Wu Tai Chi, anyone a fan?

[morning dew]

 He wants us to stay critical of ourselves and our practice and humble and open minded so none of us fall into the "my style is way better than your style" trap that some practitioners fall into. This way we can make use of some of the great practices that our teacher may be lacking in.

 

Sounds like a good teacher to me.

[GreytoWhite]

I beg to differ, to a degree. There are excellent DVDs that explain every tiny detail; they have the advantage that you can watch them over and over again - something impossible with a live teacher's explanations.

 

You can use a mirror or video camera for watching yourself. Some DVD instructors even offer that you can send them your videos for feedback and sometimes ranking.

 

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Studying a martial art is always self-study after all, IME. Instructors are only there to serve as an example and give you some guidance.

 

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Aye studying martial arts is always self study but a good internals instructor will do far more than provide an example and guidance. Zhan zhuang or taiji zhuang - whatever you wanna call it in your art - is painstaking and exact. If a teacher does not provide such correction regularly in class it's probably not worth going. If there are too many people for the instructor to "get to you" then it's probably not worth going. If I wanted just an example and some guidance then a DVD would be a great resource but it would not provide me with the input to correct myself within a centimeter or so regardless of how many mirrors I had. Also, some instructors are grandiose and claim things that they don't truly know. Martial arts tricks and martial arts skill are two different things and it is sometimes hard to discern one from the other.

[Wu Ming Jen]

I am a fan of Tai Chi Chuan family styles Chen, Yang and Wu. My second teacher taught all three styles plus the Cheng Man Ching form.

 

I currently practice Wudang Kung Fu (3 internal Styles Ba Gua Chang, Hsing Chuan. Tai Chi Chuan (non pinyin English names may give away my age) 

 

Love the old video footage.

 

Best of luck you may find application is the same even with a very different look from different styles. The energy basis is the same, rollback is moving force backwards and down regardless to the way it "looks". in a form or with free fighting

[morning dew]

Wang Peisheng is well respected by the Wu community around here. Here also is a link showing his short form, which is pretty close to the way we do it too:

 

 

I thought this was great to watch. He is very smooth and elegant, and very relaxed.

 

I also found this quite fascinating. (I still haven't watched all of it.) I've never seen anything like it before; I had no idea (before this thread) that things like this even went on in tai chi.

 

 

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[GreytoWhite]

I would take that applications video with a boulder of salt. That's one of the worst things I've ever seen. I learned a lot of striking to setup qinna then turn the lock into a finishing blow or shuaijiao. This is... not what they teach those invested in fighting. Onassis Parungao is a tajiquan teacher who also has learned Hung Gar and has competed in MMA.

[morning dew]

I would take that applications video with a boulder of salt. That's one of the worst things I've ever seen. I learned a lot of striking to setup qinna then turn the lock into a finishing blow or shuaijiao. This is... not what they teach those invested in fighting.

 

Ooops, fair enough. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Onassis Parungao is a tajiquan teacher who also has learned Hung Gar and has competed in MMA.

 

 

Hung Gar is quite a laugh, IMO. I tried it out for a few months (many, many years ago) and, even though I'm nearly six foot, I was easily the smallest one there by quite a long way lol I'm surprised he combines tai chi with Hung Gar. From what I can remember from doing the latter, it was all about intent and punching straight through the opponent's guard, as if it wasn't there, without worrying about blocking them or pushing the guard out of the way.

 

I thought the video was quite fascinating, especially when he was talking about going in the reverse way to shift the opponent and also about being neutral.

Edited May 5, 2017 by morning dew

[Taomeow]

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Edited May 5, 2017 by Taomeow

[GreytoWhite]

Ooops, fair enough. Thanks for the heads up.

 

 

Hung Gar is quite a laugh, IMO. I tried it out for a few months (many, many years ago) and, even though I'm nearly six foot, I was easily the smallest one there by quite a long way lol I'm surprised he combines tai chi with Hung Gar. From what I can remember from doing the latter, it was all about intent and punching straight through the opponent's guard, as if it wasn't there, without worrying about blocking them or pushing the guard out of the way.

 

I thought the video was quite fascinating, especially when he was talking about going in the reverse way to shift the opponent and also about being neutral.

 

Some of the most skilled people I have ever encountered were Hung Gar and Guang Ping Yang taiji guys. That's actually an entire playlist of applications from his YouTube channel. Hung Gar has a lot of good tactics and the Iron Wire stuff is what I hear repeatedly changes people's perception of soft and hard.

[morning dew]

That's fascinating. I had no idea you could blend things like that successfully. I shall make some more investigations on his channel.

[GreytoWhite]

There are certain elements of certain arts that don't blend. Dynamic tension stuff is usually looked down upon by internalists but if one already knows how to relax fully then the dynamic tension practices can be useful. I pushed hands with a multiple decade experienced martial artist who had done kendo, jujutsu, Guang Ping Yang taiji, Hung Gar, and more. His power was mysterious thanks to the combination of dynamic tension and yi changes.