Good exercise but it is not Tai Chi

How do you remove the martial side of Tai Chi and still train Tai Chi?  How do you remove the internal of Tai Chi and still have Tai Chi? There is a real inconsistency here that no one has ever managed to resolve for me.   How do you present Tai Chi without giving coherent and comprehensive reasoning for it being internal?

How do you say that what you do is for "health" minus martial intent in the light of many Tai Chi masters, living and dead who with martial intent lived to ripe old age in the springtime of their lives?  Witness, Grandmasters Young Wabu, Master Stephen Hwa.  How do you resolve an obvious conundrum in being proficient in Tai Chi by not being able to articulate and demonstrate why what you do is internal?

Why put people off by telling them "what we do is for health, not for fighting"?  How do you say "knowing the benefits a punch is doing for your heart and back" is more valuable than as you say "I'm not interested in learning how to punch someone"?  How do you "project" energy from your arm by visualizing your heart for instance?  It seems to me that certainly  in one sense that we are talking about the same thing but from "external" and not "internal" perspective.   That thing is "martial intent" or the lack thereof. How do you justify telling me that what you do is the only thing "good for health" and that what I do is merely learning to punch people?

Apart from sparring under relatively controlled conditions and doing "external" Tai Chi, I cannot remember the last time I "punched" someone during Tai Chi. How would you justify making cutting motions with a knife for  health purposes only while ignoring that the "intent" of a knife is to cut something?  How do you explain the fact that one has to know which part of their arm and in this case the fist where the internal energy has to be moved beyond ("to project").  This is called martial intent.  How do you tell me you have "intent" when what you do is not internal movement to begin with?

Take a look at about 48 seconds into this video.  VIDEO  You will see an annotation at about 50 seconds which talks about Yin/Yang and junction. How do you stretch out your arms to full extent in a "punch", with the  arms really to the lateral sides of the body without intent and say that it is "internal"?  Try this experiment which is somewhat based on what you see Master Hwa doing.  "Punch" ahead of you in the air by flexing your arm back and forth at the elbow, elbows out to the side or even pointed downward, extend the arm fully each time as you see him do.  He is talking about the "junction" being at the shoulder in this one. You can do it really fast, flex/extend......... Pretty easy right? That is an "external" movement, the junction is at the shoulder as well.

  Now hold one arm directly in front of the "centerline" of your body, elbow down and arm not extended yet as though you are going to punch.  Master Hwa does this and moves the arm with no flexing at the elbow, just a stationary part and a moving part using the core only.  We will experiment a little differently. Try to extend/flex, extend/flex as fast as you did "externally" with  your arm fully  in front of the body as he does, keeping those guidelines in mind.  Junction is now at the core and try to do what Master Hwa did, just extend/flex at the elbow very fast with arm in front as he does. Pretty difficult yes?  The reason you cannot extend your arm, "straighten" it without some difficulty, is because you are "engaging" your core muscles, abdomen and back.

One cannot do "internal" and external at the same time.  You can do one then do the other but the two cannot operate at the same time.  In this event, one would have to setup the parameters for external (elbow and arm not directly in front of centerline and more toward lateral sides of body) to successfully be able to extend the arm fully and easily once more.

What is behind these true internal movements that Hwa demonstrates other than martial intent to project internal energy? How does moving arm at shoulder junction benefit your back, spine, heart, etc.?  If real internal only comes from such structure, alignment, and projection as I have outlined then how can you begin to say what you do is even good Tai Chi and not just merely good exercise? What is "internal" about holding your arm to the side and flexing it at the elbow?  So what is the problem with using "martial intent" considering that what one does is not Tai Chi to begin with?  In any event with those parameters in mind, you cannot have intent without internal already in place. Reason is very simple and since it is not Tai Chi unless it is internal,  do you have it?

What happened to Yang Shao Hou Taiji?

The question I asked some time ago and in the context of a series of articles on Yang Cheng Fu’s Taiji, was “What is Yang Shao Hou’s Taiji”?  Just yesterday, I  received a very nice letter and attachment from Michael DeMarco who is the publisher of the prestigious  Journal of Asian Martial Arts:

“Hello Jim,

…Because of your professional involvement in taijiquan, 

we are sending you this attached article gratis for  your own reference. We welcome any article ideas you may wish us to consider for possible publication…”

Xiong Style Taiji in Taiwan: Historical Development

Author: Michael DeMarco — Date: Vol. 18 No. 3, 2009 

Copyright: All Rights Reserved 

Here we have Yang Taiji that is not heard of but is nevertheless is an evolution of Yang Shao Hou’s Taiji.  Xiong Yanghe is listed as a disciple of Yang Shao Hou who emigrated to Taiwan.  He was a published writer of Taiji and DeMarco’s article also includes Xiong’s writings, “disciples writings, Taiwanese websites, personal observations and photographic observations”.  

What I found of particular interest is DeMarco’s use of English information that gives us a look into the socio-political background of the earliest Yang Taiji.  Here we have a clearly shown link to Yang Shao Hou, the lesser known brother of Yang Cheng Fu. In my humble opinion,  it is certainly a welcome respite from  looking at all the little criticized and varied  manifestations of  Cheng Fu’s incredibly popular (just for health) art.

Xiong himself as well as his teacher’s in the Yang Family had much to contribute to Taiji, but little known is the influence that their time and circumstances had on their Taiji as well.  This provides a better map of Taiji territory since that is what is really needed  because we do not want to get stuck on half baked notions about the art, its founders or contributors.  As a work in progress, or better yet a  work in process, we eventually start to understand  that our perspective is in continual flux but also hopefully in continual development.

Understandably the incredible amount of  as DeMarco puts it: “…nearly incomprehensible violence from the downfall of the Qing Dynasty to the founding of the PRC…” was an overwhelming influence on early Yang Taiji.  China was once referred to as “sick man of Asia” because of  not only the social unrest but also the many foreign incursions. I believe DeMarco when he says that Taiji history in China is “…influenced by a sense of nationalism and (an overall ideal) of self-strengthening for the country itself…”.  With these factors in mind we begin to see a glimpse of  what Yang’s Taiji evolved from .   Certainly Yang Lu Chan gave us an art that was used for fighting but what present day practitioners largely fail to comprehend is those fighting functions have a profound impact on the way they practice the art. 

As we have said before, taking the art that Yang Cheng Fu practiced, removing the martial influence and watering it down even further to various ethereal offshoots does a practitioner little good. In many cases these diluted versions may be harmful to health.  It appears from DeMarco’s article that he has captured the flavor of what Xiong taught as a fighting art that is also good for health benefits.

As Classical Taiji is being taught by Stephen Hwa and his disciples, it is also good for martial purposes, health and longevity.  The vast majority of practitioners in the world today under Yang Style and the influence of Yang Cheng Fu’s “self-strengthening” are practicing Tai Chi that bears little to no resemblance to that of Yang Lu Chan.  How can it, with no recognition of the principles provided by its martial origins?