taiji fajin

I agree that it is a martial art. What I'm saying is if your desire is to become a great fighter, you will miss out on how to become a great fighter. If the idea of starting with one thing to gain its opposite is not something you can accept, you're going to have even more trouble than usual with taiji (and yes, there is a lot of logic behind losing your ego and not going into taiji to become deadly, it's not just applying witty sayings where they don't belong and saying "start with the opposite")

In Kuk Sool, on the road to getting my Black Belt, I had to memorize 226 techniques (not including roughly 50 grappling ones), 6 empty hand forms, 4 weapons forms, one weapons sparring form, I have no idea how many "weapons techniques" but a lot, etc etc etc. I probably only mentioned half of the what I learned. 1) With this many things, how do you keep from becoming a jack of all trades, master of none? I know people are going to say "practice a lot" and similar things, but honestly, you could practice for years and years and years and years on pre black belt material and still be deficient. All the while we are suppose to be learning new things. 2) Is there anything in Kuk Sool that you can focus on during everything, that pulls it all together? This is a big, BIG question for me. In taiji, no matter what I do, I know yin and yang pull it all together. I can't find anything like that in Kuk Sool, and it makes it hard, makes many parts seem disjointed. There is no underlying theme that I can find. Please do not just say "The 5 Hyung By Laws for forms and You-Won-Hwa for techniques". The 5 Hyung By Laws are things you have to do during the forms, they are not underlying principles. You-Won-Hwa is a little better, but even it seems more like tips for good practice than an underlying theme. An answer to these, especially by an experienced/high level Kuk Sool practitioner, would be greatly appreciated.

I got the idea for this thread reading another person's post about how a lot of taiji isn't taught well because applications are never shown. I disagree with this statement. In fact, I think taiji (and other IMA) can be greatly hindered if the instructor always goes through and shows "this movement is for this, in this movement you're practicing this" etc. The forms should be teaching you correct body alignment, movement, control, energy movement, intention, etc, but not application. If a person is taught that one form's application is, for example, a hip throw, he/she will be somewhat-to-very limited to that hip throw. That's what that form, or part of a form, will become. It will be harder for them to see that it can also be used to practice downward punching with ahn energy. If they are taught it is both things, and that is what they focus on during their form, they will miss that it can also be a block. Or a shoulder strike. Or a . . . you get the idea. If they what they are being taught is energy work, intention, relaxation, correct body alignment, etc etc, when a situation comes up that involves any of the previous applications, they will flow into it naturally, without even thinking about it. I've seen people (and myself) respond to a punch, push, etc, in a very effective way, on the fly, without ever being shown that particular application. Afterwards when someone asks what they did, the answer is usually along the lines of "I don't know" or "I was just trying to stay centered and he fell/flew away/had his joints locked/exploded into a million pieces". Ok, maybe not that last one. This does not mean I never see applications. Sometimes I play around with them, or ask my instructor about them on an odd form, etc, but I never focus on them. After I see one I nod, store it away and forget about it. Anything else would hurt my ability to do taiji. The best people I've seen at coming up with applications are the ones that were never shown applications. The main point I'm trying to get across is we are not learning forms to learn applications, and focusing on applications will slow down your training. Forget about applications and focus on your intention. Forms are not just strung together technique sets.

Thank you dts

Anakin, as I've said before, if you're going into taiji to learn how to fight, you will miss the whole point of taiji and never learn how to use it to fight as effectively as you could. If you go into taiji to learn taiji, you will come out with many, many benefits. Yes, one of those (though one of the least important in my opinion) is to learn how to fight. You cannot "trick" your mind into saying "I'm just learning taiji to learn taiji" if you are really learning it to fight. Perhaps if you start taking taiji at some point you will understand all the other benefits that are there and the unimportance of fighting compared to other things it offers and your goals will switch. You cannot simple fool your mind, though. Unless you have dissociative identity disorder. In which case, good luck to all of you.

