A copy or a way? | ||
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No consensus
There are many, many different schools of
tai chi.
Each claims to be teaching the authentic art. Who is correct?
Providing the school is following the dictates of
The Tai Chi Classics, they may all be
right...
The art
Tai chi is built on
principles,
biomechanics, martial applications
and fitness concerns.
It adheres to the teachings of Taoism.
By practicing the art you are in fact utilising
and applying
Taoism in a concrete, tangible,
functional way.
Chinese culture
To understand why
tai chi schools teach differently,
you need to know a little about Chinese culture.
One way to understand Chinese culture is
to compare Japanese and Chinese theatre.
Japanese theatre
In Japan, both Noh and Kabuki are subtle, nuanced and require
attention from
the audience.
The audience quietly watches and appreciates the artistry.
Chinese theatre
Chinese theatre is a loud, crashing, garish affair.
The costumes are brightly coloured, the antics entertaining and the music is
highly discordant.
In contrast with the Japanese, the Chinese audience are not really watching
the show.
There are food hawkers, groups of friends talking, people jeering or
shouting - the whole affair is
noisy and
distracted.
Everyone is doing their own thing.
The gatekeeper in the
capital city of Sung became such an expert mourner after his father's death,
and so emaciated himself with fasts and austerities, that he was promoted to
high rank in order that he might serve as a model of ritual observance.
As a result of this, his imitators so deprived themselves that half of them
died. The others were not promoted.
(Chuang Tzu)
Tradition
It is quite common in tai chi classes for students to 'learn'
the pattern of forms by copying.
This traditional approach is perhaps adequate at an
introductory-level, but will prove worthless
in the long-term if the student hopes to gain any
real skill.
Consider: if you heard somebody speaking Hakka and memorised the noises
and could repeat those sounds perfectly, does that mean that you now speak
Chinese?
New starters
It may be argued that the new starter can only copy.
After all, they cannot hope to understand.
This is true.
However, faults should be repeatedly corrected
and the grosser biomechanics underlying each
movement can be illustrated from the onset.
Copying
The problem with copying is that the
imitator has no real idea what they are copying.
They are not sure what to emphasise, what to
prioritise.
There is no sense of meaning.
This is why teaching is more useful than
copying.
Teaching
Showing a single form movement
and breaking the movement down into
components can be very useful.
Example applications and some
explanation concerning body mechanics is vital.
Trace the underlying movements back to the foundation moving
qigong exercises and the student has a real hope of
improving their practice.
Observing
One aspect of learning is our capacity to
observe.
This is linked to perception.
A trained observer can gain a lot through watching whereas the
untrained eye flounders to find meaning.
Internal arts
The problem with learning the internal
arts is that they were deliberately designed to
hide their functionality.
Tai chi forms look innocuous;
and may even possess a dance-like quality.
They look nothing like karate
kata.
Most of the work with the internal arts
takes place beneath the surface.
And the more skilled the instructor demonstrating
the art, the less information there will be for
you to see.
Substance
Even if you succeed in copying the pattern accurately, what about
the substance?
As illustrated above, when speaking Hakka there is far more to the
language than a rote imitation
of sounds.
Tai chi forms are just the same.
Gaining a crude grasp of the pattern may represent a
viable starting place but you cannot stop there.
The pattern represents the beginning of your
learning, not the end.
Barry was telling us a story
about the woman who always cut the end of the ham and somebody asked her why
she did it. She said, "Well I don't know, my mother always did it that way."
And they asked her mother and she said, "I don't know, my mother always did
it." And they asked grandma, and she said, "Well, I did it because otherwise
it wouldn't fit into my biggest pot."
(Chungliang Al Huang)
There is a lot of confusion about what tai chi is...
Mostly everybody is concerned with what form is being done. "Oh, I study
from so and so, and he studies from Master Tsung - or Master Choy - and this
is Ma style and this is the Wu style and this is the
Yang style. What do you
practice?"
I say "I practice the Huang style." My style comes out of all these other
styles,
and I have to develop to the point where it becomes me.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
A copy or a 'way'
Chinese culture was never into 'copying' per se.
It was considered wiser to perform something in a certain
manner/way but not
to copy.
Copying produces uniformity (see socialism).
A
way
Way refers to a method, an
approach, a process, a path, a road.
The way is not a concept. It is scientific, tangible.
If, then. If you do this, then that will happen.
As with all things scientific, the outcome must be
reproducible, consistent and congruent.
The outcome/aim may be the same, but the means/way of achieving the result
can vary considerably.
An edge
The tai chi masters of
old sought diversity and excellence; they wanted to be unique,
unexpected and different.
Their art needed to be surprising, hard to anticipate.
This gave them an edge. The last thing they wanted were the same skills as everyone else.
Yang style?
People may look at different versions
of the Yang style of tai chi and
wonder whether or not they even qualify as Yang style.
There are so many interpretations being taught.
This is a reasonable question.
Yang way
A precise
reproduction of somebody else's practice is necessary for
learning tai chi.
However, at an expert level, it is
counter-productive.
An expert must incorporate their own influences,
insights and proclivities into the art.
Their aim is to perform tai chi in a Yang way. It is not to
copy another Yang practitioner.
Modern Chinese
Take into account ancient Chinese and
socialist Chinese approaches:
each has their merits.
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old;
seek what they sought.
(Basho)
Page created
11 July 1995
Last updated
16 June 2023
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