Ha Ha Chi Tea, I've Never Heard That One Before
So I've been studying martial arts for quite a few years. I started to study Chinese martial arts when I was 37 (in September) and I'm now 44 so that means I've been doing this for... holy! Seven Years?!?! Well, there were a few breaks in those seven years where I didn't go to class for several months at a time but just for the sake of keeping the story straight in my head, we'll say I've been doing this for seven years. Two of those early years were spent studying Wushu but after a back injury and some time away from practice I decided to start studying the internal martial arts. Most of you will probably think of Tai Chi but the world of internal martial arts is much bigger than that. Since I seem to have a bit of a passion for martial arts and people like to ask me questions about Tai Chi I thought I would include a few posts on my blog about Tai Chi from my perspective. Keep in mind that I'm a student and will be for life so my understanding of martial arts today may not be entirely correct and I always welcome discussion about martial arts especially if there are new ideas and concepts that I haven't explored or different perspectives. This is the "art" portion of martial arts and it's a part that I enjoy. New or different understandings shared always help us to grow.
Here's something that I get all the time: "So Tai Chi, that's the thing that old guys do right? The really slow sorta dance in silky pyjamas? How is that a martial art?" Well let's see if I can try to explain this. Tai Chi is an "Internal Martial Art" so it does look very different from Karate, Tae Kwon Do and even Wushu (Kung Fu). The thing that makes Tai Chi a martial art is that it is practiced and performed with martial intent but it goes beyond the traditional dimensions of combat in it's philosophy. So let's talk about the concept of martial intent first. Martial intent means essentially fighting. We perform a movement, technique or a phrase (series of movements) with the intent of defeating an opponent in combat. I know that this is difficult to believe when you see some old guy in the park moving very slowly practicing Tai Chi (or Taiji or better yet Tai Chi Chuan, it all means the same thing) but that old dude will probably twist you up and drop you like a bad habit before you can even blink. Tai Chi has to be practiced slowly for many reasons. In my opinion, the biggest reason is that the movements are much more complex than they appear and doing them quickly in practice means that you cannot possibly train your body to move and behave properly to get the most power and energy from the movement. It would be like saying you want to eat a parfait but when you get one you only eat the whipped cream on top and throw the rest away. I think that a lot of martial art practice only scratches the surface of what is possible and although some styles will push the physical limits of the human body Tai Chi and the internal martial arts set no limits but instead are vehicles for us to use in discovering and overcoming all of our own limitations in all aspects of our lives... but let's not get too deep. Let's keep focused on martial intent.
To get an idea of what I mean about the complexity of Tai Chi movements take the typical opening movement of a Tai Chi form as an example. A typical Tai Chi opening movement, from an external observer's perspective appears to be simply lifting your arms straight out in front of you in a zombie like manner and then lowering them slowly while bending your knees slightly. How tough can that be? You have no idea! The typical Tai Chi opening stance employs a concept that we call wu-ji. Wu-ji is a philosophy of finding a void within your body as a starting point to build energy. The creation of energy is not mystical, it's scientific (we'll get into that shortly) and there is a good reason to start with a void. If Yin and Yang represent the opposing energies, think of wu-ji as the absence of these energies. If you're into yoga or meditation you might think of this as the Still Point. From a physiological perspective, in Tai Chi, the wu-ji stance is simply letting go of tension but not falling to a gelatinous puddle on the floor. It's also not a balance of yin and yang, it's finding a point where there are no opposing energies in your body. There is no tension and no relaxation, you just are. If you want to paint a picture, you start with a blank canvass. If you want to build the most energy possible it's best to start with no energy. This images has much more to it but maybe the top two or three objects will help you to visualize what I'm talking about. Tai Chi (Tai Ji below) is a systematic construction of energy built on Wu Ji and the energies are balanced upon a point of convergence called Liang Yi which is not a straight line and I might add that these objects would provide an even better visual representation if they where spherical rather than circular... but I digress.
So this is where the martial intent comes into play. If you only do the movement without intent it isn't martial arts. It's called dancing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with dancing. It's a great form of exercise and it's a lot of fun but it isn't martial arts. So the intent of the opening stance in the yang style 24 form is essentially to slam your opponent into the ground. I know what you're thinking. There is no way that some old dude can slam a person into the ground with such a simple movement. I would at this time like to introduce you to Master Fu Wing-fei. If you want to see what I'm talking about just check out this video of Master Fu Wing-fei demonstrating the applications of many Tai Chi movements. The first 14 seconds is all you need to see for the purpose of this discussion but I know you'll watch the whole thing.
