Interview with Adam Mizner

[willie]

1. This is a promotional video
2. It only impresses enthusiasts
3. Any number of colliegant wrestlers would ruin this guys day.
4. Truth is found in Dojo’s that grapple, not in compliant half-ass attempted take down’s from a student.
5. The students (i.e enthusiasts) have allowed themselves to be hypnotized because their teacher can do something that they cannot. Because of this, their mindset will not allow them to offer an aggressive attack, because they either fear the consequences, or fear their success.
6. A real teacher cares not about being infallible. A real teacher wants their student to suceed and to be better than him.
7. Given that taijiquan was meant for fighting, it is surely sad that the enthusiasts could care less, and/or willing to accept any lame usage example as fact, and then propagate that to subsequent generations of students.
8. Fajin was never about invisible pushes. Fajin was about shocking strikes as those seen in Er Lu.
9. The method is in-fighting. The fajin is about disrupting the structure, stealing time, attempts to break joints, etc. it is not about pushing people away or hitting them about the head or torso with your fist or elbow. Those learning this method were already expected to understand striking and wrestling, even within the context of weapons. The truth is not what the enthusiasts want to believe.

Try this sometime. Have you and your partner wear a Shaui Jiao jacket or something similarly sturdy. Investigate your long form under these conditions. Allow your partner to take various holds and grips. It will provide insights that the enthusiasts will poo-poo because it does not fit their idea of what taijiquan fighting is about. They only further exhibit their ignorance. Pushing someone away does not end a fight. But, breaking their arm might.

Wow lots of fun here...
O.k. you don't mind if i review this and correct where needed?
But first i have to read your bio to see where your coming from.
17 years Yang, a little Chen and Wu, Favorite fighter, Royce.

LINE
1 there's nothing wrong with promoting your self.
2 hate trip.
3 lots of wrestlers have seen the value of tai chi.
4 half truth and lots of hate.
5 maybe that was your error and now it's haunting you, which is why you have so much hate.
6 no justifiable reason to say that at all.
7 Everyone is on a journy, maybe they like the training, it could be something they lack.
8 So 17 years in yang style and all you say is good is Er Lu. Most people from Yang hate Chen and claim Fajin is just for show?
9 There is lots of good things in that statement and in 8 as well, all leave it alone.

[willie]

You never talked too much about your approach, perhaps we should rewind a bit?

Sure, what about my approach would you like me to talk about? If it isn't relevant to this thread, best not to hijack this thread.

I don't have anything to say, one way or the other, about Mr. Mizner, the topic of this thread.

I don't have any problem with Adams work, over the years we have seen how many students? Most of those students don't
look or act like punks either and some of them are definite brawler types. Derail the thread? No, some other time

[Bao]

5. The students (i.e enthusiasts) have allowed themselves to be hypnotized because their teacher can do something that they cannot. Because of this, their mindset will not allow them to offer an aggressive attack, because they either fear the consequences, or fear their success.

The school situation is actually a bit more complicated. Many students are taught right from the beginning that they can not question a teacher's authority. If it's not outspoken, it's mostly still a part of the atmosphere. You know, stand in line, greet the teacher etc. A teacher always have a dominant, authoritative position. All of the students accepts this relationship. If a students go outside the boundaries of unspoken rules, he will hurt his own relationship with the other students, because as a group, the rules are already fixed and set. If you break the rules in a classroom, you break with the whole group. So in every TMA school, no one will question a teacher except those who don't want to be friends with his classmates.

A real teacher wants their student to suceed and to be better than him.

Exactly. But very, very few teachers teach for the sake of teaching, or only for teaching. They might do it for the kick of being admired or for the money. Just generally speaking, not addressing any person in the thread.

8. Fajin was never about invisible pushes. Fajin was about shocking strikes as those seen in Er Lu.
9. The method is in-fighting. The fajin is about disrupting the structure, stealing time, attempts to break joints, etc. it is not about pushing people away or hitting them about the head or torso with your fist or elbow. Those learning this method were already expected to understand striking and wrestling, even within the context of weapons. The truth is not what the enthusiasts want to believe.

Fajin just means something like "releasing energy". You can release you force into striking, throwing, qinna or use it however you want. Pushing is something you do when you are practicing push hands.

[origami_itto]

Fajin just means something like "releasing energy". You can release you force into striking, throwing, qinna or use it however you want. Pushing is something you do when you are practicing push hands.

Silly Bao! Everybody knows fajin means punch the air and shake a little.

[Bao]

Fajin just means something like "releasing energy". You can release you force into striking, throwing, qinna or use it however you want. Pushing is something you do when you are practicing push hands.

Silly Bao! Everybody knows fajin means punch the air and shake a little.

... I have a very strong opinion about this term/concept. Some people here won't agree with me though...

https://taichithoughts.wordpress.com/20 ... chi-chuan/

[origami_itto]

Fajin just means something like "releasing energy". You can release you force into striking, throwing, qinna or use it however you want. Pushing is something you do when you are practicing push hands.

Silly Bao! Everybody knows fajin means punch the air and shake a little.

... I have a very strong opinion about this term/concept. Some people here won't agree with me though...

https://taichithoughts.wordpress.com/20 ... chi-chuan/

I'm in complete agreement. Others may differ, but there are at least 37 types of Jin identified in taijiquan and you can fa about half of them.

The discussion that finally made me leave Mike Sigman's group was him saying a video of some random dude didn't show fajin, it showed t'i fang, and he refused to acknowledge that CMC's writing explicitly stated that fajin is the second half of t'i fang.

Regarding "releasing energy like shooting an arrow" Adam has another video that frankly blew my mind despite some sub par explanation. Completely changed the way I considered that concept.

