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.
Please, stop spreading this terrible, wimpy form of Tai Chi Chuan. And I recommend that you do not claim his lineage as your origin; learn Real Taiji instead. Remember his goal: to teach sick people how to move around; is that all you want?!
Please. Stop it. Y’all give Tai Chi a bad name among martial artists. They think: “flower tossing, new-ageists” when they think of Tai Chi. Or at least, they don’t think of martial arts. So sell something else, and let us real martial artists get back our professional reputation and leave our side-show, qi-trickster reputation behind.
Please. Stop it. You give us a bad name among fit people and fitness professionals too. They see: contorted back knee, lack of supporting structures in the legs, and floppy (not-relaxed: floppy) arms. I cringe, like they do, when I see the knees twisted way over the toes or offline from the toes. Yah. Get real.
Please. Stop it. Healthy people are also reluctant to examine my martial, fit, healing art (Taijiquan). They think it’s for people with geriatric levels of health. Really just lifting your arms over your head might have more benefits than that pathetic peng you claim is so certainly superior. Please. Stop it.
The Supreme Ultimate Fist Form gives Long Life by studying combat and anxiety and energy and healing and fighting and grounding and punching and touching and seeing and hearing and kicking and elbowing and breathing. It means that we’ve got to work and sweat and work and ache and learn and work to make this art our own. It’s not easy, not lazy.
If you live close, come play with me. My Taiji is good, getting better, and it’s leagues above the talent of so-called “Masters” and “Sifus” who practice pathetic Tai Chi-ish movements.
If you gotta go far to get here, look up the W.T.B.A.; they do good, powerful, real Taijiquan. They have members and teachers worldwide. They have Real Combat and Real Healing. And Erle Montaigue teaches, through video, higher quality Tai Chi Chuan than any pretend Master.
If you practice or teach Tai Chi Chuan or internal arts around here, then step up your proficiency. Learn Real Taiji by joining me.
Drop wimpy Tai Chi Chuan. Examine anxiety. Train in combat. Learn healing. Tell the truth.
Really.
Sincerely,
Steven Smith
PS. Wake up.
Josh Young
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Chen Man Ching was very well regarded by the CMA community including in China. If masters of various kung-Fu met him and were convinced of his skills, who am I to guage his skill based on look. The tao says those who say don’t know, those who know don’t say. it also says that great skill appears to be poor. And poor skill appears to be great.
His student CC Chen fought in tournaments and won at least one of them (open martial art international fighting stuff) fert trainging with Chen. So his students have come out of his class being good at fighting in competitions. It is also reported that Several of his students were attacked on the street just by rival CMA stylists and used his so called wimpy tai chi to defend themselves.
It is true his training was not complete, he recieved it in exchange for saving Yang Cheng-Fu’s wifes life. Cheng-Fu according to my teacher had only 4 sworn or offical students anyway. Chen was a doctor, a master painter and a professor. The only story I can find where he was defeated in combat was with Zhang Qin Ling, and it is reported Chen was not afraid to test his skill.
Cheng-fu was not afraid to test his skill eaither and despite what people say about him he is recorded as being a fighter unequaled. Several people left harder tai chi styles like Wu-hao and Sun, to learn from Cheng-Fu, including some Bagua practioners, because they felt that Cheng-Fu had considerably improved the art of his father.
A common misconception is that faster movement takes more skill. I do some special dances that relate to the ancestor arts of Tai Chi. The dances are done at 3-4 speeds, one is quite slow and the others are increasingly faster. The slow pace is far and large more demanding of ones whole being. Pople do not think of Capioera people as lazy and yet we regularly had a capioera Sifu come to practice to do the slow long form. This man was fast and agile but found the slow method very challenging.
The tai chi of Chen Village, where Yang Lu-chan learned is not slow like the Yang public form. It is said by some that the slow form of Lu-chan, the one WTBA changed and calls the Cheng-Fu form, was taught to him by a diciple of the daoist sect of Chang Sang Feng. The slow form is very subtle, it is hard for people with hard style backgrounds like wrestling and kempo to understand it, and the forms being passed along are all too often abridged or modified. An authentic slow yang form is the hardest tai chi form to find instruction on, it is not found in Chen Man Chings group, I have not seen it from the WTBA, and it seems to be lacking from most alleged yang stylists knowledge. I consider it an endangered species. of course traditional tai chi schools taught the 13 postures first and only at the end of a multiple decade training did they teach the long from. Traditional schools are all but dead.
Steven Smith
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Josh, I’m glad for you’re ideas and thanks for email correspondence. I (so late) offer a last bit: Chen Man Ching videos speak for themselves and that’s why I say it. He sucks. And he gets credit for doing well in those shows.
If folks said something like: Yeah Yeah, it’s not his best work. I’d be more forgiving, but he’s deified so much that those are suppose to proclaim evidence of his greatness. If an older fella sent me those to correct his form, I’d start at the beginning.
It would take some time to correct.