Chen.quest.ion

Dear Readers,

After due consideration, I’m changing from Chenquestion to Taijiquestion.  This is because I plan to be studying Yang Style taiji very soon.  If anyone’s interested, I’ve explained my taiji quest in the Chenquestion blog already; and why Yang is suddenly in the picture.  So I heartily invite you to follow my adventures as Taijiquestion, at http://taijiquestion.wordpress.com/

Forgot to spell it out plainly in the previous post.  If you’ve been thinking about blogging, do yourself a favor and visit www.wordpress.com

Thanks to Wujimon, the notable blogger who got me started.  If you’ve never visited his site, take a minute to check it out, it’s great for taijiquan, other martial arts, and many other topics of interest!  http://wujimon.com/             

If you’ve come to this site, you’re either someone who knows a lot about blogging; a little about blogging; or if you’re like I was less than a year ago, you just surf the internet and maybe even post a comment here and there, but don’t really know what is a blog or how they’re created, just that it’s different somehow from a forum.

How’s that for a run-on sentence??

I was encouraged to get into blogging by a seasoned veteran with a very successful blog.  I was very dubious, mostly because I wondered if I really had anything worthwhile to say about [taijiquan and martial arts].  He said, “c’mon, try it, you’ll like it! ”  He was right!

All this was made possible by a great organization called WordPress.  Guess what?  My blog costs me nothing!  Except time and thought.  But it’s worth it.  I learn things, and perhaps someone even learns something from me.  And it’s healthy to express yourself if done responsibly.

Well that’s my pitch.  I couldn’t believe how easy it was to set up my very own blog and start communicating about what interests me.  And all thanks to the good people at WORDPRESS.   http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging

This text is from the Taichi.Snowseed site.  I think it’s OK for me to quote it because they are actively seeking sales of their tai chi e-books.  Good stuff, check it out:

>>>The “natural process of getting older” can be slowed down and to some extent reversed by doing these simple exercises.
If you are 7 years old, they will help you to grow healthier, without all these modern deceases, like osteochondrosis and scoliosis.
If you are 20, it will help you to NOT “move like a duck” – sometimes it makes a lot of difference, you know. Also, by the age 20 we (well, most of us) are working hard on the foundation of our future health problems. It is not too late to change things.
If you are 40, you might notice, that your back is sore, or your ulcer is affecting your diet more than you want, or your blood pressure is “within the normal range for your age, near it’s upper limit”… You can heal some of your “problems”, and reduce the rest.

Finally, if you are 70, you still can make sure you feel great, and it is not that difficult to achieve.<<<

I’ll be 70 in exactly 20 years, God willing.  You can bet your bottom dollar that I will want to “feel great” that time; and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune notwithstanding, I damn well intend to be feeling great, doing taichi, and still performing useful duties in this world.

So as the years go by I’m taking more and more interest in those elderly Asian chaps who seem to Know Something and furthermore, worked on that “something” every day, didn’t just “go with the flow” of inattention to life’s realities and little details such as cause-and-effect.  Which is a longwinded way of saying I want to be a healthy and capable Old Man.

Here’s where I got the blurb, there’s more there.  http://taichi.snowseed.com/joints.htm

With almost a month to go until my first class, I’m doing a little thinking about how to spend the time usefully.  Taiji-wise, that is.  Family, work, religion, home, take up most of my time, as they should.  But my goal is to have taiji support all of these.  A better me, body and spirit, to fulfill my duties.  Duty is very important to me.

As a younger person I did sample the attitude of “Wow, man, just, like, enjoy life”.  In other words: be lazy and self-satisfied (if you can mange both at the same time).  Nowadays I would say, yes, you should enjoy life while taking care of others, performing your obligations, and trying to improve yourself.  Save in life-or-death level crises (which some people have to face more than others) it’s good to enjoy life.  None of us except the most fanatical, can be sure that we’re going to enjoy death.  That’s one thing that is really, beyond our control.

What was I writing about – the meaning of life?  Oh yeah – what I ought to do today.  Same thing, really.

I’m not going to give up on my Chen set just yet because right now it’s all I have.  Honestly, I started working on the Chen movements because I liked the look – rather martial, rather comprehensible – and thought I could maybe do it.  My original lesson plan was to learn the moves of Buddha’s Warrior, Lazy About Tying Coat, and White Crane Spreads Wings.  That’s from the Chen 36 Forms by Prof. Kan Gui Xiang (of the Chen Fake lineage through Tian Xiuchen) as demonstrated by Shing Yen-Ling.  You can still get the latter’s book on Amazon.com; and Prof. Kan’s book in english is available through Taichiproductions.com

All right, what about Yang taiji?  I’m excited about the prospect of a having a real live teacher right here in my town.  I did a little more looking at the Yang 108 Forms.  I went online to Gilman Studio, a really terrific website that I’ve known about for years.  Mostly in the past I just looked at his applications (Michael Gilman’s, that is) and some of the practice detail notes.  Well I just went back over there for the first time in a year or two, and the site looks really great.  I’m not going to try studying the movements in advance of my new class.  But it’s inspiring to see a taiji website like this!  One thing I might like to read and consider is this quite detailed article on the Hand in taiji: http://www.gilmanstudio.com/articles/index.php?id=103

Last night I was lying in bed, thinking about physical (?) confrontation.  Trying to imagine the best approach based upon what I’ve been studying these last few years.  A thought came: “If I am not here, then my enemy has nothing to fight”.

