Slow Flow, an alternative to Tai Chi
- Thread starter TaiChiTJ
- Start date
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Basically to avoid my usual rant about such things I will simply way it is bad taiji....very very bad taiji.
Danny T
Senior Master
Xue Sheng if that is supposed to be tai chi I am having to disagree with you. There is so much there that is not tai chi it can not be called tai chi.
RTKDCMB
Senior Master
Why would someone feel guilty for practicing Tai Chi?
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
- Thread Starter
- #6
Indeed.
I saw it at work and took a quick look at the video, fast forwarding it, not really listening to the lady speaking.
There is more religious content than I was originally aware of. Maybe I should have put it in spirituality in the arts.
I see taichi as an exercise and, with proper guidance and training, a self protection system. Surprises me someone
saw a need to create physical movement patterns and associate spirituality. I guess this goes along with an alternative
to yoga they have. Interesting. Funny what you can learn roaming around the web.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
My view on this is that if ones grip on their own spirituality or belief is so tenuous that a martial art (or yoga) is a threat to that you already had before you started.
Not to mention a complete lack of understanding of the art itself
Not to mention a complete lack of understanding of the art itself
Long time ago, someone said, "I teach Taiji and I don't teach Taiji Chuan". Even today, I still don't understand what he was talking about.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Long time ago I was in a two person form Taiji class with my first shifu and the guy I was working with was trying to tell me what to do and he had no power, was to limp and not completing anything. I talked to him about it and tried to tell him that in martial arts you have to complete what you started or you would get hurt if you even had to do this for real….his response…”I don’t DO martial arts…I DO tai chi” and he walked away from me… and I still have no idea what he thought Taiji was
and
I think enough said, right there...
Crap... from stem to stern.
colemcm
Orange Belt
I've met a couple people who seemed to be personally affronted by the notion that Tai Chi is a MA. One stormed out of class. I guess she wanted to be one with the cosmos and instead I showed her how to break someone's arm.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
What I find interesting about the "Inspired by Chuck Norris" bits is that Chuck never talks about any MA being from the devil and even wrote a book that discusses Zen in a positive way so it is likely the only thing they have is Chuck Norris is also a Christian.
Way back when I was teaching a class of my own a student of mine asked me a question about taijiquan and martial arts and I said taiji is a martial art and a woman in my class, one of my better students actually, yelled "Taiji is NOT a martial art, I am not STUDYING KARATE" and stormed out never to return.
colemcm
Orange Belt
I wonder how common this actually is? It must be at least a fairly common phenomena, since it happened to both of us.
The 1st day that I taught my community college Taiji course, I started with 8 basic stances,
- horse stance (Taiji form starting and ending),
- bow-arrow stance (diagonal fly, fair lady work on shuttle, ...),
- golden rooster stance (golden rooster stand on one leg),
- 7 start stance (step forward to 7 star),
- empty stance (step back and ride tiger)
- ...
A guy stood up and said, "This is not Taiji." He then walked out of my class and I have never seen him since then.
I had also taught another Taiji group of old people (60 - 70). When I taught them the application and asked them to drill with their partners, One guy said, "Do you expect us to fight in our age?"
- Thread Starter
- #16
Yes I've talked to people who have a new agey angle on tc. I always thought if people want to do tc without any martial content at all they should get their hands on that book I saw for years, Tai Chi Qigong or some such name, eighteen move form maybe. I bet it is still in print. Had pictures of the meridians and probably breathing with the postures and so forth.
I am also curious about Norris' contribution to this slow flow thing.
Just have to wait and see if it gains some popularity with people.
I am also curious about Norris' contribution to this slow flow thing.
Just have to wait and see if it gains some popularity with people.
colemcm
Orange Belt
The write-up that goes along with it seems to be pure satire on the part of the author. The video speaks for itself though.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Since there are 3 of us in this thread with similar experience with this I can confidently say it is rather common in this thread
I also do not doubt it is common outside of this thread as well. I have watched some rather interesting people come and go in my shifu's class. Some rather offended at my approach to push hands with my shifu to the point they actually tried to change it to what they wanted.....they left and never returned
Beyond being a Christian like they profess to be I doubt he had much influence at all...I have not read a whole lot about Christianity in anything coming form Chun Kuk Do, but then I don't train it and have not read a lot about it so I could have missed it. And the focus of his Kickstart kids program is martial arts not Christianity so I do not really think he had a whole lot to do with this slow-mo silliness
Xue and TJ --my first exposure to Tai Chi was through some new-agey college buddies back in the 70s. Since then it seems that most people I know outside of the martial arts continue to believe that Tai Chi is some sort of slow moving yoga practiced for health by old people in China and hippy types here at home. Like this:
About the same time I began training CMA and learned by word of mouth that there was a bit more to it than that!
In fact if I hadn't shattered my leg in a skiing accident, resulting in a partially fused left ankle, I may well have gone on to learn martial taijiquan instead of WC. Anyway, just sayin', it seems like most folks still have the hippy-dippy perception of Tai chi.
About the same time I began training CMA and learned by word of mouth that there was a bit more to it than that!
In fact if I hadn't shattered my leg in a skiing accident, resulting in a partially fused left ankle, I may well have gone on to learn martial taijiquan instead of WC. Anyway, just sayin', it seems like most folks still have the hippy-dippy perception of Tai chi.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Xue and TJ --my first exposure to Tai Chi was through some new-agey college buddies back in the 70s. Since then it seems that most people I know outside of the martial arts continue to believe that Tai Chi is some sort of slow moving yoga practiced for health by old people in China and hippy types here at home. Like this:
About the same time I began training CMA and learned by word of mouth that there was a bit more to it than that!
In fact if I hadn't shattered my leg in a skiing accident, resulting in a partially fused left ankle, I may well have gone on to learn martial taijiquan instead of WC. Anyway, just sayin', it seems like most folks still have the hippy-dippy perception of Tai chi.
Yes they do...and I'm ok with that...it gives me an advantage :EG:.... and at my age I need all the help I can get
Sadly, even in China these days the majority of those doing taiji know little or nothing of the martial arts of it and here there are more that a few that say they know the marital arts of it that don't.
There is a lot to it that if you know what your looking at you can tell there are an awful lot that only know the choreography and they really do not know the depth of it, especially in application
