Taijiquan or kung fu? | ||
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External martial artist
Some students have prior experience in martial
arts when they start learning taijiquan.
Usually they trained externally (judo,
karate, ju jitsu, aikido, wing chun etc).
They are well accustomed to practice,
rigorous training and combat.
Traditional model
With many martial arts there is a heavy emphasis upon hard training.
It is all about strength-building,
coordination, mobility,
stamina, accuracy,
whole-body movement,
whole-body power and patience.
This traditional approach was designed to
test the resolve of the student and ensure that
the necessary fundamentals were
established.
Hard training
Press-ups, sit-ups,
circuit training,
weight lifting,
running,
sweating and straining...
High repetitions.
Long gruelling training sessions.
Challenging postures held for sustained periods of time.
This is the external way. But it is not the
taijiquan way.
When you do taijiquan, you shouldn't sweat.
Sweating is a sign that the qi (life energy) is being dissipated.
It comes from tension and it's as if you are depleting your bank account.
Doing taijiquan, you want to accumulate qi, not spend it.
So, if you sweat, you should stop and rest.
(Cheng Man Ching)
Taijiquan is
an art where all the principles of other martial arts have been turned upside
down.
They practice fast, we practice slow.
They practice hard, we practice soft.
(Cheng
Man Ching)
There are many
similarities between the hard and
soft fighting systems; both use animal movements
and forms, for example, and both
incorporate the five elements, but because of the Taoist
influence, the soft arts exhibit a
stronger and deeper relationship with the
natural world.
Since the Taoist concepts are rooted in the most
distant past with the most
ancient beliefs of the
Chinese, it is difficult for the
Western mind to
understand them. Therefore, before you can investigate the
internal martial arts, you must first back
to the very origins of thought in ancient
China.
(Howard Reid)
In many martial arts schools the practice was carried out in secrecy and the
school's very existence was frequently concealed from the authorities. For
example, taijiquan is based on body of theory known to be around 2000 years old
yet it was not revealed until 1750.
(Howard Reid)
Taijiquan way
Taijiquan is physically and mentally
challenging; but in a
very different way to mainstream martial arts.
Long, gruelling training sessions are discouraged.
Overtraining is as bad as not training.
Tired muscles and sore joints are
unhealthy.
Is taijiquan kung fu?
This is a debatable issue.
According to The Sword Polisher's Record: The Way of Kung Fu by Adam Hsu,
taijiquan is certainly a style of kung fu.
Other people disagree; regarding 'kung fu' as merely being the
martial component of taijiquan.
Taijiquan exponents often see kung fu as being synonymous with 'external'.
Not external
Although taijiquan seeks to achieve many of the same goals as external
martial arts, it
is not external.
Hard-style training is external.
Taijiquan adopts a milder approach;
internal.
The difference is not in the aims of Art but in
the manner in which the work is undertaken.
Refer to the Wang Treatise.
High repetition
To gain familiarity with the taijiquan movements, high repetition is
necessary.
This is the same as external.
The difference lies in the time scale.
Be patient
An external person hammers their
body by training intensively; thereby accumulating the required number of
repetitions.
The taijiquan person spreads their
training out.
Instead of long, sustained training sessions, they train
little and often.
It takes far longer to perform the necessary practice, but there is far less
risky of injury and the body is not unduly taxed.
Strength
This same attitude is applied to strength-building.
Be patient. Give yourself time.
Rest.
Allow your body time to grow and change.
Avoid pushing or forcing an
outcome.
A young boy travelled
across Japan to the school of a famous martial artist.
When he arrived at the dojo he was given an audience by the sensei.
"What do you wish from me?" the master asked.
"I wish to be your student and become the finest karateka in the land," the
boy replied.
"How long must I study?"
"Ten years at least," the master answered.
"Ten years is a long time," said the boy.
"What if I studied twice as hard as all your other students?"
"Twenty years," replied the master.
"Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?"
"Thirty years," was the master's reply.
"How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will
take longer?" the boy asked.
"The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is
only one eye left with which to find the Way."
(Joe Hyams)
Combat skill
Taijiquan combat skills
take a lot of time to develop.
Alongside applications,
striking methods and
grappling skills, the student is also discovering how to
move in a
whole-body, energy efficient manner.
This multi-faceted approach ensures that
the training remains intelligent and
moderate.
There is no scope for overtraining or being
aggressive.
Bad influences
When you read accounts of how
traditional masters trained, it can be tempting to
commit to a punishing regime.
Ask yourself: is this necessary?
Is it even productive?
By being patient, you are following the Taoist
method of not too much and not too little.
Just enough.
The tortoise and the hare
Aesop's fable
The
Tortoise and the Hare captures the difference between taijiquan and
external training very nicely.
The taijiquan training is often slow and steady
whereas external is fast.
Speed becomes a major issue later in the taijiquan
syllabus when the student learns cold
jing and fa jing.
Until then, sensitivity, timing, positioning,
agility and jing are
cultivated.
Running on empty
Modern people are often running on
empty.
They fail to take adequate rest.
Many of the exercise methods they adopt
lead to even greater fatigue.
Stimulants, sugar, caffeine and fatty food enable
the individual to carry on when in fact
the real solution to fatigue is of course
rest.
Training taijiquan as though it were external would only serve to
perpetuate this situation...
20-30 rule
In his own training Sifu Waller aims to practice for no more than 30 minutes
at a time.
His daily routine is staggered - chunks of 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins & 20
mins - throughout the day.
He applies a 20-30 minutes ceiling on most activities: martial
arts, DIY, cleaning, shopping...
Train for no more than 30 minutes and then take a break (even for 5
minutes).
Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Do your work, then step back.
(Lao Tzu)
Worth reading
•
Confusing internal & external training methods
•
External to internal
•
Neijiaquan
(internal martial arts)
•
Technique-based mentality
•
Cross-training martial arts
•
Taijiquan combat
Page created
21 May 2003
Last updated
06 January 2017
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