Chen Taijiquan - Qiang form

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 I think, you are stuck - no doubt. You think maybe the root is violence, or efficiency - it's none of these things. And the root itself is only an abstract sense, and in that sense, it's part of a bigger root. Wang Xiang Zhai said, ultimately, it's both simple, and yet ridiculously complex for most people to grasp. The root, of course, is you - the essence of Wushu, itself, is you- but knowing that is easy. Seeing the significance of it is where you're lost.

[IronJester1]

And you are lost - which is why you're still so actively searching, trawling the net, leaving comments on countless videos, all desgined to fish-hook people in to a game, where you get to play 'enlightened sage', and use silly tactics, like pretending that others' disagreement is 'fear' of your knoweldge, or that any insight in to your behaviour is twisiting your words. You need other people to be in conflict with you, because your ego needs the feedback to feel real - like Buddha taught.

[IronJester1]

Not that i see Buddha as a God - just a wise guy. You're still searching - but you're stuck at a stage where you fail to see that being a footballer has a root, so does being a road sweeper or a lumberjack. To try and find your own path you've gone to that stage where you need to chop down every tree in the forest. And now you're still deeply tied to your past - still stuck at 'throwing stones at my past' phase - which means you're still a slave to those old styles you did.

[IronJester1]

Equally, the bond you create with people via conflict, calling them afraid, 'fishing' for responses - I mean, how many times did you post that George Michael joke? That bond is two ways - you need followers, and enemies - you're just as tied and enslaved to those people as you think they are to their beliefs. It's no coincidence that you can't 'feel' like a Christian or a MA expert without conflict and argument with others. That's because you never truly found the root.

[IronJester1]

What you did was, you saw the faults in the past sytems, past ways - but you never grasped that every true branch is truly connected to the route - and it doesn't matter where you start, because ultimately, you yourself are the root - your personal potential unfolds when you're honest about your training - like, if you admitted that you feel low self esteem, then you'd unlock the secret of why you've built a fantasy where you're a guardian of God's, and JKD's truth.

[IronJester1]

Because we all have an issue - every one of us. I wanted martial arts because I wanted people to think I was cool; so I missed the true root, always chasing the superficial. Now you're enslaved to superficial techniques you copied from Bruce Lee, now matter how often you make the shallow claim of 'I don't do JKD' - you enslaved yourself to JKD, and ruthlessly exploit it, because it lets you pretend away that shocking feeling of low self esteem that cripples you.

[IronJester1]

Consequently, your tyrant of an ego sees no value in anyone else or what they do. You can't - you're incapable at this point, because you have no concept of the true root. So you attack young lads for exploring fancy kicks, or capoeira guys, or guys who who do taiji - anything - ANYTHING but take a look at yourself and your own slavery. You have not yet understood that each person finds value not in oblique kicks, but in exploring their own God given potential.

[IronJester1]

And when you finally do understand that, when you acknowledge that feeling worthless is actually a bonus to you, not a tyrant, you'll finally see that everyone else is quite happily understanding, intuitively, that they themselves are the root that animates every style, and so frees them from style - because it'sjust a vehicle to bring out a true expression of their own internally pre-extant, God given abilities. Then you'll know - you were a slave to the superficial, and to your own ego. Bye.

[IronJester1]

This is much more. If a man puts a gun to your head and says from now on you don't read Bruce Lee or pass on his teachings, then the act ofpassing on his teachings becomes something far greater than the actual teachings themselves. It becomes symbolic of human will. This is your failure in depth - nothing has value to you but what you place value upon. Which is your ego talking, not you - a tyrant, sat in judgment of the greatest crime - not being you, so not worshipping all you are. Idol.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Ever considered that there's a third way? That I might even agree with a lot of what you say, that I once thought just like you - but then realised I was a slave, because I can never be truly free if I'm not free from your tradition as well. 'Inly do fight appllicable training' is just as much a tradition. Yes, I enjoy taiji, and many other forms and traditions - but not because I'm too stupid to see weaknesses in the methods - just because I enjoy doing it.

[IronJester1]

Which never figures in to your thinking. You're very much like Smith from the Matrix - thinking you bring freedom, when really, you want everyone to be clones of you and your thinking - which is exactly what you mean by 'wasted life' - that they are not you,think like you, train like you. I don't want to be you. I want to explore the full potential of my physicality, beyond just booting people in the knee. That's not slavery - slavery is morbid obsession with violent control.

[IronJester1]

I have to apologise too - it'snot my place to sit in judgment on you. You're good at what you do - what I don'tunderstand is why you're obsessed with making people in to clones of you. Nor why you don't understand that the 'root' was never sets of techniques, no matter how efficient, nor was it 'efficiency'. The root is you, and your physical potential, and how you choose to deploy that. Dude - you trawl the net looking for opponents to define your ego for you. That's not liberty.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 In terms of trivialising people's suffering, I think you do it out of lack of thought, not out of malice. You've not fully considered that even something that to you is silly, like taiji, can become something much more important when it represents a human being's will to survive and not give in to oppression. Because you're stuck in 'technique',you fail to recognise the value of things beyond function, or that it'sthe person who is the root, not any style or technique.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Well nice try at twisting my words in to seeming like I've twisted yours - I can only gauge your meaning by reading what you say. My ego isn't afraid of anything you say - it's just re-hashed Wang Xiang Zhai, which most people in traditional CMA already know and understand. So, he's from a classical period in thinking - so you're insulting a man because his upringing was in the past and he wasn't exposed to the ideas of Bruce Lee. That's just churlish.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Well, at least we've moved forwards to 'to you it's a waste of time in a life' - which is a great deal different to 'it's a waste of a life' - which was the wrong thing to say, when you know nothing about a man's life. In terms of self defence - spear fighting is obviously not a major part of self defence for modern people - but it was at one time; which, pious as it may seem, is what talking about...