This might strike a lot of people as wildly impractical.  But in Taijiquan, we’re essentially told that it is NOT impractical.  However finding “it” may be impractical without a lot of time, effort, and good fortune.

If someone is trying to reach me with harm, I want my position to be indeterminate.  Like a subatomic particle whose location cannot be fixed by the scientist.  The scientist knows it’s there, but a limit was reached in trying to access.  The Universe is clever.  My enemy may be a scientist of destruction.  I need to be clever.

I thought about examples of how this could be done.  A tree may show the way.  The tree does not move in the absence of cause, in the absence of pressure.  A bird alighting on a branch, the branch may bend somewhat; then spring back.  The wind blows; the tree moves out of the way, but it is still standing… still-standing… in the same place.  And then, not having left, it returns, when the time is right.

The Buddha is said to have been here, and gone.  But people saw and heard…?

So this morning I Googled “buddha has gone” and found something with plenty of thoughts and non-thoughts to offer.

http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/avyaakata.html

I can’t say of my own experience.  But here’s an exciting new post from Master Bob Klein that gives a great deal of detail:

http://movementsofmagic.org/blogs/bobklein/archive/2007/03/26/SPARRING-LIKE-THE-OLD-DAYS.aspx

Well, I’m not going to spend too much energy on looking into this; or go digging out my old Erle Montaigue downloads.  Going into my first taichi class with a head stuffed full of suppositions and anticipations, would be a bad mistake.  Cup full, no more room, so sorry.

But I just stumbled upon this quite interesting tutorial which is a promo for a complete e-book being offered.  The illustrations are pretty good.  And the text contains a lot of detailed points… much like Erle tends to do in fact.  So I’m going to grab this as some kind of talisman.  Hmmm… maybe the weeks before my class begins would be a very auspicious time for me to just put in some serious meditating work, rather than researching Yang or pounding away at Chen.

http://taichi.snowseed.com/taichi_108.htm

Some people have had lots of taiji instruction, but still find it difficult to train on their own outside of class.  My problem’s been the opposite.

A few years ago I was scratching my old “martials arts” itch.  In my mid-40’s, finally married with child, and not getting any younger, I was looking for something I could get into and stick with.  The heavens smiled, and I bumped into something call Chen Style tai chi.  Just a book; but books have always been among my most important things in life.

Fast forward to 2007, and I’m still working on the Chen taiji!  How about that.  But I never joined a class, attended a workshop, or advertised for local Chen buddies in my community.  Joe loner.  Well, Chen teachers are not all that plentiful right in my neighborhood, and I was seemingly not motivated enough to go in search of one.

However, I just got the latest city recreation dept. activities guide here in my town, and see that the same taichi teacher whose name I’ve seen before in this vein, is once again offering a class, 14 weeks, nominal fee, beginners welcome, starting in May.  Something called “Royal Form Tai Chi” which I presume is a Yang variant.  The course description sounds pretty good, mentions kicks and punches, and incudes wardoff training and also Parting the Mustang’s Mane, which is a really basic form that I have never learned, since I haven’t hit it yet in my Chen 56 progression.

For all I know this teacher may be quite good.  In any case I’m going to sign up.  What do I have to lose?  Nothing.  Or even if I do lose somehow, call it investing.

I don’t know what they’re going to do to me, and I don’t know how I will respond.  I’ll just have to relax and try to follow, and adjust.  Sounds like a classic taijiquan situation!      

And I can write about it on my blog.  So this is just a journalism assignment, right?  And BTW, no more excuses.

(Postscript: Just kidding about the “assignment”.  My Chen conceits aside, I’ll be a newbie in a Yang taichi class in which I really hope to learn a little taichi; or, a lot!  And it occurs to me I ought to ask the teacher before I just go ahead and blab about his class on the internet.)

This will be a very short post. I just went to TaichiBlog for the first time (now added to my links) and was glad to see a post on Sung.  This is something I try to work on every day.  It’s not always easy to seek sung.  But I feel it’s vital, #1 maybe.

Somewhat easier (for me anyway) is to Sink.  About sinking Chi, well, I don’t know just how much success I’ve had.  But I sink my physical self throughout the day; and try to be sung.  I am very aware when my legs are straight now (when standing up).  I don’t want this.  So I do it as little as possible.  Knees bent, shoulders sink, elbows sink; only head-top needs to seek to lift up.

I know that my Sinking also needs to contain Lifting.  That’s a bit trickier, but yin-yang must.  Must yin-yang, that is.  I must.  If I want to get anywhere with Taijiquan.

TaichiBlog had another post, about How Long Before You Can Use Taichi For Fighting?  In my case, if I was in a fight tomorrow, I would certainly use some TJQ skills.  I don’t have any real Jing training, push-hands, etc.  But still, I think about this occasionally and simply know that my “taichi in daily life” methods would be very helpful if I had to defend myself.  I have some gongfu.  Next year I’ll have more.  Even if my form not the greatest.  I’m no slugger; no brawler, I.  I would need sung, sinking, torso methods, fa-jing.  I have some of this.  If I’d had proper instruction, who knows?  Maybe I’ll find out one day.  But Chen methods are very excellent.  Gotta do the kung fu though, it’s not “fancy moves” that will save you in a fight.

OK, it wasn’t a short post.  But I’ve said my piece.  Sinking is important.