Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

I would like to add to Louis' post that there ate other "slight" but potentially very essential differences in various presentations of YCF style. The forms performing in Yang, Fu, Li (Li Yaxuan) families may look almost the same regarding choreography but internally seem to be different. ...

Hi Psalchemist, Louis Louis, thank you for sorting out these terms. It's amazing that such abundant and profound experience of famous masters sometimes was expressed in so short and laconic forms. Definitely ge and jue texts were not easy to untangle for outsiders. And of course they gave students i...

Hi All I completely agree with Audi and consider Taiji some independently from qigong. The fundamental martial aspect is based on jin and jin lu (jin pathways) not on qi meridians. In my view it's not necessary (but probably preferable) to know meridians "acting" in postures. And I think f...

Louis wrote: "While it may be accurate to say that “most people” locate the self in their heads, there may be reason enough to challenge that assumption. It could well be the case that locating consciousness in this way (in the head) is historically recent, and culturally anomolous. I've just r...

" was interested to know exactly what was meant by this as, potential translation issues aside, the statement raises huge questions about the nature of self and conciousness and how is is dealt with in Tai Chi."

I think we also should know the concepts of meditation.

Louis has brought up the theme which I was always intended to discuss. It is "consciousness". It is so interesting for me that I with my poor English will try to present some questions, which should help to illuminate this notion. I believe that western and eastern philosophical traditions...

It's commonly said in Chinese "yi shou3 dantian". Yi is 'thought/idea' (sometimes it's translated as 'mind'). What is important here ¨C 'shou' is just 'to guard/conserve'. Then the whole phrase means "the mind guards/conserves dantian." I have got Yang Zhenduo's video on 108 form...

Louis, thank you very much for explaining about four specialized taiji terms (and kindly correcting my English). In my view you translation is precise! Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming in his book Taijiquan Theory attributed this phrase to Wu Yu-Xiang (page 145). I wasn't satisfied by his translation. Also there...

Greetings all I'm trying to translate Wu Yu-Xiang's phrase about five bows. "Yi1 shen1 wu3 gong1 bei4 xu4 fa1£¬fu1 gai4 dui4 tun1 zi3 xi4 yan2" The first part of the phrase means "Five bows of the body ready to store and issue." The second part of the phrase is not clear for me. ...

Louis, Thank you for one more useful excursus in taiji vocabulary/language. I tried to read chapters about wuji and taiji in xingyi quan xue in Chinese. I agree with you about Sun’s philosophical relation. I also believe that he used ancient word formulas he could get in Wudan mountain. And the most...

I think Sun Lutan most clearly described the basic philosophical terms related to internal martial arts. Though I still didn’t find detailed explanation about such cardinal term in his teaching as YI QI. Even in Taiji Jidian (taiji vocabulary) there are only three sentences about yi qi copied from m...

Greetings Louis! Thanks for elaboration. From above I can say that for me the main point in banners and flags is some type of connection between them. It may be chain connection or cross connection or something else. I believe only the practice can it make clear. I would like to believe that Taiji i...

To Louis Swaim

Thank you for truly helpful explanation about flags and banners.

One more question. Does banner and flag in your opinion have cross-connection? I mean for example banner lines up the troops when flag shows the direction to move.

Thank you.