Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Glib

https://youtu.be/Prtux8S7ITw?si=wQMe4UE



I wonder why is there so much glibness in an advanced democracy?  I have met so many people who treat even something like this so simplistically! Is it simply your perception that turning from the hips is the way to do it? Watching the befuddled faces seems to echo that.  A simple experiment of turning above the pelvis and then below the pelvis, as shown, would test the veracity of whether one feels something or feels nothing.  


Isn't it also medical evidence that the pelvis/hips are significant joints in the body? Isn't it also a mechanical fact that “fulcrum” capability differs depending on distance factors? Accepting that evidence, isn't it logical reasoning that tells us the hips cannot turn by themselves but need to be powered by something else?  


Because your feet are so close together in this case,  the hips turn by first turning the waist, which then turns the hips....the reverse order cannot work.   In the case of taking a more extensive, sometimes much larger step size, isn't it then the pushing down of the feet generating power into the legs that turn the hips?  


Glib does indeed win superficially. If I had to guess, it is just more accessible for people to eschew logic and as well to be simplistic, aka glib in some explanation, and say, "The hips generate all movement".

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Is it internal or not?

 
 
 
 

 
My question to a Tai Chi instructor in 1977: "Can you show me an "internal" movement? He said: I'm doing it, but you can't see "internal movement."

How do you know you are doing "internal"? Well, you CAN see "internal" movement on Master Hwa since he does not wear one of those Tai Chi uniforms so big it makes a tentmaker envious. So, if you can see it on Master Hwa, but some teachers say you can't catch it on them, others, or yourself, how do you know? Why not ask why you can't see it instead of "believing" a teacher?   Then, ask what can I do to "get it"?


 In Classical Tai Chi, you know that you are doing "internal" by self-examination (seeing) where the movement originates in your body's torso. You know whether anyone is doing "internal" by examining (seeing) their movements. You can observe these things in your body, but as you progress, you can feel (tactile) whether the movement originates inside or outside the torso.


Master Wu Chien Chuan passed this on. Every move has to have yin and yang (not moving and moving) parts of the body, and those are either in the torso (internal), or they are not (external). The moving and not moving parts form a "junction" called a Yin/Yang pair. One part of the "pair" moves, and the other does not.


Much Tai Chi says it is "internal," but ask yourself the following question when you see it: Is the movement originating in the torso or an extremity outside the torso, such as arms, legs, etc.? You also have to reckon with the fact that any "extremity" is the furthest point or limit of something and that internal is situated on the inside.