So just think about how your body must move differently to slam someone to the ground with such a simple movement. It's certainly not just lifting your arms and then lowering them. Your core will have to be engaged. The muscles in your abdomen will have to work hard to pull your body downward. You need to relax your body in a downward way so that your weight moves in a downward wave that carries your opponent with it. You need to keep your arms relaxed like water so as not to give your opponent an indication that you are taking action and trigger a reflex in them. A trained fighter can react in the blink of an eye to the smallest indication of a counter movement. The beauty of the relaxed and flowing movements and techniques used in Tai Chi is that experienced fighters won't get that feedback until it's too late and they are already on the ground... if the Tai Chi movement is done properly. There is also an exchange of energy that takes place if Tai Chi movements.
Now we get to the science part! Think of Newton's third law: "When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body." Now for me, this is where Tai Chi becomes an internal martial art. When we traditionally think about the "bodies" that Newton refers to in relation to a combat situation we think about ourselves and our opponent. That's good and you can go a long way to understanding the martial techniques available to you by thinking only in these two traditional combat dimensions. But Tai Chi philosophy goes beyond that. We look further out as well as further in. Looking further out we have the ground that we stand on. So when an opponent engages me in combat I've thought about the movement of my body as a whole and the movement of my opponent, if I want an advantage, can I utilize the energy of an additional body by exerting force to get an opposing force working in my favour? Tai Chi techniques involve directing force (energy) into the ground by way of our stances and the alignment of our bodies. What about the air around me? Is that something I can also use? maybe not the same way I use the ground but if I act externally on the air and think about the components of my own body I can separate and segregate the components within my own body so that I can apply Newton's third law to myself and create additional energy beyond the raw physical capabilities of my muscles and my body as a single unit. Just because there is nothing to my left doesn't mean that I can't push there to create force within my own body through the alignment of my joints and contraction of muscles. So, yes you can create multiple forces and direct them using Tai Chi techniques and simple science. Is it easy? Not even a little! That's why we have to practice.
This is why Tai Chi is practiced slowly. Our minds can't process all of the information that we need to process in understanding our movement in relation to martial intent. So we practice slowly and we open ourselves up to thinking beyond the two dimensions of traditional combat. We train our bodies slowly so that setting Newtonian bodies in motion which will create force for us to direct becomes a reflex and not something that requires such intense concentration.
So I hope that helps you understand Tai Chi a little bit better and hopefully it's not just a slow pyjama dance anymore.
Here's something that I get all the time: "So Tai Chi, that's the thing that old guys do right? The really slow sorta dance in silky pyjamas? How is that a martial art?" Well let's see if I can try to explain this. Tai Chi is an "Internal Martial Art" so it does look very different from Karate, Tae Kwon Do and even Wushu (Kung Fu). The thing that makes Tai Chi a martial art is that it is practiced and performed with martial intent but it goes beyond the traditional dimensions of combat in it's philosophy. So let's talk about the concept of martial intent first. Martial intent means essentially fighting. We perform a movement, technique or a phrase (series of movements) with the intent of defeating an opponent in combat. I know that this is difficult to believe when you see some old guy in the park moving very slowly practicing Tai Chi (or Taiji or better yet Tai Chi Chuan, it all means the same thing) but that old dude will probably twist you up and drop you like a bad habit before you can even blink. Tai Chi has to be practiced slowly for many reasons. In my opinion, the biggest reason is that the movements are much more complex than they appear and doing them quickly in practice means that you cannot possibly train your body to move and behave properly to get the most power and energy from the movement. It would be like saying you want to eat a parfait but when you get one you only eat the whipped cream on top and throw the rest away. I think that a lot of martial art practice only scratches the surface of what is possible and although some styles will push the physical limits of the human body Tai Chi and the internal martial arts set no limits but instead are vehicles for us to use in discovering and overcoming all of our own limitations in all aspects of our lives... but let's not get too deep. Let's keep focused on martial intent.
