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about tai chi...
zombiegirl
beating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wasteland Veteran
it should be noted that my interest in tai chi is not as a martial art, i enjoy it for the physical and mental benefits of the body.
in the past, i have attended a few classes and i know a few moves. i do these from time to time as part of my general daily stretches, but i always find myself wondering... what is the point of these moves? i admit that i have only taken away a very small fraction of that which i was taught, and this has led me to seek out internet sources for trying to incorporate more moves. but the problem with learning this way is that i am too conscious of trying to do the moves correctly while being unable to ascertain what i should be correcting. of course, posture and the like is important, but i find myself wondering, would it be any different if i just made up my own moves? is there any inherent strength or power in the specific moves themselves? if i was to create moves while keeping my posture correct and my balance appropriate, wouldn't it be just the same?
thanks in advance for any comments
in the past, i have attended a few classes and i know a few moves. i do these from time to time as part of my general daily stretches, but i always find myself wondering... what is the point of these moves? i admit that i have only taken away a very small fraction of that which i was taught, and this has led me to seek out internet sources for trying to incorporate more moves. but the problem with learning this way is that i am too conscious of trying to do the moves correctly while being unable to ascertain what i should be correcting. of course, posture and the like is important, but i find myself wondering, would it be any different if i just made up my own moves? is there any inherent strength or power in the specific moves themselves? if i was to create moves while keeping my posture correct and my balance appropriate, wouldn't it be just the same?
thanks in advance for any comments
0
Comments
But Taichi can help a lot with joints. It makes your knees stronger, it makes you more flexible (yoga can do this too). However, in my experience, those moves you're learning in Taichi are martial applications. I've learned from Taichi masters that learned in China that have shown me that what looks like dance moves are actually fighting applications. It's a matter of knowing what they're supposed to do, and knowing how to use them well.
There is also a build up of chi you learn from Taichi, where expert practitioners are able to harden their skin, and able to not be thrown as easily. This takes many years of practice to master, and really I think it is more for fighting prowess than anything else. So Taichi can help you with many things, but at its core taught properly it's a fighting art. Yoga is Taichi without the fighting applications.
I hope this helps.
Meditation being a process of conscious, controlled focus of the mind which may take place when the thinking processes, both in pictures and in words, have been stopped.
The purpose of a satipatthana exercise is to quiet the mind-- to get it to stop output-- but keep it busy with inputs until it develops a habit of becoming quiet ( refraining from all thought ) during the exercise. When this has been achieved, the mind is ready to begin to meditate.
Many people practice Tai Chi Chuan form exclusively for health or as a prelude to Push Hands or self defense. As many of the people do not make any particular effort to keep their minds empty during their practice of Tai Chi Chuan, for them Tai Chi Chuan is probably not meditation.
The instructor also used to have a short sitting meditation to finish off with us at the end of the Tai Chi session.
LL
Qigong is a bit more supernatural. It requires a very skilled Qigong teacher to make it effective compared to how good the Taichi teacher has to be. Taichi is easier to learn and easier to teach if you want results. In other words 90 percent of Qigong is not effective. I don't want to talk down my Qigong teachers, because I loved them. But I do feel a lot of the techniques they taught were not very effective at what they were supposed to do.
Taichi has more physical benefits that are felt quicker in my experience. But I'm sure Qigong has the potential of being just as beneficial. My Qigong teacher was spiritual, and from him I learned a lot of very beneficial Buddhism and some great stories. So even though I don't know how well the Qigong works it was still beneficial for me.
please don't take this the wrong way, but i'm a pretty skeptical person... how do you even know that qi exists? i could be wrong, but i thought that i heard once that the qi pathways were found to follow the nervous system quite closely. with modern science, have they found any explainable reason that things like qigong benefit the body? (more so than just movement, like i was suggesting)
There's a book by a scientist named Becker, called "The Body Electric". He gives a very thorough description of how the body's electro-magnetic field works, and describes electrical pathways along the acupuncture meridians and how they work. This might help you, Zombiegirl, although Tai Chi and Qi Gong aren't discussed specifically.
Even myself, I am still a little bit skeptical of Qi, but I am an open minded skeptic and I don't at all dismiss it. Here is a good video I found though, that I do feel is genuine. From my Qigong teacher I heard many stories about his teachers in China that were just like this, even before I saw the video. So this video hit home for me, and it impressed me.
Here is also another Qigong master that I like watching a lot. He is grand master Doo Wai located in Los Angeles. He is the grand master of the "White Tiger Kung Fu" school. I like the way he teaches Qigong, because he insists;
"Try it, if it doesn't work then don't do it."
I have also heard rumors that his students get so good at Qigong that the intermediate or advanced students are tested with dead insects that they themselves can bring back to life or make them move like they recently died with the power of Qi in their hands. I have also heard that the advanced students can shock you enough for you to feel it.
So this guy is old school Qigong and I would not doubt that he is the real deal. I would have gone to learn from him long ago if I could, but I heard that one of his students (I'm not sure how good they're) teaches his Qigong class rather than him. So that discouraged me a bit, since I wanted to learn from him directly. But anyways here is one of his videos too.
compassionate_warrior, thank you very much for the book recommendation. i think i have heard of that before, but it could just sound familiar because there was also an episode of the twilight zone (i think?) called something like, "i sing the body electric" lol
mr serenity, awesome video! oddly enough, just two days ago i had a massage client who was telling me about his troubles with his back. years ago, he dislocated 3 ribs and 2 vertebrae. he had seen many chiropractors who never did anything for him, but he met this guy who did a very similar healing to that video. he said the guy simply ran his hand along his back and his ribs and vertebrae instantly realigned. (granted, i should mention that i could tell he still had some misalignment problems, the point is that it was BETTER) this healer has a martial arts school (and an alternative healing clinic) about an hour away from me. i'm very interested in this sort of thing so i thought i might check it out.
i do wonder though... would qigong masters agree that qi is basically the body's electro-magnetic field? and as far as healing applications, would this be the same as using an E-STIM machine? i suppose, the real question is, aside from toning muscles, why would electric current be beneficial to the body?
...maybe i should just read that book. hm.