The guy in the article has little to no idea what he's talking about. Your link didn't work, but being a wushu competition I doubt the taiji was any good. Muaythaiboxer is wrong in that not all taiji taught in the west is worthless, some is excellent. But a lot is worthless. Taiji can be an extremely effective fighting art, the problem is finding someone who can actually teach good taiji. Also, if you go into taiji to try to become a great fighter, your goals will hurt your results.

I would be careful of statements like this. You aren't really incorrect. Most taiji is taught poorly and incompletely (yet most taiji practicioners think that their taiji is the real stuff. Something doesn't quite add up ), even in China. However, there are still a lot of people out there who know really good taiji. Are there tons and tons of masters? No, but there are a lot of people who are on the right path, can use it for self defense, and if they keep practicing will hopefully become "masters". That's not my real problem with your statements, though. My two main problems are this: 1) You say taiji takes "many years" to be able to use as self defense. If you have a system and practice, you should be able to use it as self defense in about 3 years. Maybe that's what you meant by "many", but most people are going to interpret it as 15-20 years, if not more. If taiji took that long to be a good self defense, how could people have ever used it in the past as a self defense? It would have never survived. I've also seen many people do it in roughly that time. 2) You talk about how people want self defense "now!" and don't want to take "many" years to learn it. While you probably didn't mean this, it comes off seeming like people are going to have good self defense very quickly with other styles. This simply isn't true. While a person might have decent self defense after 3 years with another style (and I admit that in many cases, external styles advance self defense quicker than internal styles in the early stages), people do not gain useful self defense very quickly. Just because someone gave them a black belt in a year does not mean they are a great fighter. Even with 5 years I would hesitate to call most martial artists great fighters. If anything, a short amount of time studying martial arts (3-6 months, if not more depending on the person and style) HINDERS their ability to protect themselves. They will try techniques they are not good enough to use yet, or will be so caught up in what they are "suppose to do" that someone just swinging their fists will "win" the fight. Again, maybe you didn't mean the first one, and you probably didn't mean the second, but it can easily be taken that way and I don't want other people to have the wrong idea about taiji (or other arts).

TM, I practice Chen style. It's not quite as popular as your Yang style, but I like it and in the end style is irrelevant anyway, right? . Hope to see your input in the forums.

Welcome TM. Hoe you enjoy your visits here. What style of Taiji do you practice (Yang, Chen, etc)?

In my Taiji school you pay for a 9 week session, in my Kuk Sool school you pay for a one school semester session. Neither of them claim anything about what level you will reach in what amount of time, that depends on how well you train.

No, this is not qi. This is not even a good physics site.

Thank you to everyone for your advice, I have read and reread everyone's comments. I agree that all of us need to sit down and have a talk about it, and I'm hoping we will be able to sort through any problems. I would rather not go off and start my own school (I wouldn't even be allowed to do this in the same art in the same town) because I enjoy the friends I have in this one, and think it can be good. However, if things cannot be straightened out, I may have to take a break from this art, focus on my other martial arts, and when I move to a new area start up my own school. This way I could continue to be in the organization, but would not be a part of a McDojang. Hopefully it will not come to this. One thing no one mentioned, and this might be because there is no good solution, is what to do about the current students regarding the new black belt. All the questions I asked at the end of the first post. The only solution I can think of is to instill in them that they shouldn't worry about belts, they should worry about their own progress. That is true, but I can see problems occuring when they don't trust higher belts who are trying to help them. Also, there are the people who are very committed to the idea of a belt system. While I think that is not a good thing to be attached to by any means, if I lose them as students over this I will lose the opportunity to have them realize that martial arts are about their development, not what color they wear.