[willie]

Regarding "releasing energy like shooting an arrow" Adam has another video that frankly blew my mind despite some sub par explanation. Completely changed the way I considered that concept.

Really? holy cow...I think that's what me and several others have been saying for a very long time.

Oh. the reason why we fajin in the air, is to avoid needing a new partner every few seconds.
I'm mean... how do you replace broken itto's, carbon copy and paste?

[origami_itto]

You hear things for years, and then suddenly they make sense in a way they never did before. Considering the ligaments as the string you're plucking and releasing, I always considered the bow and arrow as more metaphorical, my body should feel like the arrow launching. Now I'm considering myself the bow and string, and the opponent is the arrow. Haven't played with it with a partner yet.

[willie]

You hear things for years, and then suddenly they make sense in a way they never did before. Considering the ligaments as the string you're plucking and releasing, I always considered the bow and arrow as more metaphorical, my body should feel like the arrow launching. Now I'm considering myself the bow and string, and the opponent is the arrow. Haven't played with it with a partner yet.

hahaha double holy cow, you just sealed the coffin on that one.
wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.
you need to humble yourself...

[origami_itto]

Thank you for your constructive remarks.

[Bao]

The discussion that finally made me leave Mike Sigman's group was him saying a video of some random dude didn't show fajin, it showed t'i fang, and he refused to acknowledge that CMC's writing explicitly stated that fajin is the second half of t'i fang.

Well, you don't really need to fajin in order to "fang", or place. You can follow his movement and add your own movement to his momentum. That will have a good effect. You can throw someone quite far only by this more simple method. However, I do agree with that Cheng Manqing himself used Fajing to "fang". I don't remember that he expressed it exactly like you did, but again that was how he did it.

Regarding "releasing energy like shooting an arrow" Adam has another video that frankly blew my mind despite some sub par explanation. Completely changed the way I considered that concept.

Very nice. Indeed very well explained. Yes, you must keep the bow stretched and release directly into your opponent. There can not be any slack. The same goes for a push as well as for a strike. Thank you for sharing. By far the best clip with Mizner I have watched. Just IMHO.

[wayne hansen]

I stopped watching stuff by Adam a long time back because he just didn't impress me
Only watched this because someone insisted I did
Had to reasses his talking is very good
I still think he uses too many tricks on willing dupes but there is hope there

[Bao]

I still think he uses too many tricks on willing dupes but there is hope there

Nothing of that did bother me here. My only criticism right here is that he says "internal stretching [the string]", but offers no practical explanation of what this really means, i.e. how to do it. So what I wonder about is if he really wants people to learn what he teach. I can understand if you don't want to reveal any "secrets", regardless it's about mechanics or principles, in a public vid. But it's the same feeling I always get watching his instructional clips. He says everything except for how to actually do something. But I could say the same about a bunch of other tai chi teachers, so this is meant more as a general reflection about the Tai Chi world more than a criticism towards one single person.

[richardg6]

Nothing of that did bother me here. My only criticism right here is that he says "internal stretching [the string]", but offers no practical explanation of what this really means, i.e. how to do it. So what I wonder about is if he really wants people to learn what he teach. I can understand if you don't want to reveal any "secrets", regardless it's about mechanics or principles, in a public vid. But it's the same feeling I always get watching his instructional clips. He says everything except for how to actually do something.

I like Adam and his students are well trained. These are promotional clips, he wants you to sign up for video classes or go to Thailand. If you watch all his clips you can pull out little pieces of how to. Watch Mark Rasmus videos for more on how to for free.

Since itto is a current student of the video course I would like to hear more about his experience and the class content. Apparently, holding postures and other strengthing qi gong are stressed.

[origami_itto]

Sure, I'm in week eight and it's all body conditioning so far. Warm ups/loosening, five standing postures, two song gong exercises, and a qi gong exercise. I start the form this Sunday.

Now I had previously been practicing an Yiquan set of standing postures and was working on 30 minutes of work in four postures with no problem other than it gets a little boring standing in one place for that long. Following his detailed instructions with his standing postures, I'm currently struggling to maintain for 20 minutes over 5 postures. It's a good struggle, basically I have to stop before I fall down but there's no scary pain, just the normal good kind of bitter. Just very surprising to me to have to basically start over. Every day is leg day now and I can definitely tell that it's improving my knee condition.

I asked him about the video I posted and he said that the "How" is in the course.

One thing that I can say that is different about his material is that he makes it very, very clear that the goal is a transformation of the body and mind. It's very specific conditioning of both to produce the "taiji creature". It's not just a trick or an exercise or a technique that he's using, everything he does is fueled by the specific conditioning. Ting and Song which are attained through the exercises.

According to him, the wrong exercises and practices will produce the wrong kind of conditioning and you'll make no progress. Until a base level of conditioning has been achieved you'll make no progress.

So the relevance to the video in question, the "How" to do the internal stretching, step 1 is "create the taiji creature" so there's no real point to explaining it to anyone who isn't already working on that project.

The explanations he gives in the videos are 100% based on the classics, and he uses the classics to describe them wherever possible, and that's the biggest benefit to the material to me. It takes it away from the "I'm the only source of information!" into the "here's what this means in the classics" and it makes sense. Really helps to understand them better, and as far as I'm concerned, if it's not in the classics, it's not taijiquan.

The video content and access to the FB group with other people working on it and his senior students like Ramzi, Curtis, Stefan, and others, and of course Adam himself are well worth it.It's a new video each week and a great supplement to the work I'm doing with my Sifu, who I can only see twice a month at the moment. They've even spoken about me and determined they can foresee no conflict between their teachings, but if one should arise, I should go with my Sifu's suggestions.

Hope that helps.