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Speak to your
friends who do Karate or Tae Kwon Do about Tai Chi Chuan and they
will tell you it is a slow health exercise for old people and not
self-defense. Speak to someone from the alternative healing camp and
they will speak about energy, moving meditation, centering, etc. Are
they correct? Definitely, to a certain degree. However, alone, these
aspects are by-products of Tai Chi Chuan
What does Tai
Chi Chuan translate to?
Grand Ultimate
Fist - undefeated in its hey day in China. One has only to interpret
correctly the symbol of Yin and Yang and go into its philosophy to
understand that within it, is also the principles of I Ching.
Understanding the importance of this is vital to lay practitioners
of Tai Chi Chuan. No matter what the style, one must have a strong
grasp of the above otherwise, how can one explain how the soft takes
the strong, the short takes the long or the slow takes the fast.
Mastering or
even basic practicing of Tai Chi Chuan is about mastering changes.
There are a least 108 moves that camouflage and when one moves fast
or slow, one changes or camouflages. These movements are so well
hidden or disguised that by the time one's enemies see it or realize
it, they are already ensnared in the net. The more they struggle the
worse it is for them.
The fine tuning
of the body in Tai Chi Chuan can be likened to the performance of
Formula One racing champions like Alain Prost or the late Aynton
Senna. They are very much attuned with their cars. They test the
cars to the fullest. They communicate by telecommunication with
mechanics, engineers and designers as they are driving, so that any
adjustments made to the car tune into their response. Real Tai Chi
Chuan is all of the above.
Doing the 24
steps, 37, 42 or the 108 does not necessarily mean doing Tai Chi
Chuan. Most people practice the form without really understanding
what it is. Hence, we have "experts" writing about the demise of Tai
Chi Chuan when Cheng Man Ching abridged the 108 to make the 37
steps. These people did not understand what was involved and
therefore operated from a position of ignorance. In fact, Cheng Man
Ching was ahead of his time and was so refined in his art that even
his colleagues did not see what he was mastering. He certainly did
not earn his reputation from doing paintings although he was a
master at that as well!
Most Tai Chi
Chuan practitioners who are familiar with the 37 steps in Cheng man
Ching's form think it all ended with him. However, Huang Sheng Shyan,
the White Crane master, brought the system another 20 years forward.
He developed it so much that when one sees him doing the form, the
instant response is "there is nothing to it". In fact, though, it is
camouflage at its finest. People not recognizing the camouflage have
spoken, misguidedly of the demise of Tai Chi Chuan.
Tai Chi Chuan
needs to be learned with proper guidelines. Mastering or learning
real Tai Chi Chuan involves consciously working with the hidden
moves and intricacies. One tunes ones body until one has an
intuitive feel for specific movements. It is also very important to
realize that it is not mastered overnight and that it takes
perseverance even with proper guidance. If it were as easy as
walking the steps, everybody could have learned it. It is definitely
not like learning hard style martial arts. In act, if one views it
from the prospective of the hard style one will never grasp it.
There are many
who compromise their approach to Tai Chi Chuan.
There are those
who approach it with the belief it is only for health.
There are those
who try to discredit the masters by saying they only push hands with
there students (implying a set up)
There are those
who say it is soft and therefore useless.
There are those
who relegate it to the realm of magic. There are a few who can
acknowledge within themselves that in spite of years of devotion to
Tai Chi Chuan, they have not been exposed to its true essence.
Tai Chi Chuan is
indeed the Grand Ultimate – only with the proper research,
understanding and above all training under the right teacher can the
door be opened. |
