wayne hansen wrote:When I say tai chi has both methods what u and I consider to be tai chi might differ
I stopped fighting in tournaments in the 70’s because I could not see the value
It has only got worse
I have yet to see Systema proving itself in the MMA but u still see value in it
There is a lot of overlap in our respective understandings regards tai chi. I'd say I agree with at least half of what you've shared here over the years, and mostly those agreements are on the HOW of the thing, so it's unfair to just disregard your ideas on the things I don't agree with. I chalk it up to the different life-paths we've traveled in our 30+ years of practicing tjq. You are a stickler when it comes to forms and your understanding of tjq's fightiness comes, at least in part, from your understanding of how the forms work. The forms are something I don't really care about when it comes to the boxing method. I get the fightiness from the 8 and Five as stand-alone material augmented by Nine Palace Stepping and other footwork because, IME that's all a person needs in order to understand the tactical aspects of the boxing method.
At the same time, though, your understanding of how the form works as a means of accessing the internal method of tjq is very much in line with my own at least in what you've pointed to and hinted at regards the particulars of the form(s) themselves. It's fun watching people talk right past those insights without any pause or enquiry...
I've been reading here long enough to notice consistency in what the 'old guard' at RSF has shown (or not) in their discussing their personal understanding of how this stuff works on a practical level. There are 7 people actively posting here whose tune hasn't changed since I've been on RSF (and a few not actively posting or have since been banned). That's an important thing to watch for. I dunno a word for the kind of dishonesty that's at play when those teaching these arts flip-flop, U-turn, and straight up contradict themselves, and they don't even seem to care. Some of them wear it as a badge. Bless their students...
As one of the non-fighty teachers here once wrote; "Get in the ring and prove it" Yeah, sport combat should never be the goal, but it sure is a good way to test the learning. When I asked how many teachers here, it wasn't rhetorical. John Wang is one of those 7 and his training of others has produced some fighty people who have shown well in competition in their testing the material he teaches.
Getting back to the idea that tai chi has both methods, what I've done with the learning model Souders talks about in that video isn't really compatible with other learning models. I don't believe in techniques or drilling techniques, so that right there is a point of separation between intuitive learning and the other. Neither of 'both methods' is even remotely similar to the learning model I've used in the training of tjq, btw.
Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2024 2:08 pm