I had . . . . issues with the way the old instructor who left treated women, to put it mildly, and he also took a large chunk of money that wasn't his. This has led to some tension between him and a few of us who did not just sit back and let him do illegal and immoral things. The black belt who is a problem now is more than willing to turn a blind eye to what the old instructor did, which means the old instructor will always back him up over me. There is another high ranked person I might be able to talk to, but the old instructor has his ear more than I do, so that is a really risky route to take. I would like to stay in this organization, as I think it *can* be run very well and I have a lot of friends in it, I am just having serious issues with this particular co-instructor, and the politics of the martial art are hampering my ability to deal with it. To answer MasterH, it is an odd combination. It is technically a university club, but it is part of a martial arts organization like any other school in that organization, subject to all of its politics.

The dojang where I teach is under threat of becoming a serious McDojang. In fact, it wouldn't be that much of a lie to call it one, and this is troubling me greatly. Here is the story, it is fairly long, but please read it as I could use the help: We use to have a high ranking teacher, who ended up leaving and giving our club to one of the black belts (highest member left at the school was a black belt, there were 5 of us). He gave the school to the black belt who he could most "control" from a distance. However, there was an agreement between this black belt and the other black belts, since we are all at the same level. We all agreed to work as a team to teach the class, and he would just do the "official" dealings with the organization. Most of the black belts are trying to run the club normally, but the one who officially runs the school continues to do things behind our backs. The most recent thing was promoting of someone to black belt who by NO means deserved it. This person came back to our club as a brown belt after years of being gone, barely comes to practice, doesn't know any of her stuff, and never really tries. We all talked and agreed that she wouldn't pass, as she had come to barely 10 hours of practice in the past year! Then, one day she shows up wearing a black belt! She had talked to the "owner" black belt and said she wanted to test at another school as she was going to Brazil for a year and wouldn't have a chance to test for over a year. He agreed to send in the paper work for her to pass, despite all the black belts agreeing that she shouldn't. Now she suddenly is not going to Brazil, and she is going to be here for a year. This person cannot even remember low belt techniques, yet she is a black belt. Now when our club gets back into full swing (we are a club with a university), our entire school is going to see this person, who everyone knows is not good and never comes, is a black belt. There is no way that I can get people to think that a black belt at our club means anything anymore. Everyone will have the view that if you just come and pay the dues, you will promote. This undermines me as an instructor, and our martial art and our school as a whole. How can I teach under these circumstances? What do I tell my students who ask how/why the new black belt promoted? What do I do when they act like a black belt does not mean anything anymore? I don't know how to deal with these things, because I feel that belts don't mean anything at my school now, with him promoting all different people to different belts who don't deserve it. How do I deal with her being an instructor, when I don't want her to go teach any belt level? They will learn horrible habits if they are lower belts, or become annoyed and skeptical of the art if they are higher belts who understand that she has no idea what she's talking about. Sorry for the long post, but this is really bothering me. I feel like this is "my school" and now I can't defend it's legitimacy to any of the lower belts.

Bah, I read that and wasn't impressed. Is it possible that the story is true? Maybe, I haven't read the book he's referring to. But the author of this webpage hypes up taiji like it's some great mystical art that can't be used in real fighting unless you're some crazy mystical guy, and then it's an unbeatable art. Taiji is not mystical, and it's not for superhumans. Anyone can use it as self defense, but simply having it doesn't mean you're unbeatable. Side note, though, I like how he actually uses pictures of some decently well known taiji people (some are actually good), including grandmaster Feng.

First let me say that there is no "Taiji for health" or "Taiji for self defense". There is just Taiji, and if you practice it correctly, you'll get both, and more. Taiji is seen as for health because, to someone who doesn't really understand it, it seems like a "mystical" way to get good health, washing the organs with qi and the like. Health from other martial arts just seems like a workout type of health. "Yes yes, I workout I get in better shape and am healthier." People have seen it (and usually ignore it). They don't care. People like mystical stuff. "Oooooo, it uses QI!" Taiji is not seen as a martial art by many in part because of all the bad teachers out there who teach it as if it's just for health. Besides those people, anyone who doesn't really know anything about taiji have trouble seeing the martial aspect of it. It's easier to see how someone who punches really hard and yells is doing martial arts than someone who is calmly doing wave hands through clouds. On a similar note, the high level person who screams and punches really hard is more likely to enter into a "fighting" competition. The high level taiji person is less likely to enter into a fighting competition.

