bare feet vs. socks vs. shoes

[Taiji fan]

Maybe I'm just having an unpleasant day, but I am having difficulty accepting the responses here where people seem to think that their martial practices, internal or not, have absolutely no relation to the level of strength and fitness in their bodies...

sorry to hear you are having an unpleasant day...but i don't think anyone has decreed that their martial pratice has nothing to do with the level of strength or fitness of their bodies.....as i said previously "looks like people have different definitions of strength, are you referning to strength built up through the mobiliser muscles or the training of the postural muscles or the strength of will power or character" of course we all require a certain amount of muscular strength otherwise we would be slopping around in a bucket unable to stand upright. Perhaps what would be a more accurate statment is the difference between using the mobilisers through tension rather than the postural muscles and body alignment...I haven't mentioned qi at all, simply body mechanics..........and I never said my teacher was old!:boing2:

 

[yilisifu]

I understand your reply, but you stated clearly that people who wear certain types of uniforms do so because they practice "external" martial arts. This is a gross error.

If a Taiji stylist put on, say, a karate uniform, would his/her art suddenly become "external?" Hardly.

What Yiliquan1 is saying is that in training, for instance, when your partner is told to grab your lapel and pull you towards himself, he should do so REALISTICALLY rather than play patty-cake. And if he does grab your lapel and give a good yank, he will own whatever is left of your T-shirt.
This is why we wear very rugged uniforms.

If you are thrown to the ground, your lightweight pants or T-shirt will eventually tear and become very trendy. To avoid such embarassment, we simply prefer a more rugged uniform.

We practice traditional Taijichua, Xingyi, and Bagua. You can't get much more internal than that. But we train until we're soaked with sweat. Training for application of postures/techniques and for self-defense is very realistic and rigorous. For senior students, the attacks are very real. No patty-cake.
Our uniforms have to be able to take the strain of being grabbed, yanked, thrown, and all the rest.

Yiliquan1 is also correct about the musculature having to be able to withstand the force emitted by one's own body. The muscles need not be large but they must become very strong (but also pliable).
Power is emitted through the body and the body must be able to withstand the reaction force it generates.

In any case, this thread started with a question about uniforms and I think we've all made good points and beaten this horse to death.

 

[Taiji fan]

I understand your reply, but you stated clearly that people who wear certain types of uniforms do so because they practice "external" martial arts. This is a gross error.

not exactly what I said...you said you needed a more robust uniform, fine thats your choice....but because karate is external it needs a more robust one...

No patty-cake.

what is this?

 

[East Winds]

Hi Guys,

Couldn't agree more that you need muscular strength in the IMA's. I don't think I ever said you didn't.

BUT you do not require to USE muscular strength in applications. And if someone has managed to grab your lapel, you have already lost the contest so there is little point in continuing. And no, you dont use mobiliser muscles in Zhan Zhuang, you train the stabilisers. That is where internal strength comes from. Transmitting the internal to the external without using strength is the tricky bit!!

Yes, we have gone a bit off topic but it is interesting to hear other opinions about the interpretation of "internal".

Very best wishes

 

[chufeng]

East Winds,

You stated: "if someone has managed to grab your lapel, you have already lost the contest so there is little point in continuing."

No point in continuing?

If someone grabs me, they have given me permission to counter.
MANY ChinNa applications actually start from a grab...
I certainly will not toss my hands in the air and say "Oh well, I'm toast because he's grabbed my lapels...best just take my licks and have done with it."

No sir, I will respond in a different way, I assure you...
It may be an internal strike...it may be an external strike...
It may be a joint lock...it may be a spotting technique...
It may be (pick any number of other responses)...
but it won't be allowing him to kick my *** for free!

Now, on the philosophical side, I should have never been caught with my awareness down...I should have a voided the potential for conflict before it occurred...

:asian:
chufeng

 

[Matt Stone]

Originally posted by East Winds

Couldn't agree more that you need muscular strength in the IMA's. I don't think I ever said you didn't.

