A warrior can cut through crap and touch another's
tenderness,
the part that loves children, feels pain, and would rather be
friends.
To do so takes power.
If one's actions are hollow, lacking
substance, this is easily detected and resented.
A warrior walks his talk.
We have to be in touch with the part of us that loves children,
feels pain, and would rather be friends.
It is not to our advantage to go around looking
for enemies to defeat.
(Ron Sieh)
Cross-training
Karate, aikido and wing chun students commonly take up tai chi as
a means of supplementing their existing practice.
Hard-style martial artists have been doing this in China for many years.
Tai chi,
qigong and
neigong are used to cultivate
internal strength.
Rooting,
groundpath and
sensitivity can all be
developed through the study of the internal arts.
But only to a certain
point.
Superficial understanding
External martial artists can only ever attain
a superficial grasp of tai chi because their body usage
and habits of muscular tension hamper the
tai chi immensely.
Tai chi can only be truly understood by someone who is willing to
let go.
Cross-training will only work to a certain extent.
If you want to gain the
real skills of tai chi, you will need to
drop your external art altogether.
Internal strength
Quite a
few people have produced videos/DVD's demonstrating how it is possible to
add an internal component to your training.
Mike
Sigman teaches neigong bodywork principles on DVD.
Adding some 'internal strength' is not necessarily the same thing as learning
tai chi.
Blind to the obvious?
Martial artists are often reluctant to drop an existing system
when they commence tai chi.
Yet, if your existing art is 'complete', why are you taking tai chi
lessons in the first place?
Your very presence in the class speaks the
truth. Something is
missing from your existing system.
Now see the
truth from a different
perspective: a tai chi student would never attend a kickboxing, karate or wing chun
class.
What possible value would it have?
In what way could it conceivably improve their tai chi?
More...
Page created 4 March 2000