• Archive through July 20, 2002 July 20 - 09:36 pm [20]

• Archive through August 01, 2002 August 01 - 05:29 pm [20]

Rtdee,
Right, they are all Romanized spellings of the same characters.

Dmitriy,
Thanks for the info. Please let us know if you ever come across video of the National Level Championships.

I'AM not sure you could learn to defend your self with tai-chi in a matter of months. ofcorse i'am still studying .

Hi Tim and All,

A thought just occurred to me. Xingyi is often called the most practically effective and easiest to learn of the internal arts. Maybe that is less because of the nature of the style, but more the method of training predominant in the style. Perhaps if every Taiji instructor started students with standing practice, countless repititions of a few fundational single postures, and application work on those single postures they would have the same reputation for being effective fighters from the beginning. Just a thought.

Richard
(who likes Xingyi and Taiji, but can't stand that hippie dance art Bagua ;))

1. If a person is seeking self-defense capability in a few months then maybe a Cravmaga class or something would be best.

2. If a person is seeking self-defense capability in a few months and real fighting skills (ability to deafeat a skilled opponent, not some drunk or mugger) as a longer term goal then something like Hsing-I is great.

3. It doesn't take 10 years to become a good fighter. How long does it take a person with natural ability and a drive to be great to become a championship level boxer? Maybe 7-10 years. Think of Tyson. No one who has been boxing seriously for 10-15 years and isn't champion quality will have any realistic chance of becoming much better. Internal arts may help you continue to become better even after 10+ years of practice but seriously, if you've been training for 10 or more years in a martial art seriously and haven't become a great fighter you don't have much of a chance of becoming a good tournament champion or whatever gague you use to measure your skill.

Having said that, I think anyone can develop self-defense skill through something like Hsing-I (not so sure about through Tai-Chi but I'm not as familiar) in a few months. Seriously, when I used to teach students at the taekwondo school I usually could get them to hit 2x or so harder in around 20 minutes (providing they had poor form as any person who hasn't practiced fighting has) I could get them to hit even harding through correct breathing (a few weeks of time is all it takes). And I could get them to hit even harder through strengthening their body and increasing their explosive power through plyometrics.

Hey Richard, ever heard of sparring?

Hi Meynard,

Of couse I have heard of sparring.

Richard,

Good points. I believe the content of many martial arts "styles" is not the reason that art's practitioners never really acquire any practical fighting skills, the problem lies in the method of training.

(and Meynard is trying to point out that sparring is top on the list of methods for gaining practical skills in any art)

Dmitriy's response is a stark reality. Much of taijiquan contains shuaijiao and qi'na elements, that no one (actually-very small minority) trains today. So taichi adeps, break out of the paperbag and start training.

please have a sense of humor!!!

Any chance that competition is available on DVD?

Hello Tim,

"Because training is less a matter of conditioning new responses as refining inborn abilities, real fighting ability can be cultivated in the Tai Ji Quan arts faster than most other styles of martial arts. The diligent student of Tai Ji Quan, properly trained, will have acquired real self defense ability in a matter of months, as opposed to the years of training required in many other martial systems"

Could you give some examples of these "inborn abilities" you talked about? Thank you.

listen to the lyrics! lmaoo! gotta love the 80's.


i especially miss gangsters in spandex and pink polka dots.

oops, i messed up.

http://208.65.153.238/watch?v=0W1ym3yggR4

"Could you give some examples of these "inborn abilities" you talked about?"

Most importantly, generating power with natural body use, since it's innate, the student only needs to inhibit whatever bad habits they have acquired to let the power out, since it's already there. This is a much quicker process than developing special types of force that are not inherent.

Other inborn abilites include using the flinch reflex, inborn righting reflexes, natural breathing to coordinate movement, the elastic quality of the connective tissue to generate force, the strength of naturally aligned structure, the power in the rhythm of natural body movements to name a few.