TTEscrima

You've got a good eye for this stuff. It's commonly said the Reeders system (known as Liu Seong Royal Gung Fu) has Chinese hands and Indonesian feet.

Trivia side bar, Reeders was a consultant for the Kung Fu TV series and his blind great uncle was the model for the Master Po, Kwai Chang Cain was modeled after a Young Willem Reeders and his experiences at Shaolin.

It's an interesting mixture that we do a lot of experimentation with. People often try to equate Kuntao to Indonesian Baqua but that's a misnomer because Baqua gains it's power from it's unique stepping patterns and Kuntao doesn't use those patterns. Reeders system also incorporates Tibetan Tai Chi which is similar to the Tibetan Lama Burning palm system. Reeders had 10 different Silat teachers outside the royal kuntao system he inherited, he also lived and studied at Shaolin for 12 years. I think you nailed it that's its all about timing,the very reason we study the other systems is to understand their timings. Different timings are releases of force at different points along the way, we try to incorporate as many as we can into our own patterns of movement.

TTEscrima

I've never heard that from anyone who knew what they were talking about, the classics are extremely clear that Yin and Yang are two components that combine to create one movement. While one part of the body is executing a yin movement the other parts of the body are doing the complementary yang movement and vice versa. One needs to look no further than the Classics to see that this idea is the foundation of all Tai Chi.


"In motion all parts of the body are light nimble and strung together.

The Chi should be excited, the Shen should be internally gathered.

Let the postures be without breaks or holes, hollows or projections, or discontinuities and continuities of form.

The motion should be rooted in the feet, released through the legs, controlled by the waist, and manifested through the fingers, the legs and waist must act together simultaneously, so that while stepping forward or back the timing and position are correct.

If the timing and position are not correct, the body becomes
disordered, and the defect must be sought in the legs and waist.

Up or down, front or back, left or right, are all the same, these
are all Hsin and not external.

If there is up, there is down, if there forward, then there is
backward, if there is left, then there is right.
If the Hsin wants to move up, it contains at the same time the downward idea.

By alternating the force of pulling and pushing, the root is surely severed and the object is quickly toppled, without a doubt.

Insubstantial and substantial should be clearly differentiated.
One place has insubstantiality and substantiality, every place
has the same insubstantiality and substantiality.

All parts of the body are strung together without the slightest break

Tai Chi is like a great river rolling on unceasingly.

Peng (Wardoff), lu (Rollback), Chi (press), An (squeeze), Tsai (pull), Lieh (split), Tsou (elbow), Kao (shoulder) are the eight triagrams.

Step forward, step backward, look left, look right and central equilibrium are metal, wood, water, fire and earth.

Together these comprise the thirteen postures."

Unfortunately there has been a mud slinging contest between the Chens and every other Tai Chi family for centuries, the Chen style was never considered to be true Tai Chi by the other families because of it's external properties. The Chens were the closest village to Shaolin and thus their style was influenced by the external applications of Shaolin. This disagreement caused many lies to be told and misinformation to be spread by different clans for centuries. It's quite simple really, if a system fails to follow the above principles it isn't Tai chi no matter which family it comes from. People should be careful to study the classics and make sure they aren't just repeating misinformation created in a propaganda war centuries ago.

TTEscrima

Don't you also go by Ted Turner on other forums? I remember you bringing this up on SDF when you claimed Chen style was the only Tai Chi that generated power differently than Karate and you got some very clear answers from the mods, you just didn't like them. I'll refresh your memory though.

Soke Takayuki Kubota 10th dan Gosoku-ryu The living embodiment of Karate.

YouTube - Soke Takayuki Kubota 10th dan Gosoku-ryu

Wu Tunan, Li Zi Ming, Sun Jian Yun, Shi Hai Deng some of Tai Chi's legends and lineage bearers of their respective family styles.

YouTube - Wu Tunan, Li Zi Ming, Sun Jian Yun, Shi Hai Deng

Lei Mu Ni of the Chen style

Lei Mu Ni

Yang Sau Chung, son of Yang Cheng Fu

YouTube - Yang Sau Chung, son of Yang Cheng Fu

If a picture is worth a thousand words then video must be worth a million.

None of those systems manifest or generate power anything like Karate.

