JerryLove

Being familiar with both, I don't see a strong similarity. Could you be more specific? How is Shuai Chiao similr to Yang Taiji as opposed to, say, Judo.

Vito, Actually, there is a good deal that can be done with / about a firearm. It may or may not work depending on more factors than are appropriate for this thread. WCKM, I guess it just shows a difference in out philosopies here. I'm not interested in doing more harm or less harm than I receive; I'm interested in being safe. For me, the successful response is the one where I am most safe, wheather that means I took more injury or not. I can't walk around with a limp and one eye and say "but the other guy's dead" and feel this was a good outcome. I also don't subscribe to the "level of force" belief. I fight [play aside] for one reason, becuase I feel endangered; and my level of response is uniformly "what seems most effective to make me feel safe". Would it be safe to say that your country has a good deal of ever-escilating vendetta and violence?

delta, pretty on-the money; though I'm familiar with a non-familiy liniage. Do you have any info on where I might find "temple Taiji" (or better, a practitioner of it?). Disciple (and hopefully this will contribute something of the hinted request for philosophy), China has three prominant internal arts: Bagua (Paqua), Xingyi (Hsing-I), and Taiji (TaiChi). Compared to other arts, they share more in common than have in discord. Taiji, counter to common conception, is an exceptionally mobile art. The "water" metaphor, so ofren used in martial arts, seems to apply to Taiji and Bagua more than any others I can think of. The movements are relaxed and focused on proper energy and structure. As such, the practitioner is soft, and Taiji is more than willing to "void" and not meet force, where it does meet, it tends to crash through... that is to say, it doesn't attempt to resist your force with it's own so much as simply assert it's own force and woe be it to anyone in the way Of course, this also varies by style... Chen, though having the same principles as Yang, can be accurately be called in many ways "harder" (less gentile to the person performing it).

Let me make sure I follow here. Me and three of my buddies picking a guy at random and blocking him in and killing him is honorable, but using a firearm is dishonorable? Until the second time it happens to you. And I'm guessing that, knowing that, in your country they would have shot you to prevent that reprocussion. It does not seem to me to be a better system. Have I been there? Yes, I ran (well, drove). Of course, I run from any and every fight I can run from; and one I cannot run from (unless caught unarmed, which can happen) I would be the one with a firearm out (and emptying it into them... no point pulling it if not to shoot them). My suggestion? Try to lead a life not run by your ego, which is all that got hurt. Count yourself lucky and wonder if next time, deescilate / flee from the get-go.

I have one

Actually, after learning qigong healing, I created a double-blind experiment. I got a bunch of "voulenteers" (mostly family members) and asked if they woudl cooperate for an experiment. I asked them to just sit still. I did a reading, made a note of what I found; then dis work and made notes of what I thought I did and did not accomplish. Then I asked: "tell me how you felt at the beginning, during, and after" (still having not told them so much as that I was doing healing work). The results: With about 8 test subjects there were problems I missed, though I was generally pretty through; the usually felt me working in the areas I was actually working in (I was behind them, so they could not actually see). Most interesting of all, though I always found at least one problem area i neach voulenteer, I never found a false one. If I thought something was wrong with their left shoulder, they would inevitably tell me that their left shoulder had a problem that day. I very much did call it mumbo-jumbo... now I've had the opportunity to both perform and recieve it numerous times, and test elements of it (as above)... I no longer do. I can teach someone how to do a single meditation in a very short time. The effects of a meditation (such as the changing of bone rigidity in marrow washing) take far longer to occur. Similarly, I could teach someone a bicept curl (weightlifting) in a minute or two, but they will have to do it for a while for bigger arms. Also worth noting, as with any meditation, your experience and benifit changes form it as your skill at working your energy improves. What a person who'se been doing a meditaiton for years derives from it is more than what someone I've just shown it to gets... but both do get something.

Actually no, it does not. One of my instructor does a yearly workshop... you can develop the ability to feel and work with it (and do non-contact healing with it) in a weekend. Again, I can teach a meditation (any of the various marrow-washing meditations) that does that in usually a matter of minutes.

The most powerful punches I have in terms of ability to just knock the crap out of you are light and at most moderately fast. It's something other than speed.

