Oxy,
Thanks for the reply. “Well, I would start judging him by the quality of his Taiji’s combat and whatever effectiveness” Yes, that would be nice. Where can I see such combat effectiveness out with his videos of working with compliant students?
That's not my problem. My point is that you cannot judge a person's ability from their words. Basically, with the way you chose to rebut my point, you are basically seeking permission to have a default opinion in the absence of evidence.
Imagine that in court. A person is convicted by default because there was no other evidence.
That's justice...
As Carl Sagan once said: "It is alright to say that we do not yet know"; or something like that.
“Obviously, I don’t know enough about the specifics of Taiji to judge how good Erle is…..” But you obviously feel qualified to comment anyway. I usually find that if I don’t know about a subject it is better not to say anything.
You know, the more I discuss with you, the more I expect you to do certain things. Do you notice how you suddenly CUT OFF THE REST OF MY POINT? That's called quote mining. Do you realise that my comment about "the specifics of Taiji" does not in anyway invalidate the following from me:
but I still think it's wise to judge a person's knowledge of Taiji by... their knowledge of Taiji. And I'm sure everyone will agree with me that it's not possible to do that when a single statement, no matter how ill-founded, cannot display a person's whole understanding.
Does my inexperience at Taiji SUDDENLY invalidate the logically sound point that the only way to judge whether someone is good at something is to test if they are good at something and not if they say what you want to hear (or its converse)?
If I said this instead:
Obviously, I don’t know enough about the specifics of Taiji to judge how good Erle is, but I think Erle's Taiji must have substance to it
...or something along these lines, then your rebuttal would actually make sense. The fact that your rebuttal would NOT make any sense had you quoted me HONESTLY only goes to show you did take me out of context.
You are right that people should not say anything about something they do not know as well. That is why my main point was not about Taiji, but about you making strawman arguments and ad hominem arguments (again).
The honorable thing to do is to admit that you deliberately took my comments out of context, but I don't expect someone like you to...
“What’s that called when a person is demonised by one little statement? I think it’s called “Politics”. No it isn’t. It’s called putting your head above the parapet and making statements on a public site to which others can make contrary statements. It’s called democracy!!
Your effort to put spin on your oversight only serves to show that you are more of a politician than a logical person. Martial arts has no time to waste on politics. And when has martial arts been a democracy?
I doubt if anyone (even Mr. Montague) knows Lu Chan’s form. Certainly the current Yang family don’t . It was he (Lu Chan) who began to “hide” the overt Fajing of the Chen form. Yang Cheng fu merely continued the process..
That's irrelevant as far as Erle's own ability is concerned. ie, unless you want to continue your desire to convict a person by default in the absence of evidence...
“Surely a man has a right to prefer a predecessor’s version of the art?” Certainly. But when the claims are made of a lineage which cannot be verified from a disciple who cannot be traced, then how does one know that the form is authentic? Do we just blindly believe and take Erle’s word for it. Is it not surprising that this “Master” that Erle found was the only one who knew the Lu Chan form and that no other Lu Chan disciple survived to continue to pass on the form? You don’t think that this was extremely fortuitous? “But is anyone here ready to say that Cheng Fu’s version and not Lu Chan’s is the absolute best (of yang Taiji at least)? Let me put it this way. The form of Yang Cheng-fu as transmitted by Yang Shou Zhong, Chen Wei Ming, Tung Ying Cheih, Yang Zhen Ji, and Yang Zhen Duo is infinitely better than the form that Erle Montaigue is claiming to be Lu Chan’s, at least on the videos I have seen of him.
I'm not here to argue about the history of Taiji or the politics of the Yang style.
My whole post was, and continues to be, about your incorrect insinuation that Erle's attack on Yang Chengfu is in any way indicative of Erle's knowledge.
This is not a defence of Erle's behaviour in character assassination (as you call it). That behaviour is absolutely unneeded to make an argument, unless Yang Chengfu did it for money (which I am sure he did not (not sarcasm)).
Finally I think it it very stange to say the least, that if he has such a low opinion of the Yang Cheng fu form, why would he (1) Continue to teach this form and issue videos of it, and (2) Why would he issue a whole series of videos called "T'ai Chi Intricacies : Yang Cheng-fu Form"? Let me quote from the video blurb "In this video, Erle Montaigue teaches the very highest level of T'ai Chi" and this is the form formulated by a man who destoyed Tai Chi?
I don't really care about that.
I said this before.
Being a hypocrite does not preclude someone from being wrong.
I was never defending Erle, nor was I defending his position. If what you say is true, I would be right after you in the line of people to call him a hypocrite. His logically inept arguments would get similar attention from me.
Once again, you misinterpret my comment about the unsound implications of Erle's credibility as a defence of Erle completely which you further misinterpret as an attack on Taiji itself.
If you want to call Erle an *******, fine. If you want to call him a hypocrite, fine. None of those qualities, no matter how many strawmen you use, does not preclude anyone from being good at something.
Once again, when I get into a discussion with you, I always end up being attacked (ad hominem, mostly). When will you stop putting dishonest argument tactics in place of arguments?