Why some people get hung up spreading misinformation about other styles to make their own seem special amazes me, especially when they have no connection to the family or style except that they like it. We have to get past all the misinformation if we hope to keep the internal arts alive, the defending the rice bowl has to stop. If you like Chen style by all means practice it but stop spreading misinformation about the other styles all over the net Ted. Poisoning the reputation of other styles does nothing to make your style better in fact if anything it shows a lack of confidence in your styles ability to stand on its own virtues.

ttruscott

Hi TT,

I've always and only been Ted Truscott and I did post on SDF quite a bit.

As for the Chen claim, it does sounds like something I might say, either to check out the answers or to stir things up, except I can't and don't try to speak to Chen but only to my inferior and novice understanding about Hong's Chen Style Practical Method which indeed has been totally different from Yang and Daoist tai chi and two styles of bagua I've been introduced to. This might not seem like an important point to you but it is to me.

Do you remember my reply if it was me and not the elusive Mr. Turner? Not "liking an answer" might be because I think it missed the point or was deficient but hey, I don't remember.

Thanks for the links...

The pictures sure do not look the same since many are hiding their power (Old Tak sure looks good, eh?) or perhaps do not know how to generate it, but how do they show that the principles are different?

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kingoftheforest

I have never felt that any Tai Chi I practiced uses sectional power like Karate.

I only know that Chen style uses a lot of stomping to generate power, which is a number one no-no according the the Tai Chi classics. It totally destroys the "fluid movement" concept.

And I was on SDF under a different SN and I have to agree I mentioned to TTE that I thought you sounded a lot like Mr. Turner. Weather you were or not the style you practice, the links you provided, and the comments you have posted in this thread are almost word for word.

Just sayin' is all.

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FoolsTP

i think xing xi tai chi does open leg or whatever (single weighted stepping). i don't think karate does that

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kingoftheforest

Give the man a cigar!

Most Tai Chi that I have studied and as far as I know the advanced forms of all the internal arts rely heavily on a single weighted leg.

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FoolsTP

yeah the art i do is kind of an amalgam of a bunch of chinese arts and i think my teachers teacher called it closed crane and my teacher added some things to it and called it zhang tao or something. we do everything single weighted and we use sidecats a lot. if you guys want names and stuff i can give you them i just can't think of them offhand. i think i remember my teachers teacher was pete robinsons partner and pete robinson studied with what's his name, short little chinese mantis (i think) guy that's really well known. gen fu marc? (sorry about the spelling). my teachers teacher introduced the single weighted stepping and movement in the 70s in the US but no one liked it. i don't think tai chi was brought into the US until later. anyway if you guys want clarification on anything i can get it but i'm just trying to remember stuff i remember off the top of my head.

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TTEscrima

Double weighting is never acceptable in any of the internal arts. The maxim that when one part of the body moves your entire body moves and when one part stops the entire body stops is another essential component that separates the internal arts from the external ones. It sounds like you're doing a variation of Wah Lum/Northern Mantis. Who first brought many of the arts to the USA is up for debate but I've studied with several families since the early 60's and the Reeder style came to the US in the 50's, the internal arts didn't start catching on with the masses until the 70's though.

TTEscrima

Well, hiding their power would make it inevident, wouldn't it? What happens on the outside of the body is indicative of what's happening on the inside. External power is EVIDENT, IE: Tak's power. The Internal power is inevident, IE: internal, that's a major difference right there. As for the comment that the lineage holders of their respective family systems and the Abbot of Shaolin temple didn't know how to generate power... As for the principles, their movements ARE the principles in motion, if you can't see the difference with your eyes, you'll never comprehend the difference through words. Try reading the article from Tim that KOTF posted earlier in the thread if that doesn't make it clear I don't know what will.

FoolsTP

i think gin fu mark was southern mantis

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Mike Brewer

Guys, forgive my stupidity but I really am this dumb.

I've been following closely, and I think I understand what you mean by sectional power. I also think I understand the mental part of more fluid power. I'm just having a hard time with the physicality of it.

The body is made up of fairly rigid bones, joined at the joints which move in a given range of motion. The bones don't "whip" to any practical degree, so in a purely physiological sense, muscle can only move us in "sections." I certainly understand the difference between so-called angular and "curved" shots, but in accurate language, the body does not move in any other manner except "sectionally." Muscles only contract or relax, and the bone structures move through their ranges of motion directly as a result. In other words, from a kinesthetic or physiological point of view, all movement is a matter of varying degrees of sectional coordination. More coordination means "smoother" motion, but as Tant mentioned earlier, that's very largely a matter of timing.