What does a black belt mean to you guys? Straight textbook memorization of how things should be done, or the ability to do them? Does character, spirit, etc, come into it? A 16 year old, however skilled, is going to have a tough time fighting a mature 35 year old who is in halfway decent shape. A 16 year old simply has not matured enough. An 18 year old still has a lot of maturing to do. I would not give a black belt to anyone under 21. Even that seems like a fairly early age to me.

Bagua and Taiji are both Chinese internal martial arts. Kuk Sool is a Korean martial art. Since people can (and do) write books about these (and every) martial art without covering everything, I'll just give you a few sentences on each, and you can do more research on whichever you like. Bagua involves lots of walking in circles. It trains disappearing from an opponent, taking them off balance, etc. It is an internal martial art that places strong emphasis on qi. This is the art that I know the least amount about of these three, unfortunately. B.K. Francis does Bagua, I would check out some of the articles in his library that deal with it: http://www.energyarts.com/hires/library/masters/index.html Taiji (you have have seen it spelled Tai Chi) is an internal martial art that can be fairly well summarized by the Yin & Yang symbol. You learn mental and physical stability, gain health and gong (foundation). It also bases strong emphasis on qi and meditation, like bagua. The ultimate result is that whatever comes to you, you can handle it. A good book for it is "Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power" by master Yang Yang, or look at his website, specifically the articles: http://www.chentaiji.com/articles/ (if you can read Chinese go to http://www.hunyuantaiji.com.cn/ for grandmaster Feng's webpage) Kuk Sool can best be described as a combination of all Korean martial arts. Instead of focusing on a few aspects, Kuk Sool tries to combine them all: Meditation, weapons, joint locks, strikes, etc etc. Kuk Sool schools are generally more miltant (not to the extreme, just that type of atmosphere) than bagua or taiji schools. The official Kuk Sool webpage is: http://www.kuksoolwon.com/ Hope that helps.

"I Ching, Baguazhang, QiGong, Weapons (18 in all), 5 Element Theory, Fighting Theory and Application, etc. " I'd like to learn all of that

If you want a style that comliments aikido, Bagua would be a very good one. It is a powerful art, and some reputable people have suggested that it may have influenced the development of aikido. It also has many things that you've said you enjoyed (balance, circular movement, control of larger people). It's next on my list of things I want to learn as well, and I'd be taking it now if a qualified person was near me. If you want a weapon based one, I can say that one of the arts I do, Kuk Sool Won, has a lot of weapons in it. It is not a fully weapons based system, I will warn you up front. But it does include many - short staff, staff, long staff, double staff, throwing knives, short sword, sword, inverted sword, double swords, rope, bow and arrow, spear, jool bohng(nunchucks) - both double and triple, and fans. Those are all the ones I can think of, there may be more. I've heard that at the headquarters the highest ranking people sometimes practice them on horseback , but I doubt many people get to that point. And of course I have to throw in that you should take taiji, but I think everyone should take taiji so that's a pretty biased suggestion

They must have gotten rid of it, I did a lot of text searched on two different browsers and the closest thing was "martial links" which didn't lead to anything useful

about a 5 minute drive or less. I like having my own school

Utterly ridiculously high.

I didn't base it on one tape , and i DO respect Tai Chi but don't belive in it's effectivness . Then you haven't seen real taiji. Not surprising, as there is so much of it out there that is bad. They've done tons and tons of research on it, and I only know of one study (not yet published) that didn't cut out major aspects of the art. Where exactly is the video on that page? I couldn't find it anywhere.

21 seems far too young for me for anyone to be considered a "master". What are the qualifications for being a "master" at your school? Earning a certain belt (ie, have learned a set number of forms, techniques, etc)?