Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Polaris, You spend too much time out at night. People are now navigating by other means than the North Star. Clumsy? One little hook for Wushuer which YOU took " The issue of the Wu style 100/0 front foot weighting is a separate issue since that configuration does not allow for quick neutralizi...

Hi Polaris, The conflict I had in mind was a healthy discusssion of principles and very different interpretations of principles resulting in very different practices. My initial contribution was to include information from anatomy, kinesiology, and bio-mechanics into such a discussion, or at least t...

Hi Louis, Sorry, you're right I don't know where HE got them, or what HE meant by them. My point is based on something I do know about the transfer of physical concepts to moral/ethical concepts in different cultures, and not the other way around. And my point is about confusion when metaphors are t...

Hi Louis, My point was that the phrases were taken from everyday better known activities such as carpentry, wheelmaking, etc and applied to ethics and not the other way around. Both would have been common phrases in oral speech, but since carpenters and wheelwrights do not normally write books they ...

Hi Polaris, "The head is suspended in the Wu style lean, directly up from the spine. It isn't vertical relative to the ground, but to the rest of the spine." Thank god, some people might think that you are hyper extending the neck just to keep in accord with one interpretation of the class...

Hi Louis, Yes, I also take the phrases in a gravitational sense. If you suspend the crown of the head so as to have the body align below it from " neck, the spine, and the weilu (coccyx)." the alignment will be a vertical line based on the force of gravity, there will be no leaning. That i...

Hi Polaris, I take the "no leaning" to be the negative version of "stand as if your head is suspended from above". This in effect eliminates all leaning. The major styles don't all have leaning. Chen style doesn't. Wu Hao has 2 postures with hip flexion, but no leaning bow steps....

Hi Louis, Both statics and processes are involved in order to move the body according to Tai Chi techniques. Depending on which way one wants to turn the body (which depends on the direction of external force)one has to FILL one leg if it is not already full so as to TURN the torso so as to neutrali...

Hi Audi, You say: "For Yang Style, “Distinguishing full and empty” is thus a question of intent and ability, not one of weight distribution." From YCF's 10 Essentials 4. Separate empty and full In the art of Tai Chi Chuan, separating full and empty is the number one rule. If the whole body...

Jerry,

At least this time you didn't contribute your bit.

What do you find offensive this time?


Ron

Hi Polaris, Wushuer, Re the Hong Kong style, this is what Saris had to say in the context of being nasty to Jou for disrespecting the Hong Kong branch. "By the way, when only twenty years old, Wu Gong-Yi was already leading the martial arts department of the most important military academy of t...

Hi Wushuer, I wasn't backing you up re the hips in Wu style. Wu style leans, flexes their pelvis. Can you imagine what that might do to a helpless spine. Especially if you twist it at the same time. Anyways, don't worry about putting the twist back in. Bart Saris has found it hidden under his master...

Hi Wushuer, Wrong master, right story. Only a story, if you wish to get in touch with Bart Saris, one of the first promoters of Wu style to straighten this out, feel free. Bart Saris: "What happened is that sometime in the Thirties Wu Chian-Chuan had photographs being taken of his postures. The...

Hi Wushuer, I like pictures. Here are some of Chen Fake. http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/taiji/chenfake1.html What do you see? Forget about the Wu Chian pictures for a minute. When you said "I was given the explanation of things getting smaller in each generation as they searched for the epit...

Hi David, Yes sciatica has different causes. Important to T'ai chi, besides the spine, is that the sciatic nerve passes through the piriformis muscle. This muscle is an external hip rotator muscle which can impinge on the nerve during moves like Sweep lotus. Dancers often end up with sciatica from m...