Controversial Concepts Archive
Sometimes, when I say “I teach Taiji,” embarrassment haunts me. Other-times, reluctance fills me because I know the common misconceptions grating my sense of the Supreme, Ultimate Fist Form. Oftentimes, I disrupt some common misconceptions about Tai Chi Chuan.
Some are ridiculous, some are silly; all of them radiate from a lack of martial training. Martial training is a requirement in Tai Chi Chuan. Do it. Fighting and combat skills set the spiritual stage, the mental mood, and the physical atmosphere for proper confidence, clarity, and calm. Martial training tunes the body, mind, and spirit. Most misconceptions manifest in popular culture (and in pseudo-Tai Chi Schools) because instructors teach wrongly, poorly, incompetently, or deceptively. Get the truth. Don’t believe me. Read it, test it, know it.
Many Martial Systems and Healing Schools base their advertising or their dialogue on philosophical statements. Ideas of integrity and honesty resound in such schools, across the country, and these schools often proclaim Wondrous Abilities and Dramatically Peaceful Ideologies. Fantastic, hopeful visions saturate our martial and healing arts.
Neither the philosophies nor the principles that guide our Institutions, Economies, or Nations are grounded. Religious fervor, manic profit motivations, and ideological agendas flood pulpits, corrupt corporate boardrooms, and blanket the news. And although Many Of Us search for Realistic Ideas, Compassion, and Acts of Kindness, we are, either through hope or despair, desperate for help.
Along comes Tai Chi Chuan and Yoga and a New Age. Sifus and Gurus and Masters demonstrate Apparent Powers by pushing students remarkable distances, contorting bodies, and reading into minds and futures. We live in an age where Fantasy suppresses Truth and Word oppresses Knowledge.
30 March 2007
O Great Flower Tossers:
Chen Man Ching looks like a beginner on YouTube, no master. His limp hands mock Taiji. His movements —like Roll Back— are exaggerated, external representations of the internal nature of T’ai Chi Chuan. His lackadaisical stepping methods resemble clumsy falling more than deliberate stepping.