To get an idea of what I mean about the complexity of Tai Chi movements take the typical opening movement of a Tai Chi form as an example. A typical Tai Chi opening movement, from an external observer's perspective appears to be simply lifting your arms straight out in front of you in a zombie like manner and then lowering them slowly while bending your knees slightly. How tough can that be? You have no idea! The typical Tai Chi opening stance employs a concept that we call wu-ji. Wu-ji is a philosophy of finding a void within your body as a starting point to build energy. The creation of energy is not mystical, it's scientific (we'll get into that shortly) and there is a good reason to start with a void. If Yin and Yang represent the opposing energies, think of wu-ji as the absence of these energies. If you're into yoga or meditation you might think of this as the Still Point. From a physiological perspective, in Tai Chi, the wu-ji stance is simply letting go of tension but not falling to a gelatinous puddle on the floor. It's also not a balance of yin and yang, it's finding a point where there are no opposing energies in your body. There is no tension and no relaxation, you just are. If you want to paint a picture, you start with a blank canvass. If you want to build the most energy possible it's best to start with no energy. This images has much more to it but maybe the top two or three objects will help you to visualize what I'm talking about. Tai Chi (Tai Ji below) is a systematic construction of energy built on Wu Ji and the energies are balanced upon a point of convergence called Liang Yi which is not a straight line and I might add that these objects would provide an even better visual representation if they where spherical rather than circular... but I digress.
So this is where the martial intent comes into play. If you only do the movement without intent it isn't martial arts. It's called dancing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with dancing. It's a great form of exercise and it's a lot of fun but it isn't martial arts. So the intent of the opening stance in the yang style 24 form is essentially to slam your opponent into the ground. I know what you're thinking. There is no way that some old dude can slam a person into the ground with such a simple movement. I would at this time like to introduce you to Master Fu Wing-fei. If you want to see what I'm talking about just check out this video of Master Fu Wing-fei demonstrating the applications of many Tai Chi movements. The first 14 seconds is all you need to see for the purpose of this discussion but I know you'll watch the whole thing.
So just think about how your body must move differently to slam someone to the ground with such a simple movement. It's certainly not just lifting your arms and then lowering them. Your core will have to be engaged. The muscles in your abdomen will have to work hard to pull your body downward. You need to relax your body in a downward way so that your weight moves in a downward wave that carries your opponent with it. You need to keep your arms relaxed like water so as not to give your opponent an indication that you are taking action and trigger a reflex in them. A trained fighter can react in the blink of an eye to the smallest indication of a counter movement. The beauty of the relaxed and flowing movements and techniques used in Tai Chi is that experienced fighters won't get that feedback until it's too late and they are already on the ground... if the Tai Chi movement is done properly. There is also an exchange of energy that takes place if Tai Chi movements.
Now we get to the science part! Think of Newton's third law: "When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body." Now for me, this is where Tai Chi becomes an internal martial art. When we traditionally think about the "bodies" that Newton refers to in relation to a combat situation we think about ourselves and our opponent. That's good and you can go a long way to understanding the martial techniques available to you by thinking only in these two traditional combat dimensions. But Tai Chi philosophy goes beyond that. We look further out as well as further in. Looking further out we have the ground that we stand on. So when an opponent engages me in combat I've thought about the movement of my body as a whole and the movement of my opponent, if I want an advantage, can I utilize the energy of an additional body by exerting force to get an opposing force working in my favour? Tai Chi techniques involve directing force (energy) into the ground by way of our stances and the alignment of our bodies. What about the air around me? Is that something I can also use? maybe not the same way I use the ground but if I act externally on the air and think about the components of my own body I can separate and segregate the components within my own body so that I can apply Newton's third law to myself and create additional energy beyond the raw physical capabilities of my muscles and my body as a single unit. Just because there is nothing to my left doesn't mean that I can't push there to create force within my own body through the alignment of my joints and contraction of muscles. So, yes you can create multiple forces and direct them using Tai Chi techniques and simple science. Is it easy? Not even a little! That's why we have to practice.
This is why Tai Chi is practiced slowly. Our minds can't process all of the information that we need to process in understanding our movement in relation to martial intent. So we practice slowly and we open ourselves up to thinking beyond the two dimensions of traditional combat. We train our bodies slowly so that setting Newtonian bodies in motion which will create force for us to direct becomes a reflex and not something that requires such intense concentration.
So I hope that helps you understand Tai Chi a little bit better and hopefully it's not just a slow pyjama dance anymore.
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