So my question is, are we talking about the same thing? The difference between rough and refined timing and coordination? Or is it more a matter of "mental direction?" In other words, is there some physiological way to move that ignorant mortals like me just don't understand, or are we really looking at the difference between rudimentary and highly polished timing and coordination?

Thanks

TTEscrima

It's tough to explain without contact. Internal strikes can best be described as a whip because thats the only analogy people can relate to. It's literally like cracking a whip, the force travels from one section to another and each section adds its own power until the strike reaches the end of the limb. Until you are hit with an internal strike its hard to tell the difference, it's the same when learning to throw them, people often think the strike is connected the same way until they finally get it right. Body feel is essential to proper training and the internal arts cultivate this through Chi kung, once the feeling is understood forms are added and the student attempts to maintain this feeling as they train. Internal strikes are never pushed out like boxers do for instance, if anything they are pulled out by the opposite heel. Boar has local MMA guys who cross train with us and they always have a hard time grasping the concept. Many times they say it's the same thing so he has them shake a rug out in the air, which is the arm movement of a vertical axis Tai Chi strike. Then he has them try to do it while walking as fast as they can while popping the rug with each step, they can't make this work using their power generation methods but after a few months of internal work they can begin to get this to work and they always go "ooooh NOW I'm starting to get it", but they still can't explain the difference either. I've seen Boar slap granite tiles and KOTF break coconuts and neither one of them penetrate the object to achieve their breaks, people who use external power try to hit through the objects to break them internal styles send a shock wave through the target. Hope that helps, probably not, it's like Boar always says "If there was an easy way to explain it I'd be rich".

Mike Brewer

How do you know the difference between an "internal strike" and a well-coordinated one, though? I mean, I once trained sporadically with a Tai Chi guy in Marquette Michigan (I did maybe four lessons, and he didn't speak English, so the explanation end of the lessons was sparse to non-existance). He was truly, truly astonishing in his ability, and roughly the same size as Dan Inosanto. He popped me a few times to give me an idea as to how he wanted me to move, and he hit god awful hard for his size. It had that "inside" feel I hear people talk about. However, I've also been hit by Dan Inosanto. It hurt worse. He palmed me in the chest once while talking, and I think he got into me a little harder than he meant to, but it went "BAWHOOM" inside my chest and made my heart skip. He wasn't trying to damage me or anything, but it was the most casual, easy power I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure he wasn't doing anything "internal" specifically, but the effect was very much the same as I hear you guys talking about. I guess that's what leads me to ask the question.

The type of impact in the above two instances was nearly identical, even if the severity wasn't. The Tai Chi instructor obviously wasn't trying to hurt me, so I can understand the fact that he didn't lay into me. But if there's one thing I AM an expert in, it's getting hit. And the sensation of those two was tremendously similar. The type of impact, the sensation, and the way it hurt (if that makes any sense) were so close as to be impossible for me to verbalize any real differences. That's a big part of why I have such a hard time distinguishing from "internal" and just plain old "incredibly well timed and coordinated."

TTEscrima

I've heard Dan packs a ferocious slap. Can't say as I can give you an answer though, I've noticed some hellish slaps from Silat people as well. Hitting with relaxed muscles or a dead arm seems to be a common factor though. I know when boar hits the MMA guys they're always shocked and usually make hysterical faces and funny exclamations of sound, and they ask WTF was that?!! Then they ask if he can teach them to hit like that. It seems as though its an extremely refined control of the body so that with little seeming effort he can he can slap the sheeit out of you from about half an inch away.
I've also noticed when he hits people they don't usually get knocked back by the strike allowing the body to lessen the blow and people get almost instant rashes when he slaps them. I've never seen external strikes leave huge raised rashes with hundreds of bumps covering the arm the way boar does when he slaps your arm when you strike at him. He just shrugs and says "I dunno what causes it, Ive seen a lot of people spout mystical mumbo jumbo like chi poisoning (and he rolls his eyes) but I honestly don't know". I do know it doesn't seem to work with punches because you cant make a fist and have relaxed muscles. I began training with his family 40 some odd years ago but I haven't lived it like they do until recently maybe I'll figure it out eventually.
Thats why I'm here, I want to learn.