by twocircles13 on Mon Sep 18, 2023 3:38 pm
I can only talk on this topic from personal experience, so the experiences of others could be very different.
I spent 13 years studying with various Taijiquan teachers learning as much as I could anywhere I could, moving from one to another was really pretty easy. The forms and emphasis might be different, but they were essentially on the same page, regardless of style. When I met up with my Wutan teachers, we started with praying mantis, and progressed through the system. That felt like a different world, one that didn’t follow the rules of tai chi, so it was easy too.
Set aside what you have previously learned.
When I met Chen Zhonghua and he decided to take me on as a student, he asked me to set aside all I had previously learned until I had become proficient in what he had to teach, then I would know how to blend the arts together.
The praying mantis, bagua, baji, and pigua were pretty easy to set aside, since in my mind, they were so different. However, I had studied taijiquan for 13 years, and I thought I knew something about it. Setting this aside has been the biggest obstacle to my progress.
Probably 10 years after starting with Chen Zhonghua, I finally started to seriously clean house of old teachings, habits, and body methods and replacing them with correct ones. I estimate probably 80 to 90 percent of what I thought I knew about taijiquan was wrong. Specifically, there were incorrect key principles and body methods that corrupted everything else. Once I had dismissed these, I slowly began to make positive progress, but it has not been easy.
Empty your cup
There is the story of the full and empty cup. I think when ever you start with a new teacher you need to start with and empty cup, truly empty.
Simile of the towers
By contrast, my one of my Wutan teachers told me the simile of the towers. He said each martial art is like a tower. Some towers are taller than others having more skill, but the height of a tower is difficult to see from the ground. A lot of students spend their time running from tower to tower, running up a few stories running down and moving on to the next one but never reaching the top on any. They end up with a broad base, but never any high level skills.
At the top of some of towers, you can see the height of other towers. And, there are bridges and zip-lines to some of the neighboring towers. That is, you can bring the skill learned in your art and start at the same or a little lower level in a neighboring art, but you don't really know until you get there.
Then, he said, "Northern Chinese martial arts are all sons of the same mother." They are neighboring towers. This is a premise of the Wutan system that arranges the teaching sequence from Liu Yunqiao’s repertoire in a synergistic manner, one teaching this skill best and another theching that skill best, one building upon the strengths of another.
The 80/20 rule
Another perspective, years later, my friend, Steve, had designed his own martial training system based on the premise of the 80/20 rule. He said, "At least 80 percent of all effective martial arts are the same, so I focus on teaching my students that 80 percent." After mulling this over for a while, I responded, "So, the competitive advantage of each martial art, if any, is found in the 20 percent that is different." He said, "Yes, but many martial arts today focus on that 20 percent and cannot use it, because they have not built the foundation of the 80 percent."
All of his students are phenomenal fighters. When he and I both moved from that area, two of his students became students of Chen Zhonghua and have been able to make good progress. Others started their own martial art schools and so on.
Take aways
Take away what you will. Here are some of the lessons I've learned related to changing teachers or arts.
One must go into a new art or even to a new teacher with an empty cup, otherwise nothing can be learned. So, I think Chen Zhonghua's advice to set aside what I thought I knew was sound. Had I treated what I was learning from him as an entirely new art instead of am advanced level of what I had learned, I would have saved myself years of frustration. Wutan kind of built this into the system.
I have also began to see northern Chinese martial arts as brother and sister arts to taijiquan. Instead of the 80/20 Rule that applies to all martial arts, it is more like 90/10 among CMA and 95/5 to Northern CMA, including CIMA.
The other arts I had learned have been corrupted forever. Corrupted or enhanced, I don't know. They all have a Chen Style Practical Method flavor to them now. If I found a teacher of another martial art from whom I'd like to learn, I'd be hard pressed to truly empty my cup at this point.
Edit: Chen Fake taught students individually rather than in a group. Since most of his students were already martial artists of some experience level, he would start them where they were and build off what they already knew.
Last edited by
twocircles13 on Mon Sep 18, 2023 9:08 pm, edited 5 times in total.