboo to be avoided.

Source: China From Inside – Interview with Feng Zhiqiang

Maybe I am just not skilled enough to be practicing this shaking power, but the more I think about, the more I come to the conclusion that I don’t really want to train like that. What’s the point?  Sure, I may not “look as cool” or “explosive” when I do fajing, but so what? I guess I still don’t really know what’s the point. Any thoughts?
[tags]chen,fajing,stomp,fzq,knees[/tags]

“My taijiquan is like a garden.  Take what you like.  Plant them in your garden and let them grow.”

– Hong Junsheng

Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method – Volume 1: Theory (page xi)

Robi Sen has posted a video of RGY performing his Compact Cannon First (Er Lu) form. It was back in the year 2000 or so when I first a video of RGY doing taiji, chen taijii to be specific. He was doing a combined performance of laojia and xinjia elements and it was awesome. He had such low stances with thighs parallel to the ground that after seeing that performance, I knew that’s what I wanted to study, but unfortunately there were no chen taiji instructors in the area.

Not until 2005 or so did I really start appreciating his gonfu. I started to see beyond the low stances and focus on the subtle movements involving his kua. He wasn’t shift weight from leg to leg, but transferring from kua to kua, and you could definitely see the “folding” of the crease.

Ren Guangyi doing Xinjia elements in 2000

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0ed0gFOPEE

There’s actually quite a bit of discussion surrounding the kua lately. Internal Arts IA has graciously posted an interview with CZH that was 2 years in the making! Formosa Neijia has posted a series of articles on Song Kua that reminds me a bit of my thoughts on the relationship between the hips, torso and kua. Lots of good discussions and perspectives floating around so check em out

[Revised on 7/24/06 to address clarity questions received privately and modified rating system/scoring]

Specs
Format:           DVD
Performer:      Mark Wasson
Cost w S/H:   $54.95
Shipping:        8 Days
Website:         World Chen Tai Chi Videos              

Production Quality (3/5)
The DVD arrived in a small audio CD style casing, not the Long DVD Box case that movies come in.  The DVD labeling is printed using the HP LightScribe technology, which was quite a nice touch and the first disk I’ve received like this!

Nice menu system with chapter point marking for each movement (32 in total).  Video is clear and easy to distinguish as movement is done against a white background.  Sound was average with minor ambient noise and echoes.  Showed multiple angles for some applications.

Content (2/5)
Each chapter consisted of movement demonstration, then application demonstration. The movement demonstration was clear and generally shown one time, sometime emphasizing twining and opening/closing of the body.  Application demonstrations were sometimes repeated in slow motion.

The “attacker” did not put too much energy behind the attacks, often moving very slowly or holding out the arm in order for the demonstration to be performed.

The usage of elbow strikes and wrist qinna were heavily emphasized, often resulting in the same elbow strike, wrist qinna, elbow qinna, shoulder qinna, take down for multiple movements. For instance, similar repeat applications were shown for lazy tie coat, single whip, twist knee brush step, etc. More variety would have been appreciated.

COMMON AND OFTEN REPEATED APPLICATION:

Left Hand (LH) grabs attacker’s left arm at one’s shoulder height, Right Hand (RH) sweeps under at attacker’s left arm [Qinna using shoulder if necessary][elbow strike if necessary], right arm open sweeping technique to assist in take down.

Did not show any movement transition applications. For instance, the transition between Six Sealings, 4 Closing to Single Whip.

A majority of the movments that consisted of one or more subcomponents, ie walking obliquely has 4 subcomponents, showed disjoint applications for each of the subcomponents instead of a continuous flow of attack, counter, counter-attack sequences.  For example, walking obliquely showed a deflection, however neither the transition application between the deflection and the shoulder stroke, nor the shoulder stroke and hook hand was shown.  This causes me to question the meaning of the sequencing as a whole if disjoint applications/movements are emphasized.

Near the beginning of the video, the following point is emphasized:

It’s very important that you focus where your hands are. Since your hands are here, the action happens here.

Perhaps this is the reason why disjoint applications are demonstrated? Again, I question the meaning of the movement as a whole if a continuous, flowing application is not shown for the duration of the whole movement.

Again, consider the movment walking obliquely (for a visual, see timing (1:48 to 2:02) of CXW demonstrating the movement).  First off, the application is shown with a differing starting position than the end of White Crane Spreads Wings. If so, why even do White Crane? If an application cannot be shown for the transition of White Crane to Walking Obliquely, then why have them in that sequence?

As a comparison, in my previous review of the Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan Long Form DVD, it was noted that Yang Jun showed application FOR ALL OF THE TRANSITIONS, explaining why the transitions moved as such and why one movement follows another.

Price (2/5)
Most martial arts videos are priced around $50, so this is pretty standard pricing, however based on my feedback regarding the content, I think it’s quite expensive given the negatives.

Overall (2/5)
The focus on disjoint applications instead of continuous flows of attack, counter, counter-attack applications and multiple repeats of similar applications weigh heavily on my overall review of this DVD.  However, by emphasizing disjoint applications, the video showed how chen taiji movements could be broken down into common elements.  But for something defined as “Secret Fighting Applications” I expected more.