[IronJester1]

...that people of this generation come from a transitional time between old China and modern China, so it's kind of pointless to criticise them for being products of their time. When he was a kid, older family members probably remembered a time when the army really did train spears and swords. And that's part of how taiji trains - by relaxed movement. So times have moved on, and now an oblique kick is more valuable. Maybe one day you'll be speared long before you can deploy one...

[IronJester1]

...God forbid... but if that happened, then maybe someone would say that you'd wasted your life, practicing JKD inspired techniques. Verylittle of what you teach would be releavant, say, to people fighting with swords and spears - but that was needed, releavant fighting knowledge at one time. Which begs the question, are you really asclose to the root as you think you are? Or are you just stuck in the phase of 'technique'?

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 That's a hierarchy of the meaning or significance of suffering. Some sacrifices are amazing acts of courage and will - or love and dedication. Some suffering is just inflicted upon people. There might be some scale of pain and anguish we could measure it by - but that's not the issue, is it? The issue is whether we choose to trivialise people's suffering by inappropriately comparing it to something else that's terrible. Why would we ever do that?

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Hmm... I don't disagree - but, you're talking about an OAP who began training in a rural village decades ago in PR China. Of course the Chinese understand that concept - it's basically just a quote from Wang Xiang Zhai - and many apsects Chinese wushu pholosophy are along those lines. But people back than - and now -believed that you started with a branch, and discovered the root. So he's aproduct of his time - why knock him for that?

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 It's a spear, not a pole as such. I'm not sure a man's life can be called 'wasted' because he does some exercise with a pole. Bottom line - he does what he loves, he's looked after his family, maintained his health, earned a few bob, travelled the world, earned the respect of his government and countrymen, faced down the hardships life threw at him, and helped other people do what they love and maintain their health. Sounds like a life well lived to me.

[IronJester1]

In terms of tradition - part of the problem, of course, is that the value of things is not intrinsically affectedby whether theawakener7 values them or not - unless you're the spokesperson for the Almighty. It's not even the tradition that matters - it's that when the communists tried to dehumanise and destroy these people's identity, they didn't give in to that, even through extreme hardship - the actual traditions were just symbolic of their humanity. That's not a waste of a life - it IS life.

[IronJester1]

Well it's not for me to tell people what is or isn't honourable - all I can do is judge according to whether they live up to their own standrads - whether they're hypocrites or not. For you, you know what honour means to you, and you try to live up to that. As for travel - you are aware, I take it, that this man is from a rural village in Mainland China - it's actually quite an achievement for him to have travelled and seen the world. Simply as a man, he's certainly lived a full life.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Hmm... difficult one. There isn't really a hierarchy of suffering, is there? I mean, at a certain point of extreme hardship it surely becomes churlish to say 'you ONLY endured the Cultural Revolution'. Probably he himself wouldn't compare his own experience to the child you mention - but that doesn't mean that people who experienced great hardship shouldn't be respected for their courage and endurance. Well - it might to you, and that's your prerogative, of course.

[IronJester1]

Yeah... I have a problem with that, I have to say. I've actually seen my kid on his deathbed - and seen him fight to survive and pull through. My kid was, undoubtedly, at the age of five the bravest man I ever knew- or have known. But if I think of people like Zhao Dao Xin sentenced to a hell hole communist prison, or your man here surviving the CR, I don't judge them - like I don't judge Papillpn, or any person who endured. I just respect them. You don't - that's your choice.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Well he obviously didn't make a living out of teaching spear - he's the head of the Chen taiji family - so his living was made out of teaching taiji. I recognise you don't value that - which is your prerogative, of course.

[IronJester1]

@theawakener7 Oh, I dunno, he kept an ancient tradition alive through the Cultural Revolution - regardless of what value you place on that tradition, simply preserving anything like this at that time must have been a story of amazing human courage and endurance. He was declared a living cultural treasure by his own government, and one of the top 100 martial artists - in a nation of a billion people. He raised a family, looked after his wife.

[IronJester1]

He set up a business doing what he loves most, saw it grow in to an international success, supporting him and his family. He's managed to spend his lifetime doing the thing he loves. He's internationally respected by thousands of people, maintained his own health and well being to an age where many men are simply unhealthy and old. What he teaches has brought enrichment and health benefits to tens of thousands of people world wide.

[IronJester1]

He's travelled the globe, he's won some fights - he's accepted every challenge that he's had made to him. I don't know if he won them all, or faced top level opponents - but he accepted the fights, so he is also an honourable man who can hold his head up. Maybe he couldn't beat you in a fight - but that's not the measure of a man's worth, or the worth of his life, is it? Sounds to me like he's had an amazing life, and is widely regarded as being a man who has lived a useful, interesting life.

[guitarsquiddy]

He's the eye of the hurricane!!!

Pushing hands with him must be a real experience...

Might even be worth the pain afterwards...

[taichifist]

Excellent form! I'm working on this right now! This form takes a lot of WORK!!

[delmar1985]

nice

[19483749435957]

cool

[bobsquidly]

kl tecneak