Perhaps not in so many words, but how about when you said:

It sounds like you guys use a lot of strength in your training. Whatever happened to 4 ounces can defelct 1000 pounds? Yes I also do Chin Na and full contact sparring with applications, but strength is a definite no no.

And:

How can you execute Fa Jing using strength? It's an oxymoron! The mind is the commander and the body is subserviant to it. If you use strength then you are not practicing taijiquan. You may be doing something that looks like taijiquan, but it will only be an illiusion.

And:

Also if you consider rooting and grounding have ANYTHING to do with muscular strength, then you have a serious misunderstanding of internal arts!! My internal art (and yes I have trained external arts) has a long history and I have a traditional teacher with a pure lineage who would refuse to continue teaching me at the very thought of strength or force being used in ANY situation!!

That does seem to imply that you did not believe muscular strength had any relation whatsoever to IMA...

BUT you do not require to USE muscular strength in applications.

Again, I disagree. The Chinese terms are li (brute strength) and the often overused jing (refined strength, associated with the unification of body mechanics and qi), and maybe it is the semantics we are debating (English being a great technical language for some things, and not so appropriate for others). When I say muscular strength, I refer to the necessary support that the musculoskeletal system provides in the performance of any given martial application. When I say brute strength, I refer to the unrefined "out muscling" of one person by another, larger, stronger person. Perhaps we are both referring to the same thing, just having trouble getting to a common ground with the terminology...

And if someone has managed to grab your lapel, you have already lost the contest so there is little point in continuing.

While in a gunfight I would tend to agree with you, I would wonder just what hand to hand encounters you would think would start off somewhere other than within grabbing range? A huge number of self defense routines begin with the assumption that someone has tried to grab you in some fashion. If you make a "preemptive strike" by hitting the person before they have attempted an attack of some sort (and I'm not referring to striking them as they initiate a strike against you, but if you see someone suspicious and just lay into them in order to beat them to the punch), then you are the attacker, not the defender!

If somone has managed to grab your lapel, what would you do? Stand there and take the beating? I hope not...

And no, you dont use mobiliser muscles in Zhan Zhuang, you train the stabilisers. That is where internal strength comes from. Transmitting the internal to the external without using strength is the tricky bit!!

Interesting, though, that even "internal" strength stems from muscles, eh? Seems "internal" and "external" relate only to the application of muscular strength, not to muscular strength itself...

Gambarimasu.

 

[East Winds]

Yiliquan1

Your quote

"Interesting, though, that even "internal" strength stems from muscles, eh? Seems "internal" and "external" relate only to the application of muscular strength, not to muscular strength itself..."

Obviously I have not been making myself clear. I thought that was exactly what I had been saying.
And if an opponent has grabbed your lapel.....Go on........have a guess at what you really need to practise! Incidentally, when did Chin Na become an internal art??

Sorry, you guys really need to get your act together.

Very best wishes

 

[East Winds]

Mrs Hubris Nimby,

See what you started!!

Steam trains are a lot less bother. (Unless you step in front of one).:rofl:

Best wishes from Scotland

 

[Matt Stone]

Originally posted by East Winds

"Interesting, though, that even "internal" strength stems from muscles, eh? Seems "internal" and "external" relate only to the application of muscular strength, not to muscular strength itself..."

Obviously I have not been making myself clear. I thought that was exactly what I had been saying.

Like I said, I think we have been saying the same things and debating the words being used.

And if an opponent has grabbed your label.....Have a guess at what you really need to practise!

Obviously, my long distance shooting skills!
:armed: :biggun: :mp5: :snipe: :tank:

Incidentally, when did Chin Na become an internal art??

When wasn't it? What makes it external or internal? (mind you, I write this with every intent for it to be taken with extreme sarcasm)

Sorry, you guys really need to get your act together.

Right up to this point I was in a friendly mood... Glad you think you are so superior in what you do that you can pass judgements like this...