What kind of sword? Are we talking fencing blades? Scottish Claymores? Japanese No-Dachi? Thai meteor blades?

So many types of power, so many type of hits, so many standards for "powerful". lower-phase (less experienced) people can't injur me by hitting me even when trying (I'm sure my nose or ears could still be damaged; but I don't get hit there often in play); coversely, my instructor has left bruises from a touch where he never hit.

My apologies for snapping at you.

LOL Fair enough... though I don't think there are any Chen stylists on this thread. I've been exposed to it, but at present am still working on energies for my Yang form.

I am aware of something you are not (non-combative Yang forms) and you conclude from that fact that I need to do more reasearch? You may, of course, simply assert that non-combative movements are not original and therefore not "real Yang Tiaji". This if fine-and-dandy... but also irrellevent. BTW, I've seen and worked with Chen and Sun style practitioners, as well as many Yang style people, and instructors of similar arts like tikek. I can actully put up a bagua and taiji liniage that most anyone familiar with the big people in the art will recognize. There are certainly people with far more experience than I, but your inference is rather insulting considering your own lack of exposure.

Emphasis mine Then *your* Yang form is not one of the Yang forms with many non-combative moves. Yang is the more popular style of the two amongst non-combative schools and so, to my experience, there are more non-combative Yang forms than non-combative Chen forms (which are not as popular with non-combative schools).

And for a given person actually experiementing, "weight" works fine... I don't think we have any astronaughts on this BBS that will be trying in oribt. As to the claim that I misread the intent of the original post... my apologies. I skimmed and was reminded of the "F=M/V" discussion on "how to hit harder".... I assumed.

I tend to afree that the strikes are more *obvious* in Chen... I'm not sure I agree that there's a fundamental difference in application... of course, there are more non-combative Yang forms out there than Chen.

To begin with, I'd suggest looking at the original Chinese, not Japanese. Qi [breath] is different from Yi [mental intent] is different from emotional intent (forget the word), etc. Or simply rooting / structure... much like you can tip a sleeping cow but not a wake one... or do you believe that cows use Ki to stand?

Here's an experiment, hit someone with a 2 gram weight and then a 10lb weight... guess weight counts as well as speed. Nest: hit someone with a big red kickball, then hit them with a roll of quarters and see which does more damage. OK. There's more than weight and speed, but also the ability to transfer power. Now try putting on roller-skates and pushing a car and then push them in good shoes.... I guess there's more about power than just weight and speed but also root. Newtonian pointal-mass physics is great for determining the effect of impacting pointal masses in free-fall in a vacuum. Two people fighting are none-of-the-above.

"hit him hard" comes to mind.

I study a conglomerate style of Silat (clearsilat.com), Taiji, Systema, and am about to start Xingyi. I study these arts because they have the things i have found most useful and effective and because I have some access to instructors. I've been exposed to... well, a great deal.

I don't find this to be particularly true. To quote one marine CQB instructor "I'm gonna teach you enough to get you killed". The millitary (and police) tend to vary what they teach heavily by the interest of the instructor involved. Some of the millitary brances have standardized (a paired down version of BJJ is used among the Rangers); but they then just re-diversify (Systema is becomeing popular in millitary circles; though the US AFP I have played with don't really know how to make it work). The purpose of unarmed training in the millitary is primarily on aggression and mindest... not on particularly effective unarmed fighting skills.

The irony is that it does't need to be slow at all.

Go find someone that teaches energy work and at least seminar under them.

Don't you love it when someone (me in this case) skips most of the replies and risks being redundant? There really isn't much in the ATF/WTF/ITF TKD cirriculum that's "Tradiational Korean". Primarily, TKD is Shotokan with a few decades of desire to be an olympic sport thrown in. Fixes? Drop the high kicks. Replace the controlled imbalance with rootings. Replace the blocks with strikes. Practice in / with / against actual clothing (think shoes) Learn how to generate power. Flow. Hrm... Ok, it's likely to be a longer list than I thought at first blush... and it's easier to show than type... I must ponder.

In their case I do believe them... but I do not have first-hand experience with that situation and them and do admit is screams of "hype".