Tai Chi Chuan Resources Articles
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It’s tough to put internal events into words and it often over-simplifies them. The truth is, you’ll never know what it’s like to experience the world as Jason Socci and I’ll never know what it’s like to experience the world as anyone but Jason Socci. It’s ultimate existential loneliness. This doesn’t mean it’s pointless to try to come as close as possible. Try with me now, won’t you?
Allow me to share my experience of sinking. I’ve noticed this experience most often during the dim mak heart qigong. It goes something like this: My hands hover at about chest level, elbows dropping downward. Just below my hands, running parallel to the ground is a membrane. It’s like a very viscous liquid. My mind slowly drops down into it. Other times it’s more like I find a small crevice or whole in the membrane to drop into.
Read Sink Your Mind Into This »
Yang Chen Fu Formed Foundation
In January of ‘08, I wrote that Tai Chi Utah organized its foundation around Yang Chen Fu’s Early Form. That was then; things change. We head into deep waters.
Tai Chi Utah organized around the Yang Chen Fu Long Form, because I had trained that form since 1993. I knew that form better than the Old Yang Form. I taught people Yang Chen Fu’s Form, so we had a small network here that practiced it regularly. Many people here know the full length of it: it’s quite a bit longer, breath for breath, than 108 movements.
We practiced it in-depth and in-detail. We worked applications, martial and healing, for all the motions, and we covered the nuances that finesse fa-jing from this form. I know how it works, and I have received corrections that brought me deeper into the Supreme Ultimate Fist.
With the help of many students, I built a small skilled Tai Chi Chuan School here, in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Everyone grew talented and strong. We thank Yang Chen Fu and the World Taiji Boxing Association’s Erle and Eli Montaigue for passing to us a fantastic, fluid, fun form. Thanks.
Eli taught here twice now. In each Tai Chi Chuan Workshop, he’s demonstrated the beginnings of the Old Yang Lu-chan Style. It’s better. It’s more slow (in parts), more explosive (other parts), more fluid, more dynamic, and more fun.
It goes deeper.
Read Organizing A Tai Chi Reformation »
I feel safe in the presence of stress and aggression. I speak bravely and hold a confident attitude because I can kill with my bare hands. What silly rules of etiquette, scary social norms, or sadistic corporate policies stand in my way? What deviant criminal or sadistic fool can harm my good will? None. I can remain calm and watchful in the midst of aggression and chaos.
I won’t need to compromise my principles. I can protect folks close to me (including myself), my family, my friends, and anyone who stands nearby. And I cannot be provoked, with pushing or screaming, into chaotic scenarios. T’ai Chi Chuan — the system of martial-art training methods including martial pushing hands and death point strike training — lets me live so well.
Read Death Point Striking For Peace »
The word self-defense usually conjures images of how to deal with physical violence. I imagine a class where the martial arts instructor goes over attacks and attack scenarios along with techniques and/or drills to deal with them. As I learn methods to defend myself physically I also like to remind myself that violence never happens in a vacuum.
There are warning signs, choices to consider, escalations happening, body language to evaluate…etc. The actions I choose, based on my awareness of incoming sense data, can help keep me safe, though no action, or lack of action, can keep me safe from violence 100% of the time. Preemptive awareness provides the key to early intervention, providing more choices and additional time to choose a course of action. Try the following preemptive awareness techniques.
Read 5 Simple Ways to Avoid Violence »
Need balance? Need grounding? You got it! Or had it? Oh, it’s back again. I think of balance in terms of degrees as opposed to an absolute. Balance requires movement and adjustments. At first the movements and adjustments tend to be large, and, over time, they become smaller and smaller. The adjustments never cease. Balance gets better and your body develops efficiency at maintaining it. The same with grounding. They never quite seem effortless. They’re both dynamic. Sorry, I’m not talking metaphorically here.
The kicks in the Yang Chen Fu Form give my balance a run for its money. In the beginning, my balance was all over the place. I’d fall out of all of the kicks, or, at least, I would make big, awkward adjustments, fighting to not fall out. My balance issues exasperated the slower I did my form.
Relax. You know how. You do it everyday. You sleep for example. And you, nevertheless, crave more of it! You desire more methods, more skills, more prowess to let go, let up, and let loose.
Relax. Stop pouring effort and emotions and energy and reasons and time and money into machines and lessons and language and schools and therapy and workshops. Stop trying, real hard, to relax.
Relax. No pressure, no need to worry. Relaxing is easy — go deeper with the following five free methods.