Where do you get off making a comment like this? I'll reserve the flaming for later... I would hope you would explain yourself so we can retain a modicum of politeness in this discussion. :angry:

Gambarimasu.

 

[Taiji fan]

Hubris wrote

Here is the real critical issue in tai chi: shoes, socks, or bare feet. For some reason, the MA community shies away from confronting this question. Why? What are we afraid of? I don't want to be accused of , starting a flame war

:flame: who would have thought it possible

 

[Matt Stone]

Originally posted by East Winds

Obviously I have not been making myself clear. I thought that was exactly what I had been saying.

If that was "exactly what you had been saying," then there never would have been a misunderstanding...

Since several people read what you wrote and didn't "understand," it seems you were the one not communicating overly well...

 

[Taiji fan]

Since several people read what you wrote and didn't "understand," it seems you were the one not communicating overly well...

mmnnn does seem that the 'several people' are all your Yiliquan colleagues.....mmmnnn thats interesting
:wink1:

 

[Matt Stone]

Taijifan -

Why, yes, as a matter of fact it does...

My teacher, Yilisifu, and my senior, Chufeng, have both posted trying to get clarification on what East Winds was trying to say. I was doing my best to be polite in my requests for further clarification of what he was trying to say, and even admitted that perhaps we were only bantering about in regards to the words being used...

Then he decided to get uppity.

Whatever. In my experience I have seen all too many fluffy IMAists use all sorts of neat words and cool terms and poorly understood foreign phrases to describe what they were doing. I think it was Einstein that said something along the lines of "If you can't teach it to an 8 year old, you don't really know it in the first place."

I am a simple person, a soldier by profession, and I like things to be expressed as simply as possible. If you can't reduce it down to a simple explanation that anyone can understand, then I think that person is holding onto their explanations without really understanding them in the first place.

When my teacher (40 years of experience and training, from lineage holders since that seems so important to so many people) and my senior (20+ years of experience and training and a nurse anesthetist by profession) are having difficulty understanding the gobbledeegook coming out of East Winds cyber-mouth, then somehow I think I am not on my own with this...

Had he left the nasty attitude at the door, we could have had a polite discussion. He decided to be other than courteous. Feel free to chime in in the thread I started regarding this topic elsewhere. We have hijacked this thread for too long.

Gambarimasu.

 

[Taiji fan]

mmmnn well thats the beauty of the written word hastily typed.....it is open to interpretation or misunderstanding, and while it is easier to talk or demonstrate to clarify a point it is not so easy to wack it into a few words on a key board.....

Whatever. In my experience I have seen all too many fluffy IMAists use all sorts of neat words and cool terms and poorly understood foreign phrases to describe what they were doing.

yep I know what you mean, my first teahcer was like that...he tried to blind you with science to the extent that you couldn't remember the question you had asked.....it kept him in his mystical status that gave him some control....unfortunately when you do eventually see through it you feel very foolish for hanging of their every word.

I understood what East Winds was saying, but then we also come from the same art and I have also studied Yiquan so I understand the explanations used.....there is a certain type of muscular strength used in IMA, just that they don't rely on tension in the mobilisers but instead the mechanics of joint line ups and use of stabilisers instead......how did we get from shoes to here?

 

[chufeng]

TaiJiFan,

This was my point in the weapons discussion...integrity of alignment and a relaxed (not limp) body allows for the uninterrupted flow of energy from the heel through the technique applied...add YI and you've got an internal strike...

Even though this has been a very convoluted thread, I do believe we are getting somewhere with it...

check the name calling (both sides) and let's move on.

:asian:
chufeng

 

[chufeng]

East Winds,

Your comment: "Sorry, you guys really need to get your act together," indicates a superiority complex of some kind.

You posted: "Incidentally, when did Chin Na become an internal art??"

Who said it was???
Who said it wasn't???

Any technique can be construed as one or the other, depending on the person who executes the technique...can we move on now ar do you want to beat this dead horse until spring?

chufeng