This is just one of many similar conversations I have been involved in lately. People deny that the Classics can possibly be right because… Taiji is not Internal because… I am right when I do Taiji in an External manner because…
The above paragraph sums up this article completely so be warned.
Before we use any more quotes from The Tai Chi Classics let’s clear up the doubts about the authenticity of those books.
The Classics have been translated by many people, each with a particular bias. However, when you see certain attributes being highlighted time after time, it indicates that the attribute is a part of the Art that cannot be separated from it.
As to the authenticity, the Classics in Chinese have been copied, word for word, by many people. Not translated, copied. The translations have all been marked as such and again are subject to bias, but the copies are not. They are the ancient version of a photocopy.
I know several translators, some of them quite famous; T T Liang, Yang Jwing Ming, and Stuart Olson to name just a few.
Beginning with T T Liang I studied with him at his home in St. Cloud Minnesota where he always had a copy of the Classics at his feet. It was a Chinese copy, in Chinese, not a translation.
When Liang wrote his book he based his translations on verified copies of the Classics.
I know this because I asked him. Liang was human, he understood Tai Chi on his terms and this affected his translation, but the source was verified and the source makes several undisputable points.
The two most important points are that, Tai Chi is Internal and very different from External practices, and that the first thing to learn is how to Relax, use Peng, and avoid brute force.
That these things are being challenged shows a real lack of insight and education by those promoting the ideas.
Chen Fa-ke is widely held up as not only one of the best Taiji fighters of all time, but one of the first to bring real Taiji outside of Chen Village. Before Chen Fake, Chen Taiji was relatively unknown but he taught publicly in Beijing. He was the first to do so.
Chen Zhaopei arrived in Beijing before Chen Fa-ke, but his Taiji was not up to par and was the reason for his departure to Nanking, and for his replacement by Chen Fa-ke.
I have been honored to train with direct Taiji descendants of Chen Fa-ke through the Hong Junsheng lineage.
They laugh at the idea of Taiji not being Internal and at the idea that it is not Relaxed.
Chen Fa-ke has been quoted, by his students, as saying that the first step is to learn Yi Lu in a relaxed manner. Push Hands is not to be taught until students have attained this skill.
Chen Xin who was a Chen Village Master wrote one of the first books on Chen Taiji. In this book, he shows a widely misunderstood image of a person with spirals drawn on their body.
He also makes a statement about ‘the turning of the joints’.
These two are concerned with the same idea, that of moving ‘from the joints’. Also a widely misunderstood concept, and one that very few practitioners can perform.
But here’s the most important part of Chen Xin’s book, he reinforces the idea that without being sufficiently relaxed you cannot move ‘from the joints’. If you raise your shoulder out of the socket and attempt to rotate it you will find that you cannot.
If you lock your hip joint as so many do, you will find that you cannot rotate your hip joint.
Tension deprives us of the ability to ‘move from the joints’ and that ability is both Internal and requires Relaxation. Proof positive that the Classics are correct in naming Relax as a Number One attribute and that it is an Internal art.
