by wpgtaiji » Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:45 pm
I truly detest people with their heads up their butts! LOL It is an unfortunate reality that TODAY, stength conditioning is synonymous with lifting weights. It doesnt have to be (and wasnt for CENTURIES)!
There are folks (like Bruce Frantzis) who claimed that they had to undo their pushups (from his book Power of Internal arts), but i wonder. What do I mean? I, personally, have been unable to fit in any rounds of taiji for about 2 weeks now, with life just happening. One session of taiji and the looseness is back.
This leads me to a wondering i had a few years ago from a conversation with a tai chi bloke. We were talking about tai chi and he had no idea that i do it. He made one comment about not being relaxed enough before he did it. To me, that is insane! If you were relaxed BEFORE, then wtf is the need for taiji? That is taken from an idea presented by one of Cheng Man-ching's students in a book he wrote.
Personally, i think this whole idea of "no conditioning" for taiji is a result of the BS going around with the whole "health tai chi".
and fazhou, it isnt unfortunate about people writing their ideas. Even my teacher has extensive information on exercise and taiji (he was against exercising for exercising sake), yet, when i asked people who were with him a long time, they had differing ideas on the topic, based on their experiences. There is no right answer. There is just a right answer for you.
And to be more personal, I started off (after over 20 years of karate training), with the NO strength training ideas i picked up. But having done more research, i found them baseless, and for ME, i need the physical work (though, i refuse to do weights, which, in my experience is mindless and only exists for one reason, neither of which has anything to do with real martial arts).
Dont buy into the hype. Do your own research.